Character Deaths

[Volt]

 

Anybody and everybody who has completed their character arcs or is simply a waste of space. Everybody from Marneus Calgar to Bjorn is up for axing, the only person who shouldn't die is Guilliman as an unfortunately integral part of the setting now, but there is no need to grant immortality to any Imperial or Xenos character beyond a few linchpins.

 

No, that's silly and serves no purpose.

 

Of course it serves a purpose. Characters are not immortal and need to suffer the realistic effects of being soldiers in a highly attritional war so suspension of disbelief is not ruined. Warhammer has veritably turned into Marvel thanks to the sheer amount of plot-armored immortal superhumans running about that never suffer any real consequences for their actions and manage to escape any situation. Marneus Calgar should be dead thrice over by this point.

[Bung]

Well charakter deaths should happen and still could be saved for gameing purpose.

I never understood why GW didnt do historical army lists in 40k like the did for Warhammer Ancient Battles.

 

Leave the Heresy alone as it is a stand alone game.

But for SM as example you could start with second founding Armylist.

Remove everything that was there at the time like Razorbacks, Land Raider Variants etc. give them access to some Heresy Tanks and Chapter Masters liek Pollux for Crimson Fists (just an example).

If you move forward you lose some stuff and get some stuff until you are at the actuall timeline.

 

So you could pick an army list of the time where your favorite character is alive, that may give you some restrictions but it would fit into the "historical" 40k setting.

[Gederas]

Anybody and everybody who has completed their character arcs or is simply a waste of space. Everybody from Marneus Calgar to Bjorn is up for axing, the only person who shouldn't die is Guilliman as an unfortunately integral part of the setting now, but there is no need to grant immortality to any Imperial or Xenos character beyond a few linchpins.

No, that's silly and serves no purpose.

Of course it serves a purpose. Characters are not immortal and need to suffer the realistic effects of being soldiers in a highly attritional war so suspension of disbelief is not ruined. Warhammer has veritably turned into Marvel thanks to the sheer amount of plot-armored immortal superhumans running about that never suffer any real consequences for their actions and manage to escape any situation. Marneus Calgar should be dead thrice over by this point.

Pretty much yeah. Dante even BEGS for Death in Devastation of Baal (after getting 13 mortal wounds from the Swarmlord.... Yeah, I don't get that either) and a vision of Sanguinius basically goes "lolnope, sorry. Your end isn't here yet"

 

[Overwhelming Odds]

Dante needs to join Death Company...I have waited patiently long enough...

 

 

V/r,

 

Dan

[Nova_Dew]

Games Workshop shouldn’t worry about killing characters because it’s a setting and not a story. Calgar dies crossing the Rubicon? That just means if you love Calgar you’re playing games from when he was alive. Tycho may be dead, but you can still play games with him without any issue whatsoever.

honestly wish Tycho was left to the index, he's dead and gone, he's now taking up 2 entries in the dex that could have been used for something else like some one new, or more awesome art, i'd be happy with either, they could have brought back a not Cleutin (BA's have lost two charecters over the dex's, think they're the highest and then the DA with their banner bearer from codex: AoD) and had a Primaris Sang Guard anchient with Caraeus and some awesome art of him... would have been a nice throw back

[Cap'm Heckus]

I'd love to see some characters permanently bite the dust.

 

One of the (many) problems with GW's lore-writing when it comes to campaigns is the lack of any real consequences; duels cease to matter because we know that neither will perish, worlds cease to matter because we know they aren't going to change hands. This wouldn't necessarily be an issue if they utilised their sandbox more effectively, but when GW insists on having the same old faces appear again and again it turns into an ever-present pillar of the setting and makes the universe feel small. Permanent deaths can help alter that, and their models/rules can still be usable for historical games, ala Tycho.

 

Example: I'd loved to have seen Calgar, rather than crossing the Rubicon, die at the hands of Abaddon holding Vigilus in the face of unstoppable odds. This would have

• Boosted Abaddon's stock, letting him kill an icon of the setting
• Brought a conclusion to Calgar's arc in the context of new Primaris history (see his internal monologue in Dark Imperium)
• Allow for a new Primaris Chapter Master to rise and lead the UM into a new era
• Provided an example of a Pyrrhic victory with real, tangible consequences
• Been genuinely shocking for the fanbase

Where killing off a character may become problematic, however, is where factions only have a single special character with a model - is it fair to kill a character who has been the most prominent (sometimes, the only prominent) representative of an army for years/decades? Fans may feel aggrieved, even if the exit is done well, and any replacement character will not have the history behind them that their predecessor had. This is especially notable with someone like Calgar who has been a fixture since the very beginning. I disagree strongly with this stance but understand why some people hold it.

 

As for the Rubicon: no character will die crossing the Rubicon. GW doesn't really kill people off as is, so you can bet that they aren't going to kill someone off-screen.

They did exactly this with Creed (as far as anyone knows) and Kell. Hell, for that matter, all of Cadia. Curious to see where the AM goes when they finally get back to advancing their story.

[Panzer]

 

Games Workshop shouldn’t worry about killing characters because it’s a setting and not a story. Calgar dies crossing the Rubicon? That just means if you love Calgar you’re playing games from when he was alive. Tycho may be dead, but you can still play games with him without any issue whatsoever.

honestly wish Tycho was left to the index, he's dead and gone, he's now taking up 2 entries in the dex that could have been used for something else like some one new, or more awesome art, i'd be happy with either, they could have brought back a not Cleutin (BA's have lost two charecters over the dex's, think they're the highest and then the DA with their banner bearer from codex: AoD) and had a Primaris Sang Guard anchient with Caraeus and some awesome art of him... would have been a nice throw back

 

 

There's no limit on Datasheets that can be included in a Codex. If Tycho where left to the index the Codex would simply have two less Datasheets, that's all.

[Malios]

Named characters are a double edged sword.

 

Earlier editions had far fewer named characters (those that were named were often just a generic character with one different wargear item and limited choice etc) and the named chapters were intentionally left vague to allow the collector / hobbyist / player to fill in the blanks.

 

5th edition seemed to change this with GW clamping down hard on "the first foundings" and a few of the more prominent successors. They fleshed them out, gave them defined structure and threw named characters out as sometimes essential must haves for the army. This gave a fair amount of character, but it also took away lots of character that the vague outlines provided before.

 

Thats not to say that I had a problem with named characters from the 5th-7th edition era: the almost forced need to buy said named characters and the countless, half-assed proxies of said characters yes, but I didn't have a problem with them.

 

However, such worked for the then static setting that was 40k: things are different now. Progressive settings need storylines that progress: characters live and die, rise and retire. Age of Sigmar initially had the right idea of giving narrative names to generic character profiles so that characters could come and go. 40k seems to have done the opposite and over-valued their historic named characters: some of which should be long gone.

 

This isn't me saying that "all of the old must go." But at the same time this isn't me saying "all of the old must become Primaris to survive the narrative progression" either. There is a charm about an old hero, sticking it out in a galaxy where they are obsolete yet still achieving what "the new breeds" cannot. Just as there is a charm about the new generation taking the mantle from the old guard to continue the legacy.

 

Maybe GW insists on keeping old characters transformed into Primaris to justify to themselves that this is still the same 40k as it was back in 2nd edition. Who knows. But from this hobbyist's perspective, it certainly isn't: in some ways for the better, in other ways for the worse.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Malios

[Felix Antipodes]

For me it all comes down to the 'logical' deaths. GW should have sat down and identified the named characters that weren't going to see the other side of a ~200 year advance in the storyline (mainly human and T'au) and dropped their fates into the various campaign books like Vigilus and PA series as a passing comment.

 

For the functionality immortal characters (Astartes, Aildari, Orks, Chaos) there is no reason to bump them off unless it adds to the storyline being pursued at the time. Let's face it, there have were lots of named Astartes characters lost when the rift opened (over half the Chapters unheard from). They just didn't have a dedicated model.

[jaxom]

A fun little game; if you had to choose three special character - one to keep in lore/rules, one to kill in lore/remove, one to change in lore/rules- who would you choose?

 

Keep - Ghazkull, the prime-ork himself.

 

Kill - Sergeant Chronos. What does he bring to anything?

 

Change - Dante, make him go out like a boss and of course the Blood Angels are like, “Nooooo!” So they put him in the most blinged out dreadnought ever.

[Brother Tyler]

I merged the "Keep, kill, change" topic with the "Character Deaths" topic - they're the same basic discussion (albeit, with a small twist).

[Panzer]

A fun little game; if you had to choose three special character - one to keep in lore/rules, one to kill in lore/remove, one to change in lore/rules- who would you choose?

 

Keep - Ghazkull, the prime-ork himself.

 

Kill - Sergeant Chronos. What does he bring to anything?

 

Change - Dante, make him go out like a boss and of course the Blood Angels are like, “Nooooo!” So they put him in the most blinged out dreadnought ever.

 

Hah, I can do that even within the same subfaction! :P 

 

Keep - Mephiston for various reasons.

Kill - Lemartes. I don't think he adds anything to the background since he's kept in stasis for most of the time anyway. It's a good thing he got created but he doesn't have to stay around.

Change - Dante/Sanguinor. Make him go out like a boss and have the Sanguinor merge with him to save him (we know they have a special connection for some reason)

 

Justification for the Dante/Sanguinor thing would be based on the new Dante novel.

In that one it gets revealed that there are two warp entities, a bright angel and a black angel, fighting against eachother constantly even before Blood Angels existed. Mephiston is the avatar of the black angel. Sanguinor is even more than that. He has fully given himself to the bright angel and basically become him. If Mephiston would do the same he'd basically destroy the Blood Angels and more so he's merely channeling it to give it some form of release. The bright angel is also starting to lose the fight so it would make sense for him to look for help/power up/replacement. Who would be better than this over 1500 years old Chapter Master of the Blood Angels who's already constantly running around in gold armour and with the face of Sanguinius himself.

It would also kinda solve the mystery of Sanguinius' vision of the golden figure standing on the steps of the palace on Terra during the last fight when the forces of chaos and the 'great hunger from the east' clash there, and whether it's the Sanguinor or Dante or something else (definitely not a Custodes since Dante would have recognized those).