Grim Dark Future. General discussion.

[Simlasa]

I suppose this would be the place to mention that Mantic is suddenly interested in doing an epic scale Warpath game but it will probably be in resin to take advantage of the GW epic release.

I really dislike resin for anything beside terrain. Even moreso at tiny scales like Epic.

The real 'hobby' of Warhammer is army list building. There are plenty folks deep into the lore, or modeling/painting but they seem to be less of the core force of fanboys. Most of the videos I see about Leviathan are all about points/lists, and in-store games I've seen are largely sans paint.
At this point I've got more interest in games that are setting/miniatures agnostic... Dirtside/Stargrunt/Gruntz/Space Wierdos/etc.... but I think such games are of limited appeal.

 

[thebigh]

There are plenty folks deep into the lore

That's me. I've never gotten into the tabletop game or painting minis, the numerous 40k computer games don't do anything for me, but I really enjoy reading all the fluff.

 

[DeadBob]

I really dislike resin for anything beside terrain. Even moreso at tiny scales like Epic.

The real 'hobby' of Warhammer is army list building. There are plenty folks deep into the lore, or modeling/painting but they seem to be less of the core force of fanboys. Most of the videos I see about Leviathan are all about points/lists.
At this point I've got more interest in games that are setting/miniatures agnostic... Dirtside/Stargrunt/Gruntz/Space Wierdos/etc.... but I think such games are of limited appeal.

I think it's more that 40K has a specific sort of brand appeal, which is slightly different.

I've loved it, I've hated it.

Mostly I'm shocked by how seriously everyone takes it now, having started with RT and all of the early silliness involved.

 

[thebigh]

I think it's more that 40K has a specific sort of brand appeal, which is slightly different.

I've loved it, I've hated it.

Mostly I'm shocked by how seriously everyone takes it now, having started with RT and all of the early silliness involved.

I chuckle at how many people don't realise it was originally supposed to be very silly. I mean, one of the Primarchs is called Lionel Johnson for crying out loud. Mostly the ascension from daft over-the-top power fantasy to gritty and serious has been a good thing. I mean, the Horus Heresy book series is just a staggering accomplishment. But I can also see how having the paranoid omnicidal space nazi death cult unironically be the good least bad guys is a bad thing. Maybe resurrecting Remoulade Guillotine and putting him in charge on Earth is how GW intend to gradually de-fash the Imperium. That would be good to see.

 

[DeadBob]

I'm still convinced most of the too serious parts all evolve from someone not wanting to deal with surrender and POWs rules for a skirmish game.

Anyway, the big thing from my perspective is that GW, really starting later RT, leaned heavily into the PV Army Building=Fair Competition idea and also really promoted the concept of each player really only concentrating on their own personal toy army collection (in contrast to earlier forms of minis gaming where people commonly kept at least one relatively competitive loaner army in addition to their personal favorite).

Throw in some honestly nice sculpts of a markedly different style and heft to what most other companies were putting out at any given time until very near the present day and a much better effort to promote the hobby side/craft side in a way pretty much no one else ever did, and they made a winning formula.

On the flip side, they're kinda like D&D in the RPG world. They've so come to define the hobby that either other wonderful games get simply ignored ( or people are completely unaware they even exist) or those games are desperately trying to be like 40K and failing, because, ultimately, they aren't 40K.

A few 2nd tier games exist. The good ones (IMO) try to do at least some major aspect differently from 40K.

And, like D&D, as a cultural phenomenon, there are folks who only want that brand name, even if, when talking to them, you rsealize there's something that they'd probably like far better that you know about, if they's only give it a chance.

But they won't, because of assumptions about time/skill/budget/rules mastery all set by their interaction with 40K.

OTOH, I did see some 3D printed RT Era knockoffs for sale recently, and I was sorely tempted to buy up a whole gob of them and go back to RT style play.

 

[AppleJax]

Yeah, the people who make/watch lore videos on tiktube contribute zero revenue to GW. The quality is also all over the place, with many outright falsehoods or outdated info being propagated all over the place due to lack of citations. (This is why I hate the concept of “lore” in general and think it should die in a fire.)

GW’s profits are becoming increasingly reliant on royalties from the licensed video games. Once the miniatures market crunches further or outright dies, then I don’t expect GW will be able to survive. They can’t actually compete in a genuinely competitive market like video games. Their current video game strategy is throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks, which I don’t think is a good long term strategy.

 

[Brander]

.. But I can also see how having the paranoid omnicidal space nazi death cult unironically be the good least bad guys is a bad thing. Maybe resurrecting Remoulade Guillotine and putting him in charge on Earth is how GW intend to gradually de-fash the Imperium. That would be good to see.

I'm surprised when I see this sentiment. I have plenty of complaints about GW (it's why I'm reading this thread and why I no longer give them any of my money) but I'm pretty sure they go out of their way to NOT make the imperium the least bad guys. The Tau*, 2/3 of the Eldar**, and even the Orks*** and Tyranids**** are presented as WAY closer to least bad than the Imperium. And while I prefer Rogue Trader era 40k to modern 40K, at no point have I ever seen the Imperium as anything but "hypocritically doing exactly what their enemies do and being their own worst enemy in the name of humanity." Some Chaos Space Marines factions***** are claiming to do what they do because they claim the Imperium is actually worse than consorting with Demons et al. I mean even the normal people know their God-emperor eats a thousand psykers a day to stay alive and has for at least the last ten thousand years just so the Imperium can have an easier time navigating the warp. The Imperium is, if anything, near the top of "most bad" in the setting as presented. While they are the faction with the Lamenters and Salamanders who apparently rescue kittens and the occasional child, they are also the faction with the Flesh Tearers who will murder and eat their own allies for fun and the Inquisition that destroy worlds for what amounts to internal politics.


*Except for, you know, being space communists who will quietly exterminate other species rather than loudly proclaiming it like the Imperium and the greater good being whatever is greater and/or good for the Tau ruling elite. That said, I like the Kroot and how they give lip service to the Tau while doing whatever the hell they want anyway (and get away with it).
**Craftworld and Exodites mostly want to be left alone, although they don't want their few places stunk up by having vermin everywhere (i.e. anyone not Eldar)
***Orks are having all kinds of fun and they don't even hate you, they just wanna play. They don't even mind losing, since they know that means more fun later.
****Though there is some question about whether the Hive Mind is separate from being a way their hunger manifests, they mostly just want to eat, there isn't any specific hate involved, they just divide the universe into self, food and inedible.
*****Death Guard just want to share the love that Papa Nurgle offers and the Night Lords are STILL trying to protect people by showing evildoers there is something more evil in store for them if they don't stop, as just a couple examples (though certainly not all or even most of the Chaos Space Marines are even close to least bad and some, if not many, are indeed closer to most bad)

I have yet to play Grimdark Future, but once I get moved and a house set up again, I'm sure my wife will love to have her not-Nids take a run at my not-Space Marines with it. And once I get the 3d printer up and running, we can even try out some not-giving-GW-any-money new minis from the various creators I've been buying STLs from.

 

[Ben Adams]

I don't know what half the $#!+ you said is but I like it.

 

[Brander]

I don't know what half the $#!+ you said is but I like it.

It helps that I bought the original Rogue Trader probably the week it arrived at my FLGS (late 80s) and I still own that copy so I had an early start. There is a LOT of lore and it's surprisingly compelling although much (but not all) of the most recent stuff leans towards rubbish, but that might just be me getting older. It's never been a particularly great wargame which is why I play, or plan to play, other things (like Grimdark Future) with the stupid number of 40K minis the wife and I own (pretty much all purchased pre 2K before we realized what a shit company GW turned into (or maybe quickly became, I'm not sure)). It's too bad that the best wargame rules designers tend not to be the best at writing compelling fluff, which is where 40K shines even as it can kind of disappear up it's own orifices in self-parody at times. Robot Goofyman's* return is nonetheless them proving they can screw up the setting as well as anyone. I don't plan to read or care about anything after it unless they somehow retcon it or, by some miracle, take it somewhere it doesn't seem to be going. It should be the next fall to Chaos and civil war for a large part of the Imperium, but I'm not holding my breath. There is also no way 99% of the Loyalist Space Marines would accept Primaris** into their ranks and it's a complete middle finger to the idea of the Imperium losing techology not gaining it.*****

If anyone is not at all familiar with 40K I think the Ciaphus Cain*** series**** is the best start, it's a fairly benign intro to the setting and entertaining as well.

*Some things are best left to legend, he's one of them.
**Literally bigger faster stronger better bio-engineered Space Marines in bigger better and faster gear***** (yes the same footnote) in a faction that has effectively lost the ability to make anything new of any kind due to becoming a theocratic autocracy (of millions of internal factions that would sooner shoot one another than work together most of the time)******.
***He's a literal communist style commissar complete with the duty to execute anyone not rushing to their death in service to the God-Emperor except he's also a Flashman expy and quite fun to read about. Scroll to the bottom for the books, but the wiki is there for those who will never read them.
****I guess I'm technically sort of giving GW money when I get the audiobooks via Amazon, let's hope that the stain to my soul from buying from Amazon covers the stain to my soul for giving a tiny bit of money to GW. I guess I might as well go all Blood for the Blood God or something given the stains on my poor soul for all this.
*****The Adeptus Mechanicus (a techno-cult who don't really worship the God-Emperor, but say their machine god is just one of his avatars and everyone kind of nods and smiles because without them nothing at all works) quite literally pray their equipment keeps working and consider user manuals as holy writ. There is no version of the grimderp that has them making anything like it and if they somehow weren't responsible then it's 100% a trap.
******The entire point of the setting is that any group can fight any group, even their own (sub)faction, and it fits the lore.

 

[Ben Adams]

****I guess I'm technically sort of giving GW money when I get the audiobooks via Amazon, let's hope that the stain to my soul from buying from Amazon covers the stain to my soul for giving a tiny bit of money to GW. I guess I might as well go all Blood for the Blood God or something given the stains on my poor soul for all this.

Don't feel too bad. I have done the same in a good amount of their recent video games (though, Yar I haven't bought a book yet me swabbies!).

 

[Ladybird]

Don't feel too bad. I have done the same in a good amount of their recent video games (though, Yar I haven't bought a book yet me swabbies!).

A lot of the Warhammer videogames are bad, but a lot of videogames are bad full stop. At least this year we got Boltgun, and Rogue Trader is coming from an established, reliable, developer.

 

[Ben Adams]

I do enjoy Boltgun but don't always have time to play (gotta wait for the kid to grow up a little first). Warhammer Quest is fun because it reminds me of the long, long ago but I feel Arcane Quest does it a little better. Vermintide is fun but I would probably enjoy it more IF I had friends.

Robot Goofyman's*

*Some things are best left to legend, he's one of them.

For the un-initiated, who is this?

 

[Ladybird]

I do enjoy Boltgun but don't always have time to play (gotta wait for the kid to grow up a little first). Warhammer Quest is fun because it reminds me of the long, long ago but I feel Arcane Quest does it a little better. Vermintide is fun but I would probably enjoy it more IF I had friends.

If you prefer action games to strategy games, you might like Chaosbane - I haven't played it myself though.

I have played Inquisitor - Martyr, which is perfectly fine. It's bland and unexciting but there's a lot of it, at least.

For the un-initiated, who is this?

Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines, lord commander of the imperium. Folk like to meme on his name because it's a silly name.

Long story short, as a Primarch he was one of the Emperor of Mankind's greatest creations, created to lead armies of Space Marines. He stayed loyal during the Horus Heresy and was later shivved and stuck in a stasis casket for thousands of years, but there were rumours of him healing despite that, somehow. A few years ago he was resurrected for real due to various Eldar and Adeptus Mechanicus shenanigans.Having met the Emperor of Mankind both in the past and in his current state (And being disgusted by what has happened to the Emperor and the Imperium since then), Roboute declared himself Lord Commander of the Imperium and has started trying to tidy up and fix things.

 

[Ben Adams]

So Robby is trying to make the setting boring; is that correct?

 

[Brander]

So Robby is trying to make the setting boring; is that correct?

This is one of those things where if you trust GW you might say "shake things up" but if you don't then it's more "screw the setting up" and I think it's obvious I'm in the latter group. Also, the Eldar aren't Allies to the imperium, anything they touch is VERY suspect, because if they are helping it's because they will gain something later, often to the detriment of whoever they have helped. They think long term and many of the various factions of the Imperium know it. Instead of sparking an immediate civil war (which it should do) it seems to be leaning towards "let's make the Imperium less (a maybe necessary) evil" but I'm coming from a low trust is default position in regards to GW.



They do have some good writers working for them, but there's literally 40,000 years of pseudo-history they can play in, there is no need to shake up the current situation and so far it seems to me they are doing so with no regard to the actual setting. The entire 30K time period is when the primarchs were around and half of them revolted (or were more or less forced to revolt in the case of the Night Lords Primarch), if you want stories about them, write them then. It's not as if any history should be trusted in the setting. My problem is they seem to be saying "this specific history is accurate and we will now violate it." That said, their business model is "do whatever it takes to sell new minis to new customers and actively ignore the old ones we've burned" so none of this is entirely surprising.

Of course, the entire setting is just some random events to give the Orks something the fight, I probably shouldn't think too much about it, but it's fun. It's also why the best thing to do is use someone else's rules (maybe something like, oh, Grimdark Future) with whatever mini's you happen to like. They do tend to have great looking mini's, despite their numerous other flaws, just buy second hand from whichever player base they have most recently discarded.

 

[Ladybird]

So Robby is trying to make the setting boring; is that correct?

He's trying to fix the mess that it has become thanks to the Emperor's general twattery and millennia of short-sighted self-interest. The Imperium is a tragedy and a failure.

This being 40k though, he's going to fail. The setting isn't going to change dramatically enough to let him succeed.

They do have some good writers working for them, but there's literally 40,000 years of pseudo-history they can play in, there is no need to shake up the current situation and so far it seems to me they are doing so with no regard to the actual setting. The entire 30K time period is when the primarchs were around and half of them revolted (or were more or less forced to revolt in the case of the Night Lords Primarch), if you want stories about them, write them then. It's not as if any history should be trusted in the setting. My problem is they seem to be saying "this specific history is accurate and we will now violate it." That said, their business model is "do whatever it takes to sell new minis to new customers and actively ignore the old ones we've burned" so none of this is entirely surprising.

The time periods are so far apart, though; there's different stories that you can tell then, seeing everything develop, and "now", in what the Imperium has become. Getting to show a character both in their enthusiastic phase and able to react to the current state is a fairly rare opportunity for storytelling.

Earth during the Age of Strife would be an interesting time period to explore, because that's probably the earliest point in the timeline which starts to feel like the setting would eventually become. Anything beyond that, humanity is so different it may as well be an entirely different setting - it's basically Star Trek. Although all that said, if you wanted to make the leader of any historical wargame army a bit bigger, and a bit more golden, than they would otherwise have been...

 

[thebigh]

This being 40k though, he's going to fail. The setting isn't going to change dramatically enough to let him succeed.

Big time. The tragedy is that his superpower is organising things. For all his efforts, he's not going to fix the rot at the heart of the Imperium, all he's going to do is make its armies and fleets more effective and better organised.

At least that's what common wisdom would suggest. But GW have made some problems for themselves that I suspect they're trying to get out of. Somewhere along the line 40k stopped being an over-the-top parody and started being pretty serious; many of the novels and video games feature Marines or guardsmen being heroic and not at all terrible; and plenty of people are going to take the side of humans over all-consuming space locusts or literal demons regardless. In other words, the paranoid omnicidal fascist death cult start to look like the least bad guys (yes, I know there's still the space Soviets, the green soccer hooligans, or the decadent effete toffs, my point remains). And nobody wants to see space nazis unironically seen as the good guys. Hence my suspicion that Rumbloat Gorillaman is either going to successfully wind back some of the worst fascism in the Imperium, or his frustrated inability to do anything about it will serve to highlight that the Imperium being nazis is bad.

It will, however, be interesting to see what happens when some of the other loyalist Primarchs come back.

One thing I hope GW never do, though I suspect they will, is bring back the lost two Primarchs or even get Empy back on his feet some day.

 

[Brander]

They need some (more?) Flesh Eater or Space Sharks fiction to show the horrific side of the imperium. It's not at all wrong in my eyes to see the Imperium and the Emperor as the fifth major power of chaos. I mean they have mutants (Space Marines to start, and there are a lot of mutations even between chapters of the same lineage (and the entire Blood Angel line are vampires/ghouls)) and psykers galore, after to the thousand a day they feed to the emperor. The sisters are odd but entirely explainable as a "demonettes" of the Emperor (I'm possibly taking that one too far but It's fun)

I have to step back a bit to see it but the Imperium is still satirical and very ironic because they are what they are fighting against.

And very much agreed that it would totally jump the shark to explain the two missing primarchs and/or revive the Emperor.

 

[David Johansen]

They need to produce a model for the looted emperor in that one comic.

 

[Stumpydave]

They need some (more?) Flesh Eater or Space Sharks fiction to show the horrific side of the imperium. It's not at all wrong in my eyes to see the Imperium and the Emperor as the fifth major power of chaos. I mean they have mutants (Space Marines to start, and there are a lot of mutations even between chapters of the same lineage (and the entire Blood Angel line are vampires/ghouls)) and psykers galore, after to the thousand a day they feed to the emperor. The sisters are odd but entirely explainable as a "demonettes" of the Emperor (I'm possibly taking that one too far but It's fun)

I have to step back a bit to see it but the Imperium is still satirical and very ironic because they are what they are fighting against.

And very much agreed that it would totally jump the shark to explain the two missing primarchs and/or revive the Emperor.

Any literature where Space Marines are shown to be post-human monsters and not really on "our" side would be good.
I still think Primaris should have just been Thunder Warriors mk.2 (including dodgy gene implants) or Ogryns crammed into power armour.

 

[Brander]

Any literature where Space Marines are shown to be post-human monsters and not really on "our" side would be good.
I still think Primaris should have just been Thunder Warriors mk.2 (including dodgy gene implants) or Ogryns crammed into power armour.

I think you send the Salamanders or Lamentors when you care if there are survivors and the Flesh Tearers when want to make sure there aren't.

 

[Brander]

I think you send the Salamanders or Lamentors when you care if there are survivors and the Flesh Tearers when want to make sure there aren't.

( seems like a bit much to edit in) Of course this all presumes that in the grimdark future it's not all the same Marines who just change their unit markings around depending on the job. Where propaganda and truth cross paths is entirely unclear. Chaos just might be "rebel Imperium" from the Imperium point of view. I'm sure it's not intended to be that far out from truth, but the original Marines were closer to elite troops in power armor not posthuman killing machines, what if its all propaganda. If I'm playing a different system anyway, I'm not exactly bound by intended lore.

 

[Ladybird]

They need some (more?) Flesh Eater or Space Sharks fiction to show the horrific side of the imperium. It's not at all wrong in my eyes to see the Imperium and the Emperor as the fifth major power of chaos. I mean they have mutants (Space Marines to start, and there are a lot of mutations even between chapters of the same lineage (and the entire Blood Angel line are vampires/ghouls)) and psykers galore, after to the thousand a day they feed to the emperor. The sisters are odd but entirely explainable as a "demonettes" of the Emperor (I'm possibly taking that one too far but It's fun)

The imperium's massive hypocrisy is part of the point. It's not subtext, it's text that the Imperium both hates and relies on the mutant, the witch, and the heretic. It's an awful place ran by awful people where sometimes someone less awful does good things for a small area for a short space of time before they're washed away again, and change is ultimately impossible.

 

[David Johansen]

I think you send the Salamanders or Lamentors when you care if there are survivors and the Flesh Tearers when want to make sure there aren't.

I think you mostly send who's closest or who has resources available at the moment. It's a big imperium and there's not that many marines to go around. I'd like to see Iron Claw Space Pirates and maybe human mercenaries in powered armour. Things that existed in Rogue Trader but have since been lost to the sands of time. Really, a Dogs of War army list could be awesome.

 

[Brander]

The imperium's massive hypocrisy is part of the point. It's not subtext, it's text that the Imperium both hates and relies on the mutant, the witch, and the heretic. It's an awful place ran by awful people where sometimes someone less awful does good things for a small area for a short space of time before they're washed away again, and change is ultimately impossible.

I think you mostly send who's closest or who has resources available at the moment. It's a big imperium and there's not that many marines to go around. I'd like to see Iron Claw Space Pirates and maybe human mercenaries in powered armour. Things that existed in Rogue Trader but have since been lost to the sands of time. Really, a Dogs of War army list could be awesome.

I agree with both of you depending on how literally I'm taking the propaganda on a given day. I like to have fun with my fiction by looking straight and sideways at it. It's certain the Imperium is using propaganda, it's unclear how much is total lie and how much is just spin based on something closer. It's also certain that its unreliable narrators all the way down. I like to think it's the same imperium from the original 40K Rogue Trader game and whatever 99th edition they have most recently put out at the same time. And I enjoy both, though I lean towards the original.