Growing weary of the 8th edition lore

[Marshal Rohr]

Those are all examples of fluff we all railed against and YOU defended. FOR YEARS. we can always do a forum search if you try and deny it. It was YOU leading the charge for those being cool things. Don’t sit here and try and play it off now.

[Ishagu]

I LIKE those things! lol

I'm just pointing out that nothing has actually changed in terms of larger than life characters.

[Marshal Rohr]

Those were changes. Those were :cuss changes to the lore. Don’t feed me that’s how it always was bull :cuss.

[Ishagu]

Well, it's been like that since 5th edition. That's almost 10 years of this lore.

2008 was when Calgar held the gate against the Ork horde by himself for a full day, with a mountain of green bodies the only thing left of the Xenos at the end of it. It may have been earlier than that, actually?

[Marshal Rohr]

Whatever man. You’re fundamentally missing the :cuss point. Probably intentionally because you know you’re wrong.

[Knight of the Raven]

I can see the point of both Ishagu and the people unhappy with the changes. One one hand, I once mentioned that I felt going to a universe and demanding its themes to be changed to suit my tastes to be distasteful (not saying Ishagu demanded anything, he struck me as "I wish this would happen and lo and behold, it happened"), on the other hand, I fully believe a thing such as 'darkness-induced apathy,' to use a TVTropes term, exists so I can see why some people would be sick of there being no hope ever, regardless of how essential that theme is to the setting.

 

Then again, I also believe there's a 'the good guys won AGAIN audience apathy,' so yeah.

[Corswain]

That is nothing new; Let's not forget Aba - "it's all a part of the plan" - ddon.

Every "Failed" great Crusade was actually a success, and he's so mentally strong that thousands of years in the warp haven't corrupted his soul and he's still a free agent.

Heck, even Guilliman hasn't managed these feats :-P

40k has always been filled with larger than life super heroes/villains. Before Guilliman, it was Calgar who single-handedly beat the Eldar Avatar in combat and personally killed thousands of Orks in a single battle. Have we forgotten Draigo waking around the warp, burning down Nurgle's garden? The examples go on.

True. But I think those are all pretty bad examples of fluff. It’s just been a bit heavier than usual since the launch of 8th. We’ve had a lot of cheese in a very short amount of time.

 

I also know you are a big Ultramarine/Guilliman fan and would like to say that my objection is not really to the character of Guilliman. I’d be equally as disappointed if it was the Lion or (insert any Primarch name here) who came back and did all the exact same things.

[Gentlemanloser]

Draigo's fluff was and still is ridiculous.  It's up there with "We must cover ourselves in the blood of warp innune Sister to stop the blood taint" of what were you smoking when you wrteo that Ward, and who the heck let you actually publish it...

 

There was a *small* glimmer of hope GW wanted to raign this back in with the tiny comment about a corrupted Marine in silver armour.

 

But nope.  With our new Codex, Draigo wasn't in a fever dream.  He did;

 

Refoge his Nemesis Weapon from a broken Daemon Weapon with his bare hands

Burn down Nurgles garden

Killed Slannesh's favoured hand maidens

Killed Khornes champions

Made every Daemon in the warp *scared* of him

 

Over and over again, without being stopped.

 

Yeah.  Who needs Bobby G now that Abbadons 'greatest victory' has given Draigo the ability to show up where and when he wants from the rift.

 

Own goal Abby.

[Brother Casman]

Well, I'm not surprised to see this particular thread turn out the way it did. *glares at everyone* The =][= is watching...

 

Anyway, from a meta-story standpoint, I'm seeing some similarities between the current 40k fluff and the just past AoS fluff: new heroes come to save the day, and push back the darkness a little bit. They succeed, and bring some hope to the setting. Wait a little while, and now AoS is ramping up some Malign Portents, with the tagline "The Age of Hope is Dead". Clearly things are taking a turn for the dark again.

 

So, with that in mind, I have an inkling that regardless of how you feel about the current 40k fluff, it will eventually take a turn for the worse. I'd speculate on what could happen, but ultimately I don't know.

[Corswain]

now AoS is ramping up some Malign Portents, with the tagline "The Age of Hope is Dead". Clearly things are taking a turn for the dark again.

 

So, with that in mind, I have an inkling that regardless of how you feel about the current 40k fluff, it will eventually take a turn for the worse.

Good point and I dearly hope so. It would be a big improvement, in my opinion. I’m sure GW has a long-term game plan and, regardless of my opinions on the current state of things, I’m excited to see what they do.

[DuskRaider]

The new fluff is often written like GW gave a 10 year old a box of pixie sticks and mainlined maple syrup directly into his veins than had him scrawl down his thoughts.

 

I have no issue with Cawl being 10,000 years old and being in hiding or whatever. I don't even have a problem with Guilliman returning, it was always said he was suspended, not dead. However, the way it was pulled off was heavy handed and ill conceived.

 

Not to mention once Rowboat returns, he handwaviums the Chaos threat away, successfully wrests power from the High Lords without incident, and goes on a hundred year crusade that's only vaguely mentioned and serves to just show how cool he is. That's half of the Great Crusade, just casually skipped over with no real loss.

 

Primaris Marines were another embarassment. I get the idea that GW wanted to scale Marines up to the rest of the game and try to cash in on the true scale craze, it's understandable. However, instead of just releasing larger basic kit Marines and saying, "Hey, we've rescaled Astartes to be their true size, they're compatible with all the upgrades etc. that we and FW have released, go wild", they ham fisted this dumb idea of three new organs or whatever making Marines +1 bigger sized and just better. Their tech is also ridiculous in an age where everything is failing... one guy isn't going to turn the tide of Imperial technological regression, either through the Mechanicum's religious zealotry to dying tech or overall implementation among the thousands of Forge Worlds who often times are only vaguely associated with one another.

 

Don't even get me started on the abortion that is Kaldor Draigo. What should have been completely retconned from a dark era in the game has been built upon.

 

Gone are the days of the valiant hero inspiring his men to run forward into glory only to get cut down... of entire planets being left for dead due to a misplaced decimal point... of entire battalions of Guard bravely fending off the Chaos threat only to be exterminated by the Imperium for being exposed to Chaos... we are in the age of NobleBright now.

 

HOWEVER... we as the player have the ability to change this, at least on a personal level. We create our own armies, we run our own campaigns... hell, we make entirely new games like Inquisimunda that keep the old feel alive. I've seen more creativity come out of the community than I've seen from the actual company in years.

[Guest Triszin]

for the sake of the lore, and plot. I regretfully think that Grimnar needs to die.

 

I agree with calderson and many others, the lack of impact, the lack of something being at stake is in dire need.

 

right now everything feels like a blip on the emotional radar, its not registering as important or necessary.

 

THere should be sacrifices, and there should be conflicts even if its a mental debate that a marine or a inquisitor must walk through to reach an outcome that they see no other way forward and must choose that outcome.

[Gentlemanloser]

I'm waiting for the inevitable Logan v Draigo showdown.

 

Where Logan beheads him before Draigo as a chance to draw the Titansword!

 

;)

[RapatoR]

Clickig at this thread I thought I will see similar gripes I have with the lore, but I see the things had taken a different turn. I will try to say my part - I think the new lore is not as good as in the older codices (and I don't think it is due to selective memory as I read some of the older source material fairly recently) but my gripes lie in two things - lets call them 'heroics' and 'numbers' and they can be summarized as followed: Why I need to know this hero killed six helldrakes? I frankly consider this parts of lore to be fairly useless as it tells nothing about the character and therefore for me has basically zero infomational value. I mean, those heroes are supposed to be superb commanders/thinkers/tacticians and yet we had Logan going off one on one against bloodthirster. I would MUCH rather see a scene where he organised taking it down, piece by piece, using wolf pack tactic, rather than "yeah I am going to cross the blades fair and square with this monstrosity".

 

Now this thing has been significantly toned down recently, and it was even straight up suggested in IG codexes that these 'heroics' are half-truths blown out of proportion by imperial propaganda, butin my book they will not be missed when/if they are gone.

 

Now, the other thing that lot of folks are confused by is the perspective.

 

Imagine a sinking ship full of holes. Now the camera follows the guy who runs around desperately runing around, pluging the holes. Hardly anyone would say the guy is sucessfully saving the ship just because the camera is on him. Context is very important, although I agree the executikn of the story could be better. However that doesn't change the fact the galaxy is perhaps in the worst state since the Age of Strife.

 

My personal (and uninformed) view is that in this stage where the lore is "moving forward", the "models first" rule inhibits a lot of things that could potentially be done and I would prefer to switching to "lore first" or "discussion first".

 

In my mind for example, it would make much more sense if that primaris thing was given to SoB. They are much better integrated into imperial structure and there is already milions of them. Give them some genetic improvements (they don't even need to be mirrors of space marine ones, you can make up completely new ones), improved tech and boom you have galaxy saving force that doesn't need to appear out of nowhere, is distinctive from marines, and also happens to update most ancient model line.

 

 

Edit: Oh and before I forget, there are loeads of awesome lore in current codices, it's just noone pays attention to them. (Phosphex STC destruction, anyone?)

[Gentlemanloser]

Who cares if a STC is destroyed.

 

Cawl probably has 1000 better versions of it made and in storage.

[RapatoR]

Who cares if a STC is destroyed.

 

Cawl probably has 1000 better versions of it made and in storage.

 

The story is not about STC (which server as a context) but... okay I guess?

[Gentlemanloser]

What as destroyed in that story?

 

That's the issue atm.  Who cares if your homewolrd is destroyed, you just relocate to the next planet.  Who cares if most of your chapter is destroyed, Bobby G gifts you better replacements.

 

Same with STCs and equipment.  Cawl has improved on the holy Boltgun.  He has improved the humble Plasmagun.  I'm sure he's responsible for the better Gravis armour as well.  We can't make anything new, we don't have the holy STCs for it.

 

Oh hello new Dreads and Tanks, made by Cawl.

 

I'm just surprised he hasn't 'fixed' or just made a new Golden Throne...

 

But with Bobby G running round as basically the Emperor, we don't really need the old guy back.

[Knight of the Raven]

I would MUCH rather see a scene where he organised taking it down, piece by piece, using wolf pack tactic, rather than "yeah I am going to cross the blades fair and square with this monstrosity".

I'd like to say this is because the writers think ultimate showdowns of ultimate destiny are cool, but my opinion of them is far too low to even entertain the notion of giving them the benefit of the doubt, so instead I'll say it's because they're so tactically and strategically inept that they would snatch crushing defeat from the jaws of unavoidable victory in anything resembling a real battle and therefore don't even know where to start when it comes to doing what you wish you'd read.

 

(Note: I'm at least as militarily inept as this.)

 

I've thought about this topic some more as I walked since I last posted and my conclusion is that I'm also growing weary of the current lore... but not solely because of it.

 

One: I'm still reeling from the squatting of Warhammer Fantasy in favor of shoving not-space-marines-honest down my throat, so seeing more space marines hogging the spotlight even harder leaves me very salty. The certainty of old marines being phased out of existence because of faster, better, stronger^TM marines, which would have left me rolling on the floor laughing before the End Times, does the opposite of soothing me.

 

Two: even if Guilliman had been the best-written, most captivating character in past, present and future history, the treatment of the Horus Heresy outside of, maybe, Forge World's black books, leaves me just tired whenever I think of primarchs. And that's without Dan Abnett leaving stains all over the place.

 

Three: chapters being besieged and broken, which fit the universe and the hints it gave us if the setting were to advance, come off only as excuses to ensure a Primaris-only future.

 

On its own, I don't find the lore of 8th edition impressive, quite the opposite in fact. But I had been feeling the same about much of the lore for a long time. With the things surrounding "the new Warhammer 40,000" though, I'm feeling nervous when before I just shrugged and went back to faffing about with toy soldiers.

[Corswain]

So I think it’s safe to say we’re all happy that Age of Darkness will be out soon :)

 

Love that this thread has managed to stay open and let people have a bit of a vent. I needed it....

[m_r_parker]

Yikes - some people are getting openly hostile! Let’s all take a sec or two and chill...

 

Personally I’m not fond of the new lore, and a lot of it is down to ‘Here’s a load of new Primaris marines’ and how it’s all been introduced. I don’t blame the writers per-se, they’ve been handed a poisoned chalice in trying to justify GW sales. New Primaris sculpts were made, either because they wanted to re-scale the miniatures, or because corporate wanted a new batch of big sales, and the writers were left to try and explain everything. No doubt they were also told that all chapters (including well established chapters) should be able to use them, and even have chapters of nothing but Primaris - so we have the situation where Cawl comes out of 10k years of isolation with the equivalent of a Legions worth of improved marines. That sits badly with me, seeing as many chapters have been reduced to nothing or even destroyed, with little to take their place as the Imperium comes under threat from numerous directions. Those Primaris could have been very handy during those Tyranid invasions, replacing the losses during the badab war, or even reinforcing against Abaddons Black Crusades. The fact that every Chapter Master simply takes a knee and accepts Guillman and the new Marine+ also feels like writing in the requirement that any person playing any chapter can / should buy new Primaris kits.

 

I’d much rather see some more literature about how the Primaris and regular Marines interact on a day-to-day basis as well as on a battlefield, as well as some of the turmoil that some of the more divergent chapters have at accepting them int their ranks. At the moment it feels very Oprah, in that “You get Primaris marines, you get Primaris marines, you get Primaris marines too...” without there being a downside.

[BadSanta]

I despise the changes in Lore 8th edition bringed to us so much what I stop ever to read anything W40K and GW related for almost half a year.

 

The 8ed Rulebook still collects dust on my shelf, still unread (I don't even bother myself to browse it).

 

OP has written what he got weary but I myself almost give up the hobby altogether because of 8ed.

 

Right now I still can't decide to assemble or paint something from my stash. I've already 100% sure what I'll pass 8ed altogether. Don't sure about future (if any) editions of W40K.

[Mileposter]

I wasn't playing the game in 5th or 6th edition, where some of the really big and cool things that people talk fondly about occurred. I can't speak to it, so I won't try. I do know several people who enjoyed those things. But that was years ago. A different time. A different king. It's very possible those who went through those releases may have to come to grips with a concept that eludes many of the older Star Wars fans: You aren't the target audience anymore. What worked then may not work now. Be kind to your new generation of players.

 

The people in the hobby and the attitudes they exhibit - such as how they treat their fellow hobbyists in threads like these - would be what drives me away from the hobby before any change in lore. "Lore first" means nothing in a game that take more than one person to play when the treatment by those who disagree is... Well.

 

40k is the people you play it with, not the models on the table.

[Knight of the Raven]

The fact that every Chapter Master simply takes a knee and accepts Guillman and the new Marine+ also feels like writing in the requirement that any person playing any chapter can / should buy new Primaris kits.

I'm certain there's someone in Games Workshop who genuinely believes that "if you don't like Primaris, you are a bad person."

 

 You aren't the target audience anymore.

That's the crux of the matter as far as I'm concerned, but it's not a truth that's easy to accept.

 

And then there's tact. Being told you've grown obsolete with a cheeky "thanks for all the money, though" is never a nice thing to hear, but then there's treating your previous customers like wallets to be used as toilet paper once emptied...

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

I think the main problem GW has is that the lore is really looking at events through rose-tinted glasses (the fault of the studio writers, I surmise): you have a Primarch returning with these fancy new super soldiers, and winning all these battles and pushing back Chaos and saving the day literally everywhere! How noblebright!

 

Except, if you take a step back, it's pretty obvious that the writers can just as easily stick to the overall setting and NOT look at it through the studio writers' rose-tinted glasses. What do you get then? Cadia has fallen. The Imperium has been cut in half, with millions of planets outright cut off from the Imperium and probably collapsing into anarchy/eaten by xenos/etc. and thousands more systems have been literally consumed by the warp. Guilliman running around with his magnificent blueberry legion saving the day? Who cares! He's trying to stop a flood with a bucket. For every system he saves, 10 more have already been eaten by daemons/other assorted Bad Things.

 

The grimdarkness is absolutely still in the setting (one could even argue it's even more grimdark)- we just need some more authors to show us that side of it. Shroud of Night was the first 8th edition novel I read and I thought it did a pretty good job of showing how things are when you're 99/100 Imperial worlds on the other side of the Crimson Path and Guilliman and his crusade AREN'T there to save you.

 

As an aside, I thought the way they handled Primaris was kind of dumb and not really necessary, but whatever- they're cool models. 

[AdamR]

 

The people in the hobby and the attitudes they exhibit - such as how they treat their fellow hobbyists in threads like these - would be what drives me away from the hobby before any change in lore. "Lore first" means nothing in a game that take more than one person to play when the treatment by those who disagree is... Well.

 

 

 

So much this.

TBH, I know moaning about moaning on the internet makes me the lowest of the low, and if I don't like it I can not read it, but the attitude of some posters on this thread really does leave me speechless.

 

I have been playing regularly since 3rd ed. For sure there have been times when I was less keen on the background, and times when I thought it was better, but never with this level of vitriol.

 

Full disclosure, sweet spot for me was probably 3rd-4th ed, but that's probably because that's when I really got involved in the hobby.

I prefer the current stuff to most of the last 2 editions worth though.