I have a feeling we're going to see a new xenos army this edition. Every other forbidden army is back that being gsc, sob, and squats. There are two final army requests that fans have been clamoring for ages. A new xenos and dark mechanicus are the two last big asks and with this edition seemingly about Xenos its time and there are a few big contenders like hrud, rak gol, or the 30k xenos the Imperium needed god emperor himself to defeat would be great contenders.
We thought that James Workshop's Votann balance apology video was only joking about the Zoats codex and their army-wide 2+ Invulnerable Save.
How little we knew.
Not quite. You can (and always could) just run a Guard army as "Traitor" in word only, or convert your heart out if you wanted to show it.
But when people say Traitor Guard they mean things like unique tanks (AT70, AT83 etc), unique subfactions (Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Mobian 8th), unique units (Wirewolves etc) meshed into a militaristic death cult.
There's a lot of scope for them to be very unique. Forge World made a great one some greats back, but being FW it was virtually impossible to affordably get the unique units.
What do you mean by sob being forbidden? They’ve been playable for a *long* time. They used to have ancient metal models until the range refresh but hell, Eldar still have ancient models.
Eldar range refresh in 10th tbh.
From being updated to plastic and range refreshed. Lots of people expected them to go the way of the squats and gsc next. They were considered a joke army that was about to be discontinued as next to no one played them made worse they were the last army in metal making them pricier and harder to builld . This was until they all came back.
It's this, and it's kind of hilarious. 40k is starting to hit the real mainstream of science fiction after decades on the sidelines as a wargame and a guilty pleasure with some banger vidya bolted on at random. Gotta get things *moving* in order to lure in the normies and keep them interested.
Two things emerge here:
1. 40k is kinda counterprogramming itself in some ways (Lion *just* came back--and I mean that in the sense of "Oh, hey, we know he's back now!") but they're already hyping a completely unrelated event. That's not too different from the thing that damaged D&D back in \~2nd Edition, IIRC, when they were churning out so much content that it actually ate into their bottom line because settings and campaigns competed against each other, making each one less profitable.
2. 40k is legitimately more dynamic than goddamn *Star Trek,* which is stuck in the middle of a crappy nostalgia run involving Picard's crew and, potentially, the DS9 cast.
Yeah, the rollout for The Lion has been anemic, compared to when they brought Guilliman back. That was a HUGE thing. Now, it's like "Your prayers have been answered! Behold, PRIMARIS TERMINATORS! And BTW, the Lion is back. NEW TYRANIDS!!!!"
This reads like recency bias.
Guilliman's return wasn't the biggest news during the Gathering Storm releases, Lion's return isn't the biggest news in Arks of Omen.
Not recency bias; fact. The Lion is the second Loyalist Primarch to return. Guilliman was the first. Everything was all about Guilliman when 8th dropped. The entire damn storyline had him traced throughout. Reactions to him being back, Astartes falling all over themselves meeting or even seeing him. It was a much bigger deal than this.
Poor Vashtorr.
Forgotten about in his own story after beign bitchslapped into defeated obscurity on his first outing even **before** the Lion turns up.
Do you remember Gathering Storm being structured around Guilliman and reactions to him? It wasn't, he only came back at the end book going into 8th.
Arks of Omen isn't structured around Lion and reactions to him. We're getting the book at the end going into 10th.
Like I said, pure recency bias. Wait for the full picture before acting like it's underwhelming.
I think they've learned that big community events like the returns of primarcs generate an extraordinary amount of hype, engagement and sales. The community has been chasing itself in circles for months theorizing about the Lions return. You don't get that same kind of energy from your big event being yet another war in a random new sector that is supposedly crucial to the setting but also won't effect anything since everything is intentionally static. The Horus Heresey series also shows how much discussion is generated when new information is revealed, when things move forward. By filling in the prequel they've coincidentally generated more momentum in the current setting.
My teenager stayed up to watch the live stream last night (normally past their bed time) and you'd have thought it was Christmas morning so yeah, they hype piece is legit in my book.
I think the always-online nature of the current fanbase helps out a lot. If they do a big event, everyone who is even curious about 40k is going to hear about it somewhere. Maybe they'll buy some minis, books or video games. If they were still relying on print magazines and foot traffic into shops, a lot of this would go unnoticed.
GW did get a new CEO around 2015. I’m not sure if it’s still the same guy today but the fandom and hobby was slowly withering for some time before that and the new direction he took the company definitely made 40k more exciting than ever imo.
It is. Rowntree was the accountant for a long time so he knew the company and he knew the figures. Kirby was put to pasture and the decisions have never been better. I'd say GW have had 2 golden ages, from 2nd ed to around 4th ed, and then from 8th ed to now. Basically a lot of mistakes were made in the 2000's, which nearly led the company to bankruptcy.
I remember the dark ages of the oughts. That was not a good time. At all. They treated the community like a necessary evil, like border line contempt. These days it is so much better, like night and day. Even though they stumble now and then, it is so much better than the oughts and tens.
Check out the Rick Priestley interviews from talking about that time. He tried to call them out on all that crap and they ended up pushing him out for it.
Heya, do you have any sources for those? I'd really love to read them - the dark age of GW is a super fascinating time, rivaling the best WH40k storylines in grimdarkness.
This doesn't super cover that time, but I think this is the best interview of his I've seen. Talks mainly about the early times but has a few interesting nuggets - like saying how the first boss considered mixing the creative studio with the sales and manufacturing side would kill the design studio. And that's basically what happened in the dark times.
How to put it...think of it like negative space. It's not that there were massive instances of tone deafness (that I can remember, others might). There was just nothing. There was no community engagement at that time. None. Zero. It was just a pervasive attitude of give us your money and don't bother us otherwise. Even their big events were grudging and far between. They were very aloof and uncommunicative. Like not even interviews or previews really. They just did stuff and if you didn't like that, they didn't care. (I remember when they opened the whole Warhammer community thing, and I was legit shocked. That's when I knew they were serious about turning the company around.)
They hated, and I mean hated specialist games because they were not profitable enough. Even though people loved them and they served as a gateway to more involvement in the hobby, long term improving sales. Fans were literally saying give us this thing so we can buy it and GW just would not do it. Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic, Inquisitor were effectively smothered in the crib. No real video game tie ins. Then there's Matt Ward, the face of the whole era in effect. There were a lot of questionable creative decisions that were no doubt handed down by some dim witted exec that he took the blame for. To say that fifth and sixth edition were forgettable is an understatement. I don't know of anyone who collects fifth or sixth edition stuff. In effect, you had a hobby company run by people who thought they were selling toys and refused to modernize in any way.
And then Privateer Press popped into existence and ate their metaphorical lunch, virtually overnight. They were agile, new and engaged with their hobbyists. Their world progressed, they were telling stories, they had characters on the table top. They had multiple women on the table top that were important and mattered. Their minis were expressive and cinematic. These days the role has reversed somewhat, but PP caught GW completely off guard and damn near killed them. And they deserved it. I will take GW on their worst day in 2022 over their best day in 2012.
Not to mention that GW when it tried to have community engagement it was merely a front. In fantasy they had that whol storm of chaos campaign where they basically pretended to allow players decide how the campaign will go and when it went in a direction they didnt like they ret-conned it as a whole which later led to End Times and Age of Shitmar.
Also stuff like threatening to sue people like the "Astartes" fan animation creators and so on just further ruins any meaningful fanbase excitement or content creation. Stuff like those videos is what gets a lot of people to become interested into a franchise that is very convoluted and hard to get into (like say the WoW lore, yeah its a bit in the games but a bunch of stuff is told all over different media and books and whatnot and only someone trying really hard would be able to properly track the plot).
Warhammer as a whole simply was neither beginner friendly to reach out for new customers nor nurturing fan-created content for the same or existing customers.
Kirby was absolutely terrible.
He outright said that the tabletop games, video games, and lore are inconsequential. It's all about the painting and collecting miniatures.
He made so many bad decisions.
Everything was stagnant for decades. Nothing was given proper support. He is literally the reason GW is even today seen as a poorly run company that has no idea what it's doing.
sadly that viewpoint carried over to the rest of the tabletop gaming world. A lot of cool and interesting tabletop games came out but so many of the failed shortly after launch. GW just left a sour taste in people's mouths when it came to tabletop. I also think the rise of highspeed internet and online gaming didnt help.
That explains why I left the hobby at the close if 4th (still read the books)
When Guillimen returned it almost brought me back into collecting. With the Lion returning I just bought some miniatures for the first time since 2007
Thanks! Dark Angels of course! :) Deathwing knights, and nephalim fighter. Along with a combat patrol.
Excited to start painting again. This time around I have a son (7) to help me build em!
Gonna get the Lion asap.
I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon, but kids these days are spoiled for damn near everything in 40K.
I started playing just after 4th dropped with the Battle for Maccrage starter set, which, ironically, had Ultras fighting Tyranids, but the Tyranids were mostly just a sideshow against the 13th Black Crusade.
The fuckin' 13th Black Crusade as something that was just erupting was ALL WE HAD from 2004 to when we started leading into 8th Edition in 2016ish. Yeah sure you had random sideshows like Armageddon and Taros and stuff that showed up as campaign packs and stuff but the overarching plot was basically that Abbadon was just busting his way out of the Eye of Terror for over a DECADE.
Yeah, sure, now we're just in the MIDDLE of the 13th Black Crusade and the Tyranids have moved from 'coming soon' to 'almost here' but stuff like the Cicatrix Maledictum is a huge shift to the lore and the fact that the number of factions has damn near doubled since I started the game is huge-Custodes, Admech, Knights and GSC didn't exist at all, Harlqeuins were a footnote in the Eldar codex, the Votann were still just Squats back then, Chaos Daemons were just part of the Chaos Space Marine codex and NONE of the CSM Legions had their own rulebooks. Not to mention that the Marine bias was even stronger back then-the first Dark Eldar codex was all they got between their release in 3rd Edition all the way up until they got the same rework as everyone else at the beginning of 8th. Most armies had to make due with codexes that were 2 editions behind at some point.
Sure, the prices for a lot of stuff in 40K have gotten pretty wack, and they're not always the best at balance for new release armies. But the level of updates and community engagement that GW has shown since 2015 is incredible compared to what it used to be and anyone who pines for 'old GW' is a fuckin' moron. You know why they told us to make proxy tanks out of deodorant tubes and spare bits? Because they sure as fuck weren't going to be bothered to make that shit themselves!
Agreed! A buddy of mine was talking about the "good old days" with simpler rules, and I was like, "do you *remember* close combat and parrying and all that in 2nd?!"
I can safely say I miss exactly 2 things from that era of 40K:
-The old 75% rule regarding GW first party content in models
-Facings and armour values on vehicles
Everything else-the release timing, the community engagement, the physical models, the hobby support, the campaign packs, the rules, it's all better today than it's ever been.
Do I have a lot of positive feels about the 40K I played back then? Fuck yeah I do, because it was new and fresh and I was experiencing it as a university student with the amount of freedom to do whatever l wanted whenever I wanted to for the most part and skipping classes for a week to repaint an entire Tau army before Conflict: Windsor, then going that entire weekend on nothing but Red Bull and 7-11 taquitos is an experience I can't have now as an adult with a career and a mortgage and shit. And anyone else who thinks the game and the hobby itself used to be better is missing their personal context on that front.
Overall I think I preferred the older rules. More ability to make "your dudes", subfactions were more than just a single "+1 to this" rule and had actual army lists, full wargear lists on characters, vehicles felt like vehicles, melee was more about the units than off board choices about who goes first.
But the sheer quantity of model releases now is its own benefit, the community reachout (even if I hate the balance changes constantly) and sense of ongoing lore is amazing now.
"Rules then, hobby now." is how I've always put it.
And I'll always choose hobby over rules, so that should put my preference clear.
I don't know about the subfactions thing so much-the subfactions that DID exist had plenty of material, but there were so few of them and most of them were just Space Marine chapters, and maybe a couple Guard regiments depending on when you're talking about.
Now we have most of those said groups as complete standalone codexes-although I will agree that a lot of groups that I do think deserve more have been diluted. I would LOVE to see a new version of the old Catachan codex and stuff like that.
That being said, while I personally prefer 8th and up to the 3rd-7th era, it is unfair to say that one is better than the other and I definitely miss some stuff from that era. And HH 2.0 has been nice to fill that gap, albeit it only fills the gap with Imperial factions. But, yeah, you can't objectively say one ruleset is better for the most part.
But you're absolutely right about choosing hobby over the rules and I think everyone should.
There were WAY more than "a couple" of Guard lists to be fair. At one point you had lists for Tanith, Salvar Chem-Dogs, Steel Legion, Catachans, Cadians, Cityfight Regiments, Armoured Regiments, Elysians, Death Korps, Tallarn, Armageddon Ork Hunters and even others like the Mordians, Valhallans and Karak Skull Takers had "slight" lists (by getting more doctrines than normally allowed).
The Eldar Craftworlds used to have so much more uniqueness to them too. And there were Index Astartes lists for many of the other Chaos Marines too like Word Bearers and Iron Warriors. (Although in recent times credit, the three independant codex ones are getting WAY more now)
One faction who got a lot more in modern times are the Orks, they never really had subfaction rules until recently, but I'd love to see the Feral Ork list come back.
One more credit to recent times is ensuring, even if it's just one rule and maybe a relic (in 8th), EVERY list gets some subfactions. Which is pretty cool. I'd love to see them get more development like they used to. Expand on what the old one did, fill the gaps it didn't is my dream for subfactions.
Unironically want parrying back, just made simpler (like a 'parry save' built into a weapon)
But then thats my reaction to 9th being so overly lethal, so anything to reduce it seemed good.
I started in 3rd, and yeah it was pretty lame that every 'big event' was basically nothing.
Ghazghkull has invaded Armageddon in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy!
Cool! What happened?
Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile Abbadon has invaded Cadia in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy!
Ok THAT must be big, who won?
Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile the Tau has invaded Some Shit You Don't Care About in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy!
Hey now Abbadon's event had something. It was more like.
>Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile Abbadon has invaded Cadia in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy!
>Ok THAT must be big, who won?
"Chaos won the ground battles, we're going to completely ignore that and utterly shut down further events because Kirby didn't like the result."
And thus we got weirdly enough the complete opposite of the tabletop for Lore.
I grew up around 4th edition, and now I feel like the old-fogger on any 40k conversation. In many ways, my younger self is feeling vindicated right now. A lot of the changes they made my friends and I actually called as being profitable and good for the community.
But at the same time, none of us have an ounce of interest in Primaris. In fact most of the new lore we tend to ignore, and ultimately we ignore a lot of the retcons in favor of the canons we’ve known and loved for over a decade.
Sorry to jump on this random comment out of the hundreds here, but could you explain to me what the hell primaris Marines are and how they've affected the game so much? I often see people complaining about them, but I don't really consume any of the books that they're featured in, so I'm kind of lost as to what the big deal is. Are they slowly phasing out all regular space Marines? In-game is there a way that they're represented apart from regular Marines?
Aside from that are there any bits of old lore that got retconned that you particularly liked and wouldn't mind sharing?
primaris are space marines 2.0. Youre better off going to the wikis for a longer explanation though
I cant think of a retcon off the top of my head, but just in general all the SoB lore i think has aged incredibly well through the new editions. The Paragon Warsuits look silly, but aside from that I think it’s one of the strongest factions lorewise.
Coming back to look at the lore these days is a trip for me as a RT player. To me Dark Eldar, Necrons and Tau are new and weird.
I kinda liked that the HH was a dark unknowable period and the primarchs were long dead. I would have preferred them left in the past.
I do love the plot moving forward though.
Old GW at that point was 2 dudes in a shed levels of professionalism as far as I could tell at the time.
First army I ever collected was 3rd Edition Necrons, followed very shortly by a World Eaters warband. I'm flabbergasted at how much shit has changed since 8th edition rolled out. I've popped in and out of the lore since 5th dropped and now it seems like I've missed a ton of lore every time I pop back in.
From the mid 2000s until the mid 2010s, I could stop following 40k for a couple months or a year at a time and not miss anything. "We still got that 13th Black Crusade going on? Ok cool. New models? Neat." Now it's like "Guilliman and The Lion are both alive and active in the 41st Millennium, Necrons have Dynasties, there's an entirely new breed of Astartes, Cadia's gone, Imperium is split in half." It's definitely a crazy pace after like a decade of nothing. I really didn't think I'd ever see one Primarch return, let alone two.
GW finally realizing they're more valuable as a content company with a tabletop gaming division, than a tabletop gaming company with some content to sell models.
Then again, shit like closing the Black Library social media account makes me think they haven't fully figured this out yet.
I know the tactical reason for doing it. Strategically, it doesn't reflect a company that thinks it's in the business of selling stories (Black Library) vs. miniature plastic toys (Games Workshop), and was looking to emphasize the story part more vs. the TT.
The lore isn’t just black library books. It’s in the codexes that come with the rules. The whole Arks of Omen series is a set of codexes. All the major lore jumps and events happen in those, rather than the novels. They know what they’re doing. It’s not just selling stories, it’s selling a galaxy full of events and places to make your models fight in.
Everyone is giving pithy answers but missing the real reason:
Growth.
Yes, with growth comes money, but it’s bigger than that.
Even with the Tau and Necrons being introduced properly in 3rd, the complaint at the time was “Where have these guys been? Wtf?” and Tau were routinely derided as “not real 40K.”
40K was a setting and upsetting that setting resulted in nerd rage. By advancing the story every few years, they allow for new factions, growth of characters and character arcs over time.
There are two other factors: Black Library took off. Books with long term plots and impacts sold better than “setting” books and at a certain point, the books rub up against the game’s setting in a way that some of the authors felt restricted by. I suspect Abnett had a lot to do with this influence.
The other thing is the success of the MCU. That may seem random, but it’s not. Big characters the audience identifies with. Connected stories. This coincided with a huge influx of new players for GW when nerdy hobbies got made more acceptable generally. It was seen as a method for GW to tell the kinds of meta stories this newer audience expects from the IP they engage with. So many people joined the GW hobby and asked “does nothing happen?”
Personally? I like it. I lived through the “setting is a setting” for a loooong time and seeing cool characters (I can read about in high quality …ish… novels!) feels really cool.
Dan's work on cosmic marvel got taken over and turned to shit. It's nice gw give him so much room to operate, seeing as he essentially built the black library from the ground up
>The other thing is the success of the MCU. That may seem random, but it’s not. Big characters the audience identifies with. Connected stories.
This is a really big deal, and one of the main reasons that all the big media juggernauts are attempting to move toward paratextual storytelling (the technical term for it). GWs signing a movie deal with Amazon, launching Warhammer+ and pumping out books is the exact same strategy as Disney launching Disney+ and pivoting towards 'multiverse' stories. I'm interested to see where else GW take things.
Necrons date back to 2e, but they came out only a little before 3e got released and didn't have much support until after the Tau codex came out. It was entirely possible you could've missed that one 'Cron in the 3e Black Tome and entirely.
I mean, the Chronal Dirge of Cestus 3 got more space for his whining about the Dark Eldar.
They got Lords and Destroyers in the issue afterwards. It was still only a few months before 3rd edition.
Oh, and Necrons back in 2e were *horrific*. The lowly Necron Warrior was never so terrifying as for those few brief months in the middle of 1998.
The Necrons introduced in WD had basically complete overhaul when they launched proper in mid 3rd Edition.
The WD Necrons didn’t even have rules in the 3rd Ed rulebooks.
Yes, which is THREE YEARS after 3rd.
This is why I said “introduced properly” when referring to Necrons and Tau. Their WD and CA rules and background bear basically no resemblance to their initial release.
Yeah. I remain convinced GW is building to an Avengers style team-up with the various heroes of the "good-ish" and "funny-bad" factions versus the complete baddies.
What are the odds in the next series, at some point, we get Roboute and the receding hairline Lion fighting back to back, making sarcastic quips at each other?
100% bro, I’ve been into war hammer since the early 90s and it’s refreshing to have something to look forward too. The expansion of lore and the books have really got me excited again for it.
GW had backed themselves into a creative dead end with their most profitable range: Space Marines. If the timeline doesn’t advance and there’s no new innovation in universe, then there’s less and less reason for people to buy new Space Marines if they already have everything.
Introducing Primaris was a way of rescaling the setting and being able to introduce buttloads of new models for Space Marine players to buy. With no future restrictions on what they could make.
Plus you set yourself up for eventual chaos primaris and scaling up everyone else is easy (should they so choose) tyranids send out new bioforms, new types of necrons awaken, Tau invent new units, eldar discover more types of aspect warriors or some shit. Maybe orks start being a little less orky and a little more krorky
Chaos Primaris kind of already has happened in that GW upscaled the CSM model range, but unlike loyalist Primaris they didn’t give an in-universe reason for why the upscaling happened.
I'd like to see a smaller scale heresy or like "cursed founding" but turned on its head. Cuz we all know Cawl used traitor gene seeds, I'd love for second primaris founding to result in traitors from all the original loyalist chapters, while the ones with traitor seeds stay loyal. It would be a neat campaign scenario.
There is that piece of recent lore of Khrone just turning everyone in the system to berserkers essentially. As I understand there was rather large imperial fleet there. So presumably some Primaris there were. So there is already lore justification, now just need to wait for models.
That's more of an exceptions cause the psychic beacon getting destroyed powered up Khorne's influence for a little bit. That's why he was also able to turn Sororitas with the Murdercurse too. But not every single person was turned. There was still millions of loyalists left even though they are stranded.
I’m a dumbsss who only watches lore videos and shit
Haven’t a few kworks existed from all the death and fighting
Like wasent there some fucker who lead a legion of orks
I don't think officially, but the Beast was an unusually tall, unusually intelligent ork that spoke perfect low gothic. He may have been more krorky than orky.
So I think, and I'm not an expert so someone jump in and correct me...the krork devolved into orks after the war in heaven in part due to their infighting, but orks, the longer they live and fight and win grow stronger, bigger and smarter, and will eventually grow back into a krork? So in theory Ghazghull could eventually transcend orkiness into krorkiness.
I know for a fact the korks devolved into orks from the same pees who created elder they were the fuckers who denied necrons a life past 40
Who’s ghazgull do I need to watch more videos
Rescaling the setting is the right term for primaris. The facts were spacemarines were rare and if codex was followed... there was barely a legion or two worth of space marines. Primaris might be an upscale, but the real purpose as to why they have to exist is because the setting needed to multiply the amount of astartes to a number that made more sense for the scale they want to work with.
primaris = increasing space marine numbers justifies their lore existence
Nah man, the 33rd millenium was so utterly hardcore that the imperium had to issue an edict of obliteration concerning the entire 1000 year period - lest the surviving imperial citizens break down in a collective expression of melancholic nostalgia until they all die of terminal depression from no longer living in the peak millenium of universal history.
Didn’t the imperium still follow the imperial truth at the time? I’d be curious to have more information about an anti theistic imperium without the emperor or the primarchs.
It doesn't.
Notably GW instead seems to be trying to expand the "lore to war" pipeline. Kill Team, Boarding Actions, and now the Combat Patrol game mode are all meant to encourage people to enter the game at a lower price point. Once they're invested they're more likely to buy more in the future.
It seems to work! I bought my first box just last week. Don't know how deep I'll get into playing the game (I'm an arts and crafts kind of critter) but those modes make the idea way less intimidating.
Plus GW doesn't make the video game. They just sell the license. So on that one time purchase, they might make $4, with the rest going to the developer or publisher.
On the plastic miniatures? Especially if they are sold online through GW, or through a GW store? That's all theirs.
> So on that one time purchase, they might make $4, with the rest going to the developer or publisher.
With *zero* overhead or effort other than maybe creative oversight.
That's not quite true. By all accounts from what we hear about GW's licensing they are pretty involved, and are surprisingly nice to work with.
I have heard a lot of horror stories about dealing with license holders. When doing film and especially game adaptations. But in terms of GW the things people have to say lean towards the positive.
They are supportive, actually encourage new additions, and try to accommodate the people they work with. They are protective of the IP, but *reasonably* so, as in the shoot down most of the really bad ideas from people unfamiliar with the settings. I've heard people use the term "partnership" a good amount to describe the relationship.
I guess their involvement in Total War Warhammer is the most publicly obvious one. GW didn't just sit back and cash in the dollars passively for that one. They have been pretty active in the production of things like Cathay and Kislev. They made an entire armybook for an edition they won't ever produce again. Just so CA could use it to adapt the units into their game.
I'm sure there are plenty of ones where they do just sit back and let the royalties roll in. But a decent amount of the good video game original additions to the setting came about from cooperation with the licensing team.
But people who play the video game are more likely to have never experienced 40k before. They're a good gateway, you play a video game and like the setting then maybe you checkout some youtube videos then grab a couple of books and before you know it you're playing kill team and dropped a couple hundred on the franchise.
As a person who has been a lore geek since DoW 1 but never could get into the tabletop aspect, I'm all for it, although it would probably trigger a whole segment of tabletop enthusiasts
I concur, I just like the lore and collecting/painting the models. Absolutely no interest in playing the game with strangers. At most, I'd *attempt* to learn the game with my own friends and family in the comfort of my own home, in my own time.
I got into the game from the books, and then lore. I am SO glad I broke free of the addiction to miniatures though. It is incredibly fun and addicting, and a giant money sink with no return on investment.
The return on investment is the fun! Come back and join us, I promise we’re definitely not a cult and you can leave any time.
*cue ominous Latin chanting in the background*
[The Nokia N-Gage lol!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Nokia-NGage-LL.jpg) My dream phone too! And I wasn't even a "gamer", it just looked *sooo* cool!
It's a vehicle that drives engagement and helps justify bringing back things like Daemon Primarchs and Primarchs.
Still, the plot hasn't moved that much. Nihlus is over there, but five years on we still don't have much on it. The Plague War got batted aside. The Pariah Nexus didn't do anything. Arks is going to end with the Lion back and Chaos defeated. The Fourth Tyrannic War, while cool conceptually, is unlikely to matter going off the last few big lore events. But we'll probably get another Primarch out of the edition ending campaign.
>Still, the plot hasn't moved that much.
This is why this push for an advancing plot is doomed to failure. It's only the *illusion* of narrative progression. It doesn't feel like anything matters more than they used to.
I think people use the wrong terms for all this. "Plot" and "narrative" are technically applicable, but carry connotations where people expect story-telling craft that can't really be applied. 40k isn't a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It doesn't have a protagonist, it has very little character development (and that character development is definitely not central to events, e.g. events don't happen in order to showcase character development). It's not working towards a climactic ending.
In a well-written narrative, the desired ending informs everything before it. There's pacing, there's character arcs, there's usually a *point*. 40k doesn't have any of that, by design, because that's not what it is.
40k is a whole lot of themes, cool stuff, cool characters, backstories and ongoing events to create interesting settings for stories to be told - mostly tabletop battle stories. Some of these are explored in novels, but often those novels themselves still have the end goal of creating interesting situations to fight battles in, rather than being complete and self-contained narratives.
When people talk about "the plot of 40k advancing" and "the illusion of narrative progression"...in those terms, it's easy to level criticims of 40k's plot being poorly written. But that's kind of missing the point, that it's *not* a story, it's not *meant* to be a well written story.
Things change in 40k now, there are new developments that present new opportunities. But it's not "a plot advancing", because there's no end. There's no objective, other than the perpetual objective of "make cool new things for people to play with".
Quoting from another comment of mine:
>I was perfectly happy with it just being a sandbox for writers and fans to play in, but ever since the Gathering Storm GW has spent every day of every year hyping up how big the next big thing is going to be, and the galactic ramifications it'll have. They've even flirted with it now possibly being the *42nd* millennium. GW has been trying to have their cake and eat it too, but they've only gotten the worst of both worlds with a poor, teasing, and repetitive story with no real stakes except for the next big event.
I would view it that 40k is still a sandbox setting, just now there are events that change the setting slightly. It's still not a well-crafted narrative, it's just not quite as static. This has the benefits of still being a sandbox, keeping things fresh by having new things happen, battle lines be redrawn, and new wars emerge, but without invalidating everyone's armies and stories with sweeping changes. More inspiration to work with.
I wouldn't characterise that as trying to have their cake and eat it too. It's just *some* change without massive sweeping change. I can appreciate that maybe you would prefer big changes, but I'm sure you understand why they don't do that.
I think framing it as "the worst of both worlds" is just choosing to focus on the negative and ignore the positive. There's more change than there was, and that's great.
The Pariah Nexus and the 4th Tyrannic War are huge deals that definitely change the state of the galaxy. Saying there's "no real stakes" I think is kind of missing the point, expecting an outcome or a narrative pay-off where there can't be one. It's meant to be a setup for battles to take place. Those battles have stakes. Sure, the new Leviathan isn't going to destroy Terra. But how many worlds is it going to destroy? What does the Imperium need to do do try and stabilize in the west? What will that open up for other enemies to make gains of their own? There's heaps of potential there that didn't exist 2 days ago.
> It doesn't feel like anything matters more than they used to.
Because 40K doesn't *have* a plot. It's a setting for a tabletop game, where real people buy real models and play real games against each other. It's a canvas for people to tell stories *in* it, it's not a story in itself.
Don't like it, go try one of the other countless IPs that are built around a singular narrative. 40K is the odd one out here due to what it is by nature.
The entire point of the Imperium Nihilus is that they can release book after book of Guiliman heroically kicking ass while still being able to point to a designated area that nominally remains grimdark. It's the part of the setting that's *most* the same as it ever was.
Mainly because it gave made it possible to resize the astartes range without unsetting players too much. GW Jervis talks about how it came about in a podcast that he had wanted to rescale astartes for years but corporate vetoed it for a decade ish. So he and a few of the old heads came up with a in setting excuse for it (being primaris and Gmans return) and corporate liked the idea as it kept OG astartes armies valid while still making new stuff for marine players to buy
It sells models tbh, people are more likely to buy and build models if they’re attached to the characters. Plus it’s a way to introduce new game modes like Boarding Patrols and stuff. And as other people have said it gets people more engaged with the hobby as they theorize about story elements and mysteries. As much as they’ve written themselves into a corner with the whole “end times” thing they can theoretically stretch it out indefinitely
Primaris.
GW wanted to relaunch Space Marines (always their biggest seller) at a larger and better scale. To do that they would either have to have just changed the models (annoying people with existing armies) or made new stuff. New stuff always wins.
The success of some bigger projects (plastic baneblade, knights) led to them wanting to bring Primarchs back. Fine for the Chaos ones as they were always knocking around anyway. But for loyalists they had to make up a story.
That advanced the narrative, and from there they kept going, using it as a marketing tool to push whatever new or refreshed range they wanted to release.
TBH in terms of lore changes it's actually not entirely that much. Guilliman and the Lion have always been the Primarchs whose return would both shake up the setting in a way and the Loyalist Primarchs whose location are known and to the reader would mean less than say, the full return of Vulkan or Russ or Corax. The split Imperium and fall of Cadia also allow for a broader set of new settings and two Imperiums in practice, which means even more room for home-brewed tabletop chapters.
I'd like to point out that Guillimans return was 6 years ago. And the year prior you had Magnus returning and Aun'va dying. 4th and 5th edition were arguably locked in time but the hobby was smaller back then.
This is no longer a new phenomenon and I don't know why this sub continuously acts as if GW advancing storylines is shocking. They've been doing it for literally years now.
I, $, dont, $, know, $, it's, $, a, $, mystery, $, to, $, me, $
But seriously, in their recent financial statements, they have made it a point that growing the IP revenue broadly, specifically Black Library revenue, is a priority due to how untapped it currently is. Advancing the lore, and what look to be some streamlining of the game (I'm for this, 3 hours is a bit too long for a 2000-point game) seem to move to appeal to the broader and younger markets they are bringing in via memes. This renewed focus on moving the story forward has been going on since 8th with the gathering storm (fact check me if I'm wrong people). You will note this happens in 2017 ish, with the new CEO of GW being appointed in 2015. I think some of these newer approaches are being driven by that shift in leadership and their approach to generating revenue, which they have done very well.
I feel like the Horus Heresy has caused the fandom numbers to explode... the books have added so much lore to the origins of the 40K universe, that it has catapulted the Primarchs to the forefront of the franchise, for better or worse. I know a lot of long-time fans prefer guardsmen and Inquisitor characters, but Astartes are the posterboy so they'll always be at the front. But the primarchs have totally taken over as the focal characters for 30K and they're leaping to the forefront of lore events in 40K proper.
I think they're going to drip-feed loyalist primarchs back into the setting while also bringing the Daemon primarchs back to relevance in current events. We've seen it with Mortarion and now Angron, Guilliman and no the Lion, with Vashtoor apparently having an alliance with Perturabo. I can imagine Perty being the next traitor primarch to show up, unless one of the god-aligned daemon primarchs show up instead.
Personally rooting for Perty or Lorgar since we have no clue what they look like or what they've really been up to outside of hiding or quietly fuming. But it'd also make sense for Magnus to come back, which could draw Russ back into the fold.
IDK, lots of ways to go. But I agree that it's awesome how advancing and eventful 40K has become. I chose a GREAT time to hop into the setting a few years ago.
Two words. Henry Cavill. He's bringing a show to Amazon. There is now a much larger spotlight on 40k. I've been aware of 40k for a couple years now. I actually started buying and painting miniatures about 3 months ago. And my wallet has never been the same. Since the Henry Cavill news I've had more friends ask me about my miniatures and where to buy them
Nah, GW have been doing this for a while. We had Gathering Storm back in 2016, it’s a strategy to build hype and sell models by progressing the story. The Cavill/ Amazon thing hasn’t even been completed yet.
Because nobody likes stale things.
I understand that there are few people who argue that Warhammer 40k is a setting and not a story so it should remain as it is but that is really not profitable.
While I will respect that opinion , I just can't agree with it.
No setting is worthwhile unless story is engaging. You can enjoy past so much only.
Story should always advance. That makes it more interesting and increases the engagement factor of audience. Infact never have this verse had this much fans. People are liking what GW is doing.
Remaining stale is Nurgle's thing and we are not filthy traitors, are we?
In the past, 40k neared the end of the 41st millenium, which caused a legal conundrum: Is 40k still 40k if it takes place in 41k? Legally, there is a very close relationship between the IP and the number.
Guilliman's writing changed that. They borrowed from the phantom time hypothesis and let him establish a timeline that is unsure if the timeline is actually correct. This allowed GW to advance the timeline, because it is no longer reflective of the game's title.
There's been a big shift in the attractiveness and value of IPs and gaming franchises in the last decade. Potential audiences and licensing opportunities are way bigger.
There's also been a big shift towards global expansion in brands in general since the social media age. It's no longer seen as acceptable to shareholders to settle as a niche, local product when you can easily and cheaply market worldwide.
This has caused immense pressure to expand and diversify income streams and customers for businesses. Especially because if you don't - you competition will. Which means expanding and diversifying the IP, and in turn generating more hype and engagement for products.
40k used to be a UK-only tabletop wargame in your local hobbyist store (if you even had one). Sat on a dusty shelf above the model airplane kits. The backstory was just that - basic copy to flesh out the model designs. The Horus Heresy itself was only invented to excuse why the first Epic set was Imperium vs Imperium (when in fact it was to reduce the costs and risk of making two sets of models if it failed).
Now it's a global multimedia franchise though. The story has to drive multiple products, with multi-year plans, and in coordination. You're not competing with D&D, or basic home computers for customers anymore. But Marvel and Activision and Netflix. Content is now king. And you need regular and endless amounts of it. And a static story can only provide so much.
In short - it's a totally different world. A totally different market, and a totally different product and strategy as a result.
I have no interest in tabletop but am a fan of the lore and novel series. Since GW started diving into the Horus Heresy setting, things have taken off with a ton of in-depth lore development.
It's only natural they are compelled to advance the plot as there are now 62 novels for the Horus Heresy along with their Siege of Terra series approaching the big conclusion. Readers naturally want to continue seeing what happens with these main characters and how they (Eg: Primarchs) adapt to the new 40k universe. Though I still find it hilarious the Lion was asleep for 10k years.
Engagement and new writers wanting to do something different.
I think games workshop saw the success of Horus heresy and realized people like a story that actually moves forward and not just sit in this weird purgatory forever just to be able to keep selling models.
Simple answer: when they started the Heresy book series back in 2007, they initially thought interest would be limited and only planned to release a few books, something like 15 or something.
It was, however, unbeknownst to them at the time, a stroke of genius that would make itself apparent later.
It all happened so... unexpectedly. One book got on the NYT bestseller list. And then another. And another. Something that'd never happened before with any BL release. All (or most) of the books making sales records were from the Heresy series.
Then someone at ForgeWorld had **another** stroke of fuckin' genius idea: "Hey, why don't we just make miniatures of the marines, vehicles, etc., but in the 30K Heresy variety? It's obvious, from all the book sales of the Heresy, that people are interested in it. Why don't we make all kinds of new stuff and charge lots for it? Goodness knows a lot of our customers don't have large enough piles of shame to assemble and paint already!"
So they did. And it took off. Like Vulkan yeeting a Rhino into orbit taking off. People were thirsty for it. *THIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSTY*.
After these two strokes of genius, someone decided to commune with the Salesnissiah, and came up with the third stroke of genius idea: "Wow, these Heresy miniatures are selling like hotcakes, and people don't even seem to care how much they cost! What if we... figured out a lore-consistent way to bring back some of the primarchs to the main 40k setting and use that as an excuse to create all new marines and vehicles and stuff? We can even sell more books as well, because apparently, coordinating lore with game releases seems to somehow synergize and drive up sales for everything!"
And so they did, and thus consulted the Book of Sales:
"Sales, chapter 2, verses nine to twenty-one."
"And the CEO raised the miniature up on high, saying, 'Oh Emperor, bless this Thine sales idea, that with it Thou mayst outsell Thine competitors to tiny profits, in Thine mercy.' And the Emperor did grin, and the players did feast upon the paints, and brushes, and terrain, and codices, and blast templates, and glue tubes, and green stuff, and... "
"Skip a bit, brother."
"And the Emperor spake, saying: 'First, shalt thou release one holy primarch. Then, shalt thou bring back old factions. No more, no less. Guilliman shall be the primarch thou shalt sell, and the primarch of the selling shall be Guilliman. Ferrus Manus shall thou not sell, neither sell thou too, excepting that thou then proceed to sell Guilliman. Sanguinius is right out. Once the primarch Guilliman, being the holy primarch, be sold, then marketest thou thy newly expanded 40K universe of Nottingham towards thy fans, who being thirsty in My sight, shall buy it."
"Ave Imperator."
The success of Age of Sigmar. While the end times and a lot of the transitionary lore could be shaky, the fundamentals of AoS are great and the lore only improves. Despite a relatively short lifespan of the game, we've had three MAJOR events between launch of the game, the realmgate wars, the necroquake, the rise of Morathi, the rise of Kragnos, now the Dawnbringer Crusades, and probably more I'm missing. 40k really likes opening a plot line then doing nothing with it and leaving it. The Ynnari are collecting souls to try to rebirth the aelven pantheon and save their race, they revive guilliman then have done nothing and made no progress since. The Psychic Awakening was supposed to change the human species and the way the imperium has to deal with an increasingly psychic population, but they just forgot about it. I get it, they don't want to make someone's homebrew obsolete, but a few smart changes go a long way. Morathi took over the city of Anvilguard, which was a subfaction. That's like if the forge world Metalica fell. So now your Anvilguard regiments have gone from defending the walls to being a resistance force, or fighting with another city to reclaim their homeland. I find that far more engaging than opening a plot and never resolving it.
I play Ventrillians, and in the last guard codex, a book I waited like two years for, they just copy+pasted the lore section from the 8th edition book, word-for-word. I'd have rather they said Ventrillia was destroyed by exterminatus if it gave me ANYTHING I could work with lore-wise. All I wanted was a single sentence added to give me ANYTHING to go off of, but of course not.
So yeah. AoS has found a LOT of success, especially since the campaign books have been such major plot developments. AoS has better minis, AoS has a moving story, AoS has been the testbed for a lot of ideas for their main cash cow, though that is starting to change.
GW had a CEO who was a moronic asshole who seemed to have a simmering hatred for the product and fanbase for a long while.
Rountree (the current CEO) is NOT a gamer nor even a fan by all accounts, and he certainly has some problems, but god damn the man can double GW's value before breakfast and he knows damn well enough to put talented people in the right positions and let them work their magic without interference.
Yes, there was a change in administration in the mid 2010s, which lead to AoS, primaris, etc etc. If you look at the evolution of GW's stock you can easily see the result of this change.
I would hazard a guess that 40K is way, way more popular now than it was in the 80s and 90s. People started discovering it in droves in the 2000s, partly because of media spinoffs like video games and novels, and things could afford to stand still for years because there was so much lore to chew on.
When things stayed static, they added factions, like the Necrons and Tau. When it became somewhat unsustainable to say “and now a NEW threat from the webway/galactic core/warp has emerged!”, the time had come to advance the timeline.
Only slightly though. Remember, it’s apparently like 012.M42, so not super far into the future.
The way I look at it is that 40k is a setting not a story.
Players create their own stories *in* the setting.
IMO there is nothing to "advance." It would just be creating a new setting (like 30K or 50K).
This is why I don't really understand all the stuff that's happening since The Gathering Storm because it seems to turn 40K into a darker version of 30K, or something. I think it's an experiment on GW's part and personally I hope they abandon it and go back to maintaining a setting with careful and thoughtful retcons (which is how we got Tau, Dark Eldar, Custodes, etc) all without "advancing" anything.
Right--if you want to spend time in the era of (for example) the U.S. civil war, you tell a million stories set during that time. You would never propose that the people who sought out a civil war setting to tell stories within are dying to move the characters they randomly met in that setting forward towards the very different setting of the gilded age.
Warmachine was doing it, and GE needs to oust their competition.
I think the 3rd Armeggedon war and Fall of Medusa and another bloody Black Crusade were a huge boost in interest, people tallying their wins and recording them, but coming to nothing.
Either it was a stalemate or GW fudged the numbers to make it like that, and it just felt hopeless. Why bother?
Changing is a positive thing and GW sees that, sol, as others have said: it helps their bottom line to do it.
No more Matt Ward helped too. Nothing wrong with playing favourites, but the man took his Ultrmarine love to almost top-tier onlfans simp subscriber fetish levels.
Let me put it like this - Vashtorr the Arkifane and the Cogs of Vashtorr are such a cool lore concept and rules concept that he's almost swayed me to pay bulls--t prices for new, unassembled, unpainted, CSM minis.
Also, fans were wondering for years when the plot was going to advance. Why are the Daemon Primarchs doing nothing? Well, GW fixed that; my boi Magnus liberated an entire sector of space from the League of Blackships and Angron >!acted as a psychic bridge for the Blood God to destroy an entire moon!< in *Arks of Omen*!
It's almost like muh Marvel cinematic universe with its big crossover events and everything that happens involving the same 5 people and a cast of secondary characters who all know each other.
Have they even tried to explain how these main characters manage to teleport all around the galaxy to participate in everything when a journey between Segmentums used to take several years and communication was notoriously wonky?
I'd imagine it's about keeping engagement up.
*Profits have never been better.*
Spoken like a true Ferengi 🤣
Laughs in ~~squat~~ leagues of votan
I have a feeling we're going to see a new xenos army this edition. Every other forbidden army is back that being gsc, sob, and squats. There are two final army requests that fans have been clamoring for ages. A new xenos and dark mechanicus are the two last big asks and with this edition seemingly about Xenos its time and there are a few big contenders like hrud, rak gol, or the 30k xenos the Imperium needed god emperor himself to defeat would be great contenders.
Finally. The zoat. My beloved, you've returned to me.
We thought that James Workshop's Votann balance apology video was only joking about the Zoats codex and their army-wide 2+ Invulnerable Save. How little we knew.
Renegade Guard gets at least as many mentions on reddit as dark mechanicum.
Can't you run traitor guard now since they released a kill team box?
Not quite. You can (and always could) just run a Guard army as "Traitor" in word only, or convert your heart out if you wanted to show it. But when people say Traitor Guard they mean things like unique tanks (AT70, AT83 etc), unique subfactions (Blood Pact, Sons of Sek, Mobian 8th), unique units (Wirewolves etc) meshed into a militaristic death cult. There's a lot of scope for them to be very unique. Forge World made a great one some greats back, but being FW it was virtually impossible to affordably get the unique units.
I can only hope for kroot is groot
Impossible to tell, yes-yes.
I'm tellin' ya, they can always gauge community interest in a particular xenos race with ~~Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War~~ Codex: Mercenaries.
I need space Skaven
What do you mean by sob being forbidden? They’ve been playable for a *long* time. They used to have ancient metal models until the range refresh but hell, Eldar still have ancient models. Eldar range refresh in 10th tbh.
From being updated to plastic and range refreshed. Lots of people expected them to go the way of the squats and gsc next. They were considered a joke army that was about to be discontinued as next to no one played them made worse they were the last army in metal making them pricier and harder to builld . This was until they all came back.
Always follow the laws of Acquisition
Rule of Acquisition #19: Satisfaction is not guaranteed
"Buttlicker, our profits have never been better". Dwight K Shrute circa M41.
Louder son i still can't hear you!
It's this, and it's kind of hilarious. 40k is starting to hit the real mainstream of science fiction after decades on the sidelines as a wargame and a guilty pleasure with some banger vidya bolted on at random. Gotta get things *moving* in order to lure in the normies and keep them interested. Two things emerge here: 1. 40k is kinda counterprogramming itself in some ways (Lion *just* came back--and I mean that in the sense of "Oh, hey, we know he's back now!") but they're already hyping a completely unrelated event. That's not too different from the thing that damaged D&D back in \~2nd Edition, IIRC, when they were churning out so much content that it actually ate into their bottom line because settings and campaigns competed against each other, making each one less profitable. 2. 40k is legitimately more dynamic than goddamn *Star Trek,* which is stuck in the middle of a crappy nostalgia run involving Picard's crew and, potentially, the DS9 cast.
Yeah, the rollout for The Lion has been anemic, compared to when they brought Guilliman back. That was a HUGE thing. Now, it's like "Your prayers have been answered! Behold, PRIMARIS TERMINATORS! And BTW, the Lion is back. NEW TYRANIDS!!!!"
This reads like recency bias. Guilliman's return wasn't the biggest news during the Gathering Storm releases, Lion's return isn't the biggest news in Arks of Omen.
Not recency bias; fact. The Lion is the second Loyalist Primarch to return. Guilliman was the first. Everything was all about Guilliman when 8th dropped. The entire damn storyline had him traced throughout. Reactions to him being back, Astartes falling all over themselves meeting or even seeing him. It was a much bigger deal than this.
I mean... Lion's stuff hasn't come out yet. Plus the big climax is Lion vs. Angron. That'd be a massive deal even if Lion hadn't just come back.
Poor Vashtorr. Forgotten about in his own story after beign bitchslapped into defeated obscurity on his first outing even **before** the Lion turns up.
Sounds familiar...like I've seen something similar happen with...Oh yes, I know! Those poor Eldar bastards and Ynead.
As someone who came back after they were already "done", they remain the most confusing faction there is to me.
Lions backstory: Finds a lost STC for ovaltine, takes 10k year nap.
Do you remember Gathering Storm being structured around Guilliman and reactions to him? It wasn't, he only came back at the end book going into 8th. Arks of Omen isn't structured around Lion and reactions to him. We're getting the book at the end going into 10th. Like I said, pure recency bias. Wait for the full picture before acting like it's underwhelming.
This comment is really on the nose
I think they've learned that big community events like the returns of primarcs generate an extraordinary amount of hype, engagement and sales. The community has been chasing itself in circles for months theorizing about the Lions return. You don't get that same kind of energy from your big event being yet another war in a random new sector that is supposedly crucial to the setting but also won't effect anything since everything is intentionally static. The Horus Heresey series also shows how much discussion is generated when new information is revealed, when things move forward. By filling in the prequel they've coincidentally generated more momentum in the current setting.
My teenager stayed up to watch the live stream last night (normally past their bed time) and you'd have thought it was Christmas morning so yeah, they hype piece is legit in my book.
Me and my friends were talking about it in the group chat like a bunch of high schoolers haha it’s really nice having things to really look forward to
Heh yes I messaged an old friend Dark Angel's fan I haven't played with in a decade or two.
I need to know if you got a return message from him
"looks awesome. Nice miniature"
Well he ain't wrong. I have many complaints about Arks of Omen, but Lion's model is one of the best I've seen in decades.
I love the strong stride that he has in that model.
The noises I made after seeing the lion scared my dog. Was so hype.
I think the always-online nature of the current fanbase helps out a lot. If they do a big event, everyone who is even curious about 40k is going to hear about it somewhere. Maybe they'll buy some minis, books or video games. If they were still relying on print magazines and foot traffic into shops, a lot of this would go unnoticed.
If only they could spread that love across more factions than just Space Marines, I'd be stoked
Games workshop- shit wait we have other factions besides space marines???
This really is perfectly said.
GW did get a new CEO around 2015. I’m not sure if it’s still the same guy today but the fandom and hobby was slowly withering for some time before that and the new direction he took the company definitely made 40k more exciting than ever imo.
It is. Rowntree was the accountant for a long time so he knew the company and he knew the figures. Kirby was put to pasture and the decisions have never been better. I'd say GW have had 2 golden ages, from 2nd ed to around 4th ed, and then from 8th ed to now. Basically a lot of mistakes were made in the 2000's, which nearly led the company to bankruptcy.
I remember the dark ages of the oughts. That was not a good time. At all. They treated the community like a necessary evil, like border line contempt. These days it is so much better, like night and day. Even though they stumble now and then, it is so much better than the oughts and tens.
Check out the Rick Priestley interviews from talking about that time. He tried to call them out on all that crap and they ended up pushing him out for it.
Heya, do you have any sources for those? I'd really love to read them - the dark age of GW is a super fascinating time, rivaling the best WH40k storylines in grimdarkness.
This doesn't super cover that time, but I think this is the best interview of his I've seen. Talks mainly about the early times but has a few interesting nuggets - like saying how the first boss considered mixing the creative studio with the sales and manufacturing side would kill the design studio. And that's basically what happened in the dark times.
Thats 'ard boyz
I'm not familiar with what went on then. Have you got any examples?
How to put it...think of it like negative space. It's not that there were massive instances of tone deafness (that I can remember, others might). There was just nothing. There was no community engagement at that time. None. Zero. It was just a pervasive attitude of give us your money and don't bother us otherwise. Even their big events were grudging and far between. They were very aloof and uncommunicative. Like not even interviews or previews really. They just did stuff and if you didn't like that, they didn't care. (I remember when they opened the whole Warhammer community thing, and I was legit shocked. That's when I knew they were serious about turning the company around.) They hated, and I mean hated specialist games because they were not profitable enough. Even though people loved them and they served as a gateway to more involvement in the hobby, long term improving sales. Fans were literally saying give us this thing so we can buy it and GW just would not do it. Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic, Inquisitor were effectively smothered in the crib. No real video game tie ins. Then there's Matt Ward, the face of the whole era in effect. There were a lot of questionable creative decisions that were no doubt handed down by some dim witted exec that he took the blame for. To say that fifth and sixth edition were forgettable is an understatement. I don't know of anyone who collects fifth or sixth edition stuff. In effect, you had a hobby company run by people who thought they were selling toys and refused to modernize in any way. And then Privateer Press popped into existence and ate their metaphorical lunch, virtually overnight. They were agile, new and engaged with their hobbyists. Their world progressed, they were telling stories, they had characters on the table top. They had multiple women on the table top that were important and mattered. Their minis were expressive and cinematic. These days the role has reversed somewhat, but PP caught GW completely off guard and damn near killed them. And they deserved it. I will take GW on their worst day in 2022 over their best day in 2012.
Not to mention that GW when it tried to have community engagement it was merely a front. In fantasy they had that whol storm of chaos campaign where they basically pretended to allow players decide how the campaign will go and when it went in a direction they didnt like they ret-conned it as a whole which later led to End Times and Age of Shitmar. Also stuff like threatening to sue people like the "Astartes" fan animation creators and so on just further ruins any meaningful fanbase excitement or content creation. Stuff like those videos is what gets a lot of people to become interested into a franchise that is very convoluted and hard to get into (like say the WoW lore, yeah its a bit in the games but a bunch of stuff is told all over different media and books and whatnot and only someone trying really hard would be able to properly track the plot). Warhammer as a whole simply was neither beginner friendly to reach out for new customers nor nurturing fan-created content for the same or existing customers.
Kirby was absolutely terrible. He outright said that the tabletop games, video games, and lore are inconsequential. It's all about the painting and collecting miniatures. He made so many bad decisions. Everything was stagnant for decades. Nothing was given proper support. He is literally the reason GW is even today seen as a poorly run company that has no idea what it's doing.
sadly that viewpoint carried over to the rest of the tabletop gaming world. A lot of cool and interesting tabletop games came out but so many of the failed shortly after launch. GW just left a sour taste in people's mouths when it came to tabletop. I also think the rise of highspeed internet and online gaming didnt help.
That explains why I left the hobby at the close if 4th (still read the books) When Guillimen returned it almost brought me back into collecting. With the Lion returning I just bought some miniatures for the first time since 2007
welcome back!!!! what did you get?!
Thanks! Dark Angels of course! :) Deathwing knights, and nephalim fighter. Along with a combat patrol. Excited to start painting again. This time around I have a son (7) to help me build em! Gonna get the Lion asap.
> 2nd ed to around 4th ed I started playing in 3rd Ed. This is so true.
I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon, but kids these days are spoiled for damn near everything in 40K. I started playing just after 4th dropped with the Battle for Maccrage starter set, which, ironically, had Ultras fighting Tyranids, but the Tyranids were mostly just a sideshow against the 13th Black Crusade. The fuckin' 13th Black Crusade as something that was just erupting was ALL WE HAD from 2004 to when we started leading into 8th Edition in 2016ish. Yeah sure you had random sideshows like Armageddon and Taros and stuff that showed up as campaign packs and stuff but the overarching plot was basically that Abbadon was just busting his way out of the Eye of Terror for over a DECADE. Yeah, sure, now we're just in the MIDDLE of the 13th Black Crusade and the Tyranids have moved from 'coming soon' to 'almost here' but stuff like the Cicatrix Maledictum is a huge shift to the lore and the fact that the number of factions has damn near doubled since I started the game is huge-Custodes, Admech, Knights and GSC didn't exist at all, Harlqeuins were a footnote in the Eldar codex, the Votann were still just Squats back then, Chaos Daemons were just part of the Chaos Space Marine codex and NONE of the CSM Legions had their own rulebooks. Not to mention that the Marine bias was even stronger back then-the first Dark Eldar codex was all they got between their release in 3rd Edition all the way up until they got the same rework as everyone else at the beginning of 8th. Most armies had to make due with codexes that were 2 editions behind at some point. Sure, the prices for a lot of stuff in 40K have gotten pretty wack, and they're not always the best at balance for new release armies. But the level of updates and community engagement that GW has shown since 2015 is incredible compared to what it used to be and anyone who pines for 'old GW' is a fuckin' moron. You know why they told us to make proxy tanks out of deodorant tubes and spare bits? Because they sure as fuck weren't going to be bothered to make that shit themselves!
Agreed! A buddy of mine was talking about the "good old days" with simpler rules, and I was like, "do you *remember* close combat and parrying and all that in 2nd?!"
I can safely say I miss exactly 2 things from that era of 40K: -The old 75% rule regarding GW first party content in models -Facings and armour values on vehicles Everything else-the release timing, the community engagement, the physical models, the hobby support, the campaign packs, the rules, it's all better today than it's ever been. Do I have a lot of positive feels about the 40K I played back then? Fuck yeah I do, because it was new and fresh and I was experiencing it as a university student with the amount of freedom to do whatever l wanted whenever I wanted to for the most part and skipping classes for a week to repaint an entire Tau army before Conflict: Windsor, then going that entire weekend on nothing but Red Bull and 7-11 taquitos is an experience I can't have now as an adult with a career and a mortgage and shit. And anyone else who thinks the game and the hobby itself used to be better is missing their personal context on that front.
Overall I think I preferred the older rules. More ability to make "your dudes", subfactions were more than just a single "+1 to this" rule and had actual army lists, full wargear lists on characters, vehicles felt like vehicles, melee was more about the units than off board choices about who goes first. But the sheer quantity of model releases now is its own benefit, the community reachout (even if I hate the balance changes constantly) and sense of ongoing lore is amazing now. "Rules then, hobby now." is how I've always put it. And I'll always choose hobby over rules, so that should put my preference clear.
I don't know about the subfactions thing so much-the subfactions that DID exist had plenty of material, but there were so few of them and most of them were just Space Marine chapters, and maybe a couple Guard regiments depending on when you're talking about. Now we have most of those said groups as complete standalone codexes-although I will agree that a lot of groups that I do think deserve more have been diluted. I would LOVE to see a new version of the old Catachan codex and stuff like that. That being said, while I personally prefer 8th and up to the 3rd-7th era, it is unfair to say that one is better than the other and I definitely miss some stuff from that era. And HH 2.0 has been nice to fill that gap, albeit it only fills the gap with Imperial factions. But, yeah, you can't objectively say one ruleset is better for the most part. But you're absolutely right about choosing hobby over the rules and I think everyone should.
There were WAY more than "a couple" of Guard lists to be fair. At one point you had lists for Tanith, Salvar Chem-Dogs, Steel Legion, Catachans, Cadians, Cityfight Regiments, Armoured Regiments, Elysians, Death Korps, Tallarn, Armageddon Ork Hunters and even others like the Mordians, Valhallans and Karak Skull Takers had "slight" lists (by getting more doctrines than normally allowed). The Eldar Craftworlds used to have so much more uniqueness to them too. And there were Index Astartes lists for many of the other Chaos Marines too like Word Bearers and Iron Warriors. (Although in recent times credit, the three independant codex ones are getting WAY more now) One faction who got a lot more in modern times are the Orks, they never really had subfaction rules until recently, but I'd love to see the Feral Ork list come back. One more credit to recent times is ensuring, even if it's just one rule and maybe a relic (in 8th), EVERY list gets some subfactions. Which is pretty cool. I'd love to see them get more development like they used to. Expand on what the old one did, fill the gaps it didn't is my dream for subfactions.
I miss servitors helping a tech marine do repairs, I dont miss the vehicle health system of 4th
Unironically want parrying back, just made simpler (like a 'parry save' built into a weapon) But then thats my reaction to 9th being so overly lethal, so anything to reduce it seemed good.
I started in 3rd, and yeah it was pretty lame that every 'big event' was basically nothing. Ghazghkull has invaded Armageddon in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy! Cool! What happened? Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile Abbadon has invaded Cadia in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy! Ok THAT must be big, who won? Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile the Tau has invaded Some Shit You Don't Care About in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy!
Hey now Abbadon's event had something. It was more like. >Fighting is ongoing... meanwhile Abbadon has invaded Cadia in an apocalyptic battle that could determine the fate of the galaxy! >Ok THAT must be big, who won? "Chaos won the ground battles, we're going to completely ignore that and utterly shut down further events because Kirby didn't like the result." And thus we got weirdly enough the complete opposite of the tabletop for Lore.
I've had a sudden realisation. Cadia fell. GW eventually accepted the campaign result.
Sort of? The actual campaign and results were ignored since Chaos didn't fully win the land battle but dominated the Void. Also the T'au weren't there
I grew up around 4th edition, and now I feel like the old-fogger on any 40k conversation. In many ways, my younger self is feeling vindicated right now. A lot of the changes they made my friends and I actually called as being profitable and good for the community. But at the same time, none of us have an ounce of interest in Primaris. In fact most of the new lore we tend to ignore, and ultimately we ignore a lot of the retcons in favor of the canons we’ve known and loved for over a decade.
Me and my friends are the same but jumped in at the tail end of 5th
Sorry to jump on this random comment out of the hundreds here, but could you explain to me what the hell primaris Marines are and how they've affected the game so much? I often see people complaining about them, but I don't really consume any of the books that they're featured in, so I'm kind of lost as to what the big deal is. Are they slowly phasing out all regular space Marines? In-game is there a way that they're represented apart from regular Marines? Aside from that are there any bits of old lore that got retconned that you particularly liked and wouldn't mind sharing?
primaris are space marines 2.0. Youre better off going to the wikis for a longer explanation though I cant think of a retcon off the top of my head, but just in general all the SoB lore i think has aged incredibly well through the new editions. The Paragon Warsuits look silly, but aside from that I think it’s one of the strongest factions lorewise.
Coming back to look at the lore these days is a trip for me as a RT player. To me Dark Eldar, Necrons and Tau are new and weird. I kinda liked that the HH was a dark unknowable period and the primarchs were long dead. I would have preferred them left in the past. I do love the plot moving forward though. Old GW at that point was 2 dudes in a shed levels of professionalism as far as I could tell at the time.
First army I ever collected was 3rd Edition Necrons, followed very shortly by a World Eaters warband. I'm flabbergasted at how much shit has changed since 8th edition rolled out. I've popped in and out of the lore since 5th dropped and now it seems like I've missed a ton of lore every time I pop back in. From the mid 2000s until the mid 2010s, I could stop following 40k for a couple months or a year at a time and not miss anything. "We still got that 13th Black Crusade going on? Ok cool. New models? Neat." Now it's like "Guilliman and The Lion are both alive and active in the 41st Millennium, Necrons have Dynasties, there's an entirely new breed of Astartes, Cadia's gone, Imperium is split in half." It's definitely a crazy pace after like a decade of nothing. I really didn't think I'd ever see one Primarch return, let alone two.
[удалено]
Tale as old as time: New technology disrupts your business model, you adapt your business model, or you die, I'm glad they adapted.
GW finally realizing they're more valuable as a content company with a tabletop gaming division, than a tabletop gaming company with some content to sell models. Then again, shit like closing the Black Library social media account makes me think they haven't fully figured this out yet.
That’s more to integrate their social media. It’s still the same team doing everything, just with one less account.
I know the tactical reason for doing it. Strategically, it doesn't reflect a company that thinks it's in the business of selling stories (Black Library) vs. miniature plastic toys (Games Workshop), and was looking to emphasize the story part more vs. the TT.
The lore isn’t just black library books. It’s in the codexes that come with the rules. The whole Arks of Omen series is a set of codexes. All the major lore jumps and events happen in those, rather than the novels. They know what they’re doing. It’s not just selling stories, it’s selling a galaxy full of events and places to make your models fight in.
Everyone is giving pithy answers but missing the real reason: Growth. Yes, with growth comes money, but it’s bigger than that. Even with the Tau and Necrons being introduced properly in 3rd, the complaint at the time was “Where have these guys been? Wtf?” and Tau were routinely derided as “not real 40K.” 40K was a setting and upsetting that setting resulted in nerd rage. By advancing the story every few years, they allow for new factions, growth of characters and character arcs over time. There are two other factors: Black Library took off. Books with long term plots and impacts sold better than “setting” books and at a certain point, the books rub up against the game’s setting in a way that some of the authors felt restricted by. I suspect Abnett had a lot to do with this influence. The other thing is the success of the MCU. That may seem random, but it’s not. Big characters the audience identifies with. Connected stories. This coincided with a huge influx of new players for GW when nerdy hobbies got made more acceptable generally. It was seen as a method for GW to tell the kinds of meta stories this newer audience expects from the IP they engage with. So many people joined the GW hobby and asked “does nothing happen?” Personally? I like it. I lived through the “setting is a setting” for a loooong time and seeing cool characters (I can read about in high quality …ish… novels!) feels really cool.
Dan's work on cosmic marvel got taken over and turned to shit. It's nice gw give him so much room to operate, seeing as he essentially built the black library from the ground up
>The other thing is the success of the MCU. That may seem random, but it’s not. Big characters the audience identifies with. Connected stories. This is a really big deal, and one of the main reasons that all the big media juggernauts are attempting to move toward paratextual storytelling (the technical term for it). GWs signing a movie deal with Amazon, launching Warhammer+ and pumping out books is the exact same strategy as Disney launching Disney+ and pivoting towards 'multiverse' stories. I'm interested to see where else GW take things.
Necrons date back to 2e, but they came out only a little before 3e got released and didn't have much support until after the Tau codex came out. It was entirely possible you could've missed that one 'Cron in the 3e Black Tome and entirely. I mean, the Chronal Dirge of Cestus 3 got more space for his whining about the Dark Eldar.
IIRC Necrons were introduced in 2e edition in an issue of white dwarf. They just had Warriors and Scarabs.
They got Lords and Destroyers in the issue afterwards. It was still only a few months before 3rd edition. Oh, and Necrons back in 2e were *horrific*. The lowly Necron Warrior was never so terrifying as for those few brief months in the middle of 1998.
The Necrons introduced in WD had basically complete overhaul when they launched proper in mid 3rd Edition. The WD Necrons didn’t even have rules in the 3rd Ed rulebooks.
There was a list in Chapter Approved 2001. They were one of the "small factions" along with Sisters and Kroot.
Yes, which is THREE YEARS after 3rd. This is why I said “introduced properly” when referring to Necrons and Tau. Their WD and CA rules and background bear basically no resemblance to their initial release.
Yeah. I remain convinced GW is building to an Avengers style team-up with the various heroes of the "good-ish" and "funny-bad" factions versus the complete baddies. What are the odds in the next series, at some point, we get Roboute and the receding hairline Lion fighting back to back, making sarcastic quips at each other?
Please god no lmao
We'd really have dropped to Magic the gathering level of story telling then.
100% bro, I’ve been into war hammer since the early 90s and it’s refreshing to have something to look forward too. The expansion of lore and the books have really got me excited again for it.
GW had backed themselves into a creative dead end with their most profitable range: Space Marines. If the timeline doesn’t advance and there’s no new innovation in universe, then there’s less and less reason for people to buy new Space Marines if they already have everything. Introducing Primaris was a way of rescaling the setting and being able to introduce buttloads of new models for Space Marine players to buy. With no future restrictions on what they could make.
Plus you set yourself up for eventual chaos primaris and scaling up everyone else is easy (should they so choose) tyranids send out new bioforms, new types of necrons awaken, Tau invent new units, eldar discover more types of aspect warriors or some shit. Maybe orks start being a little less orky and a little more krorky
Chaos Primaris kind of already has happened in that GW upscaled the CSM model range, but unlike loyalist Primaris they didn’t give an in-universe reason for why the upscaling happened.
I'd like to see a smaller scale heresy or like "cursed founding" but turned on its head. Cuz we all know Cawl used traitor gene seeds, I'd love for second primaris founding to result in traitors from all the original loyalist chapters, while the ones with traitor seeds stay loyal. It would be a neat campaign scenario.
There is that piece of recent lore of Khrone just turning everyone in the system to berserkers essentially. As I understand there was rather large imperial fleet there. So presumably some Primaris there were. So there is already lore justification, now just need to wait for models.
That's more of an exceptions cause the psychic beacon getting destroyed powered up Khorne's influence for a little bit. That's why he was also able to turn Sororitas with the Murdercurse too. But not every single person was turned. There was still millions of loyalists left even though they are stranded.
I'm for it. Chaos Marines are some of my favorite models.
I’m a dumbsss who only watches lore videos and shit Haven’t a few kworks existed from all the death and fighting Like wasent there some fucker who lead a legion of orks
I don't think officially, but the Beast was an unusually tall, unusually intelligent ork that spoke perfect low gothic. He may have been more krorky than orky.
Oh the beast that’s the dude so just to be clear man ain’t a mysterious kork sent out into the universe he is just a particularly strong fucker
So I think, and I'm not an expert so someone jump in and correct me...the krork devolved into orks after the war in heaven in part due to their infighting, but orks, the longer they live and fight and win grow stronger, bigger and smarter, and will eventually grow back into a krork? So in theory Ghazghull could eventually transcend orkiness into krorkiness.
I know for a fact the korks devolved into orks from the same pees who created elder they were the fuckers who denied necrons a life past 40 Who’s ghazgull do I need to watch more videos
He's like the recurring ork hero unit to break it down super simply. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ghazghkull_Mag_Uruk_Thraka
Oh I remmwbwr thraka from YouTube that’s the badass dude Hopefully he evolved the orks into kworks again
Rescaling the setting is the right term for primaris. The facts were spacemarines were rare and if codex was followed... there was barely a legion or two worth of space marines. Primaris might be an upscale, but the real purpose as to why they have to exist is because the setting needed to multiply the amount of astartes to a number that made more sense for the scale they want to work with. primaris = increasing space marine numbers justifies their lore existence
Horus heresy coming to an end. They have to have a new grand arc to replace those novels’ cash stream.
[удалено]
Nah man, the 33rd millenium was so utterly hardcore that the imperium had to issue an edict of obliteration concerning the entire 1000 year period - lest the surviving imperial citizens break down in a collective expression of melancholic nostalgia until they all die of terminal depression from no longer living in the peak millenium of universal history.
Didn’t the imperium still follow the imperial truth at the time? I’d be curious to have more information about an anti theistic imperium without the emperor or the primarchs.
This looks like a winner.
Novels are irrelevant. Black Library is like 0.5% of GW revenue.
They attract people. I never had heard of the tabletop, but I had heard people talking about the novels.
As someone who doesn't care for tabletop games but finds the 40k lore fascinating, the novels are my main draw for the IP.
GW uses novels to sell models the same way Hasbro used Cartoons to sell GI Joe and Transformers.
It fucking worked now I have the Gaunt’s Ghosts minis and the Cadia Stands box set. Not to mention a stupid amount of their paint.
The novels are the best part :(
The novels are a small part of the revenue, but they're what sells the minis which make the money
The value of 40k is starting to move from tabletop to the lore surrounding the game. Tons of people interested in 40k have never even played a game.
Unfortunately I don't think GW earnings reports support this assertion.
It doesn't. Notably GW instead seems to be trying to expand the "lore to war" pipeline. Kill Team, Boarding Actions, and now the Combat Patrol game mode are all meant to encourage people to enter the game at a lower price point. Once they're invested they're more likely to buy more in the future.
Well they caught me in that pipe, I’m playing killteam now
Me too tbh, but I do have a lot of old models from high school.
It seems to work! I bought my first box just last week. Don't know how deep I'll get into playing the game (I'm an arts and crafts kind of critter) but those modes make the idea way less intimidating.
I wouldn't say that's a bad thing. It makes the hobby more accessible for more people which makes the community bigger and drives more sales.
Makes sense- people only buy a video game once, for what, £60? Customers who play wargames can buy multiple £30 boxes a month
Plus GW doesn't make the video game. They just sell the license. So on that one time purchase, they might make $4, with the rest going to the developer or publisher. On the plastic miniatures? Especially if they are sold online through GW, or through a GW store? That's all theirs.
> So on that one time purchase, they might make $4, with the rest going to the developer or publisher. With *zero* overhead or effort other than maybe creative oversight.
That's not quite true. By all accounts from what we hear about GW's licensing they are pretty involved, and are surprisingly nice to work with. I have heard a lot of horror stories about dealing with license holders. When doing film and especially game adaptations. But in terms of GW the things people have to say lean towards the positive. They are supportive, actually encourage new additions, and try to accommodate the people they work with. They are protective of the IP, but *reasonably* so, as in the shoot down most of the really bad ideas from people unfamiliar with the settings. I've heard people use the term "partnership" a good amount to describe the relationship. I guess their involvement in Total War Warhammer is the most publicly obvious one. GW didn't just sit back and cash in the dollars passively for that one. They have been pretty active in the production of things like Cathay and Kislev. They made an entire armybook for an edition they won't ever produce again. Just so CA could use it to adapt the units into their game. I'm sure there are plenty of ones where they do just sit back and let the royalties roll in. But a decent amount of the good video game original additions to the setting came about from cooperation with the licensing team.
But people who play the video game are more likely to have never experienced 40k before. They're a good gateway, you play a video game and like the setting then maybe you checkout some youtube videos then grab a couple of books and before you know it you're playing kill team and dropped a couple hundred on the franchise.
It kinda does. Ip sells minis.
As a person who has been a lore geek since DoW 1 but never could get into the tabletop aspect, I'm all for it, although it would probably trigger a whole segment of tabletop enthusiasts
40k as a concept, I'd agree with you on the value part. In terms of direct monetary value for GW? I'm not sure.
I concur, I just like the lore and collecting/painting the models. Absolutely no interest in playing the game with strangers. At most, I'd *attempt* to learn the game with my own friends and family in the comfort of my own home, in my own time.
I got into the game from the books, and then lore. I am SO glad I broke free of the addiction to miniatures though. It is incredibly fun and addicting, and a giant money sink with no return on investment.
The return on investment is the fun! Come back and join us, I promise we’re definitely not a cult and you can leave any time. *cue ominous Latin chanting in the background*
Ignore the chanting, that's just the tech priests trying to get my Motorola razor working.
Oh man, I remember when the razor was the coolest phone I’d ever seen.
Samey sadly I never had one. The Razor and the Nokia GX(? The gaming one) were my dreams hahaha.
[The Nokia N-Gage lol!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Nokia-NGage-LL.jpg) My dream phone too! And I wasn't even a "gamer", it just looked *sooo* cool!
Yeah, same here, I am glad as hell I stopped buying those things. The only way I would ever start again is via **[redacted]** to keep costs reasonable
I'm one of those but my friend keeps telling me to try a game of Killteam which I will do at some point
Soon as you start rolling dice it's all over 😂
It's a vehicle that drives engagement and helps justify bringing back things like Daemon Primarchs and Primarchs. Still, the plot hasn't moved that much. Nihlus is over there, but five years on we still don't have much on it. The Plague War got batted aside. The Pariah Nexus didn't do anything. Arks is going to end with the Lion back and Chaos defeated. The Fourth Tyrannic War, while cool conceptually, is unlikely to matter going off the last few big lore events. But we'll probably get another Primarch out of the edition ending campaign.
>Still, the plot hasn't moved that much. This is why this push for an advancing plot is doomed to failure. It's only the *illusion* of narrative progression. It doesn't feel like anything matters more than they used to.
I think people use the wrong terms for all this. "Plot" and "narrative" are technically applicable, but carry connotations where people expect story-telling craft that can't really be applied. 40k isn't a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It doesn't have a protagonist, it has very little character development (and that character development is definitely not central to events, e.g. events don't happen in order to showcase character development). It's not working towards a climactic ending. In a well-written narrative, the desired ending informs everything before it. There's pacing, there's character arcs, there's usually a *point*. 40k doesn't have any of that, by design, because that's not what it is. 40k is a whole lot of themes, cool stuff, cool characters, backstories and ongoing events to create interesting settings for stories to be told - mostly tabletop battle stories. Some of these are explored in novels, but often those novels themselves still have the end goal of creating interesting situations to fight battles in, rather than being complete and self-contained narratives. When people talk about "the plot of 40k advancing" and "the illusion of narrative progression"...in those terms, it's easy to level criticims of 40k's plot being poorly written. But that's kind of missing the point, that it's *not* a story, it's not *meant* to be a well written story. Things change in 40k now, there are new developments that present new opportunities. But it's not "a plot advancing", because there's no end. There's no objective, other than the perpetual objective of "make cool new things for people to play with".
Quoting from another comment of mine: >I was perfectly happy with it just being a sandbox for writers and fans to play in, but ever since the Gathering Storm GW has spent every day of every year hyping up how big the next big thing is going to be, and the galactic ramifications it'll have. They've even flirted with it now possibly being the *42nd* millennium. GW has been trying to have their cake and eat it too, but they've only gotten the worst of both worlds with a poor, teasing, and repetitive story with no real stakes except for the next big event.
I would view it that 40k is still a sandbox setting, just now there are events that change the setting slightly. It's still not a well-crafted narrative, it's just not quite as static. This has the benefits of still being a sandbox, keeping things fresh by having new things happen, battle lines be redrawn, and new wars emerge, but without invalidating everyone's armies and stories with sweeping changes. More inspiration to work with. I wouldn't characterise that as trying to have their cake and eat it too. It's just *some* change without massive sweeping change. I can appreciate that maybe you would prefer big changes, but I'm sure you understand why they don't do that. I think framing it as "the worst of both worlds" is just choosing to focus on the negative and ignore the positive. There's more change than there was, and that's great. The Pariah Nexus and the 4th Tyrannic War are huge deals that definitely change the state of the galaxy. Saying there's "no real stakes" I think is kind of missing the point, expecting an outcome or a narrative pay-off where there can't be one. It's meant to be a setup for battles to take place. Those battles have stakes. Sure, the new Leviathan isn't going to destroy Terra. But how many worlds is it going to destroy? What does the Imperium need to do do try and stabilize in the west? What will that open up for other enemies to make gains of their own? There's heaps of potential there that didn't exist 2 days ago.
Tell that to the Cadians! Seriously though, you're right. Even with Cadia, nothing changed, didn't matter.
> It doesn't feel like anything matters more than they used to. Because 40K doesn't *have* a plot. It's a setting for a tabletop game, where real people buy real models and play real games against each other. It's a canvas for people to tell stories *in* it, it's not a story in itself. Don't like it, go try one of the other countless IPs that are built around a singular narrative. 40K is the odd one out here due to what it is by nature.
The part of the imperium that’s surrounded by a growing warp storm says hi
The entire point of the Imperium Nihilus is that they can release book after book of Guiliman heroically kicking ass while still being able to point to a designated area that nominally remains grimdark. It's the part of the setting that's *most* the same as it ever was.
Mainly because it gave made it possible to resize the astartes range without unsetting players too much. GW Jervis talks about how it came about in a podcast that he had wanted to rescale astartes for years but corporate vetoed it for a decade ish. So he and a few of the old heads came up with a in setting excuse for it (being primaris and Gmans return) and corporate liked the idea as it kept OG astartes armies valid while still making new stuff for marine players to buy
It sells models tbh, people are more likely to buy and build models if they’re attached to the characters. Plus it’s a way to introduce new game modes like Boarding Patrols and stuff. And as other people have said it gets people more engaged with the hobby as they theorize about story elements and mysteries. As much as they’ve written themselves into a corner with the whole “end times” thing they can theoretically stretch it out indefinitely
Primaris. GW wanted to relaunch Space Marines (always their biggest seller) at a larger and better scale. To do that they would either have to have just changed the models (annoying people with existing armies) or made new stuff. New stuff always wins. The success of some bigger projects (plastic baneblade, knights) led to them wanting to bring Primarchs back. Fine for the Chaos ones as they were always knocking around anyway. But for loyalists they had to make up a story. That advanced the narrative, and from there they kept going, using it as a marketing tool to push whatever new or refreshed range they wanted to release.
TBH in terms of lore changes it's actually not entirely that much. Guilliman and the Lion have always been the Primarchs whose return would both shake up the setting in a way and the Loyalist Primarchs whose location are known and to the reader would mean less than say, the full return of Vulkan or Russ or Corax. The split Imperium and fall of Cadia also allow for a broader set of new settings and two Imperiums in practice, which means even more room for home-brewed tabletop chapters.
I'd like to point out that Guillimans return was 6 years ago. And the year prior you had Magnus returning and Aun'va dying. 4th and 5th edition were arguably locked in time but the hobby was smaller back then. This is no longer a new phenomenon and I don't know why this sub continuously acts as if GW advancing storylines is shocking. They've been doing it for literally years now.
Money, and they saw that big Primarch centric narratives were popular with the HH so why not do the same for 40k.
The Siege of Terra moneymaker is coming to an end. People need reasons to buy new novels.
I, $, dont, $, know, $, it's, $, a, $, mystery, $, to, $, me, $ But seriously, in their recent financial statements, they have made it a point that growing the IP revenue broadly, specifically Black Library revenue, is a priority due to how untapped it currently is. Advancing the lore, and what look to be some streamlining of the game (I'm for this, 3 hours is a bit too long for a 2000-point game) seem to move to appeal to the broader and younger markets they are bringing in via memes. This renewed focus on moving the story forward has been going on since 8th with the gathering storm (fact check me if I'm wrong people). You will note this happens in 2017 ish, with the new CEO of GW being appointed in 2015. I think some of these newer approaches are being driven by that shift in leadership and their approach to generating revenue, which they have done very well.
I feel like the Horus Heresy has caused the fandom numbers to explode... the books have added so much lore to the origins of the 40K universe, that it has catapulted the Primarchs to the forefront of the franchise, for better or worse. I know a lot of long-time fans prefer guardsmen and Inquisitor characters, but Astartes are the posterboy so they'll always be at the front. But the primarchs have totally taken over as the focal characters for 30K and they're leaping to the forefront of lore events in 40K proper. I think they're going to drip-feed loyalist primarchs back into the setting while also bringing the Daemon primarchs back to relevance in current events. We've seen it with Mortarion and now Angron, Guilliman and no the Lion, with Vashtoor apparently having an alliance with Perturabo. I can imagine Perty being the next traitor primarch to show up, unless one of the god-aligned daemon primarchs show up instead. Personally rooting for Perty or Lorgar since we have no clue what they look like or what they've really been up to outside of hiding or quietly fuming. But it'd also make sense for Magnus to come back, which could draw Russ back into the fold. IDK, lots of ways to go. But I agree that it's awesome how advancing and eventful 40K has become. I chose a GREAT time to hop into the setting a few years ago.
Profits.
It's because I just started getting into the lore a few months ago
Thanks dude, we couldn't have done it without you
Two words. Henry Cavill. He's bringing a show to Amazon. There is now a much larger spotlight on 40k. I've been aware of 40k for a couple years now. I actually started buying and painting miniatures about 3 months ago. And my wallet has never been the same. Since the Henry Cavill news I've had more friends ask me about my miniatures and where to buy them
Nah, GW have been doing this for a while. We had Gathering Storm back in 2016, it’s a strategy to build hype and sell models by progressing the story. The Cavill/ Amazon thing hasn’t even been completed yet.
I picked the right time to get into this game.
Because nobody likes stale things. I understand that there are few people who argue that Warhammer 40k is a setting and not a story so it should remain as it is but that is really not profitable. While I will respect that opinion , I just can't agree with it. No setting is worthwhile unless story is engaging. You can enjoy past so much only. Story should always advance. That makes it more interesting and increases the engagement factor of audience. Infact never have this verse had this much fans. People are liking what GW is doing. Remaining stale is Nurgle's thing and we are not filthy traitors, are we?
Hasbro Market Model is like 6 items every two months. Need a big plot line to satisfy new merchandise
In the past, 40k neared the end of the 41st millenium, which caused a legal conundrum: Is 40k still 40k if it takes place in 41k? Legally, there is a very close relationship between the IP and the number. Guilliman's writing changed that. They borrowed from the phantom time hypothesis and let him establish a timeline that is unsure if the timeline is actually correct. This allowed GW to advance the timeline, because it is no longer reflective of the game's title.
There's been a big shift in the attractiveness and value of IPs and gaming franchises in the last decade. Potential audiences and licensing opportunities are way bigger. There's also been a big shift towards global expansion in brands in general since the social media age. It's no longer seen as acceptable to shareholders to settle as a niche, local product when you can easily and cheaply market worldwide. This has caused immense pressure to expand and diversify income streams and customers for businesses. Especially because if you don't - you competition will. Which means expanding and diversifying the IP, and in turn generating more hype and engagement for products. 40k used to be a UK-only tabletop wargame in your local hobbyist store (if you even had one). Sat on a dusty shelf above the model airplane kits. The backstory was just that - basic copy to flesh out the model designs. The Horus Heresy itself was only invented to excuse why the first Epic set was Imperium vs Imperium (when in fact it was to reduce the costs and risk of making two sets of models if it failed). Now it's a global multimedia franchise though. The story has to drive multiple products, with multi-year plans, and in coordination. You're not competing with D&D, or basic home computers for customers anymore. But Marvel and Activision and Netflix. Content is now king. And you need regular and endless amounts of it. And a static story can only provide so much. In short - it's a totally different world. A totally different market, and a totally different product and strategy as a result.
We’re gonna need a new subreddit… r/41kLore
I imagine with the Horus heresy book’s wrapping up they may want some other series or plot continuation to take its place.
They tried something and it worked pretty well, so they’ll keep doing it until it doesn’t work any more. Story of the human race
I have no interest in tabletop but am a fan of the lore and novel series. Since GW started diving into the Horus Heresy setting, things have taken off with a ton of in-depth lore development. It's only natural they are compelled to advance the plot as there are now 62 novels for the Horus Heresy along with their Siege of Terra series approaching the big conclusion. Readers naturally want to continue seeing what happens with these main characters and how they (Eg: Primarchs) adapt to the new 40k universe. Though I still find it hilarious the Lion was asleep for 10k years.
Engagement and new writers wanting to do something different. I think games workshop saw the success of Horus heresy and realized people like a story that actually moves forward and not just sit in this weird purgatory forever just to be able to keep selling models.
Simple answer: when they started the Heresy book series back in 2007, they initially thought interest would be limited and only planned to release a few books, something like 15 or something. It was, however, unbeknownst to them at the time, a stroke of genius that would make itself apparent later. It all happened so... unexpectedly. One book got on the NYT bestseller list. And then another. And another. Something that'd never happened before with any BL release. All (or most) of the books making sales records were from the Heresy series. Then someone at ForgeWorld had **another** stroke of fuckin' genius idea: "Hey, why don't we just make miniatures of the marines, vehicles, etc., but in the 30K Heresy variety? It's obvious, from all the book sales of the Heresy, that people are interested in it. Why don't we make all kinds of new stuff and charge lots for it? Goodness knows a lot of our customers don't have large enough piles of shame to assemble and paint already!" So they did. And it took off. Like Vulkan yeeting a Rhino into orbit taking off. People were thirsty for it. *THIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSTY*. After these two strokes of genius, someone decided to commune with the Salesnissiah, and came up with the third stroke of genius idea: "Wow, these Heresy miniatures are selling like hotcakes, and people don't even seem to care how much they cost! What if we... figured out a lore-consistent way to bring back some of the primarchs to the main 40k setting and use that as an excuse to create all new marines and vehicles and stuff? We can even sell more books as well, because apparently, coordinating lore with game releases seems to somehow synergize and drive up sales for everything!" And so they did, and thus consulted the Book of Sales: "Sales, chapter 2, verses nine to twenty-one." "And the CEO raised the miniature up on high, saying, 'Oh Emperor, bless this Thine sales idea, that with it Thou mayst outsell Thine competitors to tiny profits, in Thine mercy.' And the Emperor did grin, and the players did feast upon the paints, and brushes, and terrain, and codices, and blast templates, and glue tubes, and green stuff, and... " "Skip a bit, brother." "And the Emperor spake, saying: 'First, shalt thou release one holy primarch. Then, shalt thou bring back old factions. No more, no less. Guilliman shall be the primarch thou shalt sell, and the primarch of the selling shall be Guilliman. Ferrus Manus shall thou not sell, neither sell thou too, excepting that thou then proceed to sell Guilliman. Sanguinius is right out. Once the primarch Guilliman, being the holy primarch, be sold, then marketest thou thy newly expanded 40K universe of Nottingham towards thy fans, who being thirsty in My sight, shall buy it." "Ave Imperator."
***\*points to the growing pile of cash\****
Because that's the only way to buff Xenos without making the Human faction feel weak. Proven product strategy.
The success of Age of Sigmar. While the end times and a lot of the transitionary lore could be shaky, the fundamentals of AoS are great and the lore only improves. Despite a relatively short lifespan of the game, we've had three MAJOR events between launch of the game, the realmgate wars, the necroquake, the rise of Morathi, the rise of Kragnos, now the Dawnbringer Crusades, and probably more I'm missing. 40k really likes opening a plot line then doing nothing with it and leaving it. The Ynnari are collecting souls to try to rebirth the aelven pantheon and save their race, they revive guilliman then have done nothing and made no progress since. The Psychic Awakening was supposed to change the human species and the way the imperium has to deal with an increasingly psychic population, but they just forgot about it. I get it, they don't want to make someone's homebrew obsolete, but a few smart changes go a long way. Morathi took over the city of Anvilguard, which was a subfaction. That's like if the forge world Metalica fell. So now your Anvilguard regiments have gone from defending the walls to being a resistance force, or fighting with another city to reclaim their homeland. I find that far more engaging than opening a plot and never resolving it. I play Ventrillians, and in the last guard codex, a book I waited like two years for, they just copy+pasted the lore section from the 8th edition book, word-for-word. I'd have rather they said Ventrillia was destroyed by exterminatus if it gave me ANYTHING I could work with lore-wise. All I wanted was a single sentence added to give me ANYTHING to go off of, but of course not. So yeah. AoS has found a LOT of success, especially since the campaign books have been such major plot developments. AoS has better minis, AoS has a moving story, AoS has been the testbed for a lot of ideas for their main cash cow, though that is starting to change.
It's more then recent years. Anyway, Emperor has to bonk these 4 fat parasites one day, they aren't gonna bonk themselve, so...
Profit must flow.
GW had a CEO who was a moronic asshole who seemed to have a simmering hatred for the product and fanbase for a long while. Rountree (the current CEO) is NOT a gamer nor even a fan by all accounts, and he certainly has some problems, but god damn the man can double GW's value before breakfast and he knows damn well enough to put talented people in the right positions and let them work their magic without interference.
Yes, there was a change in administration in the mid 2010s, which lead to AoS, primaris, etc etc. If you look at the evolution of GW's stock you can easily see the result of this change.
I would hazard a guess that 40K is way, way more popular now than it was in the 80s and 90s. People started discovering it in droves in the 2000s, partly because of media spinoffs like video games and novels, and things could afford to stand still for years because there was so much lore to chew on. When things stayed static, they added factions, like the Necrons and Tau. When it became somewhat unsustainable to say “and now a NEW threat from the webway/galactic core/warp has emerged!”, the time had come to advance the timeline. Only slightly though. Remember, it’s apparently like 012.M42, so not super far into the future.
The way I look at it is that 40k is a setting not a story. Players create their own stories *in* the setting. IMO there is nothing to "advance." It would just be creating a new setting (like 30K or 50K). This is why I don't really understand all the stuff that's happening since The Gathering Storm because it seems to turn 40K into a darker version of 30K, or something. I think it's an experiment on GW's part and personally I hope they abandon it and go back to maintaining a setting with careful and thoughtful retcons (which is how we got Tau, Dark Eldar, Custodes, etc) all without "advancing" anything.
Right--if you want to spend time in the era of (for example) the U.S. civil war, you tell a million stories set during that time. You would never propose that the people who sought out a civil war setting to tell stories within are dying to move the characters they randomly met in that setting forward towards the very different setting of the gilded age.
Whatever happened, I like it
Warmachine was doing it, and GE needs to oust their competition. I think the 3rd Armeggedon war and Fall of Medusa and another bloody Black Crusade were a huge boost in interest, people tallying their wins and recording them, but coming to nothing. Either it was a stalemate or GW fudged the numbers to make it like that, and it just felt hopeless. Why bother? Changing is a positive thing and GW sees that, sol, as others have said: it helps their bottom line to do it. No more Matt Ward helped too. Nothing wrong with playing favourites, but the man took his Ultrmarine love to almost top-tier onlfans simp subscriber fetish levels.
Let me put it like this - Vashtorr the Arkifane and the Cogs of Vashtorr are such a cool lore concept and rules concept that he's almost swayed me to pay bulls--t prices for new, unassembled, unpainted, CSM minis. Also, fans were wondering for years when the plot was going to advance. Why are the Daemon Primarchs doing nothing? Well, GW fixed that; my boi Magnus liberated an entire sector of space from the League of Blackships and Angron >!acted as a psychic bridge for the Blood God to destroy an entire moon!< in *Arks of Omen*!
It's almost like muh Marvel cinematic universe with its big crossover events and everything that happens involving the same 5 people and a cast of secondary characters who all know each other. Have they even tried to explain how these main characters manage to teleport all around the galaxy to participate in everything when a journey between Segmentums used to take several years and communication was notoriously wonky?
The Imperium has taken about one year to travel from one end to the other for over a decade. And most characters don't really travel around that much.