When did this start?

[Marshal Rohr]

I never said incomprehensible. I said "inconceivable", or "something outside the normal lines of thinking".

 

For example, knowing you and your writing style, you would never write a horde of Astartes charging a well-defended, albeit outnumbered, opposition that has artillery support. A D-B did. I would write that the super advanced tech still has load time, that it takes time for these super advanced computers to take time to load, that it wasn't instantaneous and as a result, if one were to use a weapon during power up, he just might need to use iron sights since the auto-targeting hasn't come online yet because priority is given to life support and motor functions.

 

You would write that a Space Marine needs a body glove to use power armor. Dan Abnett wrote that they Iron Snakes are completely clean shaven and have well-lotioned skin. I would write that my Chapter of the Veiled Warden wear ceremonial prayer robes under their armor and welcome the chafing and often have to have skin grafts after prolonged battles.

 

"Inconceivable" is relative, as is suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't blink twice if Cadmus and his six Spartoi charged through a group of sixty Imperial Guardsmen as long as it was allowable within the laws of the specific fictional universe. Someone else might have a problem of just one Spartoi killing ten people armed with carapace armor and lasguns even though the thought of just one existing was enough to convince the man that killed a dragon there shouldn't be more than six alive.

 

Its relative. We don't think in terms of battle that the ancient Greeks, Baylonians, even Colonials think of. They didn't believe a battle could be fought the way we do. Many of them would refuse to fight that way because it would be "dishonorable".

 

40K takes both and throws it together into a blender. Then it takes "magic" and "daemons" and addsrkrgb it to the mix. What comes out is something that no one person can completely imagine. It takes several, dozens, hundreds even, of different viewpoints before we begin to see the whole of what is possible.

 

EDIT: Sure, the Romans had efficient organization. What about Attila the Hun and his barbarians?

This is a nuanced argument, but if you look at norms, that's more like organized criminal violence than state to state violence.

[Lucien Eilam]

And the idiotic way the militaries of 40K are organized makes suspension of disbelief impossible. You'd have single chapters holding back an entire chunk of the black legion, a World Eaters warband of 50 killing the population of a whole Hive City, a single regiment of infantry quashing a planet wide insurgency, and all the other stupid the studio thinks would be possible.

It's not hard science, military fiction.

You're essentially reading The Cattle Raid of Cooley like it was Larry Bond or something. How could Cú Chulainn kill hundreds, and with his feet on backwards too? "Idiot Irish!"

Or taking issue with Achilles single-handedly choking the Scamander with Trojan dead. "Homer was so stupid!"

Or Arjuna killing the armies of two kingdoms with his bow. "Vyasa must have been retarded!"

Or, maybe, it's just not the kind of story you've assumed it is, and using that sort of language to describe the authors is inappropriate.

[Marshal Rohr]

And the idiotic way the militaries of 40K are organized makes suspension of disbelief impossible. You'd have single chapters holding back an entire chunk of the black legion, a World Eaters warband of 50 killing the population of a whole Hive City, a single regiment of infantry quashing a planet wide insurgency, and all the other stupid the studio thinks would be possible.

It's not hard science, military fiction.

You're essentially reading The Cattle Raid of Cooley like it was Larry Bond or something. How could Cú Chulainn kill hundreds, and with his feet on backwards too? "Idiot Irish!"

Or taking issue with Achilles single-handedly choking the Scamander with Trojan dead. "Homer was so stupid!"

Or Arjuna killing the armies of two kingdoms with his bow. "Vyasa must have been retarded!"

Or, maybe, it's just not the kind of story you've assumed it is, and using that sort of language to describe the authors is inappropriate.

Really? A DB does a bang up job of it. The studio sucks. Simple as that. Also, Homer was lying. That's what's the emoticon is for.

[Kol Saresk]

 

I never said incomprehensible. I said "inconceivable", or "something outside the normal lines of thinking".

 

For example, knowing you and your writing style, you would never write a horde of Astartes charging a well-defended, albeit outnumbered, opposition that has artillery support. A D-B did. I would write that the super advanced tech still has load time, that it takes time for these super advanced computers to take time to load, that it wasn't instantaneous and as a result, if one were to use a weapon during power up, he just might need to use iron sights since the auto-targeting hasn't come online yet because priority is given to life support and motor functions.

 

You would write that a Space Marine needs a body glove to use power armor. Dan Abnett wrote that they Iron Snakes are completely clean shaven and have well-lotioned skin. I would write that my Chapter of the Veiled Warden wear ceremonial prayer robes under their armor and welcome the chafing and often have to have skin grafts after prolonged battles.

 

"Inconceivable" is relative, as is suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't blink twice if Cadmus and his six Spartoi charged through a group of sixty Imperial Guardsmen as long as it was allowable within the laws of the specific fictional universe. Someone else might have a problem of just one Spartoi killing ten people armed with carapace armor and lasguns even though the thought of just one existing was enough to convince the man that killed a dragon there shouldn't be more than six alive.

 

Its relative. We don't think in terms of battle that the ancient Greeks, Baylonians, even Colonials think of. They didn't believe a battle could be fought the way we do. Many of them would refuse to fight that way because it would be "dishonorable".

 

40K takes both and throws it together into a blender. Then it takes "magic" and "daemons" and addsrkrgb it to the mix. What comes out is something that no one person can completely imagine. It takes several, dozens, hundreds even, of different viewpoints before we begin to see the whole of what is possible.

 

EDIT: Sure, the Romans had efficient organization. What about Attila the Hun and his barbarians?

This is a nuanced argument, but if you look at norms, that's more like organized criminal violence than state to state violence.

Ah, so we go from efficient and highly organized to inefficient and disorganized, correct? And would you say a squad of World Eaters would act like an Imperial Fists squad? Even in the Heresy era? The answer is no. Why? Because the Imperial Fists would fight like a platoon of Colonial-era British while the World Eaters would fight like the Barbarians. Because the background says so. So would the World Eaters exist outside of your suspension of disbelief just because their idea of squad tactics is shouting "BLITZKRIEG!" while rushing the enemy?

 

Technically, so is A D-B. Both write epics and fables. Just because one wrote historical fiction while the other writes pure fiction doesn't mean one is a liar and the other isn't.

[Marshal Rohr]

I had written a comparison of the World Eaters to the Russians in WW 2 in another thread, if you recall my point. Basically the Russians just threw men into the grinder because their commanders, with a few exceptions, have historically been unfazed by casualties or incompetent.

[Kol Saresk]

Again, this whole new branch falls into the "My view does not equal yours". Your suspension of belief os not equal to mine. Doesn't make one better. However to say that something shouldn't exist because it defies yours, is a restriction on everyone else. Me personally, I don't care if a Space Wolf looks up at the Titan that is about to crush him underfoot and decides to stab it anyways. Others will because of the futility.

 

EDIT: They did the same thing in WW I IIRC. And it is something modern armies do not believe in. However, that analogy fits into your suspension of belief. Not mine.

[Marshal Rohr]

I'll just say it in plain English. A DB is a better writer than anyone in the studio. Because of that, his stuff gets a break. The studio gets no such luxury. They don't give a :cuss about the background and their ideas suck.

[Marshal Rohr]

Again, this whole new branch falls into the "My view does not equal yours". Your suspension of belief os not equal to mine. Doesn't make one better. However to say that something shouldn't exist because it defies yours, is a restriction on everyone else. Me personally, I don't care if a Space Wolf looks up at the Titan that is about to crush him underfoot and decides to stab it anyways. Others will because of the futility.

 

EDIT: They did the same thing in WW I IIRC. And it is something modern armies do not believe in. However, that analogy fits into your suspension of belief. Not mine.

When you analyze an event in international relations, you generally view things through certain lenses (schools). Some people look at the financial crisis and blame regulations, economics, politics, or cronyism. You've got someone who looks at WWI and say that it was caused by the nations inflexible mobilization schedules and another that will say WWI was caused by the construction of a self-fulfilling prophecy and not a violation of the balance of power. No one school/lens is better than another and they all provide explanations for events that are just as valid as any other.

 

FW and BL give us events to analyze and disagree on. The studio, on the other hand, is that idiot in every global issues seminar who thinks Lizard people control the central banks and aliens live among us. The events they provide are not believable. No one will seriously analyze a 9/11 truthers series of events.

 

 

Edit: also important to note, earlier you mentioned my writing style. My writing blows. I have no training in writing fiction. I normally bang out a rough draft and post it up without even spell checking. I'm not a fiction writer (I do very well on research and policy though).

[Kol Saresk]

Actually, I remembered your certain views on things and how you gave certain critiques and opinions and formulated that your writing style would include those opinion, views and critiques. No more, no less.

 

Oh, and genestealers do live among us. ;)

[Xenith]

I'll just say it in plain English. A DB is a better writer than anyone in the studio. Because of that, his stuff gets a break. The studio gets no such luxury. They don't give a about the background and their ideas suck.

Because one is a professional writer that plays games, and the others professional game players that occasionally have to write?

Cut some slack.

[Marshal Rohr]

I'll just say it in plain English. A DB is a better writer than anyone in the studio. Because of that, his stuff gets a break. The studio gets no such luxury. They don't give a about the background and their ideas suck.

Because one is a professional writer that plays games, and the others professional game players that occasionally have to write?

Cut some slack.

They can have some slack when they bring back the Index Astartes articles and stop writing such horrendous background.

[Tenebris]

Can we please return to the topic...?

 

M2C, do not bring on the chaos board your discontent for the Black Templars fiction. The "studio" actually gave us a Black Legion supplement which did a great attempt to rectify the thirteen Black Crusades and present Abaddon as a real warlord of chaos and not the iconic "Failbaddon". In this they have our most sentite thanks. We also got a new map which portrays how things are and actually how grim looks the whole Black Crusade thing from this perspective. Also in that same publication some primarchs were roused from dormancy and lack of page time and are slowly being mobilized directly or indirectly for the fight ahead.

 

To elaborate on the topic. We must be cognisant that we had many Black Legions not just one. It was the Black Legion at its beginnings, the Black Legion which launched the first Black Crusade and then past several more the Black Legion in M41 standard time, which is veritably a "black leviathan" as I use to call it, a tremendously powerful entity which can spell the doom of the galaxy. 

 

Said that we must also agree on the point that the Black Legion cannot be considered an Ultramarine equivalent. Never was a popular legion among players, it never got more presence and character as the "main villain" and knowing the Chaos community it was far, far from the first choice for the chaos army for many of us. It was "uneventful", it lacked character but much like the other factions in 40k it is evolving via the new material published. It is all to easy to blame the "studio" but really, in the past for those of us who remember a lore article in the White Dwarf was kinda a special event for it was rare. Nowadays Black Library, Forge World and Games Workshop have effectively tripled the amount of lore in the past few years and with this comes the characterization of a faction. 

 

Some factions get more spotlight, some are retconned, but all inevitably have to change. Also it is imperative that we are adamant on one thing, the target range for the 40k hobby was significantly lowered so we must accept that we are becoming an arcade rather than a hard core RPG and this is for the best. 

 

When I observe how things move one I cannot help but use the Skyrim analogy. Morrowind was a hard core RPG, it was a wave breaker, it was a stunning success. Oblivion followed in the steps of its predecessor and went a little more toward arcade since the target range again lowered. Skyrim is in its vanilla stage a quite arcade experience, a very easy and streamlined experience but if one thing is great is that it actually lives to its name as a sandbox game. Enter the community, with mods Skyrim can be tailored to ones individual taste, it can be hardcore, arcade, strange... how you like the game, you mod it. This is the case of Warhammer 40k. The studio has to provide a level playfield, a sandbox. It is on us to make it suit to our tastes. 

 

So in this process of evolution it is perfectly clear to me that much, much will change. But the freedom to play it as we wish, to experience the hobby on our own terms... it is very interesting to say the least. When it begun? 

 

It all begun with the 6th and the need to expand the lore in order to provide a better and more sandbox experience to the 40k players. Until then it was stale for two editions, the 4th and the 5th remarkably uneventful. But with the 7th, we are entering in a major update of Warhammer 40k and I expect most factions to be streamlined. 

[Marshal Rohr]

The studio is bad at everything. It's not just retcons. They suck at chaos, Orks, Eldar, tau, on and on ad infinitum. Their work is indefensible. The original question was when did people start viewing the Black legion as Mary Sues, and quite frankly, that's the studios fault. Always was and always will be. They will not improve. You can trace the growing discontent with how utterly unbelievable each faction is over the past few years. To be critical of the studio IS on topic, because it IS their fault.

[Bat33.1]

Again, this whole new branch falls into the "My view does not equal yours". Your suspension of belief os not equal to mine. Doesn't make one better. However to say that something shouldn't exist because it defies yours, is a restriction on everyone else. Me personally, I don't care if a Space Wolf looks up at the Titan that is about to crush him underfoot and decides to stab it anyways. Others will because of the futility.

 

EDIT: They did the same thing in WW I IIRC. And it is something modern armies do not believe in. However, that analogy fits into your suspension of belief. Not mine.

 

While it's not a way a modern western army would fight I can think of several examples of such tactics.

 

The British army accepted the destruction of several regiments to defend Dunkirk and Calais during WW2 'for the greater good' so to speak of rescuing the bulk of an army from France.

In fact it's not so long ago that Ho Chi Minh took the view that a war of attrition and the long war was more suited to his resources than the USA fully accepting they would pay a huge cost in manpower.

Also while they aren't organised armies as such many Jihadi groups are more than willing to sacrifice their own to inflict damage on the enemy but this is probably more inline with cultists than CSM.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Again, this whole new branch falls into the "My view does not equal yours". Your suspension of belief os not equal to mine. Doesn't make one better. However to say that something shouldn't exist because it defies yours, is a restriction on everyone else. Me personally, I don't care if a Space Wolf looks up at the Titan that is about to crush him underfoot and decides to stab it anyways. Others will because of the futility.

EDIT: They did the same thing in WW I IIRC. And it is something modern armies do not believe in. However, that analogy fits into your suspension of belief. Not mine.

 

 

While it's not a way a modern western army would fight I can think of several examples of such tactics.

 

The British army accepted the destruction of several regiments to defend Dunkirk and Calais during WW2 'for the greater good' so to speak of rescuing the bulk of an army from France.

In fact it's not so long ago that Ho Chi Minh took the view that a war of attrition and the long war was more suited to his resources than the USA fully accepting they would pay a huge cost in manpower.

Also while they aren't organised armies as such many Jihadi groups are more than willing to sacrifice their own to inflict damage on the enemy but this is probably more inline with cultists than CSM.

That's simply power calculation and knowing your enemies strengths and weaknesses. Gushing audience costs and the like.

[incinerator950]

Snip

[Wade Garrett]

Even with demons walking around with swords made of depressed thoughts and armor from the bones of teenagers in the friend zone, it's still a sword and it's still armor. They can be shot and they can die. Sure they have a scary face, but so do bears and sharks and we kill them all the same.

No?

 

I mean, different points of view, loose canon, my truth is not your truth, blah blah, but that's not how daemons work at all.

 

"They're just weird bears, more lasguns to the front" is how you get entire army groups eaten alive by the spawn of the Primordial Annihilator.

 

That's how they work on the table top, but fluffwise?

 

Fluffwise half your men have fallen to their knees and begun worshipping those...those...what are they, the rest are firing, useless, it's useless, the very air twists and screams at their passing, what are they, what are they, artillery on my position! Artillery fire on my position! Holy Throne of Terra, the shells do nothing! Those eyes....those faces...they come! They come! The commissar...he put the bolt pistol in his own mouth and he...he...ahhhhh! The aquila on my rank badge! It's melting! The light...where has the light gone...oh Emperor on Earth...their eyes...they see everything....call the Knights of Titan! Call the Kni....we praise the lord of seven hells, wherein the single serpent dwells. We praise the lord of blackened skies, his awful grace can never die...

[Iron Skull Mask]

The studio is bad at everything. It's not just retcons. They suck at chaos, Orks, Eldar, tau, on and on ad infinitum. Their work is indefensible. The original question was when did people start viewing the Black legion as Mary Sues, and quite frankly, that's the studios fault. Always was and always will be. They will not improve. You can trace the growing discontent with how utterly unbelievable each faction is over the past few years. To be critical of the studio IS on topic, because it IS their fault.

 

Is this some hyperbole I'm missing? I mean, it was the studio who developed the whole awesome 40k background in the first place. Also, "the studio" is not a great concept by itself, as people came and went over time. Finally, I dismiss the statement that '"it" will not improve' as an utterly nihilistic, not very bold assumption. Why are you still bothering with the game, or at least the lore (and threads where it is discussed) if that's really your creed?

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Even with demons walking around with swords made of depressed thoughts and armor from the bones of teenagers in the friend zone, it's still a sword and it's still armor. They can be shot and they can die. Sure they have a scary face, but so do bears and sharks and we kill them all the same.

No?

I mean, different points of view, loose canon, my truth is not your truth, blah blah, but that's not how daemons work at all.

"They're just weird bears, more lasguns to the front" is how you get entire army groups eaten alive by the spawn of the Primordial Annihilator.

That's how they work on the table top, but fluffwise?

Fluffwise half your men have fallen to their knees and begun worshipping those...those...what are they, the rest are firing, useless, it's useless, the very air twists and screams at their passing, what are they, what are they, artillery on my position! Artillery fire on my position! Holy Throne of Terra, the shells do nothing! Those eyes....those faces...they come! They come! The commissar...he put the bolt pistol in his own mouth and he...he...ahhhhh! The aquila on my rank badge! It's melting! The light...where has the light gone...oh Emperor on Earth...their eyes...they see everything....call the Knights of Titan! Call the Kni....we praise the lord of seven hells, wherein the single serpent dwells. We praise the lord of blackened skies, his awful grace can never die...

If that is truly the case, how can anyone stop them?

 

The studio is bad at everything. It's not just retcons. They suck at chaos, Orks, Eldar, tau, on and on ad infinitum. Their work is indefensible. The original question was when did people start viewing the Black legion as Mary Sues, and quite frankly, that's the studios fault. Always was and always will be. They will not improve. You can trace the growing discontent with how utterly unbelievable each faction is over the past few years. To be critical of the studio IS on topic, because it IS their fault.

 

 

Is this some hyperbole I'm missing? I mean, it was the studio who developed the whole awesome 40k background in the first place. Also, "the studio" is not a great concept by itself, as people came and went over time. Finally, I dismiss the statement that '"it" will not improve' as an utterly nihilistic, not very bold assumption. Why are you still bothering with the game, or at least the lore (and threads where it is discussed) if that's really your creed?

I am more than happy to qualify that as the 'current' studio team. Hardly anyone is left from when the setting was created or it's golden age in 3rd.

[Chaeron]

Perhaps the Crimson Slaughter was created to make the Black Legion cool and niche again?

[Wade Garrett]

Re: If that is truly the case, how can anyone stop them?

 

At great personal cost, with faith that can move mountains, a will more unbreakable than adamantite, and courage that does not shrink from the gates of Hell.

 

Or you could play on easy mode by being a Chaos immune supersoldier wizard knight wearing armor to make you even more Chaos immune and carrying weapons that instagib daemons. That works too. :p

[incinerator950]

Modify Sonic blasters to play the brown note.

[Chaeron]

Snip

 

It's okay, someone already snapped in the thread!

 

I can see the correlation - but I feel that both sides have strong enough core chapters that it doesn't become an overriding concern. I honestly don't even see that many Ultramarines armies as is - let alone the rarer Black Legion beast!

[Xenith]

If that is truly the case, how can anyone stop them?

And boom, you have hit upon the entire thrust of the background to the 40k universe.

[Kastor Krieg]

 

If that is truly the case, how can anyone stop them?

And boom, you have hit upon the entire thrust of the background to the 40k universe.

 

This, because that description by Wade hits the grimdark right on the nail. *slow clap*