What's your headcanon?

[TrawlingCleaner]

In a similar vein to Hensel and Gretel or many other stories; the 2nd and 11th Legions never existed and are used as fairytales by a Father that wants to stop his Sons from potentially turning traitor. He knows some turn Traitor, He's seen a/the potential future. The 2nd and 11th statues, the Primarchs hazy memories are deliberate and the memories they have were implanted.

It doesn't change the setting all that much, it just gives the Emperor another layer of protection to maybe stop them turning Traitor

[grailkeeper]

That the Raptor Cult were one of the warrior lodges used to spread chaos.

You don't hear much about the warrior lodges any more.

[Slave to Darkness]

Tyranids were not hostile, they only attacked Tyran because the Imperium shot first so the swarm went on defence mode. 

[DuskRaider]

I honestly don't like the current setting. I loathe Primaris and I loathe the return of Guilliman and everything to do with Cawl and what they've done with Adeptus Mechanicus. The vast majority of my creations are set in anywhere between M31 and up to the current setting, though most of the lore I write up is set in M35 in a now defunct project that some of us on here were creating. I prefer my lore uber dark and completely dystopian and I feel the current setting is lacking that.

[phandaal]

Definitely agree on Cawl. The story of him working behind the scenes for 10,000 years and becoming The Key to Everything is embarrassing. It would barely even pass muster for a kids' Saturday morning cartoon show.

 

I just ignore that stuff. In my head, it is all just "Space Marines."

[Slave to Darkness]

I honestly don't like the current setting. I loathe Primaris and I loathe the return of Guilliman and everything to do with Cawl and what they've done with Adeptus Mechanicus. The vast majority of my creations are set in anywhere between M31 and up to the current setting, though most of the lore I write up is set in M35 in a now defunct project that some of us on here were creating. I prefer my lore uber dark and completely dystopian and I feel the current setting is lacking that.

I actually have 2 lots of head cannon for my armies, my anti Guilliman group of Imperials for games set in current edition if  I play in GW and against my inner circle Primaris/Guilliman dont matter as its all set in the Ghoul Stars past the borders of the Astronomicon, the rift has happened but no one has a clue about the rise of the primarch and the new marines. Plus we play 1st and 2nd edition as well as current and primaris dont exist anyway. Win Win for me. 

[Karhedron]

I warmed to Cawl after reading The Great Work.

 

This shows that he was actually set up the Emperor as a contingency

 

It does make some of his accomplishments more believable.

[phandaal]

I warmed to Cawl after reading The Great Work.

 

This shows that he was actually set up the Emperor as a contingency

 

It does make some of his accomplishments more believable.

 

This my impression of the lore, not directed at you - but publishing more of the same bad story does not make it better or more believable. It just means someone reiterated the story.

 

To me it is not worth considering. Guess that would be my "head canon."

[Captain Idaho]

Got to say the universe timeline stopped just before The Gathering Storm for me.

 

I just don't understand why GW feels the need to control the narrative all the time and not create a sandbox for us to play in like they used to? That works for video games but it gets tiresome and shallow for such an artistic hobby as 40K.

 

"But Idaho!" I hear the mantra chanted again - "you can still play in the new narratives GW created as you did with any of the older ones."

 

Which is just not true. Objectively speaking either. GW moves forward with their campaigns with unsatisfactory, shallow endings and set up new versions so we know the results of said campaigns which have nothing to do with our games. It's like our games didn't even matter...

 

It would have been nice if GW kept the status quo of the original sandbox and introduced side campaigns for folk to play "locally" or even encourage folk to make their own like they kinda attempted to with Crusade.

[phandaal]

Which is just not true. Objectively speaking either. GW moves forward with their campaigns with unsatisfactory, shallow endings and set up new versions so we know the results of said campaigns which have nothing to do with our games. It's like our games didn't even matter...

 

Did the Y2K Armageddon campaign have an actual impact on the lore? Think so but it was so long ago that I could be mistaken.

[Scribe]

There's a lot of Heresy in this here thread...LOL

[Slave to Darkness]

 

Which is just not true. Objectively speaking either. GW moves forward with their campaigns with unsatisfactory, shallow endings and set up new versions so we know the results of said campaigns which have nothing to do with our games. It's like our games didn't even matter...

 

Did the Y2K Armageddon campaign have an actual impact on the lore? Think so but it was so long ago that I could be mistaken.

 

If memory serves there is still Orks there, Ghaz ran away and Yarrick wen on a road trip with the Templars to hunt him. So the usual 'no one wins' as usual for GW.

[phandaal]

 

 

Which is just not true. Objectively speaking either. GW moves forward with their campaigns with unsatisfactory, shallow endings and set up new versions so we know the results of said campaigns which have nothing to do with our games. It's like our games didn't even matter...

 

Did the Y2K Armageddon campaign have an actual impact on the lore? Think so but it was so long ago that I could be mistaken.

 

If memory serves there is still Orks there, Ghaz ran away and Yarrick wen on a road trip with the Templars to hunt him. So the usual 'no one wins' as usual for GW.

 

 

Yeah, although it was a legitimate worldwide draw right? And the events of the games actually made it into lore, like Helsreach. My memory of that is pretty hazy because I was still a nub back then.

[Gamiel]

Just so we don't have a choir here so would I like to say that I like the primaris, and the return of Gulliman, have no problems with Cawl or his tech-heresy.

 

Re. Headcanon do I also (like frater Isengrin) think that most mechanicus prayers are people chanting parts of the how-to/installation/repair manual ("befor you turn it on make certain that nothing is covering the fan") in High Gothic/pre-High Gothic while also doing all the things that the manual tells you to do (which most people don't do, they just wait it out), with some Admech versions of "hallelujah", "praise be" and similar thrown in here and there.

 

While most of the Imperium have no idea about the science behind the technology they are using do many of them know how to put it to use and have no problems making lighter modifications and jury-riggings. Tech-heresy is rampant in the Imperium because outside of AdMech middlemangment and hardliners do everybody commit it.

 

While the rusty, durty, damaged technology look is iconic is it not actually that common since part of the AdMech prayers to keep the machine spirit pleased is cleaning the item/machine and replacing any damaged part/s. The problem are with machines nobody know how to find replacment parts for or know what's wrong, so you have tech-priests and laymen taking care of machines (giving them a once over at certain interwalls) that they can't repair (they lack the parts, the can't open it, they don't know what's wrong) and they will contine to do that untill (they belive) they find the knowledge needed to fix it ones more.

 

All the ritualisation around technology and weapons the Imperium do actually have an effect at making them more effective against daemons, the same for their constant repairs and reuse of old weapons - things with an history works better against daemons than things that are sparkling new.

 

Also, ad me to the ones that don't think that the orks' Waaaaaagh! energy makes it possible for orks to turn scrap to guns just becouse they think it's a gun and similar.

[Evil Eye]

Got to say the universe timeline stopped just before The Gathering Storm for me.

 

I just don't understand why GW feels the need to control the narrative all the time and not create a sandbox for us to play in like they used to? That works for video games but it gets tiresome and shallow for such an artistic hobby as 40K.

 

"But Idaho!" I hear the mantra chanted again - "you can still play in the new narratives GW created as you did with any of the older ones."

 

Which is just not true. Objectively speaking either. GW moves forward with their campaigns with unsatisfactory, shallow endings and set up new versions so we know the results of said campaigns which have nothing to do with our games. It's like our games didn't even matter...

 

It would have been nice if GW kept the status quo of the original sandbox and introduced side campaigns for folk to play "locally" or even encourage folk to make their own like they kinda attempted to with Crusade.

Whilst I don't hate every bit of new fluff (I'm not intrinsically opposed to the concept of Primaris and SOME of the designs work for me) I definitely 100% agree with the sentiment overall re: GW trying to turn a setting into a story. The whole point of 40K as a setting is it's so unbelievably massive and clouded in myth and half-truths that a "true" account or anything remotely approaching an overarching plot is impossible. And that's to say nothing of the way they're working on the basis that every game has to take place in the (ever-changing) "present", rendering historical units and characters obsolete. Like, I don't mind the idea of characters dying or getting new wargear/armour or whatever, as long as their original selves are still playable in some form. Case in point: Tycho has been dead pretty much since he was introduced- he was made as a "historical character". But that doesn't mean he needs to be removed from the rules. Likewise, if, say, Gabriel Seth gets a Primaris upgrade, his OG self should still have rules, even in Legends, so that people who want to play pre-Primaris Seth can.

 

Anyway, another headcanon- Ollanius Pious was just a guardsman. Not a Custodes, not a Perpetual, just an ordinary guardsman who faced down the arch-heretic armed with nothing but a lasgun and a courageous heart.

Also Rogal Dorn is dead.

[Captain Idaho]

I do find it confusing when folk like the aging forgotten technology, the corrosion of free thought and slow death of enlightenment of the Imperium, yet like the jarring contradiction of the Primaris and Cawl tech themes that are so wildly at odds with that former core concept.

 

I say that not as a criticism but a request for clarification - how do you marry up the differing themes so much?

 

On that basis, I'm going to try and answer my question - I liked Guilliman's Island of Imperial Truth and reason cast adrift amongst the stomach of the carcass of the Imperium. It works not just because it's a set of different themes, but rather one emphasises the other. Guilliman's situation is one of a horror film; he's stuck in a world not of his own where the only empathy to the old familiar are the worst enemies of both times, the Traitors.

 

That's a good enough justification so am I right in thinking folk like the new Primaris as that beacon like Guilliman but extended?

 

(I'm talking from a fluff perspective here of course. Models are a personal taste that is a different matter)

Edited May 23, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Evil Eye]

I do find it confusing when folk like the aging forgotten technology, the corrosion of free thought and slow death of enlightenment of the Imperium, yet like the jarring contradiction of the Primaris and Cawl tech themes that are so wildly at odds with that former core concept.

 

I say that not as a criticism but a request for clarification - how do you marry up the differing themes so much?

 

On that basis, I'm going to try and answer my question - I liked Guilliman's Island of Imperial Truth and reason cast adrift amongst the stomach of the carcass of the Imperium. It works not just because it's a set of different themes, but rather one emphasises the other. Guilliman's situation is one of a horror film; he's stuck in a world not of his own where the only empathy to the old familiar are the worst enemies of both times, the Traitors.

 

That's a good enough justification so am I right in thinking folk like the new Primaris as that beacon like Guilliman but extended?

 

(I'm talking from a fluff perspective here of course. Models are a personal taste that is a different matter)

I mainly mean the idea of "Marines+" as a concept not being inherently bad- I've always liked the "monstrous replacement" trope, for lack of a better term. Like, had it been handled well it COULD have been interesting, with the Imperium being deeply split on opinions over them, and Cawl being viewed very poorly. For instance, Cawl's rise to prominence could have been portrayed as a power grab by a despotic techno-heretic who uses the resurrected Guilliman as a "puppet Emperor", who is more or less held to ransom by Cawl through means unknown (possibly knowledge of his darker deeds during the Heresy, or even "step out of line and I will switch your life support off"), but has created an image for himself as a saviour in the Imperium's darkest hour. I agree that the way it was executed was...weak, but I feel there was potential for brilliance.

[Bryan Blaire]

Nothing that Cawl did is innovative or new, it’s all iterative and he and his staff had 10K years to iterate - as far as I am concerned, all he did was get stuff back to where it was supposed to have been starting into the Horus Heresy or so (even if that isn’t reflected in the rules, rules doesn’t equal fluff to me).  Even the anti-grav he’s added is an inferior version of what is on Land Speeders, and definitely doesn’t match what’s in use by the Eldar - he just strapped a LOT of them onto the tanks (which I don’t really care for) and the bottoms of feet (also which I don’t care for at all and think looks dumb), which feels pretty modus operandi for the Imperium - just strap more to it until it works - plus it’s also a throw back to the anti-grav deodorant tank (and we know GW is into throwbacks right now).  The Phobos armor more silent servos also seem reminiscent of the sound baffling that the Raven Guard use - who knows how he might have gotten access to it, but it’s something that was already in the lore.

 

Even the Primaris aren’t new or innovative - one of the organs isn’t even the complete work and was originally designed by the Emperor and team, and the others I’m not convinced are necessary at all or should have already been there (which is sort of how I feel about it, maybe what he added just makes things that were already present work again) - they may have even been implanted already or grew in sort of a dormant state until turned on, etc.

 

I also think the height difference is dumb, but don’t really care about the scale stuff, since it’s all over the place since 2nd Edition.

 

We’ve already had iterative tech adds in-universe - they were just limited - things like variant Land Raiders and Predators, etc.

 

What should have been questioned more in the lore was all this stuff coming about at the same time - that’s what feels like too much.  The idea that Cawl also did all of this himself, rather than with a workshop and team of artisans and other subordinates, is also kinda crazy, but I think also not entirely true.

 

It all could have been done better (edit: Evil Eye put that very well), but it is what it is, so I just don’t worry about it - it doesn’t destroy anything about playing the game or painting the models to me, and I’ve always felt that GW’s lore is lacking in several places.  I am also not a fan of the meta-story aspect of the advancing campaigns, but I can ignore the story stuff - what I don’t like about that is them taking away rules that should remain accessible should people want to get them down the line - doesn’t matter the form to me, just have them purchasable in a digital archive or something, that way if a rules set sounds like it would fit a campaign idea, we can still get it at some point.

[TheVoidDragon]

Definitely agree on Cawl. The story of him working behind the scenes for 10,000 years and becoming The Key to Everything is embarrassing. It would barely even pass muster for a kids' Saturday morning cartoon show.

 

I just ignore that stuff. In my head, it is all just "Space Marines."

Cawl should have been Arkhan Land returning after millenia lost in the Librarius Omnis, he had with an already established reputation and relevance to that sort of lore like both the Anti-grav tech. A legendary hero re-emerging after being missing for so long and coming back with more STC fragments, having had to scavenge parts to keep himself alive and driven slightly mad by the isolation to explain the more out-there aspects of Cawl.

[Dagoth Ur]

I do find it confusing when folk like the aging forgotten technology, the corrosion of free thought and slow death of enlightenment of the Imperium, yet like the jarring contradiction of the Primaris and Cawl tech themes that are so wildly at odds with that former core concept.

 

I say that not as a criticism but a request for clarification - how do you marry up the differing themes so much?

 

Because one revolutionary cannot overturn the morass of ten thousand years. The new, mass-produced suit of mark X armour of today will become the relic of tomorrow. The first primaris might fancy themselves enlightened, but once overturned to their respective chapters they too will become mired in ritual, cult and the trappings of tradition. We already see it in the few chapter specific primaris miniatures that we have. The new primaris Black Templars might have been born as sons of Dorn, rife with ideals of the Great Crusade but in the embrace of the chapter they too - not to mention the primaris that will be raised after them within the chapter - will regress into fanaticism and monodominant hatred. Primaris of Sanguinius' lineage that get seconded to the Flesh Eaters and Flesh Tearers become part of a chapter culture which Sanguinius would abhor.

 

Cawl might lean against the dogma of Mars and the things he create might present an unprecedented era of creativity and technological standardization, but it is still just one soul holding against the crushing hegemony of the red priesthood. The new plasma gun is still shrouded in the mysticism of the old. Invention is nothing new in the setting after all. The Land Raider Crusader/Ares/Redeemer/Helios, the Centurion Warsuits, Ironstrider Engines, Mark 8 armour are just some of the examples of need-based innovation in the setting. Whatever Cawl has invented has thus far only been iterative. None of his designs are fundamentally revolutionary, but rather improvements upon designs that have been made by greater men and women than he. They are new and flashy now but don't forget - mark II armour and the Land Raider Proteus were new too once upon a time. It is time and cultural drift that rendered them coveted relics and items of great reverence. This - so I think - is the logical conclusion for all of the new stuff as well. In 1000 years, a suit of Mk X armour that is just a "product" now, will be a chapter's relic.

 

The different themes are not jarring, they're complementary. It is the interaction of these concepts that is so interesting. A new, enlightened generation that will be suffocated and assimilated under the weight of its superiors. A scientist, arriving in a community of thousands that fervently holds on to ideas of spiritualism and half-understood observations. If anything, it makes the setting even grimer. For all their enlightenment and proximity to the Emperor's vision of the crusade, the Primaris, Cawl and Guilliman have been thrust into an Imperium that ceased to adhere to that supposed vision a long time ago and most likely never will adhere to it again. This is not the Emperor's Imperium. This is the God-Emperor's Imperium. Enlightenment is a madman's dream and these newcomers will be folded into it, with all their toys and doodads.

 

Or that's at least my head canon.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

 A legendary hero re-emerging after being missing for so long 

Sounds like Guilliman and any loyal Primarchs they introduce though. Making Cawl be Land himself also just shrinks the world even more and is a poor cop out. That idea went around (even here) when the whole thing happened because 'how can a random tech do all this without being noticed' and a LOT of people straight up said that was worse than having a nobody do it.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

 

Anyway, another headcanon- Ollanius Pious was just a guardsman.

Also Rogal Dorn is dead.

 

and both were official once. 

[phandaal]

 

 

 A legendary hero re-emerging after being missing for so long 

Sounds like Guilliman and any loyal Primarchs they introduce though. Making Cawl be Land himself also just shrinks the world even more and is a poor cop out. That idea went around (even here) when the whole thing happened because 'how can a random tech do all this without being noticed' and a LOT of people straight up said that was worse than having a nobody do it.

 

 

Coming out of nowhere to save the day with a secret project 10,000 years in the making... it is just bad. There is no fixing it with retroactive justifications, because the foundation itself is rotten.

 

Attempting to build further lore on top of that rotten foundation just makes that further lore bad as well.

 

My solution is just to ignore it. The weaponry and armor is just a range refresh. The lore feels a lot sturdier when it is just Space Marines doing Space Marine things. 

[DukeLeto69]

More of my Headcannon - there were not 1000s of Primaris on ice. ALL Primaris are the result of existing veteran Space Matines crossing the Rubicon.

[infyrana]

I've read just a smidge of the odd thing on the wiki regarding Primaris 'history' and what I've read here.  I just ignore it all and go as above - new armour designs.  I also try to justify the scale creep by looking at our own history - 100 years ago people didn't live as long, nor grow as tall or large as they do today.  Given this (and some countries having generally taller people), I can more readily rectify and justify the size differences myself and call them all Space Marines, just with different armour.

 

I have a lot of bits n pieces of head canon for my loyalist DG 30k force as well as my Deathwatch and the rest of my first borns, I've also somewhat tied them together so my collection tells a personal story (not that I have modeled them that way sadly).  I have a collection of Primaris now too which I have yet to tie in with my personal canon, I'm still having a hard job to not keep them separate from my firstborn for fear of making one or the other jealous.  I've not decided how to tie in my ideas for a new HH 2.0 force as I've read nothing about loyalist DG interactions with UM apart from the Garro story.

Edited May 23, 2022 by infyrana