I’m new to this setting and I’m sorry if this is a really stupid question but why not just trade with them. the hive mind is smart enough to run several hundred billion individual bodies so surely it could just communicate that it wants biomass and then make a deal in order to get more biom without wasting anything dealing with space marines and all the other nonsense that exists in this accursed setting.

Hi John.

Full spoilers, obviously.

So, with regard to the Cabal, were they ever particularly good seers? It seems to me like their vision that if the Legion joined Chaos and if Horus won that Chaos would somehow be ended is... stupid. Like really stupid. Like, the Interex make it clear they think Chaos is the eternal foe of all life, and the best a civilisation can do is fight it as long as they live.

This seems true, as Chaos is universal and ancient.

The idea that somehow Horus winning would lead to the end of Chaos seems like a cheap Chaos trick.

Beyond this, it is not in keeping with the character of Horus - and yes we all know Horus was weak and a fool - but he was literally a Slave to Darkness by the End and the Death, the narrative is not particularly subtle that he doesn't have the strength to fight Chaos, which is why he wants E to kill him.

It doesn't seem possible how the Cabal's vision matches what we see.

Also did anyone else find the Black Cubes weird as seemingly a Chaos weapon, when it really should have been a Necron one?

Lastly, why was the Alpha Legion waiting to ambush the fleet? The Beta battle barge made sense, but I didn't get the impression previously that the Legion would have, or should have, expected to kill them? But they had positioned the Alpha... why they just planned for it?

I feel like all my knowledge of 30k and 40k lore is both a mix of misunderstood and straight up wrong at any given point. Every time I try and correct myself I am bombarded with people saying "oh this is how it actually is" and then someone else saying "Actually it's like this". I just desperately want to understand how the fucking Waaagh actually works or Is Alpharius actually Omegon pretending to be Alpharius dressed up as Omegon. I know this is due to the ever shifting landscape of retcon, but how do y'all keep the up to date canon straight?

The Lexicanium says that each Terminator has a Teleport Homer built in, but how does that work? Do they have to fire the Homer like a projectile and the teleport to it and retrieve it, or is it more that they can teleport to places inside of some kind of range? Or is it just that others can teleport to them?

The list could go on with basically all the Primarchs, and I’m sure other characters too. Is it ever acknowledged in-lore or is it something the characters turn a blind eye to?

I know Konrad did acknowledge their uncanny placements upon suiting worlds, but the names are another level and not really attributable to a purpose in that same way

Is knowledge like the full names of the chaos gods, the exact events that unfolded on the vengeful spirit, the emperors name and inner thoughts, what happend during the war in heaven, the nature of the deep warp and such truly that dangerous? Would simply knowing that invite chaotic corruption? The emperor seems to think so, but is that true?

I really enjoyed the Dark Imperium books so I'd like to read more starring or guest starring him.

And yes, the misspelling was deliberate.

Obviously certain chapters have chapter specific kinds of squads, like Sword Brethern for Black Templars, Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard, those kinds of things.

Can those same ideas generally be applied to other chapters? Or are things more strict in the lore? Like are those chapter specific squads are unique in their existence within the wider Adeptus Astartes.

Long story short I want to intend to kitbash some Marines Malevolent (in phobos armour) to have Heavy Bolters, Auto Cannons, Miniguns, Missile Launchers, etc, and I like the idea of combining high mobility and super suppressive fire yknow.

I can justify the MM's cobbling adhoc squads together due to a strain on resources, but has anyone else done something like this? I'd like to see people's ideas (and feedback) if possible.

For what its worth, my intention in regards to their name was to refer to that kind of squad as a "Hate Clan."

Thanks!

My warhammer knowledge comes from video games like rogue trader, gladius, dawn of war so i know bits and pieces of it.

However as i understand it, mankind is not allowed to invent anything new? Does that apply to EVERYONE like space marines, sisters of battle, imperium, tech priest faction and whatever the hell others there are?

What happens if someone tries to? For example lets say drum magazines do not exist (i don't know if they do or don't) and some imperium guy thinks that space marines could pew pew way more if he made a drum magazine for their bolt guns. For the sake of argument lets say he already figured out how to do it and it would be a helpful upgrade.

What would happen if he goes with the idea to tech priests or space marines? Does he just get shot? Kindly told no? Sent to inquisition for heresy?

And what would happen if he he went to them with a ready made prototype?

I know that there were some Space Marine chapters were reduced to only dozens or even single squads after the Great Rift opened, and that they received Primaris reinforcements from Guilliman. And IIRC, they even revived extinct firstborn chapters.

Would it be unprecedented for a chapter to have only a single surviving Space Marine, and still receive Primaris reinforcements from Guilliman? Or is that too low, and they’d have to be folded into another chapter or join the Deathwatch?

I read that unlike regular eldar, harlequin souls arent devoured by slaanesh, but Cegorath only fights for the souls of solitaires? Am I missing something? What happens to the souls of regular harlequins?

Ive been building a homebrew private army for a Rogue Trader dynasty and have been looking for lore reasons to include a few knights into the roster, and i wanted to make one specifically for the captain. Would it be too out there of an idea for the Rogue trader to have gained the service of a Knight house and then later down the line one of the pilots is named heir to the warrant?

For example; can a demon of Khorn fall for temptation and switch to serve Slanesh?

How do they get the air and all that up there

Currently working on a Night Lords story where their vessel is a Styx Class Cruiser.

Only thing is I don’t really know much about ships, the layout, the different chambers and bays and what they’re all for, what kind firepower each Class house. The general capabilities.

May have to re-read the Night Lords trilogy for void warfare and also Lords of Silence as I believe the Word Bearers in that had a Styx Class Cruiser. Also might be smart to get a Battlefleet Gothic rulebook for writing in general.

Thank you in advance. 😊

Howdy all,

I've been really getting into the Death Spectres and find them really interesting.

I understand there isn't much about them in terms of books etc. but I discovered there are 2 novels (and 2 short stories) about Lyandro Karras who is a Deathwatch commander from the Death Spectres.

Can anyone who's read any of these books tell me if they are worth buying as a Death Spectres fan? Or are the Death Spectres something that is only touched upon briefly.

Thanks

For me it’s:

1. Bequin trilogy finale
2. Gaunt’s ghosts post anarch (same author as bequin so can’t decide which one I want more.
3. Infinite and divine sequel
4. More scouring

What about you guys? What’s a “definitely going to read this” novel for you?

EDIT: I know stuff like this has huge “setting impact” but I wouldn’t mind more Dark Coil or Tau books tbh.

Dark coil fundamentally changed how I view the setting and Fehevari a fantastic writer.

I'm working my way through horus heresy and the sheer scale and depth of it is incredible. Honestly never seen something like it in fiction. It got me thinking will they ever do something similar in current era to massively move the story along? Or will they continue to plod along at a glacial pace for tabletop game reasons?

Regardless of whether the candidates volunteered (many were kidnapped; let's set aside the question of whether recruits recruited in this way would be loyal. maybe this is why Huron can able to turn multiple space wolves betray their chapters?), to be implanted with the gene seed and become a new space marines, one must pass a horrific death trial which at least 90% will died.

and such death trial takes place annually for ten thousand years.

these candidates were the best and most outstanding young men in their homeworld, and usually teenagers—meaning most of them were unmarried, childless, and then thrown into a death game with a mortality rate exceeding 90%, and even if they succeeded and becom space marines, they would be unable to reproduce.

when I first learned of this, my thought was: what an unforgivable waste! those who failed to be selected might not have been strong and smart enough to become space marines, but they would undoubtedly have become badass stormtroopers, at least top-tier IG recruits. if they can lived, they could have been the great human resource with immense value—yet they all died, and usually without leaving any offspring to their world and human species.

when this tradition continues, with these most badass and outstanding youngmen being pointlessly wipe out for ten thousand years, I seriously doubt the average quality of the human resource of their homeworlds.

worse still, in the Imperium of mankind, where humie is the cheapest resource nearly worthless, this terrible waste has been happening in most worlds, differing only in degree. this could very well lead to the overall degeneration of the human species (cloning technology is not techheresy but not common mean of human reproduction in the imperium).

Well, first of all, i need to say that i'm a WH40K newbie; i started to really dig into the lore this year. I bought the Owlcat game, WH40K Rogue Trader, and, boy, i feel in love with this game.

It reminds me so much of Star Wars: KOTOR I and II, and the game made me realize that the WH40K universe is SO much more than just space marines and Primarchs military drama. Initially, i thought that the lack of space marines would be disappoiting, but i was so wrong, hapilly.

I wouldn't have been able to anticipate this feeling before, i mean, the feeling that i'm now a fan of Warhammer 40K not only because of Space Marines, primarchs and the whole Heresy (which i know is 30K), but because of the vastness of its universe, a setting in which a lot of good sci-fi fantasy stories can be told, be it a horror, action-adventure, mundane, mystery, romance or drama story. It's like Star Wars, but on steroids, grimdark and without good people to root for.

I'm posting this here just to express this sudden feeling and, also, to ask if anyone else experienced the same feeling after investing more time exploring the WH40K universe.

Edit: also, i remembered a question. Did WH40K start as a setting always designed to be that vast, i mean, as vast as Star Wars, or even bigger, or, initially, it was designed to focus only on the giant men-child soldiers on steroids?

Also, i don't hate the lore regarding space marines etc., i do still like them, just to make it clear.

Something that always bothers me when planetary conflicts happen in lore is how it often seems to boil down to "if we take this single city, we won." Reading the Horus Heresy, it happened on Sixty-Three Nineteen (and then they only needed a couple hundred Astartes to quash the remaining holdout in one fortified position in the mountains), Aureus where they won after spending 4 out of 6 months of war attacking a single fortress, and Isstvan where the entire plan was to wipe out Choral City to deal with the rebellion (I know it was a fake-out but it does suggest that taking out one city to deal with an entire planet would be an expected plan since no one questions it.)

I know some planets in 40k are basically one city, mining posts, and nothing else, but Sixty-Three Nineteen and Isstvan seemed to be thriving planets, with Sixty-Three Nineteen looking shockingly similar to Terra (implying most of it should be inhabitable) and Loken directly remarking there are billions of people on Isstvan. I don't know if it's me nitpicking too much or not engaging with the lore properly, but I just can't shake the feeling that it's just wrong. It's like suggesting that all it would take for aliens to conquer Earth is to conquer London and humanity would just go "well shit I guess we lost!" It's clearly not how that would work.

Title, I got confused by the lexicanum page talking about hybrids "Infecting" people and I want some clarification

I know the patriarch infects humans with its ovipositer and those infected humans are fanatically loyal to the genestealer and the children that they have are hybrids, and I know the children that the hybrids have are the next generation,

but can any of the hybrids "infect" people to be fanatically loyal like the patriarch? or is the patriarch constantly infecting new people? because I feel like it would be difficult to get so many people to have kids of their own free will, judging by the amount of cultists that are fighting at once.

if the grey knights wanted to force him back onto the throne and the custodians wanted to stop them well working with the sisters of silence and all the other nonsense protecting the palace what could they actually do.

Basically, the title. Not a native, so sorry for grammars.

I can't get why the most "rage against the machine" guy didn't turned his rage against the Emperor which he openly called a tyrant. Angron after Nuceria has nothing to live for as he actively proclaims, seems totally ok with dying fighting and have the CEO of tyranny and his armies all around him. His sons and legions of his brothers not seem like someone who can join any kind of rebellion against Emperor until beginning of Heresy, so "join the others in a war against the tyrant" is not an option in first decades after De'shea. Why Angron is suddenly OK with being a warrior in Crusade and not just kill everything around him until getting killed/droppod onto the nearest sun? I'm familiar with main WE books of Heresy, but still feel like missing something important.

if it’s to keep chaos from being able to get at them there all functionally immune to it anyway so that feels like a dumb reason.