State of Health for Grimdark in Warhammer 40,000

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Good morning folks!

 

A consistent theme in innumerable great comments on DakkaDakka forum and Reddit about background writings, discussions and doodles which I've posted, is the impression of Warhammer 40'000 having been diluted down and lost its grimdark ways in later years.

 

 

Great as the discussion is, I've not got the same impression from what I've seen of 40k in the last years. To my eyes, the state of grimdark seem on the contrary to be healthier and a lot better handled than GW is often given credit for. A few observations about the general drift:

 

Cawl's secret army of uppity hand next level Astartes is fundamentally a rather cheesy and wish-fulfilling hope-inducing turn of events, for which I remain skeptical (despite a fondness for hidden laboratory mavericks). One thing hasn't changed since 2nd edition: Imperial Space Marines are sold as statuesque glorious heroes as an effective pull on many beginners. Still, Guilliman's impression of the rotten state of the 40k Imperium and his doubts about the Emperor stand out well as good writing, regardless of whether the 30k Imperium is actually portrayed as all that different (apart from religion) in the Horus Heresy novels.

 

The Sisters of Battle models took the grimdark themes further. The Penitent Engine includes an iron maiden option, and hilariously enough there is even a burning heretic husk for one of their bases.

 

The new Necromunda drive has been all positive from a grimdark background perspective, with novel cannibal corpse grinder cults (giving a twisted glimpse into corpse recycling for foodstuffs), lord Helmawr's giant drug smuggling operation with Ghast in the Segmentum Solar and all manner of freewheeling dark worldbuilding in the "House of..." books. Necromunda has received substantial expanded background, above what can be expected and likewise true to the demented, bonkers grimdark spirit of the setting.

 

According to a good friend of mine, an official story on a newly Tau-conquered Human world featured a Genestealer Cult scrambling into an uprising, since they would run a much increased risk of being detected and purged because Tau actually do something called public health care. Thereby continuing the good use of the comparatively milder-seeming Tau as a contrast reinforcer of the rest of the setting's grim darkness in general, and the dysfunctional Imperium's degeneration in particular. Tau remain an underappreciated part of 40k, despite playing up the overall horror, darkness and insanity of most all other factions by themselves seeming naïve and optimistic upstarts thinking they are building a better galaxy in a rational universe. Contrast is key, as Tolkien well knew.

 

Just a few observations: One would expect an excellently crafted dark setting like 40k to easily dilute and tone down its gloriously demented, cheeky regression in order to pursue a stupid illusion of wider market appeal. What instead seems to go on is a balancing act where grimdark material keeps being expanded upon true to the setting's bonkers spirit in more niche products in particular, while the cash cow and beginner bait of power armour warriors keep being portayed as noble heroes in general to draw people in with a fancy facade and eventually immerse themselves in the grimdark bounty of the wider setting.

 

Healthy signs, all considered. It could have been a lot worse handled.

 

Cheers!

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Karak Norn Clansman

[Gederas]

According to a good friend of mine, an official story on a newly Tau-conquered Human world featured a Genestealer Cult scrambling into an uprising, since they would run a much increased risk of being detected and purged because Tau actually do something called public health care. Thereby continuing the good use of the comparatively milder-seeming Tau as a contrast reinforcer of the rest of the setting's grim darkness in general, and the dysfunctional Imperium's degeneration in particular. Tau remain an underappreciated part of 40k, despite playing up the overall horror, darkness and insanity of most all other factions by themselves seeming naïve and optimistic upstarts thinking they are building a better galaxy in a rational universe. Contrast is key, as Tolkien well knew.

Ignoring the fact that the Tau sterilize people they conquer and are basically just as bad as the Imperium, they just act like they're better :lol:

[Commander Dawnstar]

Ignoring the fact that a sterilisation policy has only been mentioned once in a non-canon ending to a videogame as a theory rather than proven fact ....

 

I would never argue the T'au are the "good guys," but if you want to argue they're hardly different from the Imperium then I don't even know where to start with you. You can just look to recent fluff developments to see those T'au who instigated psyker purges being disciplined and their actions regarded as abhorrent by their peers, and Shadowsun attacking an alien (human) world with the intention of forcing their surrender to minimise unnecessary loss of life. The Imperium would do neither of these things.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Commander Dawnstar

[Karak Norn Clansman]

It is imperative for the great spirit of the 40k setting that everyone is wrong, and no unequivocally good side is in sight at all. Making the evil empire into the setting's protagonist (seeing it mainly through the evil empire's propaganda lense) while having the strongest rebels not at all resemble those of Star Wars, but be insane Chaos worshippers - that is a masterstroke of worldbuilding.

Tau are not good, but this aggressively expanding, xenophile, propaganda state with all its implied Ethereal and Water Caste brainwashing and shady dealings are still miles away from the depraved depths of the counter-productively tyrannical, fanatical, xenocidal and massmurdering inept colossus on feet of clay that is the gloriously incompetent, corrupt and clumsy galactic behemoth known as the Imperium of Man. The nuance difference is huge.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Karak Norn Clansman

[Sword Brother Adelard]

There was a Tau story recently where at the end they killed all of the Gue'La fighting for them, in the name of the greater good...

 

Generally, I think grim dark is fine. The portrayal of Terra in Avenging Son was, I thought, particularly well done. The state of the lives of those who live and work on the home world was pretty depressing throughout.

[Bung]

Personly i miss some of the humor they had in older publications.

Stuff from the comics like The Redeemer or Deff Skwadron.

Or some of the pop culture references you could find like the Holy Handgrenade.

 

The feeling of grimdark but at the same time so much over the top it cant be taken serious and ends up hilarious.

[Rik Lightstar]

I think the level for darkness in the setting is great.

 

No "good" faction stands up to any form of scrutiny, however good they appear at first glance.

 

T'au - have lots of questions about brainwashing and pheromone based control from the Ethereal Caste. They also as mentioned are quite willing to dispose of auxiliaries callously when they feel it's required.

 

Space Marines - abduct children and deprive them of a "human" life so that they can be tools of war, they're nothing more, they have no further purpose in the Imperium. They also have the power and authority to arbitrarily wipe out entire planetary populations on a simple whiff of suspicion should they decide to, and in the fluff there's numerous depictions of this.

 

Grey Knights - Dial all of the Marine issues up to 11 and will even attempt to exert their power of suspect Marine Chapters.

 

Custodes - view their remit as exclusively the protection of the Emperor and will eliminate all perceived threats immediately and terminally.

 

Craftworlds and Harlequins - will exterminate entire planets because there's a "chance" that in a thousand years a handful of Eldar lives would be lost otherwise.

 

Every faction and institution within the 40k setting has layers of corruption, brutal self interest, questionable decision making and dark acts hidden from their own people.

 

There are a few characters that stand as comparatively good and bright, but all knowingly support their factions through expediency.

 

Rik

[Burni]

Personly i miss some of the humor they had in older publications.

Stuff from the comics like The Redeemer or Deff Skwadron.

Or some of the pop culture references you could find like the Holy Handgrenade.

 

The feeling of grimdark but at the same time so much over the top it cant be taken serious and ends up hilarious.

Yeah, I love the humour of 40K. Ciaphas Cain, Orks etc and I agree that it doesn’t get the stage time it used to. It’s seems to be reduced to nurglings on bases and nods to old stuff. Don’t get get wrong, there’s still dark humour but it’s not as core an element anymore. I do think Grim Dark is alive and well though.

[Dark Shepherd]

There is a serious Film Noir vibe to the warhammer crime books, really fits with the grimness/dystopia/underhive

 

Plus much more swearing than they usual allow :)

[chapter master 454]

I feel a lot of people have a weird view of tau that is fairly 1 dimensional. Remember, it is much like the Space Marine Legions and even chapters today; each group is their own thing and will do things their way regardless of a greater viewpoint. Lorgar (was it lorgar...religious traitor boy) decided to make a world into a religious monument to the Emperor despite that being the furthest from his intents and desires for the Imperium then promptly burns it down. Marines Malevolent despite being space marines are more than ok with just wasting entire populations of civilians if it makes getting rid of the enemy easier (in contrast to salamanders). Black Templars quite openly flaunt any restriction of chapter size and are actually just a bunch of crazed zealots on a rampage much like many Chaos warbands really.

 

Within Tau there is the tragedy of repeating history. They are young and naïve, unknowingly entering a universe of entirely unknowable horrors, monsters and demons. And thats before they meet chaos or other xenos ;) With each excursion with other factions they slowly begin to see greater horrors emerge, Tyranids scared them heavily and they had their own form of the Tyrannic wars with them, suffering incredible losses not just from not knowing what they were but also their softness and want to bring others into their fold. That attitude could be see as a young Imperium mindset. Yet as they continue to meet new factions and groups, their philosophies are being tested, broken and renewed for various enemies and with that comes deviants who just outright refuse to follow that code of conduct.

The story of the 4th Sphere expansion group having executed their Auxiliaries (note it wasn't JUST Gue'Vesa) because only the Tau weren't being affected by the Warp travel they endured (it isn't knowable for certain it was warp travel but all evidence points to it). They SAW things you wouldn't imagine and did what they felt was right, much like the witch-hunts on Imperial Knight planets during their isolation. They did what they must to survive and now can't trust other races because of this fact; they are corruptable. This would also create a sense of superiority in them, seeing that they can't be corrupted when others can thus furthering their belief of being correct (though that is rubbish. Just their souls are worth buttons compared to silver of human and other xenos souls).

They may of been disciplined but you know what they say about ideas: They're Bulletproof! We could see overtime Tau develop another sub-faction like the Far'Sight Enclave where radical anti-xenos (their perspective Xenos, not ours) takes root in a number of them including etherals who then go on to have their own section of the Tau Empire somewhere far from central power in Tau society.

 

The story we saw on the Warhammer Community Site relating to the Gue'Vesa being killed was likely 4th sphere extremists who had seen corruption before and NOW have seen more corruption of the DNA of other Xenos through the Genestealer Cult, again reinforcing their beliefs that other races cannot be saved and must be purged. Does that start to sound familiar at all?

 

Tau Empire is a Tragedy we cannot stop; it is a mirror of the Imperium's failings of its bygone era. An era of triumph and glory to be shattered by the cruel nature of the universe. No-one can tame it, no one can own it. Only wage war for their survival.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I agree on the tau, that direction is interesting. We see them corrupt and follow the exact same paths humanity did.

 

I think they have done well with grimdark themes recently, it's just some of their odd artwork is too cartoony and doesn't fit.

 

For some of the primaris stuff, it was more they tried too hard. Like redemptors burning out their pilots quick. Yes, it's kind of dark, but it's also stupid. They've brought a lot of it back in line with the rest of the setting more recently I think. I think we're seeing a lot of the initial stuff that was weird there cycled out over time.

Edited November 29, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[chapter master 454]

I agree on the tau, that direction is interesting. We see them corrupt and follow the exact same paths humanity did.

 

I think they have done well with grimdark themes recently, it's just some of their odd artwork is too cartoony and doesn't fit.

 

For some of the primaris stuff, it was more they tried too hard. Like redemptors burning out their pilots quick. Yes, it's kind of dark, but it's also stupid. They've brought a lot of it back in line with the rest of the setting more recently I think. I think we're seeing a lot of the initial stuff that was weird there cycled out over time.

 

The redemptor dreadnought issue is certainly trying too hard, a lot of primaris stuff is. Most of it is trying to say "look, this is horus heresy style stuff. You guys like that right? See we be cool and hip" which ends up actually hollowing out primaris and ruining what could be its own grim-dark version of events and tragedies. The redemptor literally is just a modern day leviathan dreadnought with the same reasoning (both have so many systems it burns out the pilot) which there are elements that can work from it but their delivery of it isn't good.

 

The presentation of it could of been much better. An angle where Cawl is described as designing the system based on the Leviathan and "improving" upon it but ultimately it is found that the only improvement he made was just modernising the weapons; the flaw that marines would want fixed left untouched because Cawl doesn't view their life as worth anything (that is talked about but not really driven home. More dismissed as a passing statement, not a core fundamental issue). That would be cruel to these new marines, these apparent beacons of hope that to their creator they are nothing but a part in a gun really. Maybe even drive home the idea of some primaris possibly expressing a desire to not be put into redemptors but older chassis as to not just burn out, to not just be a replaceable piece. In turn we get lore that Redemptor dreadnoughts start to become piloted not by heroes but those who have fallen recently and couldn't have their geneseed recovered yet due to immaturity (the second geneseed cannot be recovered until after some years of service I believe) and thus they are used as a stop-gap measure to ensure geneseed is recovered...effectively turning redemptors into incubators more than hallow vessels, another cog in a machine.

 

Maybe even talk of possibly the fact that Cawl's new plasma tech isn't as "safe" as he said. He solved the overheating but now, they are actually more dangerous to wield for prolonged periods of time. A possible line to follow for why the Hellblaster sergeant has a bionic hand hold his plasma pistol now!

[Gederas]

For some of the primaris stuff, it was more they tried too hard. Like redemptors burning out their pilots quick. Yes, it's kind of dark, but it's also stupid. They've brought a lot of it back in line with the rest of the setting more recently I think. I think we're seeing a lot of the initial stuff that was weird there cycled out over time.

The redemptor dreadnought issue is certainly trying too hard, a lot of primaris stuff is. Most of it is trying to say "look, this is horus heresy style stuff. You guys like that right? See we be cool and hip" which ends up actually hollowing out primaris and ruining what could be its own grim-dark version of events and tragedies. The redemptor literally is just a modern day leviathan dreadnought with the same reasoning (both have so many systems it burns out the pilot) which there are elements that can work from it but their delivery of it isn't good.

 

The presentation of it could of been much better. An angle where Cawl is described as designing the system based on the Leviathan and "improving" upon it but ultimately it is found that the only improvement he made was just modernising the weapons; the flaw that marines would want fixed left untouched because Cawl doesn't view their life as worth anything (that is talked about but not really driven home. More dismissed as a passing statement, not a core fundamental issue). That would be cruel to these new marines, these apparent beacons of hope that to their creator they are nothing but a part in a gun really. Maybe even drive home the idea of some primaris possibly expressing a desire to not be put into redemptors but older chassis as to not just burn out, to not just be a replaceable piece. In turn we get lore that Redemptor dreadnoughts start to become piloted not by heroes but those who have fallen recently and couldn't have their geneseed recovered yet due to immaturity (the second geneseed cannot be recovered until after some years of service I believe) and thus they are used as a stop-gap measure to ensure geneseed is recovered...effectively turning redemptors into incubators more than hallow vessels, another cog in a machine.

 

Maybe even talk of possibly the fact that Cawl's new plasma tech isn't as "safe" as he said. He solved the overheating but now, they are actually more dangerous to wield for prolonged periods of time. A possible line to follow for why the Hellblaster sergeant has a bionic hand hold his plasma pistol now!

 

Well.. the Redemptor is because it was designed by the AdMech, and they have a vehicle that does exactly that as well. The Onager Dunecrawler's pilots? Yeah they're basically batteries and when they burnt out by the strain/radiation? Pop em out, put a new one in.

 

Guilliman to Cawl upon hearing about that issue (probably): "YOU TWIT! THAT'S NOT HOW A DREADNOUGHT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK!"

 

Also regarding the Hellblaster sergeant: No, Cawl made it less like to blow up. But overcharging plasma guns still blows them up. The bionic arm and eye? Probably because Sergeant there held the trigger down too long and went boom.

[WARMASTER_]

The redemptor dreadnought issue is certainly trying too hard, a lot of primaris stuff is. Most of it is trying to say "look, this is horus heresy style stuff. You guys like that right? See we be cool and hip" which ends up actually hollowing out primaris and ruining what could be its own grim-dark version of events and tragedies. The redemptor literally is just a modern day leviathan dreadnought with the same reasoning (both have so many systems it burns out the pilot) which there are elements that can work from it but their delivery of it isn't good.

 

The presentation of it could of been much better. An angle where Cawl is described as designing the system based on the Leviathan and "improving" upon it but ultimately it is found that the only improvement he made was just modernising the weapons; the flaw that marines would want fixed left untouched because Cawl doesn't view their life as worth anything (that is talked about but not really driven home. More dismissed as a passing statement, not a core fundamental issue). That would be cruel to these new marines, these apparent beacons of hope that to their creator they are nothing but a part in a gun really. Maybe even drive home the idea of some primaris possibly expressing a desire to not be put into redemptors but older chassis as to not just burn out, to not just be a replaceable piece. In turn we get lore that Redemptor dreadnoughts start to become piloted not by heroes but those who have fallen recently and couldn't have their geneseed recovered yet due to immaturity (the second geneseed cannot be recovered until after some years of service I believe) and thus they are used as a stop-gap measure to ensure geneseed is recovered...effectively turning redemptors into incubators more than hallow vessels, another cog in a machine.

 

Maybe even talk of possibly the fact that Cawl's new plasma tech isn't as "safe" as he said. He solved the overheating but now, they are actually more dangerous to wield for prolonged periods of time. A possible line to follow for why the Hellblaster sergeant has a bionic hand hold his plasma pistol now!

Im with you mostly but lore wise it’s so close the the legion framework because that’s when he started working on them all his information of astartes tactics would have been from the legions not the chapters...

 

As for myself Im a big fan of the progression we’ve seen with the range, The first wave was stripped back fresh out the freezer, all new Mars made gear with uniformity like the early MKII suits, now we’re seeing them after 200 years of crusading (much like the heresy era) and all of their weird intricacies and superstitions are coming to the fore we’ve got skeletons on shields and banners marines carrying skulls or hands of fallen brothers and reliquaries of bones or charms. they’ve taken on the traits of ultra zealous crusading warriors, it’s doesn’t feel forced to me though it feels like GW or Jes Goodwin had clear view of what he wanted and i think it works well

 

Where as I’m totally with you on Cawl not fixing the burn out issue because he just wouldn’t see it as necessary. I can’t foresee marines refusing if even it burns them out their whole existence is service to the throne and that would just be another way to serve, the red scorpions interred their chapter Master for example so instead of using him for his peerless strategic and knowledge for millennia they stuck him in the biggest shooty box and said “give’em hell Carab”

 

With the plasma I’ve not seen anywhere talk of them being safe? Unless I’ve missed it somewhere in a book possibly? But In the 8th codex entries on hellblasters for all factions it’s goes into their attitudes of self sacrifice wielding dangerous weapons that explode with the warriors being prepared to martyr themselves through plasma overheats to turn the tides of battle

[Doghouse]

I think they ommited the Redemptor burnout in the new codex, there is no mention of it I could see. On page 37 there is a brief blurb about dreadnoughts slumbering alongside two Redemptor images but no mention of the burn out anymore. Might have been retconned from 9th?

 

I think the idea of grimdark is in the eye of the beholder. I think it's very much down to how you interpret it yourself, for me it's not so much a loss of grimdark as a slight loss of ignorance and superstition and an attempt to return to the more enlightened age of the Great Crusade. GW say it's what you want it to be and there is no hard canon for good reason and it allows them to retcon or ignore past lore as they wish.

 

I miss the days of revered little understood STC templates being found and tested under holy scrutiny for 500 years. :(

[MARK0SIAN]

I think they ommited the Redemptor burnout in the new codex, there is no mention of it I could see. On page 37 there is a brief blurb about dreadnoughts slumbering alongside two Redemptor images but no mention of the burn out anymore. Might have been retconned from 9th?

 

I think the idea of grimdark is in the eye of the beholder. I think it's very much down to how you interpret it yourself, for me it's not so much a loss of grimdark as a slight loss of ignorance and superstition and an attempt to return to the more enlightened age of the Great Crusade. GW say it's what you want it to be and there is no hard canon for good reason and it allows them to retcon or ignore past lore as they wish.

 

I miss the days of revered little understood STC templates being found and tested under holy scrutiny for 500 years. :(

Very much this! For me the grimdark has always been about the lack of hope in the setting and the slow decay of mankind rather than anything to do with horror and gore.

 

It was always this sense that mankind was utterly doomed, it didn’t matter what anyone did, it was just a question of what got there first. Would the emperor’s throne fail? Would chaos finally win, would the technological decay kill them or failing that would they simply all be eaten by the Nids? The suffering and privation of pretty much everyone in the imperium was not just horrific, it was both pointless and without hope of improvement.

 

I do feel that some of that has changed. The return of a Primarch is a source of hope. Abaddon finally breaching cadia only for that plot to pretty much go nowhere took some of the tension out of the setting and the Xenos threat has largely been ignored up until this new Necron resurgence. I’m not saying the new direction is bad necessarily but it’s definitely different and that’s down to my personal interpretation of what grimdark means :)

Edited November 29, 2020 by MARK0SIAN

[WARMASTER_]

Abaddon finally breaching cadia only for that plot to pretty much go nowhere took some of the tension out of the setting and the Xenos threat has largely been ignored up until this new Necron resurgence

Cadia falling didn’t go nowhere it literally tore the galaxy in two and they lost half of the imperium, the astronomican failed completely so hundreds of billions died in days

 

If anything it’s worse than ever in this edition, half the imperium is lost, the Sanctus side is now covered in warp storms the size of the eye of terror the necrons has awoken properly and the tyranids are now attacking from the southern plain, don’t let a crusade and a primarch fool you it’s worse than ever in the imperium

 

Just as it should be haha

Edited November 29, 2020 by BladeOfVengeance

[MARK0SIAN]

 

Abaddon finally breaching cadia only for that plot to pretty much go nowhere took some of the tension out of the setting and the Xenos threat has largely been ignored up until this new Necron resurgence

Cadia falling didn’t go nowhere it literally tore the galaxy in two and they lost half of the imperium, the astronomican failed completely so hundreds of billions died in days

 

If anything it’s worse than ever in this edition, half the imperium is lost, the Sanctus side is now covered in warp storms the size of the eye of terror the necrons has awoken properly and the tyranids are now attacking from the southern plain, don’t let a crusade and a primarch fool you it’s worse than ever in the imperium

 

Just as it should be haha

But where’s Abaddon now? Hardly beating a bloody path towards Terra! The writers have tried to make it all sound terrible but just saying it’s terrible doesn’t make it feel that way. The thing with Cadia is that for so long it had been billed as the gateway stopping Abaddon and chaos from essentially winning if they got into the imperium proper. It had this tension around it. Compared to what Cadia was trying to prevent, the actual end results are getting off lightly.

 

Saying things like the astronomicon failed and billions died is nothing new for 40k. Billions die even when the imperium wins. This is what I mean about it not being about death and destruction but about the lack of hope.

 

I say the story went nowhere because, Although technically the Galaxy is cut in half and all this bad stuff happened, at the end of the day did it actually change anything other than from a technical perspective? The imperium forces on either side are facing the same problems they were before, endless wars and so on. All the marine chapters all have access to all the new toys so logistics can’t really be that hampered by the warp storms.

 

If they’d done something genuinely new like divided the two halves of the imperium into two divergent empires or something with actual differences that would’ve taken the story somewhere but as it is, not much has fundamentally changed.

 

I think this is the problem with a setting like 40k, everything is already dialled up to 11 so you can’t easily ramp it up any further and it have much of an impact. At the end of the day, it’s not what the writers say is happening but how they make you feel about what is happening and for me, they’re missing the mark of making me feel that sense of hopelessness that the universe had before.

[WARMASTER_]

I just don’t see how you say it went nowhere when the result is basically the galaxy ending event of the setting ? Abaddon doesn’t need to be running to terra it’s doomed anyway

 

From a technical perspective... everything changed! The astronomican failing off cuts travel to the entire galaxy so it’s doomed to die

 

The nihilis side couldn’t be its own empire it’s just pockets of resistance that are failing faster by the hour. it’s completely impossible to put up any meaningful defence as they can’t make safe jumps or even communicate... I don’t see the hope?

 

Chaos now has an empire in real space without challenge, The red scar is still beset tyranids, worlds are being consumed by warp storms or demon incursions more than ever, just look at the Warhammer 40000 website to see the amount of incursions the imperium is done for...

 

People have this opinion of the Primaris reinforcements fix everything but they just don’t... their new toys fix nothing in logistics or navigation and they’re nowhere near sufficient in numbers to turn the tide just hold it back a bit longer

 

I guess it’s perspective but nothing has made me think it’s getting better, just worse but I guess that’s just my opinion

Edited November 29, 2020 by BladeOfVengeance

[MegaVolt87]

Cadia was a significant event. Its allowed the traitor legions to LEAVE warp space and re-establish themselves in realspace, leaving behind a lot of the disadvantages of being in the warp. By the time the Imperium gets it together, it still won't be enough to kick them out of realspace as they would have fortified their positions, fixed their equipment deficiencies and back to a legion era recruitment cycle, while chapters are stuck with the codex restrictions and more modern conservative recruitment processes. It was easy to kick out the traitors in the scouring because most of the xenos were in decline thanks to the GC. The xenos + demonic presence in modern 40k is about where it was during old night IMO. Bobby and the primaris merely stopped + reset the extinction clock, its still very much not in the Imperium's favour like always. Just because we see the Imperium winning battles, doesn't mean they are winning the majority of its wars/ campaigns which is a big difference. 

[Ishagu]

How can anyone say Cadia wasn't a significant event? Read something like "Darkness in the Blood" to see how much of an effect it's had on the universe and the 40k setting.

 

As for Abaddon - I too would like to see more of him, but perhaps he's simply being sensible and not overstretching. He launched 13 crusades in 10,000 years. He's been active several times in the last 200 years of the current setting - Cadia, Vigilus, and his right hand man is the potential main villain of the new 40k novel series.

 

Remember, a faction or a hero can have an entire life of glorious, personal victories. If the status quo remains however, then the grim dark and hopeless universe is preserved.

[Snazzy]

Grimdark used to mean forgetting the promise of technology, reason and progress.  The Imperium has embraced all those concepts with Bobby G's return.  No amount of skulls or worlds lost to Chaos can change that GW rebuked their own setting.

[Ishagu]

Technology is one aspect of Grim Dark, and not the most important one.

 

Hopelessness, insignificance, ignorance, suffering, etc

 

That's still the reality for most of humanity.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Ishagu

[BitsHammer]

Grimdark used to mean forgetting the promise of technology, reason and progress.  The Imperium has embraced all those concepts with Bobby G's return.  No amount of skulls or worlds lost to Chaos can change that GW rebuked their own setting.

"Embraced" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. If anything the Marines have embraced it, the Mechanicus is reluctant but working towards their own goals (like those psychic STCs mentioned in one of the timeline bits) and life is unchanged for anyone whose world isn't actively a warzone, only you don't look at the sky anymore (assuming you could actually see it) since the rift messes with the mind.

[Snazzy]

 

"Embraced" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. If anything the Marines have embraced it, the Mechanicus is reluctant but working towards their own goals (like those psychic STCs mentioned in one of the timeline bits) and life is unchanged for anyone whose world isn't actively a warzone, only you don't look at the sky anymore (assuming you could actually see it) since the rift messes with the mind.

 

 

That's moving the goal line.  The institutions of the Imperium implemented Guilleman's changes with little pushback.  Dogma clearly did not prevail where it should.  The Hexarchy was killed before the backlash turned to open war, and put Guilleman in an even stronger position.