Leagues of Votann Initial 1st April 2022 reveal, new lore & articles discussion

[Lord Marshal]

22 hours ago, Kastor Krieg said:

These are utter power creep bull:cuss:. 

One of the core setting concepts, holy grails of Dark Age of Technology, the STC? Oh, we have those and better and more and less primitive.

The Warp, another core setting concept? Mere inconvenience, we can look into it, travel through it safer and more reliably, our Geller fields are better and we miniaturized the technology so that we can protect personnel from the Warp just as easily as ships.

The core setting feature of Humanity, the Astronomicon? Oh, we have dozens of those, yeah. But they're also better and the source of our technology.

The core setting feature that the threat level of Old God wars, the C'tan and so on, feeding on stars themselves? Puny humanity, we're literally a full step above you on the Kardashev scale, we siphon out star energy on the regular and ripping crust out of an occupied planet is like eating a cookie.

. The models are an acquired taste, the rules are downright broken and invalidate entire factions and their gimmicks, but this lore?
This lore is one of the most egregious idiotisms of modern Games Workshop.

To be fair, having better technology isn't unique to the Votann. Pretty much everybody does it better than the Imperium, side from maybe the Orks. The Eldar have the Webway, the Tau are- the Tau, the Necrons have always been written to have more advanced technology than pretty much everybody. The Horus Heresy books gives examples of civilisations which had technology more advanced than the Imperium's - much of which was destroyed because the Mechanicum would have a hissy fit if they didn't.

The Votann acting as mini-Astronomicons doesn't make them better, since the feature of the Astronomicon is that it can be seen pretty much anywhere in the galaxy as a central beacon screaming "This Way Lies Terra", whilst the Leagues seem to need to lock on to a relatively local-ish Votann as a source, which causes problems if it's destroyed or corrupted. The Tau have been making safe FTL jumps since Day 1, the Votann aren't much different aside from still exposing themselves to the dangers of the Warp (albeit far less than the Imperium).

The Imperium/Mechanicus being held back by their religious dogma has been a thing for a long time, to the point the Dark Mechanicum even exists because so many of them wanted to do what the Votann do and innovate/improve upon existing technology. The tragedy of the Imperium and the Horus Heresy is that they COULD have what the Votann have, on a galactic-wide scale and perhaps even better, but that will never happen because it's a rotting behemoth stuck in the past.

Although the lore does read a strong "we're better than you" without many obvious drawbacks or blatant grimdark flaws outside of "we will happily kill anyone for their stuff" which is hardly a unique trait. It's probably not unreasonable to assume a lot of this is done as a sales pitch to get people to buy into "the bestist faction ever!!!" and the codex will delve a lot more into the downsides of the Leagues. Notice how they've not really touched on the failings of the Ancestor Cores since that initial article, for example.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Captain Idaho
Reference to amended post

[TheVoidDragon]

22 minutes ago, Kastor Krieg said:

One of the core setting concepts, holy grails of Dark Age of Technology, the STC? Oh, we have those and better and more and less primitive.
 

Someone please explain how this it in any way a problem that another group has better tech than the Mechanicus?

The Mechanicus and the Imperium are meant to be backwards. They've regressed technologically and are now stagnant for the most part, having lost so much knowledge and scientific understanding to the point that even the concept of "learning" something themselves is all but gone. They're a techno-cult desperately searching for relics from a "better" time because the believe the past will solve those problems for them. They're desperate, corrupt and not in any way meant to be sane or rational.

Another group who isn't beholden to that nonsensical dogma and superstition, who hasn't made as so many baffling choices as the Imperium, having a better understanding and retained more of their DAoT tech shouldn't be a surprise at all. It would be strange if they somehow had worse tech.

Not to mention being more advanced is just how they've always been from their first introduction, as the original squats were also a higher-tech faction.

[redmapa]

Votann are essentially a snapshot of DAoT humanity so its only a matter of time before their cores become too insane to work just like it happened to the res of humanity in 40k and when that happens they won't look to the mechanicum with such disdain. I don't see a clash of themes between this faction and the setting when their progress and science is on the course of total collapse, its a false hope.

Its also worth mentioning that rays of hope and light only makes the darkness look darker, if everything is bad then its all monotone and boring so factions like Tau and Votann add some needed variety without changing the overall theme of the setting. The tau are a speck of dust and the Votann will repeat humanitys error with AI.

[TheVoidDragon]

14 minutes ago, redmapa said:

Votann are essentially a snapshot of DAoT humanity so its only a matter of time before their cores become too insane to work just like it happened to the res of humanity in 40k and when that happens they won't look to the mechanicum with such disdain. I don't see a clash of themes between this faction and the setting when their progress and science is on the course of total collapse, its a false hope.

Its also worth mentioning that rays of hope and light only makes the darkness look darker, if everything is bad then its all monotone and boring so factions like Tau and Votann add some needed variety without changing the overall theme of the setting. The tau are a speck of dust and the Votann will repeat humanitys error with AI.

The Men of Iron / Cybernetic Revolt hasn't been actually confirmed to have happened for any particular reason. We only have the Imperium's biased perspective on it saying that AI is inherantly bad and will lead to the downfall of a species. Humanities error with AI seemed to be enslaving them....which the Leagues don't do.

There's even a Men of Iron in the setting at the moment who isn't some outright evil entity, and the Votann cores were on the original colony ships apparently, so they're already a lot older than the DaOT AI was at the time things went wrong.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by TheVoidDragon

[Redcomet]

Peoples idolization of the Imperium is showing. In of itself a worrying thing to idolize. 
 

So the imperium is actually pretty terrible at everything. Not exactly a huge upset.

[redmapa]

18 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

The Men of Iron / Cybernetic Revolt hasn't been actually confirmed to have happened for any particular reason. We only have the Imperium's biased perspective on it saying that AI is inherantly bad and will lead to the downfall of a species. Humanities error with AI seemed to be enslaving them....which the Leagues don't do.

There's even a Men of Iron in the setting at the moment who isn't some outright evil entity, and the Votann cores were on the original colony ships apparently, so they're already a lot older than the DaOT AI was at the time things went wrong.

 

The cores have already being described as going insane or gaining personality traits due to the information overload over the millenia, its only a matter of time before one core gains a psychotic personality or just ceases to work like the core that saw its kin eaten by tyranids and after that its societal collapse. 

Whether the men of iron were evil or just a galaxy wide glitch doesn't matter, its error caused human society to collapse and Votann ate set onto that course. Only their hubris blinds them to this.

[SpaceDwalin]

11 minutes ago, redmapa said:

Whether the men of iron were evil or just a galaxy wide glitch doesn't matter, its error caused human society to collapse and Votann ate set onto that course. Only their hubris blinds them to this.

Or maybe if they don't treat their AI robots as slaves then they won't revolt?

[Dr. Clock]

I appreciate some of the feelings re: 'Votann are Imperium +2' in terms of tech, but as has been stated this is not really a 'big deal' amongst factions; each one should feel like a 'unique but viable solution' to species survival in a hostile environment.

Votann Kin seem to enjoy lots of benefits in comparison to humans, but they are essentially a hive species that does not really differentiate between the 'natural' and 'unnatural'. It's still horrifying, just technological rather than religious. And just like for the Empire, the solution is kind of the the same as the problem... As essentially a clone species with extremely high in-group bonding led by AI, they are still living a dystopian body horror from birth! If the Empire is religious fascism, Votann appear to be pure techno-fascism.

So at the end of the day the Imperium of Man gets to remain the faction with 'regular people, with all their foibles', and their solution is always 'everything counts in large amounts', underlined by the terror that each individual is both a 'unique and noble person' but also the possible end of All Things if they are tempted off the path of Him on Terra.

The idea of the Leagues as a 'shadow of the Empire' where they're kind of competing for different resources is quite excellent. For me this really focuses attention on how Kin and the rest of humanity could be more or less 'ships passing at night' most of the time.

At the level of social commentary I quite like the contrast between the 'Ruined Church' of the Empire and the 'Corporate headoffice' of the Leagues. The biggest thing that clicked for me there is the possibility to lean into Bladerunner Replicant themes, and correspondingly full cyborg/gene-craft themes like in Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell. I love the idea that after 60,000 years, Roy Batty and Motoko Kusanage clones are still rattling around in the galactic Core, but they've been miniaturized because small = efficient. 

It may be true that within their limited reach the Leagues will knock down anything the Imperium sends, but at the end of the day there are 10 guard lasguns for every ion beamer, even if they're just spread over 5 times the actual territory. Still, the Leagues can mostly just camp on the quarter of the resources chunked in to the densest 15% of the galactic continuum without caring about trivial things like ecosystems...

So yeah - remember that each Kin actually is almost 100% gonna be 'built better' than a regular human, so you'll have to use reach and speed to win.

I kinda love how this makes Imperial bolters look more like the AK of the universe than the AR-15...

Cheers,

The Good Doctor.

[grailkeeper]

It'll be interesting to see weakness or flaw do they have.

This is a horrible setting. Everyone has some weakness or flaw. It's often the most interesting thing about them. 

 

Here the Votamn are more numerous than many Xenos races and have better equipment than other strains of humanity. Perhaps there is some explanation connected to their flaw why we haven't heard from them for a long time, or why they aren't the dominant force in the galaxy.

[grailkeeper]

No. What did it say?

[Karhedron]

12 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

It'll be interesting to see weakness or flaw do they have.

This is a horrible setting. Everyone has some weakness or flaw. It's often the most interesting thing about them. 

I think their weakness is that they depend on the Ancestor Cores for literally everything. STCs? Stored in the Cores. Warp navigation? Handled by the Cores. Reproduction? Cloning handled by the Cores. But the Cores are slowly failing by either grinding to a halt or going mad. Without them the Votan are doomed to extinction and we know for sure (as do they) that the Cores will not last indefinitely.

 

12 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

Here the Votamn are more numerous than many Xenos races and have better equipment than other strains of humanity. Perhaps there is some explanation connected to their flaw why we haven't heard from them for a long time, or why they aren't the dominant force in the galaxy.

More likely it is just the usual GW thing when something new is introduced that is supposed to be old. It was always there the whole time it just hadn't been mentioned "on screen" before. Primaris, Tau, Necrons and Nids have in-universe explanations for their sudden (re)appearance but many things do not. Sanguinary Guard were a new unit in 5th edition but had been around since the Horus Heresy. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Karhedron

[grailkeeper]

For something as large as an entire race- which is larger than other factions, I'd prefer an explanation why they're suddenly back rather than just saying they were here all along. A unit or something I have no problem. I guess just wait and see.

[Lemondish]

1 hour ago, grailkeeper said:

For something as large as an entire race- which is larger than other factions, I'd prefer an explanation why they're suddenly back rather than just saying they were here all along. A unit or something I have no problem. I guess just wait and see.

Pretty sure the answer is "big rift splittin' the galaxy in half changes things".

Edited September 7, 2022 by Lemondish

[Redcomet]

1 hour ago, Lemondish said:

Pretty sure the answer is "big rift splittin' the galaxy in half changes things".

Yes this has been specifically mentioned in the Warhammer+ lore video as the reason the League has ventured out from the core more

[TheVoidDragon]

2 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

For something as large as an entire race- which is larger than other factions, I'd prefer an explanation why they're suddenly back rather than just saying they were here all along. A unit or something I have no problem. I guess just wait and see.

There are plenty of species/empires who won't have much or any contact with the main races of the galaxy, but the Kin are in a location that's extremely hard to get to let alone survive in, that has everything they need for the most part, and they've kept themselves isolated until the Great Rift ended up seriously affecting them.

[Toldavf]

So whats the bet that we get space Gotrek next edition :D

 

[Lord Marshal]

Designing the Leagues of Votann with Jes Goodwin and Andy Clark.

The more we see of it, the more convinced I am they should've led with the Terran Dominion scheme as the poster boy one. It looks much better imo.

[Cyrox]

Yeah agreed, that looks fantastic. 

[Lemondish]

20 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

The more we see of it, the more convinced I am they should've led with the Terran Dominion scheme as the poster boy one. It looks much better imo.

Ymyr? Yeah, probably true. 

[Redcomet]

Well heck. It like them a lot in that scheme

[TheVoidDragon]

27 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

Designing the Leagues of Votann with Jes Goodwin and Andy Clark.

The more we see of it, the more convinced I am they should've led with the Terran Dominion scheme as the poster boy one. It looks much better imo.

 

I can't explain why very well but referring to the traditional/iconic Dwarf elements as just being "cliche" and making them out to be a bad thing just doesn't seem right to me.

Obviously things should be taken in a new interesting direction and not just rely on what already exists, but going into it with an attitude that shows distaste for that side comes across as missing what a lot of people like about them and why those elements are so common in the first place.

[grailkeeper]

The du-rag/ bandana really humanises him. Looks like a blue collar guy who works in a hot outfit, rather than "super warrior of the far future". Kind of like how the crew in Alien were inspired by truckers.

[Noserenda]

7 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

I can't explain why very well but referring to the traditional/iconic Dwarf elements as just being "cliche" and making them out to be a bad thing just doesn't seem right to me.

Obviously things should be taken in a new interesting direction and not just rely on what already exists, but going into it with an attitude that shows distaste for that side comes across as missing what a lot of people like about them and why those elements are so common in the first place.

Its also what GW took away from the initial failure of Squats as a line, that they were too much dwarves in space and not enough Squats (or Votann now i guess :D ) and theyve been fairly open about that over the years so its not much of a surprise to see them saying it.

EDIT
And yeah i hate the sea green scheme, the black and red is MUCH better.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Noserenda
colour

[TheVoidDragon]

4 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Its also what GW took away from the initial failure of Squats as a line, that they were too much dwarves in space and not enough Squats (or Votann now i guess :D ) and theyve been fairly open about that over the years so its not much of a surprise to see them saying it.

Have you got a source for this? Because the only thing I've seen them say was the opposite - the problem was that they weren't a good direction for Dwarfs in Space. The problem with the original Squats was the whole "silly space bikers named Squats" thing. From Jervis Johnson:

Quote

No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

I've seen nothing that suggests the failure was anything to do with being "Dwarves in space", and that would be quite odd if it was when a big aspect of the setting is that it's Fantasy in Space.

Edited September 8, 2022 by TheVoidDragon

[Bryan Blaire]

I think you are bypassing this comment in favor of griping:

“While there are certainly traditional Warhammer dwarf elements to the Leagues of Votann, they are very distinctly their own thing instead of simply being dwarfs in space”, says Andy. “People’s mileage may vary – there will be hobbyists out there who really want to lean into that theme, and there’s room in the background for them to do so.”

So if you really want the simple “dwarfs in space”, you can “lean into that theme”… it may take more work, sure - but that’s your call.

They left more things in there for the people that were interested in things beyond just the cliche elements of “fantasy dwarf” and explained really well how they lensed outward to view the concept of “dwarf with some of these elements” into a more 40K view (which has been explained before in an interview that just dropping a cliche into 40K doesn’t make it 40K, but you have to actually look at how the thousands of years of intervening time between now and when 40K is supposed to happen might have actually evolved the cliche into something new).

Edited September 8, 2022 by Bryan Blaire