Games Workshop really did it. Fall Of Cadia Discussion. (SPOILERS WITHIN)

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Considering the Imperium has the population of about 5 quadrillions, let's say 4 quadrillion of them worshipped the Emprah, this has gone for at least 5000 years with the average lifespan of an imperial resident about ~50 years?

So about 400 quadrillion souls worshipped the emperor, his death would probably make him stronger than any Chaos god, if not all of them combined.

I'll see that and raise the fact that the Emperor was born when primitive Pyskers collectively knew that if they killed themselves, their energy would be reborn into the Leader of Mankind. That was what, a few thousand at best and a one time thing?

That one act made a being that could hold the Dark Gods of Chaos at bay. Even after death.

Ten Thousand years. Thousands of pyskers being fed to him literally every day. There's absolutely no way they can bring back the Emperor without simply dwarfing the Chaos Gods. By the logic of their own canon, the emperor would be Astronomically stronger than anything by impossible to calculate measures.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Considering the Imperium has the population of about 5 quadrillions, let's say 4 quadrillion of them worshipped the Emprah, this has gone for at least 5000 years with the average lifespan of an imperial resident about ~50 years?

So about 400 quadrillion souls worshipped the emperor, his death would probably make him stronger than any Chaos god, if not all of them combined.

I'll see that and raise the fact that the Emperor was born when primitive Pyskers collectively knew that if they killed themselves, their energy would be reborn into the Leader of Mankind. That was what, a few thousand at best and a one time thing?

That one act made a being that could hold the Dark Gods of Chaos at bay. Even after death.

Ten Thousand years. Thousands of pyskers being fed to him literally every day. There's absolutely no way they can bring back the Emperor without simply dwarfing the Chaos Gods. By the logic of their own canon, the emperor would be Astronomically stronger than anything by impossible to calculate measures.

That only works if he is able to use all that power as efficiently as the other deities are, though. But yeah, 40k and numbers don't go too well together. It's always a handful of regiments to take planets holding millions of people, for example.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

That only works if he is able to use all that power as efficiently as the other deities are, though. But yeah, 40k and numbers don't go too well together. It's always a handful of regiments to take planets holding millions of people, for example.

I might have gone one further and said that 40K and logic don't go too well together.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

There have been rumbles that 40k might be going through an End Times scenario sometime soon. Hopefully, they don't do that - or if they do, they do it better, instead of just throwing everything in the trash and rebooting it in a more sanitised, family-friendly form. (Yeah, sure. Family-friendly genocidal Catholic space Nazis.)

I think they ought to focus on alternate or historical settings. The Horus Heresy line was pretty good for that. If they wanted to continue along that line, I'd love to see a Warhammer 50,000, set long after the Imperium has imploded, where the Eldar have entirely transferred into Necron-like wraithbone bodies, the Necrons have taken to stealing and transplanting biological components to regain their mortality like reverse-Borg, the descendants of the old Space Marine chapters guard their little fiefdoms while struggling with rapidly-degenerating geneseed - Blood Angels who have gone full vampire, Space Wolves that are literal wolf-men - and the Tyranids have assimilated the Orks but the Hive Mind has been overwhelmed by the Waaagh!, so now they're Tyrorks.

That'd be fucking rad. Or, it might be the stupidest thing ever created. But either way, I want to see it.

Edit: It would also seem the Imperial Guard is now the Astral Militarum, because fuck names GW can't trademark I guess.

Yup, though that's been the case for a while. Mind you, Imperial Guard is a bit vague, and there's been a number of real ones. But wod have been best to call it that from the beginning if that was the intent.

Likewise, Stormtroopers are now Tempestus Scions. Because.

It's a terrible fucking decision on their part, and I know enough about trademark law to be able to say that their concerns are basically nonsense. So long as they slap "WARHAMMER" on every box, they're fine. Even Imperial Guard could've been changed more subtly - Imperium Guard, for example, would be distinctive enough to trademark.

They have no fucking need to change Eldar, because it's an invented word to begin with. If they decide to start calling them Aeldari or whatever, then whoever is in charge over at GW needs a firm kick in the scrotum.

The bullshit "change the name so it's trademarkable" just made Age of Sigmar [https://geekdad.com/2015/07/age-of-sigmar/] intolerably lame, what with its Aelfs and Duardin and Fyreslayers and Orruks.[footnote]THEY'RE ORKS GOD DAMN IT YOU ALREADY SPELL IT WITH A K THAT'S ENOUGH[/footnote]

 

[Thaluikhain]

The bullshit "change the name so it's trademarkable" just made Age of Sigmar [https://geekdad.com/2015/07/age-of-sigmar/] intolerably lame, what with its Aelfs and Duardin and Fyreslayers and Orruks.[footnote]THEY'RE ORKS GOD DAMN IT YOU ALREADY SPELL IT WITH A K THAT'S ENOUGH[/footnote]

Not to mention, when inventing those new stupid names, they overlooked long established and less stupid ones. The dwarves called themselves Dawi, and have for decades. They called goblins grobi, also for decades. You have Asur and Druchii and can't remember for the various elves.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

There have been rumbles that 40k might be going through an End Times scenario sometime soon. Hopefully, they don't do that - or if they do, they do it better, instead of just throwing everything in the trash and rebooting it in a more sanitised, family-friendly form. (Yeah, sure. Family-friendly genocidal Catholic space Nazis.)

I think they ought to focus on alternate or historical settings. The Horus Heresy line was pretty good for that. If they wanted to continue along that line, I'd love to see a Warhammer 50,000, set long after the Imperium has imploded, where the Eldar have entirely transferred into Necron-like wraithbone bodies, the Necrons have taken to stealing and transplanting biological components to regain their mortality like reverse-Borg, the descendants of the old Space Marine chapters guard their little fiefdoms while struggling with rapidly-degenerating geneseed - Blood Angels who have gone full vampire, Space Wolves that are literal wolf-men - and the Tyranids have assimilated the Orks but the Hive Mind has been overwhelmed by the Waaagh!, so now they're Tyrorks.

That'd be fucking rad. Or, it might be the stupidest thing ever created. But either way, I want to see it.

Edit: It would also seem the Imperial Guard is now the Astral Militarum, because fuck names GW can't trademark I guess.

Yup, though that's been the case for a while. Mind you, Imperial Guard is a bit vague, and there's been a number of real ones. But wod have been best to call it that from the beginning if that was the intent.

Likewise, Stormtroopers are now Tempestus Scions. Because.

It's a terrible fucking decision on their part, and I know enough about trademark law to be able to say that their concerns are basically nonsense. So long as they slap "WARHAMMER" on every box, they're fine. Even Imperial Guard could've been changed more subtly - Imperium Guard, for example, would be distinctive enough to trademark.

They have no fucking need to change Eldar, because it's an invented word to begin with. If they decide to start calling them Aeldari or whatever, then whoever is in charge over at GW needs a firm kick in the scrotum.

The bullshit "change the name so it's trademarkable" just made Age of Sigmar [https://geekdad.com/2015/07/age-of-sigmar/] intolerably lame, what with its Aelfs and Duardin and Fyreslayers and Orruks.[footnote]THEY'RE ORKS GOD DAMN IT YOU ALREADY SPELL IT WITH A K THAT'S ENOUGH[/footnote]

I dunno man, this is GW we're talking about, terrible business decisions without much thought put into them is practically their hat at this point. Given the amount of times they've dumped model lines/entire armies or done minor updates that force players to purchase entire over-priced sets just to keep playing, them doing a 'Warhammer 40k: End Times' reboot that maintains the status quo but replaces all the models/invalidates armies would be... super unsurprising.

Besides, that'd give 'em the perfect excuse to rename the Space Marines into something stupid-yet-trademarketable (despite Adeptus Astartes filling that role already...) because fuck it, money!

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I dunno man, this is GW we're talking about, terrible business decisions without much thought put into them is practically their hat at this point.!

I didn't say they wouldn't do it. Just that I would (somehow) find a way to hate them even more if they did.

People have been saying that GW is headed down the toilet for about fifteen years now, but some of their most recent decisions are so baffling that I'm starting to give those predictions some credence. Like, licensing Warhammer Fantasy to Creative Assembly, so that they can finally combine two great things (Warhammer and Total War) into one fantastic thing (Total Warhammer!) and then simultaneously drawing up plans to throw the entire setting and model line into a garbage fire a scant few months before the game is set to launch.

That just...I can't understand why they'd do that. The timing was just so atrocious. It's actually how I found out about Age of Sigmar; I was playing Total Warhammer, and I went "hey, maybe I should check out WHFB again, haven't played that since high school" and then I discovered that it didn't exist anymore. They'd literally made me want their product again, and then pre-emptively made it impossible for me to buy it from them. It was easily the stupidest thing I'd ever seen until last November.

If they keep making business decisions of that quality, I don't expect the company to survive another decade. If they really wanted to start making money again, they'd either shift entirely to video game licensing or else restructure the entire hobby into something like Skylanders.

 

[Mangod]

There have been rumbles that 40k might be going through an End Times scenario sometime soon. Hopefully, they don't do that - or if they do, they do it better, instead of just throwing everything in the trash and rebooting it in a more sanitised, family-friendly form. (Yeah, sure. Family-friendly genocidal Catholic space Nazis.)

Because that reminded me of the one faction I desperately want GW to release models, or even just an upgrade kit, for: the Blood Pact.

The bullshit "change the name so it's trademarkable" just made Age of Sigmar [https://geekdad.com/2015/07/age-of-sigmar/] intolerably lame, what with its Aelfs and Duardin and Fyreslayers and Orruks.[footnote]THEY'RE ORKS GOD DAMN IT YOU ALREADY SPELL IT WITH A K THAT'S ENOUGH[/footnote]

Not to mention, when inventing those new stupid names, they overlooked long established and less stupid ones. The dwarves called themselves Dawi, and have for decades. They called goblins grobi, also for decades. You have Asur and Druchii and can't remember for the various elves.

Asur = High Elves.
Druchii = Dark Elves.
Asrai = Wood Elves.

Still can't stand the Stormcast Eternals - I mean, their backstory is clearly based on Norse mythology, and yet they're dressed like Greek Hoplites crossed with Space Marines, so they don't even appeal to me on a design-&-flavor level...

 

[Thaluikhain]

Because that reminded me of the one faction I desperately want GW to release models, or even just an upgrade kit, for: the Blood Pact.

Way back when Abnett did a thing on them for White Dwarf, and someone converted some Cadian models. But you'd have to greenstuff masks on them one at a time, and they suffer from being Cadian. Nothing wrong with Cadian models, except if you want to make converted guard you are probably going to use Cadians to some extent, same as everyone else does. Bit better now with stealer cultists, though.

Still can't stand the Stormcast Eternals - I mean, their backstory is clearly based on Norse mythology, and yet they're dressed like Greek Hoplites crossed with Space Marines, so they don't even appeal to me on a design-&-flavor level...

But...marines! Marines sell, so make everything into marines!

 

[Mangod]

Because that reminded me of the one faction I desperately want GW to release models, or even just an upgrade kit, for: the Blood Pact.

Way back when Abnett did a thing on them for White Dwarf, and someone converted some Cadian models. But you'd have to greenstuff masks on them one at a time, and they suffer from being Cadian. Nothing wrong with Cadian models, except if you want to make converted guard you are probably going to use Cadians to some extent, same as everyone else does. Bit better now with stealer cultists, though.

Still can't stand the Stormcast Eternals - I mean, their backstory is clearly based on Norse mythology, and yet they're dressed like Greek Hoplites crossed with Space Marines, so they don't even appeal to me on a design-&-flavor level...

But...marines! Marines sell, so make everything into marines!

I wonder if anyone at GW has ever seen Jim F***ing Sterling, Son's video about pasta sauce?

 

[Wrex Brogan]

I dunno man, this is GW we're talking about, terrible business decisions without much thought put into them is practically their hat at this point.!

I didn't say they wouldn't do it. Just that I would (somehow) find a way to hate them even more if they did.

People have been saying that GW is headed down the toilet for about fifteen years now, but some of their most recent decisions are so baffling that I'm starting to give those predictions some credence. Like, licensing Warhammer Fantasy to Creative Assembly, so that they can finally combine two great things (Warhammer and Total War) into one fantastic thing (Total Warhammer!) and then simultaneously drawing up plans to throw the entire setting and model line into a garbage fire a scant few months before the game is set to launch.

That just...I can't understand why they'd do that. The timing was just so atrocious. It's actually how I found out about Age of Sigmar; I was playing Total Warhammer, and I went "hey, maybe I should check out WHFB again, haven't played that since high school" and then I discovered that it didn't exist anymore. They'd literally made me want their product again, and then pre-emptively made it impossible for me to buy it from them. It was easily the stupidest thing I'd ever seen until last November.

If they keep making business decisions of that quality, I don't expect the company to survive another decade. If they really wanted to start making money again, they'd either shift entirely to video game licensing or else restructure the entire hobby into something like Skylanders.

I'm not going to lie, initially my post was going to be along the lines of 'Well Dawn of War III is coming out soon so maybe they'll hold off on the End Times' until I remembered Total Warhammer and Age of Sigmar myself. It's really hard not being so down on them when they piss away such solid advertising like that, it makes me think they either don't get what investing in video games actually does for them, or they're so desperate to get out of the tabletop business that they make it so you can only get ahold of their old stuff in the games so you'll buy them instead of the crap they put on the table.

 

[Megalodon]

People have been saying that GW is headed down the toilet for about fifteen years now, but some of their most recent decisions are so baffling that I'm starting to give those predictions some credence. Like, licensing Warhammer Fantasy to Creative Assembly, so that they can finally combine two great things (Warhammer and Total War) into one fantastic thing (Total Warhammer!) and then simultaneously drawing up plans to throw the entire setting and model line into a garbage fire a scant few months before the game is set to launch.

That just...I can't understand why they'd do that. The timing was just so atrocious. It's actually how I found out about Age of Sigmar; I was playing Total Warhammer, and I went "hey, maybe I should check out WHFB again, haven't played that since high school" and then I discovered that it didn't exist anymore. They'd literally made me want their product again, and then pre-emptively made it impossible for me to buy it from them. It was easily the stupidest thing I'd ever seen until last November.

If they keep making business decisions of that quality, I don't expect the company to survive another decade. If they really wanted to start making money again, they'd either shift entirely to video game licensing or else restructure the entire hobby into something like Skylanders.

I'm not going to lie, initially my post was going to be along the lines of 'Well Dawn of War III is coming out soon so maybe they'll hold off on the End Times' until I remembered Total Warhammer and Age of Sigmar myself. It's really hard not being so down on them when they piss away such solid advertising like that, it makes me think they either don't get what investing in video games actually does for them, or they're so desperate to get out of the tabletop business that they make it so you can only get ahold of their old stuff in the games so you'll buy them instead of the crap they put on the table.

I should probably point out that the logic is theoretically sound here. Total War was announced years ago, long before the decision would've been made to End Times and AoS the setting. And Fantasy, sadly, was failing. 8th edition was a steaming pile that exacerbated everything wrong with GW, and the game didn't recover. What were GW (from thier point of view, remember) supposed to do? Wait years with a failed system for a video game that would hopefully generate some buzz? Or do what they could to make one of their major two product lines profitable again? Really, it's not much of a choice.

Granted, none of this detracts from AoS being a complete festering abomination and a terrible idea. But, in light of the state Fantasy was in, I can understand why they decided to do something major (it's just their execution sucked balls). 'Hope Creative Assembly saves them in a few years' is not really a viable business model.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Isn't most of the Emprah's power was stolen/bargained for from the chaos gods on Molech?

So this is how this information went.

I read your statement, immediately thought you were crazy from years of reading about this stuff, went to either the Black Libarary, the Wiki, or the Lexicanum to prove you wrong, and then found out about someone named Alivia Sureka. Then this little book that came out in 2014. A Horus Heresy book named "Vengeful Spirit".

And this is exactly why I hate loving Warhammer. Exactly this. Not just all the Chaos worship. I've been fine with finding "EVIL WILL ALWAYS BE STRONGER" where ever I go.

It's making The God Emperor not only dependent on Chaos for his power, but also a fucking reneging *****. And not only that, it absolutely ruins a lot of the canon before where he used his own power to gaze into the warp and saw the chaos Gods in the Immaterium. He then realized they fed on the feelings and worship of mankind, so he forbade religious devotion and the like to not feed the denizens of the warp.

But now? "Totes kidding, guys. They were my pals from way back. Only I took their toys and I don't want to give them back, so lulz, don't text them back if they text you, k?"

 

[Wrex Brogan]

I'm not going to lie, initially my post was going to be along the lines of 'Well Dawn of War III is coming out soon so maybe they'll hold off on the End Times' until I remembered Total Warhammer and Age of Sigmar myself. It's really hard not being so down on them when they piss away such solid advertising like that, it makes me think they either don't get what investing in video games actually does for them, or they're so desperate to get out of the tabletop business that they make it so you can only get ahold of their old stuff in the games so you'll buy them instead of the crap they put on the table.

I should probably point out that the logic is theoretically sound here. Total War was announced years ago, long before the decision would've been made to End Times and AoS the setting. And Fantasy, sadly, was failing. 8th edition was a steaming pile that exacerbated everything wrong with GW, and the game didn't recover. What were GW (from thier point of view, remember) supposed to do? Wait years with a failed system for a video game that would hopefully generate some buzz? Or do what they could to make one of their major two product lines profitable again? Really, it's not much of a choice.

Granted, none of this detracts from AoS being a complete festering abomination and a terrible idea. But, in light of the state Fantasy was in, I can understand why they decided to do something major (it's just their execution sucked balls). 'Hope Creative Assembly saves them in a few years' is not really a viable business model.

Oh, I get the logic of it and felt that something big did need to happen with Fantasy, it's just... given everything that GW has done with tabletop lately has been either obviously greedy, monumentally stupid or horribly executed while the video games they license tend to do fairly well, it's hard not to think that they should just stop trying to salvage a system they've thoroughly fucked up over the years and just license their shit out to everyone else instead. At least then we'd get to keep fucking around in the warhammer/40k universe instead of watching it all disappear in 5 years after they thoroughly fuck up AoS and the inevitable 40k End Times as well.

...or maybe I'm just bitter because I used to play Tomb Kings. That was 800 bucks well spent. :S

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Considering the Imperium has the population of about 5 quadrillions, let's say 4 quadrillion of them worshipped the Emprah, this has gone for at least 5000 years with the average lifespan of an imperial resident about ~50 years?

So about 400 quadrillion souls worshipped the emperor, his death would probably make him stronger than any Chaos god, if not all of them combined.

Pffh ... then explain Ollanius Pius. Beyond 'GW retcon'. Emperor wasn't the only celebrated perpetual. Ollanius is theoretically even older than the Emperor at the end of the Heresy sccording to the new fluff.

Even when the Emperor was directly persecuting the highly religious, Ollanius Persson/Pius was a Guardsman, Farmer, and overall badass who he and his band of very human followers faced down brigades of daemons, the Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, AND pretty much the entirety of the Cabal .... survived travelling to Terra as a Christian (Known as the 'Cather' and the 'Catheric' as an old play on 'Catholic' despite their large destruction) ...

Ollanius is predominantly why old school religiosity still exists and why much of it seems to still crop up in its imagery.

And despite being celebrated as the greatest Guardsman who ever lived... yet that hasn't given him much power in the Warp. Ollanius has faced so much canon change it's ridiculous. If they're going for 'galactic noise transforming stories of heroism into mythology' then okay. But it seems every new version of the lore people like Ollanius get transformed that breaks its own rules of reality.

Also, Sanguinius can eat a dick. Ollanius blew a chunk off Horus' armour with his humble lasgun. That story is way more epic.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Also, Sanguinius can eat a dick. Ollanius blew a chunk off Horus' armour with his humble lasgun. That story is way more epic.

See, that's why you gotta be primary DPS. Everyone else gets shafted out of the credit the more times the story gets told.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Also, Sanguinius can eat a dick. Ollanius blew a chunk off Horus' armour with his humble lasgun. That story is way more epic.

See, that's why you gotta be primary DPS. Everyone else gets shafted out of the credit the more times the story gets told.

I predominantly see it as another problem where grimdark is shit and the old 40K from the 80s and very early 90s was better.

Ollanius works better as just a guy who epitomized where courage and heroism can take you. To an early grave. But at least one where you'll be remembered. And this is the immediately failing of modern 40k. A central theme in the original Rogue Trader was the idea you'll never be missed. Which is a horrifying enough problem now with 7 billion, but in a galaxy where humanity is dominant, and thew people are inexhaustible, where does that leave you?

Which was the whole point of the early 40k stuff dating back to the original Rogue Trader and Dark Millenium ... heroism, glory, triumph, fortune ... you'll likely die trying to get it but I'm willing to roll those dice. Basically like a D&D game, adventurers don't tend to live very long ... but if you do manage to score the collective loot of a big arse dungeon monsters are using to liberate a few townships of their goods, boy howdy. You're set.

And then after that it's about bigger and bigger prizes to be won. That one pirate hoard could set you up as a merchant for life ... but maybe two or three big scores more and you could be a tavern owner in Silverymoon #VeryImportant (given how expensive 3/.5 made one of the basic institutions in the game) ...

Turning him into a Perpetual who knew the Emperor from the very beginning of human civilizations, who sailed with the Argonauts, who fought at Verdun, and can face daemons and world-ending campaign by simply having plot armour makes him seem naturally ridiculous. The whole problem of being a minor God who actually does stuff equal to a major one ... and thus far less cool ... than a guy with one of the most populous weapons in the universe doing what incredibly populous numbers of guns in our reality do to incredibly large numbers of people ... damage them.

40k seems intent on tryiong to make canon garbage that they know they will inevitably violate. And why? Because they lost that 80s idea of fuck it, for funsies.

And this Fall of Cadia nonsense, as if hammered out as if this massive fuck-you thing ... seems laughably naive to people who play the old Rogue Trader because planets dying was aready a common enough motif. It was a thing that happened while people journeyed for ever greater loot like the most violent, migratory super-hobo they could be, reaping a galaxy of its value.

If you ask me, 40k needs a reboot. It's the only thing I can ever imagine actually requiring one at this moment. Warhammer Fantasy was fine, it didn't need Age of Failmar ... but 40k universe? Needs to bring back storytelling battles. No, not merely campaigns with different types of missions for head to head play ... actual characters you can make ... not merely kit out ... not merely configure, actuall design battles to have not merely a head to head with, but for people to jump in and make designer campaigns with designer unit orientations and objectives, and transform it into the storytelling miniatures game it used to be.

Rogue Trader used to be more storyteller focussed than Warhammer Quest and that's a natural thing it has to work back towards to broaden the market beyond; "Build an army ..."

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I predominantly see it as another problem where grimdark is shit and the old 40K from the 80s and very early 90s was better.
*snip*

Speaking my language right there. Best "fuck it, for funsies" story I have comes from the Deathwatch RPG I was running.

Spoiler: *Caution: I will now tell you about my roleplaying game*

So no shit, there I was, running a Deathwatch game. The Deathwatch is an inquisitorial organization made up of two types of Space Marines: the ones the Chapter thinks would make good command material and who they want to get training for weird situations and improvisation; and the fuckups who can't fit into a normal Space Marine organization, so they get pawned off on the Inquisition to do something useful away from their normal brethren. Guess what most of my players were.

Long story short, shenanigans managed to launch them and their highly advanced, inquisitorial stealth cruiser millennia back in time with a handful of squad mates. Now obviously, what you're supposed to do if figure out why that happened, minimize your impact on the timeline, and get back to roughly your own time. What my players did, without any discussion amongst themselves, was take their highly advanced ship with ridiculously advanced weapons and go fuck up an ongoing siege they knew would be happening on Terra by the time they got there.

So they sneak their ship into high orbit above Horus' Battlebarge, get to point blank range, and unload everything they have at his plasma engines. Due to their stealth tech and relatively advanced weaponry, this largely works as a surprise attack, crippling the engines. The Deathwatch cruiser, naturally, can't withstand the return fire for long, to they overloaded its plasma engines, because fuck you, that's why.

As they made their escape from the ensuing fireball in a Thunderhawk, they came up with their next scheme: take the vortex torpedoe warhead they evacuated with (because of course they did), overload it, and fly that into the gaping holes they put into that battlebarge. They craziest fucker in the group naturally volunteered. So that happened, crippling the battlebarge further and forcing Horus' final confrontation with the Emperor to happen planetside.

But, 'lo, they were not yet done ramming fast things filled with explosives into things. See, they escaped the Thunderhawk by piling into a transport landspeeder. After heading down to the ultimate showdown, they notice that adorn is busy, Sanguinius is already down, and the Emperor is locked into a psychic duel with Horus. So they pile up all their remaining grenades, rockets, meltabombs, and plasma canisters and wrap that sucker at full speed around Horus' face, jumping out just before impact.

I mean, this didn't kill Horus, but he wasn't happy. So they lent what Bolger rounds, sniper fire, and meager psychic attacks they had to the Emperor for the rest of the duel, while the warpgate underneath the swung open to reveal a horde of daemons and the crazy pilot assault marine who'd detonated the vortex torpedo warhead from earlier, because that's how vortex weapons work. The other player didn't know if the daemons were attacking them or running away from him, but they never got to ask, because the first thing the assault marine did upon leaving the portal was bonsai charge the scariest ************ in the room, which despite his injuries was still Horus.

Despite the stupidly high stats I gave Horus and the blatant disregard for their comerade's well-being displayed by the other marines shooting wildly into close combat, the assault marine lasted a surprisingly long time. Still died, natch, but made it so the Emperor didn't. All in all, successful time travel story. Sure, the timeline is irrevocably changed, but most of their fancy tech didn't survive. So the Emperor gets to emperor on, and I was using the old-school emperor, hand waving later interpretations of the Emperor as propaganda spread by the high lords and the priests, and maybe, just maybe, the galaxy doesn't turn to complete shit.

Long story short: the current fluff is boring. Nothing's gonzo anymore.

One of my friends want's a female half-Eldar Space Marine Librarian? Sure, why not. Space Marines get oodles of implants and gallons of hormones injected so their base form hardly matters, and half-Eldar Space Marines are good old fashioned Rouge Trader canon, so fuck it.