Lifespans in dataslates

[NiceGuyAdi]

Something that’s been rolling around in my head of late. What if characters’/units’ lifespans/dates of service were introduced into their dataslates?

 

The 40k setting has come to encompass a huge timespan from, what, the end of the scouring to whatever point we’re at with the advancing of the setting? Yet every named character in the setting seems to be an honorary perpetual.

 

I’d love to see GW heroically/gruesomely killing their darlings in the fluff. But at the moment that sort of cheapens their having a current model/ruleset in the game. Having a set time in which they exist could free this up.

 

It’s something that would be broadly ignored in matched play, but could be great for open/narrative games. Playing in M37? No super mega plasma weaponry? M42: forget about Creed. Thoughts?

[Charlo]

Another level of unnecessary book keeping, at least in my opinion.

 

Usually the people that would want to play these super strict fluffy games would know all the information anyway, so it's not of much benefit.

 

Not to mention some of the specifics may not even be covered by the lore - 40k is at its best when everything is and isn't cannon.

[Bryan Blaire]

I think you’d be running afoul of the purposeful “We don’t really know exactly what date we’re at in the timeline” concept GW introduced with the Chronostrife/Guilliman’s pie in the sky dream of having an accurate calendar of events/the active work of the Inquisition, etc.

 

Even GW itself has stopped putting the little date notations for events in the Codexes, falling back on the M37-39 type notation.

 

It just seems like the idea of putting dates into data slates is somewhat the inverse of what GW is aiming for right now.

[Shinespider]

Agree with above - that level of precision isn't just unnecessary, it's antithetical. This is exactly that sort of thing that GW likes to leave deliberately vague.

 

The only thing that you really accomplish by providing such precise information is to incubate a segment of the fanbase who takes such dates very seriously and throws a hissy fit whenever some minor inconsistency arises. It's not worth it. 

[NiceGuyAdi]

Hmmm, perhaps I’m trying to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, here.

 

I still believe it would do the setting good to have the permanent death of a treasured character once in a while, though.

[Halandaar]

Another level of unnecessary book keeping, at least in my opinion.

 

Usually the people that would want to play these super strict fluffy games would know all the information anyway, so it's not of much benefit.

 

I don't think it would hurt to include the information, although maybe in the unit descriptions earlier in the books, rather than in the dataslates themselves. Make it a purely optional narrative play guideline, rather than a proper part of the rules.

[Halandaar]

Hmmm, perhaps I’m trying to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, here.

 

I think Charlo is right in saying that the sort of people who want to include this level of detail in their games will already build that way without any prompting from GW.

 

That said, there are still a handful of discrepancies, in spite of GWs "Chronostrife" fudge to try and make it all plausible. I mean, Colour Sergeant Kell should not share a battlefield with the Ynnari, or Guilliman (or indeed any Primaris units at all), because in narrative terms he dies in the events directly preceding The Fracture of Biel'Tan, which in turn precedes Guilliman's awakening. 

 

These instances where we know for certain it's not possible are admittedly few and far between.

[Panzer]

The Datasheets are strictly crunch. Such informations would be something for the fluff section and not for Datasheets.

[KhorneHunter57x]

Also, keep in mind that the nature of Warp travel can (somewhat) throw such things out the window.

[Trevak Dal]

Regarding Dataslates, does anybody else transcribe the points costs on them too? I hate flipping back and forth and the first couple of days I just wrote points costs on standard unit sizes (for units I have) and the options.

[Endova]

Early/Mid/Late war works in games like Flames of War because the forces involved gain vastly more power as military technology improves over the course of the war, so keeping everyone on a level playing field makes sense. GW can't even maintain balance or write good rules for one time period, let alone over the course of 10,000 years.

 

However, I would possibly be in favor of a system like this just so I could justifiably play games without worthless stupid Primaris Marines. So like, the circa M.23 to M.40 era, with a new M.41+ era for new releases? Still, I'd hate for their to be more restrictions on non-Space Marine players can use just because GW things up with Primaris Marines.

 

I think overall 30k vs. 40k works well enough, and players can reach gentlemen's agreements over excluding certain troublesome units.

[Vykes]

It's an idea but I would rather it just get some passing mentions as a 'general' statement in the big, fat, ungainly codecii unit pages rather than the trimmed down dataslate section.  I know that I'd be interested in it from a passive perspective, but as mentioned, time-lines for characters and units are often something that the players that want to be in the know, already are aware of.  And for other players, I'm not gonna be able to convince them anyway.  

 

I mean, we've got 30K vs. 40K as the general time-delinerator for the moment: and while I'm 100% happy to scrap the whole blasted Codex Evil Gribbly Spiky Marines and Friends for the Space Marine book with traitor legion chapter tactics in it, Word Bearers were already 40King it up about a decade before the Heresy happened.  A lot of concepts and units originate in one form or another at one point and aren't widely introduced until much later, and some inexplicably vanish entirely.  While I'd like to port over a few units and such from the former to the later, I have one fear: I utterly fear and loath that I'd be further restricted in my unit choices just because I want to play my M.30-31 'Early War' period army in the M.32-M.40 time period that I.... -sighs and takes the plunge- honestly just don't care about.  Glad I have M.42 to get me interested in the neo-narrative side of things again.  

 

Bleh, anyway, I don't want to further fracture my gaming group into time periods.  And unfortunately, from what I've seen, a lot of 'GW gaming suggestions' get taken for GW gaming dogma' where there is only one way to play if you're serious and committed to the hobby.  I really just don't want to lose players or get drawn into a corner based on something like that when i could just make a short campaign of it instead.  To that end, I'd really enjoy some more 'Historical Battle' pages getting released on the Community Website/White Dwarf/here/etc (like the old White Dwarf Warhammer Fantasy War of the Beard list).  Seems like a nice compromise.