More firstborn units lumped together or going away.

[jaxom]

5 minutes ago, Dracos said:

It would be literally impossible odds for that knowledge to be completely destroyed or suppressed. It’s just bad storytelling. 

"Reality is unrealistic." 10,000 years is longer than recorded human history (5-7 thousand years) and we've lost plenty, often in less than a thousand years.  We literally don't know what original word "bear" was a place holder for. We don't have any primary documents or continuous knowledge of the recipe for Greek fire. We don't know the third most popular seasoning of early 1800s in Britain. We don't know where Egypt's trade partner Punt (an empire, itself) was. We don't know who the Seafaring People of the Bronze Age were.

 

Perhaps more to the point, it fits the tone of 40k. The best days of the Imperium are long gone, superstition and zealotry prevent meaningful improvement, and it's easier to lose and make 300 more genetically enhanced super-soldiers than it is to lose a high quality tank.

[spessmarine]

I dunno man, the decaying knowledge or glory days long have set shtick just seems like a cop-out to handwave things here and there now. May have held water at some point, but now that special guy that has been around since the Heresy is around making marines+ and hovertanks and neo-volkite. Up to five primarchs and counting now up and about, soon to be six.
I'm not upset things have changed, but playing up a theme of decay and downspiral does not mesh with what the current setting trajectory is, a sort of 10,000 year high school heresy reunion.

 

How am I supposed to buy that something like this is long lost knowledge

 

 

When this is paling about

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by spessmarine

[Kallas]

14 minutes ago, spessmarine said:

I'm not upset things have changed, but playing up a theme of decay and downspiral does not mesh with what the current setting trajectory is, a sort of 10,000 year high school heresy reunion.

I mean yeah. That's kind of why some of us think this is a severe watering down/shrinking of the setting. It's turned into a story focused around a couple of characters who are everywhere all of the time, instead of having stories set within the vast expanse of the galaxy. You're right, it's hard to buy that line because GW has gone to great lengths to make it untenable, just to shift boxes of new Marines to existing Marine players.

 

We'll see Russ and Khan come back over the next few years, and then we'll probably get an Emperor miniature when GW decides to jump all the way over the shark.

 

19 minutes ago, spessmarine said:

I dunno man, the decaying knowledge or glory days long have set shtick just seems like a cop-out to handwave things here and there now. May have held water at some point, but now that special guy that has been around since the Heresy is around making marines+ and hovertanks and neo-volkite. Up to five primarchs and counting now up and about, soon to be six.

That's kind of the thing, it didn't used to be a cop-out, it wasn't a handwave, it was the setting. Now it is a handwave, because they've just decided "oop, now they make new stuff just because" so the previous state of affairs is just magically gone.

[Lemondish]

2 hours ago, Kallas said:

That's kind of the thing, it didn't used to be a cop-out, it wasn't a handwave, it was the setting. Now it is a handwave, because they've just decided "oop, now they make new stuff just because" so the previous state of affairs is just magically gone.

 

Imagine being upset that things can move forward and change in the lore. Things were that way, and there's nothing at all that requires they always have to be that way. In fact, it's best if they do move the story forward, and part of that might just manifest as "making new stuff" as you so aptly put it.

[Tacitus]

8 hours ago, spessmarine said:

I dunno man, the decaying knowledge or glory days long have set shtick just seems like a cop-out to handwave things here and there now. May have held water at some point, but now that special guy that has been around since the Heresy is around making marines+ and hovertanks and neo-volkite. Up to five primarchs and counting now up and about, soon to be six.
I'm not upset things have changed, but playing up a theme of decay and downspiral does not mesh with what the current setting trajectory is, a sort of 10,000 year high school heresy reunion.

 

I think it works.  The knowledge to push the buttons on the machinery is different than the knowledge, creativity, and initiative to change what pushing the buttons does.  I've always thought the dystopian nature was something of a Communism allegory.   You don't benefit from making something new, and can be killed for trying.  Cawl is realistically the only one to do it, and he had the approval/protection of (basically) the Demi-God in charge of Mankind.  Even then, when his benefactor was taken out of play, he kept the project hidden - potentially paused in a status quo - until his protection was returned. 

[Kallas]

11 hours ago, Lemondish said:

Imagine being upset that things can move forward and change in the lore.

Imagine being upset that people liked the setting, and that fundamental changes to the setting might make people unhappy.

 

This isn't a small change, the setting is shifting significantly.

 

11 hours ago, Lemondish said:

there's nothing at all that requires they always have to be that way

And nothing at all that requires they must shift things so massively. Your point is irrelevant, because the original setting was always vast, allowing for freedom to develop things - changing the dynamic of the setting so that it is smaller is a big change and - shocker - not everyone agrees with your opinion that it's for the better.

 

Your sanctimoniousness is tiresome.

[Blindhamster]

I see people talk about the setting being smaller, but I've never really got it? In what way? The setting has literally always focused on the special characters of the factions, the expanse of cool "insert leader type from faction type here" was always just down to expanded lore from novels or from peoples own homebrew chapters/regiments/craftworlds etc.  That hasn't changed in the slightest.

 

It's literally always been about the big names doing the big things, with major narratives almost always focused on them primarily. So I don't agree that the setting is any smaller now than it ever was. You're still welcome to focus on a chapter that isn't one of the big players, or to focus on a company that isn't one of the big companies of the chapter, or a sept that isn't one of the big players etc. Just like you always have been.

 

Totally agree that the fact that a new player showed up and introduced an olive leaf opportunity for the imperium to progress was a change - but it didn't actually change how the imperium had been prior to him "resurfacing".

Yes the setting is now a story and as such will progress in the same way as say... the forgotten realms has for D&D over the editions, but it's not taking away the older period. From a narrative perspective it also hasn't stopped the setting being one of humanities final hours, because we have already been shown very clearly that even with primarchs returning and the advent of primaris - the imperium is losing. They just have new propeganda to send out suggesting otherwise to the wider masses of the Imperium.

 

The issue is obviously that stuff is going to legends, and as a result those narrative games rely on legends now. But... that really shouldn't be the problem people make it out to be, because GW is at least trying to push the fact Legends should be for exactly those kind of things. The only setting they want to restrict, is tournaments, because fewer units per faction makes for an easier game to balance.

And yes, I know they could have simply not made primaris. But they did, it's been and gone, they did it because they felt they were less able to protect their IP with the old marines, they clearly wanted to make something new and different. That's their call, and whilst it did (clearly) upset some people, obviously enough still liked it that they haven't course corrected (much - you could argue that the terminators and scouts getting updates is a minor course correction tbh).

[Dracos]

20 hours ago, jaxom said:

"Reality is unrealistic." 10,000 years is longer than recorded human history (5-7 thousand years) and we've lost plenty, often in less than a thousand years.  We literally don't know what original word "bear" was a place holder for. We don't have any primary documents or continuous knowledge of the recipe for Greek fire. We don't know the third most popular seasoning of early 1800s in Britain. We don't know where Egypt's trade partner Punt (an empire, itself) was. We don't know who the Seafaring People of the Bronze Age were.

 

Perhaps more to the point, it fits the tone of 40k. The best days of the Imperium are long gone, superstition and zealotry prevent meaningful improvement, and it's easier to lose and make 300 more genetically enhanced super-soldiers than it is to lose a high quality tank.

Apples and oranges comparing the knowledge of the last 5 thousand years when man was without the ability to store and communicate knowledge on a planetary scale and jumping forward 10,000 years where that knowledge is spread throughout the stars where even a planetary extinction event becomes no more consequence to that knowledge continued existence than the most massive of hurricanes today. 
 

I love the game and have enjoyed the lore but as a projection of humanity’s future I’ve always found it falls short of likelihood once we have seeded the stars with thousands of colonies. 
 

My grandfather fought in WW2 and I served during the height of the Cold War when the fear of a  dystopian future genre was very popular. But even as a stereotypical old Boomer I can say I’ve always found it hard to believe in a humanity without hope. 
 

I think that’s what I like about Primaris. They offered hope. 

[Dracos]

18 hours ago, Kallas said:

I mean yeah. That's kind of why some of us think this is a severe watering down/shrinking of the setting. It's turned into a story focused around a couple of characters who are everywhere all of the time, instead of having stories set within the vast expanse of the galaxy. You're right, it's hard to buy that line because GW has gone to great lengths to make it untenable, just to shift boxes of new Marines to existing Marine players.

 

We'll see Russ and Khan come back over the next few years, and then we'll probably get an Emperor miniature when GW decides to jump all the way over the shark.

 

That's kind of the thing, it didn't used to be a cop-out, it wasn't a handwave, it was the setting. Now it is a handwave, because they've just decided "oop, now they make new stuff just because" so the previous state of affairs is just magically gone.

Yeah but that’s the thing without moving the storyline in some fashion it becomes stale and loses one’s interest. There has to be growth and hope to go with loss and suffering or your story only appeals to a very small niche of individuals that for some reason enjoy wallowing in darkness and despair.
 

For a company that wants to expand its product it has to build to grow a storyline that appeals to more than its original niche. It can keep its flavor and do that without rainbows and unicorns but it takes time to rinse and try to respect its base.
 

Honestly they aren’t perfect but GW is killing it in my opinion compared to say Disney or the comic book market.

[jaxom]

I think that's were it becomes agree to disagree. Some folks like the moving narrative to take part in and other folks prefer a pseudo-static historical sandbox to explore.

[Kallas]

 

4 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

I see people talk about the setting being smaller, but I've never really got it? In what way? The setting has literally always focused on the special characters of the factions, the expanse of cool "insert leader type from faction type here" was always just down to expanded lore from novels or from peoples own homebrew chapters/regiments/craftworlds etc.  That hasn't changed in the slightest.

3 hours ago, Dracos said:

There has to be growth and hope to go with loss and suffering or your story only appeals to a very small niche of individuals that for some reason enjoy wallowing in darkness and despair.

There is room to grow, and it's not even advancing the story in some way that I am displeased by, but the manner - they have reduced the focus such that every main story involves many of the big players. The galaxy is meant to be an immense place, but it always involves Calgar, Guilliman, Cawl, etc. You could argue that of course these guys should be involved in big events, but then we never see events where they aren't involved such that it makes it so that this huge setting is narrowed down into a specific story about a handful of individuals; it's moved away from the expansive setting into a narrow episodic story.

 

I mean, not everyone agrees with that assessment, fine, but that's how I see it going down, and it's something I dislike; I'm not saying that everyone needs to feel that way, but that's how I feel and that some want to dismiss that as ridiculous is pretty infuriating.

 

As for the setting needing to have hope, that's...kind of the setting. It's literally why Grimdark has seeped into descriptions of other settings: the 40k setting is meant to be grim, and the rays of hope that shine through are generally small. Hope is seen on the small scale, usually in the more detailed areas like the novels: the wide view is tough and unpleasant, because every victory seems meaningless, but the human element (which is often lost on the macro scale when you zoom out) is where hope still shines. Hell, I'd argue that Space Marines aren't that ray of hope, it's the humble Guardsman, who fights and dies with nothing but a lasgun, a bayonet and guts who gives far more hope than the super soldier. This is another one of those reframings of the setting that I just don't agree with. Guardsmen and humans in general see Marines as demi-gods, a sign of victory or salvation; but we the viewer can see them for the flawed, limited resource they are, and how they aren't even a speck in the ocean when it comes to stemming the tide that the Imperium faces.

[Blindhamster]

17 minutes ago, Kallas said:

The galaxy is meant to be an immense place, but it always involves Calgar, Guilliman, Cawl, etc.

There was a storyline recently with the blood angels and dark angels fighting daemons and a daemon primarch on the other side of the rift. Whilst the ultramarines did feature, I think it was tigarius leading them in their part of the story.

 

I get what you mean, I just don’t really see how it’s particularly different from before. 
 

I can’t personally say when cawl was even last directly part of a major storyline? 

looking at the 10th edition main events so far, it’s had imperial guard and custodes named characters get called out, I don’t think any of those big names you mentioned were outside of guilliman orchestrating the defense from terra (which makes sense considering his role).

 

if you meant main characters from any faction, then I feel my original point stands in that it’s always been that way, if you mean specifically cawl, Calgar and guilliman, I think you’re right broadly speaking for much of 8th and early 9th, but it does seem like they’re moving away from that.

[DemonGSides]

I think it's weird to complain about the narrative focus for an edition as if it's a huge change to the game, considering EVERY OTHER narrative focus for a new edition has basically quietly gone away as the next edition moves forward.

Like, we BARELY hear about the pariah nexus, let alone anything more on the Death Guard invasion of Ultramar.  It got "Handled" in a book, but it had no real consequence so there's more of the preferred stagnation.  Lets not forget the entire Ynnari storyline that was just straight up abandoned.  And when was the last time anyone ever thought about the Crimson Slaughter?

None of these story hooks matter.  Vigilus is still ongoing for the emperor's sake.  It's just as stagnant as before, it's just newer stagnation.

Edited September 5, 2023 by DemonGSides

[spessmarine]

There are multiple things at play that makes me feel conflicted. Yeah it waters things down a bit for sure but at the same time, it gets dull quick that "sorry things must be bad and dumb and all times". Incompetent bureaucracy gags get stale eventually. 

 

It also becomes a case of to be observed from versus interacted with, sometimes they are at odds. For instance, I preferred the Oldcron fluff as it was cooler, but it never got me playing them just enjoying it as setting material. Newcron fluff adds more agency for people to interact with and encourages buy in as a result. What makes a setting cool and what makes people engage with it can differ 

Edited September 5, 2023 by spessmarine

[spessmarine]

2 hours ago, Kallas said:

There is room to grow, and it's not even advancing the story in some way that I am displeased by, but the manner - they have reduced the focus such that every main story involves many of the big players. The galaxy is meant to be an immense place, but it always involves Calgar, Guilliman, Cawl, etc. You could argue that of course these guys should be involved in big events, but then we never see events where they aren't involved such that it makes it so that this huge setting is narrowed down into a specific story about a handful of individuals; it's moved away from the expansive setting into a narrow episodic story.

 

1 hour ago, Blindhamster said:

There was a storyline recently with the blood angels and dark angels fighting daemons and a daemon primarch on the other side of the rift. Whilst the ultramarines did feature, I think it was tigarius leading them in their part of the story.

 

I get what you mean, I just don’t really see how it’s particularly different from before. 

I do feel iffy about the current narrative structure. Feels a lot more like named characters chasing around a series of MacGuffins. No named characters can die, since they got fancy new models, and the MacGuffins are totes going to change everything. 
 

FW style, slice of a conflict where the overall front is a speck in comparison and the cast can be a bloodbath feels more intriguing. Not every ordeal needs to be played up as galaxy altering.

So not so much things may never change but I like the static setting with a myriad of things going on that may not be connected at all. Then a periodic big happening, that genuinely changes things drastically ala Cadia rather than a constant narrative 

[Dracos]

3 hours ago, Kallas said:

 

There is room to grow, and it's not even advancing the story in some way that I am displeased by, but the manner - they have reduced the focus such that every main story involves many of the big players. The galaxy is meant to be an immense place, but it always involves Calgar, Guilliman, Cawl, etc. You could argue that of course these guys should be involved in big events, but then we never see events where they aren't involved such that it makes it so that this huge setting is narrowed down into a specific story about a handful of individuals; it's moved away from the expansive setting into a narrow episodic story.

 

I mean, not everyone agrees with that assessment, fine, but that's how I see it going down, and it's something I dislike; I'm not saying that everyone needs to feel that way, but that's how I feel and that some want to dismiss that as ridiculous is pretty infuriating.

 

As for the setting needing to have hope, that's...kind of the setting. It's literally why Grimdark has seeped into descriptions of other settings: the 40k setting is meant to be grim, and the rays of hope that shine through are generally small. Hope is seen on the small scale, usually in the more detailed areas like the novels: the wide view is tough and unpleasant, because every victory seems meaningless, but the human element (which is often lost on the macro scale when you zoom out) is where hope still shines. Hell, I'd argue that Space Marines aren't that ray of hope, it's the humble Guardsman, who fights and dies with nothing but a lasgun, a bayonet and guts who gives far more hope than the super soldier. This is another one of those reframings of the setting that I just don't agree with. Guardsmen and humans in general see Marines as demi-gods, a sign of victory or salvation; but we the viewer can see them for the flawed, limited resource they are, and how they aren't even a speck in the ocean when it comes to stemming the tide that the Imperium faces.

I for one would be fine with killing off many of the old characters in well written stories in which their death had real impact on the story 

 

and adding new characters for Chapters , Regiments, Septs , Klans , etc we have yet heard from

[Evil Eye]

The thing that bothers me about the "moving the story forward" (aside from the fact 40K is a setting, not a story) is that between the end of the Heresy and the fall of 40K's remaining dignity Cadia, you have ten thousand years across the entire galaxy to make "slice of action" mini-settings with. You can tell as many stories as you want and introduce as many cool new things or new characters as is required without having to make sweeping changes to the overall setting. You don't need to have an overarching MCU-style narrative or whatever, just give us "Crazy nonsense happens in the middle-of-nowhere sector" as an excuse to make new stuff; half the point of 40K is that the actions of even the grandest hero in the current age were supposed to be utterly insignificant on the scale of the Imperium as a whole. You can introduce characters from these settings and if need be kill them off (plenty of characters from the Before Times were supposed to be dead by the then-present but were still playable!).

 

The need to have every game happening in the "present" whilst """advancing the story""" is nothing more than a marketing gimmick to force people to keep buying newer, stupider looking models through FOMO. Sorry, Yarrick's dead now! You have to buy this guy on a horse instead! Sorry, Ursarkar E. Creed and his Colour Sergeant are gone, buy this one instead! What? You want to play a game from before the Fall of Cadia and without Poochie Marines? Tough luck, now buy some Primaris Confusticators! Give us your money like a good little consumer or You Will Not Be Missed! Gotta keep up with the times you know!

[SvenIronhand]

9 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Sorry, Yarrick's dead now! You have to buy this guy on a horse instead!

This assumes that the Lord Solar is a direct replacement for Yarrick. That seems, to me, to be a faulty assumption.

[Blindhamster]

Agreed, utterly faulty logic because if he is a replacement for something, he’s a replacement to the previous lord solar model. Yarrick has nothing to do with it.

[lansalt]

8 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

You don't need to have an overarching MCU-style narrative or whatever, just give us "Crazy nonsense happens in the middle-of-nowhere sector" as an excuse to make new stuff

But those aren't as popular or commercially viable as "big events". It's not like GW did not try it before Gathering Storm: Medusa V, Imperial Armour campaigns like Vraks and Badab, Armaggedon, the Crusade of Fire, Dark Vengeance, Damocles, Sanctus Reach... Those campaigns come and go with only a few die hards caring about them, just like the recent Vigilus, Psychic Awakening and the War Zones now featured in White Dwarf every few issues that nobody online seems to have heard of.

You can even see this with BL books like the Indomitus series that are mostly focused in important but small conflicts where Guilliman is little more than a quest giver.

 

In the end, there are more fans that love drama and recognizable characters than those who prefer little slices of grimdark in the middle of nowhere. GW tries to serve both but the products made for the former are going to be more noticeable.

 

 

[Orange Knight]

I actually have no issue with the idea that knowledge is lost. I think ultimately this is something that can indeed happen.

 

For example - The USA is currently unable to reproduce the Apollo rockets that took men to the moon. They literally don't have the facility to manufacture or build them. If the blueprints are lost then the rocket will not be re-producible at all.

 

What is a lot less realistic in the setting is the lack of innovation or modification of basic tech that is spread around the galaxy. For example, the Astra Militarum would naturally make adjustments to vehicles, infantry weapons etc over time. You can write reasons for why they can't/won't modify something like a knife, but those reasons don't stand up to scrutiny. Humans don't work like that.

 

The more esoteric and specialist things could indeed be lost, but new things would replace them that do something similar. I do agree that reason is stretched a bit when a Sicaran can't be produced, but a hovering variant with more sophisticated technology and weapons is rolling off the production line.

[Beta galactosidase]

18 hours ago, lansalt said:

 It's not like GW did not try it before Gathering Storm: Medusa V, Imperial Armour campaigns like Vraks and Badab, Armaggedon, the Crusade of Fire, Dark Vengeance, Damocles, Sanctus Reach... Those campaigns come and go with only a few die hards caring about them,

 

You can even see this with BL books like the Indomitus series that are mostly focused in important but small conflicts where Guilliman is little more than a quest giver.

 

In the end, there are more fans that love drama and recognizable characters 

 

 

That’s why it’d be really easy to put Sicarius or Ventris and Pasanius in the Start Collecting! boxes, maybe make them 80% as auto-take as Guilliman, Eldrad or Creed have been in previous editions.  They have drama, they’re recognizable, they have ongoing stories unlike those seemingly pointless Indomitus installments you mentioned. 

the difference is that when players paint Guilliman as a Black Templar or White Consul, it’s a little weird and it’s not that many people who do it.  Sicarius and Ventris are archetypes.

 

you can also still have the big Guilliman centerpiece model, in a boss, season-bookend guest role that he can actually do stuff in.

 

 

On 9/5/2023 at 12:44 PM, DemonGSides said:

I think it's weird to complain about the narrative focus for an edition as if it's a huge change to the game, considering EVERY OTHER narrative focus for a new edition has basically quietly gone away as the next edition moves forward.

 

and yet because they’re personal narratives instead of which-side-wins scenarios, Sicarius, Gaunt, Ahriman, Trazyn etc can have a through line in every edition, if you’d just put them in the main codex and the main launch wave. 

 

 

On 9/4/2023 at 4:17 PM, Lemondish said:

 

Imagine being upset that things can move forward and change in the lore. Things were that way, and there's nothing at all that requires they always have to be that way. In fact, it's best if they do move the story forward, and part of that might just manifest as "making new stuff" as you so aptly put it.

it’s funny because people keep making new installments of the Terminator films for example, and as popular as T2 and Terminator are, the next installments don’t matter, don’t affect their popularity or the catch phrases people say at the office.  Same with plenty of other serials.  You say things move forward and change in the lore, but new installments can’t actually retcon anything out of the zeitgeist. 

 

 

 

On 9/5/2023 at 6:59 AM, Blindhamster said:

I see people talk about the setting being smaller, but I've never really got it? In what way? The setting has literally always focused on the special characters of the factions, the expanse of cool "insert leader type from faction type here" was always just down to expanded lore from novels or from peoples own homebrew chapters/regiments/craftworlds etc.  That hasn't changed in the slightest.

 

 

Totally agree that the fact that a new player showed up  was a change - but it didn't actually change how the imperium had been prior to him "resurfacing".

Ever since the game Titanicus there’s been a tension.  Once there were nine special parent chapters, it always meant even a  character from a new chapter introduced by GW couldn’t matter as much as one of these nine.  You know that a raven guard or dark angel is not going to raise his chapter to the height of fame and glory because they’re already there. 

[Paladin777]

Not quite confirmation, but almost as good as. 
 

honestly, I really like the 10th edition core rules, but the army rules have been frequently disappointing. From the culling, to the lack of balance, to the forced 'power level...'

Edited September 18, 2023 by Paladin777

[Karhedron]

Not really too surprising. I am surprised that VanVets are still in (at least the Jump Version). I wonder if that implies a Primaris upgrade a la Sternguard in the pipeline.

[Marshal Reinhard]

If there is, I hope they retain all the options of the old kit. If the two are analogus, shouldnt matter which version is used