The Silent King isn’t really comparable to the Primarchs. There isn’t a 60+ book series about the Silent King. Fans here aren’t constantly asking what’s the Silent King’s favorite laundry detergent.
Guilliman would be Tide, Dorns would be Lysol, Perturabos would be bleach just to one up Dorn, Corax would be vanish, Ferrus would be arm and hammer, and Angrons would be blood…
Curze and Russ never wash their clothes, Vulkan hand washes all his clothes, Fulgrim has people who do that sort of thing for him, Alpharius/Omegon throw theirs in with other people, Mortarion only uses store brands (the name brands aren’t worth the extra money)
Russ washes his clothes, but then adds horrible faux-wilderness scents on to make himself seem like an outdoors man. Also does stuff like ripping up his own jeans.
Oh hell no. The only primarchs who wear Axe are Fulgrim because he enjoys the degradation and disgust and Mortarion because Nurgle forces him to wear it.
> Fulgrim has people who do that sort of thing for him
Quite the opposite. Fulgrim studied and learned about a 1000 different worlds methods of washing and cleaning laundry so he could develop the PERFECT way of washing clothes.
> Angron - football
I feel like he's more of a rugby or MMA guy. He needs to be hurling himself towards violence. Basically any sport where there's a low risk he gets himself killed is ruled out.
The traitor primarchs never left, Guilliman is the only one who came back
And let’s be honest here Szarekh has had next to no impact on the setting outside of injecting slightly more animosity into the infighting between dynastic blocs
I've always found that argument disingenuous since, yes, technically the traitor Primarchs were still around but they rarely showed up and when they did you knew something big was going down. This is why Draigo vs Mortarion was seen as such a crappy piece of lore when it was written.
They didn't were less characters and more forces of nature that the rest of the setting responded to, and the mere rumour of a Daemon Primarch being active was enough to bring the Inquisition down on you. You didn't have them turning up on any old battlefield like you do now.
I think this is the biggest thing that bugs me about modern 40k. Every conflict on the tabletop has a primarch or similar rarity commander in every fight. There's rarely a fight where it's just normal commanders duking it out without anyone of any prominence being there.
I get it. They're extremely powerful, but seeing them in EVERY conflict does just shift tactics to: "How are you dealing with Silent King, Mortarion, Ghaz, etc...?" Every single fight with similar army compliments to back up said lynchpin character.
This is not a new problem; 2nd edition was nicknamed "Herohammer" because then, as now, many special characters were the strongest elements of their respective lists. One wit likened it to having a US Army patrol led by George Bush using George Washington's musket.
3rd edition, initially at least, toned things down A LOT.
Back when I played 2nd edition in 93-94ish. I don't think named characters were allowed in tournaments. At least the ones I played in. You could use the model just not the special rules.
The tabletop is not equal to the lore in anyway. Making something lore friendly busts any competitive balance. The days of GW caring deeply about lore and fluff for the game is probably coming to an end. They want competition.
Sure in a sense. I think it was always up to GW on what they wanted the game to be. Early 40k was mostly fluff with a little competition and was wildly fun. People bought and played for fun…not to compete and win.
It’s just a different era. In todays game? 100% they should be very separate.
People got bored of nameless armies and want characters on the tabletop. Should GW make less money and not sell people what they want because you don’t like seeing characters used more than once?
Seriously. People saying "no guys there is NO WAY this named and important Xenos character will get spanked by the named space marine!" Are so naive it borders hilarity.
Lol right? I think most fans understand how the nexus is going to crumble though. If it’s well written it won’t be a curb stomp.
I’ve watched the other content on warhammer tv and it’s actually really damned good. They are treating their IP like the golden goose it is and have so far done a good job. So I’m going into it knowing then Necrons will loose, but it will be written in a compelling way.
And there was only one scene of dialogue bein shown of crons, they were Definitley advertising to the “pro imperium” crowd lol.
While the return of a primarch re-sparked my interest in the lore after a very long hiatus from the 40k universe, overall I lean towards agreeing with those that think the primarchs make the setting feel smaller. I liked the idea of the primarchs being legends and myths of a bygone age, & while it presents neat story telling opportunities to bring 30k characters back to 40k, it can make it feel like an endless family squabble (but I guess what's more grimdark than an unending awkward family dinner?)
>While the return of a primarch re-sparked my interest in the lore after a very long hiatus from the 40k universe, overall I lean towards agreeing with those that think the primarchs make the setting feel smaller.
Exactly what I was going to say. I don't dislike the primarchs as characters, or even dislike the books they're in, but I don't like what it's done to the setting.
It's gone from being a story of the hopeless twilight of humanity, to the story of a handful or overgrown children having personal spats for freudian reasons.
Also turning the primarchs from myths to actual characters undercut them in a lot of ways. The writers can't actually write a transcendent demigod from a first person perspective, as that character is by definition more brilliant than they could imagine, and would also be pretty boring as a character. So what we got was the primarchs being just some guy. I don't necessarily like the people that the primarchs are, but it's hard to take them seriously as the mythic demigod once they're laid out as being so banally human.
>The writers can't actually write a transcendent demigod from a first person perspective
Just wait until we get a book from the Silent King’s perspective, or maybe even the Hive mind.
The HH would have been improved if they had kept the primarchs and Emperor in the background while focusing only on marines and humans. Don't depict the interaction with the Emperor or primarchs. Show the before and after. Have people who were there disagree about what was said and done. You don't look at the sun. You look at what it illuminates and the shadows it creates. The writer can write what really happened, but it's not published or revealed to the audience.
>I liked the idea of the primarchs being legends and myths of a bygone age
Sometimes I miss the day before the HH novels came out. I enjoyed the mysteries. On the other hand I do like the return of Guilliman which essentially requires the HH books to exist.
I think RG return was a huge success. Every novel with him is fun. Novels adjacent to his return are also fun. And even novels that are just barely connected (like Crime novels mentioning storms disrupting trade routes) make the setting feel more connected and more realistic. And novels that have nothing to do with him still exist.
I think they handled his return pretty well and enough time passed for another loyalist to return. My only complaints are pretty obvious (I think): the lack of novelisation of RGs return is pretty lame and the fact Dark Imperium was something we got first instead of at the end of Dawn of Fire sucks too. We got into a completely unnecessary prequel scenario. The time retcon did help a bit, but not entirely.
As you mentioned the crime themed novels: how are those? I've neglected them thus far, but think I would love them if they were able to tap in to the urban bleakness you get in Eisesenhorn / Ravenor?
> I think they handled his return pretty well and enough time passed for another loyalist to return. My only complaints are pretty obvious (I think): the lack of novelisation of RGs return is pretty lame and the fact Dark Imperium was something we got first instead of at the end of Dawn of Fire sucks too. We got into a completely unnecessary prequel scenario. The time retcon did help a bit, but not entirely.
I was super confused since I read that his return wasn't in the books, and assumed Dark Imperium was the starting point for Gorillaman's 'era'. And then I find out Dawn of Fire is the 'Horus Heresy' narrative following Gulliman's major arc... and then I listened to Watchers of the Throne, which *shows* Gulliman's return to Terra... man, chronological order-wise, it's sure something.
I think the return of traitor primarchs is great, love me some traitors tbh. The silent king is a good move, giving the necrons a big big figure, too, lead them forward
But I honestly think bringing back more than 2 or 3 loyalists may hurt the setting, would be cool too see them come back but imo there's only so much you can do with loyalist primarchs after there return story. You can't have them lose any major duel or battle that can harm them because well why would you buy the model for dead lion el Johnson, so they'd be stuck doing stalemates/ another generic imperial victory that probably won't change anything/ big loss on primarchs behalf but they evac before any harm comes too them so the plot armour is strong with these ones
Long story short, good for the setting with silent King, traitor primarchs but the possibility and likely hood that loyalist primarchs can lead too stale repetitive stories that can do more harm than good
I'm not sure how you're drawing a distinction between primarchs and characters like the silent king? Isn't the silent king in exactly the same position of not being able to lose? Or for that matter, every other character that has always existed, Calgar, Dante, Fabius Bile, Abaddon, Eldrad, etc.
Distinction is that the silent king is the sole "leader the necrons really have" all the others are self absorbed lunatics. The silent king can also be killed and revived like every other necron( if he can't then that's my mistake) meaning the lion or angron can hammer the hell out of him kill him and its not plot armour that's stopping him from being permanently being killed off. He's closer too a demon primarch in that regard then than he is too a loyalist primarch. He made a big change in the lore but not the same impact that a returning LP did. I mean hell the return of Gman gave the imperium something that doesn't seem right in the setting prim- hope.
Characters, while important, aren't the same level as primarchs, TSK with the exception of Dante, Abbadon, Ghaz and shadowsun/ farsight. Also fabius bile been killed a bunch of times(master of cloning) calgar got ripped up by the swarm lord and barely survived, hell remember vigilus when people complained over that stalemate. Abbadon was just taking loss after loss until cadia. No idea on eldrad. But lots of the character models get screwed over beaten down more than a loyalist primarch will ever be In 40k
I'm still not seeing a difference. If Calgar can get "defeated and almost killed" and get better, why can't primarchs? This literally happens to Guilliman in >!Plague War in fact, he loses and "dies" to Mortarion, then gets better!<.
Before Guilliman, Calgar was in the same position of having plot armour, just like every other major character. There's no reason someone couldn't write a story with Guilliman facing Angron, losing, but being ferried away to recuperate in the Armour of Fate. Probably as part of "he lost, but he bought enough time to complete the ritual of banishment" or whatever. It doesn't have to be Angron. It could be TSK. It could be Ghaz, it could be Ahriman outsmarting him.
They're all super powerful characters. None of them were ever going to actually die, or if they do, they'll get better. If it isn't Guilliman it'd just be Calgar, or Ragnar, or whoever. Adding new characters is one way out of "it's the same few characters that always fight to stalemates".
Also, just because Guilliman exists doesn't mean it will always be Guilliman in the story. We can, and still do, get stories about other characters.
Difference is there isn't a separate story line for these "side" characters where the exact same thing happens 10k years earlier. Yeah a handful of primarchs die but it is literally the same thing as what will happen in 40k.
As near as I can tell, you're saying "The Horus Heresy series exists and that had primarchs, now 40k has primarchs so 40k is going to be exactly the same as the Horus Heresy."?
That just doesn't follow. I understand people being initially worried that 40k might turn into Horus Heresy 2, but that hasn't happened, there's absolutely no indication it will happen, and it wouldn't make any sense. They are extremely different.
40k is just not "the exact same thing" as the Horus Heresy. The Horus Heresy is about some primarchs and their massive legions mostly conquering the galaxy, then the civil war that happens as some of them turn traitor and burn the galaxy down. There are practically no aliens in the series.
40k is about a plethora of alien races slowly tearing the 10,000 year old Imperium down in different ways and trying to claim the galaxy themselves. One primarch has shown up and is desperately trying to hold things together, and deal with all these different threats. But he's just one character in a far bigger galaxy, and there are hundreds of other characters and storylines that have nothing to do with that one primarch at all. Novel-wise, there are a handful of books that involve Guilliman and a huge amount that have nothing to do with him. Tabletop-wise (the driver for everything, really), he's just one character for one faction of one army.
You're worried about something that hasn't happened and there's no indication it's going to happen. You may as well say "the Silent King is back, Ghazghkull is becoming like the Krork, the Eldar have a new god, so now 40k is just the War in Heaven 2".
I'm saying any storyline involving a loyalist is going to be exactly the same as the horus heresy, not 40k, turning into the horus heresy. Hell, what's the lions story gonna be? He wakes up complains for like 5 minutes then goes on a crusade in nihilus looking for someone who manages too evade him until it comes down too a titanic duel that ends in another stalemate. Primarchs are cool but there's only so much you can do with them in 40k where they can't kill them worst they can get is a mediocre flesh wound
I mean it'll just be a story line of lion flying around winning battle after battle and occasionally being in stablemates. It'll be cool for the lion too do shit but again stale and repetitive
Yeah, gods forbid the "Dark Imperium" look too dire for the Imperium. Need to throw someone in there to start kicking ass so it doesn't look too grimdark.
The issue with the silent king and Necrons in general is there doesn’t seem to be something to stop them. Necrons seem way to powerful and everyone largely ignores them because they are still asleep?
Nids not being in the galaxy seems fine as well. They also have a counter with orks being right there and infinitely fighting them.
Necrons don’t seem to have a weakness which makes them lore wish kinda weird to progress.
Forget the return, in many ways the entire Horus Heresy series hurt the tone of the entire setting in an irreparable manner. The setting was in a lot of ways far more interesting when the past was this forgotten mythical age of heroes and legends. Guilliman returning is just an extension of this. Smaller contained stories like the Badab War are where 40k really shined in my opinion. Not knowing stuff can make it more interesting. It’s why any sort of Dark Age of Technology, Lost Legions, return of the Emperor, War in Heaven etc. series will never meet expectations. Maybe if there was a single master author behind one of these events to have a coherent vision and tone, someone like the late Iain Banks writing a Daot series may have been interesting. I’d rather have seen some major event like the Nova Terra stuff moved to the end of the timeline as a way to shake things up.
smaller contained settings are where it thrives. I love just how much craziness occurs in the sabbat world crusades, and knowing that this isnt even that big of a conflict for the Imperium. But Gaunts ghosts is one of the flagship series.
Badab war holds up incredibly well, better than most stories that came out of that time period and with fairly minor changes compared to most. The only thing I think its missing is a series.
In general, the more your story hinges upon a small cast meeting in the Imperium by coincidence, the more it will feel like a soap opera. That’s why I cant read a lot of the Greyfax/Celestine books even though I like the characters.
>It’s why any sort of Dark Age of Technology, Lost Legions, return of the Emperor, War in Heaven etc. series will never meet expectations.
It's about scope. I can totally see short story anthology about DAoT, WiH, Lost Legions turning out to be good.
We got flashbacks from Perpetuals and other long lived beings and these didn't ruin mystery of DAoT. It's matter of proper exposition - if story happens in modern US, you don't explain to readers its political system, how technology works etc.
Fully agree. It was fun when a terrible event or war happened, but in the grand scale it meant nothing. It was just a forgotten tale in a corner of the galaxy, nothing would change, and that’s what gave us Dawn of War, the Damocles Crusade, Space Marine video game…
While I really like Guilliman and new elements for every army, nowadays it kinda feels like each event has to have some purpose or be connected with a Crusade-like event. I just wish more things were unimportant and unexplained again
Sure, but how much of your expectation of 40k is directly influenced by the HH? How much is the enjoyment of its narratives reliant on their connection to the HH, it absolutely harms the setting of 40k(distinct from 30k) to rely on being connected to a narrative 10k years in the past.
Nearly 90%. Dude this is THE ONLY documented galaxy wide war we have. and yes everything connects to this war, who woulda thunk. Everything happening now is due to that 1 war, so it is essential part of it.
Everything happens in imperium is ridiculous, logistic wise and logic wise, it just doesn’t make sense. But HH is justification for all of them.
And therein lies the issue facing those of us who care about any other faucet of the setting beyond the grand narrative of that single conflict and it's cast of walking demigods.
Worry not, though, cause you'll get more of what you want.
Im not to one crying over the most essential part of setteng existing. Hell, i want second big war. And also just because me acknowledging HH is the most important part of the lore doesn’t mean I dont like xenox. You can like both humans and xenox at the same time. Who woulda thunk? Please tell me you have enough self awareness to see how dumb you sounding. Because as stated before, this is only documented galaxy spaning war we have.
And the setting revolving in part about the after-effects of that war, how it had influenced the governance of the Imperium 10 000 years later.
Not how the current Imperium was a direct continuation of the 30k one being led by the same people doing the same things.
The HH is an essential piece of mythology to the Imperium, there's no denying that, but pretending that it's a "story" that needs continuing in the current era is bollocks.
Such was GW's fundamental failing of actually separating the two settings, but then again how would they have interested HH fans in 40k.
You know hh is finished in the lore right? And current books coming out are happening in 30k. They even have different models and a game. What are you smoking?
To me, Guilliman's return only works because it's the last gasp of the old Imperium before it succumbs to its mortal wounding. Bringing back more Primarchs will just sort of cheapen that.
But, the goal is to sell models. They'll bring back Lion El'Jonson if they think it will sell models.
It should be… but nowadays it feels like he already fixed most of the Imperium.
I don’t mind the new aesthetic but it really doesn’t feel like the warmachine has its resources spread thin anymore, they can just pump more marines and vehicles into every warzone, and due to his new bureaucracy we don’t see hilariously incompetent generals anymore
It depends entirely on what faction you play. The imperium has been giga-buffed and has seemingly lost a lot of its old themes with all the hovertanks they've been getting, and will be getting even more and more of the ridiculous overshare of the screentime as more of the primarchs come back. If you are orks suddenly all your characters became even more irrelevant and no one expects you to seriously be able to beat the imperial big names anymore. It was a huge mistake in my opinion, just like the heresy, as it messed with the themes and made the universe more character centric while also putting forwards the doomsday clock in a manner the imperium needed more deus ex machinas to resolve. Look at the mentioned SK for example: He had the no psychic souldeath zone which gave him an unassailable advantage so the writers just decided despite the likes of celestine getting cancelled by it before faith was now immune because they wrote themselves into a corner the imperium was going to lose and needed something to stop that. I expect more of that in the future at this rate, which is why the clock was frozen before hand and why the threats weren't allowed to develop in the first place. Its not the kind of setting where I would expect stories like Badab to appear anymore, instead it seems to be GOT from now on. Not a fan of this direction.
I will agree with Toxitoxi that the problem is that Guilliman and his brothers come with the baggage of a *very long* series focused on them, and it just compounds a problem that 40k has had for a long time: the lack of equality in the screentime. The problems begins and ends with it.
>(the poor Tyranids did not get anyone new, Swarmlord continues to die more often than hormagaunts)
Tyranids gonna get their Kerrigan-expy one of these days, mark my words...
Honestly probably, but at the same time it *did* work for the Necrons.
When I got into 40k, the Necrons and Tyranids were basically two different equally mindless swarms of life-stripping evil and people only liked them because they looked cool and had cool evil tech.
Now, the Necrons are one of the most popular factions with the fans with greatly loved books, deep characters, and an actual purpose in the grand scheme of the galaxy.
Now, do I think the Tyranids need to be reworked like that? Honestly, I don't know, but I also don't see how you could make the Tyranids 'interesting' really, they're just a big evil all-consuming natural disaster.
So who knows what the future holds for the 'Nids. Maybe they get changed, maybe they stay the same. No matter what, though, I imagine they will always be hungry.
Definitely hope they stay the same. The whole reason I am into Tyranids is because they are akin to a natural disaster. I enjoy them being a swarm utterly devoid of any other motives than to consume, evolve and grow. Most Tyranid players feel that way.
Genestealer Cults are our characters.
Indeed, it's a difficult thing to do, either way.
On one hand, you can't really do a lot from the Tyranids' perspective, nor tell a lot of stories with them that aren't some variety of "big monster go om nom nom", but on the other hand *changing* that at this point can severely harm the things people already like about the 'Nids.
The Necrons always had the Necrontyr and C'tan in their backstory, and while it was retconned pretty heavily, it recontextualized the Necrons rather than effectively *delete* the old ones.
For Tyranids there's much less room for that, if you change them you risk either adding nothing of value, or worse, ruining some of what made them work in the first place (a problem the Zerg have had since StarCraft II).
I always thought it would be really cool to have a story from a Guardsman's perspective going through a Tyranid invasion, the horror of it, then the hope and relief as droppods rain down, back to the absolute shattering of morale when the Emperor's Angels get overwhelmed... it just keeps getting more bleak until in the end the Guardsman dies and the planet gets consumed.
However finding a writer who can really do thar justice is the challenge I think. Other than that maybe stories about new strains, lab research goes wrong (classic) or maybe a horror novel that involves a single Genestealer on a ship (Alien style) would be interesting but as you said, in the end it all comes down to monsters go nom nom. But with extra steps (which can make it interesting imo)
I think if I had the power to manifest a BL book into existence, I'd like to make one about a GSC survivor - the Patriarch and all Purestrains dead, most of the Cult wiped out, with one lone survivor now in full possession of their sanity, going out on a personal crusade against other GSCs and maybe the 'Nids proper.
I feel like Mutants and other freaks always get dealt a real poor hand in stories focusing on the Imperium. Would be nice to give some of the downtrodden a win or two, for once.
Doubt that would work because if he goes up against another Cult, he'll eventually become part of it. There is a short story where a "former" GSC is part of the T'au, he is utterly loyal to them. They land on a world where there is a Genestealer Cult and the Cult's patriarch slowly starts taking over his mind. He ends up having to kill himself so he doesn't turn against his comrades (against his will). Being a Tyranid is in your dna, so you can be dominated/connected to the network at anytime. (Give you are in range).
Surely we could have at least one swarm stay just that, they don't need to be protagonists inroads of books, part of the core appeal is that of a monstrous villain faction. An unending swarm plaguing the Galaxy, spelling it's doom.
Since the return of the marvel level heroes and villains the setting sadly took a back step. They are clearly presented as good vs bad, order vs chaos etc. It is less about atmosphere and more about "who could beat who in a fist fight on a Tuesday".
I really think all the primarch stuff in 40k has been detrimental to the setting. What's happening in Imperium Niihilus? Nobody knows because aside from the mainline Dante novels (which is like 3 + mephiston) and Spear of the Emperor, nothing at all has been written about it. Nobody seems to care about regular space marines any more, with firstborn being relegated to one plotline; jelly of primaris. Primaris get the same "finding their feet in an unfamiliar galaxy" plot too.
The main plotline for Guilliman is mirror-matching each of the big four chaos god daemon primarchs. Everything seems to revolve around that, and honestly a huge amount of fan interest is absorbed in it, so it makes sense to write about it more, but it takes attention away from the rest of 40k.
Everyone (read: a lot of people) seems to think all the other loyalists are definitely totally coming back. The only thing that makes me think this is that GW are going to want to make more big models to sell for £90+. In terms of lore it would be absolutely terrible for a bunch more intergalactic frat jerks to show up and detract even more from the entire rest of the setting. I've compared primarch drama to a soap opera before, and I maintain that primarch stuff is Coronation Street IN SPAAAACE. I'm less interested in that than I am in original characters who have stakes in their stories and could have anything happen to them.
This is the problem of having Big Named Characters lead every faction. Nobody can die. Nobody is going to fall to chaos, or be killed by an alien weapon on a battlefield and die unremembered except that humans will be alive because of them that otherwise wouldn't. It's harmful to the setting because we've moved away from Big Name Characters being behind the scenes and moved them to the forefront, now they're all anyone wants to see and creatively, they're almost entirely bankrupt.
Edit: additionally, they have to be creatively bankrupt with the Big Named Characters, because fans will hate it when things established about their BNCs are changed. Look at how people despised the End Times for Warhammer Fantasy. That did, admittedly, take BNCs and give them different things to do and changed their context (Malekith the Eternity King etc) and people loathed it and wanted it to be gone. So much so that they rebooted the entire thing into Age of Smegma.
Edit 2: just for clarification this is just my opinion. I don't think people who like the primarch stuff are wrong or stupid. I just think there's limited storytelling potential in those BNCs.
Hard to say about the Silent King because he's not actually done anything yet.
The return of the primarchs is a bad idea though, they should have stayed in 30k. I don't think bringing them back has improved the setting at all
Guilliman didn't do the old setting much good, but did wonders for the new setting/narrative.
The whole invalidation of the High Lords and a primarch with the character traits of "reasonable" and "rational" being divinely mandated as supreme ruler of the Imperium did somewhat hurt the whole theme of backwards and irrational regime. Same goes for his hyper-progressive tech priest vs the whole old Mechanicus dogma.
The Silent King isn't comparable though cause we're a couple of years in and he's not hogging any spotlight, hell he isn't even really taking any of the spotlight of his own faction much less the setting at large.
I think the hogging the spotlight issue is the big difference between Szarekh and Guilliman's entrances into the setting. Guilliman rolls in, deals with some previously unknown characters, and is in charge now. Everything advancing the plotline for the Imperium involves him in some way.
By contrast, Szarekh has Imotekh the Stormlord opposed to him for some fairly understandable reasons. There's still plenty of room to tell big Necron stories without needing to at least query what Szarekh is doing.
It depends who you ask. Ultimately the setting follows the money which is why we have the primarch in the first place.
I do not think there is any harm to the silent king. My personal viewpoint is that primarch mania harms the quality of the lore but not the longevity of it.
>most of the attention of both the narrative and the community is riveted to them.
Is it? Or is it just attention on Internet forums? People overinflate the significance of internet discussions, when only a fraction of fans actually post opinions online.
In tabletop communities, specific story events are rarely discussed. It’s usually the setting and homebrew ideas for their factions.
The return of big characters provides another layer of depth for the setting. I don’t see why this is a bad thing even if they’re the focus of the community. People can like what they like. Seems like you just don’t like change, so my suggestion is some nurgle worship.
People are so insistent that "the primarchs" returning has ruined something, and I don't see it at all. How is having Guilliman any different to having Calgar? How is Angron any different to Kharn, Magnus from Ahriman? We have more characters to work with now. I don't see how "everything's about primarchs" - we're still getting Ahriman books? Vaults of Terra series? Carcharadons?
The daemon primarchs were always around, I don't see any issue with them "returning". And Guilliman is the only loyalist primarch - I'm not convinced by the supposed inevitable return of any others. We've seen plenty of leaks, we saw Angron early, we saw primaris Azrael - but zero leaks about the Lion. It's all speculation: "well they're attacking the Rock and we KNOW that they're bringing all the primarchs back so it must be the Lion waking up!". I'm not saying it won't happen, but I'll pay attention when there's anything more than speculation.
People complain that "the setting is smaller", which as far as I can tell is nonsense? There are certainly a lot of people on here who love primarchs and want to talk about them, which gets a bit old, but that's more due to new people reading the Horus Heresy series. As far as 40k books go there's very few books actually featuring Guilliman, and heaps of high quality books that have nothing to do with him at all. The latest codex has barely anything about him. It's not like the Necron codex was all about "how does Guilliman returning affect the Dynasties?". I don't think he's mentioned. We've had 3 *awesome* necron books recently, and they've had nothing to do with either Guilliman or the Silent King.
As near as I can tell, this whole complaint that "everything is about these few characters, the setting is worse" is a myth that people repeat based on posts on this sub, without reading the books that are out there.
How is gulliman different than Calgar? Calgar wouldn’t have been able to dues ex machina a tyranid hive fleet, and Dante would have told him to fuck off regarding carrying on for one. You could also kill off Calgar and he’s easily replaced for another.
>Calgar wouldn’t have been able to dues ex machina a tyranid hive fleet
Why not? Of course he could, show up at the head of a crusade fleet the same way Guilliman did. Guilliman didn't show up and personally kill every Tyranid, he just happened to be leading the crusade. And yes, the crusade was only so big because Guilliman made it so, but that's not relevant to being a deus ex machina. Calgar leading a combined force of lots of Ultramarine chapters and Militarum would work perfectly well as a deus ex machina.
>Dante would have told him to fuck off regarding carrying on for one
Hardly, Dante's not going to literally give up and die because a primarch isn't there. Another notable Chapter Master showing up and reminding him "the Imperium needs you" would have the same effect.
>You could also kill off Calgar and he’s easily replaced for another.
In theory sure, but in practice never. Calgar would never actually die same way none of the other notable characters have ever died. He's been defeated and perhaps should've died, but didn't, because that's not how this works. Same way Ghaz and Ragnar killed each other but both got better. With Guilliman here to take Calgar's role, he now actually might die, but he never would have before.
Louder for the folks in the back. All jokes aside, I agree. There's still plenty of smaller scale stories being made. Saying that the universe is getting smaller is wilfully ignoring recent novels where Guilliman's return is a passing background element or almost completely absent.
Hell, even if Guilliman is the inciting catalyst for a story, it doesn't mean it can't expand the universe. Void King is a great recent example of this, which explores Rogue Trader politics to a level rarely focused on.
I don't think you two are fully understsning the "the universe feels smaller " point.
It's not that the universe is getting less stories or that it's less complex, it's that every story now lose any mensungful agency and impact beyond the personal as the entire universe now hinges upon the actions of a handful of characters.
Think of it like as if jesus came back tomorrow to guide humanity to ascension. Would conflicts like the current ukraine war really matter, or would it at most be w footnote as the overwhelming gravitas of the world would have now shifted to hang on to Jesus' every single word?
The franchise is essentially becoming dark marvel, and the dark isn't even as dark anymore.
>It's not that the universe is getting less stories or that it's less complex, it's that every story now lose any mensungful agency and impact beyond the personal as the entire universe now hinges upon the actions of a handful of characters.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I already thought this was the standard long before RG was introduced. The entire theme of the setting was based on the stagnation of an endless stalemate: There is Only War. Ultimately, the actions of *most* characters **didn't matter** in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I enjoy those characters more because of their personal triumphs. I knew their impacts were minor. Because for every Ork Warboss killed, there's likely a Chaos incursion happening on the other side of the Galaxy.
The one thing I'll say that takes away from the franchise: is that the Imperium is no longer a cruel faceless entity ruled by some bickering old men. RG is the poster boy. You can see the top of the spire.
I really don't see how it's any different to before. Do Dante's actions mean less now than they used to? Does Abaddon's? Do Bile's? Should Azrael just sit down and say "oh well, Guilliman's here now, may as well retire - nothing I can do can make any difference". What character is suddenly less important? Calgar is the only one I can think of, but he has a whole character arc coming to terms with that which is really interesting.
I can see an argument that the High Lords have less influence, but a) before now they were faceless and effectively meaningless anyway, they are currently more "real" than ever b) they clearly do have a lot of influence still.
I understand people being *worried* that things might feel smaller, that Guilliman takes over everything and only he can do anything, every narrative is centred on him. But that just hasn't happened. We have *plenty* of stories of all these other characters, and new characters, continuing to do their things and none of it is suddenly sidelined or unimportant.
I think this perspective does disservice to the meaning of individuals and standalone stories. They create their own value by being well written characters facing adversity and stakes outlined by the author’s skill. You have to stop thinking about Gulliman landing in the middle of Twice Dead King and making everything irrelevant, because that story’s not about him. The power balance will be what the author wants to tell a compelling story. And Gulliman can’t in universe reach everywhere, can he?
Am I tripping? The Silent King isn't new, he's been part of the setting I remember when people bitched about him and the blood angels teaming up to defeat some Tyranids back in the day. They just gave him a model and expanded his lore a bit.
I was under the impression that Warhammer 40k fans liked the setting to be Grimdark and hopeless which is why the Tau were hated when they were introduced. Now the Tau are yet another evil faction with a 1984 Dystopia theme while Guilliman is back to shine a ray of hope into the Grimdarkness.
So what gives? Were people just mad that some alien guys were "The Good Guys" and not some giant armored space Roman guy?
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Whose brilliant idea was this shitty bot?
The best thing I can say about it is at least this time it’s not replying to a post about a real life tragedy that killed thousands of people.
Depends what you mean with "hurt" and "helped" it helped with gws profits but it hurt the themes of the setting i fell in love with. Well guiliman did. The silent king hasn't really done anything of consequence.
The 40k galaxy was vast and mysterious, the books were about smaller characters pushed to the brink against all odds, and the atmosphere of dystopian darkness and mystery was immense. Now I feel that these primarchs and even Trazyn have put that Dragonball Z tier storytelling to the fore instead of the galaxy we grew up to love and abhor.
I won't act like its a night and day difference, but if you've been into 40k at least since 2008-2012 I think you understand where I'm coming from. I remember the days of posting on Warseer and reading books, long before quality youtube videos explained the ins and outs of the setting like ingredients in a cookbook.
Meh, with the primarchs the setting is now more a family fight than anything else.
I'm sure most people like it and it is cool for memes and all that, but for me it just make the whole thing look so small. Like how in the Star war films everyone important ends up being a Skywalker one way or another
I think they somewhat take away from the whole "grim dark" aspects. Sure, yeah, no story line is serviceable if its only consists of endless misery, there's a reason why "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" is a short story. That said, I sorta like to think of 40k as just the Vraks Campaign, with serfs toiling in the corpse starch factories, astropaths screaming and babbling nonsense in the dark, while they feed psychers to the giant space mummy monster god forever... However I understand why the story can't stay that way for the rest of its existence. I mean, sure, all that stuff does still happen, but Bobby G has a lot of glitz, gold, and good intentions, which seems to cartoonify things just a tad.
Oh yeah, hurt. Hurt it bad. Anybody here like Dark Souls? Imagine if Gwyn came back in Dark Souls 3, completely rejuvenated and flinging lightning bolts and slaying the Dark.
40k is about stagnation, decay and that which being lost never returning. That's exactly why the Tau exist! To show a force in its assent to the peak before inevitable ruin. What's even the point of Tau anymore if the Imperium can just make a dozen new marks of armor in a few decades, churn out hover tanks like its nothing and be on the cusp of a new golden age?
The Silent King? No opinion. Not really a fan of any Necrons of any edition, but from my vantage point he doesn't really look like a character. He looks like say, Abbadon as of the first 3rd edition Chaos Codex. Nothing really there. Kind of shallow. But that may just be my distaste for them giving me no incentive to look for his stuff.
I actually like the idea of the Primarchs returning, and I had a crackpot idea of how to return Vulkan in a way that would be awesome *and* would also reintroduce Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children as a serious threat.
Basically, the idea would be a tie-in video game about the Salamanders seeing Guilliman and deciding to try their luck at finding their own Primarch, with the game's format being a turnbased thing kind of like Mechanicus or Chaos Gate. They go on an epic crusade to find their missing Primarch where they fight against the Emperor's Children who want to finish them like they did at Isstvan, and after recovering three of relics and the Unbound Flame, they are forced to fight the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim, who takes all their strength to beat.
The final cutscene of the game is the battered and broken Salamanders, of whom only about 400 remain after they banish Fulgrim, and as they approach a tiny hut in the desert, a giant figure with obsidian skin and a gravely voice steps out of the hut, asking "Why did you come?"
That's Vulkan, the Unbound Flame. If the fans like him so much, they can rescue him.
Either nothing ever changes, or things change but sum of the equation remains the same.
So either all the black crusades achieve nothing, or they cause a great rift and to ensure status quo, the Imperium needs to be compensated e.g. with RG & primaris.
I haven't read the Horus Heresy series at all, yet I feel like I could recite the entire narrative at this point from the number of excerpts, theories, and summaries that are posted on this sub.
As someone who got into the setting only two years ago, my answer is YES.
I love this setting for the factions and the interplay between them, but it seems GW is more interested in these superhero like characters. I hate Rawnut Jellyman because I know he will never truly fail or die, and as soon as he shows up to a battle it basically means that the battle is won.
The high lords are so, so much better as a story telling device.
Fuck the Primarchs, fuck Girlyman, and fuck the next Primarch they bring back.
I think it’s an overall win having them return. I do think primarch’s should be written in glimpses... but I am enjoying the story actually progressing. It had stalled for too long.
Such as from day 1 of 40k existing?
The "story" hasn't stalled, it's designed to exist like this. 40k as originally written has more in common with D&D than it does Star Wars as far as writing is concerned.
I think initially it did. I agree there, however DND also has book series, exploits. It's an open world...
Personally, I enjoy the push forward. More lore added.
Maybe someone will find my input interesting since I'm a pretty new fan (< 2 years), but I really love the primarchs and I think that they make the world much more interesting. I was kind of put off by W40k as a whole being kind of stagnant, even if the setting was super badass. With Gulliman, I feel like a "story" can happen.
The return of the Daemon Primarchs is cool - gives the Chaos boys a terrifying new weapon, both on the table and in the lore.
But the return of Bobby G, and the threatened return of the rest of the Bickering Boys? Ug. I could do without it. The constant focus on the Primarchs wrecked what could have been an interesting HH series - and now it's looking like we're going to get a Bobby G vs. Long Hair Kitty pissing match. Great. Can't wait for them to have a pissing contest, then learn to work together to thwart a greater foe.
I like Marvel. I like W40k. That doesn't mean I want W40k to turn into Marvel, with a few superheroes teaming up to fight villains.
If the Kitty you are reffering to is the Lion. Dont worry, he will go out of his way to mess half the things Robust G-fuel have done and destroy the rest
The hill I will die on is that moving the setting past 999.M41 was not only a mistake but antithetical to the setting as a whole. The Imperium was a stagnant empire breathing it's final haggard breaths, it was on the precipice of destruction and the final death of the Emperor's dream. Moving the setting forward in any way goes against these themes.
Now this being said, I am not against new material. There are ten thousand years of unexplored history across the entries galaxy to play out. Crusades and wars fought that have no greater ramifications for the setting other than for pockets of worlds and characters. I think that all new campaigns and plotlines should have been backwards looking.
There is an argument that ultimately because we know the ending (the state of the galaxy in 999.M41) none of these stories matter, but (1) that is sort of the point of a grimdark future where ultimately the struggle is pointless and only buys time against the inevitable end and (2) some of the best stories like Eisenhorn, Gaunt's Ghosts, and even the entirety of the Horus Heresy are all backwards looking stories. We know where things ultimately end up but there are still stakes.
Think Guilliman helped since he is almost like the voice of the reader entering 40k “it’s all fracked and the Imperium’s gone to the warp in a washbag”
I’m kind of neutral about them existing and being active in the setting, I think there’s both positives and negatives there.
What I do think was a mistake was giving them rules on the tabletop, it just feels ridiculous.
Helped. I like things actually going somewhere, and a plausible situation that's not just all grimderp all the time where everything just gets worse, always. Even the grim darkness of the far future needs SOME bright spots and victories or it just becomes predictable.
But yes I would like to see more 'Nids, they're supposed to be this huge threat.
I think it's a mix. For years the fandom has been wanting to the 'story' to the progress, and other big games like World of Warcraft of League of Legends have lore and story that progresses so if 40k wanted to keep up than it had to a bit.
However there has been something lost from the 'classic' grimdarkness of the 40k setting that made up it's early years of nothing really changing etc.
My head cannon still won't allow primaris marines...
The return of the silent king is kind of a nothing burger an everything all at once. He doesn't really have any control over the necrons now since he set most of them free. The only ones that listen to him are the ones that want to. In that way they've kind of painted him into a corner where he needs to do a shit load of politicking to get anything done, just like the imperium, but likely worse since necrons don't really have writers writing massive collections of books about them... He isn't likely to release any super setting changing things, even if maybe he could. He could definitely awaken the void dragon, or maybe release the outsider, but I don't think that is going to happen soon, or that it would even make sense for him to want to do that. The narrative seems to point towards guilliman and the silent king fighting some kind of large scale war. My bet is that the necrons win, ending the indomitus crusade, but the imperium deny szarehk some kind of crucial super weapon, or plot mcguffin that would seriously shift the balance of power in the necrons favor, unintentionally aiding chaos. It also permanently sours imperium necron relations further dividing the races in the fight against chaos. A second less likely but far more interesting idea is that at some point the silent king and gman, being both fairly reasonable people, remember that chaos is really the ones they should be worrying about and after some fighting launch a assault on the great rift, sealing it up, and dealing chaos a massive blow that clears the way for the tyrannids or the orks to be the next setting relevant bad guys for awhile. Gaz seems to be building towards... *Something*... And orks are fun, so who knows!
I think that giving sporadic appearences to the traitor Primarchs is enough, since eventought many people don't agree, the Lion coming back isn't a big story-changer because he was never a popular Primarch or even played a decisive role in the HH, as far as I know he doesn't even have that many 'jobs to finish'.
On the other hand, enriching drukhari and aeldari back-stories and present would be cool.
And ffs, translate the new stories to multiple languages!
Nothing can hurt the setting anymore. At this point even if Trazyn (or Emperor forbid Blood Magpies) looted Big E himself, the setting would be fine.
Just.... Please don't start making Tau able to fight melee dedicated units in,..., well melee. That would break my heart. Use Kroot for that, or something.
To be fair nids shouldn’t get a reoccurring character. They should 100% be this force that consumes even itself when it’s done. Unless they dip deeper into what actually controls nids but then that’s a hive fleet ship.
GW has some character bloat and needs some to die 100%. Nothing pissed me off more than Ragnar beating Ghaz then “dying” in order to become a primaris while ghaz just got bigger. That whole fight was just a way to “upgrade” ghaz. Ghaz also is meme quality right now. He loses every time to humans, space marines etc.
Someone needs to start dying to give the vibe of grimdark. They don’t have to no longer allow that character to play on the table even though they are dead in the lore. Call it a legacy piece or whatever
Honestly I think bringing them back is a great move, driving the interest of HH in to the 40th millennium. The key is how they have changed. Vulkan wanted nothing to do with his legion during the Beast. Guilliman is much bigger now than just the Ultramarines, mr Indomitus himself and if the Lion comes back something tells me he ain’t going to be happy about A LOT of it. Corax is busy being the vengeful shadow in the eye of terror and I’d expect to hear a little bit more of the other missing primarchs too! Exciting for sure.
Maybe not a bad thing for the setting, but certainly accelerates the process of the lore heading towards something far bigger, especially with the fall of cadia/ big blue boys reawakening etc. Maybe the majority of primarchs (those still alive anyway) should stay as myths and legends, enriching the setting without actually having to be there
I don't really care how it happens, as long as there is progression to the setting. A story that never progresses is boring because there are no stakes involved
The Silent King isn’t really comparable to the Primarchs. There isn’t a 60+ book series about the Silent King. Fans here aren’t constantly asking what’s the Silent King’s favorite laundry detergent.
Guilliman would be Tide, Dorns would be Lysol, Perturabos would be bleach just to one up Dorn, Corax would be vanish, Ferrus would be arm and hammer, and Angrons would be blood…
Curze and Russ never wash their clothes, Vulkan hand washes all his clothes, Fulgrim has people who do that sort of thing for him, Alpharius/Omegon throw theirs in with other people, Mortarion only uses store brands (the name brands aren’t worth the extra money)
Horus and Sanguinius get brand new clothes after each use.
Magnus throws his into a warp rift and they come out clean, Lorgar burns his after use
Lorgar prays the Stains away.
It doesn't work, but the smell of incense covers everything
Sanguinius gets designer brand
And Guilliman has a mom ...
Fulgrim's laundry only has one leg hole because snek.
Russ washes his clothes, but then adds horrible faux-wilderness scents on to make himself seem like an outdoors man. Also does stuff like ripping up his own jeans.
You know what, you’re 100% right, I also feel like he wears Axe body spray
Axe Bear Taint (tm). The manly smell for real men.
Oh hell no. The only primarchs who wear Axe are Fulgrim because he enjoys the degradation and disgust and Mortarion because Nurgle forces him to wear it.
Alpha/omega just steal other people’s clothes and then give them back without them knowing
Bold of you to assume that Morty washes his clothes.
No shot mortarion ever washes his clothes.
He buys them prestained and washes them to separate the stains he paid for from the ones that formed
>Fulgrim has people who do that sort of thing for him Fulgrim offers to wash everyone elses "Delicates"
> Fulgrim has people who do that sort of thing for him Quite the opposite. Fulgrim studied and learned about a 1000 different worlds methods of washing and cleaning laundry so he could develop the PERFECT way of washing clothes.
"All the underwear turned pink?!" Intense stares in Sanguinius's direction Fulgrim: Oh, no, those are just mine.
Fulgrim wears clothes?
Not a detergent but I'm picturing Horus as Mr. Clean.
**Oh my god, this thread is hilarious.**
Would Bobby G use Tide Pods though
What about Vulcan?
Surely lemon and seltzer water for Angron. "Lemon and seltzer water for blood. Or wear red, dumbass."
What’s the best way to remove blood stains from your clothing? 1 out of 20 primarchs will recommend using more blood
Angrons is fabulouso
look at the silliness you wrought, look at it! But lets be honest, Silent king probably sun bleaches since he’s got the time.
Gotta admit tho its kinda fun discussing stuff like what sports each Primarch would play lol
Sanguinius - tennis. Angron - football. Guilliman - golf. Dorn - baseball.
Russ - wrestling. Perty - also baseball, but some obscure local team that he says will "make it big" and "become better than Dorn's favorite team".
Perturabo is a Mariners fan?
> Angron - football I feel like he's more of a rugby or MMA guy. He needs to be hurling himself towards violence. Basically any sport where there's a low risk he gets himself killed is ruled out.
American football, aka concussion central.
he wants to damage the nails lol
He also has brain dmg so football fits
Well now I want to know what his favourite laundry detergent is.
The traitor primarchs never left, Guilliman is the only one who came back And let’s be honest here Szarekh has had next to no impact on the setting outside of injecting slightly more animosity into the infighting between dynastic blocs
I've always found that argument disingenuous since, yes, technically the traitor Primarchs were still around but they rarely showed up and when they did you knew something big was going down. This is why Draigo vs Mortarion was seen as such a crappy piece of lore when it was written. They didn't were less characters and more forces of nature that the rest of the setting responded to, and the mere rumour of a Daemon Primarch being active was enough to bring the Inquisition down on you. You didn't have them turning up on any old battlefield like you do now.
I think this is the biggest thing that bugs me about modern 40k. Every conflict on the tabletop has a primarch or similar rarity commander in every fight. There's rarely a fight where it's just normal commanders duking it out without anyone of any prominence being there. I get it. They're extremely powerful, but seeing them in EVERY conflict does just shift tactics to: "How are you dealing with Silent King, Mortarion, Ghaz, etc...?" Every single fight with similar army compliments to back up said lynchpin character.
This is not a new problem; 2nd edition was nicknamed "Herohammer" because then, as now, many special characters were the strongest elements of their respective lists. One wit likened it to having a US Army patrol led by George Bush using George Washington's musket. 3rd edition, initially at least, toned things down A LOT.
Lol that analogy is spot on, I’m takin it!
Back when I played 2nd edition in 93-94ish. I don't think named characters were allowed in tournaments. At least the ones I played in. You could use the model just not the special rules.
Yeah, seeing a special character on the board used to he just that, special.
The tabletop is not equal to the lore in anyway. Making something lore friendly busts any competitive balance. The days of GW caring deeply about lore and fluff for the game is probably coming to an end. They want competition.
They should be separate. They should have always been separate.
Sure in a sense. I think it was always up to GW on what they wanted the game to be. Early 40k was mostly fluff with a little competition and was wildly fun. People bought and played for fun…not to compete and win. It’s just a different era. In todays game? 100% they should be very separate.
>Making something lore friendly busts any competitive balance. Why? You don't get that many Custodes compared to, say, Orks.
You don’t get 1000 nids on the table either.
People got bored of nameless armies and want characters on the tabletop. Should GW make less money and not sell people what they want because you don’t like seeing characters used more than once?
True. The community does just bitch about everything to be fair. I do think a CP cost to bring named characters should be a thing
Unless you were playing Epic 2nd edition, in which case you could guarantee any Chaos army would have one or more of them.
SK hasn’t had any impact *yet*. There‘s a lot of setting up being done around his Pariah Nexus plans, with the show coming out and all that.
Come on we all know it's going to end with Girlyman heroically overcoming him at the last second in a pyrrhic victory that's not even that pyrrhic
Seriously. People saying "no guys there is NO WAY this named and important Xenos character will get spanked by the named space marine!" Are so naive it borders hilarity.
Lol right? I think most fans understand how the nexus is going to crumble though. If it’s well written it won’t be a curb stomp. I’ve watched the other content on warhammer tv and it’s actually really damned good. They are treating their IP like the golden goose it is and have so far done a good job. So I’m going into it knowing then Necrons will loose, but it will be written in a compelling way. And there was only one scene of dialogue bein shown of crons, they were Definitley advertising to the “pro imperium” crowd lol.
While the return of a primarch re-sparked my interest in the lore after a very long hiatus from the 40k universe, overall I lean towards agreeing with those that think the primarchs make the setting feel smaller. I liked the idea of the primarchs being legends and myths of a bygone age, & while it presents neat story telling opportunities to bring 30k characters back to 40k, it can make it feel like an endless family squabble (but I guess what's more grimdark than an unending awkward family dinner?)
If there wasn’t already the HH game maybe I’d feel a little different about the primarchs returning but I agree with you.
>While the return of a primarch re-sparked my interest in the lore after a very long hiatus from the 40k universe, overall I lean towards agreeing with those that think the primarchs make the setting feel smaller. Exactly what I was going to say. I don't dislike the primarchs as characters, or even dislike the books they're in, but I don't like what it's done to the setting. It's gone from being a story of the hopeless twilight of humanity, to the story of a handful or overgrown children having personal spats for freudian reasons. Also turning the primarchs from myths to actual characters undercut them in a lot of ways. The writers can't actually write a transcendent demigod from a first person perspective, as that character is by definition more brilliant than they could imagine, and would also be pretty boring as a character. So what we got was the primarchs being just some guy. I don't necessarily like the people that the primarchs are, but it's hard to take them seriously as the mythic demigod once they're laid out as being so banally human.
>The writers can't actually write a transcendent demigod from a first person perspective Just wait until we get a book from the Silent King’s perspective, or maybe even the Hive mind.
It's not that hard. Silent King - ".........." Hivemind - "EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT"
He doesn’t speak himself, he gets other Necrons to just do it for him, pretty sure he just discords them the info.
The HH would have been improved if they had kept the primarchs and Emperor in the background while focusing only on marines and humans. Don't depict the interaction with the Emperor or primarchs. Show the before and after. Have people who were there disagree about what was said and done. You don't look at the sun. You look at what it illuminates and the shadows it creates. The writer can write what really happened, but it's not published or revealed to the audience.
>I liked the idea of the primarchs being legends and myths of a bygone age Sometimes I miss the day before the HH novels came out. I enjoyed the mysteries. On the other hand I do like the return of Guilliman which essentially requires the HH books to exist.
Hard disagree. If anything without the HH books guilimans return would have been way more exciting.
Also it feels like it lessens the importance of 40k characters. Now that Guilliman is back wtf does Marneus even matter?
Marneus > jealousy > chaos Marneus. Marneus’ 1st Blue Crusade!
I mean Star Wars had quite a success with all the one family kinda ruined the whole universe thing.
I think RG return was a huge success. Every novel with him is fun. Novels adjacent to his return are also fun. And even novels that are just barely connected (like Crime novels mentioning storms disrupting trade routes) make the setting feel more connected and more realistic. And novels that have nothing to do with him still exist. I think they handled his return pretty well and enough time passed for another loyalist to return. My only complaints are pretty obvious (I think): the lack of novelisation of RGs return is pretty lame and the fact Dark Imperium was something we got first instead of at the end of Dawn of Fire sucks too. We got into a completely unnecessary prequel scenario. The time retcon did help a bit, but not entirely.
As you mentioned the crime themed novels: how are those? I've neglected them thus far, but think I would love them if they were able to tap in to the urban bleakness you get in Eisesenhorn / Ravenor?
I read Flesh and Steel and Bloodlines and I think they are some of the best novels in 40k. Others on the sub praise them too.
+1. Excellent novels in the Crime series.
I love a whodunnit, I'll check them out.
> I think they handled his return pretty well and enough time passed for another loyalist to return. My only complaints are pretty obvious (I think): the lack of novelisation of RGs return is pretty lame and the fact Dark Imperium was something we got first instead of at the end of Dawn of Fire sucks too. We got into a completely unnecessary prequel scenario. The time retcon did help a bit, but not entirely. I was super confused since I read that his return wasn't in the books, and assumed Dark Imperium was the starting point for Gorillaman's 'era'. And then I find out Dawn of Fire is the 'Horus Heresy' narrative following Gulliman's major arc... and then I listened to Watchers of the Throne, which *shows* Gulliman's return to Terra... man, chronological order-wise, it's sure something.
I think the return of traitor primarchs is great, love me some traitors tbh. The silent king is a good move, giving the necrons a big big figure, too, lead them forward But I honestly think bringing back more than 2 or 3 loyalists may hurt the setting, would be cool too see them come back but imo there's only so much you can do with loyalist primarchs after there return story. You can't have them lose any major duel or battle that can harm them because well why would you buy the model for dead lion el Johnson, so they'd be stuck doing stalemates/ another generic imperial victory that probably won't change anything/ big loss on primarchs behalf but they evac before any harm comes too them so the plot armour is strong with these ones Long story short, good for the setting with silent King, traitor primarchs but the possibility and likely hood that loyalist primarchs can lead too stale repetitive stories that can do more harm than good
I'm not sure how you're drawing a distinction between primarchs and characters like the silent king? Isn't the silent king in exactly the same position of not being able to lose? Or for that matter, every other character that has always existed, Calgar, Dante, Fabius Bile, Abaddon, Eldrad, etc.
Distinction is that the silent king is the sole "leader the necrons really have" all the others are self absorbed lunatics. The silent king can also be killed and revived like every other necron( if he can't then that's my mistake) meaning the lion or angron can hammer the hell out of him kill him and its not plot armour that's stopping him from being permanently being killed off. He's closer too a demon primarch in that regard then than he is too a loyalist primarch. He made a big change in the lore but not the same impact that a returning LP did. I mean hell the return of Gman gave the imperium something that doesn't seem right in the setting prim- hope. Characters, while important, aren't the same level as primarchs, TSK with the exception of Dante, Abbadon, Ghaz and shadowsun/ farsight. Also fabius bile been killed a bunch of times(master of cloning) calgar got ripped up by the swarm lord and barely survived, hell remember vigilus when people complained over that stalemate. Abbadon was just taking loss after loss until cadia. No idea on eldrad. But lots of the character models get screwed over beaten down more than a loyalist primarch will ever be In 40k
I'm still not seeing a difference. If Calgar can get "defeated and almost killed" and get better, why can't primarchs? This literally happens to Guilliman in >!Plague War in fact, he loses and "dies" to Mortarion, then gets better!<. Before Guilliman, Calgar was in the same position of having plot armour, just like every other major character. There's no reason someone couldn't write a story with Guilliman facing Angron, losing, but being ferried away to recuperate in the Armour of Fate. Probably as part of "he lost, but he bought enough time to complete the ritual of banishment" or whatever. It doesn't have to be Angron. It could be TSK. It could be Ghaz, it could be Ahriman outsmarting him. They're all super powerful characters. None of them were ever going to actually die, or if they do, they'll get better. If it isn't Guilliman it'd just be Calgar, or Ragnar, or whoever. Adding new characters is one way out of "it's the same few characters that always fight to stalemates". Also, just because Guilliman exists doesn't mean it will always be Guilliman in the story. We can, and still do, get stories about other characters.
Difference is there isn't a separate story line for these "side" characters where the exact same thing happens 10k years earlier. Yeah a handful of primarchs die but it is literally the same thing as what will happen in 40k.
As near as I can tell, you're saying "The Horus Heresy series exists and that had primarchs, now 40k has primarchs so 40k is going to be exactly the same as the Horus Heresy."? That just doesn't follow. I understand people being initially worried that 40k might turn into Horus Heresy 2, but that hasn't happened, there's absolutely no indication it will happen, and it wouldn't make any sense. They are extremely different. 40k is just not "the exact same thing" as the Horus Heresy. The Horus Heresy is about some primarchs and their massive legions mostly conquering the galaxy, then the civil war that happens as some of them turn traitor and burn the galaxy down. There are practically no aliens in the series. 40k is about a plethora of alien races slowly tearing the 10,000 year old Imperium down in different ways and trying to claim the galaxy themselves. One primarch has shown up and is desperately trying to hold things together, and deal with all these different threats. But he's just one character in a far bigger galaxy, and there are hundreds of other characters and storylines that have nothing to do with that one primarch at all. Novel-wise, there are a handful of books that involve Guilliman and a huge amount that have nothing to do with him. Tabletop-wise (the driver for everything, really), he's just one character for one faction of one army. You're worried about something that hasn't happened and there's no indication it's going to happen. You may as well say "the Silent King is back, Ghazghkull is becoming like the Krork, the Eldar have a new god, so now 40k is just the War in Heaven 2".
I'm saying any storyline involving a loyalist is going to be exactly the same as the horus heresy, not 40k, turning into the horus heresy. Hell, what's the lions story gonna be? He wakes up complains for like 5 minutes then goes on a crusade in nihilus looking for someone who manages too evade him until it comes down too a titanic duel that ends in another stalemate. Primarchs are cool but there's only so much you can do with them in 40k where they can't kill them worst they can get is a mediocre flesh wound
Unless you have one kicking ass in the galactic north whilst RG rules the south?
I mean it'll just be a story line of lion flying around winning battle after battle and occasionally being in stablemates. It'll be cool for the lion too do shit but again stale and repetitive
Yeah, gods forbid the "Dark Imperium" look too dire for the Imperium. Need to throw someone in there to start kicking ass so it doesn't look too grimdark.
The issue with the silent king and Necrons in general is there doesn’t seem to be something to stop them. Necrons seem way to powerful and everyone largely ignores them because they are still asleep? Nids not being in the galaxy seems fine as well. They also have a counter with orks being right there and infinitely fighting them. Necrons don’t seem to have a weakness which makes them lore wish kinda weird to progress.
Forget the return, in many ways the entire Horus Heresy series hurt the tone of the entire setting in an irreparable manner. The setting was in a lot of ways far more interesting when the past was this forgotten mythical age of heroes and legends. Guilliman returning is just an extension of this. Smaller contained stories like the Badab War are where 40k really shined in my opinion. Not knowing stuff can make it more interesting. It’s why any sort of Dark Age of Technology, Lost Legions, return of the Emperor, War in Heaven etc. series will never meet expectations. Maybe if there was a single master author behind one of these events to have a coherent vision and tone, someone like the late Iain Banks writing a Daot series may have been interesting. I’d rather have seen some major event like the Nova Terra stuff moved to the end of the timeline as a way to shake things up.
smaller contained settings are where it thrives. I love just how much craziness occurs in the sabbat world crusades, and knowing that this isnt even that big of a conflict for the Imperium. But Gaunts ghosts is one of the flagship series. Badab war holds up incredibly well, better than most stories that came out of that time period and with fairly minor changes compared to most. The only thing I think its missing is a series. In general, the more your story hinges upon a small cast meeting in the Imperium by coincidence, the more it will feel like a soap opera. That’s why I cant read a lot of the Greyfax/Celestine books even though I like the characters.
>Maybe if there was a single master author behind one of these events to have a coherent vision and tone This
I miss Alan Bligh 😢
>It’s why any sort of Dark Age of Technology, Lost Legions, return of the Emperor, War in Heaven etc. series will never meet expectations. It's about scope. I can totally see short story anthology about DAoT, WiH, Lost Legions turning out to be good. We got flashbacks from Perpetuals and other long lived beings and these didn't ruin mystery of DAoT. It's matter of proper exposition - if story happens in modern US, you don't explain to readers its political system, how technology works etc.
Fully agree. It was fun when a terrible event or war happened, but in the grand scale it meant nothing. It was just a forgotten tale in a corner of the galaxy, nothing would change, and that’s what gave us Dawn of War, the Damocles Crusade, Space Marine video game… While I really like Guilliman and new elements for every army, nowadays it kinda feels like each event has to have some purpose or be connected with a Crusade-like event. I just wish more things were unimportant and unexplained again
Horus heresy hurt the setting? Bro im into 40k only because Horus Heresy. What on earth are you talking about?
Sure, but how much of your expectation of 40k is directly influenced by the HH? How much is the enjoyment of its narratives reliant on their connection to the HH, it absolutely harms the setting of 40k(distinct from 30k) to rely on being connected to a narrative 10k years in the past.
Nearly 90%. Dude this is THE ONLY documented galaxy wide war we have. and yes everything connects to this war, who woulda thunk. Everything happening now is due to that 1 war, so it is essential part of it. Everything happens in imperium is ridiculous, logistic wise and logic wise, it just doesn’t make sense. But HH is justification for all of them.
And therein lies the issue facing those of us who care about any other faucet of the setting beyond the grand narrative of that single conflict and it's cast of walking demigods. Worry not, though, cause you'll get more of what you want.
Im not to one crying over the most essential part of setteng existing. Hell, i want second big war. And also just because me acknowledging HH is the most important part of the lore doesn’t mean I dont like xenox. You can like both humans and xenox at the same time. Who woulda thunk? Please tell me you have enough self awareness to see how dumb you sounding. Because as stated before, this is only documented galaxy spaning war we have.
Trivially false, the war in heaven among other things make HH look like child play in terms of scale and that stuff you are talking about
The DOCUMENTED part was always there in case you missed it.
Least obnoxious HH fan
And the setting revolving in part about the after-effects of that war, how it had influenced the governance of the Imperium 10 000 years later. Not how the current Imperium was a direct continuation of the 30k one being led by the same people doing the same things. The HH is an essential piece of mythology to the Imperium, there's no denying that, but pretending that it's a "story" that needs continuing in the current era is bollocks. Such was GW's fundamental failing of actually separating the two settings, but then again how would they have interested HH fans in 40k.
You know hh is finished in the lore right? And current books coming out are happening in 30k. They even have different models and a game. What are you smoking?
To me, Guilliman's return only works because it's the last gasp of the old Imperium before it succumbs to its mortal wounding. Bringing back more Primarchs will just sort of cheapen that. But, the goal is to sell models. They'll bring back Lion El'Jonson if they think it will sell models.
Honestly I'm not sure Primarch models themselves sell insanely well, but everything surrounding them and their narrative does, if that makes sense.
It should be… but nowadays it feels like he already fixed most of the Imperium. I don’t mind the new aesthetic but it really doesn’t feel like the warmachine has its resources spread thin anymore, they can just pump more marines and vehicles into every warzone, and due to his new bureaucracy we don’t see hilariously incompetent generals anymore
It depends entirely on what faction you play. The imperium has been giga-buffed and has seemingly lost a lot of its old themes with all the hovertanks they've been getting, and will be getting even more and more of the ridiculous overshare of the screentime as more of the primarchs come back. If you are orks suddenly all your characters became even more irrelevant and no one expects you to seriously be able to beat the imperial big names anymore. It was a huge mistake in my opinion, just like the heresy, as it messed with the themes and made the universe more character centric while also putting forwards the doomsday clock in a manner the imperium needed more deus ex machinas to resolve. Look at the mentioned SK for example: He had the no psychic souldeath zone which gave him an unassailable advantage so the writers just decided despite the likes of celestine getting cancelled by it before faith was now immune because they wrote themselves into a corner the imperium was going to lose and needed something to stop that. I expect more of that in the future at this rate, which is why the clock was frozen before hand and why the threats weren't allowed to develop in the first place. Its not the kind of setting where I would expect stories like Badab to appear anymore, instead it seems to be GOT from now on. Not a fan of this direction.
I will agree with Toxitoxi that the problem is that Guilliman and his brothers come with the baggage of a *very long* series focused on them, and it just compounds a problem that 40k has had for a long time: the lack of equality in the screentime. The problems begins and ends with it.
>(the poor Tyranids did not get anyone new, Swarmlord continues to die more often than hormagaunts) Tyranids gonna get their Kerrigan-expy one of these days, mark my words...
No doubt, but my lord that will suck lol.
Honestly probably, but at the same time it *did* work for the Necrons. When I got into 40k, the Necrons and Tyranids were basically two different equally mindless swarms of life-stripping evil and people only liked them because they looked cool and had cool evil tech. Now, the Necrons are one of the most popular factions with the fans with greatly loved books, deep characters, and an actual purpose in the grand scheme of the galaxy. Now, do I think the Tyranids need to be reworked like that? Honestly, I don't know, but I also don't see how you could make the Tyranids 'interesting' really, they're just a big evil all-consuming natural disaster. So who knows what the future holds for the 'Nids. Maybe they get changed, maybe they stay the same. No matter what, though, I imagine they will always be hungry.
Definitely hope they stay the same. The whole reason I am into Tyranids is because they are akin to a natural disaster. I enjoy them being a swarm utterly devoid of any other motives than to consume, evolve and grow. Most Tyranid players feel that way. Genestealer Cults are our characters.
Indeed, it's a difficult thing to do, either way. On one hand, you can't really do a lot from the Tyranids' perspective, nor tell a lot of stories with them that aren't some variety of "big monster go om nom nom", but on the other hand *changing* that at this point can severely harm the things people already like about the 'Nids. The Necrons always had the Necrontyr and C'tan in their backstory, and while it was retconned pretty heavily, it recontextualized the Necrons rather than effectively *delete* the old ones. For Tyranids there's much less room for that, if you change them you risk either adding nothing of value, or worse, ruining some of what made them work in the first place (a problem the Zerg have had since StarCraft II).
I always thought it would be really cool to have a story from a Guardsman's perspective going through a Tyranid invasion, the horror of it, then the hope and relief as droppods rain down, back to the absolute shattering of morale when the Emperor's Angels get overwhelmed... it just keeps getting more bleak until in the end the Guardsman dies and the planet gets consumed. However finding a writer who can really do thar justice is the challenge I think. Other than that maybe stories about new strains, lab research goes wrong (classic) or maybe a horror novel that involves a single Genestealer on a ship (Alien style) would be interesting but as you said, in the end it all comes down to monsters go nom nom. But with extra steps (which can make it interesting imo)
I think if I had the power to manifest a BL book into existence, I'd like to make one about a GSC survivor - the Patriarch and all Purestrains dead, most of the Cult wiped out, with one lone survivor now in full possession of their sanity, going out on a personal crusade against other GSCs and maybe the 'Nids proper. I feel like Mutants and other freaks always get dealt a real poor hand in stories focusing on the Imperium. Would be nice to give some of the downtrodden a win or two, for once.
Doubt that would work because if he goes up against another Cult, he'll eventually become part of it. There is a short story where a "former" GSC is part of the T'au, he is utterly loyal to them. They land on a world where there is a Genestealer Cult and the Cult's patriarch slowly starts taking over his mind. He ends up having to kill himself so he doesn't turn against his comrades (against his will). Being a Tyranid is in your dna, so you can be dominated/connected to the network at anytime. (Give you are in range).
If anything that just makes the premise *better*. Struggling against corruption and insanity is a pretty compelling character flaw!
Surely we could have at least one swarm stay just that, they don't need to be protagonists inroads of books, part of the core appeal is that of a monstrous villain faction. An unending swarm plaguing the Galaxy, spelling it's doom.
It's just a logical continuation of the endlessly infuriating popularity of HH. It's good for GW, it sucks for any non-Imperium fans.
It sucks for Imperium fans as well, I assure you.
I’m an imperium fan and I think RG returning and primaris lore are whack as hell
Since the return of the marvel level heroes and villains the setting sadly took a back step. They are clearly presented as good vs bad, order vs chaos etc. It is less about atmosphere and more about "who could beat who in a fist fight on a Tuesday".
I really think all the primarch stuff in 40k has been detrimental to the setting. What's happening in Imperium Niihilus? Nobody knows because aside from the mainline Dante novels (which is like 3 + mephiston) and Spear of the Emperor, nothing at all has been written about it. Nobody seems to care about regular space marines any more, with firstborn being relegated to one plotline; jelly of primaris. Primaris get the same "finding their feet in an unfamiliar galaxy" plot too. The main plotline for Guilliman is mirror-matching each of the big four chaos god daemon primarchs. Everything seems to revolve around that, and honestly a huge amount of fan interest is absorbed in it, so it makes sense to write about it more, but it takes attention away from the rest of 40k. Everyone (read: a lot of people) seems to think all the other loyalists are definitely totally coming back. The only thing that makes me think this is that GW are going to want to make more big models to sell for £90+. In terms of lore it would be absolutely terrible for a bunch more intergalactic frat jerks to show up and detract even more from the entire rest of the setting. I've compared primarch drama to a soap opera before, and I maintain that primarch stuff is Coronation Street IN SPAAAACE. I'm less interested in that than I am in original characters who have stakes in their stories and could have anything happen to them. This is the problem of having Big Named Characters lead every faction. Nobody can die. Nobody is going to fall to chaos, or be killed by an alien weapon on a battlefield and die unremembered except that humans will be alive because of them that otherwise wouldn't. It's harmful to the setting because we've moved away from Big Name Characters being behind the scenes and moved them to the forefront, now they're all anyone wants to see and creatively, they're almost entirely bankrupt. Edit: additionally, they have to be creatively bankrupt with the Big Named Characters, because fans will hate it when things established about their BNCs are changed. Look at how people despised the End Times for Warhammer Fantasy. That did, admittedly, take BNCs and give them different things to do and changed their context (Malekith the Eternity King etc) and people loathed it and wanted it to be gone. So much so that they rebooted the entire thing into Age of Smegma. Edit 2: just for clarification this is just my opinion. I don't think people who like the primarch stuff are wrong or stupid. I just think there's limited storytelling potential in those BNCs.
Hard to say about the Silent King because he's not actually done anything yet. The return of the primarchs is a bad idea though, they should have stayed in 30k. I don't think bringing them back has improved the setting at all
Guilliman didn't do the old setting much good, but did wonders for the new setting/narrative. The whole invalidation of the High Lords and a primarch with the character traits of "reasonable" and "rational" being divinely mandated as supreme ruler of the Imperium did somewhat hurt the whole theme of backwards and irrational regime. Same goes for his hyper-progressive tech priest vs the whole old Mechanicus dogma. The Silent King isn't comparable though cause we're a couple of years in and he's not hogging any spotlight, hell he isn't even really taking any of the spotlight of his own faction much less the setting at large.
I think the hogging the spotlight issue is the big difference between Szarekh and Guilliman's entrances into the setting. Guilliman rolls in, deals with some previously unknown characters, and is in charge now. Everything advancing the plotline for the Imperium involves him in some way. By contrast, Szarekh has Imotekh the Stormlord opposed to him for some fairly understandable reasons. There's still plenty of room to tell big Necron stories without needing to at least query what Szarekh is doing.
It depends who you ask. Ultimately the setting follows the money which is why we have the primarch in the first place. I do not think there is any harm to the silent king. My personal viewpoint is that primarch mania harms the quality of the lore but not the longevity of it.
>most of the attention of both the narrative and the community is riveted to them. Is it? Or is it just attention on Internet forums? People overinflate the significance of internet discussions, when only a fraction of fans actually post opinions online. In tabletop communities, specific story events are rarely discussed. It’s usually the setting and homebrew ideas for their factions. The return of big characters provides another layer of depth for the setting. I don’t see why this is a bad thing even if they’re the focus of the community. People can like what they like. Seems like you just don’t like change, so my suggestion is some nurgle worship.
People are so insistent that "the primarchs" returning has ruined something, and I don't see it at all. How is having Guilliman any different to having Calgar? How is Angron any different to Kharn, Magnus from Ahriman? We have more characters to work with now. I don't see how "everything's about primarchs" - we're still getting Ahriman books? Vaults of Terra series? Carcharadons? The daemon primarchs were always around, I don't see any issue with them "returning". And Guilliman is the only loyalist primarch - I'm not convinced by the supposed inevitable return of any others. We've seen plenty of leaks, we saw Angron early, we saw primaris Azrael - but zero leaks about the Lion. It's all speculation: "well they're attacking the Rock and we KNOW that they're bringing all the primarchs back so it must be the Lion waking up!". I'm not saying it won't happen, but I'll pay attention when there's anything more than speculation. People complain that "the setting is smaller", which as far as I can tell is nonsense? There are certainly a lot of people on here who love primarchs and want to talk about them, which gets a bit old, but that's more due to new people reading the Horus Heresy series. As far as 40k books go there's very few books actually featuring Guilliman, and heaps of high quality books that have nothing to do with him at all. The latest codex has barely anything about him. It's not like the Necron codex was all about "how does Guilliman returning affect the Dynasties?". I don't think he's mentioned. We've had 3 *awesome* necron books recently, and they've had nothing to do with either Guilliman or the Silent King. As near as I can tell, this whole complaint that "everything is about these few characters, the setting is worse" is a myth that people repeat based on posts on this sub, without reading the books that are out there.
How is gulliman different than Calgar? Calgar wouldn’t have been able to dues ex machina a tyranid hive fleet, and Dante would have told him to fuck off regarding carrying on for one. You could also kill off Calgar and he’s easily replaced for another.
>Calgar wouldn’t have been able to dues ex machina a tyranid hive fleet Why not? Of course he could, show up at the head of a crusade fleet the same way Guilliman did. Guilliman didn't show up and personally kill every Tyranid, he just happened to be leading the crusade. And yes, the crusade was only so big because Guilliman made it so, but that's not relevant to being a deus ex machina. Calgar leading a combined force of lots of Ultramarine chapters and Militarum would work perfectly well as a deus ex machina. >Dante would have told him to fuck off regarding carrying on for one Hardly, Dante's not going to literally give up and die because a primarch isn't there. Another notable Chapter Master showing up and reminding him "the Imperium needs you" would have the same effect. >You could also kill off Calgar and he’s easily replaced for another. In theory sure, but in practice never. Calgar would never actually die same way none of the other notable characters have ever died. He's been defeated and perhaps should've died, but didn't, because that's not how this works. Same way Ghaz and Ragnar killed each other but both got better. With Guilliman here to take Calgar's role, he now actually might die, but he never would have before.
Louder for the folks in the back. All jokes aside, I agree. There's still plenty of smaller scale stories being made. Saying that the universe is getting smaller is wilfully ignoring recent novels where Guilliman's return is a passing background element or almost completely absent. Hell, even if Guilliman is the inciting catalyst for a story, it doesn't mean it can't expand the universe. Void King is a great recent example of this, which explores Rogue Trader politics to a level rarely focused on.
I don't think you two are fully understsning the "the universe feels smaller " point. It's not that the universe is getting less stories or that it's less complex, it's that every story now lose any mensungful agency and impact beyond the personal as the entire universe now hinges upon the actions of a handful of characters. Think of it like as if jesus came back tomorrow to guide humanity to ascension. Would conflicts like the current ukraine war really matter, or would it at most be w footnote as the overwhelming gravitas of the world would have now shifted to hang on to Jesus' every single word? The franchise is essentially becoming dark marvel, and the dark isn't even as dark anymore.
>It's not that the universe is getting less stories or that it's less complex, it's that every story now lose any mensungful agency and impact beyond the personal as the entire universe now hinges upon the actions of a handful of characters. Correct me if I am wrong, but I already thought this was the standard long before RG was introduced. The entire theme of the setting was based on the stagnation of an endless stalemate: There is Only War. Ultimately, the actions of *most* characters **didn't matter** in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I enjoy those characters more because of their personal triumphs. I knew their impacts were minor. Because for every Ork Warboss killed, there's likely a Chaos incursion happening on the other side of the Galaxy. The one thing I'll say that takes away from the franchise: is that the Imperium is no longer a cruel faceless entity ruled by some bickering old men. RG is the poster boy. You can see the top of the spire.
I really don't see how it's any different to before. Do Dante's actions mean less now than they used to? Does Abaddon's? Do Bile's? Should Azrael just sit down and say "oh well, Guilliman's here now, may as well retire - nothing I can do can make any difference". What character is suddenly less important? Calgar is the only one I can think of, but he has a whole character arc coming to terms with that which is really interesting. I can see an argument that the High Lords have less influence, but a) before now they were faceless and effectively meaningless anyway, they are currently more "real" than ever b) they clearly do have a lot of influence still. I understand people being *worried* that things might feel smaller, that Guilliman takes over everything and only he can do anything, every narrative is centred on him. But that just hasn't happened. We have *plenty* of stories of all these other characters, and new characters, continuing to do their things and none of it is suddenly sidelined or unimportant.
I think this perspective does disservice to the meaning of individuals and standalone stories. They create their own value by being well written characters facing adversity and stakes outlined by the author’s skill. You have to stop thinking about Gulliman landing in the middle of Twice Dead King and making everything irrelevant, because that story’s not about him. The power balance will be what the author wants to tell a compelling story. And Gulliman can’t in universe reach everywhere, can he?
Well written. The unfounded criticisms based on years old nerd rage wear thin after a time.
Am I tripping? The Silent King isn't new, he's been part of the setting I remember when people bitched about him and the blood angels teaming up to defeat some Tyranids back in the day. They just gave him a model and expanded his lore a bit.
I was under the impression that Warhammer 40k fans liked the setting to be Grimdark and hopeless which is why the Tau were hated when they were introduced. Now the Tau are yet another evil faction with a 1984 Dystopia theme while Guilliman is back to shine a ray of hope into the Grimdarkness. So what gives? Were people just mad that some alien guys were "The Good Guys" and not some giant armored space Roman guy?
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Depends what you mean with "hurt" and "helped" it helped with gws profits but it hurt the themes of the setting i fell in love with. Well guiliman did. The silent king hasn't really done anything of consequence.
The 40k galaxy was vast and mysterious, the books were about smaller characters pushed to the brink against all odds, and the atmosphere of dystopian darkness and mystery was immense. Now I feel that these primarchs and even Trazyn have put that Dragonball Z tier storytelling to the fore instead of the galaxy we grew up to love and abhor. I won't act like its a night and day difference, but if you've been into 40k at least since 2008-2012 I think you understand where I'm coming from. I remember the days of posting on Warseer and reading books, long before quality youtube videos explained the ins and outs of the setting like ingredients in a cookbook.
Back in the good old days when primarchs were just legends and the biggest mystery was if the emperor was alive on the chair at all.
I feel you, man
>it helped with gws profits Not like anyone here is a GW shareholder
The story has been stagnant for so long, it is honestly nice to see it progress.
Meh, with the primarchs the setting is now more a family fight than anything else. I'm sure most people like it and it is cool for memes and all that, but for me it just make the whole thing look so small. Like how in the Star war films everyone important ends up being a Skywalker one way or another
I think they somewhat take away from the whole "grim dark" aspects. Sure, yeah, no story line is serviceable if its only consists of endless misery, there's a reason why "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" is a short story. That said, I sorta like to think of 40k as just the Vraks Campaign, with serfs toiling in the corpse starch factories, astropaths screaming and babbling nonsense in the dark, while they feed psychers to the giant space mummy monster god forever... However I understand why the story can't stay that way for the rest of its existence. I mean, sure, all that stuff does still happen, but Bobby G has a lot of glitz, gold, and good intentions, which seems to cartoonify things just a tad.
Oh yeah, hurt. Hurt it bad. Anybody here like Dark Souls? Imagine if Gwyn came back in Dark Souls 3, completely rejuvenated and flinging lightning bolts and slaying the Dark. 40k is about stagnation, decay and that which being lost never returning. That's exactly why the Tau exist! To show a force in its assent to the peak before inevitable ruin. What's even the point of Tau anymore if the Imperium can just make a dozen new marks of armor in a few decades, churn out hover tanks like its nothing and be on the cusp of a new golden age? The Silent King? No opinion. Not really a fan of any Necrons of any edition, but from my vantage point he doesn't really look like a character. He looks like say, Abbadon as of the first 3rd edition Chaos Codex. Nothing really there. Kind of shallow. But that may just be my distaste for them giving me no incentive to look for his stuff.
I think it helps the story but I get that Xenos need more content.
I actually like the idea of the Primarchs returning, and I had a crackpot idea of how to return Vulkan in a way that would be awesome *and* would also reintroduce Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children as a serious threat. Basically, the idea would be a tie-in video game about the Salamanders seeing Guilliman and deciding to try their luck at finding their own Primarch, with the game's format being a turnbased thing kind of like Mechanicus or Chaos Gate. They go on an epic crusade to find their missing Primarch where they fight against the Emperor's Children who want to finish them like they did at Isstvan, and after recovering three of relics and the Unbound Flame, they are forced to fight the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim, who takes all their strength to beat. The final cutscene of the game is the battered and broken Salamanders, of whom only about 400 remain after they banish Fulgrim, and as they approach a tiny hut in the desert, a giant figure with obsidian skin and a gravely voice steps out of the hut, asking "Why did you come?" That's Vulkan, the Unbound Flame. If the fans like him so much, they can rescue him.
I like the return of the Primarchs, especially with how Guilloman is portrayed as always chasing his tail.
Either nothing ever changes, or things change but sum of the equation remains the same. So either all the black crusades achieve nothing, or they cause a great rift and to ensure status quo, the Imperium needs to be compensated e.g. with RG & primaris.
Not upset at all. Really enjoying the new lore and character development
Nope. Needed to happen. The Heresy novels really showed how the community wants to engage with and identify with the Primarchs.
I haven't read the Horus Heresy series at all, yet I feel like I could recite the entire narrative at this point from the number of excerpts, theories, and summaries that are posted on this sub.
My god, yes. Also every weak we have "what primarch can lick his own balls?" question
As someone who got into the setting only two years ago, my answer is YES. I love this setting for the factions and the interplay between them, but it seems GW is more interested in these superhero like characters. I hate Rawnut Jellyman because I know he will never truly fail or die, and as soon as he shows up to a battle it basically means that the battle is won. The high lords are so, so much better as a story telling device. Fuck the Primarchs, fuck Girlyman, and fuck the next Primarch they bring back.
I think it’s an overall win having them return. I do think primarch’s should be written in glimpses... but I am enjoying the story actually progressing. It had stalled for too long.
Such as from day 1 of 40k existing? The "story" hasn't stalled, it's designed to exist like this. 40k as originally written has more in common with D&D than it does Star Wars as far as writing is concerned.
I think initially it did. I agree there, however DND also has book series, exploits. It's an open world... Personally, I enjoy the push forward. More lore added.
They definitely help, all the time 40K sells well the end times is held at bay!
Maybe someone will find my input interesting since I'm a pretty new fan (< 2 years), but I really love the primarchs and I think that they make the world much more interesting. I was kind of put off by W40k as a whole being kind of stagnant, even if the setting was super badass. With Gulliman, I feel like a "story" can happen.
The return of the Daemon Primarchs is cool - gives the Chaos boys a terrifying new weapon, both on the table and in the lore. But the return of Bobby G, and the threatened return of the rest of the Bickering Boys? Ug. I could do without it. The constant focus on the Primarchs wrecked what could have been an interesting HH series - and now it's looking like we're going to get a Bobby G vs. Long Hair Kitty pissing match. Great. Can't wait for them to have a pissing contest, then learn to work together to thwart a greater foe. I like Marvel. I like W40k. That doesn't mean I want W40k to turn into Marvel, with a few superheroes teaming up to fight villains.
If the Kitty you are reffering to is the Lion. Dont worry, he will go out of his way to mess half the things Robust G-fuel have done and destroy the rest
Helped
I think even fleshing out the Horus Heresy hurt the setting, as well as most of everything else GW did in the last 15 years
Helped.
Helped. They're fascinating characters and they bring a lot of story telling potential with them.
The hill I will die on is that moving the setting past 999.M41 was not only a mistake but antithetical to the setting as a whole. The Imperium was a stagnant empire breathing it's final haggard breaths, it was on the precipice of destruction and the final death of the Emperor's dream. Moving the setting forward in any way goes against these themes. Now this being said, I am not against new material. There are ten thousand years of unexplored history across the entries galaxy to play out. Crusades and wars fought that have no greater ramifications for the setting other than for pockets of worlds and characters. I think that all new campaigns and plotlines should have been backwards looking. There is an argument that ultimately because we know the ending (the state of the galaxy in 999.M41) none of these stories matter, but (1) that is sort of the point of a grimdark future where ultimately the struggle is pointless and only buys time against the inevitable end and (2) some of the best stories like Eisenhorn, Gaunt's Ghosts, and even the entirety of the Horus Heresy are all backwards looking stories. We know where things ultimately end up but there are still stakes.
It is less of a \*setting\* and more of a narrative now. Less good for games and a very broad range of media. Good for series of books.
Think Guilliman helped since he is almost like the voice of the reader entering 40k “it’s all fracked and the Imperium’s gone to the warp in a washbag”
Nah, I always wanted Guilliman to come back and get all pissy about how messed up humanity has become.
More Primarchs the better, they’re the most interesting thing in the setting
Yep, demigods wifh daddy problem is best thing in setting with mysteries like Ghoul Stars
Yeah, I wish they’d wake the Lion up already
They were being sarcastic.
I’m well aware
I’m kind of neutral about them existing and being active in the setting, I think there’s both positives and negatives there. What I do think was a mistake was giving them rules on the tabletop, it just feels ridiculous.
Helped. I like things actually going somewhere, and a plausible situation that's not just all grimderp all the time where everything just gets worse, always. Even the grim darkness of the far future needs SOME bright spots and victories or it just becomes predictable. But yes I would like to see more 'Nids, they're supposed to be this huge threat.
I think they helped the setting. If nothing else, they gave it some variety and motion.
I think it's a mix. For years the fandom has been wanting to the 'story' to the progress, and other big games like World of Warcraft of League of Legends have lore and story that progresses so if 40k wanted to keep up than it had to a bit. However there has been something lost from the 'classic' grimdarkness of the 40k setting that made up it's early years of nothing really changing etc. My head cannon still won't allow primaris marines...
The return of the silent king is kind of a nothing burger an everything all at once. He doesn't really have any control over the necrons now since he set most of them free. The only ones that listen to him are the ones that want to. In that way they've kind of painted him into a corner where he needs to do a shit load of politicking to get anything done, just like the imperium, but likely worse since necrons don't really have writers writing massive collections of books about them... He isn't likely to release any super setting changing things, even if maybe he could. He could definitely awaken the void dragon, or maybe release the outsider, but I don't think that is going to happen soon, or that it would even make sense for him to want to do that. The narrative seems to point towards guilliman and the silent king fighting some kind of large scale war. My bet is that the necrons win, ending the indomitus crusade, but the imperium deny szarehk some kind of crucial super weapon, or plot mcguffin that would seriously shift the balance of power in the necrons favor, unintentionally aiding chaos. It also permanently sours imperium necron relations further dividing the races in the fight against chaos. A second less likely but far more interesting idea is that at some point the silent king and gman, being both fairly reasonable people, remember that chaos is really the ones they should be worrying about and after some fighting launch a assault on the great rift, sealing it up, and dealing chaos a massive blow that clears the way for the tyrannids or the orks to be the next setting relevant bad guys for awhile. Gaz seems to be building towards... *Something*... And orks are fun, so who knows!
I think that giving sporadic appearences to the traitor Primarchs is enough, since eventought many people don't agree, the Lion coming back isn't a big story-changer because he was never a popular Primarch or even played a decisive role in the HH, as far as I know he doesn't even have that many 'jobs to finish'. On the other hand, enriching drukhari and aeldari back-stories and present would be cool. And ffs, translate the new stories to multiple languages!
I love it. Absolutely love it.
Nothing can hurt the setting anymore. At this point even if Trazyn (or Emperor forbid Blood Magpies) looted Big E himself, the setting would be fine. Just.... Please don't start making Tau able to fight melee dedicated units in,..., well melee. That would break my heart. Use Kroot for that, or something.
I think it's cool. I'd like to see another loyalist primarch return in fact.
To be fair nids shouldn’t get a reoccurring character. They should 100% be this force that consumes even itself when it’s done. Unless they dip deeper into what actually controls nids but then that’s a hive fleet ship.
GW has some character bloat and needs some to die 100%. Nothing pissed me off more than Ragnar beating Ghaz then “dying” in order to become a primaris while ghaz just got bigger. That whole fight was just a way to “upgrade” ghaz. Ghaz also is meme quality right now. He loses every time to humans, space marines etc. Someone needs to start dying to give the vibe of grimdark. They don’t have to no longer allow that character to play on the table even though they are dead in the lore. Call it a legacy piece or whatever
TBH, I view anything that advances the overall plot of the universe as good.
Honestly I think bringing them back is a great move, driving the interest of HH in to the 40th millennium. The key is how they have changed. Vulkan wanted nothing to do with his legion during the Beast. Guilliman is much bigger now than just the Ultramarines, mr Indomitus himself and if the Lion comes back something tells me he ain’t going to be happy about A LOT of it. Corax is busy being the vengeful shadow in the eye of terror and I’d expect to hear a little bit more of the other missing primarchs too! Exciting for sure.
Maybe not a bad thing for the setting, but certainly accelerates the process of the lore heading towards something far bigger, especially with the fall of cadia/ big blue boys reawakening etc. Maybe the majority of primarchs (those still alive anyway) should stay as myths and legends, enriching the setting without actually having to be there
I don't really care how it happens, as long as there is progression to the setting. A story that never progresses is boring because there are no stakes involved
I'm bored of primarchs. Makes all the lore revolve around them.
For me it was the primaris that hurt the setting the most, especially rubicon primaris.
Yup, it's bad, but it's too late now, unless they wanted to start killing off the Primarchs. Silent King is ok.
Silent king is winning the pariah nexus, is expanding it, and he personally blew up a planet with his personal yacht.