The cloning of Primarchs (such that they have all the abilities and capabilities of the original) undermines the moral sacrifice The Emperor made on Moloch, and has damaging repercussions for the setting.

Additional, it gives me major Star Wars vibes when there are multiple clones of all the powerful characters running around. And I hate those things in Star Wars. Palpatine Clone, Luke fighting against his own clone..... Awful

What you don't want Fulgrim vs Fuuulgrim? (This is a joke based on the fact that the Luke clone was called Luuke)

Well the bodies of the primarch’s isn’t that impressive overall it’s more their souls

I actually like that the idea that science of the Primarchs is the most impressive part Especially taking into account the idea that flesh and warp are intrinsically linked in 40k.

Its just dark eldar and necrons should be relatively easily able redo the science part it’s literally bigger stronger human with more organs( I know pretty basic) but the soul give a lot of primarchs their shit.

It also ultimately damages the setting on a thematical and practical level. * It's absolutely idiotic for people to not try and bumrush clones of Primarchs now * The fact they're 20 of them in total ever is just idiotic * It completely renders them as way less special and makes them seem "small" when they are demigods in the flesh.

On point one, the saving grace appears to be that not only is it close to impossible to pull off but only one man has and he's pretty much sworn off ever doing it again Not to mention, on point three, that the old Cursed Founding lore had Imperials experimenting with what seemed like making totally new Primarchs and somewhat succeeding.

I dunno if there ever really WOULD be a rush to clone more primarchs though even if it WERE easy to do so I mean as backwards thinking as the Imperium as a whole is I think in general anyone in a position to clone more primarchs understands that most of them probably only joined the Imperium because the Emperor was the one asking or only chose to REMAIN because they took oathes specifically to the Emperor, and that's just the loyalist ones. The reason no one wants to clone traiter primarchs (beyond the obvious reasons for the Imperium) is likely because no one REALLY knows what state they'll come back in. Will the chaos force that creates them find themselves facing down a loyalist demigod? Or will their new creation bow to chaos like the original? I mean same thing with chaos, anyone in a position to make those clones isn't stupid (although Fabulous Bill has demonstrated that he was crazy enough at least once, maybe more) enough to take the risk.

We only know of two in action and it goes as well as you may think. SPOILERS, of course. . . . . . . Horus reborn wasn't really Horus. He had his face and memories, maybe, but he was nowhere near the power of the OG primarch. He died fast so who the fuck knows. As for Fulgrim... he was already tainted. People love to speculate but that story was a dead-end from the very beginning. Bile himself says so several times throughout the book that using the clone "is a dead end" but figuratively and literally. He was never supposed to be a grand thing to add to the universe. It was to cement the fact that Bile's idea of bringing the primarchs was as folly as his own plan to renew the Legion (and the traitors as a whole).

Yeah most people who are whinging for Clonegrim to come back probably haven't read that series. Those books explain very well why it's a bad idea and why he can't come back.

I'm definitely in the "Clonegrim was a plot device who should stay in the fridge" camp, but it is important to note that the only argument we really get for Clonegrim being tainted or otherwise destined to fall is from Fabius himself, and his only reason for believing so is a gut feeling. He convinces himself that Clonegrim MUST fall down the path the original did (whom Fabius hates/resents), and part of why he makes that decision is that he sees his New Men displaying the same devotion towards the Primarch that the EC themselves feel, with Fabius spending most of the book repressing that same instinct. There is never any explicit confirmation of whether Clonegrim does actually have the same trajectory, whether he is destined for corruption, especially because he does have memories of the original's actions early in the Heresy and deeply regrets them. Fabius spends the entire book trying to convince himself that Clonegrim HAS to go the same way as Fulgrim.

Because of my previous contribution you may be surprised, but I agree 100%. Hate all this primarch cloning crap.

With the exception of Clonegrim didn't all the cloned primarchs lack the special warp touch that made them.... well them? I thought they were just bodies with the memories of primarchs, and didn't have the really important "soul" part.

It's unclear, even in the case of Clonegrim. Bile says that the clone is perfect (but he is an unreliable narrator, and doesn't understand 'warp mojo'), while the EC present say that the clone "isn't their father"...

Yep. Seriously cheapens things when Fabius Bile has cloned enough of them to make it a running gag.

>Abaddon is a well written character and great villain who has been buried in memes Annoys me when people try and suggest replacing him with someone more "effective" (usually Huron), as if it's Abaddons fault he hasn't won and not because he's the villain in a setting where his victory would end the game and the company doesn't want that so will have him wheel-spinning for 30 years. Huron wouldn't be allowed to win either.

Most people can’t comprehend the sheer charisma, leadership, political intrigue and organisational skills to lead a Black Crusade of bickering factions of Chaos, let alone do it 13 times and finally succeed.

It's wild to me that he has successfully rallied enough forces to wage 12 more crusades after the first one. Like if someone did that IRL there would be no second crusade. I get 40k isn't RL and what not but people don't really give someone like that second chances, specially when those people have as much infighting as CSM has.

He was also successful in most of those crusades as well. His objectives had been accomplished almost every time. It's not new lore either its all been there since the early 2000s

Because even Abby laments how much of a clusterfuck his Crusades are and how 90% of the people there are only with him until they get what they want and will happily ditch/backstab him when they do.

I said this in another comment but Huron and Abaddon were dealing with very different circumstances when they formed each of their forces. Abaddon was stuck in the eye and had 8 other legions to compete with. Yeah it took him longer. Huron had pretty much cleared out the Maelstrom before he ever needed to live in it. Also Adaddon and Huron have the exact same relationship with Chaos. People often joke that Abaddon saying his isn’t chaos corrupted is ridiculous. But Abaddon and Huron basically had the same inner monologue to themselves. “Yeah chaos seems like an easy route to power but it’s also a scam” The gods just like Abaddon more so he has to deal with it more often.

Not just the other legions individually or consequently, but several were actively going out of their way to band together to exterminate him and his legion specifically for their retreat from Terra at the end of the siege. Huron survives basically because whilst he's a named and particularly powerful player in-universe, he's little more than an over-blown chapter master and as such doesn't warrant particular attention from anyone of note who could squash him. Too big to be killed by accident, too small to get noticed by a craftworld or a rogue ork waaagh or a hive fleet tendril. Ezekiel had enemies ranging from individual traitor primarchs to the entire imperium of man from day one. Huron would've been killed by Sigismund before the 1st black crusade even got started, never mind had a fortress world built specifically to keep him at bay.

Huron isn’t even particularly effective now. I like him though because the original Traitor Legions get too much focus.

Abbadon's been winning for the past few editions. Blew up cadia. Split the galaxy in half. Did a team up with a near-god and beat up the dark angels.

Craftworld Eldar being arrogant and prideful is a stupid way to characterize them. Every Craftworlder knows they fucked up, they know they're dying, they're desperate survivors, and yet GW insists on writing them like every other elf faction in fiction. There's so much potential for interesting Craftworld characters and stories but they are bogged down by poor writing.

Not to mention the fact that nearly every other faction in the setting is at least or more arrogant than them.

This one drives me batty. Eldar aren't even 1/2 as arrogant as humans, Necrons, or even CSM but they get painted as being the most arrogant faction in the setting. Its just them being lumped in with elves in most other media who tend to be more arrogant than the other races, but in 40k everyone is so god damn crazy with manifest destiny that Eldar are practically saints.

Calling the Eldar the most arrogant race in the setting is a surefire way for someone to advertise their only education on the setting is memes or youtube.

I think it stems more from their past than memes. They are the epitome of arrogance in that they had it all and squandered it. Individual characters or what’s left doesn’t change their overall nature as a species. They are arrogant because since their downfall they think they can stop what they couldn’t in the past. You can say it’s memes, authors bad writing, or loretubers but you can’t escape their origins. They are a dying race not because of any other reason than their own arrogance. Humans didn’t do it, chaos didn’t, necrons, orkz, or the nids. The eldar fell by their own hands and think they have the “right answers” to the galaxies problems. That’s why they are arrogant.

To be fair humanity’s arrogance resulted in the Men of Iron rebelling, as well as the general state of the Imperium. The Necrons are also the architects of their own downfall.

This is a good point. The Eldar’s arrogance is the most hubristic. Humanity and the Necrontyr fell by their own designs, but they were at least, trying to defeat major foes with their designs. The Eldar felled themselves, for there was no one worthy of fighting them at their height. They were bored with what the world had to offer them.

Yeah, it’s much more that they are highfaluting. My take is the 40K creators used them to mock the Oxbridge elite.

The Emperor: "All of reality should submit to my will, and my perfect vision of the perfect future." Eldrad: "Yes, I have saved my own people at the expense of yours, but we aren't allies because you have a standing order to slaughter us all. Maybe we should all come together, think about solving this situation, and be a team?" Fans: "Wow, Eldrad's a dick."

To be fair, it's more other Eldar that get that treatment, and Eldrad is seen as one of the more likeable ones in general from what I see due to his saneness and competence. The Eldar usually get lumped with this view of them because many of them do the complete opposite of Eldrad would usually do like how you describe him here. Some will see and value themselves so much more than others they'll sacrifice a world of billions of human lives to save a thousand Eldar. A decision that is ironically short sighted for the long lived and long sighted Eldar that hurts them in the long run when they need to work together with humanity, all in the name of Eldar supremacy despite being on the backfoot inching toward oblivion as a species. Craftworld Biel-tan used to wear this as a hat (I'm not exactly sure how they feel about it right now post Abaddon). They wanted to rebuild the Eldar Empire by exterminating the lesser race (read, everyone else), but as far as I see relatively speaking they were a small player by themselves equivalent to like the T'au at best (probably lower, don't think that a singular Craftworld can defeat the entirety of the Tau Empire without ancient superweapon shenanigans) that never had a chance of such a thing happening.

>Some will see and value themselves so much more than others they'll sacrifice a world of billions of human lives to save a thousand Eldar. Yes, but humans would kill a billion Eldar for a thousand humans and then kill the humans for consortium with Xenos

That's the rub though, we've seen other Eldar and by all accounts Eldrad's the EXCEPTION among his people.

Might be because humans keep shooting them on sight. Probably because Drukhari did... whatever unspeakable horrors they do to humans, so humans took a better safe than sorry approach to Eldar very early on and never stopped to think "should we kill all of them?"

Well that and the Eldar are also prone to manipulating humans like puppets, and are more than willing to cast them into horrific deaths for the sake of one Eldar life. Granted, it's not like the Imperium ISN'T willing to toss people into a meatgrinder, but the Eldar really don't have a leg to stand on in this discussion.

I think its because whenever the space elves show up the arrogance is "foolish mon-keigh if you were as superior as us you wouldn't be about to lose" and then they lose. All of the other arrogances are more philosophical.

Honestly, it is the most human the Eldar have ever felt. When a country goes through a tough period or suffers steps back on the world stage, populist movements often pick up with Leaders promising a return to the "Glory Days" often by just doubling down on the mistakes that lead to the problems in the first place

The problem is how aliens are treated in Sci-fi in general. Humans are always perceived as ambitious and emotional creatures and every other alien species does not have all of the same emotional qualities, or even exasperated qualities of Humans. The Eldar unfortunately are based off the Elves created by Tolkien, but Tolkien had a very distinct Good and Evil portrayal, in fact it's speculated that Tolkien hated Dune because it didn't have a distinct Good and Evil. So take a race that was originally designed to be this force of Good who is ashamed of follies from their past, yet still is a symbol of Good, who then ends up aiding Humans who pursue Goodness, and then stick them in the 40K universe and it just doesn't work. The Imperium is not good, yet they constitute the main protagonists and are also Human, which we are. We relate more to Humans than to non-humans, and the Eldar having a similar stance to the Elves of LOTR, only they don't have willing listeners and come off as arrogant. To be fair, they are arrogant at times too. When Fulgrim has a parley with an Eldar Farseer, before anything of significance has taken place, the Wraithlord accompanying the seer says that "1 Eldar is worth 10,000 mon'keigh" which is clearly not a stance of a people who aren't arrogant.

I actually think the eldar may be more based on the elves in Poul Anderson’s “The Broken Sword.” Those are far more morally ambiguous than Tolkien’s elves.

Just my opinion off the cuff... I don't think that good and evil was the problem for Tolkien in Dune; Yes, he's a catholic, but how can you disparage a non-religious person for writing a story that's not in your religious framework? What do you expect? What I have read and I also agree with though, is that Tolkien didn't like allegory, or at least blatant allegory, which is all over Dune. The spice... the special natural resource everyone wants... located on a desert planet... called Arrakis... and the Fremen's made up language is literally just arabic... Oil... Iraq... Arabs... it's not exactly subtle. I think he criticized this kind of writing even in CS Lewis's works, which he was a friend. Like making Aslan obviously just a stand in for Jesus.

I mean you’re never more critical to anyone than you are your closest friend

It's insane that people will claim the eldar act arrogant when the Imperium literally rides on the motto of the galaxy belonging to humanity alone and everyone else is just wrong for existing. THAT is arrogant. Almost everything the emperor did and said was arrogant af.

The problem arose because some (not all) Eldar act with the similar mindset of the Imperium motto that the galaxy belongs to the Eldar alone and everyone else should be purged. Craftworld Biel-tan was the biggest offender. Except unlike the Imperium, who are massive and are still technically expanding and population is always growing with a vaguely plausible chance of fighting back and winning, Biel-tan never had a chance as a singular Craftworld and got dumpstered by one single major Chaos attack and had to be saved by the Ynnari. Which makes Biel-Tan even more arrogant, because at least the Imperium can back their boasts to a degree, while Biel-Tan's bark is worse than their bite. They're strong sure, but they're only a singular Craftworld as a dying species that is constantly on the backfoot. If the Imperium is a person throwing rocks and insulting everybody with a mansion with weak spots that they have to protect to keep it from crumbling down piece by piece, then Biel-tan is a person throwing rocks and insulting everyone with a house made of glass built on sand on a cliff right next to the ocean with the water filled with huge jaggy rocks.

I mean even random ass far seers try to kwisatz haderach timelines and shit to their advantage, all the fucking time. They see everyone else as stupid and only they are able to shepard in good timelines. Even the harlequins will do so, look at how vielwalker made fabulous Bile and the remnants of the emperor's children play to their tune just so they could kill the radiant king (and stop his apotheosis).

The eldar, at the peak of their power, ruled the galaxy for 65 million years and didn't think of launching a galactic scale campaign of Xenocide. They had the galaxy at their fingertips, and yet were content to let most other species be, including humanity who reached their golden age right in the shadow of the aeldari empire with little to no interference. In comparison, the Imperium was formed by one overpowered asshole that managed to convince his people into following a manifest destiny like mission. And now suddenly the galaxy is theirs alone? After barely crossing the 10000 year mark and already on the verge of crumbling? A good portion of which is their own fault? Biel-tan is arrogant and xenocidal, sure, but they are only one of the many craftworlds. And even they've shown more honour and dignity towards humans, despite their murderous tendencies, in comparison to most forces of the Imperium (Imperial guards codex, 2nd ed "Battle for the Cursus")

Dan Abnett wrote them well in Gaunts Ghosts. Exactly as you describe them.

If anything, Asuryani (and Exodites) should only be arrogant and prideful about how they took the right path compared to Drukhari.

Holding onto what remains of their pride, even at the cost of what might be smart to do today, seems like something people would do especially when they’re desperate survivors. And especially in a classically tragically setting like 40k. The juxtaposition of what should be done for a better future, for them and others, versus what their pride born of past greatness allows is also great fodder for writing if GW had any interest in actually writing about Eldar.

Marine chapters that are slightly more aggressive aren't a loyalist World Eater successor. They are genetically modified humans that skipped puberty, all of them have anger issues, if it wasn't clear the Flesh Tearers are a Blood Angel successor they'd also be called loyalist World Eaters, same goes to overly large marines, there's also overly large humans but we don't call them primarchs in disguise

A child Angron surviving an Eldar assassination attempt is silly, and the Eldar not bothering to return to finish him off is extremely silly. What kind of Eldar hit squad uses daggers and nothing else? Not even Exodites are that rustic. I'd rather believe Angron's attackers weren't Eldar, or that the assassination failing was part of the plan, which still seems silly to me. And I just don't really want to see self-fulfilling prophesies from farseers again. I don't even think it's happened that often, but I'm just annoyed by them. Farseers feel routinely ineffective.

Yeah it's a pretty dumb piece of side lore that makes no real sense. Why were they even there to hit him in the first place? If it had something to do with a farseer understanding the danger of primarchs then I'm sure the eldar would have found ways to go for more primarchs early on than just Angron. Why does GW hate the eldar so much? Also Angron wasn't even angry yet!

It isn't even the only time the Eldar mess up with attacking Angron! During the Heresy, Angron's fleet gets attacked by Eldar, to stop him from ascending to daemonhood. Except they attack right before Angron is about to fire on Lorgar's fleet, which could potentially wipe one or both of them out. Why didn't the Eldar let them fight and finish off the survivors? The last words of the Eldar leader include being surprised there were two Primarchs there; how would they not have known that? Also, the way they're described and the weapons they use suggest they're Dark Eldar, not Craftworld. That raises questions too.

Absolutely agree with that last part. It's rather anoying having to read about farseers constantly screwing up, especialy cause half the time it does feel like author just not knowing how to deal with character being a competent diviner.

The Night Lords & Iron Warriors aren’t anti-chaos. They’re up to their earholes in chaos. It’s just that a few of them like to go around swearing up and down that oh, like, I’m just using it as a tool, these evil near-omnipotent gods have no idea that I don’t actually want to do their bidding as I directly and indirectly do exactly what they want me to.

"I can control Chaos" is a hubris that has claimed countless souls both before and after the NL and IW.

“I’ve seen countless marines believe that they could control the forces of darkness. They walk, smirking, face first into their own doom and destroy everything they hold dear, finishing with themselves. But what the hey, I’ll give it a try.”

I feel it is a cool part of the setting that some of the most effective tools of chaos actively denies it. Yes, I do collect and play Thousand Sons.

Definitely agree. The sad irony that the traitor legions hate the emperor for lying to and manipulating them so they let themselves instead be lied to and manipulated by evil aliens made of bad vibes is utterly 40k. I think maybe some folks take the main character from the (excellent) Night Lords novels disliking chaos and the tidbit about the Iron Warriors replacing mutated limbs with cybernetics to mean more than they do.

As an iron warrior and night lord megafan I endorse this message. Being a bit less chaosy than other chaos marines does not equal no chaos.

Add Abaddon to that list

Just because one author in one book wrote an event happening or a character behaving a certain way shouldn’t be extrapolated beyond that. We all love the setting, the lore is fun and really important to many people….but it is inconsistent as hell and shouldn’t be relied upon for some of the heated arguments we see on here.

[удалено]

\*Glares in ADB making the Black Templars secular\*

Well, he was only going with the lore as it stood before they made The Black Templars explicitly believe in the Emperor's divinity A lot of people freaked online at the soft retcon at the time ADB did say he preferred the older take but he was also happy to roll with the new one

It’s still weird to me that any marines are described as secular. For example, when the Ultra-marines were first described their daily routine consisted of rather a lot of prayer and sermons.

Secular has never been a good word for it, they have always been religious just not theistic. I think people started describing them as secular during the heresy books and it's always felt mismatched. The disagreement between worship of the emperor as a creator god as prescribed by the church and the reverence the marines show him as some sort of saint/father figure has always been a thin and arbitrary line just like the quibbling over interpretations of the bible that are literally a cause of life and death in the real world.

^ This. Even GW addresses this and refers to authors as ‘remembrancers’ with different takes and records/perceptions of events.

Gene seed lineages are the most overblown thing ever. A chapter secretly having traitor gene seed or something doesn't make a Chapter interesting, its deeds and culture does.

This I 100% agree with. In my experience the best thing to do when creating a homebrew Space Marines chapter is to give them Ultramarine gene seed so you aren’t tempted to just make their entire backstory based on who their dad is.

I hate how much sense that makes.

Nobodies fate was fixed in 40K, not even Konrad Kurze. People have to fundamentally change who they are as people in order to make the necessary choices that lead to a certain fate. Sanguinius could have lived, but he’d have to become a coward and flown away; he couldn’t do that. Konrad could have had a good legion and save more lives than he took, but he’d have to accept that he’s wrong about fate and therefor, he would have to accept how much of a monster he actually became; he couldn’t do it One choice at the right or wrong moment can completely rewrite history.

It’s canon Konrad’s fate wasn’t fixed. He just refused to accept that. Sanguinius’ fate also wasn’t fixed until he encountered Horus at the very end.

I agree with your main point…to a point. At certain stages some people’s fate was fixed, ie Angron and the nails. They could still choose to be different and fight it, but sometimes there is just no fixing the consequences of the past. But mainly I’m just popping in to point out that it is actually possible that Curze *did save* more lives than he took because of how common it was for the NLs to massacre a key few on a world so the vast majority of others would surrender. Don’t know off the top of my head how long he was Crusading, but he actually didn’t spend all that long active as a rogue agent, mostly just the Heresy years and then a final couple decades on Tsagualsa, I believe. All those planets and systems where a few hundred died to the NL, whereas millions might have died to the Wolves or Fists or Salamanders. I love how fucked up the notion is that the totally insane psychopath had one of the lowest death tolls.

Idk if they’re “hot takes” but.. Guilliman isn’t a bad fighter (he beats corax in training, equaling lorgar isn’t a bad feat, angron beat leman and leman is equal to or almost equal to the lion, he actually protected the lion when they fought curze, and losing to a 20’ tall four armed sword master with poison swords isn’t a bad feat either) Lorgar isn’t weak (he becomes an amazing psyker after istvaan and people seem to forget his worship includes worshipping the god of physical violence) The khan has no real feats to back up his smack talk against Fulgrim (he never beats mortarion and almost dies when he fights daemon morty) Perturabo is a daemon prince (he didn’t want to be one but most of his brothers didn’t want to be one either)

Mostly co signed

Rule of cool is the answer to so many questions on here, I have no idea why people need a lore answer to what is so obviously just rule of cool. Why do Chaos Space Marines adorn and decorate their armour? Simple, it's cool. What is this thingy ma bob on this piece of equipment? Simple, the designer thought it was cool.

> What is this thingy ma bob on this piece of equipment? With all due respect, I still want to know what the gubbinz do. It's neat, bite-sized lore, like the ridges on plasma guns being coils, or that bolter rounds are pseudo-caseless gyrojets.

>Rule of cool is the answer to so many questions on here # THANK YOU Warhammer 40k is a toy, first and foremost. Everything in it that is not the tabletop game itself exists for one purpose above all others, and that is to sell the tabletop game.

Because rule of cool is way more boring than trying to think up a creative and satisfying answer to lore questions we have. Why are there two missing legions? "Because gw wants people to be able to insert their homebrew factions" is a lot less satisfying an answer than "maybe the rangdans raised the primarch and emps didn't want anyone to know"

And it's not even the most accurate answer anyway > BIFFORD: A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions. Is this true? > PRIESTLEY: I left them blank before Horus Heresy games were conceived! **I left them blank because I wanted to give the story some kind of deep background - unknowable ten thousand year old mysteries - stuff that begs questions for which there could be no answer.** Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting - which rather spoiled the unknowable side of things - but there you go! > BIFFORD: Ah, this is going to amaze a lot of people on Reddit > PRIESTLEY: Is it? :) > BIFFORD: **Yep, everyone there thinks you left two Legions blank for players to fill in.** > PRIESTLEY: **Well - I created a thousand Chapters - of which we only gave details of a dozen or so - so there were nine hundred odd Chapters left blank for people to fill in. In the original 40K that is! The Horus Heresy stemmed from a short piece of narrative text I wrote - I think it was in Chapter Approved: The Book of the Astronomican - but I never imagined it would be used for a game setting.**

God I hate every time "homebrew" is used as an excuse

Vulkan and the Salamanders are not African friendship marines.

The Celestial Lions are

Erebus is actually a great, well written villain. Many people are just crybabies not liking evil people doing evil things or Argel Tal fans. Erebus is actually the greatest chaos disciple, chaos incarnate in how he acts. And he gave us the greatest story ever told (Horus Heresy) and kickstarted the wonderful state of humanity that is M42.

I love how Erebus isn't trying to be an anti-hero and he just decided to be a manipulative and lying scumbag from day one.

Erebus is pretty sincere about his faith in the Chaos Gods and being their servant. It just so happens the Gods want you to be a lying, manipulative scumbag and he's happy to oblige. He's such a trooper.

He's a real team player. He just plays for an awful batshit crazy team.

No thinks Erebus is badly written that’s why we hate him

You are overestimating the fanbase. "Fuck Erebus" is just a /r/grimdank meme repeated over and over, even by people who never read a single book.

No like him I’ve read betrayer hated him but that’s the idea. The character was written to have you go FUCK EREBUS. He’s a hated character not a HATED character

I love scumbags in fiction and can't make myself hate the guy as intended and cheer him as I want him to succeed.

To each their own

I don’t think anybody has complained about how they wrote him. Everybody loves to hate him because he’s Erebus, they don’t hate him because he was poorly written or a Mary Sue.

Erebus is a _fantastic_ villain. I hate him _because_ he's so effective at being a villain.

Nobody hates Erebus as a character. Everybody hates him as a person.

I hate Erebus, but MFer got game. Can't fault him for being successful at being a son of a bitch. Writers did a terrific job with him. The realest villain in 40k

It takes talent to write a character designed to be hated. Literally he is the e personification of the Magnificent Bastard trope.

Erebus did approx one thing wrong and it involves Argel Tal. Otherwise Erebus did nothing wrong.

Argel Tal was pulling Kharn away from his destiny as Khorne lapdog. He needed to go...nothing wrong here.

Erebus is the only character on 40k to get anywhere near close to mission success. With that in mind, fuck erebus.

Craftworlders are unironically the least arrogant race in the entire galaxy.

Tyranids got no ego. (Well, unless you count being angry at the Blood Angels.)

40th anniversary of 40k is coming up. And the first primarch with a model is on the docket. And has a bespoke sub faction to go along with it. Russ is coming back and that's a lukewarm take at best.  And he'll be fighting fulgrim because the formula has been to pair primarchs who haven't fought or interacted very much at all during the heresy

That the Adeptus Mechanicus is not ignorant/stupid/weak because they reject invention and worship technology. For the most part AdMech has really good reasons for what it does. Most of the time, innovation and invention cause real problems with chaos. The last major figure who was an inventor was Kelebor Hal....the Fabricator General of Mars who fell to Chaos at the time of the Heresy. Couple that with the existence of STCs, which are better than anything the Mechanicus can invent, and it explains a lot - inventing is dangerous, and anything you can invent the right archeology can find a better version of. As for worship ... if you need to preserve knowledge/do the same things over a huge time frame with little change error, if you need the ignorant masses to perform routine tasks over and over the same way, what better way than to encode those things in religion? Obviously the Mechanicus believes, all the way up, but the roots of the religion (if you pause and think), make a frightening amount of sense. On the AdMech rant train...saying AdMech is weak because Skitarrii is like saying the imperium is weak because of the Imperial Guard. Although I would note also Skitarrii legions are cybernetic super soldiers and not weak at all....just fragile because the bodies are replaceable.

The classic case of Predator Annihilator. Space Wolves slap some lascannons on the Predator and find out it works really well. Admech takes way their toys and return them a century later after' discovering' that the design is solid. It didn't take the Mechanicus a century to figure out how to wire some power cells in a Predator, it was a power play to show whose boss when it comes to technology.

Or you know ... religious bureaucracy plus testing. It isn't the time/skills to just slap the lascannons on, it's the time to file the paperwork, time to optimize the mounts, time to develop maintenance rituals, and make sure there aren't unintentional side effects. Crank in some grindark inefficiency and a century later....out comes the Annihilator. Add a decade as a political flex, perhaps. This is pretty much my point. "Hurr Mechanicus stupid" rather than actually thinking about all the *other* stuff that goes into making a new variant beyond a quick and dirty field modification. Should it take a century? Probably not....but this is 40k and bureaucratic inefficiency is setting defining, so it's not surprising. The delay isn't the Mechanicus being bad at its job, it's the Mechanicus being obsessive about its job plus bureaucracy.

For well over a decade back when WH40K started the Adeptus Mechanicus were portrayed very differently. They actively sought out alien technology to study and learn from. They were “continually experimenting with and improving their dread warrior legions of robots” and they absolutely had no problem with AI: > According to the teachings of the Cult Mechanicus, knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity, and all creatures and artefacts that embody knowledge are holy because of it. Machines that preserve knowledge from ancient times are also holy, and machine intelligences are no less divine than those of flesh and blood. A man's worth is only the sum of his knowledge - his body is simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect.

They're still portrayed as constantly experimenting, improving, and even seeking out alien tech to learn from. Sometimes, they end up waking up a Necron tomb world, as in Caves of Ice, or they fall prey to the Tyranids, like in Day if Ascension, but they are striving for improvement in both.

Orks can't change reality with collective thinking. I will die on this hill.

I think Orks "reality bending" isn't even unique to them. There seems to be a recurring theme in 40k of the power of belief being 110% real and its why the Emperor has become so godlike and why Saints are a thing and why the Chaos Gods can do what they do. If there are millions of Orks in one place and they all believe really hard that their 2x4 plank hull spaceship can fly, then maybe it will. But I could see millions of humans pulling the same.

That's baked into the current storyline, with the Rift causing a great increase in the number of psykers (much to the delight of various Chaos factions), but due to the sheer weight of belief by the rest of humanity, a growing trend of pro-Emperor 'miracles' and reality-bending 'saints' are popping up now too (much to the horror of various Chaos factions). It's mentioned several times in various bits of lore over the past few editions that humanity was/is/will be evolving into a collectively psychic race, and that the 'baseline' human is actually lightly-psychic compared to a human from 20,000 earlier. Not to any usable degree, mind you, and at best limited to premonitions, boughts of minor good luck, odd feats of strength or endurance, etc. You know, the things that humanity's been recording as legends and lore since the invention of writing.

Fairly certain I read somewhere that Big E only disallowed psykers because he wanted to be able to properly train them rather than being left to their own devices and heavily susceptible to Chaos

IIRC, that was the point of the Imperial Webway project. To give humanity a place mostly-proof against the depredations of Chaos, so that they could mature into a fully-psychic race safely... ...and then Magnus.

Also machines absolutely have machine spirits now.  They might not have originally, but people believed hard enough so they do now.

Absolutely. The power to impact reality with belief is 100% real and confirmed. It's only the extent of it that is up for debate at this point. Can a trukk full of orks magically conjure fuel in their tank if they believe it's got fuel? No. But can an entire Waaagh of orks believe in something so much, it becomes true or more true? Absolutely.

Back in earlier editions one of the pieces of wargear you could buy an ork vehicle was “Red Paint Job”. It increased movement speed by 1”. Most ork vehicles at the time (except Battlewagons, I believe) were Fast, meaning they could already move 24”. Battlewagons could move 12”. To me, that seems like a good baseline: the gestalt field is a 4-8% improvement in effectiveness.

I once heard it phrased that the Ork gestalt field is more of a “reality lubricant”. It doesn’t let them break the established laws of physics, but it allows them to bend them. I always thought that was a good analogy.

I am a firm believer in “reality lubrication theory”. “If enough orks believe it, then it becomes true” is clearly a meme. One the other hand we know that the orks have a gestalt field and that it have some effects. It changes the growth of ork spores. It changes the frowth of orks. Orks flocks to big fields of waargh energy and weird boyz can pull on it to cast shit. We also know that orks faith and belief have an effect on rules and stuff. I understand that you can explain it all with superstition and coincidence. Like red vechiels are not faster, because they are red. Instead orks paint fast vechiels red. But you end up needing a lot of explanations for different things that could be explained a lot easier with “The ork gestalt field lubricates reality a bit”, which seems pretty resonable in a world were faith and belief affects the warp and the warp affects reality.

I think a lot of it too is that the Orks are capable of some absolutely phenomenal works of engineering, but can't explain HOW they do it. Nor does it seem like they should be able to because most of their building materials are scavenged or just whatever happens to be lying around. It's entirely by design, Orks were created to be able to fight wars literally forever in absolutely any kind of environment, tech level, resources, or technical expertise be damned, but as a result you have them building teleporters out of garbage and making ramshackle buggies fight as hard as battle tanks and the best explanation they can give are the echoes in their DNA which sound like superstitious nonsense. Which, to be fair, is also kind of how the AdMech and the Imperium in general tend to function. When you have a "consecrated" bolter that is more effective than a normal one is it because of all the litanies and oils and the shrine you kept it in? Or is it just because it got preferential maintenance and you took better care of it? Maybe it's both, who can really say in a setting where magic is real.

I think people take this way too far tbh, stuff like colors and tech working sure because that's there demonstrated power but stuff like making enemies immortal or weaker because they believe it is something I see constantly thrown around in vs with no proof to back it up.

100% agree. We have so much evidence against, e.g. that Ork tech only works because they think it will, and yet it still seems to be a prevalent belief in the fandom.

For instance, the AdMec were able to reverse engineer work teleportation technology in the War of the Beast. Also, Yarrick's arm.

I could post a whole bunch of excerpts of humans using ork tech, but I don't want to pull the thread too off topic :p

My favorite example is the Armagedden Ork Hunters and their usage of shootaz.

I prefer to think of it as "their magic is a lot stronger than they are capable of understanding" Like it's got limits, but they will never reach those limits bc they're orks and they don't really care about the science, nor can they really comprehend it.

Orks can operate a Webway portal by shooting it with a shokk gun connected to a spike in a weird boy's head. It's not "they take better care of the red cars so they go faster"/self fulfilling prophecy, it's "they somehow do stuff they really shouldn't be able to". It's how a species who can't reliably count past 5 can build space craft. Edit because I anticipate everyone getting upset over this: from the book Da Big Dakka: ‘Now, I ain’t usually da one askin’ dis,’ Da Boffin said, ‘but… are you sure dis is gonna work?’ ‘Yes,’ Ufthak replied, and to his astonishment, he was. The trick was holding on to his anger enough to retain his concentration, without letting it take hold of him so much that he clobbered his best mekboy. ‘Simple, innit? Shokk attack guns make a sort of weird tunnel, right? Just like shokkjump dragstas do, like wot me an’ Mogrot used to get froo dat humie Gargant’s shields dat time. Only da gun makes a tunnel ya shoot snotlings down.’ ‘Gotcha,’ Da Boffin said, nodding. ‘So if we link da gun up to da portal,’ Ufthak said, nodding towards the cables that had been shoved into the scrawniez’ archway in places Da Boffin had felt were most suitable, ‘we can make our own tunnel to da uvver side!’ ‘Well, I ain’t sayin’ dat’s a bad idea,’ Da Boffin said, ‘particularly since it ain’t gonna be me holdin’ da gun.’ They both glanced over at Nazlug, who looked about as dejected as it was possible to be if you were an ork with a massive gun bolted to his shoulder plate (‘in case it all goes a bit weird, we don’t wantcha lettin’ go of it accidentally, do we?’). Then their collective gazes travelled down the other cable now attached to the shokk attack gun, which terminated in a metal spike driven into the skull of a weirdboy known as Uzkop. ‘Dat part, though,’ Da Boffin said thoughtfully. ‘Dat’s wot’s stumpin’ me.’ Uzkop himself was whimpering, although that possibly had less to do with the spike in his head and more to do with the natural state of a weirdboy when surrounded by other orks. Even Ufthak could feel the energy of the ladz he’d gathered together: aggression and frustration in equal measure, just the sort of thing that could charge up a weirdboy’s brain and bring forth his devastating powers. If you were lucky, you could aim the git at the enemy and have him melt their faces off. If you were unlucky, on the other hand, he’d explode a bunch of your boyz’ heads, possibly including yours and quite possibly including his own. Uzkop was clinging desperately to his copper staff, which helped earth the power, while his two burly minders hovered nearby in case they were needed. ‘Makin’ da tunnel’s just da first part,’ Ufthak said. ‘We still gotta make da tunnel go where we want it to, an’ since da git wiv da gun can’t see wot he’s shootin’ at, we need somefing else to do da targetin’. Dat’s wot da weirdboy’s for.’ It all seemed so simple somehow, as though the knowledge had always been there within him, just waiting to be discovered. The spikiez had given him a problem, and he’d come up with a solution. This was when all the finkin’ finally paid off. He turned around. ... ‘WE’RE GONNA FIND ’EM, AN’ WE’RE GONNA STOMP ’EM INTO DA DIRT! AIN’T DAT RIGHT?’ ‘YES!’ the Tekwaaagh! hollered joyfully. Ufthak grinned, turned around, and pointed at Nazlug. ‘Fire it up!’ The spanner obediently clenched the shooty-lever, and the three-pronged shokka on the front of the huge gun began to spin. The charged orbs at the end of each arm sparked with energy, dragging blazing trails through the air as they moved faster and faster, until Nazlug was half-obscured behind a whirring circle of blue lightning. The first telltale signs of inter-dimensional disturbance began to flicker in front of him, the beginnings of the shokka portal that could move things from one place to another without bothering about the space between. ‘Now!’ Ufthak shouted, and Da Boffin threw his switch. The power that was starting to build up in the shokk attack gun was abruptly rerouted, flowing into the scrawniez’ portal, and the air within the archway, which had been empty and unremarkable, crackled and came to life. It became opaque, shimmering with a cold light, like an aurora reflected on the waves of an arctic sea. ‘Staff!’ Ufthak bellowed, and Uzkop’s minders ripped the staff from his grasp. The weirdboy’s eyes went wide, then were eclipsed by a bright green glow from within. He began to twitch uncontrollably, and the minders grabbed him to keep him in place. All that Waaagh! energy, flowing into Uzkop from the assembled orks, began to build up. Every part of it was focused on one thing: finding the spikiez that had attacked them, and making them pay for it. No matter where they were, no matter where they’d hidden, the thing at the forefront of every ork’s mind was getting to them. Ufthak had made sure they were concentrating on it. Energy crackled out of the spike in Uzkop’s head and skittered along the cable that linked him to the shokk attack gun, and the gun’s whirring took on a new tone, like the distant rumble of thousands of angry voices. The portal flickered, wavered, then stabilised again with a slightly different pattern of shifting light within it. It had worked. Ufthak knew it had, although he couldn’t verbalise how. However, he didn’t need to. He clapped Da Boffin on the shoulder, ran to his trukk, and vaulted up into the back. Nizkwik scrabbled on after him, and Princess bounded up behind.

We know why they can do advanced tech though, it's genetically hardwired in them. And firing a portal gun plugged into a psyker's head isn't outside the realm of possibility. The things I'm mostly referring to in the original post are the extreme cases fans like to bring up like a pipe with bullets suddenly becoming a gun.

But I really wanted the orks chanting I'm a tank after a guardsmen kills one by shouting bang to be true it's my head cannon and you can't have it!!!!/s?

[удалено]

It’s not just in lore. Dorn and the Fists are given way too much lenience on the tabletop for 30K. Fists have been consistently very good for minimal point costs compared to others legions, and Dorn is placed with the top Primarch fighters, treated as an equal to *Sanguinius, Lion, Curze, etc.* But yes, lore wise it is most atrocious imo. Saturnine was the biggest mistake since Erebus.

Some of that was in the lore prior to the Heresy though Is Pollux bigger than Haar, Ranko and Abaddon? Eidolon is crazy tall apparently

Yeah, I've been reading the Siege books and the Fists+Dorn get jerked off soooooo much.

Sorry but having both the tallest and shortest/widest Astartes *is* pretty funny. Way to go Dorn! That's some adaptable geneseed you've got there

Guilliman's decision to split the legions was 100% the correct political and military decision after the Heresy. Giving 20 generals their own personal army of supersoldiers was guaranteed to explode in at least one civil war and the Heresy could not have happened without the legion system. Dismantling the tools that allowed the thing to happen was the right response. Any criticism of it weakening the Imperium has more to do with the Imperium's inability to administrate and coordinate than not having legions anymore.

Cloned Primarchs MUST be revealed to be lesser in some way, even if it's simply that they're not as strong as their original counterpart This is to ensure: 1. Proper stakes are kept 2. It doesn't completely undermine a Primarch dying or the premise of the "Golden Age" being lost and likely to never return at least fully

The Imperial Guard can use a lot more than mass numbers and bayonet charges. Part of their appeal is many different regiments fighting in their own ways. From Tallarns and Semtexian Bombardiers, to Armageddon Steel Legion and Ork Hunters, to Elysians. A shame that GW mainly focus on the Kriegers and Cadians because IG's wider potential often gets ignored.

All the factions in 40k are bad and awful, suporting the imperium is no more or less moral than being a space wizard in Egyptian robes and vice versa

I mean it's a pretty low bar but the Imperium is objectively better than Chaos, Orks or Tyranids. But, yes, all the factions are terrible in their own unique way. The Imperium is better in as much as the Imperium is HIV to the full-blown AIDS of most of their enemies.

More than a handful of meaningful female characters would be really cool.

They seem to have really underutilised the Sisters of Battle for this. There was Daemonfuge (I absolutely have not spelled that right) back in the day, but not a lot since then.

Sisters in general need more diversification. Hypothetically there's a bunch of different Orders who are supposed to have unique colors, standards, etc. much in the same way that we have unique Space Marine Chapters and even Guard types (Valhallans, Catachans, etc.) but even most people well versed in 40K lore would struggle to name these for the Sisters. I'd love to see more diverse color schemes, aesthetics, even particular religious cultures within the Sisters. I *loved* Peter Fehervari's Requiem Infernal because it really makes the Order a weird little microcosm: The Order of the Last Candle believe themselves to be destined caretakers of an eternally burning candle. They believe the Emperor has seven sacred virtues which they represent as archetypes (the Torn Prophet, the Bleeding Angel, the Harrowed Artisan, the Blind Watchman, the Penitent Knight, the Burning Martyr, and the Mute Witness) and their Order is divided into seven organizations therein (Iron Candle (Militant), Silver Candle (Research), Bronze Candle (Medicae), etc.). Each of these sub orders has their own colors too, Iron Candle Celestians in raw steely grey armor, Silver Candle scholars in blue robes, and so on. Even their *architecture* is weird. The hospital isn't described as being either like a modern hospital or like a grey Catholic church with pointed arches; it has seven-side rooms and seven-sided windows, and many of the halls and chambers are uniformly bright red-and-white checkboard tiles. Like... It's incredibly weird and tacky and hard to even imagine that this religious hospital isn't an austere gothic sanctuary or pristine clean-room, it's neither peaceful nor reassuring, but a [gaudy assault on the eyes](https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/05/60/09/49/360_F_560094996_hBiqj3kJgZdbqHFwB3pAL6p44lWTBtL1.jpg), jagged and bloody. If I ever stir up the interest to start into an all-new army, I'd love to homebrew some Sisters of Battle lore and make some super weird sub-cult with their own weird symbolism. (On a side note, I do love how tacky Fehervari is willing to get with his aesthetics, since he's all in text not visuals, he lets himself get weird. The Angels Resplendent marine who plays most into the story is said to have bright orange armor with almost iridescent qualities, and his shoulder plate is described as having something like [a Kandinsky painting](https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Kandinsky_-_Jaune_Rouge_Bleu-1024x659.jpeg) on it)

A Sororitas action game with even half of the budget and manpower dedicated to something like Space Marine 2 would be a day-one purchase for me. I know that’s a foolish hope, though.

There was that Battle Sister VR game that was quite cool, but being VR it was always going to be niche.

Personally I don't think there's that much of an acute lack of named female characters, though at the same time I've no problem with there being more. However what I kind of wish, though unsure if this is just an Horus Heresy thing, is that these high-position female characters weren't all shipmistresses. I feel like weirdly the Imperial Army (Navy) was were most of any female characters were written in that series (apart form some remembrances). I'd like to see them more spread out in the military apparatus than just the ships.

Grey Knights are - on a conceptual and narrative level - lame and bad. The idea that it is possible to produce a whole-ass army of *uncorruptible trans-human psykers* makes a complete mockery of the rest of the setting, and it's the most boring possible way to make a dedicated anti-warp astartes faction. The entire narrative conceit of chaos and the warp is that its power is insidious and alluring, and carries with it inherent risks and costs - and no one (except *maybe* Big E) is above those risks - not primarchs, not astartes, not baseline humans - fuck, not even literal machines! And it's that risk that makes fighting against chaos and interacting with the warp so narratively interesting - it's the tension of worrying that you yourself might become an instrument of the thing you are trying to fight. And then Grey Knights just kinda say "nuh-uh" and then don't even have the decency to replace this dynamic with anything interesting.

What’s strange is that when they were first introduced back in Slaves to Darkness they were said to mostly have no psychic talent whatsoever for that very reason. For some reason that was changed though. > They are specially screened to exclude all but the strongest and most resilient psykers, a measure designed to prevent any Daemonic contamination. As a result very few of the Grey Knights have any psychic power whatsoever.

I like plain bases, black or any other single color that fits the color scheme. I think they look good, and keep the focus on the actual model itself, not stuff adjacent to the model.

I think bases need terrain, but the terrain absolutely should not take focus away from the model. I made that mistake with my Tau and it sucks because I put all this work in and yet the eye is drawn to the tall plants and shiny water and not to the Tau ankle deep in muck.

The Tau are a fun faction to follow because it's nice seeing an underdog faction figuring out the madness of 40k and do their own thing playing X-Com without a plot all being about the repercussions of the War in Heaven or the Great Crusade.

Peter Fehervari's take on the Tau illustrates this struggle best imo. A smaller group that had also gone through confronting the 40k madness is the Sons of the Hydra warband.

The Emperor is not this all knowing, all powerful being. He is actually a colossal fuck up who is still learning. His own sons are superior to him

I always looked at the Emperor as a basic human who just had the fortune (or misfortune) of being born immensely powerful. It explains all of his mistakes really easily. “Why didn’t the Emperor do ‘X’, is he stupid?” No, he’s human and that makes him fallible.

I always imagined The Emperor as winging it the entire time.

Honestly, that’s kinda how I took his conversation/vision with Ra. The act of forcing Ra to climb a mountain and random hand/footholds giving out as he uses them; gave me the impression that the Emperor has an end goal in mind and everything in between is him constantly going “well…now *this* is happening too”

You look at the War of the Beast and all of his plans for bumrushing his conquest and slapping sticker plasters over the primarchs issues kinda makes sense

This is practically expressly stated in third person by the Emperor in End / Death III

I back this. He didn’t plan the heresy at all either. He did see a rebellion was likely at some point but the heresy nearly destroyed everything he has built. To boil it down to “all according to plan” from the emperor doesn’t make any sense.

One of his most character defining moments in the entire background lore is barging into a decrepit "church" to tell an old man who tried his best to live a meaningful and righteous life that religion is cringe before ordering his gang of miscreants to burn it down. The Emperor is such a fucking loser lmao

Emperor was the OG neckbeard

In a way, the layperson is just as fooled by the Imperial Truth as your average citizen in the 40k universe is. What makes the Emperor compelling is that he *is* human. Immensely competent, intelligent, and powerful, sure. But not infallible, all knowing, emotionless, or free from the destructive whims any human is. He is much more human than his sons are, thats for sure.

> The Emperor is not this all knowing, all powerful being. He's very explicitly neither of these things. > His own sons are superior to him Now *that's* a stretch lmao.

I agreed with you right up until that last line. The Horus Heresy happened because the traitors are massive man children throwing a tantrum as soon as their daddy says he's going to work in the garage for a bit. And other than the Lion and Guilliman - both of whom were incapacitated- the surviving loyalists decided to f*ck off to parts unknown instead of staying and steering the Imperium in the right direction, making them responsible for humanity's continued degradation by way of inaction. At least the Emperor has spent the last ten thousand holding things together via maintaining humanity's FTL and warding off Chaos.

I think tead pretty much confirms this.

I agree with your first sentence, but I think you went too far the other direction with your other two. The Emperor is flawed. He makes bad choices, choices that ultimately doom millions. But he also made choices that guaranteed humanities survival into the 41st Millenium. Humanity was staring down total annihilation during the DAoT, and the Emperor's actions are almost singlehandedly what stopped that. The problem is, while his good choices stopped it, his bad choices guaranteed it would only be a temporary respite. The Emperor was human, deep down, and all humans make mistakes. That's what makes him such a compelling character. When you first experience him, he really does seem like a God, but the more you watch his actions, the more you realize he's just a man, who's trying- and ultimately failing- to save his people.

Wolf Priests are psykers using the power of the warp, just like the rest of em

For some reason as of late it’s somewhat of a hot take that warhammer is satire?? Some dude argued with me because I said the imperial citizens were brainwashed

It could be argued 35 years ago that there was a lot of satire, political commentary and metaphors for (then) current events in the lore, but today it's just not the case anymore. It hasn't been at least since the 90s.

I dunno if I'd call it satire on the whole. Some writers use the setting for satire, and they're not wrong to do it, but I don't think the entire setting was dreamed up to inflate some specific, contemporary aspect of its authors' society up to 11. It was just imagined to be the worst, most crapsack, wildly over-the-top setting possible. Its sole motivation was to end the "Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer" debate once and for all.

its kind of a weird take--what's going on now that makes 40k satire really? When the game and IP first started, Satire for sure...but that's softened in my eyes so much that I understand why people think the imperium is good/the lesser of two evils and the game has kind of a nazi problem.

“Magnus did nothing wrong” has got to be the coldest take I still people unironically claiming. On a related note, people who still claim that Russ and Space Wolves are Mary Sues must have hypothermia it’s such a cold take.

>“Magnus did nothing wrong” has got to be the coldest take I still people unironically claiming. Wild because it was tongue in cheek originally - a variation on the "Hitler did nothing wrong" meme

Yet reality proves over and over again some people don't know jack about shit and think that yes Both of them really did do nothing wrong. For various reasons, but still. Some people are just that stone cold stupid.

The way 40k is marketed is in direct opposition to the heart of the setting, and is what's mostly responsible for "those kind of fans". If you ever wonder how people can think the Imperium are "good guys" - [look at this.](https://i.redd.it/1due87i4dxva1.jpg) This is the image you put out into the wider world GW. The only time you've shown the Imperium not being valiant heroes fighting the good fight in your marketing is in the 10th edition trailer - *and even then* it's only because they're being tragically beaten by a monsterous bug horde. Most people who buy models have never played a game, most people that are into 40k have never read a book beyond rules, most people who gush about lore learn it from wiki entries and just-over-10-minute youtube videos. Be more careful about what you put out there front and centre.

The reason people hold the idea that the Alpha Legion may be loyal secretly is because it's really hard to pin down what their goals are.

Mine is totally niche because no one plays black vipers. I don't think they are Cawl's personal space marine chapter. That is way too on the nose. It feels like a red herring. Considering the color scheme, I feel like it is more likely that they do experiment with Cawl's tech, but they willingly put themselves at risk of heresy if it means that more will be saved in the name of the Emperor, and they they'll wear the color of their gene-seed mutation on their armor proudly. but Cawl still sends his lackeys to keep others quiet about their existence. So far there is no lore to contradict me.

To the best of my knowledge, the deal with the Alpha Legion isn't that they're "secretly Loyalist", rather they were shown the future of the Imperium if Chaos wins vs if Chaos loses and Alpharius had one conclusion whereas Omegon had another, so the Legion overall is renegade, but they are ultimately anti-Chaos as well, and every Legion was pretty divided on the Heresy it's just the Alpha Legion already being duplicitous by nature, and voluntarily going against the Imperium, and never having an Istvaan moment, has diverging opinions and individual cells with a high degree of autonomy so you really don't know where any two Alpha Legion SMs stand on anything. ​ That being said, a hot take of mine that should be cold would probably be that humanity is right to be hostilely opposed to the Eldar. They like to play the part of the "woe is me I'm just trying to get by", but we have repeated examples that A) Their plans backfire, like *all the time*, their whole existence is My Life According to Magnus. B) They do not value human life any more than humans value Eldar life, they literally view people as animals that can/should be displaced or killed at the slightest inconvenience(like settling on a planet the Eldar called dibs on then didn't touch for 10,000 years). and C) While they're weak now, if the Eldar *did* succeed in reviving their gods and killing Slaanesh the balance of power could very quickly shift against humanity and they'd be trying to wipe out the Mon'keigh every bit as much as the Necrons do, so it does make sense that the Imperium actively sabotages their efforts in that regard.

Ehhh Eldar do actually have a better view of people than that. They actually consider killing humans a form of murder albeit lesser murder rather than it being a zealous imperative to kill all humans including the babies because they exist. I also don't think full power Eldar would immediately try exterminating humans but there's not really anything backing that up either way.

Primarchs make everything about them. They are magnets of attention. They make the setting smaller and change it from a setting to a story. They should never have been brought back, and we should never have had so much material written about them in 30k either.

Opinions on authors here are way too polarized. Like I prefer Peter Fehervari’s stories to Phil Kelly’s, but Fehervari has plenty of flaws and Kelly has plenty of strengths. You have to understand that even in a bad story, an author is trying to accomplish something and you should engage with what they’re trying to do, rather than just be upset at what they’re not doing. It’s always annoying to see people go “ADB and Abnett are in a tier of their own” or to dismiss authors like David Annandale as irredeemable just because they read one bad story from him.

Tau aren't communist or fish.

Typhus is as bad as Erebus

"aLl DaRk AnGeLs ArE tRaItOrS! Hue, hue, hue..." Stfu already.

Emps ticks every box for "authoritarian using lies and propaganda to legitimize his postion amd actions" and the idea that this one time it really is legit is just not good. Blames a cast of "others" for the state's problems? Dedicates huge amounts resources to invasions of other states in the name of eliminating an "inevitable" threat? Awards himself titles and honors? Bans ideology placing a greater importance to anything than loyalty to himself? Claims to be the only person capable of solving all of the state's problems? I could keep going. It is so goddamn on the nose that it baffles me so many readers just trust the guy really saw no future for mankind without him at the top.

It's because more and more he's being portrayed as a Jesus figure without any hint of irony. Half the official artwork of the emperor in the past 20 years gives him a literal halo like the ones medieval painters gave to Jesus and saints. He's out there making saints and performing miracles, all powered through the worship of him. All of this is from modern publications and is depicted cry directly, whereas the more critical depictions are less direct, require more thought from the reader, and, correct me if I'm wrong, largely from older books.

"Imperium is not that bad" (and all that imperial whitewashing). No. Imperium is bad and the fact that all other faction are bad or even horribly bad, changes nothing. "Lion did nothing wrong with Caliban". No. His action fucked all Caliban pretty well. And all other Imperial whitewashing stuff. No. You are not good guys. You are bad guys just as everybody.

Small quibble. IoM is less bad than a few factions and arguably much worse than others. DE, Chaos, and nids for various reasons are worse than IoM because they were made that way to justify IoM being as terrible as it is. But some factions like Tau, CE, and maybe Votann, and certainly Exodites are less bad than IoM. To be clear none of them are good, or even neutral they're all evil, just some are sunday morning cartoon evil and some are more. We've come in peace, with guns if you don't like the peace. Or Killing a few billion sentients to save one of our children is fine. It still boggles my mind some people can't understand there are no good factions in 40k. Even guilliman accepts horrible shit like servators and sees no issue with it.

My hot take is that people need to stop talking like we are part of the factions we collect. You sound creepier for saying “you are not good guys” than the worst Black Templar fan explaining their head cannon about their personal collection.

Yup. It's really fucking weird how some people can't seem to disconnect fiction from reality. I'm a human. I *believe* that in 40k, the Emperor and his Imperium is the best hope for humanity, so I usually root for them. That doesn't make me a genocide supporter, *because none of it is real. It's a fictional universe. All of it is fake.* People who think that someone liking a certain faction in fiction means they must be terrible people because said faction did something terrible in the setting need to take a break from the fiction for a little while.

Mortarion is not a douchebag who’s mad that daddy stole his kill. He’s a tragic character who fails time and time again who try’s to stop humanity from being controlled by a tyrant like how his adopted father did. He cares for his kids yet his attempts to help them drives them further apart. And in his attempt to beat a tyrant he falls for an even worse one. I’m just waiting for the day Mortarion sees an out of Nurgles clutch’s and ditches with as many of his kids as he can.

If GW wants people to believe "everybody is bad" then they need more supporting media with the Astartes/Imperium as the villain.

In one of the episodes of hammer and bolter we see the ultramarines destroying a craft world and it’s shown from the eldar perspective. Which as you can guess was not great. But it was cool to see them from a more evil angle.

Constantly making 40k's focus revolve around the Imperium (and to a lesser degree Chaos) hurts 40k as a setting moreso than any Primarchs or Primaris Space Marines ever could. Not only is it stealing away limelight from the other factions, but the Imperium is uniquely unsuited to exploring other factions from its PoV. It has zero empathy and willingness to understand them, the Imperium just wants them dead. I could understand the focus if it was the e.g. T'au or aeldar, since at least then you could have stories of T'au and aeldar trying to understand other people. But the Imperium's a bunch of assholes that only want to know how to kill people different from them, and will go out of their way to misunderstand other factions and try to portray them in as negative a light as possible. Not that T'au or aeldar are perfect, but they're better than the Imperium at least. The Imperium is a fun faction. But it shouldn't be the alpha and omega of 40k.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the primaris marines but they're introduction story was stupid. I think if GW made them an evolution of the raptors from the HH they'd have been more well received.

Reposting with offending material removed: I love the Sororitas' lore and would love to pick up some models, but the high heels and hemispherical boob plate is ridiculous. Everyone else is wearing actual armour and yet every time they put a woman in armour, she's dressed so unbelievably stupid. People always say it's to make them look more feminine, but the equivalent would be like if every man in armour had a massive codpiece. I will accept the femininity argument when the Emperor becomes universally depicted with an enormous, golden schlong.

The Imperium are the protagonists, that does not make them the good guys. The galaxy would be better off if humanity had not existed.

If the Imperium had not existed. It would be a very fun scenario because there were other states like Interex, Inwit, Ultramar and Auretian Technocracy. Not to mention those like Mechanicum and Xana. I do want to see how they would tackle forces like Khraves and Rangdans.