World Eater Librarians are an actual thing in 30k 2.0. This is hilarious.

[N1SB]

I'm kinda slow on the uptake, so today I just found out talking with another player that World Eater Librarians are allowed.  That just makes it even funnier to me.

 

So no rule prohibits them.  It goes so far as for that optional gear that makes Indie Characters Berserkers, it says you can take it UNLESS you have the Psyker Sub-type, which was what made me do a double take in the 1st place.  Giving World Eater units the Biomancy +1 Strength +1 Toughness buff actually makes a lot of sense...and I think you can do it on a Contemptor Dreads Talon.

 

There IS a scene in the Angron Primarch book where a Librarian volunteers for the Butcher's Nails when they were still trying to figure it out, before Khârn being the 1st successful recipient.  The Librarian's all, "I've trained my mind, it is heavily conditioned, I will master the Butcher's Nails just as I mastered the warp."  Then his head blew up...and destroy a huge chunk of their ship.

 

What a character a WE Librarian would be.  He's like the one sane dude among his brothers.  He's constantly thinking, "Has the whole world gone mad, or have I?"

Edited November 25, 2023 by N1SB

[WrathOfTheLion]

The World Eaters still had Librarians at the beginning of the Heresy. I think they weren't wiped out until the Shadow Crusade. You can also play loyalist World Eaters, in which case you can have them.

 

I would not be surprised if you won't be able to take Esoterists or Librarians, when we get Corruption legion rules for World Eaters like Emperor's Children have.

[Noserenda]

Yeah the World eaters seem to have been enthusiastically behind the librarian program, well, the Warhounds anyway.

 

The butchers nails do kill psykers consistently though, but they kept trying...

 

*Splat*

[Scribe]

The Librarians were a major aspect of Betrayer.

[Petitioner's City]

And in terms of esoterists, you can think of them as the kind of Khornate occultist who makes daemonic things like Blood Pact wirewolves. Your esoterist might not actually be a 'true' psyker, but like someone speaking enuncia or someone who has been empowered by a daemonic object, they have found a way (or been given a way) to short-circuit the norms of mundane reality.

 

So despite maybe actually not being a psyker 'in universe', we can use the librarian/esoterist/malefic warlord trait/etc rules to depict these "khornate occultists" - for simplicity's sake. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

I mean, the rules have allowed it the entire time since 2012. The only thing that prevented librarians and world eaters in 30k was Berserker Assault. 

Edited November 25, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[WrathOfTheLion]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

I mean, the rules have allowed it the entire time since 2012. The only thing that prevented librarians and world eaters in 30k was Berserker Assault. 

It also makes no sense to put a restriction at the army level, while the rules allow you to choose both your legion and allegiance.

 

It also doesn't necessarily make sense to restrict it by a combination of allegiance and legion, as that'd preclude a traitor WE army from using Librarians at say, Istvaan III, or really the entire time before Angron becomes a Daemon Primarch. Which if they've given a datasheet for normal Angron, then clearly we're covering the time the traitor element of the XIIth Legion would have Librarians.

Edited November 26, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Petitioner's City]

It's also important to consider - back in 2012 - how close ADB, John French and Alan Bligh were. Betrayer (Dec 2012, by ADB) was one of the first post-Betrayal (October 2012, by Bligh and French) novel, being the first to feature Destroyers, for example - an inclusion which was presumably part of the reciprocity and friendship of these men (do go back and read ADB's five warlords series, or either his or French's eulogies to Bligh), as much as Alan Merritt's IP guardianship. Betrayer also was the first to really really present huge legions, although arguably so was The First Heretic (in likely another little point of connection).

 

You see it in French's own BL fiction, for example with Praetorian of Dorn the first to feature other elements like the Solar Auxilia explicitly, and I think even volkite (as a Solar officer is revealed to be a covert agent, deflagrating his colleagues), or his first Covenant novel featuring the secutarii he and his colleagues had been responsible for.

 

French is also close to Hoare (and they worked together also on Black Books and FFG books), with Hoare crediting French on Twitch for ideas that became the Law and Misrule campaign.

[N1SB]

I'm going to re-read Betrayer.  I forgot about that guy!

 

It's still funny to me, that there are these guys who are like the designated drivers in a ship full of Berserkers.  What an interesting take they would have.

 

On 11/26/2023 at 2:56 AM, Petitioner's City said:

And in terms of esoterists, you can think of them as the kind of Khornate occultist who makes daemonic things like Blood Pact wirewolves. Your esoterist might not actually be a 'true' psyker, but like someone speaking enuncia or someone who has been empowered by a daemonic object, they have found a way (or been given a way) to short-circuit the norms of mundane reality.

 

So despite maybe actually not being a psyker 'in universe', we can use the librarian/esoterist/malefic warlord trait/etc rules to depict these "khornate occultists" - for simplicity's sake. 

 

And this would be the exact type of modeling project I'd go for.  Brilliant idea.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

On 11/25/2023 at 1:52 PM, Noserenda said:

Yeah the World eaters seem to have been enthusiastically behind the librarian program, well, the Warhounds anyway.

 

The butchers nails do kill psykers consistently though, but they kept trying...

 

*Splat*

Even are killing Angron, because he is psyker. Well, until he is "saved" by Lorgar

[Xenith]

On 11/26/2023 at 7:33 AM, Petitioner's City said:

You see it in French's own BL fiction, for example with Praetorian of Dorn the first to feature other elements like the Solar Auxilia explicitly, and I think even volkite (as a Solar officer is revealed to be a covert agent, deflagrating his colleagues), or his first Covenant novel featuring the secutarii he and his colleagues had been responsible for.

 

There's this, but also don't forget that around that time, GW's seeming loss in the chapterhouse case cause GW to have to protect their IP religiously including naming models that they make directly in stories, leading to a phase with some jarring scenes in literature. ADB and French are among the best BL writers though, so they could do it more seamlessly, however in one of the Ahriman books, John French is still guilty of something like "Oh no, a Chaos Space Marine Warp Talon is attacking me" or words to that effect, the new kit released at the time. 

[Petitioner's City]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

 

There's this, but also don't forget that around that time, GW's seeming loss in the chapterhouse case cause GW to have to protect their IP religiously including naming models that they make directly in stories, leading to a phase with some jarring scenes in literature. ADB and French are among the best BL writers though, so they could do it more seamlessly, however in one of the Ahriman books, John French is still guilty of something like "Oh no, a Chaos Space Marine Warp Talon is attacking me" or words to that effect, the new kit released at the time. 

 

But that's not new, that goes back to the first 40k novels, and everything since - First and Only (1999) features obliterators (then new) by name, shooting from the top of the magic towers in a similar name drop cameo:

 

Quote

The Chaos forces were dun, wasted beings in translucent shrouds and scowling masks made of bone. They manned tripod-mounted lascannons, melta-guns and other more arcane field weapons with hands bandaged in soiled strips of plastic. Amongst them were their corrupt commanders, quasi-mechanical Chaos Marines, Obliterators.

 

Ghostmaker's final additions include the Volpine as the then newly revised 3rd edition version of stormtroopers and lots of the new "hellguns"; more aggressively, 2001's Honour Guard's tank regiment is a love letter to the forge world vehicles collected in Imperial Armour 1, as well as Warwick Kinrade's ammo rules from the same book; Guns of Tanith (2002) is the same but for the planes FW produced; Only in Death featuring "hero" valkyries right about the plastic kit's arrival on Jago; Salvation's Reach it's hero caestus (and tge by then older krieg-originating drills), etc.

 

It's not a new trend at all, and had little or nothing to do with chapter house - and it's flawed to make that comparison, as use of prominent "IP" names goes back to 1999 (and also to Warhammer Monthly/Inferno beforehand). 

 

Exile also features a Storm Eagle (but French was connected to it's development, but of course his good friend Hoare had published IA13). But the Warp talon is a very good scene too, and not what you intimate :)

 

Quote

The warp rose up to meet Ahriman. One second his mind was still and floating amidst the glassy calm of the oracle’s moon, and the next, he was reeling as waves of energy broke over him. The walls of the shuttle compartment shimmered and became translucent. Pale clouds boiled around him like milk curdling as it poured into bile. High shrieks filled his ears and stabbed into his thoughts. The image of the shuttle he sat in stuttered between solidity and transparency. He saw something amongst the clouds, something that was gliding on the storm winds.

Dark silhouettes appeared in the churning fog. The shrieking was all around him now, filling his mind and ears. He released his harness, and unfolded to his feet. The floor of the compartment felt solid beneath him, but he could see through the metal as if it were glass.

One of the shadow shapes swooped close. It reached towards him; he could see the shadow of its claws the instant before they punched through the skin of reality. Red and green light wept from the wound as the claws slashed it wide. Ahriman could see light and colour swirling in the space beyond the hole which hung in the rushing clouds. The shrieking was a single high, discordant note. Ahriman felt the hairs on his skin rise as if pulled by static.

Slowly, almost delicately, a creature pulled itself from beyond. It paused, crouching on the lip of reality, its head swaying from side to side. Armour plates shimmered with an oily rainbow of colours as it moved. Bulbous organic growths had sprouted across its body, like rust blooming on iron left in lightless water. Pale spines ran down the jump pack that hung from its shoulders. 

Ahriman had heard of such creatures, Space Marines lost to the warp and the sharpness of their blades. If they had a name for themselves none knew it, but to those who knew how to call them, they were named warp talons. 

It flexed its knife-blade claws. Pale green fire ignited in the jets on its back. It looked at Ahriman with red eyes and leapt, dragging a caul of the storm vapour in its wake. Behind it, four more wounds began to rip wide.

A cliff of pitted iron appeared out of the fog. The lips of blast doors opened wide to greet them. The shuttle’s engines roared and its hull snapped back into solidity, closing off the vision of the storm beyond.

And then the shuttle rang like a gong, and spun. Ahriman tumbled from his feet as the world turned over. Sparks showered around him as a flake of the hull peeled back. The creature looked down at Ahriman for a second, and then pounced.

The claws met Ahriman’s kine-shield with a burst of light and a sound like a lightning strike. The creature sprang back, hooking its hands and feet to the opposite wall. It hissed. Ahriman felt the shuttle tumbling around him. He could hear the noise of more claws raking the outside of the hull.

The creature leapt at him. Ahriman’s mind burned. A white-hot beam flashed from his eyes to meet its assault; it shrieked, and Ahriman felt the warp twist out of his grasp. Surprise was still forming in his mind when the claws met his stomach. They punched though his armour and into the soft flesh beneath. He had long enough to think that it felt cold, like swallowing ice. Then the bulk of the creature rammed into him and slammed him to the deck.

The shuttle spun and he felt his skin press against the inside of his armour as g-force tried to pull him away from the floor. The creature punched its free claw and hooked feet into the deck, pinning him in place. He looked up at it. The creature’s red eyepieces were looking back at him. It was so close he could see the fumes venting from slits in the snout of its helm.

I will not die here, he thought. He sank his mind into his body, forcing calm through his nerves and muscle. It felt like plunging into water. He could feel the claws in his guts. He saw the arrangement of molecules, bone and muscle fibre spin symbolically before his mind’s eye, and changed what he saw with a thought.

His skin tingled and went numb. In his guts, the blood stopped flowing, organs began to harden, bone became like metal. He felt his hearts stop. Above him the creature’s face split, a wide wet crack running across its faceplate. Ahriman could see sharp teeth in the red ruin of a mouth.

‘Alive,’ the creature hissed. ‘Alive. Yes.’ It licked its teeth with a black tongue. ‘Not whole. No.’ It pulled back, and tried to pull its claws from Ahriman’s guts. He did not even feel it. There was just the icy rush as the warp spun through his blood and bone. The creature howled and tried to rip its claws free. They held firm, as if it they were locked inside stone. Behind the faceplate of his helm, Ahriman smiled. He did not have long; he could not maintain the alteration to the substance of his body indefinitely.

The creature opened its mouth to roar again. Ahriman struck upwards, his fingers splayed as they punched into the open maw. The creature reeled. Ahriman closed his hand, his armoured grip digging into the soft meat of the creature’s throat. He split his mind into two streams of thought; one half continued to breathe stone and steel into his flesh, while the second began to burn. The creature thrashed, glowing cracks running across its armour from its mouth. Ahriman felt his mind brush against what remained of the creature’s soul; it felt withered and rotten, like blood turned to black jelly in a dead heart. Out of the corner of his eye, Ahriman saw the toothed blast door loom into view. He did not have time to move before the impact.

 

But it's no different than 1999's Obliterator :)

Edited December 21, 2023 by Petitioner's City

[Noserenda]

There is a funny bit in one of the Ghosts books where the list of FW tanks in a scene exactly matched the catalogue of the time :D Its probably the editors asking them to include a few kits, though a lot of the authors are fans who want to include the cool toys ;) 

[Petitioner's City]

12 hours ago, Noserenda said:

There is a funny bit in one of the Ghosts books where the list of FW tanks in a scene exactly matched the catalogue of the time :D Its probably the editors asking them to include a few kits, though a lot of the authors are fans who want to include the cool toys ;) 

 

Indeed, that's Honour Guard, as I mentioned above, although the regiment and different tanks are so integral to the novel, it's more than just a model advertisement - it's such a love letter to tankers too (much like FW was then under Cottrell and Kinrade, of course!)