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On the Primaris stuff? I get why people don’t find it to taste, but please allow me to vomit forth some more of my fizzy mind gravy. As ever I’m not calling anyone out or telling them they’re wrong and I’m right etc.

Yes, the Primaris did initially feel a bit, well, plot convenience. I know there’s a proper term of it but I can’t think of what it is right now.

And they definitely blobbed the overall introduction. I think a BL novel released when Primaris landed, charting Cawl’s creative process would’ve helped bed them in much better.

I say that as a common, and inaccurate claim, about Primaris is that Cawl just pulled them fully formed, armed and armoured out his backside in a few years. When we now know they’re the work of Millennia - a period of time to create comparatively simple improvements orders of magnitude longer than The Emperor took to create Primarchs and Legions from scratch. Knowing that Cawl, or at least one of his constituent personalities was actually involved in the original projects is a very important part of their background. He’s not just some spod. He’s many spods, and he has access to knowledge and pre-Crusade tech nobody else does.

I still don’t know for sure how long it took Cawl to perfect the Primaris organs. It may be out there, I’ve just not read it. But even if it took 2,000 years to perfect, that’s still 8,000 years of stockpiling fully transitioned Primaris Astartes.

Their new tanks and equipment? It’s important to note that during The Great Crusade, despite the Imperiums ever growing resources, there was constant attrition, and the effort to keep those forces armed and armoured would’ve been significant.

The Repulsor, Impuslor etc may simply have been seen as too resource intensive to bother with compared to the classic Marine vehicles. But, given those 10,000 or so years of Cawl’s project? Even building one of each a year, with no risk of attrition? You’ve got yourself 10,000 or so of each. If he could make 5 of each a year? Well you can see how it goes. And all because the end products, like the Primaris, were being stockpiled, and not deployed.

They were also a way to enable the biggest shake up of the galactic background we’ve ever seen. Not just the fall of Cadia, but the near total collapse of The Imperium.

Even then, they’ve been presented just about enough to hold the line. It remains to be seen if anything can be done to push the forces of Chaos back.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think a BL novel released when Primaris landed, charting Cawl’s creative process would’ve helped bed them in much better.

Yes. Cawl and the Primaris should have been introduced / teased much earlier in the fluff. When Cawl first appeared in Gathering Storm I did wonder if he was Arkhan Land returned...

beast_gts wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think a BL novel released when Primaris landed, charting Cawl’s creative process would’ve helped bed them in much better.

Yes. Cawl and the Primaris should have been introduced / teased much earlier in the fluff. When Cawl first appeared in Gathering Storm I did wonder if he was Arkhan Land returned...

Cawl instead being Arkhan Land returned would have been great. Land already had a reputation for discovering rare important STCs and was so revered by some that there's a cult based on him. That he disappeared under mysterious circumstances was something that could have been used to make it feel far less Jarring than Cawl. They could have had a well-known beloved 'hero' unexpectedly emerging from the ancient depths of Mars after being lost for millenia, but drastically changed by his time lost there. Have him gone slightly mad and having had to resort to augmenting himself with salvaged bionics to survive, but bringing with him more STCs (for the new Primaris Stuff) after actually succeeding in his mission. His questionable mental state and circumstances of his sudden appearance could have been something to cause a schism in the Mechanicus when combined with the cult he originally had growing in power and it would have given more of a basis to the Tech-heresy side too. The large influx of Space Marines could have been explained by something like Land having an Ark Mechanicus working on new space Marines but was hidden away when he disappeared, and now that he's back they're recovered and unleashed - they never appeared before because only Land knew about it. Something like that would have had enough bits in lore already to fit in better than "There's this super powerful guy you just didn't know about" and feel like it was building on already established lore lore rather than the sudden ham-fisted way they did it.

Land would have been just as jarring IMO. Yes, Land already exists and is known for discovering hover vehicles but he wasn't a geneticist or Biologis. How would going into the Noctis Labyrinth suddenly allow him to make advanced Space Marines?
At least with Cawl there was no predetermined skillset for GW to suddenly 180 into something else.

 Gert wrote:
How would going into the Noctis Labyrinth suddenly allow him to make advanced Space Marines?

Before the Heresy the Emperor consulted him about the possibility of removing Angron's Butcher's Nails, and during it he 'fixed' Dominion Zephon's bionics - so he knew about Primarchs, Marines & implants. Cawl was also given a copy of the original Marine blueprints to work off.

beast_gts wrote:
Before the Heresy the Emperor consulted him about the possibility of removing Angron's Butcher's Nails, and during it he 'fixed' Dominion Zephon's bionics - so he knew about Primarchs, Marines & implants. Cawl was also given a copy of the original Marine blueprints to work off.

The Nails were a tech implant which is what Land was good with hence the Emperor asking for help. Zephon's implants were also tech which Land fixed by grafting Dark Age AI into Zephon's limbs and brain. Land wasn't involved with the Astartes project and didn't know Astartes genetics or biology in a way that would allow him to be able to create the Primaris. Land also went into the Librarius Omnis after the Heresy looking for more Dark Age tech and disappeared. A log was recovered two thousand years after his death that recorded how he and his team were slowly killed by a psychic entity trapped in the Librarius.
The reason Cawl was able to make the Primaris in the first place was access to the Sangprimus Portum as well as having the skills and memories of Ezekiel Sedayne, who ran the Astartes Project after Amar Astarte tried to overthrow the Emperor and end His plans to rule humanity. That's as far as we've got in Cawl's story but we still know that he has merged souls with enough people that he doesn't even know how many there are. The only reason people don't like Cawl is that they either haven't actually read any background about him or they just don't like new things (shocker). Do you not think that people would react the same way if Marneus Calgar was only introduced recently but still had all of his outrageous stories?

Andykp wrote:
That’s the thing, players moan about it, but it’s in no way true. Even taking primaris out, marines still have one of the biggest ranges available in plastic. No one has been forced to replace anything. There was going to be push back how ever they did it. At the end of the day they needed to rehash the marine line, and they have done it without invalidating the old line at all. People call it a cash grab but by keeping the old models valid it’s actually “considerate” for want of a better word.

The primaris holy war aside, I'm puzzled by the idea that they 'needed to rehash the marine line.'
Why? Were sales down (and can you prove it if your answer is yes)? Were their best sellers somehow suddenly not selling?

I'm unconvinced. I do think they did it in the worst way possible. They went in as if it were a complete replacement, then hemmed, hawwed, and mucked about with redundant kit after redundant kit, refused to make a decision one way or the other (at least from the outside) and bloated the hell out of the codex and model line (and weapon list... which 4.5 pages of pure failure at this point).
Had they done a scale adjustment with no commentary whatsoever, I think it would have gone over better.

Voss wrote:

Andykp wrote:
That’s the thing, players moan about it, but it’s in no way true. Even taking primaris out, marines still have one of the biggest ranges available in plastic. No one has been forced to replace anything. There was going to be push back how ever they did it. At the end of the day they needed to rehash the marine line, and they have done it without invalidating the old line at all. People call it a cash grab but by keeping the old models valid it’s actually “considerate” for want of a better word.

The primaris holy war aside, I'm puzzled by the idea that they 'needed to rehash the marine line.'
Why? Were sales down (and can you prove it if your answer is yes)? Were their best sellers somehow suddenly not selling?

I'm unconvinced. I do think they did it in the worst way possible. They went in as if it were a complete replacement, then hemmed, hawwed, and mucked about with redundant kit after redundant kit, refused to make a decision one way or the other (at least from the outside) and bloated the hell out of the codex and model line (and weapon list... which 4.5 pages of pure failure at this point).
Had they done a scale adjustment with no commentary whatsoever, I think it would have gone over better.

That seems like a matter of taste. To my taste, the old marines were tired, poorly scaled and full of very tired tropes. They had tried everything, even putting them on wolves of all things. The new models, again to my tastes are fantastic and the whole range is a vast improvement on the old line. But that’s how taste works, some like one thing others other things.


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beast_gts wrote:

 Gert wrote:
How would going into the Noctis Labyrinth suddenly allow him to make advanced Space Marines?

Before the Heresy the Emperor consulted him about the possibility of removing Angron's Butcher's Nails, and during it he 'fixed' Dominion Zephon's bionics - so he knew about Primarchs, Marines & implants. Cawl was also given a copy of the original Marine blueprints to work off.

Any reference to land would have been horrific and ham fisted. It’s another example of the HH books shoehorning things in for the sake of it. In case yiu can’t tell I dislike the HH books and what they have done to the setting.

Lets please save this debate for another thread and get back to the topic of people's favorite lore recently produced.

 Salted Diamond wrote:
Lets please save this debate for another thread and get back to the topic of people's favorite lore recently produced.

Good point, but when someone likes something polarising, like the primaris you will get debate. I love the primaris and find their fluff really intriguing with the possibilities to re-establish marines as villains of the piece.

I also really like the great rift as a concept and the story options it opens up. I am less keen on hearing about what named characters are up to but enjoy the changes they have made to the setting that open up fresh story ideas.

In the 8th edition Tyranid Codex there is that planet sized creature that a Hive fleet is feeding. If I remember correctly an IoM expedition team landed on whatbthe thought was a planet... and yeah, things went south quickly.

Yeah, that is interesting and could be a so far unseen stage of how Tyranids harvest galaxies. Really hope that it gets fleshed out a bit more, and not just left as a plot point.

Slightly off topic, but just out of curiosity, has GW let the players have any input on the direction of lore and outcome of campaigns recently?

I appreciated Ichar IV, Armageddon, and the 13th Black Crusade since the events made me feel like I contributed to the lore. Does GW even do that on any level anymore?

Didn’t they do something with vigilus like that? Not sure what impact it had on the fluff though.

 stonehorse wrote:
In the 8th edition Tyranid Codex there is that planet sized creature that a Hive fleet is feeding. If I remember correctly an IoM expedition team landed on whatbthe thought was a planet... and yeah, things went south quickly.

Yeah, that is interesting and could be a so far unseen stage of how Tyranids harvest galaxies. Really hope that it gets fleshed out a bit more, and not just left as a plot point.

Make me think of the brother moons from Dead Space, could be interesting to see more of it !

 Dekskull wrote:
Slightly off topic, but just out of curiosity, has GW let the players have any input on the direction of lore and outcome of campaigns recently?

I appreciated Ichar IV, Armageddon, and the 13th Black Crusade since the events made me feel like I contributed to the lore. Does GW even do that on any level anymore?

Not recently, no.

It’s a tricky thing to pull off. Eye of Terror saw a fairly central organisation for the Chaos side, which allowed them (entirely fairly) to co-ordinate where they reported their games. Some might call that unfair stacking of results, but I’m not one of them. There was however considerable upset that people were reporting victories where no game had occurred. The end result, as perhaps we should expect when tallying global results, was largely a stalemate. That lead to accusations from Serial Whiners that GW themselves were fiddling the books etc.

Same with Armageddon, really.

There was a recent thread about it. I’d be up future global campaigns, but with less grandiose stakes. Choose say, three star systems. Let us determine which factions do well or choke. Then enter the results into the annals of 40K canon via timeline additions in future Codecies. A little something is nerds can point to and say “I helped make that happen”, without the fate of the Galaxy being determined as a result. And being “new” star systems, they can easily factor into each race.

For instance, during EoT, Tau always felt out of place, because canonically they had no holdings in that area of the Galaxy. By inventing new systems specifically for the campaign, there’s no need for more astrographically limited species, chapters etc to feel out of place.

Andykp wrote:
Didn’t they do something with vigilus like that? Not sure what impact it had on the fluff though.

It was the Siege of Konor campaign but the poorly designed and implemented system GW used caused a colossal Imperium victory. There is another thread recently that discussed it in more detail.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Dekskull wrote:
Slightly off topic, but just out of curiosity, has GW let the players have any input on the direction of lore and outcome of campaigns recently?

I appreciated Ichar IV, Armageddon, and the 13th Black Crusade since the events made me feel like I contributed to the lore. Does GW even do that on any level anymore?

Not recently, no.

It’s a tricky thing to pull off. Eye of Terror saw a fairly central organisation for the Chaos side, which allowed them (entirely fairly) to co-ordinate where they reported their games. Some might call that unfair stacking of results, but I’m not one of them. There was however considerable upset that people were reporting victories where no game had occurred. The end result, as perhaps we should expect when tallying global results, was largely a stalemate. That lead to accusations from Serial Whiners that GW themselves were fiddling the books etc.

Same with Armageddon, really.



There was a recent thread about it. I’d be up future global campaigns, but with less grandiose stakes. Choose say, three star systems. Let us determine which factions do well or choke. Then enter the results into the annals of 40K canon via timeline additions in future Codecies. A little something is nerds can point to and say “I helped make that happen”, without the fate of the Galaxy being determined as a result. And being “new” star systems, they can easily factor into each race.

For instance, during EoT, Tau always felt out of place, because canonically they had no holdings in that area of the Galaxy. By inventing new systems specifically for the campaign, there’s no need for more astrographically limited species, chapters etc to feel out of place.

I agree with that sentiment. I was just thinking in terms of all the war zone books being released. Each war zone could have been a mini global or even regional campaign. Not that I don't like the writing. The stories seem to be pretty good! I just liked feeling like I had more of a role in how it played out. I would have really liked to have seen this for the Octarius Ork vs Tyranid war zone. Though like the last guy mentioned. After getting caught up, even as an ork fan, I'm not mad at the result!

If I was GW running a big narrative campaign though, I would have the official result be dictated by organized events at the GW Stores. But mail in (or online results) from us poor saps playing at home could shift the result from a major victory to a minor victory for either side. I'd also let online results allow the non main factions to achieve campaign objectives.

I feel like that would tamp down on a lot of the "that's not fair" stuff that emerges.

GC's are based on an honour system that IMO just doesn't hold up. You can see it from past campaigns where sides were accused of cheating by sending in fake results because in reality there is no way for anyone to know. Even in a local store the staff aren't going to be checking every single game and I know for a fact that people in my group deliberately lost games to boost the Imperium side (no I have no idea why, people are weird).

I liked when the battle reports and things in WD became “lore” over time. During the Andy chambers vs her is Johnson times. Like ghaz and Ragnars beef and the battle for Armageddon. It felt natural and organic.

 Dekskull wrote:
Slightly off topic, but just out of curiosity, has GW let the players have any input on the direction of lore and outcome of campaigns recently?

I appreciated Ichar IV, Armageddon, and the 13th Black Crusade since the events made me feel like I contributed to the lore. Does GW even do that on any level anymore?

Sadly not. I remember fighting the Ichar IV one. The Tyranids didn't stand a chance, due to only having their Codex released a few months before hand, and this was back when GW didn't release all the models with the Codex. Think Zoanthropes and Ripper Swarms didn't come out till half a year after the global campaign for example. So it was never going to be a fair fight for them in that campaign.

Then there was how the Storm of Chaos one went in WFB.

So I think GW may have realised that while the idea of players getting to shape important events seems great on paper, the reality of it is that it is riddled with a lot of big issues that put the designers in some odd situations to untangle... Grimgore Ironside beatimg Archeon, headbutting him then sodding off for example.

Andykp wrote:
I liked when the battle reports and things in WD became “lore” over time. During the Andy chambers vs her is Johnson times. Like ghaz and Ragnars beef and the battle for Armageddon. It felt natural and organic.

A lot of modern 40K lore comes from those days.

Ghaz and the Bad Moon Warboss were both invented for sample armies. As was Mad Dok Grotsnik.

Tycho getting his face melted by a Weirdboy comes from a battle report, as does Calgar nearly snuffing it to a Spore Mine (both occurred in Battle Reports and flavour text given within them). I’m lucky enough to have read both, and the Calgar one was funnier, because he’d been trying to hide with the Spore Mine got him (I think he was cowering behind a Rhino?).

You know. Another way they could do this? Put out seasonal scenarios, which offer a partially set army list. Nothing too restrictive. The difference between investing in a named character, and having to buy specific units we might not otherwise see that often on the field. Tie the VPs to those units, again at least partially.

Example? Scenario represent a clash between Abaddon and Guilliman, at long last. GW set the scene, partially dictate forces. Us Nerds then go fight those battles, with the aim being to nobble the other named character. Perhaps more VPs being awarded for each taking the other out etc.

We then report this, with specific occurrences reported via VPs. GW compile, and use the most common VPs awarded to canonise specific events into the background.

 Gert wrote:
GC's are based on an honour system that IMO just doesn't hold up. You can see it from past campaigns where sides were accused of cheating by sending in fake results because in reality there is no way for anyone to know. Even in a local store the staff aren't going to be checking every single game and I know for a fact that people in my group deliberately lost games to boost the Imperium side (no I have no idea why, people are weird).

What I saw back in the EoT campaign days was 2 SM players playing, and the loser was "obviously" a traitor and therefore no matter who won, they reported it as an Imperial Forces of Order win.

In the EoT campaign, store submitted results were apparently worth more than purely online submitted results. However there were many thousands more online results so they still swamped any store results. However the relative value of these games ultimately did not matter as the other campaign mechanic of the threshold effect was stronger still.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I liked when the battle reports and things in WD became “lore” over time. During the Andy chambers vs her is Johnson times. Like ghaz and Ragnars beef and the battle for Armageddon. It felt natural and organic.

A lot of modern 40K lore comes from those days.

Ghaz and the Bad Moon Warboss were both invented for sample armies. As was Mad Dok Grotsnik.

Tycho getting his face melted by a Weirdboy comes from a battle report, as does Calgar nearly snuffing it to a Spore Mine (both occurred in Battle Reports and flavour text given within them). I’m lucky enough to have read both, and the Calgar one was funnier, because he’d been trying to hide with the Spore Mine got him (I think he was cowering behind a Rhino?).

You know. Another way they could do this? Put out seasonal scenarios, which offer a partially set army list. Nothing too restrictive. The difference between investing in a named character, and having to buy specific units we might not otherwise see that often on the field. Tie the VPs to those units, again at least partially.

Example? Scenario represent a clash between Abaddon and Guilliman, at long last. GW set the scene, partially dictate forces. Us Nerds then go fight those battles, with the aim being to nobble the other named character. Perhaps more VPs being awarded for each taking the other out etc.

We then report this, with specific occurrences reported via VPs. GW compile, and use the most common VPs awarded to canonise specific events into the background.

Like wise read them all at the time, and the epic battle reports that fleshed out Armageddon. They seem to be harking back to older editions stories and styles but there is still a disconnect between stuff in the magazines and the “official lore”.

I think warhammer+ would be a good time to start using battle reports and sneaking them into the next codexs and supplements. Having a video battle report as a climax to a campaign and things.

I like that some fanwork has been incorporated recently into official 40k.
Stuff like Chris Peach's Ventrillian Nobles, Paul Norton's Iron Ravens, and Pegastyx's custom super grim-dark Forge World in the latest Mechanicus Codex.

 Gert wrote:
I like that some fanwork has been incorporated recently into official 40k.
Stuff like Chris Peach's Ventrillian Nobles, Paul Norton's Iron Ravens, and Pegastyx's custom super grim-dark Forge World in the latest Mechanicus Codex.

I hadn’t picked up on pegstyxs one getting in the book, that’s cool AF. Have stolen so many ideas off her in the past!

Yeah, I'm bad a picking favourites so here's another one. Slight Spoilers for The Wolftime.

I actually like the idea of the Ynnari as they offer the opportunity to show the Eldar as more than just protectors of the status quo (if Craftworlders), stereotypical villains (if Dark Eldar), primitive victims (Exodites), or the Joker (Harlequins). The stereotypical story template would have for example the Craftworld faction offering advice/warnings to the human protagonist (which are often ignored) and ultimately allying with the humans to restore the status quo against an awakened threat in order to put it back down. We see this for example with the Cursus of Alganar on Tallarn.

The Ynnari I think if actually properly developed instead of being just a parasitical stub of a faction, would add some upheaval to the Eldar scene as a whole. There is a tiny hint in the Phoenix Rising book that young Exodites were emboldened to be more active, which I took to be possible foreshadowing of Exodites as a playable faction.

The ideological conflicts and differences between the Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, and Exodites in their methods of evading Slaanesh and their plans for the future IMO are more interesting that what seems to be the Manichean binary portrayal of Imperium (with Custodes and SoB wreathed in golden light) vs. spiky Chaos. I also don't like having any faction (such as the Chaos gods) being able to rest on their future victory as "inevitable". The story possibility of a reborn or otherwise stronger Emperor threatens the Chaos gods, and now Ynnead does too.

Would the devastation of Baal count as fluff new enough ? Both the cryptus campaign and on Baal itself, I believe it was great