Rinky-dink Retcons?

[Flaherty]

Everyone has hot takes on the gender of the Emperor's golden guardians or whether Magnus did anything wrong. But what's your most trivial take about how to improve the imperium, Great Waaaagh, Hivemind, etc.?

 

My cool take is that the Codex Astartes needs a better art director.

- The Raven Guard and Iron Hands should have a loser-leaves-town match to decide the black and white color scheme. Add in Deathwatch and you have entirely too much charcoal ceramite. IMHO, I'd make the Raven Guard a bit more native american themed, dark camo, tribal motifs, etc. Iron Hands have so little going for them lore-wise, they deserve the better color scheme. But this current duplication cannot stand.

- The Codex Astartes needs a better way to differentiate company markings than colored pauldron trim. 4th company Imperial Fists look ridiculous – Like a 1990s Nickelodeon commercial. The White Scars are the way. Let the Ultras resemble color-coded three-ring binders, but give the others a clear marking system that makes their organization stand out, rather than a Crayola crayon box.

 

How would you marginally improve the imperium of man? No major lore rewrites or Deus Ex developments, just little tweaks around the edges.

[CL_Mission]

Terminators should wear the Crux Terminatus on their right shoulder pad so their chapter insignia can go on the left like everyone else in the chapter. Alternatively everyone else should move their chapter insignia to match the Terminators.

[Evil Eye]

The Rhino can only carry 10 fully equipped Marines with the top hatch open; 6 is the maximum it can carry with it closed. This (along with the additional space for the ammunition and turret mechanisms) is why the Razorback can only carry 6.

 

A bolter round has a two-stage ignition; a conventional case-charge like any other shell or bullet which provides the initial momentum, and then the rocket motor kicks in after a set time from firing to give extra range/penetration. This circumvents the issue with IRL gyrojet rounds (poor close-range performance) and also has the side effect of a single bolt producing three bangs; the initial charge of the firing action, the secondary rocket motor and then of course the bolt itself exploding on impact. As a result, even by firearm standards, bolters are INCREDIBLY LOUD.

 

The agri-world featured in the Calgar comic (the "orange-skied hellscape poisoned by fertilizers and pesticides") is only one, relatively uncommon form of agri-world in the Imperium, which run the gamut from planet-wide hydroponics facilities to giant rice paddies to worlds consisting almost entirely of relatively conventional (and honestly fairly pleasant) farmland. Standardization in the Imperium is so incredibly poor after all that even if the factory-farm world was judged to be the best way of doing things, it almost certainly wouldn't be widely adopted as between the Administratum being painfully slow at best and the sheer logistical nightmare of trying to enforce such a standard on the entire galaxy (even without the Rift) there is no way whatsoever it could be enforced.

 

Speaking of the above, attempts to enforce standardization on the Imperium have lead to considerable unrest and even minor intra-Imperial conflicts, and indeed quite a lot of other things with the notable exception of any form of standardization. The Great Agri-War of M38 was sparked after a motion by Magos "Auld" Makdonnal to convert all the agri-worlds in the Dionysa Sector to a single unified pattern of intensive grain farming, as opposed to the variety of different farming methods and product the sector had been providing, lead to outrage amongst the populations and governences of these worlds, resulting in a century long conflict between the supporters of the Magos and the local farmers, drawing several Imperial Guard regiments and even a few Space Marine chapters into the fray. Notably, companies of the Death Crusaders, Lionhearts and Tarantulas all came to the defense of the Dionysa Agri-Union (as they became known) whilst the Magos was supported by the Giantslayers and the Bronze Avengers. In fact, the Agri-War grew so bitter that accusations of heresy and deliberate subterfuge were made, and in the end the Inquisition became involved; however, despite thorough investigation neither the Dionysa Agri-Union nor the Magos and his aides were found to have any heretical purpose or outside corruption. In the end, with nobody to blame but simple human stubbornness, the Inquisition demanded an immediate end to hositilities and brokered a compromise: future worlds converted to agriculture in the Sector would follow the Magos' model, but all established worlds would continue to operate as they had been prior to the conflict, with reconstruction efforts coming out of the Magos' pocket. In the end, no exterminatus orders were made, nobody executed for heresy and the Dionysan sector returned to its usual, idyllic (by Imperial standards) existence, whilst Magos Makdonnal seethed.Though not as much as after it was discovered the only other worlds in the sector suitable for agri-world conversion were incompatible with the grain crop the Magos had been intending to produce.

[ThaneOfTas]

3 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

A bolter round has a two-stage ignition; a conventional case-charge like any other shell or bullet which provides the initial momentum, and then the rocket motor kicks in after a set time from firing to give extra range/penetration. This circumvents the issue with IRL gyrojet rounds (poor close-range performance) and also has the side effect of a single bolt producing three bangs; the initial charge of the firing action, the secondary rocket motor and then of course the bolt itself exploding on impact. As a result, even by firearm standards, bolters are INCREDIBLY LOUD.

Honestly I would genuinely have put money on that already being the case.

Edited 1 hour ago by ThaneOfTas

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

They do, in fact—several of the older codices and rulebooks describe bolter rounds as “two-stage” projectiles with both an initiating charge (similar to a normal firearm) and a secondary rocket propellant in the bolt itself (like a gyro jet). 
 

Canonically, the initial charge on an Astartes bolt gun is so powerful that its recoil would break a normal human’s arm. The bolters normal humans are running around with in-setting are smaller versions of the Astartes ones. 

[sitnam]

5 hours ago, Flaherty said:

- The Raven Guard and Iron Hands should have a loser-leaves-town match to decide the black and white color scheme. Add in Deathwatch and you have entirely too much charcoal ceramite. IMHO, I'd make the Raven Guard a bit more native american themed, dark camo, tribal motifs, etc. Iron Hands have so little going for them lore-wise, they deserve the better color scheme. But this current duplication cannot stand.

 

I disagree. I think the art should do a better job of differentiating their blacks. I always liked he oily black portrayal of Iron Hands in some of the studio Heresy paint jobs. The Raven Guard could have a flat matte black. This combined  with unique unit markings would set them apart.

 

5 hours ago, Flaherty said:

- The Codex Astartes needs a better way to differentiate company markings than colored pauldron trim. 4th company Imperial Fists look ridiculous – Like a 1990s Nickelodeon commercial. The White Scars are the way. Let the Ultras resemble color-coded three-ring binders, but give the others a clear marking system that makes their organization stand out, rather than a Crayola crayon box

 

I  hate the shoulder trim system, but honestly when you look at the first founding chapters it's not that prevalent of a problem. If I am correct, only Fists, UM's, and Raven Guard use the shoulder trim system. BA, IH, and  Salamanders all use unique shoulder symbols, whereas the WS and DA have leg patterns. Of course the preponderance of codex compliant UM successors means that many chapters will use the shoulder trim system, but it definitely isn't universal.