If you could change anything in the lore what would you change?

[Rain]

40k lore cannot “advance” in any meaningful way because the armies and product lists cannot be disrupted for lore reasons. Even when something “big” happens, like the destruction of Cadia, and the Great Rift, nothing effectively changes.

 

Chaos still hang out in the warp and emerge intermittently to raid, the Cadian Shock Troops regiment still exists, nothing really changes. A real plot advancement like what happened in the Heresy will never be written. Major advances would be things like Slaanesh being destroyed, a major chapter or returned loyalist primarch seceding from the Imperium, a major chapter being wiped out by Tyranids or some similar massive threat, etc.

 

But none of this will ever happen because the product list cannot be disrupted, which makes the whole “advance the plot” request silly to me. They should have just kept it a setting and peppered in primarchs as the primarch returns don’t have any meaningful effects anyway.

[SvenIronhand]

3 minutes ago, Rain said:

Major advances would be things like Slaanesh being destroyed, a major chapter or returned loyalist primarch seceding from the Imperium, a major chapter being wiped out by Tyranids or some similar massive threat, etc.

The first thing was kinda-sorta done in AOS, though.

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, SvenIronhand said:

The first thing was kinda-sorta done in AOS, though.

 

And it (with most of early AoS lore and rules) was soundly rejected.

 

People dont really want a meta plot narrative, they dont. They think they do, but then your Clan Smoke Jaguar is destroyed, and then what for those players?

 

Meta Plots suck.

[SvenIronhand]

5 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

And it (with most of early AoS lore and rules) was soundly rejected.

 

People dont really want a meta plot narrative, they dont. They think they do, but then your Clan Smoke Jaguar is destroyed, and then what for those players?

 

Meta Plots suck.

Maybe, but the post I was replying to advanced the idea meta plots didn’t work because they couldn’t seriously advance things.

[Scribe]

25 minutes ago, SvenIronhand said:

Maybe, but the post I was replying to advanced the idea meta plots didn’t work because they couldn’t seriously advance things.

 

I mean thats the GW way, and the best case. That the meta plot is really just a nothing burger.

 

It could advance things, sure, but then you risk alienating a segment of the playerbase, and for what? GW isnt in the business of weaving a deep and meaningful story.

[Rain]

2 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

And it (with most of early AoS lore and rules) was soundly rejected.

 

People dont really want a meta plot narrative, they dont. They think they do, but then your Clan Smoke Jaguar is destroyed, and then what for those players?

 

Meta Plots suck.

Yes, exactly. Any real plot progress would invalidate people’s armies, and that’s not worth the “progress.” AoS had already blown up WFB because WFB was not sufficiently profitable, so I am not surprised if they had other big plot developments originally. Once/if a game is profitable, they are not going to blow up or change the allegiance of major factions, and any other plot “progress” is basically window dressing. 

[Doghouse]

I preferred the game when it was much more of a retrospective sandbox setting with a focus on past events leaving players enough room to use their imagination to create their own little pockets of forgotten history. The two minutes to midnight that crept in from the Black Library ruined the setting for me personally and triggered the downwards spiral of the lore.

 

I think it's more to do with the rise of Black Library and the success of the Horus Heresy series that has driven the need to have a progressing narrative which is fair enough because it's a corporate product now rather than a hobby. I'm not a fan of the fact that people said this is what has been asked of the setting for years when it clearly hasn't, I personally being one of the previously extremely active old guard can't recall anyone ever saying this. 

 

My personal take is probably fairly obvious I would have preferred it had the Primarchs never returned and the Primaris thing had just been rescaled Firstborn marines.

 

I think the main issue is that if you don't like the way things are you will easily be forgotten and replaced by newer players who have not ever known it to be any different to how it is now. Tenth edition and it's setting is their entry to universe of 40k.

 

Given the emphasis on nostalgia for items that most people in the hobby now probably never experienced first time around i think that GW are shooting themselves in the foot by not releasing electronic special edition previous editions of the game as a Legends series. 

[OnePaulMurray]

12 hours ago, Doghouse said:

I preferred the game when it was much more of a retrospective sandbox setting with a focus on past events leaving players enough room to use their imagination to create their own little pockets of forgotten history. The two minutes to midnight that crept in from the Black Library ruined the setting for me personally and triggered the downwards spiral of the lore.

 

I think it's more to do with the rise of Black Library and the success of the Horus Heresy series that has driven the need to have a progressing narrative which is fair enough because it's a corporate product now rather than a hobby. I'm not a fan of the fact that people said this is what has been asked of the setting for years when it clearly hasn't, I personally being one of the previously extremely active old guard can't recall anyone ever saying this. 

 

My personal take is probably fairly obvious I would have preferred it had the Primarchs never returned and the Primaris thing had just been rescaled Firstborn marines.

 

I think the main issue is that if you don't like the way things are you will easily be forgotten and replaced by newer players who have not ever known it to be any different to how it is now. Tenth edition and it's setting is their entry to universe of 40k.

 

Given the emphasis on nostalgia for items that most people in the hobby now probably never experienced first time around i think that GW are shooting themselves in the foot by not releasing electronic special edition previous editions of the game as a Legends series. 

While I do hear you with that, are you really saying that you would be happy with the game staying the same for another decade? It's hard to have huge stakes in a story set in M38, if we already know that the planet exists in M39, so do you not risk the same issue of ennui creeping in when the story stakes have to be kept frozen?

 

Also, if you can't go forward in the story then you can only go backwards... at which point you start colouring in all the blank bits on the canvas and plenty of people don't really want that either.

 

I think it's easy to criticise, and it is perfectly fine to have a favourite 'window' in the lore, but I do feel that there are people that basically want GW to sit on their IP and do nothing with it because they feel it had already peaked.

[TheVoidDragon]

3 hours ago, OnePaulMurray said:

While I do hear you with that, are you really saying that you would be happy with the game staying the same for another decade? It's hard to have huge stakes in a story set in M38, if we already know that the planet exists in M39, so do you not risk the same issue of ennui creeping in when the story stakes have to be kept frozen?

 

Also, if you can't go forward in the story then you can only go backwards... at which point you start colouring in all the blank bits on the canvas and plenty of people don't really want that either.

 

I think it's easy to criticise, and it is perfectly fine to have a favourite 'window' in the lore, but I do feel that there are people that basically want GW to sit on their IP and do nothing with it because they feel it had already peaked.

 

It was/is an entire galaxy with 10,000 years of history and an uncountable number of possibilities. You could write stories for years and years without issue because the setting was just that vast and varied. 

 

It's not as if everything that happened has to be set on an existing planet with existing characters. Look at all the fantastic standalone book series like Eisenhorn, or Gaunts Ghosts, or any of the new space marine chapters created to tell a story with for example. They weren't something that was any lessened by not being part of some "grand ongoing narrative" involving "main characters"  of 40k. They had character arcs, stakes, plot development etc absolutely fine, 40k being set to a certain time period made no difference to how enjoyable they are and how beloved a series/character/event some of them became over the years.

 

Acting like more of that sort of thing would be "doing nothing" or that those sort of stories aren't engaging and compelling just seems strange. 

[Scribe]

7 hours ago, OnePaulMurray said:

While I do hear you with that, are you really saying that you would be happy with the game staying the same for another decade?

 

Going back to a setting? One second to midnight? No more terrible lore shifts?

 

Yeah, take my money again.

 

7 hours ago, OnePaulMurray said:

I think it's easy to criticise, and it is perfectly fine to have a favourite 'window' in the lore, but I do feel that there are people that basically want GW to sit on their IP and do nothing with it because they feel it had already peaked.

 

It's easy to criticise when it's been terrible, and yeah it did peak. ;)

[Marshal Mittens]

Change the timeline of the great crusade and horus heresy to have lasted much longer. Like 500 years for the crusade and 50 for the Heresy. The galaxy is huge. 

[DukeLeto69]

On 10/13/2025 at 9:58 PM, Brother Tyler said:

I see the Perpetuals as a retcon, but a retcon of lore from the 1st edition of the game, the Sensei. And for what it's worth, I always saw the WH40K Sensei as being inspired by the immortals of the Highlander franchise. So if my theory about the Perpetuals is correct, they are a toning down and revision of [abandoned?] lore from the '80s. This lore hasn't really been touched since the 3rd edition of the game, though you can still find some vestiges of them in the story of the Star-Child (in the Jaq Draco series).

 

 

 

I am a Perpetual (as they became in the HH series) hater but knew they were based on the Sensei idea (Abnett, and Haley, is also laying seeds for a return of the Star Child) and this Realm of Chaos quote started off with me nodding along saying “yep this is better” but for one thing…

 

If they are psychic blanks (cool) then how can they sense what is happening in the Warp or detect Daemons etc? Isn’t that virtually an oxymoron?

 

On 10/13/2025 at 1:13 PM, Rain said:

(2.) They have lived for tens of thousands of years, but the preponderance of the historical references that they make come from the last 2 millennia of (real) history. If you've lived through the Dark Age of Technology and Old Night, you should have some newer and more interesting references than Shakespeare and WWI. To be fair, they do very occasionally reference events and persons in the roughly 28 thousand years between the current day and Heresy, but the number of references to M1/2 is jarring. 

 

THIS so much THIS. It is really really jarring and actually lacking in imagination.

Edited Monday at 08:20 AM by DukeLeto69

[DukeLeto69]

In the 90s, having been playing since RT and then 2nd Ed and way before any of this real world trans debate had even been dreamed of…my head canon already de-gendered Space Marines. When the term “trans-human” (during early HH novels I believe and possibly Abnett was first) started to be used it, for me, backed up that position. 

For me being trans-human or “other” made perfect sense because Space Marines were “built” using baseline organic material. The fact that the vast majority (some would say ALL) of the baseline organic material was adolescent male humans was simply down to physical ability to survive the recruitment tests etc.

 

Space Marines, as far as we know, are unable to breed. They are infertile. That too makes sense. Why create something superior to yourself that then has the ability to replace you!

 

Being genderless biologically engineered super weapons just always made sense to me!

Edited Monday at 10:26 AM by Grotsmasha
=] Removed 1st sentence [=

[Rhavien]

38 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

I am a Perpetual (as they became in the HH series) hater but knew they were based on the Sensei idea (Abnett is also laying seeds for a return of the Star Child) and this Realm of Chaos quote started off with me nodding along saying “yep this is better” but for one thing…

 

If they are psychic blanks (cool) then how can they sense what is happening in the Warp or detect Daemons etc? Isn’t that virtually an oxymoron?

I don't understand? Perpetuals are no psychic blanks. Are you referring to two separate posts?

Afaik it has never been explained how being blank works. We have some in universe lore but beeing that rare it would be hard to study and categorize it. At least they come in different strength and variance. I can totally imagine being capable to "sense" if something wants to penetrate my blank bubble or at least if the warp "pressure" around me changes. Doesn't mean any blank could sense it though.

I don't see it as a stable mutation within humanity.

[DukeLeto69]

14 minutes ago, Rhavien said:

I don't understand? Perpetuals are no psychic blanks. Are you referring to two separate posts?

Afaik it has never been explained how being blank works. We have some in universe lore but beeing that rare it would be hard to study and categorize it. At least they come in different strength and variance. I can totally imagine being capable to "sense" if something wants to penetrate my blank bubble or at least if the warp "pressure" around me changes. Doesn't mean any blank could sense it though.

I don't see it as a stable mutation within humanity.

I quoted Brother Tyler’s post which itself  had a quote from the Realm of Chaos book from 1st Ed. That book states the Sensei are psychic blanks. I have always assumed being a blank (undetectable by warp entities) worked both ways?

[phandaal]

12 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

It was/is an entire galaxy with 10,000 years of history and an uncountable number of possibilities. You could write stories for years and years without issue because the setting was just that vast and varied. 

 

It's not as if everything that happened has to be set on an existing planet with existing characters. Look at all the fantastic standalone book series like Eisenhorn, or Gaunts Ghosts, or any of the new space marine chapters created to tell a story with for example. They weren't something that was any lessened by not being part of some "grand ongoing narrative" involving "main characters"  of 40k. They had character arcs, stakes, plot development etc absolutely fine, 40k being set to a certain time period made no difference to how enjoyable they are and how beloved a series/character/event some of them became over the years.

 

Acting like more of that sort of thing would be "doing nothing" or that those sort of stories aren't engaging and compelling just seems strange. 

 

The fact that the 40k universe had these epic stories with battles for systems/sectors, planet-wide intrigue, timelines stretching over decades/centuries, and all of those stories took place in just tiny separate fractions of the galaxy was really cool.

 

Those stories actually make the setting seem much larger by reminding us that a galaxy is bigger than we can easily imagine. I prefer that to the "quintillions of deaths per second, this weapon can blow up the whole universe, this warp storm crosses the whole galaxy, these characters are wherever we need them" kind of lore.

 

We do get some of the old style lore still, which is nice. The Amidst the Ashes crusade pack is the first that comes to mind, although there may be others.

[Rain]

2 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

The fact that the 40k universe had these epic stories with battles for systems/sectors, planet-wide intrigue, timelines stretching over decades/centuries, and all of those stories took place in just tiny separate fractions of the galaxy was really cool.

 

Those stories actually make the setting seem much larger by reminding us that a galaxy is bigger than we can easily imagine. I prefer that to the "quintillions of deaths per second, this weapon can blow up the whole universe, this warp storm crosses the whole galaxy, these characters are wherever we need them" kind of lore.

 

We do get some of the old style lore still, which is nice. The Amidst the Ashes crusade pack is the first that comes to mind, although there may be others.

Yeah, but that calls for imagination, thought, and creativity on the part of the players. This time the Death Star is 5 times bigger, and can destroy 5 planets at once, so the stakes are 5 times higher, and the movie is 5 times better. That’s just math.

[Tawnis]

For the most minor and unimportant of changes, I'd have them fix the messed of naming conventions of T'au battle suits. I didn't realize how weird it was until I dove into it recently, where it seems like they had an idea of what they were doing, but then a couple of the suits just completely ignore the conventional naming rules for no reason and it makes my eye twitch. Looking at you Hazzard Suit, Enforcer Suit, and Shadowsun's Suit. 

[OnePaulMurray]

On 10/19/2025 at 7:59 PM, TheVoidDragon said:

 

It was/is an entire galaxy with 10,000 years of history and an uncountable number of possibilities. You could write stories for years and years without issue because the setting was just that vast and varied. 

 

It's not as if everything that happened has to be set on an existing planet with existing characters. Look at all the fantastic standalone book series like Eisenhorn, or Gaunts Ghosts, or any of the new space marine chapters created to tell a story with for example. They weren't something that was any lessened by not being part of some "grand ongoing narrative" involving "main characters"  of 40k. They had character arcs, stakes, plot development etc absolutely fine, 40k being set to a certain time period made no difference to how enjoyable they are and how beloved a series/character/event some of them became over the years.

 

Acting like more of that sort of thing would be "doing nothing" or that those sort of stories aren't engaging and compelling just seems strange. 

Well you could, and I would agree that they should. Most of my favourite books are those types, so I'm not against that. 

 

As for the "strange" nature of the comment, I think you are misunderstanding. Lots of people play Ultramarines, right? Well there comes a point where they have a dozen heroes all locked in that one minute to midnight, where you know the movements of all their companies at that time. So you jump back and do something in a different time period.

 

So now you're building up another dozen heroes that people might want to play. You can't set the story anywhere you've been in the future because people will know how it ends already.

 

So even though you have got 10k years and a million planets, the fact that you are always wanting to focus on four or five Space Marine chapters limits you more than you make out.

 

20 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Going back to a setting? One second to midnight? No more terrible lore shifts?

 

Yeah, take my money again.

 

 

It's easy to criticise when it's been terrible, and yeah it did peak. ;)

Ah man, I don't think it's been terrible. Some good, some bad, as usual.

 

I can't help but think that some of the hostility to the current lore is because people are - probably rightly - convinced that a large part of it is driven by copyrighting and drive for profit. 

 

But I don't think that is the only thing at play here. 40k would be boring if in another 20+ years it was all still frozen exactly in place and the only new Space Marines released were incremental size uplifts and head swaps.

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, OnePaulMurray said:

40k would be boring if in another 20+ years it was all still frozen exactly in place and the only new Space Marines released were incremental size uplifts and head swaps.

 

My man.

 

The seeds of 'new stuff' have been planted decades in the making. They do not require 'plot movement' because the plot doesnt actually move. "Will return at the end of days." we are there. Its always been there. We are already at the End of Humanity, its a setting fully at war, with everyone killing everyone.

 

So they can still say 'Hark, the Lion returns as foretold!' 'Behold Lorgar rises!' 'The Great Wolf has come!' and release the model. They can still do range resets, lets be real people love them when done actually right.

 

The lore itself? The setting? What has ACTUALLY changed? For real? "His domain is a million worlds" unless its TERRA, who cares?

 

No. The meta plot is just gaslighting. Nothing has changed in any material way. Once Haley ruins the setting and makes the Emperor wake up, we can reassess.

[DukeLeto69]

5 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

My man.

 

The seeds of 'new stuff' have been planted decades in the making. They do not require 'plot movement' because the plot doesnt actually move. "Will return at the end of days." we are there. Its always been there. We are already at the End of Humanity, its a setting fully at war, with everyone killing everyone.

 

So they can still say 'Hark, the Lion returns as foretold!' 'Behold Lorgar rises!' 'The Great Wolf has come!' and release the model. They can still do range resets, lets be real people love them when done actually right.

 

The lore itself? The setting? What has ACTUALLY changed? For real? "His domain is a million worlds" unless its TERRA, who cares?

 

No. The meta plot is just gaslighting. Nothing has changed in any material way. Once Haley ruins the setting and makes the Emperor wake up, we can reassess.

I have a lot of sympathy with this view. For me (and others) it may stem from the fact that for decades W40k was indeed a SETTING and not a STORY that progressed. It was a sandbox with rich history and lore that allowed us to play with our metal (then finecast then plastic) toys.

 

But saying that, as the IP grew it started to seem restrictive. After all, how many BIG events can be simultaneously happening in the same year/month/week/day that necessitate sourcebooks and campaign books and new models etc to keep us spending our money. How many “events/campaigns” can be set up to be run in the real world to create a buzz and sell product but still end up with the status quo (looking at you 13th Black Crusade).

 

The only way shifting to a STORY that progresses can work is if the outcome of these events deliver substantive change or else it is all for nought. GW need to make their mind up between setting and story and if the latter then really lean in (perhaps they think they did with the Great Rift etc?)

[Dagoth Ur]

On 10/18/2025 at 11:33 PM, TheVoidDragon said:

 

If you're referring to what I said, then I meant more from a community perspective rather than simply GW. It's not as if the few 40k primarchs there are are showing up in every novel, but many in the community sure do act like 40k belongs to them and is their story now, for example I can't recall anyone ever saying "the 40k story should advance!" (and that's a whole other issue in itself) because of the Tau/Eldar/Necrons etc, it's nearly always "The lore should advance because WE NEED MORE PRIMARCHS RETURNING!". Many seem to want 40k to become Horus Heresy 2.0.

I wasn't really reacting to anyone specifically, it is just an opinion/sentiment I keep seeing online that I, frankly, find bizarre because I am not making the same observations in the various online communities and forums I frequent.

[MoriyaSchism]

On 10/18/2025 at 2:04 PM, Dagoth Ur said:

1.) Space Marine chapter numbers: the one thousand astartes thing never clicked for me. I know it is supposed to communicate the whole vibe of space marines being so woefully outnumbered, but that still feels like such a small number to me. I can't exactly say why, but it breaks my immersion a bit. 6-10k astartes feels a bit more reasonable.

Six thousand to ten thousand is a bit much for me, but I thought about this too. The way I imagine it is that Space Marine chapters logistically don't make sense if you have just a thousand Space Marines. When you start counting all the officers, specialists like Chaplains, Apothecaries and vehicle drivers the 1000 number kind of falls apart. The way I see it is that a Space Marine chapter has somewhere around a thousand Marines fighting as regular infantry and then at least a few dozen or an extra hundred Space Marines acting like specialists in the chapter (ship captains, Tech Marines, Apothecaries, vehicle crew and battlefield commanders like Lieutenants or Captains). In my mind each chapter has an army of mortal human serfs that basically keep the lights on (maintain the fortress monastery, crew the ships of the chapter fleet and so on). I just can't imagine something as valuable as a Space Marine operating a logistics truck, a loader sentinel or a supply shuttle for the chapter on the deck of a battle barge. The idea seems wasteful and silly. 

Edited 16 hours ago by MoriyaSchism

[sarabando]

On 10/1/2025 at 2:26 PM, Ahzek451 said:

As Terry once said (space king).....K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid.

Echoing others, but the plethora of mysteries left unanswered was a big part of the secret sauce that made the grimdark setting awesome. Its ok to unravel a few mysteries now and again, but not like this. In my humble summarized opinion, grimdark is slipping from 40k, there are enough retcons to make someone go cross-eyed, and the state of how so many characters are handled(looking at you primarchs) is so.....Trying to find a word other than lackluster but that's all I have for now. 

Yet another vote for rolling back the primaris. Keep the models, just un-do the whole cawl secret army thing. Most people would not have batted an eye at a natural progression in marine tech and truescale. 

I feel so bad for Ynarri fans, others have already said why. What a dead-end plot thread. 

I am on conflicted on returning primarchs. A big part of me wants to go back, but not at the cost of losing the models. In my perfect world, the daemon primarchs would have models, but only playable in apocalypse level games(but we all know this is silly, locking them out of normal games would hinder sales in GW's eyes). A lot of the rollout of the returning primarchs has been...mostly forgettable with the daemon primarchs being relegated to sat morning cartoon villains (I'll get you next time Roboute! Mwa ha ha ha). To an extent the same could be said for the Silent King. Having them active and available in normal games has sort of cheapened them. Having primarchs return also blurs the division between heresy and 40k. In the sense that if they all come back(and oh please don't get me started on resurrecting dead primarchs), I would feel like the only difference between the 2 is one has more aliens in it. 

 

the whole secret army thing would have worked anyway. 

 

Guilliman comes back and can connect the dots across a billion lightyears and  10k years and goes...."hey why is the mechanicum building a secret space marine legion from the Geneseed tithe?" to which they sputter and panic and hes all "yoink". 

[Captain Idaho]

There's not a single person in the known universe, under Cthulhu's malevolent gaze or the demon-sultan Azat.hoth's decadent etched contemption, that bought into 40K because the company advanced the storyline.

 

It has driven people away sure, but people who stayed or got into the hobby just like the broad concept of Space Marines rather than the lore advances.

 

Ain't nobody reading the 4chan post about the Vigilus campaign and thought "dang, move over Tolken, Herbert and Shakespeare... we've got a new king."

Edited 9 hours ago by Captain Idaho
Huh, apparently the swear filter doesn't like Lovecraft