Rivia Pattern Warhound titan

[xarab]

WIP of my project of a complete overhaul of the humble Warhound "scout" titan. I always found GW designs wonky, as nobody seems to think through their decisions, so i started to make my own version. It is not a strict Imperium design as I inspired myself with Wticher game to come up with a unique look. And a Doom fashioned gatling blaster, just for the DAKKA.

Model is still in progress and I will be making an STL out of it  to print and then paint. Probably post it somewhere to be accesible to the public.

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It is now a mighty titan, crafted on a feral forge world of Rivia. Since it is using fobiden arts and runes, there is no one else than the Inquisition itself that could sanction its creation.

 

 

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My model is magnetized and engineered to be fully posable, with magnetized/push kit joints. 

And because of that ,there are many aspects of titan that needed reengineering, as original model has no such possibility and all the pistons would jam in range of 10 degree motions. I did test it. 

 

Since it is much bigger than standard issue, I gave it plentiful more armaments :D. Something that GW never thought through. Because  big titan with 2 big guns is supposed to be effective. yeah it must have a support, but try to outshoot 10 heavy weapons team lascannons with plasma cannons. resource wise, this is an endless sinkhole (and yes, imperium doesn't care about resource management) Even warlord titans don't have any anti-infantry capabilities, and shooting a volcano cannon at random orks or guardsmen, is not the ideal use of its capabilities.

 

And since its my own project, i can give it what-the-hell-ever-I-want. :) 

 

Casue dere is nefa inouf DAKKA!!!!!!

 

So it now has :

1) Dorsal volcano cannon

 

2) 2x shoulder mounted Wyvern cannons

3) Sonic destructor

4) Gatling blaster + 2 x co-axial mounted, single barrel turbo-laser destructor

5) 2x head co-axial assault cannons

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edit: cant really relink all broken images.

 

Edited August 20 by xarab
relink broken links

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's an impressive bit of work  

 

Just an FYI, some of the images are broken.  

[WBRBloom]

Amazing work you've done @xarab! I really envy your skill on cad design! 

 

But as @Firedrake Cordova said, some of the picture links are not working properly, unfortunately.

[xarab]

Since ,for some reason, site doesn't want to recognize or embed pictures, I will try to reupload some of them in this post.

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This is still a Work in Progress, so expect changes :)

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[Firedrake Cordova]

Very nice. The decoration is great

[xarab]

I have an update :D

I tried to fashion this weapon out of doom eternal aesthetics, making it like recovered  and refurbished, or "Imperialized" version, not all out heretic. (although the whole titan is at this point)

 

Today I have finished model of my rotary cannon. As per usual with such projects - it ended up bigger. Orks love it.

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But even so Ia mnot so sure about this shield guard I put on the Chainsword. It took some work, but i cant really tell if it looks better without.

 

I'd really like to know what you guys think about this . 

[kabaakaba]

Shield guard looks good and IMHO it should be longer with rip and tear on it.  Great work.

[xarab]

I followed proposition of our brother kabaakaba, and came up with those results. 

 

Added some greebling and polished few areas.

 

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As for now, all that remains is to make an STl out of it.

[xarab]

Today, I've been doing some nerd calculations about the amount of ammo count in the bins of imperial weapons. It was after all, my greatest issue with imperial weapons and their flagrant disregard about physical reality.

One might think it was a mute effort. It kinda was, when I truly realized how full of is GW's design.

I tried to see how bad are engineers of The imperium( I mean GW's) and just how much titans make no freaking sense in real world. (in GW's world)

 

Here I have an attempt of making sense of projectile sense of the Vulcan mega bolter. In lore those are said to shoot projectiles the size of a man's skull, so there we have it. Average head size for a male in all races is something about 17cm wide, but since its 40k nonsense, I rounded it up to 20 and it scales nice - the actual model of warhound's mega bolter has the ideal barrel size. So far so good. 

So waht is the problem, you ask ? :D 

because taking into account of a relative size vs caliber( ignoring propellant) on board drum-tray ( or at least i assume it is) takes on board about !!!!!!!!!

<drum roll>

<drum roll>

<drum roll>

280 pieces of ammunition :/

 

I made this volume based array of projectiles with no room for anything, meaning shell to shell, giving it a benefit of spilling over actual mesh of the model to round up errors which can be easily fixed with sliding walls of the magazine. Sadly, this didn't make it any good. a machine of war, which is supposed to be the nightmare fuel for enemies of the imperium, would feel that wrath for about 0.03 seconds as it depletes its bin in one rotation. 

So much for a weapon of war for a centerpiece of many armies of the imperium. 

 

Furgging brilliant piece of tech. Bravo Adeptus Mechanicus, you are reaaaaaaaaaaally sharp and (GW is) tripping balls.

 

Since vulcan mega-bolter is supposed to be ultra rapid fire carpet cannon, i tried different approaches based on our IRL GAU-8 Avenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger and giving it a different ammo variation.

 

 In this setup, mega-bolter uses standard bolter rounds in round drum setup. mine is fairly simple as I am not here to engineer ammo feed for imaginary weapon, just visualizing it. We could add another layer of bullets beneath with imperium's tech. This config allows to fill ammo bins with 9 000 ammo count. quite decent for an actual weapon. but it still sucks to make such weapon a centerpice of an army. considering its staggering rate of fire (which i will take from our Avenger cannon - 6 000 RPM), it will get only 1.3 minutes of constant fire, which is like a one sweep for an ork horde. GOOD FKN LUCK for the rest of the battle, you useless heap of junk.

 

 

Alternatively, we have volume based ammo bin, which disregards any concave hull and just take a rectangle shape of the damn thing and fill is to the brim with ammo, disregarding any kind of  loading mechanism. This gets us almost 23 000 ammo count which is nice, allowing machine prolonged engages, but this is only standard bolter rounds -very far from what lore tells us about those behemoths.

 

Alas, due to all the GW does to their models, never really thinking it through (or storing ammo magically in the warp)

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Gatling_Blaster

 

How in the Big E's tungsten balls name are we supposed to have any sustain volleys of fire in that contraption. Even if we take the feeding mechanism out of question and material requirements, the very volume and size of those things does not make sense.

 

And so I have decided to to equip my Warhound with an actual ammo chute and some sensible ammo bin.

 

 

this setup is not tightly packed and take into account machinery needed for transportation of rounds in, at least, the slightest way. It still makes no sense. :) but I work with what I have.

Here, round ammo bon has storage for 215 gatling blaster rounds> with 2 bins, on each side, that makes 430 stored ammo.

 

 

Normally Warhound's backpack is just a fancy cover for its rear and performs no machine function. I have make it to fit 1260 ammo. Even if somehow we make it double for other side, taking into account we have an energy weapon on right hand, this brings total of 2950 rounds for apocalypse battle where armies of dozens of thousands face each other in endless war. Unless Imperium uses some kind of subspace compression system that shrinks volume of all matter inside.

It is not ideal by any means. A rotary cannon of this magnitude is a waste of space, as there is no way of feeding such weapon with appropriate amount of ammo, But damn it, my Blaster goes BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!, even if is is just for a minute or two.

 

I am really wondering what are you guys thinking about premises of those weapons. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26 by Dr_Ruminahui
Removed swear dodges

[Lathe Biosas]

What if there is a piece of technology that you aren't accounting for?

 

In the Imperial Knights codex, the primary weapon of the Knight Warden is the Avenger Gatling Cannon, firing hundreds of "inch long" armour piercing rounds per minute.

 

 

 

Now there has an heirloom called "Endless Fury." that essentially creates new ammunition as fast as the Avenger Gatling Cannon can fire.

 

 

 

Knights are a lot further down on the technology ladder than the mechs of the Adeptus Titanicus. Maybe there is a replicator-style device like this installed in Vulcan Megabolters.

 

 

Edited August 26 by Lathe Biosas

[xarab]

Thank you for this bit of knowledge. That is a very valuable insight. I have never owned a knight, so I wasn't aware of this. This tech really does help out., however . . . .  :D

This is once more - a replicator. It needs resources to work. :)

If we take into account the tech of machinery needed for operation, there still needs to be huge amount of raw materials stored in multiple bins with their own machinery somewhere. I will not deny Mechanicus are capable of doing it, this is reasonable, but where then do we store enough resources for that operation. 

 

I will once again return to the gist of the problem - there is not enough physical space for any kind of ongoing skirmish. Our IRL weapons are designed to be useful for combined force operation and those rarely last more than few minutes before need for support arises, so on that aspect all those weapons can function properly, BUT . . . 

 

In 40k, where titans, knights and armor are used for prolonged amount of time without reinforcements, and those machines are used as a centerpiece of an army, it is in my opinion severely lacking in its projecting capabilities. Our IRL heavy armor like A1M1 Abrams takes on board average 50 ammo for main gun and 11400 for machine guns which is designed to be effective on a battlefield for one battle and then resupplied. 

 

Rotary cannons are effective at short bursts when contact with the enemy is very snappy and short and their voluminous rate of fire showers combatants with bullets in micro seconds.

I won't say 40k ONLY has big battles, so it can function well enough for average combat, but when you send a titan to battle, its not against few hundred boys, but the whole damn green tide. 

 

I return to the question at hand - its not the technology that is lacking, but the actual physical space that is limiting its usefulness. If it has warp storage ability, it does not need any replicator as it can simply have the ready product.

 

If there is another solution to that problem I am very happy to be corrected, because no one knows everything about 30k - 40k world.

 

[WBRBloom]

To be completely honest, my take on what you are trying to explain @xarab is that, what we have in our mind as a normal battle session in Warhammer 30/40k, is simply a quick skirmish that takes up a few minutes of fighting, depleting everyone's magazines (and armies) and then everyone requires refuelling, re-armament, replenishing their numbers, to continue fighting.

 

By then, the outcome is clear: the catastrophic consequences of engines of death such as titans or knights, or even the 'lowly' bolter round are such, that nothing is left standing on the battlefield. At least not on that battlefield, anyway.

 

When I think of 30/40k battles, I cannot help it but think of Karl Kopinsky's artwork: a bleak, war torn, ravaged and muddy killing field, where Space Marines, I.G., Chaos Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, <enter favourite army here>, waltz about and they all fight or are followed, by an endless entourage of humans, servitors, acolytes, failed space marines who did not make the cut, maddened cultists, religious zealots who carry bolter sickle magazines, cannon rounds, cleaning rags, grenades, slaves for a sacrifice, and literally anything else you can think of, that a combatant in the 30th/41st millennium needs, to make this enormous, blood oiled, bone crushing, gut ripping, eviscerating, combat monstrosity, that each one of them calls an 'army' to keep going:

 

 

 

Did your Vulcan Mega Bolter run out of rounds? Too bad for your titan, next time (if there actually is a next time) you need to get faster loading servitors. Perhaps getting a few lobotomised pickpockets from a hive world, the ones with the fast hands, would help.

 

Do you need to go a little bit faster to avoid sustained fire from that hill? No biggie, just shove the previous crew's dead bodies in there, along with any solid fuel you got, as this is a brutal Mr. Fusion reactor anyway.

 

Did that sorcerer's psychic ability fried your previous impulse combat servitors last remaining neuron to a pulp, the one that was manning the Plasma Destructor? Just keep a mental note to ask the Magos to use a better Faraday cage for the next servitor.

[xarab]

I understand this point of view and agree as to setting of 40K. It is brutal and unforgiving, yet the titans are said to be product of Age of Technology, which is supposed to be peak tech humanity ever had. 

 

Even though I also was brought up on those fantastic artworks of old 40k lore - it is depiction of 40k. During time of the Emperor, I imagine, tactics and reliable use of war gear was bread and butter of the crusade.

 

As of my perception of 40k battlefield, it truly can be that even titans are one-time use due to loss of knowledge. On the other hand we must also remember that meta-lore description, a dystopian totalitarian fear-state, cannot exist in 100% pure idiocy, else Imperium would suffer a fadeaway in few years. Our world has plenty of horrors to offer as well, and the satanic cults are also somewhere the, doing God-knows-what with our elites. Our own planet has suffered constant wars since inception of mankind with no respite and there is plenty of inhuman treatment all around. This said - we still tend to make it work and develop, even in very religious constraints or barbaric places. if we take it all into account and put it in writing, it could be as bad as what is depicted in 40k lore. But life is life and we get by.

 

What I truly want to say is that, in my opinion, people of 40k imperium cannot be brainless wokies, or there would be no Imperium at all. Depicting average man and woman as cannon fodder is just meta-lore level. We can say the same about the meatginder that are our corporations and exploitation of common people. 

 

This is also a great deal of disappointment for me, how we tend to depict people of the future. They have understanding and technology allowing for interstellar and hell travel. AdMech with their pursuit of understanding (lore-wise) would not be idiots who cannot make reliable machines. Even though they tend to pray to metal there is still tech and logic ability to create working solutions. I urge my fellow brothers to think through what is really needed for creation and maintenance of such machines of war (we of course don't have reliable source IRL). if we really think through how rare are tech priests vs common man, whole human race would be living in caves since they would have no idea how to even make a car.

On that note, surely common people must know how to take care of the rudimentary machinery around them or no one would ever even change a bulb without a techpriest.

 

On earth, simple engineer can come up with solution to existing problems without creating new tech, but just utilizing already produced components. Our big spending on military (and black budget programs) tends to yield good results. Should we just accept that Imperium would loose ability to think? Am I just to take GW's word for it without performing (Emprah forbid) critical thinking? Figures of GW are top quality but rarely make sense in-game wise. take a look at any Imperial aerial vehicle and tell me how spehs marines are undefeated even by laws of physics. Giving it magic engines that make it planet and void worthy is just cheap. I can't say what could really work, since I am not from any interstellar race, but doesn't it instinctively asks for a bit more thought?

 

My greatest issue, and just my opinion, is that Imperium could not be the greatest interstellar power in 40k if it was random bunch of idiots at the top and incompetent engineseers without any real knowledge about battle, after 10 000 years!!!! of constant warfare. 

 

I do not argue that 40k setting is not what it is, but rather  how it is depicted could not create the Imperium we know. Considering GW's consistency about lore changes and random retcons every codex, doesn't help in that regard. What I dislike so much, is this wishful thinking slop GW slaps at us. it is a point of discontent when reality I see does not match what is said, like a bad written story, because every move, action and word has implication - about person performing it and setting it performs action within.

 

it is a fantasy land after all (hopefully there is no timeline like that) and we all can imagine it how we want, but we must give credit to people living in it. As a stellar race, its citizens cannot be uneducated or the whole system falls apart. We can even look at the real life examples of societies that hold education in regard vs societies who do not educate their citizens. Uneducated youth leads to significant problems for the whole society and inexorably, to decline in industrial and social capacity. (north Korea for example)

We can still talk about morbid abuses within population and inhuman treatment, but people still need to be able to find resolutions. 

4 hours ago, WBRBloom said:

When I think of 30/40k battles, I cannot help it but think of Karl Kopinsky's artwork: a bleak, war torn, ravaged and muddy killing field, where Space Marines, I.G., Chaos Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, <enter favourite army here>, waltz about and they all fight or are followed, by an endless entourage of humans, servitors, acolytes, failed space marines who did not make the cut, maddened cultists, religious zealots who carry bolter sickle magazines, cannon rounds, cleaning rags, grenades, slaves for a sacrifice, and literally anything else you can think of, that a combatant in the 30th/41st millennium needs, to make this enormous, blood oiled, bone crushing, gut ripping, eviscerating, combat monstrosity, that each one of them calls an 'army' to keep going:

 

And it is my opinion, that in that ragtag army of random nobodies, there is still humanity, augmented, eviscerated or not. IRL crusades were similar entity, but even in religious fervor and zealotry, knights and squires had to be thoughtful on battlefield to win. Every war needs resources and those wo make logistic chains can outstand even great armies without logistic support. Considering that many of leaders and elites of such army would be there not because of merit, but a mandate of a lord, this gets diminished a lot, however if we take into account TITANS( as is this topic about), having an absolute value for the Imperium, it needs to be staffed and maintained by competent people. A resource hog (and prestige) worth upkeeping over dozens of armies. So much more during the great crusade and times of technology when they were created.

 

It is understandable that AdMech could loose understanding of technology that made titans - titans, but not ability to think and find resolutions, which includes - DESIGNING machines with already existing tech.

 

Hope it makes my standing more clear :)

[Lathe Biosas]

You are forgetting the STC.

 

You essentially have energy matter replicators that can create everything from medicines to giant Knights without the help of a single tech-priest. 

 

A little history:

 

Before the Mechanicum even existed, Interstellar vessels left our Solar System to settle far away worlds (The Long March).

 

These ships settled upon worlds and carved out their own little kingdoms using STC built Knights and other weapons of war. Over the millenia (and the issuing crappy times) these isolated fiefdoms became insular and a little insane due to the coding errors within the Throne Mechanicum (the MIU that allows a Scion to interface with the Knight suit).

 

Later on these Knight Houses were discovered by Rogue Traders, Mechanicus Explorator Fleets or the Emperor's Great Crusade. They traded their allegiance for supplies, information and trade.

 

(This is why Imperial Knights are actually allied with the Imperium, not it's subjects).

 

But these little Houses on feudal worlds can create weapons of war we can't dream of today.

 

Or if you are from House Sinistorus or it's Titan masters Legio Sinister, you come from our nightmares. (Null/Blank pilots using psykers as ammunition).

 

 

[WBRBloom]

@xarab, everything you say is fascinating. I agree with most of your post but I also want to point out that two things can be true at once.

 

I would also like to point out that we might now walking paths that border social, political, religious and off-topic. We should tread lightly.

 

As you correctly pointed out, humanity reached its zenith during the Dark Age of Technology. It was in that era that much of the astonishing technology still seen throughout the 30k and 40k setting was originally developed. However, there are several important factors worth considering.

 

A significant portion of this technology was either created or heavily influenced by advanced artificial intelligences during mankind's expansion across the stars.

We also have the three distinct castes of humanity often referred to as the Men of Gold, Men of Stone, and Men of Iron. The Men of Gold may have been genetically enhanced humans (or perhaps simply a more advanced branch of baseline humanity), possessing greater intellectual capacity, longer lifespans, and other traits that enabled humanity's rapid expansion throughout the galaxy.

 

The Men of Stone and Men of Iron played a crucial role in creating and maintaining much of humanity's technological infrastructure. Their efforts allowed vast swathes of humanity to enjoy the fruits of civilisation with minimal labour of their own, not entirely unlike our increasing reliance on automation and AI today.

 

Although the Men of Stone and, particularly, the Men of Iron eventually contributed to the near-destruction of mankind, the devastation of those conflicts ultimately created the conditions that allowed the Emperor of Mankind to rise and reunify Terra. As a geneticist and bio-engineer, the Emperor's accomplishments still remain unparalleled. Ten millennia after His internment upon the Golden Throne, countless individuals still strive, largely unsuccessfully, to replicate even a fraction of His achievements.

 

Mars, meanwhile, retained much of humanity's heavy industry and technological expertise. This is one of the primary reasons the Emperor chose diplomacy and alliance over outright conquest when dealing with the Mechanicum. Simply put, He neither had the time nor the resources to wage a prolonged and catastrophic war against them. By this point, much of Terra had descended into techno-barbarism. The various warlords and tribal empires relied on scavenged archaeotech, but possessed little understanding of how to reproduce it.

 

The Tech-Priests of Mars, who preserved fragments of humanity's technological legacy throughout the Age of Strife, became revered precisely because they retained knowledge that had been lost elsewhere. To the average Imperial citizen, maintaining sophisticated machinery is almost mystical in nature. Granted, a typical man or woman might know how to replace a lumen globe, operate a servo-skull, or dutifully burn incense before a recalcitrant cogitator, but their technical understanding rarely extends much further than that.

 

Standard Template Constructs (STCs) are also a massive part of life within the Imperium. Much of the Imperium's technological base survives because STC-derived designs continue to provide reliable templates for manufacturing and construction. In many ways, the STC is the foundation upon which the Imperium's technological stagnation and survival both rest.

 

I have no doubt that there are still individuals within the Imperium who possess the intellect and curiosity required to understand technology beyond its most basic functions. However, such people are exceedingly rare. The overwhelming majority of the population are little more than cogs in the vast machinery of the Imperium. Their lives are consumed by survival, whether that means enduring the horrors of an Underhive gang war, meeting impossible production quotas, or simply living long enough to see another day. Most neither possess the opportunity nor the lifespan to pursue anything beyond that.

 

A tiny number may rise above these circumstances. Some might be selected for recruitment into a Space Marine Chapter, while others may fall into the clutches of Chaos and be claimed by a Traitor Legion, or meet some other grim fate entirely. Of those chosen, only a fraction will survive the arduous trials and augmentation required to become fully-fledged transhuman super-soldiers. As the lore consistently demonstrates, such individuals are the exception rather than the rule.

 

To conclude, Titans do not require vast armies of highly educated engineers to keep them operational. A handful of skilled Tech-Priests or Techno-Magi, supported by servitors and a forest of mechadendrites, can often perform the necessary rites of maintenance and repair well enough.

 

On a related note, there is an excellent comic called Titan: God-Machine that you may find interesting. It provides a fascinating glimpse into life aboard a Warlord Titan, covering everything from transportation aboard voidships to awakening rituals, manufactorum maintenance, battlefield damage, engine troubles, and their eventual resolution. If you can find a copy, whether online or in print, I would highly recommend giving it a read.

 

 

[xarab]

Thanks for recommendations.

 

it seems I was not really clear with my stance. 

I am aware of 15k-40k timeline. I am not focusing per se on the state of the imperium, but rather how GW is trying to sell us the idea with their official books and models vs lore and its implications.

 

As I have stated in earlier posts, my gripe comes not from how Imperium functions, because that level of meta-lore is always going to be the most distinctive piece, but rather how their creations do not match what they try to sell. I do not blame model artists or sculptors, because it there is a person in GW corpo who either accepts or rejects ideas. 

 

If I put aside that model quality was terrible in first 3 issues,bc of immature technology ( ironic :D ) and a lot of players have 20y+ models, which actually are more lore accurate, than new SM equipment which makes no freaking sense in the setting. Being tacticool is everything these days with complete disregard for reality in setting it offers. We also could get into why SM figurines would never work in reality etc. but that is expected. And there is also lore that is retconned every issue of new (whatever) codex.

 

I do not really focus on off-meta explanations as we have the similar situation in Star Wars universe - light sabers work - peroid. How, we IRL have no idea, but they do and Jedi use it. We then add explanations and nerdy talks to make it seem realistic and logical in-universe.

 

GW on the other has an idea (a model) to sell and then tries their best to come up with a story behind it, enforcing its existence in the setting, not organically introducing it. Like Return of Guilliman, (first time Eldar actually did anything good in setting) like it would not create apocalyptic schism in the ecclesiarchy and Imperium on par with Horus Heresy and everybody just accepts it as new thing. And all new tech is unlocked and primaris show up with all fancy tech in this turbo orthodox world they have created. Or at least painted it as.

 

My woe is not that things are what they are. It is how intellectually empty all the writing about is. When i read 30k books, i do not see for a minute wonderous beings of unmatched intellect and prowess, as their actions prove to me that all primarch were morons and the Emperor himself was a . . . .  well, not too insightful person for an inter dimenstional being with thousands of years of current life experience and hunders of previous life experiences, looking through time and space, being capable of laying waste to entire armies or legions, overseeing rise of humanity in THE GALAXY in mere 300 years, and fighting egregorial spawns of warp and chaos!!,  just to be outdone by some plot armor and plot idiocy (Erda, for example).

 

On the same note, GW is trying to sell us models that have little to no actual merit for things they represent - Titans here, in this topic. 

The level of technology needed for creation of such machines are staggeringly enormous, still much less than a Battle Barge. 

I would like to point your attention into this matter. Take a loot at level of creature comforts and level of life in technologically expanded countries on our planet and lets take a look at what is the greatest machine - of war or peace - and take a look what is the technological chain needed for creation and maintenance of such creation. We can add up to that socio-political troubles as in the imperium various nobles would struggle for dominance as well.

 

Do we have space ships? Not officially, perhaps Black Budget Programs do have, but with our tech which allows quite comfortable everyday liffe, while we can't build half of machines that AdMech could and certainly not space ships. The extravagant machines in STC were created during dark age of technology so they contain knowledge, tech and processing allowing for its creations -ergo the design AND its purpose were certainly not just a past time hobby creations, but a peak scientific achievements with a very though out blueprint and tech contained.

 

Lets take a look at something as "simple" as a smartphone - or rather electronics and chips that make it possible. We built machines of 2 world wars and made a planet-scale village of logistics before devising first chipset.

If we think about it, what kind of abundance and possibilities come with plasma reactors or giant space ships capable of hell travel? what kind of mining equipment, logistics, everyday life trucks, cars, personal electronics, amenities can come from such technology.

Sure, in 40K only elites get the fancy things, but so in our world, only rich get the best thing and we have to get by with total scraps that this 1% just doesn't even bother to collect. And it still is a luxurious life of a person from 1960, with all the gadgets available to public.

 

However it is not the state of society I argue, but the very depiction of 40K as GW tries to sell it as total grim-dark. The darkness does certainly not come from lack of anything in an interstellar race, but a treatment of people. And even so for something that is designed and built in golden era of peak technology. And all of this has implications. Imperium servitorizes people and augment them with cybernetics :cuss:. It cannot be stupid not ignorant of the tech or implications of its work.

I cannot believe for a second that a person as well trained as a Space Marine is ignorant of tech, society and (even by virtue of long life) does not know how to use cables or bulbs. Our special forces are trained in combat AND in knowledge so they remain effective against tech and mental obstacles. and that is for what? 2 year training and 25 year service? what about logan, Dante or Kalgar who are 1 000 years old? Should they behave like a random citizen with just super powers? That is what irks me about SM - they never get a really deserved recognition for what they represent. or what idea they represent.

 

If GW would tell me that titans use matter replicator and store said resources in a subspace container system (something like a webway time-space) that allows ammo bin designed for 240 physical shells to hold 24 000 ammo, I would be fine and happy, BUT I would also ask - if those engineers from 17-18K had such capabilities, then why did they build every other machine to NOT have this system. Why not give Land Raider infinite ammo. Why vehicles do not have infinite fuel tank. Why greatest machines of war are built for 15 minute wars etc. 

 

Because this writing GW does paints people of this golden era as ***tards, incapable of designing a worthy piece. and all marvelous tech that allowed galactic federation to rise was a useless junk with working magic. Just because GW writers said so. And then they turn to 40k and do the same stupidity to people of Imperium ( and other races as well) 

Because writing is hard and nobody ever thinks what those actions say about their characters. Most of time its not what they did, but what they did NOT do. Or even if we take 40K video games - things are just tossed around with no ever thinking if it makes any sense- does it look good? is it greebled enough? does someone see it and goes "wow"? but they never ask - Does this even make sense? Why reload giant macrocannons by hand when we could design autoloader for space cannons that is not an actuator and does not have 1000 weak points that can break down every minute? because F-K logic, I guess. And that is what I grief about. Nobody ever thinks about implications of what their creations say about their creator.

 

It's not that I do not agree what 40K universe is. It is how GW paints it, is irrevocably unrealistic, wishful thinking of an anime character, who demands the world spins around them, rather than to believably exist in a setting.

[WBRBloom]

On 8/30/2026 at 5:45 PM, xarab said:

It's not that I do not agree what 40K universe is. It is how GW paints it, is irrevocably unrealistic, wishful thinking of an anime character, who demands the world spins around them, rather than to believably exist in a setting.

 

Thank you @xarab for the explanation above.

 

I now see that your criticism is not that 40K is unrealistic, but rather that it is that GW frequently asks readers to believe in technologies, institutions, and superhuman characters whose stated capabilities are far greater than the consequences and behaviours actually depicted in the lore, creating gaps between what the setting claims and what it shows. I totally agree with the quality of the writing on the 30/40k novellas; to put in layman's terms, a lot of them suck (but there are a lot of good ones as well). 

 

My only counter argument is that GW might say your criticism proves the setting works. Because the Imperium is not supposed to be a rational civilisation.

The creators would likely argue that titans are inefficient because the Imperium is inefficient. Ships reload absurdly because the Imperium is absurd. Innovation fails because society is decaying. Everything is contradictory because the civilisation itself is contradictory.

 

However, many of these machines weren't built by the decaying Imperium. They originated from humanity's technological golden age, at which point the "declining civilisation" explanation becomes less convincing. Essentially there are two different explanations for Imperial stupidity, and GW sometimes blurs them together.

 

I believe that the phrase "These people don't know any better anymore", is, in fact, one of the strongest parts of 40K. A civilisation surviving on inherited technology while forgetting how it works is genuinely grimdark.

 

 

Edited September 1 by WBRBloom

[xarab]

You know, if we take it that STC is TRULY a relic of lost gone civilization, then we must also take into account they would have insight (like coders today) to note something on the side of lines of code or  have few words of explanation of tech in those blueprints (like patents we have today). Assuming 18K was the PEAK of all total insight and tech, they would have created some kind of information library code of preservation. Those people would not be as stupid as GW tells us they are. Sure, nobody would expect whole humanity go to trash at that point, but even today we have instructions leaflets to everything, even digital items, to preserve know-how and at large ability of people to make use of it. In out own time everything is explained like to a toddler, even thought we have enough scientists to innovate new tech, because it preserves knowledge among common folk.

 

If we take into account something as STANDARD template construction, it MUST have had blueprints for tech, its fabrication, as well as documentation, even soooooo much more than we have today. Sure, nobody explains to you how refrigerator works, but all it takes is to access our STC - internet - to know and then make your own. We might not have patents for this particular thing, but we still can understand its creation and underlying mechanics of action.

 

The only explanation that rescues 40k from this would be fact that AdMEch does not have any means of access to those instructions because they are, I don't know - in Trinary coding. BUUUUTTTTTT, Ad Mech had those capabilities in 30K when they had less  tech and were still searching for STCs. Humanity at large had this ability. We can explain it via tech loss, but how, since they were ABLE to read those files ALL the time. Its like we have OS - Mac, Windows, Linux etc. This does not make sense that they would be unable to access tech or instructions which is LESS than what 40k has at this point.

 

And GW telling me that Titans are ridiculous because 40k setting is ridiculous, is just a defensive mechanism for piss poor custodianship of IP (or an idea) because they are creatively bankrupt. And so happens they retconned 3 days ago WHOLE firstborn line of marines and their equipment. Because war is 'eternal' and stock market needs more slop to sell.

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On the other hand, I am half finished with my model into STL conversion.

 I suspect it will take about 2-3 weeks and it will be available for download somewhere. I haven't decided it yet.

[xarab]

Hello Everyone.

Today I have a pleasure to announce that my creation is complete. 

 

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It Ultimately was changed a bit.

I gave it 3 different theme variants

-Inquisition

-Wolf

-blank

 

Was quite the adventure and it can finally be shared.

 

For those who may like to get the model go here:

 

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/rivia-pattern-warhound-titan

 

Enjoy!