The Eternal Crusader

[Sincollector]

* -- among the 0.1% bleeding edge, like the online vocal minority of any fandom.

What bugs me about the changes is that I don't believe they have any narrative drive or advantage. I believe they're entirely related to marketing/business decisions.

 

Templars are now actually in the codex, at codex numbers, have no problem with psychers, etc...They're being streamlined to be a nearly codex adherent chapter because a "Black Templar" is a historical term with a non-copyright emblem. Hence, the changes: There's no need to make special models for a codex-adherent chapter and GW doesn't want to produce models because of the IP issues.

 

And for fans, the "differing viewpoints" thing may be "how it works" but that doesn't change anything. Maybe the differing viewpoints still exist, but only the current GW viewpoint will be getting novels, shorts stories, supplements, etc...

 

In the stories that have been told, how did the 1000 marine limit or the psyker veneration advance the new author's narrative? They didn't, because as Guy Haley said, those were studio decisions. When the Templar codex was released they received two cover shots on White Dwarf. There's a big drop quote in the article from the designer that says the Templars are the truest example of what the Space Marines were originally envisioned to be. The size of the chapter matters because their willingness to break the rules is a part of remaining true to that vision. The hatred of psykers matters because it shows them remaining true to the Edict of Nicaea, their father's word, even when all other chapters have wavered. The understanding that the Emperor is a man matters because the Emperor's crusade was about bringing enlightenment to the galaxy.

 

Every change that has been made undermines the chapter that was presented to us. While there may be no canon, the "differing viewpoint" that will be presented for the foreseeable future is one that is not enjoyable to most current BT fans.

 

I feel like in your last few posts, ADB, you sound a little as if the discussion is wearing you down. I understand that these are not your decisions and you're providing us with insight into the process of creating the 40K world. I didn't post to argue with you regarding the canonical validity of the changes, but to express my feelings as someone who has owned a Black Templar army for almost ten years and is a consumer of GW's products. Because you are a part of the GW creative process and have chosen to engage with us, I (and I believe the others) am hoping that some our feelings might be passed on to whoever does make the decision. Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and discuss the issue. Regardless of what happens with the Templar fluff, it's always fun to interact with a creator whose work you enjoy.

[Marshal Rohr]

Chapterhouse is the reason my chapter got rolled? Looks like it's time to give those pieces of :cuss a visit.

[Marshal Goderic]

The codex is a piece of trash. Black Templars aren't the only chapter who received urine and were told to praise the vintage. Iron Hands come to mind with the absolute dissolving of anything remotely similar to what came before. I'm not saying the man shouldn't write books, but he should have some principles and try to undo, not add on to the in the codex.

You will never be able to make the case that the new fluff was a positive change. No one is lucky when their chapter gets attention anymore. It's just their turn on the 'What the :cuss' Train.

sigged. & agreed on all negative points about codex, why x, y, z, & why the book is garbage. I read all 3 yesterday over lunch and wanted to vomit over what has been done to our fluff and how pathetic our leaders are now. I want my money and waaaaaaaaaaaayy more importantly; screw the money I want my chapter back!

Everything that was presented in this pile of garbage can be shoehorned into this example I feel; making the Word Bearers into aetheists. Same level of holy ing baloney that ruins a large swath of fluff in the same way.

[Wade Garrett]

Is now a bad time to point out that Forge World DID make the Word Bearers atheists in the Horus Heresy campaign book

Massacre?

[TrafficCustodes]

You mean before Lorgar rejoined them, right? Wasn't that always implied/part of their fluff? I mean, the fact that Lorgar turned them from atheists into theists?

 

Unless you're saying they're still atheists at the time of Isstvan V...? If so, I need to read 'Massacre' again. I read it very recently and I don't remember that fact jumping out at me.

[Marshal Goderic]

Dark gods of the warp i meant in 40k

[Visitor13]

 

Chapterhouse is the reason my chapter got rolled? Looks like it's time to give those pieces of :cuss a visit.

 

 

The reason your chapter got rolled is not Chapterhouse but whichever GW employee mandated the retcons. Their excuses for doing so are irrelevant.

[LongGone]

<snip>

The reason your chapter got rolled is not Chapterhouse but whichever GW employee mandated the retcons. Their excuses for doing so are irrelevant.

Do not attempt to deflect our wrath.

ZEAL RABBLE RABBLE ZEAL!!!

You get some ZEAL. You get some ZEAL. Everybody gets some ZEAL!

[Karthak]

They took the Templars down from 5000-6000, to the regular 1000 man strong? Bah!

[A D-B]

 

I feel like in your last few posts, ADB, you sound a little as if the discussion is wearing you down. I understand that these are not your decisions and you're providing us with insight into the process of creating the 40K world. I didn't post to argue with you regarding the canonical validity of the changes, but to express my feelings as someone who has owned a Black Templar army for almost ten years and is a consumer of GW's products. Because you are a part of the GW creative process and have chosen to engage with us, I (and I believe the others) am hoping that some our feelings might be passed on to whoever does make the decision. Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and discuss the issue. Regardless of what happens with the Templar fluff, it's always fun to interact with a creator whose work you enjoy.

 

 

I cut the rest of the quote for tidiness but that was very insightful, and definitely appreciated, Sin. I'm very, very lucky with my reception on various forums - a fact I try to acknowledge whenever it's relevant - but this particular iteration has worn me down a little. I understand people's frustration, but for all the times a change makes someone unhappy, the point of my post was that it goes both ways. One of the most common compliments about my work is that it "made Faction X interesting/believable/cool", or whatever. Now, in fairness, I try to change or ignore very little when I tackle a faction (I see it as my job to illustrate the setting and show it through my lens, not remake it to my tastes) but the point is a clear one: what I hear often is "I like this army more since you wrote about them". That's awesome, and I'm sure some folks like an army much less after I tackle them, but the door opens both ways.

 

That can, indeed, suck. I realise in this instance that there are significant changes to the Black Templars across the board, and I was as surprised as anyone to see them.

 

But it's easy to get ground down on this, when the hyperbole flies thick and fast. I'm sincerely sympathetic to Templar players that dislike the changes. Bear in mind I had 9 months of my life (and that was a damn hard book to write) ignored by a shift in the IP, but I'm also sanguine about it because these things happen. It does and doesn't ignore my work, and it does and doesn't invalidate it. It's Schrodinger's Templars. I can live with that. I still love Ian Watson's Inquisition War, and that's miles off-base from current lore. Moved past, ignored, but not completely invalidated. A vastly different lens now, but still 40K.

 

The same thing happens to everyone involved in the IP. Part of the process. On the same note, Space Marines stopped being gangland criminals in Second Edition, and became the Adeptus Astartes we know and love. Things that I've loved about the setting are being overwritten now. Things I never liked are being overwritten, too. I'm sanguine about the process because I love the way the IP works. I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives, even if that's difficult to see at the heart of one particular debate about a single faction's massive changes.

 

At no point would I trivialise people's feelings on the matter, either way.

[PATemplar]

 

 

I feel like in your last few posts, ADB, you sound a little as if the discussion is wearing you down. I understand that these are not your decisions and you're providing us with insight into the process of creating the 40K world. I didn't post to argue with you regarding the canonical validity of the changes, but to express my feelings as someone who has owned a Black Templar army for almost ten years and is a consumer of GW's products. Because you are a part of the GW creative process and have chosen to engage with us, I (and I believe the others) am hoping that some our feelings might be passed on to whoever does make the decision. Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and discuss the issue. Regardless of what happens with the Templar fluff, it's always fun to interact with a creator whose work you enjoy.

 

 

I cut the rest of the quote for tidiness but that was very insightful, and definitely appreciated, Sin. I'm very, very lucky with my reception on various forums - a fact I try to acknowledge whenever it's relevant - but this particular iteration has worn me down a little. I understand people's frustration, but for all the times a change makes someone unhappy, the point of my post was that it goes both ways. One of the most common compliments about my work is that it "made Faction X interesting/believable/cool", or whatever. Now, in fairness, I try to change or ignore very little when I tackle a faction (I see it as my job to illustrate the setting and show it through my lens, not remake it to my tastes) but the point is a clear one: what I hear often is "I like this army more since you wrote about them". That's awesome, and I'm sure some folks like an army much less after I tackle them, but the door opens both ways.

 

That can, indeed, suck. I realise in this instance that there are significant changes to the Black Templars across the board, and I was as surprised as anyone to see them.

 

But it's easy to get ground down on this, when the hyperbole flies thick and fast. I'm sincerely sympathetic to Templar players that dislike the changes. Bear in mind I had 9 months of my life (and that was a damn hard book to write) ignored by a shift in the IP, but I'm also sanguine about it because these things happen. It does and doesn't ignore my work, and it does and doesn't invalidate it. It's Schrodinger's Templars. I can live with that. I still love Ian Watson's Inquisition War, and that's miles off-base from current lore. Moved past, ignored, but not completely invalidated. A vastly different lens now, but still 40K.

 

The same thing happens to everyone involved in the IP. Part of the process. On the same note, Space Marines stopped being gangland criminals in Second Edition, and became the Adeptus Astartes we know and love. Things that I've loved about the setting are being overwritten now. Things I never liked are being overwritten, too. I'm sanguine about the process because I love the way the IP works. I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives, even if that's difficult to see at the heart of one particular debate about a single faction's massive changes.

 

At no point would I trivialise people's feelings on the matter, either way.

 

 Dear ABD,

 

 I also want to thank you for your participation and input on this forumn. Although  I was glad you shared Marc Gascoigne's take on the validity of old vs new fluff although to be honest I wasn't thrilled with it as I thought it was mainly just a cop out for lazy integrity editting but whatever I could accept it's how the Studio viewed things. I saw your follow up posts where you quite clearly explained how new writers could come along and change others work or even your work  and that  wouldn't be bad necessarily. This seems true if you except what you presented from MG that old or new, fluff is both true and false if I understand what you presented from MG. The problem with that believe it or not approach to fluff stories is apparently from Mr.Haley's blog post, he's not saying that the crap he's written may not be true but is how GW has now decided our fluff  story is to be now.  I'm sure as you've seen, it's not sitting well with veteran players.

 

Granted writers invest time and effort in their work and aren't necessarily  thrilled when another writer contradicts their work with a later literary effort but with all due respect , the writers get compensated by GW for their time spent . For us fans we've invested our time, effort and money because we liked/loved something and to have it majorly changed leaves us with a visceral reaction. I started collecting, painting and playing BT back in 2001 with Codex-Armageddon and have amassed a collection of over 30,000pt. of painted figures and am I realize more fanatical than a lot of folks but not as much as some. I've been a fan of Mr.Haley's IG and ork work, and just finished Valedor and liked it so I know he's actually a truly talented writer but I hate , HATE, HATE what he's done to the BT and it just spits on all the dedicated BT players that are out there. 

 

To be honest, I disagree with many of my brethern BT players that Templars would despise astropaths and navigators just because they're psykers and we otherwise abhor witches. You can't be a fleet based chapter dependent on working with astropaths and navigators for all your communications and to get you from point A to point B for the last 10,000 years if you've been treating these folks with contempt at best for that period without them revolting. At a minimum and actually at a maximum I think the BT would treat them civilly and professionally as crew members on their ships that they depend on. There is however a major difference between treating someone(astropaths) professionally and abasing themselves before them, frankly they would have done that to any of the other PrImarchs if they had suddenly shown up except for Dorn.

 

 I also didn't have that big an issue with us worshipping the Emperor as we've always been more devout and again going back to Codex-Armageddon had cheaper purity seals than other marines because of our faith but again to go from that and to bowing to astropaths is a step waaayyyyyy to far. 

 

 Finally, changing us to a chapter with just 1,000 marines goes against our whole fluff history up until now from Codex-Armageddon, to Codex-Black Templar and lot's of WD articles. While Mr.Haley did invest some of his time(for which he was certainly compensated by GW)  writing this latest work on the BT, what about folks like myself who've spent the last 13 years collecting, painting and playing our beloved BT only to have Mr.Haley change our fluff and say he and GW that's the new official background now. I and my fellow BT brethern have invested  far more of our time and energy and money on BT than Mr.Haley ever will and if we believe his blogs we don't even have the luxury of saying well according to ABD and his quote from MG it's all just mutable stories anyways.

 

 There's been BT stories that didn't agree with our fluff before. One of the first was in the Word of Blood anthology from back in 2002 that actually had nice BT artwork on the cover. Here the title short story by the  fluff hacker Ben Counter has BT having devastor squads when we didn't have them at the time and more glaringly being headquartered on Terra. 

 

Given that a huge part of the attraction to 40k is its rich developed background material, GW just changing that material that played such a role to attracting it's loyal customers to this hobby seems to just say they really don't care about the folks that have kept them in business. I hope you can pass on to GW the anger this is generating and also explain the discrepancy between your take on fluff validity based on the MG view of it and the contradiction to that view shown in Mr.Haley's blog post about the validity of his take on our fluff.

 

Finally, and I really do mean it this time, my thanks and apologies to all who've made it through this post, I know I ramble long and I thank you for your indulgence in sticking with me as I tried to make my points hopefully.

[Marshal Rohr]

He's already explained it. He wrote a book and stuck to the lore as it was presented until 2013. Guy wrote a book, and used the lore as it's been presented since 2013. Guy mentioned that he is writing more about the Templars, and he personally finds them being psyker lovers and theists appealing, so it's here to stay.

 

Neither Helsreach nor Eternal Crusader are 'wrong' or 'right' when it comes to fluff, and people who prefer Templars Mark Helsreach to Templars Mark 6th Edition are free to prefer that version, but it will no longer be reflected in the studio literature.

[redmapa]

Im just glad Graham Mcneil still has Gods of Mars to publish, so there's that for more "old school" templars.

[A D-B]

Granted writers invest time and effort in their work and aren't necessarily  thrilled when another writer contradicts their work with a later literary effort but with all due respect , the writers get compensated by GW for their time spent . For us fans we've invested our time, effort and money because we liked/loved something and to have it majorly changed leaves us with a visceral reaction.

 

 

That's... Okay... That's not a particularly friendly sentiment. That's actually pretty insulting, even if you didn't intend it that way. It implies a division of investment that simply doesn't... I mean... I'm not even sure I can piece together a coherent reaction to that, but I'll try.

 

It's not a contest. Let me get that off the starting line, right away. It's not a contest of whose feelings are hurt more, and who is cushioned by a paycheck. That's worth stating right away. 

 

But.

 

No. Sorry. I don't think you like X, Y, or Z more than me, and that my paycheck cushions me. I don't think it matters who likes it more, either, but this is my career. I've loved 40K since I was a kid, just like countless other fans. I'm not less invested than "fans who invest time, effort and money because they like/love something". You could even argue that I'm twice as invested as them, because it's my job as well as my hobby. I don't think it's true because I don't think you can measure investment like that. But it's nowhere near as simple as a divide between "fans" and "authors". Authors are fans, with the added pressure of their professional life being deliciously tangled in the IP. They're often the biggest fans you'll ever meet. That's why they write it as well as play it.

 

Guy Haley loves 40K to the point he spent a decade working in the HQ, has countless thousands of points of armies, and now devotes a significant portion of his professional life adding to the lore again, making it not only his hobby but his job for the second time. I'm the same: I love 40K so much that a hobby wasn't enough for me, I needed more, more, more. I loved it so much I wanted to be part of it, and to help make it. The setting captured me in a way very little else in my life has managed to do so. I made it a long-term freelance gig and (one hopes...) a career. That's how invested in it I am. That's not a trite sentiment. That's someone who loves 40K so much that they write about it for 10 hours a day, and then make it their primary conversation topic with their friends as well as their main hobby, and as well as their main internet habit. I'd venture I read as much 40K forum stuff as anyone. And it's still not a contest of investment, because that'd be impossible to measure and insulting to everyone.

 

No one thinks "Oh, well, at least I got paid" when stuff gets invalidated or changed. It affects an author not only personally, just as it affects fans, it gets them professionally as well. It complicates all kinds of things, sometimes. It's twice the freaking reaction. But it's also tempered with perspective, and the context of how the IP works. That air of understanding and reasonability tempers a lot of negative reaction. I'm not at peace with Guy and the Templar changes because I was compensated by a paycheck, I'm at peace with the changes to the IP (and Guy showing them) because I like the IP working that way. That was the whole point of my post: changes go both ways. Hell, I reckon I could even tell some cracking stories about the Templars' new angles. It doesn't interest me as much as the previous incarnation, but one of the things I find with 40K is that there are stories in every nook and cranny. So this new incarnation doesn't match mine? Well, okay. I like mine. Sure. Flesh Tearers aren't all black anymore with yellow helmet stripes, but if I painted a Flesh Tearer army, they would be. My Blood Angels Successors will have a Thudd Gun because of an old WD pic showing a Blood Angel with a Thudd Gun. I take everything I can from various points in the hobby's life. Some of the new stuff rocks my world, and sometimes I go back to 2nd Edition for inspiration, looking to the stuff I prefer there.

 

I'm not trivialising anyone's feelings - and yet again, I state that I understand and sympathise with anyone who went through significant army changes that they're not fans of. But don't mistake my perspective with a lack of investment.

 

As for "passing on your anger", you're more than welcome to do that yourself. Why, exactly, would I do it? And what would it achieve? Who, out of the several hundred employees - many of whom I simply don't know - would I tell? How would I phrase it beyond "One guy asked me to tell you that a couple dozen people on an internet forum have said they don't like the Black Templar changes"? I've paid very close attention to the BT uproar on the site, and I'm hardly blind to the feelings of many posters, but look at it in context. I doubt I could muster much of an army of names for this petition you'd like me to take to head office. I'm sort of surprised and insulted you'd ask me (or expect me) to do that in the first place. You insulted me by saying I and other authors lack the investment and perspective you have, then casually hope I'll act as your messenger boy.

 

That's... that's not cool.

 

And as for "explaining the discrepancy" in the IP stuff, there's no discrepancy. M2C summed it up well already, and I can't keep reposting and restating the various explanations for GW's IP policy. If you read all of what I posted and honestly don't think my presentation of it matches up with that Marc Gascoigne quote, there's nothing else I can say. That's what there is. It makes sense. You may not like it, and I'd never suggest anyone has to, but it makes sense.

[Marshal Rohr]

A problem with 40K is the free range players are encouraged to take with 'telling their own stories'. Eventually we get the idea stuck in our head that our stories matter, and echo chambers like the BnC turn that into a norm. 40K being the only sci-fi universe I'm emotionally invested in, this is the first time I've been through a fundamental change in the background that formed the foundation of my own spin on the universe.

Ultimately, and this thread has been the cathartic process to realize it, I'm just a fan. I have no control over the foundations of the universe. I can take it or leave it, but I can't change it.

Edit: There will always be things we don't like, but finding the nooks and crannies of cool stories to tell is what makes it worthwhile.

[Conn Eremon]

A problem with 40K is the free range players are encouraged to take with 'telling their own stories'.

Hey, to each their own and all that, but while the Dawn of War series introduced me to the setting, it was its open willingness to accept a fan or hobbyist's own ideas that made me stick around. If the whole DIY thing wasn't a thing, I would likely have stopped playing the DoW games a lot sooner and been done with the setting at that point.

 

I get what you mean about how it can be problematic, but to me it is the biggest draw the setting has. It's literally the one thing that makes the rest worthwhile. Of course, I don't do the modeling, painting or gaming scene, so that whole aspect is just an automatic non-issue for me.

[Sincollector]

I'm very, very lucky with my reception on various forums - a fact I try to acknowledge whenever it's relevant - but this particular iteration has worn me down a little.

 

(SNIP)

 

But it's easy to get ground down on this, when the hyperbole flies thick and fast. I'm sincerely sympathetic to Templar players that dislike the changes. Bear in mind I had 9 months of my life (and that was a damn hard book to write) ignored by a shift in the IP,...

 

(SNIP)

 

It's Schrodinger's Templars. I can live with that.

 

(FINAL SNIP)

 

 

Snipped to the bits I'm responding to.

 

I don't think you're "lucky." I think you express yourself exceptionally well, provide much-appreciated insight, and that your passion as a fan and creator is very clear. A positive reception is deserved and I understand why you're worn down. With that in mind, I'm not going to continue beating the same drum regarding the changes.

 

The time on Helsreach was 9 months well spent. I'm guessing that a part of the struggle was creating a sympathetic protagonist that fans wanted to support who was still a humorless, brutally uncompromising Templar chaplain. I believe the fact that you succeeded so well is part of what's lead to the current uproar. After that success everyone was expecting more in that vein. You were just too good, man. :-D. I liked the book so much I bought it a second time after the Black Library app stopped working.

 

Schrodinger is a perfect name for a crusade. I'm thinking a crusade to a Daemon world in which the Templar fleet emerged...twice. One warp-tainted and one untouched. Immediately, the new Schrodinger Crusade is declared: the purging of themselves. Or maybe in a greater irony, neither fleet is tainted but both versions immediately declare the other unclean. That sounds more 40k to me.

[Archaon9]

 

The time on Helsreach was 9 months well spent. I'm guessing that a part of the struggle was creating a sympathetic protagonist that fans wanted to support who was still a humorless, brutally uncompromising Templar chaplain. I believe the fact that you succeeded so well is part of what's lead to the current uproar. After that success everyone was expecting more in that vein. You were just too good, man. :-D. I liked the book so much I bought it a second time after the Black Library app stopped working.

 

Schrodinger is a perfect name for a crusade. I'm thinking a crusade to a Daemon world in which the Templar fleet emerged...twice. One warp-tainted and one untouched. Immediately, the new Schrodinger Crusade is declared: the purging of themselves. Or maybe in a greater irony, neither fleet is tainted but both versions immediately declare the other unclean. That sounds more 40k to me.

 

I enjoyed Helsreach. It was how I thought Templars would be and was well written. I'd say it was 9 months well spent. I've not read this latest release yet but from how it sounds I get the view it's a good story, but just not for the Black Templars chapter.

I think most people would be happy with a Schrodinger crusade to weed out the liberal Templars from the chapter. Kneeling to psykers seems rather odd for a Space Marine let alone a Templar. If ever there was a time for Inquisitorial purges it is now :P Maybe that's what'll happen for the new canon change BL do.

 

I'm a bit surprised that there isn't a Black Templar book covering the hunt for Ghazghkull yet. Seems BL are covering a warzone each time. Plagues of Orath, Sactus Reach, Armageddon.

[Legatus]

I think it's telling that the (fairly limited, these days) cries for "Codex First, FW Second, Novels Third" is always about convenience, never quality. That alone should shoot it down, let alone the fact it's just not the way the license works, never has, and likely never will. It's anathema to the setting's function.

 

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: people (generally) pay for a novel to get a few hours of entertainment. People pay for a Codex to get information about a faction they might in the future invest more money in to collect. Thus the information given to people in a Codex should be more accurate. If I find out that the descriptions in a novel I bought are "incorrect" (i.e. go against a "known continuity"), I am disappointed. If I find out that the Codex of my army is "incorrect", I feel ripped off. I feel I did not get (at least part of) what I payed for, and I may even have made a substantial investment into a force based on "false" information.

 

I am sure that GW's "loose canon" policy is great for allowing a greater number of authors to work for their franchise. But to me as a decade long (almost two, really) consumer of said franchise, it just feels like GW has little regard for the internal consistency or integrity of their own universe. And I feel "let down", like the company does not even have the same level of commitment to the universe they created that I have.

As long as a product is well crafted, it does not neccessarily have to be lore accurate. It will still sell, and maintaining full continuity would require a lot of effort. I know A D-B takes the lore very serious, but I have doubts as far as some of the other authors are concerned. Dan Abnett comes to mind. He is a great writer, and I enjoyed the Gaunt's Ghosts series imensely. But he has heavily rewritten about every Space Marine Legion he was involved with. He is a very succesful author and has worked for a lot of other franchises, so it seems possible he may not be such a total 40K lore nut as A D-B. But he is a good and prolific writer, so GW does not force him to dig through decades of old source books or previous novels and publishes his material regardless. Total speculation, but that's how it looks from the outside, considering Abnett's treatment of some of the Legions and the breadth of his work.

 

The "loose canon" policy in itself feels like a cop out. Like whatever GW representative explains said policy simply tries to avoid telling the players that the sourcebook they are buying today will inevitably be invalidated by the sourcebook released tomorrow. No, "they are both right".

 

It looks, to the cynical minded, not like GW maintains the "loose canon" policy because that is a great way to handle a game universe shared by millions around the world, but because they sacrifice internal consistency in order to allow a greater number of authors to work on the franchise without the substantial effort to establish a strict continuity. And they are not about to tell the customers that this or that product might not be entirely accurate, so it is "all possibly true, all possibly false, loose canon".

[evilmittens]

 

 

I feel like in your last few posts, ADB, you sound a little as if the discussion is wearing you down. I understand that these are not your decisions and you're providing us with insight into the process of creating the 40K world. I didn't post to argue with you regarding the canonical validity of the changes, but to express my feelings as someone who has owned a Black Templar army for almost ten years and is a consumer of GW's products. Because you are a part of the GW creative process and have chosen to engage with us, I (and I believe the others) am hoping that some our feelings might be passed on to whoever does make the decision. Thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts and discuss the issue. Regardless of what happens with the Templar fluff, it's always fun to interact with a creator whose work you enjoy.

 

 

 

 

But. It's Schrodinger's Templars.

 

ANNNNNNNDDD.....I think I have an idea for my first army  that I ever considered making.

 

 

Boxes...lots of boxes and lots of comments about if the body is alive or dead in a dreadnought.

[redmapa]

 

It looks, to the cynical minded, not like GW maintains the "loose canon" policy because that is a great way to handle a game universe shared by millions around the world, but because they sacrifice internal consistency in order to allow a greater number of authors to work on the franchise without the substantial effort to establish a strict continuity. And they are not about to tell the customers that this or that product might not be entirely accurate, so it is "all possibly true, all possibly false, loose canon".

 

 

I think youre looking at it a bit too cynically, 40k having a vague setting has always been a core part of it the problem is that codex authors make blanket statements that leave no room for interpretation and youre left with "new vs old fluff" which sucks and I personally think its counter productive to letting everyone come up with their own fluff, maybe GW should go back to writing with in universe narrators and writing suggestions instead of statements, kind of like what FW is doing with the HH.

[mc warhammer]

it's a word bearer's choice really- you can hate that this is the way things are and wish they were different but it's the truth of the matter. the only way to really thrive is to get on board, because banging your head against BL ip won't change it.

[Marshal Rohr]

I think the point of it is I don't have to accept or resist it. I can simply prefer a version to another.

[mc warhammer]

that's accepting the way it works though...isn't it? BL encourages the "choose your own adventure" approach.

[b1soul]

I find this "everything is canon, nothing is canon" policy to be incredibly lazy of BL

 

I mean, I'm OK with different writers having different "takes"...but there should be a consistent core. It's like different artists painting the same object. Despite different painting styles, different angles, different lighting, etc., it's still the same object.

 

When every authour is free to do their own thang with no regard for previous work...that way lies madness. Similarly, trying to achieve 100% "consistency" is also a silly endeavour.

 

The changes wrought by Haley smack of a needless retcon. The above of course is only my opinion and I don't expect BL to change its ways on my account