Updated Space Wolves Rumours

[Blindhamster]

Thing is, there's been novels where the space marines (or imperial guard!) have been legitimate heroes and "good guys" for decades. Suggesting its a new thing is just... kind of obnoxiously wrong.

Look at things like the William King Space Wolf novels about Ragnar (1999), or the Graham McNeil Ultramarine ones about Uriel (2002).

 

Look at characters like Dante of the blood angels, he's always been noted as a hero, he's also typically depicted as trying to avoid loss of innocents - hell look at at CHAPTERS like the salamanders, who have had the humanitarian angle going for a long long time.

YES, at a deep rooted level, the machine that makes the imperium hold together is dystopian, its hard to straight up horrible, nightmarish things like cyber cherubs are used. The hatred of xenos, mutants, witches etc - it's extreme, but lets be absolutely clear... the vast majority of xenos in the setting do in fact want to wipe out humans, mutants are an iffy one, depends on the cause of mutation, but all too often mutants are chaos tainted in the setting so its also a pretty reasonable rule of thumb... even the hatred of witches makes sense when the vast majority factually lack the mental defenses to not become an open gateway for demons. But, that doesn't mean there aren't idealists, well intentioned individuals or straight up heroes within it at a lower level. Are those heroes capable of great acts of violence? Yes, but again lets be clear, most other settings heroes... even real world ones, are often associated with violence in some manner. Part of the human condition I suppose.

 

Also, the imperium does in fact still have the high lords, a few of them got replaced because of how much Guilliman disliked them sure, but its still the group broadly in power and he is a member again. The imperial cult has enough power he can't remove that either, much as he'd like to (though events do show he may be wrong about that), the imperium also still has its mustache twirling inquisition too.

It's not even in a better place, even if you ignore the novels and JUST use the 10th edition trailer. What is it Guilliman says hollowly? "Victory" as world after world gets flicked to red.

 

Guillimans return caused a stir - it caused a crusade that pushed back against the storm that was the new great rift, it caused a new founding of space marines, it caused the renewal of the sisters of silence, it even caused a stir in the imperial cult. But fundamentally, he didn't make things somehow go from grimdark to noblebright. He just added a vinear. Which is in and of itself grimdark too, the idea that he is somehow a savior, he knows he isn't, he knows the imperium is still crumbling and realistically all he is doing is further raging against the dying of the light.

 

It's really not the tonal shift some like to imply.

 

17 minutes ago, Dagoth Ur said:

I hate to disrupt the ever-entertaining organ measuring regarding aesthetic sensibilities and seniority in the hobby, but have any more concrete infos crystallized since p1? I'm particularly curious as to how/if the wolf guard terminator kit will get an update. It's a very versatile kit which I'd love to see updated, yet the lack of bespoke BA Assault Terminator kit update has me a tad worried (Though it may also have been held back for the eventual generic Assault Terminator update, so who knows).

Nothing at all.

 

Current rumour seems to be, it'll be a big update. Russ won't be part of it.

 

I stand by my prediction that it'll be 7-8 kits. 8 If it mostly focuses on characters, 7 if they gut multiple full units.

[BitsHammer]

53 minutes ago, Crimson Longinus said:

 

I mean I follow it, though I don't have that much interest in Black Library stuff. I read way too few books these days, so when I have time to do so, I can generally find something more appealing. But it really is not the details of the new lore I have issues with, it is the overall tone.

 

 

About same amount of years for me, but I'm hardly a grognard in the sense you imply. I am not hung up on details, I like the primaris quite a bit, if not the exact way they were introduced, and have been advocated for female marines.

 

The issues with the new lore I have are about the changing and distorting of the core identity of the setting from dystopian satire with dark humour where there are no heroes and life is cheap, to one which warps around shiny immortal demigods, and their petty daddy issues. Terrible self inflicted decline has been reversed by triumphant return of the heroes of the long lost mythic past. It has been twisted from laughing to terribleness of the Imperium to glorifying it. It has become uncomfortable, and primarchs, Guilliman in particular, are the most obvious example of this. No longer is Imperium led by a shadowy cabal of corrupt overlords, now it is led by one tragic yet heroic noble demigod. Imperium is evil. Like super cartoony evil. You cannot have that, and the leaders to be heroic supermen, marines to be noble defenders of humanity without it sending rather terrible message. I wish 40K could go back to being satire instead of whatever this current state is.

 

I would say GW bringing back a demi god to the setting and having him work constantly without sleeping and barely scratching the surface of the mountain of problems the Imperium has both helps highlights the myth of Great Men by giving us one and having him fail to make meaningful impacts at every turn. Even the Indomitus Crusade ended on a hollow bit of propaganda, and 10th launched with the "Victory" trailer where the Imperium is clearly losing.

 

But I guess we all approach the fluff differently in that regard.

[BitsHammer]

So back to the kits I'm expecting based on the spread we saw from other factions:

Logan

Grey Hunters

Blood Claws

Upgrade kit (hopefully with a lot of heads)

Ulrik

Njal Stormcaller (Terminator)

 

In the maybe camp I'd put the rest of the characters, with Bjorn and the other Dreadnought options and probably Long Fangs as "nope".

[mecanojavi99]

52 minutes ago, Crimson Longinus said:

 

I mean I follow it, though I don't have that much interest in Black Library stuff. I read way too few books these days, so when I have time to do so, I can generally find something more appealing. But it really is not the details of the new lore I have issues with, it is the overall tone.

 

 

About same amount of years for me, but I'm hardly a grognard in the sense you imply. I am not hung up on details, I like the primaris quite a bit, if not the exact way they were introduced, and have been advocated for female marines.

 

The issues with the new lore I have are about the changing and distorting of the core identity of the setting from dystopian satire with dark humour where there are no heroes and life is cheap, to one which warps around shiny immortal demigods, and their petty daddy issues. Terrible self inflicted decline has been reversed by triumphant return of the heroes of the long lost mythic past. It has been twisted from laughing to terribleness of the Imperium to glorifying it. It has become uncomfortable, and primarchs, Guilliman in particular, are the most obvious example of this. No longer is Imperium led by a shadowy cabal of corrupt overlords, now it is led by one tragic yet heroic noble demigod. Imperium is evil. Like super cartoony evil. You cannot have that, and the leaders to be heroic supermen, marines to be noble defenders of humanity without it sending rather terrible message. I wish 40K could go back to being satire instead of whatever this current state is.

 

I would hardly call pre Guilliman 40K satirical, it stopped being that kind of setting way before his return, heck, I would even say that it had stopped being grimdark and was squarelly on grimderp territory.

 

About Guilliman himself, his return didn't make the setting or the Imperium less grimdark, it made it less stupid, there is only so many times people can buy the Imperium's continued survival after all this time with how cartoonisly dysfunctional it was, not to mention that Guilliman, for all his prowess, is just one person that cannot be everywhere nor can he fix everything with a snap of his fingers, the Imperium is still a rotting corpse, filled to the brim with the worst of humanity, Guilliman just happens to have one of the most rare traits in all the setting, common sense.

[Lord_Ikka]

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