State of Health for Grimdark in Warhammer 40,000

[BitsHammer]

 

 

"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. 

 

You say that, but the overall Imperium hasn't changed. Even if there is changes happening on the high level, the wheels of bureaucracy turn at a glacial speed and the average citizen's life is just as bleak, if not bleaker, than before he returned.

[Lucerne]

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer? Where are the consequences from traditionalists that don't buy into Guilliman's legitimacy or Cawl's reformist ideology?

 

Where are the mountains, on screen, for the viewpoint characters to struggle with and maybe even fail to overcome? Don't tell me yet another disposable nameless character we know won't do us a favor by killing those two qualifies as a struggle anymore, because GW has spent a long time making sure even the illusion of danger is gone.

 

At this point we desperately need a massacre of Ultramarines or a full scale shooting war directed at Guilliman or Cawl to add back a sense of urgency and threat. Show that their choices have had blowback or that things can and will go wrong. Give Bobby G a bloody nose at the hands of, say, a possessed warlord. Caesar is not immortal. Prove for the audience that things CAN go wrong, and may yet.

 

This also helps the characters, because as above- a character is only as significant as their adversity, and honestly Bobby and Cawl don't seem to have faced nearly enough for the amount of words wasted on them. Don't just have them keep swanning through storylines without so much as being shown to work for it.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Lucerne

[BitsHammer]

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

[Lucerne]

 

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

 

For "hollow victories", the narrative certainly doesn't seem interested in showing said consequences whatsoever. It fails at "show don't tell".

 

It's all well and good to say the toy catalogue scenes are "hollow victories" but where is his bloody nose or viewpoint from the worlds that he DIDN'T save? Why is there tunnel vision on him doing uninteresting and non-developmental things that explicitly serve no purpose in universe whatsoever?

 

Even superman stories have the decency to have someone show up with kryptonite or otherwise knock him down a peg or so every so often, but GW's writers haven't learned that little trick.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Lucerne

[Gederas]

Anyone else hear a Crozius powering up?

[BitsHammer]

 

 

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

 

For "hollow victories", the narrative certainly doesn't seem interested in showing said consequences whatsoever. It fails at "show don't tell".

 

It's all well and good to say the toy catalogue scenes are "hollow victories" but where is his bloody nose or viewpoint from the worlds that he DIDN'T save? Why is there tunnel vision on him doing uninteresting and non-developmental things that explicitly serve no purpose in universe whatsoever?

 

Even superman stories have the decency to have someone show up with kryptonite or otherwise knock him down a peg or so every so often, but GW's writers haven't learned that little trick.

 

You do know that most lore is little more than a cliff notes summary and we're lucky if they even tell us about what happens after a given conflict (and when we do it's the Iron Hands decimating a hive city), right?

 

Like they give us the dots, it's our job to connect them.

[Lucerne]

 

 

 

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

 

For "hollow victories", the narrative certainly doesn't seem interested in showing said consequences whatsoever. It fails at "show don't tell".

 

It's all well and good to say the toy catalogue scenes are "hollow victories" but where is his bloody nose or viewpoint from the worlds that he DIDN'T save? Why is there tunnel vision on him doing uninteresting and non-developmental things that explicitly serve no purpose in universe whatsoever?

 

Even superman stories have the decency to have someone show up with kryptonite or otherwise knock him down a peg or so every so often, but GW's writers haven't learned that little trick.

 

You do know that most lore is little more than a cliff notes summary and we're lucky if they even tell us about what happens after a given conflict (and when we do it's the Iron Hands decimating a hive city), right?

 

Like they give us the dots, it's our job to connect them.

 

That just makes the lack of proper blowback or mentioned setbacks for the two screentime hogs even less forgiveable.

 

"Imperial/Mechanicus civil war" or "The Slaughter of the X Company of the Ultramarines" could be a literal footnote.

[BitsHammer]

 

 

 

 

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in  itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

 

For "hollow victories", the narrative certainly doesn't seem interested in showing said consequences whatsoever. It fails at "show don't tell".

 

It's all well and good to say the toy catalogue scenes are "hollow victories" but where is his bloody nose or viewpoint from the worlds that he DIDN'T save? Why is there tunnel vision on him doing uninteresting and non-developmental things that explicitly serve no purpose in universe whatsoever?

 

Even superman stories have the decency to have someone show up with kryptonite or otherwise knock him down a peg or so every so often, but GW's writers haven't learned that little trick.

 

You do know that most lore is little more than a cliff notes summary and we're lucky if they even tell us about what happens after a given conflict (and when we do it's the Iron Hands decimating a hive city), right?

 

Like they give us the dots, it's our job to connect them.

 

That just makes the lack of proper blowback or mentioned setbacks for the two screentime hogs even less forgiveable.

 

"Imperial/Mechanicus civil war" or "The Slaughter of the X Company of the Ultramarines" could be a literal footnote.

 

Just like how the Imperium treats every major loss of resources.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Excellent points, chapter master 454! Good discussion, all.

Relevant reply to a good DakkaDakka discussion:

3rd edition 40k and 6th edition WHFB has often been summarized as borehammer, which seem a tad odd to me, who got into the hobby at this very time and enjoyed the fun royally.

There were still clear humour in there (although nothing much compared to what I've discovered from the fantastic Rogue Trader era, the hilarious Redeemer comic aside), and more to the point, the overall tryhard edginess was all apparently faked and tongue-in-cheek, ironically overdone in a ludicrously exaggerated grim darkness that one couldn't take seriously because it was so bonkers over the top. 40k at its most serious is still a comedy wrapped in a tragedy.

The humour is still here. For instance, mecha-ostrich Ironstriders of the Adeptus Mechanicus (whose ancient efficient STC template almost manage to break the laws of thermo-dynamics) are used hundreds at a time in giant treadmills to generate electricity, and the tech-priests don't know how to stop them from running, which makes resupply and rider switch a tricky art. That particular piece of writing is on par with much of the best Rogue Trader humour in my book, and completely true to the silly, ironically tryhard, funny dark bonkers spirit of the setting.

 

[

 

The thing is that all creative endeavours evolve over time, especially collective ones produced by a long-standing studio. Generations shift and long-serving individuals' tastes, styles and creative explorations end up mutating over the course of their carreers. New decrees of overall art and writing approaches are passed, such as making the setting more dark and serious for 3rd edition 40k (and exploring the Inquisition) or bringing back Rogue Trader concepts which has barely been given any screen time for many decades (starting with Jokaero?).

The tone of the setting will live its own life, shifting and twisting, not least as talent is rotated in and out. This is all a natural part of the freewheeling nature of human creativity. Brilliant contributors may say their farewells, while more mediocre talents enter the stage, producing less well received content with the best of creative intentions. Middling talents often develop and improve over time, though, and brilliant new recruits may come again as the natural cycle of creativity plays out with its ebbs and flows, its styles and tonal shifts.

On top of this, interference from non-creative suit staff, out of touch with the soul of their golden cow, may decree sweeping (and often creatively destructive) changes for reasons of IP mania, silly sensibilities or mainstream market pursuit that would betray the spirit of the setting and water down a fantastic niche built up through decades of mainly brilliant development by many different loving hands and minds, some more skilled than others.

 

Consider the natural cycle of creativity as a living and changing thing (not taking the high quality of e.g. Rogue Trader or late 3rd edition writing for granted to always endure without ebbs), and consider the risks of edicts from above stomping all over the creative works, and one may start to see that on the whole, Warhammer 40'000 is in a far better position today, than one would expect it to be.

It has been better handled by Games Workshop than it is often given credit for, once you consider all the pitfalls.

A longstanding studio culture of researching its older material (not least Rogue Trader era) is likely part of the explanation. 40k writers on the whole have never lost sight of their roots, or foundations. They keep going back to the original, mining it for ideas, even as they add their own take on the setting into the flowing stream.

The bonkers tongue-in-cheek, ludicrously grimdark spirit of the regressed setting is alive and well. It looks different than previously, but then yesteryear's grimdark looked rather different from what came before it as well. GW has not lost the plot, or betrayed their own glorious creation, even if not all writing can be on par with Rick Priestley's or Andy Chamber's, or all art on par with John Blanche's or Adrian Smith's.

Cheers!

Edited November 30, 2020 by Karak Norn Clansman

[Scribe]

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.

Absolutely, you nailed it.

 

Some folks (8th? 7th?) Claimed some edition was cutting back on the gloriously grim dark.

 

I took it upon myself to read some novels I never would have, found it false.

 

Grimdark remains. There is no hope, and humanity will fall. Today, tomorrow, in 100K years, it won't matter.

 

The setting has ultimately stayed true to itself.

 

For now.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Even the new technology is pretty grim dark. The story of the new Primaris Lt in Avenging Son was, I thought, particularly grim dark. Yes, all the technology is new, but the poor kids who were kidnapped to make the first wave of Primaris lived a terrifying existence. Being woken only once every couple of centuries only to engage with terrifying mechanical monsters, i.e. Cawl and his tech priests.

In-between those periods of waking, they were perpetually fighting endless hordes of enemies in their dreams.

Then, when awoken for real, they are all on duty, whilst having an existential crisis because real life doesn't feel as 'real' as fighting orks in their dreams did.

When they do fight, they do so on autopilot, training and hypno-indoctrination kicking in and taking over their conscious thoughts. then, when fighting ends, this deadening resumes.

[WARMASTER_]

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer? Where are the consequences from traditionalists that don't buy into Guilliman's legitimacy or Cawl's reformist ideology?

 

Where are the mountains, on screen, for the viewpoint characters to struggle with and maybe even fail to overcome? Don't tell me yet another disposable nameless character we know won't do us a favor by killing those two qualifies as a struggle anymore, because GW has spent a long time making sure even the illusion of danger is gone.

 

I would honestly say read some of the Dark Imperium books and see if you feel the same, Spears of the Emperor, Regents Shadow, Hollow mountain, Darkness in the blood, all paint a picture of hopelessness

 

Spears - is the story of a dying chapter stuck on the other side of the rift just holding back the dark (to the guiliman is a false pretender and the emperor could be dead)

 

Darkness - shows us how hopeless it is on the nihilis side from general space travel to resources available

 

HM & RS - show us that even while the imperium is literally about to fall down in flames around them all the high lords can do is squabble and cling to the old ways, it also shows us that the golden throne is failing so much that they had to make pacts with the dark Eldar

 

As for tech, there’s been whole books and narrative arcs on push back (the flesh tearers, the high lords, the DA) but the point is that the imperium’s back is to the wall and they’re using anything they can just to survive! Even guiliman thinks the primaris are a blasphemous creation but right now they’re needed

 

As for the Space marines rejecting the tech, like they’d ever do that? If Mars approaches them with an entire new arsenal of efficient weapons, arms & armour plus the ability to make better warriors how and why would they refuse? It’s not marines that shun advancement it’s the mechanicus (who control it all)

Edited November 30, 2020 by BladeOfVengeance

[Ulfast]

Actually, I´m of a diffrent view. I think it´s time for the Imperium to have a win!

 

Let me explain. I have been playing and reading the lore for a long time and it was a very long time since the Imperium had a good win. Of course they have won but it´s usually just that they stop the bad guys with exterminator bombs. That is not a win in my point of view. Similiar with the primarch right now, he win some battles but overall he is losing. For the seting to be more intersting I would say that a fresh "good" win would bring a lot of to the seting. As someone pointed out above, light need darkness to have a good story but darkness also need lights. It goes both way to be intersting. All dark become to gloom after a while.

[Ishagu]

 

 

 

 

The problem is that there's a very bad case of "Imperial protagonist" syndrome even by GW standards as well as "informed grimdark". It's not even a question of grimdark so much as a failure to have suitable consequences for the protagonist- ie: Bobby G and friends, which is in itself a mistake- to overcome, and show them overcome.

 

A character is only as significant as the adversity they face, and that rings very hollow with GW's lore. Their actions should also have suitable and proportionate consequences, and that's perhaps even more flawed.

 

Where is the new Calth? Where are the losses for Guilliman to suffer?

So far all Guilliman has are hollow victories. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended with a proclamation of "victory" and yet he admits it was like throwing a thimble of water on a house fire.

For "hollow victories", the narrative certainly doesn't seem interested in showing said consequences whatsoever. It fails at "show don't tell".

 

It's all well and good to say the toy catalogue scenes are "hollow victories" but where is his bloody nose or viewpoint from the worlds that he DIDN'T save? Why is there tunnel vision on him doing uninteresting and non-developmental things that explicitly serve no purpose in universe whatsoever?

 

Even superman stories have the decency to have someone show up with kryptonite or otherwise knock him down a peg or so every so often, but GW's writers haven't learned that little trick.

I don't think you've read much of the narrative if you think this. Are you getting your info from 1d4 chan? I ask this in all seriousness because what you're describing doesn't match what I've been reading - and I've read a lot of books that take place after the opening of the rift.

 

Guilliman does have personal victories, yet they ultimately amount to nothing. The situation is so dire that at this point nothing has improved or changed for the better.

 

The heroes of the setting are merely holding the darkness back, and for much of the Imperium the situation is worse than it had ever been. You should read a novel like "Darkness in the Blood" to see how things are worse than ever and in many ways more hopeless.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Ishagu

[Dark Shepherd]

Imperium Nihilus is the Greek speaking half of the empire

[chapter master 454]

Is it me or is maybe just the fact that a lot of lore, background and just in general to and fro information of factions has become the purview of black library. "you want lore, go to the black library" "oh this book says otherwise" "this is pretty dire, the story says this"...yet no-one is saying to check their codex. Used to be you could find grim-dark stories even within your own codex and not all rainbow. Might be one of those issues.

 

To me, we don't see stories like we used to in the codex anymore and in any frequency. The old Catachan codex from 3rd was full of character. Similar with the 3rd edition space marine codex (but then again, both of those also had mini-tutorials in them which may of helped their charm).

[WARMASTER_]

I don’t know man I agree on the hard core lore folk like us definitely get a bigger picture but reading the 9th rule book lore was dark as anything I’ve read, and the latest marine one had some great sections Edited November 30, 2020 by BladeOfVengeance

[Scribe]

Is it me or is maybe just the fact that a lot of lore, background and just in general to and fro information of factions has become the purview of black library. "you want lore, go to the black library" "oh this book says otherwise" "this is pretty dire, the story says this"...yet no-one is saying to check their codex. Used to be you could find grim-dark stories even within your own codex and not all rainbow. Might be one of those issues.

 

To me, we don't see stories like we used to in the codex anymore and in any frequency. The old Catachan codex from 3rd was full of character. Similar with the 3rd edition space marine codex (but then again, both of those also had mini-tutorials in them which may of helped their charm).

Codex have been pretty bad now for many years.

 

My DE 5th, is art. I'm keeping it forever.

[Snazzy]

Actually, I´m of a diffrent view. I think it´s time for the Imperium to have a win!

 

Let me explain. I have been playing and reading the lore for a long time and it was a very long time since the Imperium had a good win. Of course they have won but it´s usually just that they stop the bad guys with exterminator bombs. That is not a win in my point of view. Similiar with the primarch right now, he win some battles but overall he is losing. For the seting to be more intersting I would say that a fresh "good" win would bring a lot of to the seting. As someone pointed out above, light need darkness to have a good story but darkness also need lights. It goes both way to be intersting. All dark become to gloom after a while.

 

The Imperium cannot outright win anything.  Even something like the Macarian Crusade breaks down into the Macarian Heresy.  Granted, the whole episode is a thinly veiled replaying of Alexander The Great's exploits.  There are rules in this setting.  Learn them.  Love them.  At least, that is how it used to be.  Might as well look forward to a future generation of new Men of Iron turning back the tide, since nothing is sacred anymore.  A win for the Imperium has to be couched in perpetuating the worst aspects of the Imperium.  Worlds liberated are worlds to be genocided.  Liberated populations are to be worked to death and replaced by involuntarily relocated colonists.  There are no happy endings in this universe. 

 

 

 

Imperium Nihilus is the Greek speaking half of the empire

 

The Greek portion of the empire continued to function.  It was the Latin part that relocated the capital and tried bribing foreigners not to invade.  Sounds familiar.

[Dark Shepherd]

Yeah they have the Byzantine intrigue down to a patter, that and 2 out of 20 legions missing

[Claws and Effect]

 

 

"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. 

 

 

Dogma absolutely prevailed there. 

 

They view the Emperor as a literal god. Guilliman, as his "son", is the closest thing to divinity that they have ever been able to personally interact with. He is nothing less than a demigod in their eyes and their religious beliefs demand that they obey his decrees without question. 

[Closet Skeleton]

40k has always had tech advancement, just 'it takes millenia for it to get approved' tech advancement. The Primaris stuff had way longer development times than Razorbacks, Land Raider Crusaders, Mark VIII power armour. Its more the sheer amount of it at once that damages the feel.

 

 

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!

 

 

The heads in the Helblaster kit were all sculpted to have burns and injuries, the bionic hand is just the most obvious part of a theme throughout the whole sprue.

 

Back in 2nd edition only chaos (and pre-heresy in general) plasma over-heated and 3rd ed had Tau and Eldar plasma that didn't overheat either. 2nd edition regular plasma had to recharge every other turn unless it was mounted on a Dreadnought.

 

Maybe a book claims Cawl limited the over-heat on his plasma tech but that's not represented in the rules at all where Cawl plasma has an extra point of ap but the same overcharge rule. Sounds more like Black Library getting things wrong due to miscommunication since the kit designers and rules team were fully into 'plasma is still dangerous'.

[Claws and Effect]

40k has always had tech advancement, just 'it takes millenia for it to get approved' tech advancement. The Primaris stuff had way longer development times than Razorbacks, Land Raider Crusaders, Mark VIII power armour. Its more the sheer amount of it at once that damages the feel.

 

 

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!

 

 

The heads in the Helblaster kit were all sculpted to have burns and injuries, the bionic hand is just the most obvious part of a theme throughout the whole sprue.

 

Back in 2nd edition only chaos (and pre-heresy in general) plasma over-heated and 3rd ed had Tau and Eldar plasma that didn't overheat either. 2nd edition regular plasma had to recharge every other turn unless it was mounted on a Dreadnought.

 

Maybe a book claims Cawl limited the over-heat on his plasma tech but that's not represented in the rules at all where Cawl plasma has an extra point of ap but the same overcharge rule. Sounds more like Black Library getting things wrong due to miscommunication since the kit designers and rules team were fully into 'plasma is still dangerous'.

 

Or Cawl's plasma is safer to use and the Marines who are overcharging it are using it in a way it wasn't meant to be used. Like a Guardsman using his lasgun as an improvised grenade by overloading the powerpack when the barrel gets to damaged to function. 

[Scribe]

Actually, I´m of a diffrent view. I think it´s time for the Imperium to have a win!

 

Let me explain. I have been playing and reading the lore for a long time and it was a very long time since the Imperium had a good win. Of course they have won but it´s usually just that they stop the bad guys with exterminator bombs. That is not a win in my point of view. Similiar with the primarch right now, he win some battles but overall he is losing. For the seting to be more intersting I would say that a fresh "good" win would bring a lot of to the seting. As someone pointed out above, light need darkness to have a good story but darkness also need lights. It goes both way to be intersting. All dark become to gloom after a while.

Good thing the actual good authors understand how to put some light into a story, just to brutally snuff it out at the end.

 

It's how 40K should be done, and Ishagu covers it again.

 

Minor personal victory? Great.

 

Amounts to literally nothing or further harm for humanity? That's the brand.

 

Grimdark, is 40k. The day that changes, it's no longer 40k.

 

The best artwork for this remains the blood angels holding up the Chapter Standard.

 

Looks noble, looks awesome.

 

Every single one of them is dead inside 10 minutes from that moment.

 

It's hard me starting a BA force more than once, 1 single grimdark picture.

[Lexington]

I toil in vain on this, but it's impossible not to remind everyone that "grimdark" is a dumb term that was literally first used as a slur to make fun of 40K's perceived excesses. No one should want 40K to be grimdark. Not, at least, anyone who actually likes the setting. It's like inspecting comic books to ensure the feet remain minuscule and the pouches are piled sky-high.

 

What people are searching for, I think, when they talk about "grimdark" isn't actually about grimness or darkness, but madness. It's a way to quantify an unquantifiable feel of sheer weirdness and alienation that emanated out of the source material during certain eras. It's not there anymore, and if you want to know exactly how not there it is, spend a couple of hours with the 3rd Edition rulebook. It is wild, it is wooly and it is tangibly out of its friggin' gourd. The Imperium's presented - in snippets of reports, litanies, aphorisms and the occasional splash of acid trip battle poetry - often as kind of madman's fever dream more than a real place. Reading that book is like stabbing a live wire directly into your tongue.

 

It wasn't like that in all of its eras, or even consistently throughout any single era, but there was a kind of immediacy and inventiveness to a a lot of the setting's formative days. Funny enough, I think the 9th Edition rulebook is really doing its damnedest to emulate that 3rd Ed rulebook feel, but it can't. It just can't. It can't because 40K doesn't mean the same thing that it did in 1998. 40K doesn't exist as a canvas to paint on anymore. It's an entity to upkeep, an IP to be curated, a place that has too much existing shape and form to feel like the untamed and bizarre frontier that it once did. There's no room in something like that for those sorts of singular and striking works, because they have to worry about keeping concordant with the fifty other things being published about 40K that day. The grim and the dark can't be as vivid in a place that has to serve so many masters, and it's the vivid that people miss.

 

Codex have been pretty bad now for many years.

 

The change in Codex format somewhere in 4th Edition to include full-page background text for damn near unit in the game definitely really didn't do the setting any favors. No one needs mounds of adjective-fluffed flavor text explaining the distinguished history of, like, the Rhino. It is a transport. It gets the Marines from Point A to Point B. That's all we need to know.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Lexington