Warhammer Warhammer General discussion thread: Now with 100% more Space Marines

Battlegrinder

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Obozny
Anyone have any thoughts on the upcoming game Necromunda: Hired Gun?

It's by the same people that made the new Space Hulk, which turned out fine, do I don't have any real fears. The gameplay as shown doesn't look like it's doing anything revolutionary, so I don't think there's a risk of it outright bombing.

I'm personally not too enthused, I don't enjoy the new breed of hypermobile FPS games, but there's clearly a healthy market for them and if there's enough flexibility in the ganesy that you can play it in a more reserved manner, I might grab a copy sometime.
 

ParadiseLost

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My main concern is that there's almost no real discussion of plot. No cutscenes, no real characters, nothing.

I'd be more excited about the game if they released information on that. Probably would even preorder it.
 

Battlegrinder

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My main concern is that there's almost no real discussion of plot. No cutscenes, no real characters, nothing.

I'd be more excited about the game if they released information on that. Probably would even preorder it.

Most 40k games are pretty light on plot. Space Hulk's plot was "there are xenos here, go kill them", and given that was the same company that's making this, I would expect a similar amount of depth.
 

Battlegrinder

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So, does anyone have an opinion on vanguard veterans vs bladeguard? I'm thinking of adding a squad of one or the other to my army (don't want assault marines, primaris or otherwise), to add some extra melee punch/an alternative force for when I don't or can't bring the deathwing blob.

Vanguard have speed and firepower, since they can take jet packs and thunder hammers, while bladeguard can toss out a lot more attacks, but are so much slower (much, much slower given I'm not buying them a transport).
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Not sure if I’ll go through with it, but I’ve been thinking up a concept involving the Machine God being a Warp entity, at least in a roundabout sense. Basically, it takes and builds on the idea that, while the Void Dragon may have kickstarted the Cult Mechanicus by being the “original” Machine God, the Tech-Priests’ collective belief made their superstitions a reality within the Warp. Which, over ten-thousand years later, gave rise to a long-gestating entity that can indeed considered the Machine God. Albeit, one much more conducive to humanity’s interests than the Void Dragon could ever be.

While I didn’t come up with the above theory myself, there are some details I’d like to “shade in”. Seeing as technology and scientific knowledge have existed since the dawn of civilization, perhaps the Machine God would’ve been “gestating” for many millennia, much like how a baby grows in their mother’s womb. With the advent of the Cult Mechanicus, its final form has started to take on a definite shape, one that corresponds more to the Tech-Priests’ expectations than that of the Necrons or human colonists from the Dark Age of Technology, for example.

Although a Warp deity that lacks a form (or nature) comprehensible to mortal minds, perhaps the Machine God is best visualized as a gigantic mass of gears and engine parts—replete with a motley array of computer terminals, conveyor belts, and mechanical tendrils flowing from its body. A single red eye sits in the middle of its huge central cog, which continuously focuses in and out on whatever the Machine God has turned its gaze to. In short, imagine a mountainous Klinklang (the final form of the gear Pokemon, Klink), give it a color scheme that weds Martian red with a mix of silver and gold trim, and add other machines to its physique, and that’s more or less a decent depiction of the Machine God. At least, as much as can be expected, given its nature as a Warp entity.

It dwells in the middle of an endless expanse of factories known as The Foundry-Scape, the likes of which put Mars to shame infinity times over. Much like the Forge Worlds of the Materium, however, its assembly lines work ‘round the clock to mass-produce the Machine God’s armies, comprised of Daemon Engines and robotic foot-soldiers vaguely similar to the Iron Men of ages past.

But for now, the Machine God waits, keeping a low profile as it prepares for an all-out surprise assault on rival factions. The Gods of Chaos, the Void Dragon, even elements of humanity who don’t convert to its gospel of computation and cold, mechanical logic shall be cleansed from existence—with the Adeptus Mechanicus its awaiting adjunct in the Materium, much to the obliviousness of a distracted Imperium.

So, yeah. That’s how I’d depict the Machine God, assuming I run with the theory that the Tech-Priests’ collective belief eventually gave rise to a corresponding Warp God, as opposed to the Void Dragon being the only thing capable of filling that role.
 

Bassoe

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...the Machine God is best visualized as a gigantic mass of gears and engine parts—replete with a motley array of computer terminals, conveyor belts, and mechanical tendrils flowing from its body. A single red eye sits in the middle of its huge central cog, which continuously focuses in and out on whatever the Machine God has turned its gaze to. In short, imagine a mountainous Klinklang (the final form of the gear Pokemon, Klink), give it a color scheme that weds Martian red with a mix of silver and gold trim, and add other machines to its physique, and that’s more or less a decent depiction of the Machine God. At least, as much as can be expected, given its nature as a Warp entity.

It dwells in the middle of an endless expanse of factories known as The Foundry-Scape, the likes of which put Mars to shame infinity times over. Much like the Forge Worlds of the Materium, however, its assembly lines work ‘round the clock to mass-produce the Machine God’s armies, comprised of Daemon Engines and robotic foot-soldiers vaguely similar to the Iron Men of ages past.
Sounds like the Fabrication Machine from Nine.

...as opposed to the Void Dragon being the only thing capable of filling that role.
Why not have all three, and a Mechanicus schism?

Imperial Mechanicus: Believe the standard preexisting doctrine that the Omnissiah and the Emperor are the same. Playstyle is standard preexisting Mechanicus armies.

Orthodox Mechanicus: Worship the newly independent Omnissiah warp god. Lots of really weird mechanized daemon engines which look a lot more mechanical and less animalistic than standard warp monstrosities, resembling bizarre versions of actual machinery and robotics. Compare TD-Vice's Blightraven Drone, BigDog-style headless quadrupeds with back-mounted gun turrets, this really cool counts-as Lord of Skulls kitbash someone'd made from an actual Lord of Skulls model and a plastic toy replica of NASA's Opportunity Rover* I once saw on either /tg/ or r/kitbash, I'll post images and a link if I can find it again, etc.

Draconic Mechanicus: Worship the Void Dragon as the Omnissiah. Essentially scifi Vampire Counts. Leadership look vaguely necronlike, but with ornate masks rather than necrontyr skulls. 000fesbra000's Golden Prince might make a good starting point.

* The treads had been replaced with the rover's wheel assembly, the solar panels had been folded around and used as armor, the eyes of the daemon head had been cut off and the lenses of the rover's sensor mast cameras had been glued and greenstuffed into place as substitutes and one of the daemon's arms had been replaced with the rover's sampling drill appendage, complete with the daemon's chainaxe.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

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There has been a Total Warhammer 3 leak.

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Kislev invading the realm of Chaos to kill a Chaos God? Sounds dope!

I think it'd make more sense if all of the factions of the Warhammer Fantasy world were united in this operation - a single nation by itself seems to stretch believability - but I'm just glad that the story seems optimistic, like there is hope that they might put an end to this.

As incredulous as it is, Kislev killing the Chaos Gods and freeing the world from the grip of Chaos once and for all would be a far more satisfying ending than... End Times *barfs*

Hm... maybe the other factions are invading the Realm of Chaos to kill the other Chaos Gods too?
 

Urabrask Revealed

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Man, imagine the salt from chaos-fags. They would reee so hard over their precious "multi-dimensional" "always-winning" "gods" being bitchslapped by a bunch of bear-riding soldiers.
 

Battlegrinder

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There is no way it's going to actually be an assault aiming to kill the chaos Gods. None, zero, zilch. You can't just run up to khorne and stab him a bunch with swords until he dies, that's not how the warp works, the gods are far more conceptual than physical, to the extent that anything is physical in the warp anyway.

Like, imagine a world where american civic religion is a full blown real religion, and in time of crisis it's not uncommon for American soldiers to have inspirational visions of eagles, Apple pie, and little suburban homes with white picket fences, Presidents are followed and protected by flocks of eagles, and vampires, which also exist in this world for unrelated reasons, are repealed by American flags the same way they are with crosses.

Now imagine launching a military assault on Mt Rushmore, in order to try and stab the concept of Liberty to death. That's basically how the warp works.

Man, imagine the salt from chaos-fags. They would reee so hard over their precious "multi-dimensional" "always-winning" "gods" being bitchslapped by a bunch of bear-riding soldiers.

I doubt that would happen, mostly of the chaos fans I know are fairly chill.
 
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Zachowon

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There is no way it's going to actually be an assault aiming to kill the chaos Gods. None, zero, zilch. You can't just run up to khorne and stab him a bunch with swords until he dies, that's not how the warp works, the gods are far more conceptual than physical, to the extent that anything is physical in the warp anyway.

Like, imagine a world where american civic religion is a full blown real religion, and in time of crisis it's not uncommon for American soldiers to have inspirational visions of eagles, Apple pie, and little suburban homes with white picket fences, Presidents are followed and protected by flocks of eagles, and vampires, which also exist in this world for unrelated reasons, are repealed by American flags the same way they are with crosses.

Now imagine launching a military assault on Mt Rushmore, in order to try and stab the concept of Liberty to death. That's basically how the warp works.



I doubt that would happen, mostly of the chaos fans I know are fairly chill.
That moon guy from SB was not sane
 

Urabrask Revealed

Let them go.
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Like, imagine a world where american civic religion is a full blown real religion, and in time of crisis it's not uncommon for American soldiers to have inspirational visions of eagles, Apple pie, and little suburban homes with white picket fences, Presidents are followed and protected by flocks of eagles, and vampires, which also exist in this world for unrelated reasons, are repealed by American flags the same way they are with crosses.

Now imagine launching a military assault on Mt Rushmore, in order to try and stab the concept of Liberty to death. That's basically how the warp works.
Well, shit, this sounds like a fun setting to read about. Any chance you are going to expand on it?
 

Emperor Tippy

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The perfect example of why "good" people aren't allowed power in the Imperium.

Yes, it is a horrifically evil shit hole. Yes, most of those with power abuse it on a massive scale. Yes, the Imperium is supremely inefficient and corrupt. Yes, it could (theoretically at least) be massively better. And yes, it is still both necessary and the best that can be done.

Let's take a theoretical High Lord. Even with his supreme power, he still only has 24 hours in a day. Let's figure that it takes on average two minutes for him to be informed of a situation and render a decision, and that he can do so for a full 20 hours per day. That theoretical High Lord is able to make 600 decisions per day. Now let's say that he will hold that position for 200 years, that is 43,800,000 decisions across his entire reign.

The Imperium has more than a million member worlds, its armies are in the trillions, its fleets in the millions, and its total population in the quadrillions.

Any decision that doesn't have relevance to at least a decently sized world is a waste of the most vital of all resources (time). If buying himself the time to make one more decision per day costs the sacrifice of a million average imperial citizens per day then its a net positive for the Imperium.

The opportunity costs of trying to improve the Imperium as a whole far outweigh the inefficiencies of the current system. And that presupposes that one is in a position to actually have an impact. I mean if you aren't at least a Lord Inquisitor you simply won't ever have the opportunity to potentially reform the Imperium.
 

Emperor Tippy

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The Imperium of Man is built on deception and secrecy, and like any good conspiracy it is a layered thing.

Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Black Ships, Inquisition, Grey Knights, Deimos, Officio. Everyone an organ shrouded in the utmost secrecy, everyone of them the personal province of the Imperial Household itself, everyone of them independent, and everyone of them part of a multi-layered, interrelated, cross connected, deception.

Where one begins to explain the deception is hard to decide, for every facet acts as shield and concealment for some others.

Take the Sisters of Silence, nominally the witch hunters of the Astra Telepathica and the providers of nulls to the Black Ships. What is so oft overlooked is that the Null Maidens were a fully fledged and active organization during the Unification Wars, even then - drawn nominally at least from only Terra's population - a substantial force. In truth, the Sisters were the Emperor's personal assassins during the Unification and the product of a null breeding and modification program buried deep in the Imperial Palace for several hundred years. Each Sister was gene enhanced to a level almost unfathomable before being further augmented with the best nano-cybernetics that the Emperor himself could produce and fully compatible with polymorphine. Of course, even this role as Emperor's spies and assassins was but a deeper cover. The true, most secret, role of the Sisters - one known only to themselves, the Custodes, the Emperor, and Malcador - was to be the Emperor's couriers and knowledge keepers. Their nature as blanks protected them absolutely from both the psyker and the daemonic, their nano-augmentations could interface with one another with skin contact to pass data that would exist nowhere save inside their heads, and those same augmentations allowed the storage of massive amounts of digitized data.

The Black Ships are a fleet second in scale only to those of the Mechanicus. Able to travel anywhere, covered by the most absolute of passage codes, expected to visit every single world of the Imperium on a regular basis, concealed from the eyes of the Enemy by Blanks. These vessels are, and have been since the very start of the Great Crusade, produced constantly in the shipyards of Deimos utilizing the very finest of tech, resources, and plans. A fleet that has ever grown for ten thousand years, each and everyone armed to the teeth, each and everyone equipped with the finest of tech, and each and everyone of them unlikely to engage in combat. This fleets true purpose is to be the Imperial Households personal hammer should it ever be needed, but on a day to day basis they act as the primary interstellar transport arm of the Imperial Household. Does a Black Ship carry a tithe of psykers bound for Holy Terra or a strike force of Silent Sisters, Custodes, and Psi-Titans destined to eradicate a threat? Who can truly say?

The Inquisition are the Emperor's Eyes and Hand, they act with his absolute will and authority; to question them treason, to doubt them heresy. And their true purpose is to cover the actions of the Emperor's true agents. An order from a Custodes is a thing of note, an order from a Lord Inquisitor is simply business as usual; that the Lord Inquisitor in question was a Sister under the effects of polymorphine is something that none need ever know. Inquisitors are acting constantly, and in the chaos of a million inquisitors doing everything they personally see as necessary to thwart the predations of the xenos, the mutant, and the heretic are the true moves of the Emperor being made and coordinated to advance his goals and concealed in all that chaff.

The Officio Assassinorum exists because none would trust that the Emperor lacked his own hidden blades. So they officially exist, hidden behind all of the "secrecy" that the Imperium can manage. They exist to conceal the Households other actions.

Deimos, the Households personal forgeworld in Sol. Tech-Priests are carefully recruited from across the breadth of the entire Imperium and once they land on the forge-moon, they will never again leave. The innovative, the competent, the apolitical, the supremely loyal; they are skimmed off the top and isolated on this forge to outfit the Inquisition, the Grey Knights, the Officio, the Black Ships. All that and more they do, but their true purpose is to understand, replicate, and advance the Imperium's technology in preparation for the breaking of the Mechanicus's stranglehold on tech. It was here that the Primaris were truly conceived, here where their wargear was innovated.

Grey Knights, a Chapter of incorruptible psykers of extreme power and skill, outfitted with the finest of wargear and protected in the deepest of secrecy. Those aware of their existence won't even question their purpose on any battlefield or in any system, for the very fact that a Grey Knight is present means that Chaos is the enemy. That nothing but mind wiped persons and corpses are left in the wake of their operations is not just accepted, it is expected. Just what compulsions might be woven into a mind undergoing a wipe, or just what other secrets will be concealed as collateral, is something none would even think to consider. The Imperial Households personal psykers.

The entire edifice of the Imperium; the Adeptus Terra, the Astartes chapters, the Imperial Guard and Navy, the Arbites, they all exist to conceal the organs that actually control the Imperium. A masquerade, a distaction. A Great Crusade to conceal the Imperial Webway and spread an Imperial Truth, an Imperial Webway and Truth to provoke a Heresy and thus traitors of known (and thus predictable) ability, temperament, equipment, and mindset, a Heresy "lost" to replace a Truth with future divinity and remove the Primarchs who would oppose that religion, a religion spanning a galaxy and with countless trillions dedicating their dying souls to the Emperor every day as he sits protected on his Golden Throne and is fed psykers by the thousands. A throne made not to control a webway, nor to preserve the Emperor's life, but to gather, store, and conceal an almost unfathomable amount of psyker potential. In the end it will burst, and when it does the Warp will have a fifth god, one born not of thousands of years of active and detectable effort like the Eldar did with Slannessh but of a solitary instant of supreme power.

Plans to cover plans to conceal plots to serve other purposes to deceive others to advance yet deeper goals. A truth known only to one man, a plan that never existed anywhere save in his head, and all to a design predating mankinds invention of electricity.

/Because the Emperor may be an amoral, ruthless, bastard but the one thing he manifestly is not is stupid and it would take true stupidity of the most supreme level for the Imperiums history to actually occur as presented without deeper, hidden, reasons. And the real kicker? None of this actually contradicts canon and could entirely be the case. Because fuck Dorn and his bleating about "Honor".
 

Emperor Tippy

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"The Emperor planned the heresy on purpose" was stupid when Goulding tried to push it into canon, and it still is now.
Then the Emperor is a raging idiot. He knew about Chaos and yet let Lorgar act, indeed he let him get away with killing Custodes. He knew about the Fleshchange and the Thousand Sons personal daemons and yet he let them practice sorcerery without comment. He knew about the opinions of the Fabricator General and yet he never acted to secure Mars. He knew about Angron's issues and yet never acted to prevent his inevitable betrayal. He knew about the Nighthaunter and yet did nothing to solve the problem.

He conquered a galaxy for the stated goal of unifying humanity and ending religion, and yet his conquest was done with nothing more than a cursory attempt at building the organs needed to sustain an interstellar government and with forces littered with religious symbolism.

Would the Emperor have been happy if the Heresy never occurred, the Imperial Webway succeeded, and Magus took his place on the Golden Throne? Sure. But did he actually seriously plan for any of that to happen? Not if you go by his actions in the whole of the Horus Heresy series.

The Emperor is a man who has been active for more than forty thousand years, and throughout that time he has been conqueror, statesmen, scientist, philosopher, general, and bureaucrat.

Everything the Emperor was personally involved in, everything related to the Imperial Household, was conducted in the utmost of secrecy and without paying even lip service to honor or morality. The legion that he most personally shaped was the First, the legion known best for its opacity, its eschewing of honor, and its layered deceptions and plots.

The Emperor engineered, used, and then destroyed the Thunder Warriors without a qualm. The Space Marines were explicitly designed to be cheap, mass producible, and disposable shock troops to win him the galaxy.

This was a man who practiced secrecy more instinctively than most men breath, whose right hand and most trusted was also the Emperor's personal assassin, an assassin who would personally shape (and run) the entire Adeptus Terra for the explicit purpose not of governing humanity but of purging it of religion and advancing the Emperor's goals. A right hand who would personally found and control EVERY imperial intelligence agency; the first Inquisitor, the first Master of Assassins, the chief spy. Malcador was a man who despite all his power, able to stand toe to toe with Primarchs in open combat, almost pathologically concealed that power and acted as a frail old bureaucrat.

This was the Emperor whose personal guards were created not as an army but as spies, assassins, and as his most trusted operatives.

This was the Emperor who was soul bonded to every single Astropath in the galaxy, who was the most powerful psyker extant, who constantly lied to the galaxy as a whole and his "sons".

And this is supposed to be the man who totally missed a rebellion forming against him at the behest of his primary enemy? Who was totally unprepared for and blindsided by the Heresy? To the point that he didn't even have any contingency plans? And yet was suddenly able to create both the Inquisition and Grey Knights and have Titan thrown into a time dilation warp bubble while the Sol system was occupied and under siege and without his enemies even noticing what he was up to?

Again, either the Emperor was an idiot of the highest order or he allowed the Heresy to occur for his own purposes. Because the only way for him to miss the Heresy forming is if he was a raging idiot, and if he realized it was coming then he could have stopped it at any point up until Istvan essentially at will and with little more than a handful of orders. And that ignores that the primarchs were kidnapped as newborns by chaos and not destroyed at the time.

EDIT:
And lets get into the outcome of the Heresy. The Imperium was left in largely uncontested control of the galaxy, the power of Mars was substantially reduced, and the Astartes have been purged of the untrustworthy. And later? Thanks to the Sisters of Battle getting shown to the Golden Throne we know that the Emperor approves of his being worshipped (at least post Heresy).

For ten thousand years the Emperor has been the sole focus of worship for more than 99% of humanity. Every one of those countless quadrillions is born, lives, and dies praying daily to the God Emperor and dedicated themselves to him. For ten thousand years a thousand psykers per day have been fed to the God Emperor; that is the sacrifice of 3.65 billion psyker souls to the God Emperor. 40k lore is replete with example after example of what even a handful of sacrifices can do. Where is all that faith and all those souls going? Not to Chaos, it is dedicated to the God Emperor and he is anathema to Chaos (and the belief structure of the Imperial Creed explicitly rejects Chaos).

Ten thousand years of dedicated faith. Thanks to the Eldar and Slaanesh we know how to produce a warp deity in 40k, and it is almost exactly what humanity has been doing with the Emperor for ten millennia. Which puts that whole Heresy thing in a very different light.

A force built to conquer but not to rule, nor to think. A force lead by generals who might be of peerless capability but are all emotionally and mentally crippled and unable to look past their own biases or engage in honest self analysis. A force dedicated to eradicating religion from humanity and purging every non-human population from the galaxy, and one that is conveniently neutralized once its task is done. A force whose actions seem purpose engineered to invoke religious imagery and ensure the worship of the Emperor.

It very much is either "the emperor is an idiot" or "the whole of the great crusade was engineered for far different purposes that what anyone outside the innermost council of the Emperor would even contemplate for an instant".
 
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Battlegrinder

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"I'll deliberately allow a massive civil war to start between my sons, a war that the traitorous ones start out with a significant advantage in and retain throughout most of the war, with the planned outcome to be that I just barely manage to eck out a win on the narrowest magin possible" is significantly more stupid than "Yes, angeron is a mad dog and a threat to everyone around him, but surely if I keep him pointed in the direction of the enemy it'll be fine".

The Hersey as portrayed in the GW novels is incredibly stupid, because the project was badly mismanaged from the start (as shown by them choosing to start the series with Horus's fall), and was probably beyond GW's ability to handle anyway. There are worthwhile bits here and there, but frankly the default attitude toward sny derived from it should be "ok, so explain why I should accept this bit of fluff here as canon". You certainly shouldn't just run with all of it as canon and the lean into the stupidest fan theory ever to worm its way into offical material.
 

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