Narrative progression, story and setting

[apologist]

@Petitioner's City wrote in another thread (about Space Wolf characters) that:

 

Quote

I feel really sad - from a world building perspective - that primarisation hasn't led to a new generation of named characters. Astartes should die, and there should be new faces to replace them. Instead they feel stuck in time, with no sense of time - nor any sense of mortality.

 

 

Compare this to how fw under Kinrade and Bligh gave us the career of Carab Culln across 200 years - sergeant to captain to chapter master to internment.

 

I just find this era across all the chapter really anti narrative, anti world building

 

 

It got me thinking, so I thought I'd scribble down some loose thoughts. 

 

+ Fixed and progressive settings +

The appeal for me of settings like 40k is that the setting is both expansive and rather nebulous. There's plenty of space in 40k for you to write your own meaningful narratives, to play games and write stories and wage war – from scuffly skirmishes to apocalyptic, sector-burning campaigns – and it has no permanent effect on the broader setting. With a thousand years or so within the Dark Millennium to play in, the characters you create can fight, die and their successors appear – or you can continue using the same characters for decades of real time. Let's call this approach a fixed setting or open world.

 

However, I can see the appeal of a Star Wars or Warmachine-style progressive setting or plotline, in which the setting is a backdrop for specific (and usually character-driven) plot arcs. Campaigns and events have permanent results, and we can see characters and factions change over real-world time.

 

In a fixed setting, events tend not to have meaningful results. This is good, in that it means that the whole of the setting remains open and even for personal exploration; but bad in that events are limited to small-scale actions, or tend to collapse into a eternal stalemate. A progressive setting has the advantage that truly spectacular things can happen, but bad in that we might not like the direction of the story, and there is a sense that the ever-moving 'now' is the only meaningful period in which to set our own games.

 

I think the key difference is how these relate to history. Playing within a fixed setting is a bit like playing an historical scenario. Nominally you know how things will turn out, and that things won't change afterwards. It can still be a satisfying result; either exploring a bit of history that hasn't been uncovered (what happens to New Rynn City?), or seeing if you can do better than the Damocles Gulf commanders. Playing within a progressive setting can make you feel more involved (will Cadia really fall?) and you'll always be able to point to your part in that story.

The point is that both fixed and progressive settings can be a lot of fun, and both have their particular strengths and weaknesses.

 

 

+ Characters and setting +

GW has always outlined their own characters and factions, and for the first fifteen years or so of the game's real-world history, they tended to appear for a particular campaign or event to help flesh out a story. Pedro Cantor, Thrugg Bullneck, and Captain Tycho for example, were standard characters differentiated by nothing more than a little colour text and a particular choice of wargear. 

 

In 1991, the first special characters appeared – Ragnar Blackmane, Commissar Yarrick and Ghazghkull Thraka. These differed from earlier characters by having specific models and unique rules. Here's a good example of how the GW studio was always happy to experiment. The latter two were written fixed in a particular setting. While Thraka had taken inspiration from the example warboss in a previous expansion's army list ('Ere We Go), he and Yarrick were intended to help you re-play an historical scenario, the Second War for Armageddon. You could use them elsewhere (and were, by GW themeselves), but their story was largely told. A great rivalry that made for a great closed story.

 

Blackmane was different, in that he didn't have a particular storyline, but rather a history. You were told what he'd done up to this point, and after that? Well, that's up to you. It was implied that he was a brash but talented upstart who had an exciting future to be written – perhaps, it was implied, even to become the Great Wolf. This was the broad pattern for all subsequent special characters (with a few exceptions like Captain Tycho, Ranulf and Solar Macharius, who had closed story arcs you were encouraged to refight).

 

This all worked very nicely for a few years, but keeping all the old characters around made expansions creak around the edges. You got fewer genuinely unique special characters, and more 'archetype' characters who did little more than provide particularly exaggerated examples of their faction. Eventually characters starting being left out of subsequent expansions, but with no explicit death. You could, if you so wished, make a version of Doomrider or Stumper Muckstart or Duke Sliscus, as 40k remained a fixed setting. Indeed, you still can in your own games – though you might need to hop through a few timeline hoops to square the circle of certain characters meeting, even that's within the scope of 40k, thanks to timeline distortion or the warp (and characters like Trazyn the Infinite).

 

As the real world moves on, however, the unresolved storylines can start to feel a bit stale. That's not inherently a problem; after all, we don't need to know what happens to characters outside of the setting... but if there is a specific timeline hop, then that affects their stories. You can't be a brash new firebrand forever, for example – and for a then-young character to act that way two centuries later inherently says something about their character: they never achieved their ambitions or resolved that arc. Likewise if you decide to handwave a mortal with a human (or human-like) lifespan to still be alive two centuries later, it implictly affects them – and others around them. What make O'Shova stand out as notable for being unusually long-lived if other Tau characters are also functionally immortal?

 

+ The GW approach+

GW plays rather fast and loose with things! (And for the record, I like the loose hold on the reins that they have.) I think it's very fitting for the theme of the setting that we're steered by a host of unreliable narrators; and that we occasionally get 'we've always been at war with Eurasia' moments. Historically, the studio often split the difference between fixed and progressive settings, with the events like the Third War for Armageddon, Damocles Gulf and 13th Black Crusade playing out (and sometimes being walked back), but the previous period remaining as valid as the aftermath.

 

Characters have often been the subject of this. Some, like Yarrick, remained fixed to their setting; while others, like Ghazghkull, moved beyond his roots and became more of an archetypical 'super-ork'. Calgar likewise developed from a psychologically-damaged and rather passive survivor into becoming an 'Ur-Ultramarine'. Eldrad fulfilled his destiny and died; his essence dissolving into a Blackstone Fortress... before being promptly rewound into the super-Farseer he was.

 

More recently, there's been a rare explicit step forward, with the timeline moving on a couple of centuries and genuine upheaval with the Eye of Terror expanding into the Cicatrix Maledictum; Primarchs returning, the Imperium being split in two, the Necrons awakening, Tyranids arriving from the supposedly secure galactic west, seas rising, wolves devouring the sun, and so forth. 

 

I confess to being a little sceptical about some of the specifics, but I also think this has the opportunity to be a genuinely exciting time; to let the players and fans have their cake and eat it. Right now, I can continue to play in the mid-90s setting as-was; or investigate some of the unexplored middle history of 40k, or be on the bleeding edge and explore the broken Imperium...

 

+ So what's your point? +

Which brings me back to @Petitioner's City's quote at the start. I think it's a crying shame that GW took a half-measure on progress when it came to the special characters, and opted to keep the vast majority of the existing characters. The continued existence of the cast of characters makes sense in a fixed, open world setting; but the second you explicitly move things on two hundred years, it causes a number of problems:

• Longevity  Stretching disbelief that certain characters would be alive (Guard, Tau, Orks etc.).
• Reduction of threat  We're told the 41st Millennium is dangerous, but this has no consequences (vanishingly few Space Marine characters have explicitly died).
• Narrative stasis  Some character's story arcs rely on meaningful progression; or the opportunity to give meaningful, interesting conclusions to narrative arcs is lost (Sicarius will seemingly never succeed Calgar; and we're robbed of the story of the tension between him and the heir-apparant, Agemman). 
• Redundancy  A lot of archetype characters have been superseded, but remain in awkward tension with new creations (Calgar and Azrael, as the respective exemplars of their Chapters, are rather overshadowed by their Primarch returning).

 

Coming back to the Space Wolves as a good example, because they've been blessed/saddled with lots of characters, often with interesting implied narratives, it seems such a shame not to have a 'Next Generation' moment, with a young, dynamic new Great Wolf leading the pack. Of all the Chapters in the setting, the Space Wolves seem absolutely primed to have a meaningful progression. They have a background redolent with prophecy and rivalry and dynamism, we're explicitly told that Fenris has been devastated, and lots of models that fit rather awkwardly in the new setting.

 

Why not add some weight to the story and Magnus/the Thousand Sons' return by having them genuinely devastate Fenris, and have them kill off a swathe of old characters? They'd still be playable in the broader setting, but you could give meaningful and fittingly violet endings to models that are awkward to sell (or that never quite caught the public's imagination) – Grimnar, Murderfang, Canis Wolfborn, etc. 

 

That paves the way narratively for Blackmane, now older and wiser, to assume the mantle and reluctantly leave Fenris to lead the Space Wolves in a search for Leman Russ... which then foreshadows new model releases (perhaps a rediscovered 13th Company Captain with a critical part of a new prophecy, if GW don't want to release another Primarch) to emerge. This would also allow a fitting end to Bjorn, whose long vigil (and now commercially awkwardly old-style Dreadnought body) can finally be laid to rest.

 

... and because we love to have our cake and eat it, in the following campaign, Russ/Blackmane leads the resurgent and reinforced Chapter back to reclaim Fenris.

 

***

 

The specifics above are off the top of my head, but the point is that if GW are going to take a big step forward, it's a shame that they're walking back on it. There's not even a good argument to be made about needing to keep selling the old models, because they're largely being replaced anyway.

 

As a Guard player, was I disappointed with Yarrick's ending? Yes; partially, but more because it seemed a bit of an afterthought and a damp squib than because I think Yarrick shouldn't have died. I'm far more disappointed that more characters haven't been removed, and that the setting as a whole seems to hinge more and more around them, because that gives the impression that this vast and empty setting, full of potential, is getting smaller. Characters fdon't die; they pop up in wildly different places across the galaxy, and interact far too often to make the galaxy feel genuinely exciting to explore.

 

Two concluding points, then:

 

Firstly, 40k remains a balance of both fixed and progressive setting. It is full of spaces (and time periods) to explore, and the apparent shift to more of a progressive setting is well-couched in the history of the game. It's not a new thing; things have always crept forward. The difference is that now we're getting vastly more material and detail, which makes it feel like things are accelerating.

 

I wish GW would lean more into that, and recognise that killing off characters is part of creating a meaningful ongoing narrative and sense of investment. So many are archetypes anyway, killing them off is largely cost-free. Suppose Corbulo perished in the Tyrannic War – his replacement is going to be nigh-identical, and critically, could be used to lend weight to the sense that Dante is ancient. 

Edited October 29 by apologist

[Wormwoods]

I'm on record as thinking ALL named characters that appear on the battlefield are a problem, not just due to my personal opinion on how a stable of Special Characters fill slots that could otherwise be filled by generic, customizable, and above-all personalised HQ options - I'm looking at you, T'au Empire having zero non-special character options for any of their stealth-themed units - but also, as you've mentioned, due to the way it bumps up against the setting. 

 

It makes the galaxy small, to me, that an empire of untold trillions that spans the galactic disk somehow still allows for these 20-odd dudes to commute back and forth. Why is one of the High Lords a unit you can take in a 1,000 point game? Why is a Primarch?

 

There are 1,000 Grey Knights in the galaxy, presumably all needing to return to the Sol System periodically. I assume most larger tournaments have more Grey Knights models spread over the tables than exist in the lore of the setting, and it gets worse when we're talking about singular, very mortal, very 'need to take unreliable warp travel to get anywhere' chaps. 

 

So. Make your own Chapter, or Forge World, or Regiment, and fill it with your own guys. You'll lose out on some flashy ability or two, but that'll be different in 11th anyway. Marneus Galgar isn't going to die at the end of some skirmish 6 games into your Crusade, but Captain Llaine of the Stellar Blades could, and that's STORY. That's something you can play around with! Bring him back a few games later as a Dreadnought, or promote one of your Lt's. 

 

My two cents. 

[apologist]

Special Characters can be a good thing, I think, when they spill light onto a particular niche of the setting that's different to the character's home Codex; or allow for GW to tell cohesive stories. I'd be much more positive about them in-game if, as @Wormwoods says, they complemented rather than displaced standard choices, and didn't strangle the sense of space and personal creativity. At root, I like the genuinely characterful ones over the archetypes.

 

I also fully echo the sentiment of making your own stories and developing your own army within the faction. It's fun to play with GW's example characters and armies, but you'll likey find it more rewarding to develop your own stories with your friends and gaming group.

[Mandragola]

My personal gripe is where an army build is linked to a named character. So for example in 30k Sigismund lets you take an army of Templars. That makes sense in that he's the leader of the Templars but he isn't their *only* leader. It would be a lot better to say that such an army existed, Siggy could potentially lead it, but also here's a paid-for upgrade to a generic character you can design yourself to be a Templar Centurion, Praetor or whatever.

[Gamiel]

2 hours ago, Wormwoods said:

It makes the galaxy small, to me, that an empire of untold trillions that spans the galactic disk somehow still allows for these 20-odd dudes to commute back and forth. Why is one of the High Lords a unit you can take in a 1,000 point game? Why is a Primarch?

Because that game reprecent a small part of a greater conflict where the one of the High Lords or a primarch is leading the forces an becouse of resons can't the HL/primach summon more forces to the game area right here and now.

[ThePenitentOne]

@Mandragola agree entirely... And there was a rather loud chorus of folks who really praised that approach and suggested it for 40k, and I kept thinking, "Are you crazy?"

 

It's bad enough for me that we have Illic rather than a generic Corsair hero... And I even like Illic. I'm fine with named characters existing, but they should never be the only option for a given role, especially because of my love of Crusade pretty much excludes, or at least disincentivizes the use of named characters... Which brings me back to the larger conversation.

 

I think that Crusade is the place where character realization in 40k shines. We've seen wargear and upgrade options for characters in 10th ed utterly decimated because ultra-competitive tourney folk believe that they have to be able to memorize every rule for every army because that's how to WIN MOAR. This is also the player mentality that displaces generic characters in favour of named ones- GW isn't doing that: Players making the choice that winning is more important than other factors is what's doing that.

 

In any case, I increasingly see Crusade as the only way to A) customize units and B) avoid stories that are driven by "The Named Guys."

 

To reference some of @apologist's thoughts, I think that any Crusade is a progressive microcosm, but the macrocosm within which that Crusade exists can still be either fixed or progressive. When both the game at large and your own slice of campaign action are progressive, the players (and GM if your campaign uses one) have to be far more thoughtful about limiting the scope of their campaign so that its progression dovetails properly with the macrocosmic narrative of the game at large, I see this more as narrative facilitation rather than a barrier though. And in 9th, we saw a few places where Crusade rules overlapped with the Macrocosmic narrative- Torchbearer Fleet and Army of Faith Crusade rules and armies of renown, for example.

 

Crusade also allows folks to go deeper than writing a background; rather than just writing the story of how Inquisitor Occam got his Razor, you actually have to earn that damn Razor in a game or series of games. And yes, Inquisitor Occam will have background when he joins your Crusade as a green solo-operative, after completing his Apprenticeship under Inquisitor Hanlon... But the wargear, the skills, the scars.... You have to earn all of that. And Inquisitor Occam CAN die. It's interesting- Crusade makes death rare... But they provide options for players to CHOOSE death when it suits their narrative. Several requisitions for a significant number of factions allow for a character's death to fill a meaningful role- Sisters have Martyrdom, Drukhari have infighting, etc.

 

While I feel like 10th was a downgrade from 9th, I really like some of the changes made to Crusade in 10th: namely, battlescars are a much bigger deal in 10th, and non-character units are capped at Blooded unless you use Requisition Points to allow them to progress to Heroic or Legendary. These two changes address the Ubermensch potential in Crusade and prevent it from falling into the traps that regular matched play falls into with named-but-not-Named characters who drive everything and neither die, nor ever really even suffer. There are also some parts of 10th's Crusade that I don't like: GW seemed to phase out the idea of Actions, which dulled out Agendas a bit; there are no psychic battle honours (because core psychic rules were gutted), and finally, some elements of the Crusade progression system have been moved to setting specific options only. There are no Agendas, Battle Traits or Relics in the Core Crusade rules anymore; you MUST find these things in either a campaign setting or the bespoke content of your faction.

 

 

[SvenIronhand]

36 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

@Mandragola agree entirely... And there was a rather loud chorus of folks who really praised that approach and suggested it for 40k, and I kept thinking, "Are you crazy?"

 

It's bad enough for me that we have Illic rather than a generic Corsair hero... And I even like Illic. I'm fine with named characters existing, but they should never be the only option for a given role, especially because of my love of Crusade pretty much excludes, or at least disincentivizes the use of named characters... Which brings me back to the larger conversation.

 

I think that Crusade is the place where character realization in 40k shines. We've seen wargear and upgrade options for characters in 10th ed utterly decimated because ultra-competitive tourney folk believe that they have to be able to memorize every rule for every army because that's how to WIN MOAR. This is also the player mentality that displaces generic characters in favour of named ones- GW isn't doing that: Players making the choice that winning is more important than other factors is what's doing that.

 

In any case, I increasingly see Crusade as the only way to A) customize units and B) avoid stories that are driven by "The Named Guys."

 

To reference some of @apologist's thoughts, I think that any Crusade is a progressive microcosm, but the macrocosm within which that Crusade exists can still be either fixed or progressive. When both the game at large and your own slice of campaign action are progressive, the players (and GM if your campaign uses one) have to be far more thoughtful about limiting the scope of their campaign so that its progression dovetails properly with the macrocosmic narrative of the game at large, I see this more as narrative facilitation rather than a barrier though. And in 9th, we saw a few places where Crusade rules overlapped with the Macrocosmic narrative- Torchbearer Fleet and Army of Faith Crusade rules and armies of renown, for example.

 

Crusade also allows folks to go deeper than writing a background; rather than just writing the story of how Inquisitor Occam got his Razor, you actually have to earn that damn Razor in a game or series of games. And yes, Inquisitor Occam will have background when he joins your Crusade as a green solo-operative, after completing his Apprenticeship under Inquisitor Hanlon... But the wargear, the skills, the scars.... You have to earn all of that. And Inquisitor Occam CAN die. It's interesting- Crusade makes death rare... But they provide options for players to CHOOSE death when it suits their narrative. Several requisitions for a significant number of factions allow for a character's death to fill a meaningful role- Sisters have Martyrdom, Drukhari have infighting, etc.

 

While I feel like 10th was a downgrade from 9th, I really like some of the changes made to Crusade in 10th: namely, battlescars are a much bigger deal in 10th, and non-character units are capped at Blooded unless you use Requisition Points to allow them to progress to Heroic or Legendary. These two changes address the Ubermensch potential in Crusade and prevent it from falling into the traps that regular matched play falls into with named-but-not-Named characters who drive everything and neither die, nor ever really even suffer. There are also some parts of 10th's Crusade that I don't like: GW seemed to phase out the idea of Actions, which dulled out Agendas a bit; there are no psychic battle honours (because core psychic rules were gutted), and finally, some elements of the Crusade progression system have been moved to setting specific options only. There are no Agendas, Battle Traits or Relics in the Core Crusade rules anymore; you MUST find these things in either a campaign setting or the bespoke content of your faction.

 

 

I think the emphasis or de-emphasis on Crusade shows one's background in approaching the 40k narrative. Crusade, to me at least, seems to be more popular with 'club' gamers, those who have a semi-set group of people who they engage with and do the emergent storytelling of campaigns with. These people can afford both the time sink and logistical strain of scheduling and playing a game semi-regularly. I personally don't think too highly of Crusade as a means to engage with the universe myself, being a 'pickup gamer'.

Now, these are not hard and fast lines, as I do have a couple of regular opponents for IRL 40k games (I personally despise TTS). As well, my extended long-distance friend group and I have written each other's 'homebrew' armies which we each personally own and play with into each other's narratives. Indeed, I have participated in projects such as Apologist's Ashes of Armageddon, contributing a few Steel Legionaries who will eventually become the Ork Hunters in my conception of the written Armaggedon lore. I intend to contribute at least some Blood Axes, as well. My way is different, but it is no less valid.
 

That said, your takeaway should be that the time investments depend on one's ability to do so and what one chooses to put their time into with the actual game are different. However, I would never advocate for Crusade to be removed or deprecated, simply because I want that option open. It's not about any one person's enjoyment, inherently. To quote a middling sitcom's opening theme:
 

Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum...

[HeadlessCross]

Just to reiterate what I said in that thread: as long as people can still use their models I'm all for killing characters in the setting. Blood Angels players were able to use Tycho for the longest time with no problem, for example. 

[darkhorse0607]

Because GW is allergic to killing off characters, I would even be ok if they rotate them out. They've already done this, for example, Sicarius has been a major Ultramarines character since Black Reach, he's had a decent chunk of the novels, appeared in multiple campaigns (Damocles, Damnos, etc), has a model, etc.

 

But now they've rotated him out. He is no longer Captain of the Second, that went to Acheran, now Sicarius is Captain of the Victrix Guard, so while you might see him pop up on occasion, he's not the "everywhere" character that he used to be.

 

Doing that kind of pleases both sides. It opens up the door to new characters like Felix, but doesn't anger the fanbase that THEIR character was killed/prevents GW missing model sales.

 

I'd still like for characters to die, but this could be another workaround. It just doesn't seem as though GW has an interest in actually going through and making new characters, and fleshing them out, either because it's hard, or because they're worried about the lack of hype causing the dip in model sales. Will x,y, or z Ork sell as well as Ghaz, who will sell more, a new Farsight or a new something else, etc.

[Mandragola]

I've got nothing really against named characters existing. They can serve to exemplify an aspect of a faction, as indeed Sigismund does. But there should always be a generic version too.

 

I don't think competitive players are the issue here either, as I don't think they've ever especially cared about the fluff behind a model one way or other. Speaking as a (it's probably now fair to say former) competitive player, I would use special characters if they were the best option and generics if they were. It's never been an issue to learn their rules, though I definitely don't think you can say they result in fewer rules to learn. Where they exist, players have to learn both the generics and the options they can take, plus the unique stuff named characters bring.

 

An approach I've sometimes taken is to just make my own model and use the special character's rules if they're good. Nobody much has a problem with that if it's clear what's going on. Then I can use my own fluff and make a model without being tied to GW's version of history.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Mandragola said:

 

An approach I've sometimes taken is to just make my own model and use the special character's rules if they're good. Nobody much has a problem with that if it's clear what's going on. Then I can use my own fluff and make a model without being tied to GW's version of history.

 

Anyone not doing this or being opposed to this should be immediately excommunicated.  Such a simple fix that impacts nothing as long as you're not modelling wildly; aka using Dante's stats to represent a phobos character or something of the like.

 

If someone has a force of custom Marines that aren't BA adjacent but wanted to use BA rules with the names scratched off, that's :cuss:ing awesome and everyone should be happy to let that happen. Anyone who isn't is the worst. 

Edited October 29 by DemonGSides

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I do think it is a real shame we haven't seen characters die. 

 

Calgar & Grimnar should both have bit the dust by the now. 

 

I like that we have narrative progression. I don't like how GW have handled it. 

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

I do think it is a real shame we haven't seen characters die. 

 

Calgar & Grimnar should both have bit the dust by the now. 

 

I like that we have narrative progression. I don't like how GW have handled it. 

GW never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Yeah Calgar doesn't need to die yet but I'm for Grimnar meeting his fate

[Felix Antipodes]

In a recent BL novel the UM 6th company Captain died in battle.  This was fine and as it should be - every warrior’s luck runs out eventually (unless your name is Dante ).  I doubt this would have happened if he had a model of his own, and that is the problem.

 

For financial reasons (model die are expensive to create) GW is reluctant to write off a character, especially if the model is still selling.

[Wormwoods]

4 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

unless your name is Dante 

 

It is my firm belief that Dante dies all the time, and the next BA Chapter Master just eats him, and puts on that convenient deathmask. It's Revenant Legion stuff, as it should be.

[ZeroWolf]

3 hours ago, Wormwoods said:

 

It is my firm belief that Dante dies all the time, and the next BA Chapter Master just eats him, and puts on that convenient deathmask. It's Revenant Legion stuff, as it should be.

So sort of a eldar phoenix lord type deal eh? That works, imagine if that was the route GW took the lore down originally, that the imperium clung to its glorious past so badly that it's heroes weren't allowed to die, that as soon as one did, a new one was modified to slip into their place. Probably easier to do with space marine characters than guard ones but the same principle could apply without the genetic modification (they get new models but you can use any of them to represent that 'hero')

 

Personally, I'm all for options, so keep special character in but also make more generic ones (for everyone). I think GSC/Tyranids have the right idea as I believe their characters are genetic templates spat out by the cult to fulfil certain roles (plus we know what happens to victorious cults...no chance of those characters living on!)

[Domhnall]

I'm all for named characters being killed off in epic battle ever so often. I also think that a few should not have made it through the Rubicon to lend weight to the idea it was dangerous. 

As long as they have a profile and can be used for a good amount of time offically, possibly supported for 2 edtions, to at least allow those who have purchased the model to keep using it for a decent amount of time. It'd be a hard pill to swallow to buy Captain Importantpants only to find out he's dead in next months new edition and isn't supported anymore! 

 

Just look at the phasing out of first born marines how well that's going in the community (note: a light bit of teasing and nothing more, as I still prefer first born aesthetics but do enjoy the fuller figure... of the Primaris in my hands), and how it can be a risky step to take. Although I will admit there is a big difference between a single character being killed off and a whole army line, but the point is valid, even if scaled down. GW are in a position that when they make a decision some of the community are not going to be happy, however the sooner they start making those hard choices and start bumping off main characters then the sooner we get used to that idea and possibly have narrative campaigns/senarios to play out Captain Importantpants' final days.

 

It also allows new characters to be created to supercede those lost otherwise armies get bogged down with the same old same old, or overstuffed with more characters than the army could realistically support. Ultramarines being a prime example, with the various existing captains/Lieutentants etc in game and in lore vying for limited spaces because nobody is dying off or needing a dose of handwavium to explain where they fit in (Titus in SM1 being Captain of 2nd Company, but what about Sicarius?). 

[Northern Walker]

I do think we're in an awkward spot with progression of the story due to models being available essentially leashing a character to life. Part of the issue as well is that they often recycle assets in the background books - the Space Wolves are an egregcious example of this with the great annulus. It's not changed since 3rd edition in any meaningful way, even though some of the Jarls have died in the meantime!

Egil Iron Wolf's sigil is still going even though we're on his second sucessor.

Sven Bloodhowl is dead as well, in the fall of Cadia and has no replacement yet.

I think Kjarl Grimblood died (or it's implied) in Saga of the Beast and nothing's been made of it.

The cynic in me knows its because that means they don't need to pay an artist to design new emblems, but it doesn't stop it being jarring. There's even less excuse for other chapters who have fixed company iconography.

[darkhorse0607]

2 hours ago, Northern Walker said:

I do think we're in an awkward spot with progression of the story due to models being available essentially leashing a character to life.

 

I wonder how much of this is true from the opposite end.

 

This thread is full of characters, old and new, that do not have models and haven't had them. I used Felix from Guy Haley's work as an example. Granted I am sure he is supposed to be "Captain in Gravis Armor" but has never gotten a named character, despite being popular.

 

Can any of these characters that haven't gotten models reach the popularity of the ones with them? Outside of the long-living ones like Cain/Jurgen, Thiel from the Heresy, etc

[apologist]

I think this is a good example of why @Wormwoods' proposal for customisable characters would be attractive. With a flexible enough unit entry, you'd be able to construct your own characters or interpret one from a novel. GW could then simply include a way to create the 'canon' versions of particular characters – so with a particular combination of wargear and rules taken by this generic entry, you'd be able to create (say) Blackmane or Dante.

 

We've seen a scattering of supposedly generic models that bear a striking resemblance to specific characters – the Blood Angel Captain is a great example of a model that can be built as you want; but its notable that you can make a passable Captain Tycho with it. This would allow 'dead' characters to continue to be sold; and since you could create a nigh-identical set of rules for them, still used by people who remembered them.

[darkhorse0607]

Absolutely, I just wonder how many will get caught by the name filter

 

"Oh I just read about this character in the book, I really like them, I'll get the model"

 

Then they punch in the name to the famously super accurate webstore and get no results because it is actually a generic model that can be built/counts as another one

 

It's the same thing with the Terminator Captain from the Leviathan box, it's actually supposed to be Agemman, but other than the scroll on the shoulder there's no way for someone newer to know that. We are assuming that folks will dig through the massive amount of kits to find one that looks similar, but that is not always true, especially when folks are new and not familiar with the 2000 different space marine kits like some of us who have been around for a while are

 

I'm not trying to poke holes in the solutions, just not sure what the right answer is other than putting something in the product description like "popular kit for creating this character!" or having WHC articles about it

 

 

[HeadlessCross]

Y'all do bring up a good point of the fact there's just some characters nobody cares about. I can't name a single person, even online, that said Ageman was even one of their favorite characters, let alone their first favorite. 

[SvenIronhand]

 

16 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

In a recent BL novel the UM 6th company Captain died in battle.  This was fine and as it should be - every warrior’s luck runs out eventually (unless your name is Dante ).  I doubt this would have happened if he had a model of his own, and that is the problem.

 

Men die; that's the truth of it.

[Northern Walker]

5 minutes ago, SvenIronhand said:

 

Men die; that's the truth of it.

The question is not will a man die; the question is will he die well?

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Would killing off a charater be such a financial issue though?

 

Why can't a character be killed off but the model still sold? People can set their battle when the character was alive or something.