Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

It's soviet because the Verghastite members of the Tamith 1st are Russians because Vervunhive was Stalingrad.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 15:47

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 07:56

notaspy: Mar 22, 2009

Continuing my listening to Devastation of Baal and I am now utterly terrified of the nids.

loving

Terrified

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:14

Plucky Brit: Nov 7, 2009; Swing low, sweet chariot

Arquinsiel posted:

The inference being drawn is that it's specifically a reference to what popular history claims happened to Soviet partisans that stayed behind to fight the Nazis even after everyone else had ignored Stalin's order not to withdraw. The justification you see thrown around is that they were "corrupted" by not being under Soviet control and got notions about being able to run their own countries after the war, thus the had to be killed.

That is not the sum-total of what the NKVD did to Soviet troops. Plenty of POW camp escapees and even whole units who broke out of encirclements were tried and convicted of being saboteurs and spies. This is of course not counting the Katyn massacre or the many other less famous atrocities.

I've not come across anything in the 40K commissars that compares to the NKVD's actions before and during WW2 (or for that matter the much worse stuff that the Nazis did). I don't think they should be included as it's a very dark part of human history and putting it in a fantasy book feels like trivialising what real people went through. I'm fine with ruthless commissars in 40K, particularly as for all the talk of grimdark the truly ruthless commissars tend to end up getting killed by troopers.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:21

OPAONI: Jul 23, 2021

notaspy posted:

Continuing my listening to Devastation of Baal and I am now utterly terrified of the nids.

loving

Terrified

The Lictor bit ruled.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:22

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

OPAONI posted:

The Lictor bit ruled.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:27

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

When you fight the nids, you aren't fighting an army. You aren't even fighting a species. You're fighting an interstellar predatory ecosystem, and you're not the shark.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:28

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Plucky Brit posted:

That is not the sum-total of what the NKVD did to Soviet troops. Plenty of POW camp escapees and even whole units who broke out of encirclements were tried and convicted of being saboteurs and spies. This is of course not counting the Katyn massacre or the many other less famous atrocities.

I've not come across anything in the 40K commissars that compares to the NKVD's actions before and during WW2 (or for that matter the much worse stuff that the Nazis did). I don't think they should be included as it's a very dark part of human history and putting it in a fantasy book feels like trivialising what real people went through. I'm fine with ruthless commissars in 40K, particularly as for all the talk of grimdark the truly ruthless commissars tend to end up getting killed by troopers.

"Exterminatus".

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:34

notaspy: Mar 22, 2009

wiegieman posted:

When you fight the nids, you aren't fighting an army. You aren't even fighting a species. You're fighting an interstellar predatory ecosystem, and you're not the shark.

That has consumed species far greater than humanity.

Utterly hosed.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 21:36

Telsa Cola: Aug 19, 2011; No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

I liked the bit thats a bit of a gently caress you to Trayzn where they have multiple Necron lords trapped in stasis

# ? Mar 13, 2023 22:12

Black Griffon: Mar 12, 2005; Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.

I miss the nids and the rest of the (contemporaneously) modern boys in this Heresy marathon. I might have to give The Devastation of Baal a spin just to mix things up.

# ? Mar 13, 2023 23:49

Shockeh: Feb 24, 2009; Now be a dear and
fuck the fuck off.

I feel like we're on the cusp of someone quoting where the word 'Decimate' comes from, we're at that point of intellectualism 101.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 00:14

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Shockeh posted:

I feel like we're on the cusp of someone quoting where the word 'Decimate' comes from, we're at that point of intellectualism 101.

I didn't spend five years being taught by the Centurion from Life of Brian to let mis-use of words like that slide :colbert:

# ? Mar 14, 2023 00:16

Shockeh: Feb 24, 2009; Now be a dear and
fuck the fuck off.

Well now I don't even know why I've got this picture of Che Guevara on my wall at all!

# ? Mar 14, 2023 01:05

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Shockeh posted:

Well now I don't even know why I've got this picture of Che Guevara on my wall at all!

It's because he's Irish.

Or so Jim Fitzpatrick will tell you, at length.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 01:25

FPyat: Jan 17, 2020

Arquinsiel posted:

The inference being drawn is that it's specifically a reference to what popular history claims happened to Soviet partisans that stayed behind to fight the Nazis even after everyone else had ignored Stalin's order not to withdraw.

I didn't have any thought of Abnett making an intentional reference, though its possible; I was just making the connection myself.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 01:41

Black Griffon: Mar 12, 2005; Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.

Arquinsiel posted:

It's because he's Irish.

Or so Jim Fitzpatrick will tell you, at length.

I'm saying Che Guevara to myself in an irish accent and for some reason it's nice and calming.

Edit: this mf called Luigi with a silent L???

Black Griffon fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Mar 14, 2023

# ? Mar 14, 2023 02:14

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

If you ever get the chance it's worth listening to Jim talk. Between the famous Che picture, the Thin Lizzy album covers, and the time he caused Disney to almost lose control of Captain America he's got some spectacular stories.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 03:02

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

notaspy posted:

That has consumed species far greater than humanity.

Utterly hosed.

This is one of my pet pedant-hobby-horses about the 40k lore. Humanity would be turbo-turbo-hosed. They love to put in pictures and explanations of the Imperial Guard and assorted other humans fighting against Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, etc. While a common theme in these stories is that things do go badly for a while, and regular human soldiers are shown to be overmatched, often it sort of turns out alright with some pluck and determination and a cunning plan.

Bullshit. Everything about how we think of waging war, all the tanks and munitions and formations of troops etc, is the concentration of so much effort. You need an enormous tail to put say a division of troops in the field and keep them supplied, and even in ideal circumstances they will get worn down and need to be rotated out fairly soon. Warfare, because it is between humans, has tempo and intensity dictated by human limitations. Many of our ideas about strategy centre around targetting the enemy logistics or their cohesion, their confidence and willingness to fight or ability to do so in an organised, effective way.

If you put any human force or civilisation against something like Tyranids, which are evolved killing machines that outnumber humanity, communicate instantly, have no logistics beyond needing to eat stuff to keep going, have no fear or hesitation, don't stop to plan or consider or find out what's happening on their flanks, they would be annihilated incredibly quickly. It would not be close. It doesn't matter how good at all the enabling activity of war the human civilisation is - the Tyranids don't need to do any of that stuff. Human forces would break and be eaten almost as soon as they came into contact.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 20:41

Black Griffon: Mar 12, 2005; Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.

Look at this fool, not realizing that the grace of Him on Terra permeate's all of man's great works. Untouched by the splendor of His eternal battle, unseen—truly—by His light. It would be sad if it wasn't so heretical.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 20:53

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; Can you see that I am serious?; Fun Shoe

Genghis Cohen posted:

This is one of my pet pedant-hobby-horses about the 40k lore. Humanity would be turbo-turbo-hosed. They love to put in pictures and explanations of the Imperial Guard and assorted other humans fighting against Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, etc. While a common theme in these stories is that things do go badly for a while, and regular human soldiers are shown to be overmatched, often it sort of turns out alright with some pluck and determination and a cunning plan.

Bullshit. Everything about how we think of waging war, all the tanks and munitions and formations of troops etc, is the concentration of so much effort. You need an enormous tail to put say a division of troops in the field and keep them supplied, and even in ideal circumstances they will get worn down and need to be rotated out fairly soon. Warfare, because it is between humans, has tempo and intensity dictated by human limitations. Many of our ideas about strategy centre around targetting the enemy logistics or their cohesion, their confidence and willingness to fight or ability to do so in an organised, effective way.

If you put any human force or civilisation against something like Tyranids, which are evolved killing machines that outnumber humanity, communicate instantly, have no logistics beyond needing to eat stuff to keep going, have no fear or hesitation, don't stop to plan or consider or find out what's happening on their flanks, they would be annihilated incredibly quickly. It would not be close. It doesn't matter how good at all the enabling activity of war the human civilisation is - the Tyranids don't need to do any of that stuff. Human forces would break and be eaten almost as soon as they came into contact.

Okay what if they're fighting Necrons tho

# ? Mar 14, 2023 20:57

Gravitas Shortfall: Jul 17, 2007; Utility is seven-eighths Proximity.

It's possible to gently caress the Tyranids up by disrupting their command nodes and connection to the Hive Mind, but you're still left with an alien biosphere that's aggressively attempting to eat everything (just not in a particularly clever or coordinated way)

# ? Mar 14, 2023 20:58

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

If you look at it through the lens of actual sci-fi which Warhammer isn't really, then the Tyranids would have just evolved photosynthesis. Even if you go by the old lore of the Hive Mind collecting genes instead of biomass, it wouldn't ever be at threat of "starving", it could farm many Tiamet style planets (or even ignore planets entirely and just set up like a living Dyson Swarm) giving it plenty of resources to mass-manufacture Swarmlords to lose to Space Marines in duels over and over again. Why would it ever need to produce a Hormagaunt?

Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Mar 14, 2023

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:05

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

Brendan Rodgers posted:

. Even if you go by the old lore of the Hive Mind collecting genes instead of biomass,

they collect both

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:19

Gravitas Shortfall: Jul 17, 2007; Utility is seven-eighths Proximity.

Brendan Rodgers posted:

If you look at it through the lens of actual sci-fi which Warhammer isn't really, then the Tyranids would have just evolved photosynthesis. Even if you go by the old lore of the Hive Mind collecting genes instead of biomass, it wouldn't ever be at threat of "starving", it could farm many Tiamet style planets (or even ignore planets entirely and just set up like a living Dyson Swarm) giving it plenty of resources to mass-manufacture Swarmlords to lose to Space Marines in duels over and over again. Why would it ever need to produce a Hormagaunt?

"But I don't WANT to evolve photosynthesis, I want to spam millions of Weird Dogs!"

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:25

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

Gravitas Shortfall posted:

"But I don't WANT to evolve photosynthesis, I want to spam millions of Weird Dogs!"

Some fans have the theory that the Hive Mind is fleeing from something scarier and you just solved what that something is. It's the Hivemind's dad.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:26

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

To a point this is why most victories against Tyranids on planets are just mopping up operations on the ground after having managed to distract the fleet away from the planet and dealing with it there. Turns out in space it's comparatively easy to just fire lots of poo poo at the hive fleets and have them chase you into a gravity well where the bioships get stuck and then bombard it from far away.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:26

Improbable Lobster: Jan 6, 2012; "From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.; Buglord

I've always sorta headcanon'd thwt most battles in the 40k universe are super one sided stomps and the games and novels just happen to be showing more even matched occurences

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:28

Telsa Cola: Aug 19, 2011; No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Pretty much every successfully repelled Tyranid invasion is either "Something happened to the main fleet so this is just the dregs" or "Space robots helped saved the day" or "A Space Marine Chapter reformed in all but named and also there were some gimmicks thrown in"

Or you are just Catachan and eat them.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:31

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

Imagine if the Hive Mind rolled into the galaxy then just started calmly dismantling the low hanging fruit; asteroids, rogue planets (there is evidence these outnumber gravitationally bound planets), even nebulae. By the time it really attacked, it would have already encircled every star system.

Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Mar 14, 2023

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:38

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

It's also possible that the hive mind is putting a buffer zone of dead worlds between its space and everyone else, and using Tiamet to dig in on rocks it has tyrannoformed.

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:43

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

wiegieman posted:

It's also possible that the hive mind is putting a buffer zone of dead worlds between its space and everyone else, and using Tiamet to dig in on rocks it has tyrannoformed.

True, it could even be a form of dark forest strike, a razing of local galaxies while their real civilisation lives in the middle of their sterilised bubble.

Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Mar 14, 2023

# ? Mar 14, 2023 21:44

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

That's the problem with the new sculpts: Currently the Tyranids look like plausible organisms, so it's easy to give them naturalistic motives.

But look at this guy:

You can see it in his weird, mean face. He just wants to scream and kill.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 03:45

Roller Coast Guard: Aug 27, 2006; With this magnificent aircraft,
and my magnificent facial hair,
the British Empire will never fall!

Genghis Cohen posted:

This is one of my pet pedant-hobby-horses about the 40k lore. Humanity would be turbo-turbo-hosed. They love to put in pictures and explanations of the Imperial Guard and assorted other humans fighting against Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, etc. While a common theme in these stories is that things do go badly for a while, and regular human soldiers are shown to be overmatched, often it sort of turns out alright with some pluck and determination and a cunning plan.

Bullshit. Everything about how we think of waging war, all the tanks and munitions and formations of troops etc, is the concentration of so much effort. You need an enormous tail to put say a division of troops in the field and keep them supplied, and even in ideal circumstances they will get worn down and need to be rotated out fairly soon. Warfare, because it is between humans, has tempo and intensity dictated by human limitations. Many of our ideas about strategy centre around targetting the enemy logistics or their cohesion, their confidence and willingness to fight or ability to do so in an organised, effective way.

If you put any human force or civilisation against something like Tyranids, which are evolved killing machines that outnumber humanity, communicate instantly, have no logistics beyond needing to eat stuff to keep going, have no fear or hesitation, don't stop to plan or consider or find out what's happening on their flanks, they would be annihilated incredibly quickly. It would not be close. It doesn't matter how good at all the enabling activity of war the human civilisation is - the Tyranids don't need to do any of that stuff. Human forces would break and be eaten almost as soon as they came into contact.

Every race in 40k has their own joker card in the backstory of "actually these guys are going to turbocrush everyone else and rule forever once xyz happens", because it's written as a giant galactic stalemate that still needs some impetus for the players to carry on buying little plastic spacemen and not just give up in the face of inevitable defeat.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 10:33

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Genghis Cohen posted:

This is one of my pet pedant-hobby-horses about the 40k lore. Humanity would be turbo-turbo-hosed. They love to put in pictures and explanations of the Imperial Guard and assorted other humans fighting against Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, etc. While a common theme in these stories is that things do go badly for a while, and regular human soldiers are shown to be overmatched, often it sort of turns out alright with some pluck and determination and a cunning plan.

Bullshit. Everything about how we think of waging war, all the tanks and munitions and formations of troops etc, is the concentration of so much effort. You need an enormous tail to put say a division of troops in the field and keep them supplied, and even in ideal circumstances they will get worn down and need to be rotated out fairly soon. Warfare, because it is between humans, has tempo and intensity dictated by human limitations. Many of our ideas about strategy centre around targetting the enemy logistics or their cohesion, their confidence and willingness to fight or ability to do so in an organised, effective way.

If you put any human force or civilisation against something like Tyranids, which are evolved killing machines that outnumber humanity, communicate instantly, have no logistics beyond needing to eat stuff to keep going, have no fear or hesitation, don't stop to plan or consider or find out what's happening on their flanks, they would be annihilated incredibly quickly. It would not be close. It doesn't matter how good at all the enabling activity of war the human civilisation is - the Tyranids don't need to do any of that stuff. Human forces would break and be eaten almost as soon as they came into contact.

The reason for this is that the Imperium is utterly hosed. :lol:

, of course you'd be fighting a threat like the Tyranids with space craft, orbital bombardments, planet crackers and Neutronium Alchemists, not ground troops. It's just that the Imperium is so ossified they aren't really capable of the level of reform anymore to combat a threat that's not composed of armies raised by aliens or just plain rebels who at least have some form of society that needs to put up some effort to logistical support them. Even the Necrons have more of a logistical tail than the Tyranids.

That's because all those other aliens still have a society. War is a social tool after all. Waging war against something that doesn't understand war is a folly. That one inquisitor who blew up the Imperium's own planets to starve approaching Tyranids had it almost right, he just forgot the part where you have to aggressively move in space fleets and blow up all worlds, maybe scream at the Admech to give them some kind of sun burster to broil hivefleets when they're trapped deep inside the gravity well. You fight a hostile ecology like a hostile ecology, not like the standing army of an actual society.

But while that would make for some fun novels to read, Tyranid players probably wouldn't like it if you end every battle with "the Imperial Navy planted an Neutronium Alchemist in this planet's sun while we were fighting, you all die with us, Xenos-scum" :v:

# ? Mar 15, 2023 11:50

habeasdorkus: Nov 3, 2013; Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.

I'm sad that the canon end of the Octarius War was the Orks losing. Stupid OP lictors. Da boyz are their own invasive ecology except with dakka instead of tentacles!

# ? Mar 15, 2023 14:49

Z the IVth: Jan 28, 2009; The trouble with your "expendable machines"; Fun Shoe

Libluini posted:

But while that would make for some fun novels to read, Tyranid players probably wouldn't like it if you end every battle with "the Imperial Navy planted an Neutronium Alchemist in this planet's sun while we were fighting, you all die with us, Xenos-scum"

You don't need fancy sun-killer weapons when you can just Dominus Astra the hive fleets.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 16:20

Cooked Auto: Aug 4, 2007

This weeks Black Library reveal is...

Another Dawn of Fire book
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/03/15/the-faith-of-the-indomitus-crusade-is-tested-in-dawn-of-fire-martyrs-tomb

The Martyr�s Tomb by Marc Collins

Plot sounds like the usual kompot of Marines and other factions. Haven't read Collins previous book, but I think the word in general was that it was pretty good.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 16:24

Telsa Cola: Aug 19, 2011; No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Z the IVth posted:

You don't need fancy sun-killer weapons when you can just Dominus Astra the hive fleets.

Yeah devestation of Baal basically suggests that currently you could just suicide charge into the swarm and open warp rifts which absolutely fucks them up.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 17:02

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

Question regarding Angron. I recall new fluff stating that since the opening of the Great Rift he's been way more active. More importantly, despite the efforts to banish him, he keeps coming back, and the gap between his resurrections is getting shorter until it's possible he'll be on the warpath nonstop and can no longer be banished.

Is it possible that this could work against Angron, if the Ordo Malleus was somehow able to sever his connection to the Warp and take advantage of his constant presence in the material world? Make him mortal, as it were, so you'd have to kill him instead of just banishment.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 20:11

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 07:56

Angry Lobster: May 16, 2011; Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

Arc Hammer posted:

Question regarding Angron. I recall new fluff stating that since the opening of the Great Rift he's been way more active. More importantly, despite the efforts to banish him, he keeps coming back, and the gap between his resurrections is getting shorter until it's possible he'll be on the warpath nonstop and can no longer be banished.

Is it possible that this could work against Angron, if the Ordo Malleus was somehow able to sever his connection to the Warp and take advantage of his constant presence in the material world? Make him mortal, as it were, so you'd have to kill him instead of just banishment.

Just keep killing him until it can't be banished anymore, beat the poo poo out of him, trap him in a box, drag his rear end to Terra, throw him into the Dark Cells and have custodians stabing his balls every two seconds. How do you do this? Just send Cato Sicarius and the Ultramarines, they'll figure it out.

# ? Mar 15, 2023 21:55

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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