Rinky-dink Retcons?

[Evil Eye]

Not exactly a retcon as it wouldn't require rewriting anything and would ultimately be very minor/inconsequential beyond opening up modelling opportunities but I would like some little namedrops of other patterns of Rhino hinted to exist in the galaxy. I really like the sheer lack of standardisation in the Imperium and I feel like a vehicle as ubiquitous as the Rhino chassis would be made by more than one forge world. Also it's an excuse for making/converting cool variant designs of everyone's favourite METAL BAWKSES, which is never a bad thing.

[Magos Takatus]

On 11/19/2025 at 10:59 AM, Evil Eye said:

Not exactly a retcon as it wouldn't require rewriting anything and would ultimately be very minor/inconsequential beyond opening up modelling opportunities but I would like some little namedrops of other patterns of Rhino hinted to exist in the galaxy. I really like the sheer lack of standardisation in the Imperium and I feel like a vehicle as ubiquitous as the Rhino chassis would be made by more than one forge world. Also it's an excuse for making/converting cool variant designs of everyone's favourite METAL BAWKSES, which is never a bad thing.

Yeah, the original Rhino model might as well have been an Ork kit by comparison, there were so many different ways to build it. While the newer version is larger and better sculpted, it has lost a degree of modularity. Apart from the pattern that the Sororitas use, the differences between Rhinos is minor.

[Evil Eye]

7 hours ago, Magos Takatus said:

Yeah, the original Rhino model might as well have been an Ork kit by comparison, there were so many different ways to build it. While the newer version is larger and better sculpted, it has lost a degree of modularity. Apart from the pattern that the Sororitas use, the differences between Rhinos is minor.

Exactly this; there's no version of the Rhino I don't love but given how versatile the old Mk1 kit was, and how much love the Leman Russ chassis got from Forge World with variant patterns, I'd have liked to have seen some more for the Rhino in the same vein. But heck, even little fluff or artwork tidbits hinting at the existence of patterns other than the Phobos and Deimos.

 

As it happens, I do find "it's a rare pattern/variant only produced in a small locale" quite a good explanation for conversions or unofficial models that fit with the setting's visual language but are quite different from what they actually represent on the tabletop. For example, there's a RhiNot STL I really like that I've printed off for my Chaos army and have come up with the following fluff for:

Spoiler

"The Mk. III Rhino was one of two competing designs to replace the ageing Mk. I "Deimos" Pattern. Whilst boasting superior protection and comparable mobility in spite of the extra weight due to its exotic engines, the Mk. II "Phobos" Pattern saw selection, as the Mk. III's greater weight made it unsuited to soft ground and weak bridges, and the added complexity of the engines made maintenance difficult- a fatal flaw for a successor to a design famed for its reliability and ease of repair. As such the design was mothballed after less than a hundred vehicles were built- many of these were lost in the madness of the end of the Heresy and beyond. Tragically the design was lost to the Imperium after the Vogler's World conflict- however, fragments of the plans were recovered by the Dark Mechanicum forge world of Molgan, which began to produce "Molgan Pattern" Rhinos. These vehicles are pale imitations of the original design, often manufactured to poor standards and with many of the more intricate elements replaced with easier to manufacture but inferior quality substitute mechanisms. Most Chaos forces avoid them for their reputation as counterfeits of a superior machine, but less well-equipped warbands have been known to use them, and traitor guard regiments frequently utilize the pattern; even an ersatz Rhino is a step up from the usual armour available to such rabbles."

 

(I still need to mount a combi-bolter)

 

[Magos Takatus]

7 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Exactly this; there's no version of the Rhino I don't love but given how versatile the old Mk1 kit was, and how much love the Leman Russ chassis got from Forge World with variant patterns, I'd have liked to have seen some more for the Rhino in the same vein. But heck, even little fluff or artwork tidbits hinting at the existence of patterns other than the Phobos and Deimos.

 

As it happens, I do find "it's a rare pattern/variant only produced in a small locale" quite a good explanation for conversions or unofficial models that fit with the setting's visual language but are quite different from what they actually represent on the tabletop. For example, there's a RhiNot STL I really like that I've printed off for my Chaos army and have come up with the following fluff for:

  Hide contents

"The Mk. III Rhino was one of two competing designs to replace the ageing Mk. I "Deimos" Pattern. Whilst boasting superior protection and comparable mobility in spite of the extra weight due to its exotic engines, the Mk. II "Phobos" Pattern saw selection, as the Mk. III's greater weight made it unsuited to soft ground and weak bridges, and the added complexity of the engines made maintenance difficult- a fatal flaw for a successor to a design famed for its reliability and ease of repair. As such the design was mothballed after less than a hundred vehicles were built- many of these were lost in the madness of the end of the Heresy and beyond. Tragically the design was lost to the Imperium after the Vogler's World conflict- however, fragments of the plans were recovered by the Dark Mechanicum forge world of Molgan, which began to produce "Molgan Pattern" Rhinos. These vehicles are pale imitations of the original design, often manufactured to poor standards and with many of the more intricate elements replaced with easier to manufacture but inferior quality substitute mechanisms. Most Chaos forces avoid them for their reputation as counterfeits of a superior machine, but less well-equipped warbands have been known to use them, and traitor guard regiments frequently utilize the pattern; even an ersatz Rhino is a step up from the usual armour available to such rabbles."

 

(I still need to mount a combi-bolter)

 

I think that's the most characterful Rhino I've seen in years. Very nice.

[roryokane]

On 8/28/2025 at 12:26 PM, roryokane said:

My little thing, not a retcon per se:

 

Every space marine codex (including the big three supplements - BA/DA/SW) should list the current captains and chapter masters of the relevant chapters, with fluff explaining any changes since the last one.

 

I've thought of another one - when they made Titus canon, the messed around with the original order of succession of captains (3rd Ed Codex has, pre Battle of Macragge, Saul Invictus as 1st Company Captain, Severus Agemman as 2nd Company Captain, and Sicarius as 5th Company captain - when Invictus died, Agemman was moved to 1st Company to rebuild it, Sicarius was moved to 2nd Company, and Galenus became 5th Company captain). Titus could just have been written as Agemman's predecessor, but no, they had to mess with pre-existing canon, for no good reason. I know basically no one else will care about that, but it irks me.
Also - Idaeus (Uriel Ventris' predecessor) is also listed there as 4th Company Captain.

[Evil Eye]

Two Genestealer mini-retcons.

 

First I would suggest (though not confirm) that the reason Genestealers look different to other Tyranids is because they originated from a prey species before the Tyranids entered the galaxy. These protostealers had the ability to reproduce with any other race and would gradually usurp the genetic makeup of their partners, as their sentient DNA would gradually become more dominant in future generations even if no more protostealers were involved. They were eventually devoured by the Tyranids but that was not their end; the genetic corruption abilities coded into their very fibre were so powerful and fundamental to their being that it permanently rewrote the Tyranid genepool, causing the Hive Fleets to keep spawning more of them against its will. Eventually the Hive Mind was somehow able to "tame" their genome and incorporate it into their library of DNA, but the race was never truly eradicated and as long as the Tyranids exist, never will be.

 

The other retcon I would make is that Genestealers can infect basically any race, but usually via specialised purestrains. For example, an Ork predating strain exists which can overwrite their genes very quickly, and spores released on death will form Ork/Genestealer hybrids. However this strain cannot infect humans, as the process is so violent and the pathogen so powerful it would kill an Astartes, let alone a human.

[Schurge]

Retcons: The Chaos Gods are more neutral.

Khorne goes back to being a martial God like when I got into the hobby and not a ouroboros bonehead. He still wants war all the time, sure. In a way that makes him evil. And from the perspective of a God war is not so... personal. It is just what happens when forces are set in motion against each other.

The leopard kills the rabbit, and this is divine though the rabbit suffers on one plane of existence. Tribal cultures are not alone in the belief that the rabbit cannot be killed without its consent.

Tzeentch. Change is also a primal force, even more so than Khorne. Change means what was dies. That hurts. But something new is born. Bringers of change are always demons to some people, and angels to others. The one constant is change. Everything we hold sacred will always be destroyed. But new sacred things arise from destruction. From within the forest as it is burning, it is hell. From above, it is renewal.

Nurgle as it is is more clearly neutral - or at least the meme is that he loves his followers. He wants to keep everything the same forever. Stagnant. Even from the other side, disease, rot, pestilence. That is life. Everyone wants to hold onto things as they are. 

Slaanesh is harder to spin as neutral due to the aesthetic, the fact that his domains are most explicitly a warning, and how he was literally created by the Eldari Sodom and Gomorrah. And his aesthetic isn't necessarily evil, perfection always comes with tradeoffs... Honestly, don't know  how to make him neutral without a major retcon. But you can have a similar God that is more neutral. He could be a Baphomet figure. Reconciler of opposites. But this would be a major retcon.

I would also see a lot more chaos gods. Not everything needs tabletop representation, but with the way the warp works there should be many more chaos gods. I would make them all neutral, though some would be "good" coded in the same way Khorne and Slaanesh are "bad" coded.

Encountering an angelic chaos god wouldn't be any different from mythological/supernatural encounters with angels - its a terrifying experience. In Solomonic magic angels can be more dangerous than demons... the demons don't care about your spiritual growth. The angel does. Growth hurts.

Love would have a chaos god.

And additional element in these gods being neutral is that they shouldn't discriminate.

Khorne is going to smile on the Black Templars and the Orks. He might support either, neither, or both. He doesn't care if they "serve" him.

Tzeentch supports the anarchist uprising on one planet, the communist takeover on another, and the triumph of capitalism in another. Only to in some years time, aid change in another direction, when things begin to solidify and stagnate. At times he would aid the Imperium when it suits change... due to the nature of the Imperium he would generally be antagonistic at the macro level.

Yadda yadda yadda.

Of course the chaos god of love sends his love equally to the drukari as to the tau, just as the sun shines on everyone discriminately.

You get the picture.

Edited March 8 by Schurge

[Evil Eye]

100% agreed. I definitely like the idea of the Chaos Gods having a bit of nuance and not being purely evil/malicious. Not to say they're actually good or that the Imperium should (or even could) coexist with Chaos worship, especially given Chaos can barely coexist with itself, but it's more like they simply are. Khorne doesn't want skull tributes because he just hates everyone and wants them to die, he wants them because he is fundamentally a god of war. I actually quite like the much older fluff that because Khorne's domain is explicitly war, not death itself, he will exalt and reward followers who slay worthy foes but actually punish those whose victims should be beneath them, so a Khornate champion who kills helpless civilians without a chance of fighting back will incur the Blood God's wrath upon himself.

 

It also helps differentiate Khorne from Khaine; Khorne is a god of war, of equals killing each other with passion for the pursuit of victory, whilst Khaine is a god of murder, of a wife gleefully slitting her husband's throat as he sleeps out of spite from perceived affronts (whether true or not). In that way, Khaine is (was) FAR nastier than Khorne, which makes sense given he's an Eldar god and Eldar experience emotions far more deeply than humans (hence Slaanesh being born from their collective debauchery)- the absolute peak of possible Eldar anger is FAR in excess of the peak of human anger, and whilst there are already many reasons that Chaos Eldar are absurdly rare (the Craftworlders would quite understandably never break from their disciplines and risk their very souls, and trying to avoid Slaanesh's hunger by devoting themselves to another Chaos god would be an act of complete and utter desperation, whilst the Dark Eldar are so inherently selfish they wouldn't worship ANY god even if it guaranteed their salvation), whilst you could make the argument that an Eldar would be a prized devotee for Khorne, the truth is that for an Eldar to be so ABSOLUTELY CUSSING FURIOUS that they abandon all self control and lose their way on their Paths, they would A: be too incandescent with rage to offer any kind of devotion to any god (so Khorne would only be getting skulls from them if they decided to throw them at him) and B: their fury would be SO deep that the ability to differentiate (or even care to differentiate) between a worthy foe and a defenceless innocent would be completely gone, which would be a "dude, not cool!" from Khorne. In other words, a 200% MAD Eldar would ironically enough be TOO angry for Khorne and would go straight to Khaine instead (who doesn't care about worship or honour and views indiscriminate murder driven by pure hate as "pretty neat").

 

I definitely agree that minor Chaos Gods deserve more of a comeback. I would even go as far as to port over the WHFB "Law" gods, who actually represent order and more traditionally virtuous qualities, albeit they embody them so completely that they're not nice by any stretch (a god of justice taking eye for an eye to a ridiculous degrees etc) and whilst they stand in opposition to the Chaos Gods, as Warp entities embodying base concepts their worship is still rightly considered heresy in the Imperium.

 

Lastly, whilst obviously the legal situation prevents them from doing anything with him, I would say Malal is the one Chaos God that is explicitly evil (hence his cameo name of Malice), as he is a god of self-destruction for its own sake. His followers are rare because very few people are so twisted they desire the complete destruction of existence as an end in and of itself, but because of his unique nature as a god of Chaos turned on itself, drawing power from hate as well as worship, he represents an existential threat to everyone, including the other Chaos Gods.

[LSM]

Funny little note, in 1988's Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, Khorne was pretty explicitly a jerk.

 

He was not a god of war per se, he was the "angry and murderous god of... blood and death... Chaos in its aspect of absolute and mindless violence, destroying everything and everyone within reach, slaying both friend and foe alike."

 

His rune is a stylised skull, the symbol of death, and his colours are red (blood), black (death), and brass (Khorne's armour).

 

"He has no temples as such, since he is worshipped on the battlefield. Furthermore his followers believe that they would displease him by wasting valuable time building temples and worshipping in them when they could be slaying in Khorne's name...

 

"Every life taken by a follower of Khorne increases the Blood God's power. He looks with particular favour upon those who take the lives of their friends and allies...

 

"Followers of Khorne have no friends and few long-term acquaintances - all are soon-to-be sacrifices to Khorne...

 

"He is worshipped only in the act of killing..."

 

//

 

Of course, Slaanesh had nothing to do with "perfectionism" at that time. (That wouldn't be introduced until ~2001, as an aspect of the pre-Heresy Emperor's Children that slowly got absorbed into the 40k Emperor's Children and then on to Slaanesh themself.)

 

Nor was Slaanesh a God of Excess - all the Chaos gods were excessive. 

 

Slaanesh was the god of hedonistic pleasures and the violation of decent behaviour. 

 

And thus, I feel that if one is wanting to explore a "positive take" on Slaanesh... I mean: pleasure and transgression aren't inherently evil.

 

Edited March 9 by LSM

[Magos Takatus]

I think Khaine being more of a god of murder was more of a WFB thing, wasn't it? The existence of the different aspect temples suggests that he can be quite complex and multi-faceted and some of the aspects represent a more noble element to Khaine, even if his actions in Eldar mythology do paint him as a pretty nasty individual.

 

It's hard for me to draw those distinctions, though, as the aspects of Khaine represented in the aspect temples are a construct of the Craftworld Eldar, but not of Eldar as a whole. As they believe he has these different aspects of his personality, their belief must make it so, but to the wider population of the Eldar race, I imagine his personality would not be defined in the same way? By restricting themselves to the path system, have the Craftworld Eldar changed the way they originally viewed Khaine, and does this bleed back into the Avatars that represent him? 

 

I can only imagine that if you asked "Who is Khaine?" to the Aeldari of a Craftworld, of Commoragh, of the Webway or the Maiden World, you might get quite different answers?

[Schurge]

On 3/8/2026 at 3:43 PM, LSM said:

Slaanesh was the god of hedonistic pleasures and the violation of decent behaviour. 

 

And thus, I feel that if one is wanting to explore a "positive take" on Slaanesh... I mean: pleasure and transgression aren't inherently evil.

 

I think the issue with Slaanesh in this context is his origin story, because indeed pleasure is not inherently evil - in fact its not evil at all - and transgression is required for evolution.

That's why I suggested a retcon converting him into a different archetype all-together. Baphomet is a real world mythological figure that shares the aesthetics of Slaanesh, is seen by many as synonymous with the devil, is often associated with sin, but his domain is the reconciliation of opposites which is another way of saying non-dualism. So he stands in opposition to both sides of any coin while being more dangerous than either because he undermines the entire concept of opposites. You keep the androgyny, sexuality, and shadow-side of perfectionism for the purposes of fallen Chaos worshipers but you get a God that isn't evil.

People of all alignments might reasonably follow him. No society can coexist with him, because he destabilizes the necessary unifying narratives it takes to have a nation and a people. Such things, practically speaking, also probably get in the way of dealing with existential threats like Tyrranids.

EDIT: And you might be able to keep the origin story the same, but with a subtle twist. The left-hand path is considered dangerous for a reason, and the Eldari at the time of the fall were on the very extreme end of it. Of course, when their polarity birthed a being like Baphomet, the repercussions were explosive and they are still dealing with the fallout. The Craftworlder's attempt at neutrality misses the point - where they reject opposites from within the framework of opposites - and due to the psychic wound, they still cannot be within the influence of Baphomet and survive.

Edited Saturday at 03:14 AM by Schurge