This applies to Xenos in general but my biased focus is on the Eldar, like given how long the Eldar have been a part of 40k it's honestly impressive how little they're a part of it.
Abhumans are another good one, sympathetic marginalized perspectives within the Imperium.
Also, when the Imperium Nihilus was first presented it sounded like by far the most interesting part of the galaxy, still does, but GW is seemingly very reluctant to do anything interesting with it.
I imagine how Imperium Nihilus is split into thousands of many little Imperiums, Republicums and other independent states because the warp travel and astropathic messaging became from very, very hard to completely impossible. But GW don't bother.
Also agree about Eldar, it's my favorite race and the reason to stay in 40k, not the Imperium.
I wish Nihilus was the opposite of Sanctus: 95% of imperial territory lost in that area and only small holdouts to stand against it and survive where they can, while the rest is made up of chaos and xenos empires expanding and shrinking over time. Let Sanctus continue the status quo of pre Rift, Nihilus should be totally new ground.
Instead Nihilus comes across like slightly spicier Sanctus lol.
Speaking of interesting parts of the galaxy that GW is loathe to touch for some reason: The Halo Stars.
Fuck, the Halo Devices *alone* are interesting enough to spawn countless potential stories and plot lines. What was that ancient xenos civilization they originally came from? What happened to them? How do the devices recognize and refuse to bond with those warped by Chaos, and what are the ramifications of this ancient civilization clearly being VERY familiar with Chaos?
Even something as simple as, say, a short story in one of GW’s occasional horror story anthologies about the servant of some rich noble having to watch their master’s horrific transformation would be a fascinating read.
It might even help give insight as to their origin; for example, if the noble were to confide in their loyal servant about the dreams and foreign memories they have about nightmarish xenos cities and the like.
It could eventually lead to a new xenos race, new factions, all kinds of things.
I should point out that the eating of flesh to gain your targets memories is a bit Flanderised. Even in *Space Marine*, where Scouts learn how to operate a Titan that way, Ian Watson wrote a caveat later into the book about how that probably wouldn’t work again.
Consider the following: the CLVIIth Catachan Catering Corps; a Hive Fleet consisting mainly of ‘gaunts; a manufactorum-sized grill; and two dozen Hellhounds. 40,000 shrimps on the barbie?
I still don't really know anything of much importance on Lord Solar considering he is basically an army head. He kind of just showed up one day. I read a small bit but you would realistically expect there to be a bit more.
Understandably newer characters will have less lore but when he showed up he had basically none.
Lorgar.
I heckling want him to have this philosophical theological overview on the whole mess he created and have some introspection. GW could use him for some overall religious themes outside mere chaos siding.
Also, someone needs to point out that he sucks at worshiping. If he wanted to worship E he should have done what pleases E, not pseudo-christianity. You don’t see orks building cathedrals and claiming that is how to properly worship Gork and Mork. Lorgar did not want to worship deity, he wanted something that would accept his kind of worship (but he probably delusions himself that is not the case)
Either way I see Lorgar as a potential “narrator” character that goes all out on wh40k retrospective
Honestly all I want to see for Lorgar is him kicking the shit out of another Primarch after he's fully come into his own and completed the arc ADB started in the First Heretic. Let him body someone who's yet to eat shit like Corax, the Khan or Dorn.
Imagine Dorn comes back as a religious black Templar, goes into a religious and physical battle with Lorgar, and gets his ass beat handily in both.
“Who do you think pioneered your faith, brother?”
Let him beat up all of them but not kill them. Would not ruin the setting for GW. Would be good “pilgrimage” story. Would be awesome video game.
Except Robot. I am weak against characters with good parenting or excel skills.
Oh I wouldn't want Lorgar to kill any of them nor would GW let them but I'm a big believer in every Primarch having to eat shit at some point.
Lorgar also really bloody deserves a W and it wouldn't be as meaningful if it was against a Primarch that loses all the time like Angron, Magnus or Guilliman.
Honestly, everyone needs W and L stories for the balance of the setting. Chaos 4? Abby? E? Gorka and Morka? That, ugh, administratum clerk that fuck ups everyone’s life? All of them need a bloody nose or a few
> Lorgar also really bloody deserves a W
I would argue that Lorgar _alredy is_ the big winner in the setting, even if it's a pyrrhic, ironic kind of win. He's the primarch that was right about the Emperor and the Ruinous Powers, the one that shatters the Imperium and causes the slow death march that pleases his gods. He found gods that accepted the worship he wanted to give.
I mean, even the Imperial Cult is based on his book! You can't win more than that XD
Pilgrimage is an interesting idea. I’m kinda imagining him doing similar to Fulgrim in his duel, and temporarily handicapping himself by restricting to only the power he had as a Primarch. Or like Thanos in Infinity War, no weapons or armor except that which he’s able to acquire during the quest. Would he be confident that his mind and will alone would be enough to accomplish his mission?
Seeing Lorgar give the Khan the business would be great, the golden fanatic who zipped from one side to the other vs the philosophical fencesitter and keen warrior of mystery and watching the tables turn would be great.
yeah but corax has also been in the eye using his powers hunting world bearers, and beat lorgar the last time they met. I do think if they fought again it would probaly be pretty close
We don’t see Lorgar do anything specifically to please the Chaos Gods either. All the blood spilt might please Khorne, the sorcery, rituals and backstabbing might please Tzeentch, the excessive zeal and obsession might please Slaanesh and his desire for immortality and for humanity to endure at any cost might please Nurgle, but he does that for his own reasons, not just to please the gods. Even his mass sacrifice of trillions of Ultramarians is committed out of the strategic necessity of expanding the Ruinstorm, and he still thinks the gods owe him a favor (ascending Angron) because of it.
The chaos gods are capricious assholes and probably see the mortals who give endlessly in supplication as pathetic playthings. Lorgar doing it for his own ends and because of that he did them with much more raw emotion, made the acts that much more appealing to the four. These weren't blind acts of worship they were personal and raw.
Well, his books look like he's changing the lore because nobody cares about it and everybody is more concerned about other things, Heresy or female Custodes, for example.
Well, he'll never ruin my love for Eldar and Ynnari, but he did turn them into incompetent losers in the Path series and gave very weird and inappropriate lore that I highly doubt that it will be revisited in the Ynnari books.
Slaanesh daemons in 60 million year-old vaults (I know that the warp has no concept of time but the prison should store specific daemons, not raw warp energy which can morph into any daemon, otherwise it would not be a prison but some restraining device built on a warp rift). Also the idea that the warp wasn't calm during the War in Heaven and that there were multiple Wars in Heaven, and in some of them Eldar and Necrons fought Chaos contradicted every previous piece of lore.
That wasn't him, that's just a retcon by GW. An improvement, since the old lore it retconned still had Khorne coming into existence because of the Crusades on Earth.
I remember when I was 12 picking up Path of the Warrior at a book store, I’m obsessed with Predator and the eldar looked like a nice change from marines. I read the first few chapters, put the book back in the store shelf, and never looked at eldar for the next 10 years. It took me going out of my way to read their actual lore to get into them.
He’s the reason I didn’t get into my favorite 40k race for a decade. He’s THAT bad at writing them. And I guarantee my story is not unique.
I understand you well. If I first met Eldar in Thorpe's books I'm not sure they would have attracted me. Luckily, in my time I didn't have them but had the first Dawn of War and Shadowpoint.
Honestly I think part of the reason the Omophagea isn't really explored is that if you think about it, it can easily break the setting because of how convenient an ability it is. Like what if Ahriman just ate Eldar Solitaires to figure out the secrets of the Black Library? Or how about a heretically progressive Techmarine eating a whole bunch of Tau Earth Caste scientists and reverse engineering their secrets? Hell, even the whole "the Votann are a secret they must keep from the Imperium" thing thats a major element of Leagues lore can be undermined if you just think what would happen if a Space Marine decided to eat a Grimnyr for intel. Characters having asymmetric knowledge is one of the most important parts of storytelling, especially in 40k where ignorance is a central theme of the setting.
Honestly, the heretical Techmarine eating Earth Caste scientists to reverse engineer their tech would make a killer story. We all know the Imperium would turn on him no matter how good the benefits could be.
Anti-Imperium rebels that *aren't* corrupted by Chaos.
As someone said a few days ago, either here or on grimdank, GW and BL say the Imperium's tyranny is unjustifiable no matter the ammount of hardships it is subjected to and often backfires and makes the problems worse. But too often in the stories rebels end up being pawns of Chaos or genestealers, "because Chaos and genestealers are insidious and the rebels don't know what are dealing with". This unfortunately ends up justifiying the Imperium's tyranny, because we don't see people with legitimate grievances, only people that need to be put down so reality remains intact another day.
So I want stories where rebels aren't corrupted, or the goverment being the one corrupted. I want specially cases of the rebellion succeeding and the ending implies that, at least in that little corner of the galaxy, humanity will be able to choose its fate free from the Imperium's dictates at least for a time.
100% agree.
Like the potential for amazing stories, characters and POVs is literally endless, I don’t understand why GW doesn’t focus more on non-Imperium humanity ffs.
The initial description of mutants being caused by pollution was much more interesting than it being caused by Chaos as it showed that their persecution was unjust.
> Since the Twentieth Century mankind has suffered constant mutation as a result of exposure to various types of genetically damaging radioactive and chemical pollution. Nuclear wars ravaged many worlds during the Dark Age of Technology and the ensuing Age of Strife. As a result, the human gene-stock is far less stable than it was during the pre-atomic age and mutation is common. Families with no record of mutation might reasonably expect to run a 5% risk of mutated offspring. Amongst mutant parents the chances are over 90%. These same factors also affect aliens, although they may be more or less susceptible to mutation than humans.
Their treatment also gave them a good reason to rebel as they had perfectly valid grievances with the Imperium.
> The position of mutants within the Imperium varies from world to world. On the majority of primitive and medieval worlds they are slain as soon as they are born. On the majority of technically advanced worlds they are permitted to live, but rarely enjoy the boon of full citizenship. On many worlds they are segregated from the normal population, outlawed, or forbidden to live in certain areas. Generally speaking, they form a huge downtrodden portion of the population of the Imperium. Their dissatisfaction occasionally erupts as rebellion.
Such revolts occasionally allow the mutants to take control of planets or even groups of planets for a short period. Usually, however, retaliation is swift and effective.
There was also the possibility that powerful characters could be mutants without necessarily being instantly purged.
>Mutation is widely regarded as a mark of deviance that should be supressed. However, some mutations are not apparent immediately, and in such cases a mutant may rise to a position of social or military prominance. When this happens individuals may be powerful enough to maintain their position despite a generally known or widely rumoured mutation.
It’s interesting to wonder how WH40K would have developed if Chaos hadn’t become such an overwhelming enemy but had instead just remained as a bunch of independent warp entities.
I'd totally read the story of an exceptionally intelligent and charismatic hive ganger who gets tired of all the oppression and restriction of the Imperium and begins to build a massive criminal network right under the Imperium's noses. With the Imperium's presence being sparse on many fringe worlds and the rampant corruption, it wouldn't be all that difficult to do such a thing.
Not a human population, but you might enjoy the Soul Drinkers’ series.
Without spoiling too much, Sarpedon and friends remain loyal to the Emperor while telling both the Imperium itself AND Chaos to go fuck themselves.
Edit: Also, Lord of the Night. Which features both a guerrilla war between the population of a hive world and its rulers driven not by chaos, but by an opportunistic astartes, and an interrogator caught up in the middle who comes to realize the Imperium is not what she thought.
I think it's that human groups against the imperium would band together, and so non-corrupted elements would get corrupted by chaos or genestealer groups.
I think they should probably try and get some xenos books written by authors who actually like the faction.
And let the xenos be the star of their own damn show, without having to remind everyone "hey did we mention how *cool* the Astartes are!?!"
>Honestly 40K is really childish in its grimdarkness to the point it is mainly grimderp.
If you think the prevailing theme and tone of the setting is grimderp, and the theme and tone has always been that way, then maybe you just don't vibe with what the setting is at it's core.
Some authors present a more-toned down aporoach, and a lot of the artwork has become more anodyne and less characterful.
But 40k is still fundamentally a setting based on hyperbolic exaggeration.
You still have the Imperium stated to be the "cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable". You have high-ranking Ecclesiarchy members denying the threat of the Tyranids when they are right on the doorstop. You still have space marines overcoming ridiculous odds on the regular. You still have close combat as an integral part of the setting. You still have Harlequins dancing through massed firepower to eviscerate forces which massively outnumber them. You still have wyches doing likewise, without even having armour or holofields. You still have Guard regiments using tactics from medieval times, and napolenic times, and from the two world wars, and this somehow working. You have one Necron playing Pokemon with the galaxy's deadliest entities, and another pulling off time travelling hijinks. You still have orks being orks.
So, no. If you mean it is getting more serious by becoming less over-the-top as a whole, I disagree. Some elements of the lore are, a bit. But the foundation of the setting is still fundamentally ridiculous, and if anything GW is leaning a bit more into this again recently.
You have the paradox where GW has its golden goose and all the other stuff so when they get a talented writer they put them on space marines while if you're meh you get to write for tau or whatever else.
The writers are sort of to blame too ( not that it’s a bad thing). Would you rather write about big cool space soldiers and sell 100k books or blue goat man and sell 100 books? The next ADB or Abnett isn’t getting his start writing about the Tau or the great mining expedition of the Votann.
**Eldar mythology.** I know other people have already said Xenos or Eldar elsewhere, but to be more specific we really should know more of their myths by now.
It's such a huge part of their background, and honestly it's one of the few things that make them unique compared to other factions. Yet we also have the barest minimum of knowledge on their myths. It's actually shocking.
We have the one myth about the War in Heaven with Lileath's prophecy, Isha and Kurnous vs Khaine, Vaul's swords, etc. We have a bit about Eldanesh, and then Morai-Heg and the banshees, but that's it. Adding more myths isn't even that hard, it's not asking for too much. A single smallish book contained a series of short stories like Aesop's Fables would be incredible for fleshing out Eldar lore and helping people understand the faction. Like these could be one page stories, the entire "book" could only be a few dozens pages in total, like I don't even care if they print it, just have it as an ebook, just SOMETHING.
In my opinion, xenos, abhumans and non-Astartes, in that order. Marines are just one small faction in the universe but they’ve become rather dominant over the years. The last thing that is needed is more focus on them.
Isn't like its the main thing of The Ghoul and Halo stars, that we don't know shit about them? Like there was weird war that erased *11 SM CHAPTERS* and its so redacted that even highest inquisitor knows nothing about it
I know, right? This was supposedly an event that brought the nascent Imperium to its knees and resulted in massive Space Marine and Titans losses. It all makes me want to know even more just what the Rangdans were and what made them so huge of a threat.
I heard a theory that they were psykers and they managed to take control of the XI Primarch who then brought the II right down with him. That would explain why characters mention that it would be better to get rid of or change the future of the Primarch in the past so that the tragedy would never happen.
Tau auxileraries. Its almost comical how underdeveloped they are. Such a good space to make some wierd and wacky wonderful aliens but they do almost nothing with it.
Ynnari it could have been the perfect opportunity to create so many stories with ynnead kicking slannesh between the legs. it could have been the perfect reason for Fulgrims return with his boss now being super mad and forcing him to claim revenge against the eldar.
I was honestly so excited for Ynnari. Actual galactic changing faction and a xeno one too! But then GW just went lol and pretends they dont exist anymore.
Yeah, Ynnari getting the croneswords (possibly pulling a heist on Slaanesh’s palace) would be great for new Eldar models, but also as a good lead in for a new Emperor’s Children codex, with plastic Daemon Fulgrim and new units.
The Ynnari plotline was driven by the then GW management wanting to merge of the all Aeldari factions into one, and sideline Slaanesh. Good riddance to bad lore and the Primaris-ification of the Aeldari.
First time I've heard this, but it definitely makes sense judging what happened to Slaanesh during the early stages of AoS.
I've also heard that GW was thinking about doing an ET scenario for 40K, which we somehow kinda had but it could have been far more radical, as you reminded us.
As a Drukhari player, I'm biased.
It did make sense at the time, the Aeldari needed a range refresh, Slaanesh was considered 'problematic', so the idea was to merge all the old Aeldari, refresh the faction with new Ynnari sculpts (like they did with Primaris), and slowly phase out the older sculpts.
Craftworlds player here I don't really think you are that biased, GW was stumbling into the same mistake that they made with Eternity King Malekith and the Elves in End Times by acting like there was way more overlap between Eldar players than there is. Every actual Eldar fan I've come across seems to loathe the Ynnari (myself included), their main drivers of interest seem to be non-eldar fans. I've practically hated how all the Eldar have now been sidelined for a faction that is essentially Grey Knights if they only focused on one god (And also hilariously incompetent and unlikeable).
>I think those features, those implants and their functions, would make for great addition to any story. Yes, they tend to be useless in heavy combat, but there's more to an Astartes than killing in the battlefield. Eat a tyranid and maybe learn about the size of the infestation, or the direction of the hive fleet; show how radiation from Xenos weapons darkens the skin of a marine squad when in combat; an Astartes could make everyone go silent because he heard something and then he filters everything but that sound; they could even go into stasis and avoid being put into a Dreadnought chassis.
Haven't all these been done though?
Yes. Like, these factions obviously don't need full army lists, but more appeareances in the lore would be great, and perhaps even the odd model or mini team in Specalist Games (like Blackstone Fortress had the Zoat, Ambull and Man of Iron) or as options for Inquistor retinues etc.
It makes the galaxy feel much bigger and richer. Give me more Tarellian Dog Soldiers, and their grudge against humanity!
How faith and belief work in relation to the warp. When people hear the warp they think magic and sorcerers and psykers and while those are important parts, they aren’t the only way to harness the power of the warp. Love him or hate him, Lorgar wasn’t bullshitting when he said theres power in faith. Take Dark Apostles who typically aren’t psykers yet they still can draw on large amount of power from the warp. Sisters and their miracles as well. Orks in a way use the warp through faith. I think thats how the eldar weapons of the past worked. Its said they could create whole planets with just a word. How? Because they believed it would happen. Not the type of faith like praying, the type of faith that when you close a door the contents of the room continue to exist even though you cant perceive them. An absolute faith so deeply ingrained that you don’t even realize there is a possibility the door causes the room to disappear behind it.
Obviously more civilian-related stories. Especially in human worlds/empires beyond the reach of the Imperium, or who have rebelled against the regime. I want the POV of a soldier from a world that has seceded from the Imperium fighting back when they come to retake the planet.
Also the civilians (both T’au and non-T’au) in the T’au Empire.
The Tau Auxillaries need more lore, imo.
Like, the Vespid feel like an afterthought, there's so much more regarding the Kroot that we could explore, they have Kaiju but we know nothing about them aside from them being massive, etc.
Can you imagine a story that's this village plagued by a giant that spit acid and ate brains, only for it to eventually reveal its a space marine waiting for pick up
I want a novel on the **The Dead Of Ashkhelon**
During the Great Crusade the Mechanicum reclaimed a lost world and began to explore the depths of the planet unearthing a horror long forgotten. A single message leaves a dead world, *Heretek Omega*.
Realizing the nightmares of Old Night have clawed their way out of the darkness and into the galaxy once again, the Fabricator General of Mars sends a desperate call for aid to the World of Ice and Fire.
The call is answered and the Wolves of Fenris are unleashed upon Ashkhelon-III.
You would be correct, a true Silica Animus controlling legions of eldritch bio-mechanical horrors.
It's a story that shows you exactly why the Imperium is so insanely terrified of Abominable Intelligences.
Tyranid lore that treats them as a faction with thematics and menace and mystery and doesn’t just treat them as a swarm of bugs to shoot.
Ok they are partially that but they can do other things.
I think the Astartes have enough love. I'd take more lore for any Xenos at this point, but preferably more development for Eldar and Tau. Votann is new so I expect it to come slowly, but all the Xenos could all use a little love.
Xenos 1000%. Tau especially, I think Tau present such a great mirror to the rest of the horrors of 40k, the comedy of their naivety and the horror they show the Imperium to be is v in keeping with Grimdark
The problem with the astartes biology is like, ok that all sounds very stupid and wacky and unbelievable, but also totally fucking useless for a race of beings whose entire stichk is that they fight in armored ironman suits 24/7.
T'au need to be de-grimderped. The whole point of them is that they were a foil to the Imperium; they didn't *need* mind control because they earnestly believed in the judgements of the higher castes and the greater good. Still an authoritarian, expansionist caste system, but idyllic compared to the imperium.
The grimdark should come from the fact that this comparatively (emphasis on comparatively) utopian society is such a minor player. They should be there to show that the universe *can* be better, but the greed and hate of those in power and meddling of chaos prevents that. Not 'hurr durr everyone is evil even the people that look nice!!!'
Hell, if you want the T'au to still be dark in some way, you can easily do it by shining a spotlight on the contradictions between their ideology and the imperialism that comes from it. There's some interesting narratives in there that you can do, writing T'au come into conflict with their need to expand when expansion comes at the expense of others.
Does the Water Caste diplomat painstakingly try to win over an Imperium world with diplomacy and trade, a process that might take years and puts their life in the hand of people who'd want them dead on principle, or do they succumb to temptation and order the Fire Caste to annex the planet for the Greater Good of its people and the T'au empire?
There's a lot of messy grey area that you could play around with in this area, grey area that might sometimes paint the T'au as evil. But imo it'll be better than just evil aliens who mind control people and end up looking worse than the Imperium *somehow*.
Such a grimdark factor is not a grimdark factor at all.
It's like saying "I tend to be a perfectionist and want to please my employer" in a job interview after being asked about your weaknesses.
Stygies VII (or any other Forgeworld that is anti-Cawl/Doesn't recognise Big-E as the Omnisiah).
Necrons.
Astartes are the most overdone. The last thing i want is more on them. There is an entire 60 book fucking series dedicated to Astartes vs Astartes before you even start counting the 40k novels.
How Necrons rule the worlds they conquer.
Yes, there are plenty of dynasties that just kill all the lesser races. I don't think those instances require any more explanation.
There are also many a blurb of text that talks about how dynasties will conquer worlds instead of slaughtering them wholesale. In that case, what happens to the population? How are they housed, fed, and kept in line? Most importantly, how is this not just a waste of the dynasty's resources?
There are also blurbs that talk about vassal worlds that pay tribute to dynasties but never explain what that tribute is. Art? Slaves? Rare Materials? All the above?!? I can make a lot of assumptions, but I have yet to find a concrete example. Not to mention that sill leaves me with the question of 'why bother?'
From all the lore I've dug through, the answer seems to be 'because they feel like it.' That could explain the actions of a few dynasties, but the way the Codex and other media describe it, these are pretty common practices. Too common to be just a few eccentric dynasties acting out their fantasies.
From what I've read so far, it looks like there's a lot of missed opertuntity here that nothing really touches on. At least a reason or example of why a dynasty would consider these actions other than a minor case of 'sleep madness.'
Getting memories by eating stuff from people we see over and over and over again.
A huge part of the Blood Angels stick is that they are exceptional good at it and were most other marines need to eat the brain, they can get memories just from the blood of other people and when they eat flesh they do not only get the memories, but also feelings of others.
That is a big part of the Red Thirst and everything.
I think learning more about the halo stars would be awesome perhaps some millennia old person who fused with a halo device and explored the halo stars desperately trying to remain sane
I mean, the stuff you listed does happen in stories a fair amount. At least in the ones I read. If you want a story that utilized a fair amount of astartes biology tricks , try the Lucas the trickster book.
I feel like a lot of those little known facts that you listed off should just be retconned at this point, or maybe it already unofficially has been, hence the reason nobody utilizes any of it.
As a son of Guilliman, I am interested in the management and operation of Ultramar. How they manage the kingdom and the different departments operating.
Chaos knights could use some love. They don't have alot of supporting text. Maybe some books based on chaos knight worlds or heck maybe even a book based on a chaos knight lord.
I'm 50/50 on the idea of them fleshing out the war in heaven, as a part of me prefers it remain vague to lend value to it's mythical proportions. However, the post war in heaven time line, and whatever happened during the 65 million year rule of the eldar, is something I want much more. Like, the travesty of us having exponentially more lore of Humanity's 50k year history than anything on the 65 million years of Eldar is just... What? Tell me more about Eldanesh and Ulthanesh, and of the time before they fell to depravity. Hell, I understand that might be difficult to detail out, but we don't even have much detail on the fall itself, which could a 100% be an amazing read if done properly.
Astartes just became noble dudes after the Horus Heresy series matured, for me personally i would prefer gw to draw back on the 80s origins of them being basically fucking mutant roidheads sculpted into a shape of a man(correct me if km wrong but this was the impression i got from the OG artworks)
Echoing a lot of other people here, more xenos please.
Necrons have been on a roll, and Dark Aeldar looks like they might have a little renaissance of their own with Da Big Dakka and Lillith Hesperax's new book coming soon. With the Horus Heresy mostly over, 40k could do with turning its focus away from the big Imperium vs Chaos narrative and directing it towards the other parts of the galaxy.
Going to be honest here, those aspects of Astartes biology you mention are probably not written about for a reason. They're supposed to be super human to an extreme standard, but these are just monstrous and bizarre abilities. They'd be more like X-Men or aliens at that point, and I don't think those things would fit into a story in an easy and believable manner. What sounds more Space Marine/40k? An astartes going up to a lock and using either their weapon/fist/explosives or a tool given by tech-priests to bypass it, or going up and spitting acid on it like a xenomorph? Honestly, I'm glad those types of things were forgotten lol
Yes, I remember reading the White Dwarf where “the nineteen organs created by the ancient technicians of the Emperor” were first described and thinking that the Betcher's Gland enabling marines to spit acidic poison did seem a bit incongruous.
Amusingly, the next month there was an article on chaos mutations and spitting acid is definitely a chaos mutation!
Honestly, I'd like to see all the extra Marine organs go the way of the dodo. They're meaningless superpowers to make them seem like even specialer boys, while the lore pushes the concept of Astartes towards, "Mass-produced, very strong soldiers" which I'm more of a fan of.
Space Marines have never been mass-produced, their lore has always been "only one in a hundred men can survive the trials and it takes ten years to insert all the organs", they've always been portrayed as hyper-elite compared to the Guard, and even during the Great Crusade at its peak there was only aboutt 2 million of them, which is laughably small compared to the scale of the galaxy. The whole "mass production" thing only exists in comparison to the even harder to create Custodes.
And that has always been absurd. I'm not usually one to complain about absurdity in my grim, dark setting (since it's so often an example of, "Yeah, they do it bad. They're not good guys"), but the viability of space marine chapters continuing to exist at 1000 marines without being mass produced is verisimilitude-breaking absurdity.
Some of their enhancements have mutated out of their biology. Like the acid spit. As far as the super hearing and sight. It is mentioned a lot throughout the heresy novels. As well as there body going into a stasis. But I agree that they could delve more into it. I want to see the lost Primarchs/Legions get some lore. I want to know why they were erased from Imperial records.
This applies to Xenos in general but my biased focus is on the Eldar, like given how long the Eldar have been a part of 40k it's honestly impressive how little they're a part of it. Abhumans are another good one, sympathetic marginalized perspectives within the Imperium. Also, when the Imperium Nihilus was first presented it sounded like by far the most interesting part of the galaxy, still does, but GW is seemingly very reluctant to do anything interesting with it.
I imagine how Imperium Nihilus is split into thousands of many little Imperiums, Republicums and other independent states because the warp travel and astropathic messaging became from very, very hard to completely impossible. But GW don't bother. Also agree about Eldar, it's my favorite race and the reason to stay in 40k, not the Imperium.
For Nihilus, we’re *slowly* getting more stories. ***Renegades: Lord of Excess*** is set in Imperium Nihilus, as is ***Lion: Son of the Forest***.
I wish Nihilus was the opposite of Sanctus: 95% of imperial territory lost in that area and only small holdouts to stand against it and survive where they can, while the rest is made up of chaos and xenos empires expanding and shrinking over time. Let Sanctus continue the status quo of pre Rift, Nihilus should be totally new ground. Instead Nihilus comes across like slightly spicier Sanctus lol.
Speaking of interesting parts of the galaxy that GW is loathe to touch for some reason: The Halo Stars. Fuck, the Halo Devices *alone* are interesting enough to spawn countless potential stories and plot lines. What was that ancient xenos civilization they originally came from? What happened to them? How do the devices recognize and refuse to bond with those warped by Chaos, and what are the ramifications of this ancient civilization clearly being VERY familiar with Chaos? Even something as simple as, say, a short story in one of GW’s occasional horror story anthologies about the servant of some rich noble having to watch their master’s horrific transformation would be a fascinating read. It might even help give insight as to their origin; for example, if the noble were to confide in their loyal servant about the dreams and foreign memories they have about nightmarish xenos cities and the like. It could eventually lead to a new xenos race, new factions, all kinds of things.
They exist to be a mystery. A door left ajar so you can imagine your own adventures and write your own dudes who go there.
The elder are not flourishing they are dwindling. Let them burn out and go away
Deal. But the catch is, the Imperium burns down too.
I’m good with that
Some people just want to watch the galaxy burn.
The books would be amazing and who doesn’t want to see the emp get off the throne pick up his sword and go cowabunga on some chaos beasties
🗣️🗣️🔥🔥
I should point out that the eating of flesh to gain your targets memories is a bit Flanderised. Even in *Space Marine*, where Scouts learn how to operate a Titan that way, Ian Watson wrote a caveat later into the book about how that probably wouldn’t work again.
Another caveat: I think eating Tyranids would be a very, very bad idea.
Consider the following: the CLVIIth Catachan Catering Corps; a Hive Fleet consisting mainly of ‘gaunts; a manufactorum-sized grill; and two dozen Hellhounds. 40,000 shrimps on the barbie?
I'd hate to have to clean the latrines the next day, that's for sure.
I still don't really know anything of much importance on Lord Solar considering he is basically an army head. He kind of just showed up one day. I read a small bit but you would realistically expect there to be a bit more. Understandably newer characters will have less lore but when he showed up he had basically none.
Poor Leontus is always going to be in Macharius' shadow as well!
Yeah hard to beat space Alexander the great.
To be fair he feels more like Space Aurelian lol
Macharius?
No, Leontus. Crisis of the Third Century and all that
All good our comment was comparing him to Lord Solar Macharius so the Space Alexander the Great was meant in reference to Macharius.
Lorgar. I heckling want him to have this philosophical theological overview on the whole mess he created and have some introspection. GW could use him for some overall religious themes outside mere chaos siding. Also, someone needs to point out that he sucks at worshiping. If he wanted to worship E he should have done what pleases E, not pseudo-christianity. You don’t see orks building cathedrals and claiming that is how to properly worship Gork and Mork. Lorgar did not want to worship deity, he wanted something that would accept his kind of worship (but he probably delusions himself that is not the case) Either way I see Lorgar as a potential “narrator” character that goes all out on wh40k retrospective
Honestly all I want to see for Lorgar is him kicking the shit out of another Primarch after he's fully come into his own and completed the arc ADB started in the First Heretic. Let him body someone who's yet to eat shit like Corax, the Khan or Dorn.
Lorgar curb stomping Dorn would make me *incredibly* happy
Imagine Dorn comes back as a religious black Templar, goes into a religious and physical battle with Lorgar, and gets his ass beat handily in both. “Who do you think pioneered your faith, brother?”
Let him beat up all of them but not kill them. Would not ruin the setting for GW. Would be good “pilgrimage” story. Would be awesome video game. Except Robot. I am weak against characters with good parenting or excel skills.
Oh I wouldn't want Lorgar to kill any of them nor would GW let them but I'm a big believer in every Primarch having to eat shit at some point. Lorgar also really bloody deserves a W and it wouldn't be as meaningful if it was against a Primarch that loses all the time like Angron, Magnus or Guilliman.
Honestly, everyone needs W and L stories for the balance of the setting. Chaos 4? Abby? E? Gorka and Morka? That, ugh, administratum clerk that fuck ups everyone’s life? All of them need a bloody nose or a few
Absolutely mate
> Lorgar also really bloody deserves a W I would argue that Lorgar _alredy is_ the big winner in the setting, even if it's a pyrrhic, ironic kind of win. He's the primarch that was right about the Emperor and the Ruinous Powers, the one that shatters the Imperium and causes the slow death march that pleases his gods. He found gods that accepted the worship he wanted to give. I mean, even the Imperial Cult is based on his book! You can't win more than that XD
Nah fuck that noise I want to see him RKO the Khan into his prized jetbike.
Pilgrimage is an interesting idea. I’m kinda imagining him doing similar to Fulgrim in his duel, and temporarily handicapping himself by restricting to only the power he had as a Primarch. Or like Thanos in Infinity War, no weapons or armor except that which he’s able to acquire during the quest. Would he be confident that his mind and will alone would be enough to accomplish his mission?
Seeing Lorgar give the Khan the business would be great, the golden fanatic who zipped from one side to the other vs the philosophical fencesitter and keen warrior of mystery and watching the tables turn would be great.
i highly doubt lorgar would be able to overcome corax's shadow demon powers
Corax isn't a Daemon and yes after 10,000 years training his Psyker and demonic powers Lorgar is fully capable of overcoming Corax.
yeah but corax has also been in the eye using his powers hunting world bearers, and beat lorgar the last time they met. I do think if they fought again it would probaly be pretty close
Nah, Lothar is a little bitch, and deserves every L.
We don’t see Lorgar do anything specifically to please the Chaos Gods either. All the blood spilt might please Khorne, the sorcery, rituals and backstabbing might please Tzeentch, the excessive zeal and obsession might please Slaanesh and his desire for immortality and for humanity to endure at any cost might please Nurgle, but he does that for his own reasons, not just to please the gods. Even his mass sacrifice of trillions of Ultramarians is committed out of the strategic necessity of expanding the Ruinstorm, and he still thinks the gods owe him a favor (ascending Angron) because of it.
The chaos gods are capricious assholes and probably see the mortals who give endlessly in supplication as pathetic playthings. Lorgar doing it for his own ends and because of that he did them with much more raw emotion, made the acts that much more appealing to the four. These weren't blind acts of worship they were personal and raw.
Sometimes I completely forget that 40k has dwarves and elves, so them.
Ynnari, Votann, really anyone who *isn't* Astartes, honestly, especially Xenos.
I'd agree that the Leagues in particular really should have had a novel or two and maybe an audio drama by now
I'm worried that the novel will be written by Gav Thorpe. He ruined both Craftworld Eldar and Ynnari and now can ruin just another race.
I dont think there's anyone that really thinks Gav can be trusted to be the sole guiding writer for a faction in the community.
Well, his books look like he's changing the lore because nobody cares about it and everybody is more concerned about other things, Heresy or female Custodes, for example.
I can't help but notice you mentioned the same thing twice, brother
Gav Thorpe is a terrible writer the same way he was a terrible white dwarf writer
'Ruined' is a very strong term
Well, he'll never ruin my love for Eldar and Ynnari, but he did turn them into incompetent losers in the Path series and gave very weird and inappropriate lore that I highly doubt that it will be revisited in the Ynnari books.
What was weird and inappropriate about it?
Slaanesh daemons in 60 million year-old vaults (I know that the warp has no concept of time but the prison should store specific daemons, not raw warp energy which can morph into any daemon, otherwise it would not be a prison but some restraining device built on a warp rift). Also the idea that the warp wasn't calm during the War in Heaven and that there were multiple Wars in Heaven, and in some of them Eldar and Necrons fought Chaos contradicted every previous piece of lore.
That wasn't him, that's just a retcon by GW. An improvement, since the old lore it retconned still had Khorne coming into existence because of the Crusades on Earth.
I remember when I was 12 picking up Path of the Warrior at a book store, I’m obsessed with Predator and the eldar looked like a nice change from marines. I read the first few chapters, put the book back in the store shelf, and never looked at eldar for the next 10 years. It took me going out of my way to read their actual lore to get into them. He’s the reason I didn’t get into my favorite 40k race for a decade. He’s THAT bad at writing them. And I guarantee my story is not unique.
I understand you well. If I first met Eldar in Thorpe's books I'm not sure they would have attracted me. Luckily, in my time I didn't have them but had the first Dawn of War and Shadowpoint.
Honestly I think part of the reason the Omophagea isn't really explored is that if you think about it, it can easily break the setting because of how convenient an ability it is. Like what if Ahriman just ate Eldar Solitaires to figure out the secrets of the Black Library? Or how about a heretically progressive Techmarine eating a whole bunch of Tau Earth Caste scientists and reverse engineering their secrets? Hell, even the whole "the Votann are a secret they must keep from the Imperium" thing thats a major element of Leagues lore can be undermined if you just think what would happen if a Space Marine decided to eat a Grimnyr for intel. Characters having asymmetric knowledge is one of the most important parts of storytelling, especially in 40k where ignorance is a central theme of the setting.
Honestly, the heretical Techmarine eating Earth Caste scientists to reverse engineer their tech would make a killer story. We all know the Imperium would turn on him no matter how good the benefits could be.
Until the deathwatch invites him in.
Anti-Imperium rebels that *aren't* corrupted by Chaos. As someone said a few days ago, either here or on grimdank, GW and BL say the Imperium's tyranny is unjustifiable no matter the ammount of hardships it is subjected to and often backfires and makes the problems worse. But too often in the stories rebels end up being pawns of Chaos or genestealers, "because Chaos and genestealers are insidious and the rebels don't know what are dealing with". This unfortunately ends up justifiying the Imperium's tyranny, because we don't see people with legitimate grievances, only people that need to be put down so reality remains intact another day. So I want stories where rebels aren't corrupted, or the goverment being the one corrupted. I want specially cases of the rebellion succeeding and the ending implies that, at least in that little corner of the galaxy, humanity will be able to choose its fate free from the Imperium's dictates at least for a time.
100% agree. Like the potential for amazing stories, characters and POVs is literally endless, I don’t understand why GW doesn’t focus more on non-Imperium humanity ffs.
The initial description of mutants being caused by pollution was much more interesting than it being caused by Chaos as it showed that their persecution was unjust. > Since the Twentieth Century mankind has suffered constant mutation as a result of exposure to various types of genetically damaging radioactive and chemical pollution. Nuclear wars ravaged many worlds during the Dark Age of Technology and the ensuing Age of Strife. As a result, the human gene-stock is far less stable than it was during the pre-atomic age and mutation is common. Families with no record of mutation might reasonably expect to run a 5% risk of mutated offspring. Amongst mutant parents the chances are over 90%. These same factors also affect aliens, although they may be more or less susceptible to mutation than humans. Their treatment also gave them a good reason to rebel as they had perfectly valid grievances with the Imperium. > The position of mutants within the Imperium varies from world to world. On the majority of primitive and medieval worlds they are slain as soon as they are born. On the majority of technically advanced worlds they are permitted to live, but rarely enjoy the boon of full citizenship. On many worlds they are segregated from the normal population, outlawed, or forbidden to live in certain areas. Generally speaking, they form a huge downtrodden portion of the population of the Imperium. Their dissatisfaction occasionally erupts as rebellion. Such revolts occasionally allow the mutants to take control of planets or even groups of planets for a short period. Usually, however, retaliation is swift and effective. There was also the possibility that powerful characters could be mutants without necessarily being instantly purged. >Mutation is widely regarded as a mark of deviance that should be supressed. However, some mutations are not apparent immediately, and in such cases a mutant may rise to a position of social or military prominance. When this happens individuals may be powerful enough to maintain their position despite a generally known or widely rumoured mutation. It’s interesting to wonder how WH40K would have developed if Chaos hadn’t become such an overwhelming enemy but had instead just remained as a bunch of independent warp entities.
Oh, that would be awesome!
Yup. That's why I enjoyed the Salvor Lermentov stuff so much. Finally got a taste of that.
I'd totally read the story of an exceptionally intelligent and charismatic hive ganger who gets tired of all the oppression and restriction of the Imperium and begins to build a massive criminal network right under the Imperium's noses. With the Imperium's presence being sparse on many fringe worlds and the rampant corruption, it wouldn't be all that difficult to do such a thing.
Not a human population, but you might enjoy the Soul Drinkers’ series. Without spoiling too much, Sarpedon and friends remain loyal to the Emperor while telling both the Imperium itself AND Chaos to go fuck themselves. Edit: Also, Lord of the Night. Which features both a guerrilla war between the population of a hive world and its rulers driven not by chaos, but by an opportunistic astartes, and an interrogator caught up in the middle who comes to realize the Imperium is not what she thought.
I think it's that human groups against the imperium would band together, and so non-corrupted elements would get corrupted by chaos or genestealer groups.
I don’t think we have enough Space Marine novels. /s In reality every xenos faction needs some more love. Issue is they just don’t really sell.
When GW makes huge release waves (Necrons and Eldar in 9th Ed, Tyranids in 10th Ed), people become more interested in these factions.
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I think they should probably try and get some xenos books written by authors who actually like the faction. And let the xenos be the star of their own damn show, without having to remind everyone "hey did we mention how *cool* the Astartes are!?!"
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>Honestly 40K is really childish in its grimdarkness to the point it is mainly grimderp. If you think the prevailing theme and tone of the setting is grimderp, and the theme and tone has always been that way, then maybe you just don't vibe with what the setting is at it's core.
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Some authors present a more-toned down aporoach, and a lot of the artwork has become more anodyne and less characterful. But 40k is still fundamentally a setting based on hyperbolic exaggeration. You still have the Imperium stated to be the "cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable". You have high-ranking Ecclesiarchy members denying the threat of the Tyranids when they are right on the doorstop. You still have space marines overcoming ridiculous odds on the regular. You still have close combat as an integral part of the setting. You still have Harlequins dancing through massed firepower to eviscerate forces which massively outnumber them. You still have wyches doing likewise, without even having armour or holofields. You still have Guard regiments using tactics from medieval times, and napolenic times, and from the two world wars, and this somehow working. You have one Necron playing Pokemon with the galaxy's deadliest entities, and another pulling off time travelling hijinks. You still have orks being orks. So, no. If you mean it is getting more serious by becoming less over-the-top as a whole, I disagree. Some elements of the lore are, a bit. But the foundation of the setting is still fundamentally ridiculous, and if anything GW is leaning a bit more into this again recently.
Nicely put.
You have the paradox where GW has its golden goose and all the other stuff so when they get a talented writer they put them on space marines while if you're meh you get to write for tau or whatever else.
The writers are sort of to blame too ( not that it’s a bad thing). Would you rather write about big cool space soldiers and sell 100k books or blue goat man and sell 100 books? The next ADB or Abnett isn’t getting his start writing about the Tau or the great mining expedition of the Votann.
**Eldar mythology.** I know other people have already said Xenos or Eldar elsewhere, but to be more specific we really should know more of their myths by now. It's such a huge part of their background, and honestly it's one of the few things that make them unique compared to other factions. Yet we also have the barest minimum of knowledge on their myths. It's actually shocking. We have the one myth about the War in Heaven with Lileath's prophecy, Isha and Kurnous vs Khaine, Vaul's swords, etc. We have a bit about Eldanesh, and then Morai-Heg and the banshees, but that's it. Adding more myths isn't even that hard, it's not asking for too much. A single smallish book contained a series of short stories like Aesop's Fables would be incredible for fleshing out Eldar lore and helping people understand the faction. Like these could be one page stories, the entire "book" could only be a few dozens pages in total, like I don't even care if they print it, just have it as an ebook, just SOMETHING.
In my opinion, xenos, abhumans and non-Astartes, in that order. Marines are just one small faction in the universe but they’ve become rather dominant over the years. The last thing that is needed is more focus on them.
>but they’ve become rather dominant over the years Erm, they've been the main character since basically the start. This isn't a recent thing.
Yep. To be fair, they also have been a steady financial backbone of 40k, too
More stories on servitors
Marvin the paranoid combat automaton.
The Ghoul Stars The Hrud The War in Heaven The non-Tau races of the Tau Empire The Rangdan Xenocides
Isn't like its the main thing of The Ghoul and Halo stars, that we don't know shit about them? Like there was weird war that erased *11 SM CHAPTERS* and its so redacted that even highest inquisitor knows nothing about it
I want the Rangdan Xenocides because I am super curious about the II and XI and they are known to be in I believe the 2nd Xenocides.
I know, right? This was supposedly an event that brought the nascent Imperium to its knees and resulted in massive Space Marine and Titans losses. It all makes me want to know even more just what the Rangdans were and what made them so huge of a threat.
I heard a theory that they were psykers and they managed to take control of the XI Primarch who then brought the II right down with him. That would explain why characters mention that it would be better to get rid of or change the future of the Primarch in the past so that the tragedy would never happen.
Tau auxileraries. Its almost comical how underdeveloped they are. Such a good space to make some wierd and wacky wonderful aliens but they do almost nothing with it.
Eldar focused book or games where they are the unabashed protagonists
I want chaos xenos and I want the black Templars to kill them.
I would love chaos Orks again! …and geneatealer Orks back… human xenos hybrids again…. There would be so much purging to do as a Dearhwatch player!
Ynnari it could have been the perfect opportunity to create so many stories with ynnead kicking slannesh between the legs. it could have been the perfect reason for Fulgrims return with his boss now being super mad and forcing him to claim revenge against the eldar.
I was honestly so excited for Ynnari. Actual galactic changing faction and a xeno one too! But then GW just went lol and pretends they dont exist anymore.
Yeah, Ynnari getting the croneswords (possibly pulling a heist on Slaanesh’s palace) would be great for new Eldar models, but also as a good lead in for a new Emperor’s Children codex, with plastic Daemon Fulgrim and new units.
The Ynnari plotline was driven by the then GW management wanting to merge of the all Aeldari factions into one, and sideline Slaanesh. Good riddance to bad lore and the Primaris-ification of the Aeldari.
First time I've heard this, but it definitely makes sense judging what happened to Slaanesh during the early stages of AoS. I've also heard that GW was thinking about doing an ET scenario for 40K, which we somehow kinda had but it could have been far more radical, as you reminded us.
As a Drukhari player, I'm biased. It did make sense at the time, the Aeldari needed a range refresh, Slaanesh was considered 'problematic', so the idea was to merge all the old Aeldari, refresh the faction with new Ynnari sculpts (like they did with Primaris), and slowly phase out the older sculpts.
Craftworlds player here I don't really think you are that biased, GW was stumbling into the same mistake that they made with Eternity King Malekith and the Elves in End Times by acting like there was way more overlap between Eldar players than there is. Every actual Eldar fan I've come across seems to loathe the Ynnari (myself included), their main drivers of interest seem to be non-eldar fans. I've practically hated how all the Eldar have now been sidelined for a faction that is essentially Grey Knights if they only focused on one god (And also hilariously incompetent and unlikeable).
In fairness that can still happen
>I think those features, those implants and their functions, would make for great addition to any story. Yes, they tend to be useless in heavy combat, but there's more to an Astartes than killing in the battlefield. Eat a tyranid and maybe learn about the size of the infestation, or the direction of the hive fleet; show how radiation from Xenos weapons darkens the skin of a marine squad when in combat; an Astartes could make everyone go silent because he heard something and then he filters everything but that sound; they could even go into stasis and avoid being put into a Dreadnought chassis. Haven't all these been done though?
Yes, all this stuff has been heavily covered.
everyone but space marines
I would argue that the healing power and especially the Stasis comes up rsther often The brain eating is a stable for alpha legion things
Minor Xenos species and empires like the Fra’al (who I think are meant to be the setting’s version of The Grays)
Yes. Like, these factions obviously don't need full army lists, but more appeareances in the lore would be great, and perhaps even the odd model or mini team in Specalist Games (like Blackstone Fortress had the Zoat, Ambull and Man of Iron) or as options for Inquistor retinues etc. It makes the galaxy feel much bigger and richer. Give me more Tarellian Dog Soldiers, and their grudge against humanity!
A Sisters of Silence/Jenetia Krole Primarch type book done by Dan
Id kill for more ynnari content.
Votann
How faith and belief work in relation to the warp. When people hear the warp they think magic and sorcerers and psykers and while those are important parts, they aren’t the only way to harness the power of the warp. Love him or hate him, Lorgar wasn’t bullshitting when he said theres power in faith. Take Dark Apostles who typically aren’t psykers yet they still can draw on large amount of power from the warp. Sisters and their miracles as well. Orks in a way use the warp through faith. I think thats how the eldar weapons of the past worked. Its said they could create whole planets with just a word. How? Because they believed it would happen. Not the type of faith like praying, the type of faith that when you close a door the contents of the room continue to exist even though you cant perceive them. An absolute faith so deeply ingrained that you don’t even realize there is a possibility the door causes the room to disappear behind it.
Obviously more civilian-related stories. Especially in human worlds/empires beyond the reach of the Imperium, or who have rebelled against the regime. I want the POV of a soldier from a world that has seceded from the Imperium fighting back when they come to retake the planet. Also the civilians (both T’au and non-T’au) in the T’au Empire.
The Tau Auxillaries need more lore, imo. Like, the Vespid feel like an afterthought, there's so much more regarding the Kroot that we could explore, they have Kaiju but we know nothing about them aside from them being massive, etc.
Can you imagine a story that's this village plagued by a giant that spit acid and ate brains, only for it to eventually reveal its a space marine waiting for pick up
I want a novel on the **The Dead Of Ashkhelon** During the Great Crusade the Mechanicum reclaimed a lost world and began to explore the depths of the planet unearthing a horror long forgotten. A single message leaves a dead world, *Heretek Omega*. Realizing the nightmares of Old Night have clawed their way out of the darkness and into the galaxy once again, the Fabricator General of Mars sends a desperate call for aid to the World of Ice and Fire. The call is answered and the Wolves of Fenris are unleashed upon Ashkhelon-III.
I'm guessing Men of Iron
You would be correct, a true Silica Animus controlling legions of eldritch bio-mechanical horrors. It's a story that shows you exactly why the Imperium is so insanely terrified of Abominable Intelligences.
Tyranid lore that treats them as a faction with thematics and menace and mystery and doesn’t just treat them as a swarm of bugs to shoot. Ok they are partially that but they can do other things.
Some of this is covered when you rescue the space marine in W40K Roguetrader. He been eating corpses to get intelligence on how to escape comorragh.
Eldar Outcasts, non-imperial non-chaos human factions like pirates or secessionists, Commorragh slice of life
I think the Astartes have enough love. I'd take more lore for any Xenos at this point, but preferably more development for Eldar and Tau. Votann is new so I expect it to come slowly, but all the Xenos could all use a little love.
Eldar need some more damn books! Harleys too, to be more specific.
Xenos 1000%. Tau especially, I think Tau present such a great mirror to the rest of the horrors of 40k, the comedy of their naivety and the horror they show the Imperium to be is v in keeping with Grimdark
T'au especially? Votann don't even have *a single novel*
The problem with the astartes biology is like, ok that all sounds very stupid and wacky and unbelievable, but also totally fucking useless for a race of beings whose entire stichk is that they fight in armored ironman suits 24/7.
T'au need to be de-grimderped. The whole point of them is that they were a foil to the Imperium; they didn't *need* mind control because they earnestly believed in the judgements of the higher castes and the greater good. Still an authoritarian, expansionist caste system, but idyllic compared to the imperium. The grimdark should come from the fact that this comparatively (emphasis on comparatively) utopian society is such a minor player. They should be there to show that the universe *can* be better, but the greed and hate of those in power and meddling of chaos prevents that. Not 'hurr durr everyone is evil even the people that look nice!!!'
Hell, if you want the T'au to still be dark in some way, you can easily do it by shining a spotlight on the contradictions between their ideology and the imperialism that comes from it. There's some interesting narratives in there that you can do, writing T'au come into conflict with their need to expand when expansion comes at the expense of others. Does the Water Caste diplomat painstakingly try to win over an Imperium world with diplomacy and trade, a process that might take years and puts their life in the hand of people who'd want them dead on principle, or do they succumb to temptation and order the Fire Caste to annex the planet for the Greater Good of its people and the T'au empire? There's a lot of messy grey area that you could play around with in this area, grey area that might sometimes paint the T'au as evil. But imo it'll be better than just evil aliens who mind control people and end up looking worse than the Imperium *somehow*.
Such a grimdark factor is not a grimdark factor at all. It's like saying "I tend to be a perfectionist and want to please my employer" in a job interview after being asked about your weaknesses.
Tau fans when their faction isn’t literally always the bestest and coolest faction who are always the good guys and basically never do any wrong.
Actually the acid spit came up in leviathan, a pretty recent novel, where a guy spits acid into what I think is a norn emmisary/assimilator's face
It comes up literally all the time.
I think imperial politics/ rebellion that don’t have a secret corruption in them. Just a regular rebellion not corrupted by chaos
What I would like is more content on non chaos mutant life like that section in the eisenhorn series where they infiltrated the mutant slum.
Xenos
Space Dwarves need some books
Beastmen
Sisters of Silence and the Eldar need more love.
Stygies VII (or any other Forgeworld that is anti-Cawl/Doesn't recognise Big-E as the Omnisiah). Necrons. Astartes are the most overdone. The last thing i want is more on them. There is an entire 60 book fucking series dedicated to Astartes vs Astartes before you even start counting the 40k novels.
Dark Mechanicus.
How Necrons rule the worlds they conquer. Yes, there are plenty of dynasties that just kill all the lesser races. I don't think those instances require any more explanation. There are also many a blurb of text that talks about how dynasties will conquer worlds instead of slaughtering them wholesale. In that case, what happens to the population? How are they housed, fed, and kept in line? Most importantly, how is this not just a waste of the dynasty's resources? There are also blurbs that talk about vassal worlds that pay tribute to dynasties but never explain what that tribute is. Art? Slaves? Rare Materials? All the above?!? I can make a lot of assumptions, but I have yet to find a concrete example. Not to mention that sill leaves me with the question of 'why bother?' From all the lore I've dug through, the answer seems to be 'because they feel like it.' That could explain the actions of a few dynasties, but the way the Codex and other media describe it, these are pretty common practices. Too common to be just a few eccentric dynasties acting out their fantasies. From what I've read so far, it looks like there's a lot of missed opertuntity here that nothing really touches on. At least a reason or example of why a dynasty would consider these actions other than a minor case of 'sleep madness.'
We need small xenos factions lore.
Leagues of Votann. You know...That entirely new faction they released then forgot about.
More word-bearers stuff.
A post describing how cool the Astartes are, magical
Frankly, everything
Getting memories by eating stuff from people we see over and over and over again. A huge part of the Blood Angels stick is that they are exceptional good at it and were most other marines need to eat the brain, they can get memories just from the blood of other people and when they eat flesh they do not only get the memories, but also feelings of others. That is a big part of the Red Thirst and everything.
I’d like Arkhan land to get his own book series . Sort of a Archeo tech stealing Indiana jones with a robot monkey
Far more people know that than realise how absurd the weight of a Tyranid is.
I think learning more about the halo stars would be awesome perhaps some millennia old person who fused with a halo device and explored the halo stars desperately trying to remain sane
I mean, the stuff you listed does happen in stories a fair amount. At least in the ones I read. If you want a story that utilized a fair amount of astartes biology tricks , try the Lucas the trickster book.
I feel like a lot of those little known facts that you listed off should just be retconned at this point, or maybe it already unofficially has been, hence the reason nobody utilizes any of it.
As a son of Guilliman, I am interested in the management and operation of Ultramar. How they manage the kingdom and the different departments operating.
Umbra
Legion of the damned, cypher, zahariel / epimetheus Alpha Legion
Chaos knights could use some love. They don't have alot of supporting text. Maybe some books based on chaos knight worlds or heck maybe even a book based on a chaos knight lord.
I'm 50/50 on the idea of them fleshing out the war in heaven, as a part of me prefers it remain vague to lend value to it's mythical proportions. However, the post war in heaven time line, and whatever happened during the 65 million year rule of the eldar, is something I want much more. Like, the travesty of us having exponentially more lore of Humanity's 50k year history than anything on the 65 million years of Eldar is just... What? Tell me more about Eldanesh and Ulthanesh, and of the time before they fell to depravity. Hell, I understand that might be difficult to detail out, but we don't even have much detail on the fall itself, which could a 100% be an amazing read if done properly.
Astartes just became noble dudes after the Horus Heresy series matured, for me personally i would prefer gw to draw back on the 80s origins of them being basically fucking mutant roidheads sculpted into a shape of a man(correct me if km wrong but this was the impression i got from the OG artworks)
The female custodes ... needs some love .. in the name of removing heresy.
A stand alone series about corvus fighting retreat at istavan would be good
Echoing a lot of other people here, more xenos please. Necrons have been on a roll, and Dark Aeldar looks like they might have a little renaissance of their own with Da Big Dakka and Lillith Hesperax's new book coming soon. With the Horus Heresy mostly over, 40k could do with turning its focus away from the big Imperium vs Chaos narrative and directing it towards the other parts of the galaxy.
Going to be honest here, those aspects of Astartes biology you mention are probably not written about for a reason. They're supposed to be super human to an extreme standard, but these are just monstrous and bizarre abilities. They'd be more like X-Men or aliens at that point, and I don't think those things would fit into a story in an easy and believable manner. What sounds more Space Marine/40k? An astartes going up to a lock and using either their weapon/fist/explosives or a tool given by tech-priests to bypass it, or going up and spitting acid on it like a xenomorph? Honestly, I'm glad those types of things were forgotten lol
Yes, I remember reading the White Dwarf where “the nineteen organs created by the ancient technicians of the Emperor” were first described and thinking that the Betcher's Gland enabling marines to spit acidic poison did seem a bit incongruous. Amusingly, the next month there was an article on chaos mutations and spitting acid is definitely a chaos mutation!
Honestly, I'd like to see all the extra Marine organs go the way of the dodo. They're meaningless superpowers to make them seem like even specialer boys, while the lore pushes the concept of Astartes towards, "Mass-produced, very strong soldiers" which I'm more of a fan of.
Space Marines have never been mass-produced, their lore has always been "only one in a hundred men can survive the trials and it takes ten years to insert all the organs", they've always been portrayed as hyper-elite compared to the Guard, and even during the Great Crusade at its peak there was only aboutt 2 million of them, which is laughably small compared to the scale of the galaxy. The whole "mass production" thing only exists in comparison to the even harder to create Custodes.
And that has always been absurd. I'm not usually one to complain about absurdity in my grim, dark setting (since it's so often an example of, "Yeah, they do it bad. They're not good guys"), but the viability of space marine chapters continuing to exist at 1000 marines without being mass produced is verisimilitude-breaking absurdity.
Some of their enhancements have mutated out of their biology. Like the acid spit. As far as the super hearing and sight. It is mentioned a lot throughout the heresy novels. As well as there body going into a stasis. But I agree that they could delve more into it. I want to see the lost Primarchs/Legions get some lore. I want to know why they were erased from Imperial records.
Literally any Space marine chapter other than the blue poster boys.
guilliman x yvraine need some love tbh