What's your headcanon?

[Sawtooth]

The Leman Russ battle tank incorporates bulky energy-efficient field generators that improve its durability. It requires the Russ to be shaped as it is, but makes its many design quirks more resistant to damage than a normal tank. This is why the exposed tracks, sponsons, and hull weapon don't make the vehicle more vulnerable.

[Cactus]

I've just remembered one! When the first tau ethereals came out I saw their feet and thought "Hmmm, that's a bit 'niddy" and their control over other castes was speculated (or stated? It's been a long time.) to be based on pheromones. I decided that the ethereal caste (who basically appeared out of nowhere to bring peace to the fractious tau) were a new sophisticated tyranid infiltration organism. Where a genestealer can subvert a social group an etheral can subvert a whole society.

 

Norhing I've read has proved me wrong. Although the rash of new hive fleets since then does run counter to my 'tyranids playing the long game' angle.

[jarms48]

That 1 million marines is actually fairly reasonable given the setting. Think of it this way. Not every single planet in the Imperium is at war at-any-one-time. 

 

Say for example 10% of those worlds are at war. That's 100,000 worlds. If only 10% of those require a marine response. That's 10,000 worlds. Which hypothetically means each of those 10,000 worlds could potentially have a single space marine company sent. Obviously that's never going to be the case. As marines deny responses. Marines need to send multiple companies, even entire chapters to certain conflicts. Then there's also the need to replace their loses and rearm after a conflict. 

[gideon stargreave]

3 hours ago, jarms48 said:

That 1 million marines is actually fairly reasonable given the setting. Think of it this way. Not every single planet in the Imperium is at war at-any-one-time. 

 

Say for example 10% of those worlds are at war. That's 100,000 worlds. If only 10% of those require a marine response. That's 10,000 worlds. Which hypothetically means each of those 10,000 worlds could potentially have a single space marine company sent. Obviously that's never going to be the case. As marines deny responses. Marines need to send multiple companies, even entire chapters to certain conflicts. Then there's also the need to replace their loses and rearm after a conflict. 

Agreed. Also makes sense when you consider that a system might get a handful of marines to guard a shrine world or something

[The Unseen]

My only big one is that the War of Beasts series happened, but not the way the series said it did. Some things are too dumb even by 40ks ridiculous standards, so unlike almost every other scrap of 40k media, that series remains only partially canon in my brain. Well, that and the stuff from Ian Watson. *shudders* 

 

Hinted but not explicit, marines enhancements are partially warp based, while being grounded in mostly functioning genetics, so there are no blank Astartes, and that's why they can absolutely break realities rules in minor ways.  Like eating brains or drinking blood and getting memories and experiences. The marine is straight up eating bits of the things soul. It's also why they are so tempting to the denizens of the warp.

 

None of the organs implanted in marines would lead to the vastly increases cognition and reaction time the canon says they have, so it's a combo, but the Catalepsean Node is implanted earlier enough that it's probably the one responsible for rewiring the aspirants nerves to be faster and more efficient somehow. This is coupled with DAoT brainwashing tech that we know marines use to accelerate their learning as aspirants, and is what leads to most Astartes losing most of their previous memories, since it's rewiring and rewriting chunks of the marines brain function.

 

Ohh, and human sized bolters and Astartes sized bolters are listed as same caliber, but are very very different in composition and (primarily) cartridge length. With the Godwyn Deaz pattern for sisters sitting somewhere in between. 

 

The reason advanced digital warfare isn't mentioned except in Admech novels is that each races tech base is so far apart that trying to hack through hardened and protected military hardware for each race is more or less just not worth the effort, with the obvious exception of the Admech vs chaos infested Scrapcode, since they are both using STC derived code. For the IoM, the machine spirit's that run everything more advanced than a pocket calculator are some remnant of AI assistant tech from the DAoT and are therefore very difficult to break open, and simpler stuff is often half biological and half machinery, which renders it this weird mix of tech that is also hard to crack.

 

Combo this with circuitry hardened to the point that close range atomics and whatever EMPs large plasma weapons put out (i'm gonna guess that large energy weapons probably put out a lot of interference) aren't enough to fry war machines, the reason that the sensor systems the Imperium has access to seems very primitive is that anything more complicated can't be built robustly enough to survive more than  a few seconds around an active plasma weapon. The exceptions remain those institutions that can afford the real good stuff, much of which is no longer replicable. So your average IG squads get a local radio comm network and a booster backpack to contact command, it's robust, cheap, and while it's prone to interference, it still *usually* works just about anywhere, under conditions that would fry modern electronics instantly.

 

Orks don't care about information warfare, the Aeldari don't need technology when they can rely of psychic cheat codes, and the Necrotyr have the accompanying physics cheatcodes. The Tau haven't hit the point where their advanced tech tries to eat them, and they don't have to supply consistent logistics over an entire galaxy, so for now they get away with having all this high tech gear everywhere.

 

Not headcanon but unpopular facts:

The Tau most closely resemble a mix between the authoritarian regimes of Imperial Japan and a mix of several caste systems from around the world like India, the Imperium is more communist than the Tau, and they most closely resemble bovines, not fish. Their vehicle names are given by imperial sources categorizing them, and the flowing lines bring aquatic animals to mind. 

 

The Imperium is evil, but only by necessity and horrific choice rather than by grimderp, the setting loses most of its bite if sane people could fix it. A large part of the fun is that the 40k IoM answers the question of how bad does everything around a society have to be that Xenophobic Theocratic Facism is a justifiable response. The resulting universe that seems perversely fundamentally opposed to intelligent rational living things surviving is the result. Aka, rooting for the Nazis in snazzy uniforms is funny when they're locked in a never ending war with Cthulu and the Grays. Especially when all the real world minorities have been replaced with actual non-humans as their targets. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by The Unseen

[Magos Takatus]

26 minutes ago, The Unseen said:

 

Not headcanon but unpopular facts:

The Tau most closely resemble a mix between the authoritarian regimes of Imperial Japan and a mix of several caste systems from around the world like India, the Imperium is more communist than the Tau, and they most closely resemble bovines, not fish. Their vehicle names are given by imperial sources categorizing them, and the flowing lines bring aquatic animals to mind. 

 

This. One hundred times this. I've always thought of them being more camel people due to their early depictions of their home world being arid. Regardless of nickpicking the important part is that they have hooves and no fish-like elements. Apart from the Imperial codenames for their equipment I can't find anything particularly aquatic about them.

[Gamiel]

Never understood why the internet fandom decided to call the Tau "fishpeople" or "communist".

[DukeLeto69]

As per earlier posts I like the linkages with the fantasy setting and can see AoS being a realm(s) within the warp. I like the idea that warfare in the warp is fantasy style. Also like the idea that the ultimate showdown between Horus and Big E takes place simultaneously over a totally different time period realspace vs immaterium, ie minutes/hours onboard Vengeful Spirit but months/years with huge fantasy armies at their command in the warp. In fact the whole AoS could be just that battle/showdown.

[Urauloth]

6 hours ago, The Unseen said:

The Imperium is evil, but only by necessity and horrific choice rather than by grimderp, the setting loses most of its bite if sane people could fix it. A large part of the fun is that the 40k IoM answers the question of how bad does everything around a society have to be that Xenophobic Theocratic Facism is a justifiable response. 

Not at all. Sane people can't fix the Imperium, but not because it's screwed up out of necessity; as Guilliman is finding out, the sheer momentum of its terrible systems and the scale of its bad decisions are more than anyone can meaningfully alter. There are far better ways humanity's domains could be run, but the problems entrenched in the monolithic structures of the Imperium are beyond even a Primarch's ability to repair, and too many lords, cardinals, admirals and governors benefit on a personal level from the wretched status quo to lift a finger to change it for the benefit of the species. Almost nothing the Imperium does is necessary or justified, it's colossally wasteful and self-destructive (cf. The Watcher in the Rain) and almost the worst possible system for dealing with any given circumstance in the galaxy. It's slowly but inevitably dying. The fact that it exists in its current state at all is part of the tragedy of the Horus Heresy.

 

That's not to say that there aren't necessary evils in the Imperium (nobody started out wanting mass human sacrifices to keep the throne juiced up, but what are you going to do, let it fail? Let the Astronimicon go out? Oh boy) or that some of its more detrimental policies don't have understandable origins (the extreme xenophobia is almost certainly very damaging to humanity long-term, but it clearly originated from very bad experiences with aliens during Old Night and isn't simply a result of humans being jerks - Sanguinius: The Great Angel recently touched on this). The galaxy also doesn't allow for the existence of utopian societies, of course. The Imperium was never going to be nice, but it never had to be anything like the horrorshow it actually is, and the people who are unfortunate enough to see that are cursed to a futile struggle against millennia of ignorance, apathy, avarice and fossilized bureaucracy.

[Haywire]

An unpopular headcanon idea....

 

One of the other benefits to the Primaris project was that Cawl worked out a way to enable a near-doubling in the number of potential recruits for the Adeptus Astartes.

 

How, you might ask?

 

He made it 'compatible' with female physiology.

 

There's no real Doylist reason any more, in my mind, for GW to keep it restricted like that with the advances in technology for making models.

[Redcomet]

31 minutes ago, Haywire said:

An unpopular headcanon idea....

 

One of the other benefits to the Primaris project was that Cawl worked out a way to enable a near-doubling in the number of potential recruits for the Adeptus Astartes.

 

How, you might ask?

 

He made it 'compatible' with female physiology.

 

There's no real Doylist reason any more, in my mind, for GW to keep it restricted like that with the advances in technology for making models.

My head canon is the same. And Cawl didn’t ask permission for it, he just thought it was illogical not to tap into the resource that women presented. 

[Master Commander Ajax]

My head cannon (or alty-k as I like to call it) is set before the events of the Gathering Storm books in an alternate 40k where those events won’t ever come to pass. There hasn’t been any lore since before 8th edition that I thought was worth the retcons that Dark Imperium made.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Master Commander Ajax

[Beta galactosidase]

Quote

Ohh, and human sized bolters and Astartes sized bolters are listed as same caliber

As far as I’m concerned, the bolt guns are the same in almost every respect except some furniture.  For humans it’s just a support weapon that they can’t carry enough ammunition for to use as a regular small arm. The marine himself is sized up so that the same exact bolt gun is now usable as a normal small army.  There’s a guy Haley novel where a planetary commander takes one from a marine and fires multiple rounds. That’s guy Haley who has written 5 of 7 guilliman novels, IMO this is just more reliable than than eg the deathwatch rpg.

 

1 hour ago, Master Commander Ajax said:

My head cannon (or alty-k as I like to call it) is set before the events of the Gathering Storm books in an alternate 40k where those events won’t ever come to pass. There hasn’t been any lore since before 8th edition that I thought was worth the retcons that Dark Imperium made.

 

Are there IRL GW structural factors that you blame this for? Like for instance the marine/imperial background is obviously contrived for  the rescaled models, and the contrivance really intrudes on the drama.  So would you also say new Necron, Knight, or Drukhari background is also compromised even though they didn’t get primaris-d?

 

Someone told me that they didn’t accept anything after second edition/1998.  IRL that was written or influenced by Priestly and Chambers, but so was most of third edition, so it’s hard for me to see a bright line structural cause for how 3rd is different than 2nd. 

[Pacific81]

I don't think 2nd to 3rd edition changed that much for the Imperium did it? Was that the edition that introduced the 'Orks from mushrooms' fluff, making them much more bestial and less anthropomorphised than they had been in the RT-era Ork books, or was that 4th?

[Beta galactosidase]

2 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

I don't think 2nd to 3rd edition changed that much for the Imperium did it? Was that the edition that introduced the 'Orks from mushrooms' fluff, making them much more bestial and less anthropomorphised than they had been in the RT-era Ork books, or was that 4th?

Im not really sure what his problem w third is.  Third edition had Index Astartes, so the legions who dont have a codex or a chaos patron got background.  It also came with Drukhari, oldrons’ full codex, and Tau; there are plenty of tau haters in the world.  For me I don’t super like the implication that craftworlders are light/neutral Eldar that comes from having “dark” Eldar.

 

Orks having spores is from 1993.  What changed about orks in third is their ballistic and weapon skills.  I think that caused huge problems in the background for all factions, but there are only about 70 people in the world who are bothered by that.

 

anyway  I tried to ask what was different about third edition and he just said it’s not as good, which doesn’t satisfy me at all.

 

 

[Evil Eye]

21 hours ago, Haywire said:

An unpopular headcanon idea....

 

One of the other benefits to the Primaris project was that Cawl worked out a way to enable a near-doubling in the number of potential recruits for the Adeptus Astartes.

 

How, you might ask?

 

He made it 'compatible' with female physiology.

 

There's no real Doylist reason any more, in my mind, for GW to keep it restricted like that with the advances in technology for making models.

My personal take on it is that female Marines can exist, and the Primaris are more compatible with female physiology than Firstborn (who just straight-up aren't at all). However, failure rates are still incredibly high, far too much for a full chapter, and due to the horrifically high cost of life and resources from the initial experiments to see if it would work, it's still officially banned.

[alfred_the_great]

2 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

My personal take on it is that female Marines can exist, and the Primaris are more compatible with female physiology than Firstborn (who just straight-up aren't at all). However, failure rates are still incredibly high, far too much for a full chapter, and due to the horrifically high cost of life and resources from the initial experiments to see if it would work, it's still officially banned.

good thing 1000s of psykers aren’t sacrificed daily to keep the lights on…

[Magos Takatus]

3 hours ago, alfred_the_great said:

good thing 1000s of psykers aren’t sacrificed daily to keep the lights on…

There's a big difference between sacrificing thousands of people who are as unsanctioned psykers dangerously unstable and throwing away a Chapter's precious geneseed reserves for a very small chance of success. It's hard enough to get successful aspirants for a space marine chapter without deliberately taking a decision that lowers the chances of an aspirant surviving. Personally I have no problem with female marines but I think I understand Evil Eye's outlook?

[Lexington]

15 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

I don't think 2nd to 3rd edition changed that much for the Imperium did it? Was that the edition that introduced the 'Orks from mushrooms' fluff, making them much more bestial and less anthropomorphised than they had been in the RT-era Ork books, or was that 4th?

 

The Ork physiology/spore stuff was first detailed during the tail end of 2nd Ed in the Gorkamorka Uvver Book, IIRC. This also sort of started the change in their appearance/stats, though that seems (at least from the outside) to be mostly taken from Adrian Wood's Gorkamorka-based Ork army featured in WD222 and the immortal Battle at Glazer's Creek battle report.

 

On 12/22/2022 at 7:53 PM, Beta galactosidase said:

Are there IRL GW structural factors that you blame this for? Like for instance the marine/imperial background is obviously contrived for  the rescaled models, and the contrivance really intrudes on the drama.  So would you also say new Necron, Knight, or Drukhari background is also compromised even though they didn’t get primaris-d?

 

Not to answer for Ajax, but the "new" (ie. 5th Ed mass retcon onwards) Necron background's definitely compromised. It changed an interesting, sinister force of the galaxy into a race of overdramatic cartoon villains who still don't have any good reason to be on the battlefield en masse. They don't have any of the factors that cause other races to expand or go to war, really, and without the C'Tan as their hungry Star God overlord they have any great purpose to fulfill. A real waste that's been curiously left to rot for over a decade. Too bad.

 

In my own "alty-k", the Necrons have slowly awoken from the great stasis, but the C'Tan haven't returned, or at least haven't made themselves known to their chosen legions yet. So they simply carry on their masters' dark will, preparing the galaxy for their dark and terrible gods. Old allegiances remain, so there's also infighting between rival factions, but they end up having more or less the same overall goal. Dominance, order, hierarchy - y'know, actual themes - to characterize the faction. I miss when GW did that.

 

On 12/22/2022 at 7:53 PM, Beta galactosidase said:

Someone told me that they didn’t accept anything after second edition/1998.  IRL that was written or influenced by Priestly and Chambers, but so was most of third edition, so it’s hard for me to see a bright line structural cause for how 3rd is different than 2nd. 

 

There wasn't a big difference in the facts of the setting, but 3rd was a huge change in presentation and focus for 40K's background. It went from a grim, historical view of the setting to one that leaned heavily into the totalitarian, anti-individual nature of the Imperium. It also began to characterize and communicate the background largely thorough letters, documents, quotes and other in-universe paraphernalia, rather than the gods-eye perspective that the previous editions had. The art and layout styles changed massively, too. 40K felt very, very different after the release of 3rd Ed.

 

I personally kind of get why people don't like 3rd Ed's style. The rulebook itself still, IMO, stands head and shoulders over almost anything GW's produced before or since. It feels like a real work of art. It's just drenched in atmosphere. A setting that was familiar before now felt alien and filled with lurking, unknown horrors, and the Imperium itself was an existentialist nightmare of dogma and soul-crushing bureaucracy. It's one of the most singular examples of game-book-as-art ever produced.

 

Everything after that, though...well, more often than not, it really didn't live up to the high standards that the rulebook had set. They mimicked the style, but lacked the substance. It wasn't just that the Codexes were so small (and, boy, were they ever small), but it felt like the Studio was simply exhausted after that one big effort, and the output felt like it was done by people just going through the motions. This might not be entirely off the mark, either, as several of the designers talk about being under truly awful deadlines at the time. There was still some standout work done - the 3rd War for Armageddon's still a bright and happy memory - but much of it didn't reach that same standard.

 

3rd Ed also ended up filling in a lot of the vague and unseen background , and not always well. The Index Astartes series was a landmark, but, man, it felt like every single one was running all the same plays. Loyalist Primarch? A mythical ending that left a return open. Traitor Primarch? You better bet they all suddenly had a Wormtongue-type character whispering Chaos into their ear. 3rd Ed got rough, in a way that 2nd never did. I can see why people might not feel like it was a positive change to the setting, overall.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Lexington

[Magos Takatus]

There was quite a few changes that happened in 3rd edition that happened in the rules that had a heavy effect on the lore. There was a general clampdown on equipment that led to models having to be broken apart and remodelled. Space Marine assault squads had almost all of their weapon options stripped away until they were armed with bolt pistol and chainsword and the occasional plasma pistol if you were lucky. Terminator Squads could no longer mix and match weapons as they were split into ranged and assault variations. Other races followed suit as well. Eldar Guardians had their main weapon, the Shuriken Catapult decrease in range dramatically changing the unit from a squad that could hide in cover and fire potshots at the enemy to big squads armed with extremely short range weapons forcing them into Somme-like suicidal charges into enemy lines. No wonder they were a dying race. GW has been gradually extending the range of Shuriken Catapults ever since. Orks also lost about 90% of the weapon types that made them interesting leaving them armed with bullets, rockets and the odd flamer. Stuff like Pulsa Rokkits and Shokk Attak Gunz disappeared in favour of the Kannons and Lobbas, making the army feel bland in a way that took years to repair.

 

The AP system also made space marines able to survive direct hits from autocannons far too often. Bearing in mind this was the main weapon of the Predator Tank  it was just too much. This practical invulnerability to almost anything apart from plasma weapons in the tabletop seems to have permeated the lore because even now people are complaining that Power armour is too easily reduced in effectiveness, leading to that Armour of Contempt rule trying to bring the 3rd edition AP system back to space marines because for some reason space marines are entitled to be able to swim through heavy bolter rounds and autocannon fire, not to mention various other powerful weaponry. Just because it's not a lascannon doesn't mean power armour should have rendered it useless.

 

A lot of these issues are issues with the rules changes but in many cases they dramatically changed how the faction was viewed in the lore I think the worst example from the list that I picked was the changes to the Eldar Guardians. It forever changed how the squad could be used and giving the least experienced troops of a dying race an extremely short ranged weapons and the flimsiest armour they could build was a terrible idea. Nowadays we have the Wave Serpent that at least gives Guardians a chance to get into range without being shredded, but back in early 3rd edition that wasn't an option (and even when they finally got rules the model was some time behind).

 

Stepping away from the rules to lore interactions I can say the art of the period was a mixed bag. There were some beautiful pieces such as: 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Then there are these images seemingly drawn only using a ruler. There are a great deal of fantastic pieces of art from back in that time. I originally hated the transition to 3rd edition back then, but looking back there was a lot of timeless art from that period and huge lore changes such as the Eye of Terror campaign. I can see a great deal of 3rd edition messed things up and in some cases took years to put right again but it made a load of necessary changes such as the introduction of the Tau and defining what the Necrons would become (Though at this time they were ultra-bland empty shells devoid of any personality but it did at least define the C'Tan that they were enslaved to). It was not my intention to appear almost antagonistic towards Lexington's post regarding the Necrons but it just goes to show how controversial the 5th edition codex was for the army at the time. I personally welcomed the space created that allowed people to create lore for their own Necrons. Previously you would paint them whatever colour you wanted and then picked one of four surviving C'Tan  to serve, only two of which actually had rules and substantial background. On the other hand, there were people that enjoyed the mystery of the motivations of the Necrons appearing to be hidden and the lack of personalities that us humans could relate to. The changes to the Necron canon was pretty drastic and I preferred people having the ability to write what they wanted for their own army background but I suppose the lore that I enjoyed could easily wipe out some people's pre-existing headcanon too, which is a shame. 

 

I'm going to stop typing here because 1) I am sleep deprived and 2) Lexington has written a far better discussion on the changes to the lore between 2nd and 3rd edition than I have and I'm just going round in circles trying to explain myself succinctly. Perhaps I can get past "rules make lore bad" and whining about the slim Necron lore of 3rd edition but right now I don't think I can explain myself adequately.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Magos Takatus

[alfred_the_great]

I suppose if we’re talking about “head canon”, the changes to how geneseed exists (cf comment about “precious” upthread) have changed, and I’m sticking to the old ways...  

 

It used to be that it was grown in ‘donors’ in a lab prior to implantation, and inserted during the indoctrination process and then removed from a Space Marine after a decade or so to be re-used.  I’d venture that no Battle Brother in a Line or Reserve Company should be carrying geneseed in his body.

 

Now we get “death of a single marine means that the chapter shall never have a replacement, ever again”.  I understand a ‘one minute to midnight’ narrative style, but it just doesn’t make sense - even for 40k!

[Kastor Krieg]

On 12/23/2022 at 1:53 AM, Beta galactosidase said:

That’s guy Haley who has written 5 of 7 guilliman novels, IMO this is just more reliable than than eg the deathwatch rpg.

Deathwatch RPG IP/fluff details were fully consulted with the internal writer team at GW, to the point that those RPGs (along with the other series) were openly declared by GW as fully canon in every new datapoint and development described there. Source: my work as Dark Heresy 2 core rulebook's localization IP manager for the Polish translation. 

[Lexington]

 

On 12/23/2022 at 11:32 PM, Magos Takatus said:

The changes to the Necron canon was pretty drastic and I preferred people having the ability to write what they wanted for their own army background

 

See, I think this is a fairly widely-believed bit of fan headcanon, rather than something that was ever explicitly said. There was specific background in the 3rd Ed Necron Codex that said Lords and other high-ranking individuals had much more consciousness than the fairly mindless Warriors. The problem is that GW seemed to be so taken by the concept of the C'Tan that they never did a damn thing with it outside of, I think,  the Xenology book, and even that was extremely brief. This caused everyone to assume that all the Necrons were slaves to the C'Tan's will with no personality of their own, and it's hard to blame them given GW's absenteeism on the subject.

 

I think a Necron revamp that focused on expanding that space could've been great, tho. There were even some rumors, early on, that the 5th Ed Codex would do something like that, switching the existing C'Tan models into Lords that had been given a sliver of their master's own necrodermis. The actual C'Tan would be kept to the background more - not unlike Traitor Primarchs were, back then - and more space would be given to individual Necron Lords and their dynasties. This is one of the things I stole for my own little "headcanon" sub-setting (which I really need to put to paper sometime), tho I think the C'Tan even being awake and active has a warping effect on the setting that needed to be curtailed. Thus, their somewhat mysterious absence.

 

On 12/24/2022 at 5:26 AM, Kastor Krieg said:

Deathwatch RPG IP/fluff details were fully consulted with the internal writer team at GW, to the point that those RPGs (along with the other series) were openly declared by GW as fully canon in every new datapoint and development described there. Source: my work as Dark Heresy 2 core rulebook's localization IP manager for the Polish translation. 

 

Can confirm. I lived in the same metro as FFG's headquarters back when they had the license, and ended up hearing a fair number of 2nd and 3rd-hand stories about the editorial hoops they had to jump through in order to publish anything in GW's settings. Working with Disney on Star Wars was apparently a walk in the park by comparison.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Lexington

[Gamiel]

Trazyn is the Blood Ravens’ Primarch.

[Wormwoods]

Dante is 'the oldest living Space Marine' because they've just been eating him and putting on his mask every time the previous Dante catches a bullet, Revenant Legion style. Take the name, take the title, get all those lovely extra XP points to bring you up to Chapter Master level quick enough that nobody notices he was missing for a while.