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I personally think the best solution to the whole need to advance the storyline is to just not. It hasn't ever worked for Games Workshop, instead just let the Black Library writers do things like Ciaphas Cain, where it is set in the future but doesn't have any really big changes. Then work out a common point for all the Codices and just balance around that time frame. The other thing I really wish they'd do is stop writing 3 Imperium Codices for every 1 not-imperium, really the Imperium just needs 4 Codices total; Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, Witch-hunters and Imperial Guard. Then you just have rules for playing alternate armies, for example in the Space Marine codex include ways to play as chapters that don't follow the traditional mould. Of course this wouldn't make them as much money so it would never happen.
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Aug 25, 2015 02:50
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Blind Sally posted:Yo, the OP is mostly a 40k noob, so please explain who these characters are and why they deserve their name being turned into a terrible meme. So others have already covered Failbaddon, so instead I'll cover who should be his replacement Huron Blackheart. For this, we need to go back to when he was still the Loyalist chapter master of the Astral Claws. Born Lugft Huron, He guarded the Warp Storm known as the Maelstrom along side the Lamenters (The saddest chapter in existence, who's every moment is an agony of being betrayed, beaten and kicked by the universe) and the Mantis Warriors (Basically Kamen Rider Space Marines) until their was rebellion in the sector, when that happened he wound up taking direct control of the sector, putting his marines in charge of everything and becoming the Tyrant of Badab. He managed to keep things orderly (though Grimdark this IS 40k) but when the High Lords of Terra decided not to send him any resources to help him consolidate his gains he decided "gently caress you then, you're not getting any of my Gene Seed." And pretty much blockaded the sector, turning it into his own personal kingdom. This caused the Inquisition to decide to remind him who was in charge and launched the Badab War. It took about a dozen Space Marine chapters to take Huron down and as his followers set about trying to save his life by basically cyborging him, he was visited by the Chaos Gods who offered him power that the Imperium had denied him. With the remaining Astral Claws, Huron fled into the Maelstrom, returning years later as the leader of the Red Corsairs Warband, the Pirate Huron Blackheart. One thing fans tend to miss, while ones new to setting get right away is that Huron, being space pirate captain has cybernetics equivalents of a peg leg, hook, eye patch and even captain's parrot in a form of his daemon familiar. The thing is, where as Failbaddon is useless and stupid and constantly failing only needing to be propped up by GW. Huron is actually written as a competent and dangerous pirate lord who is amassing his own large army and is successful in the actions he takes. In short he's the perfect person to serve as the Chaos Gods champion. So he never will be, because GW is trying to make Failbaddon work.
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Aug 25, 2015 02:50
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Except if Huron was war-master he'd fail just as much as Abaddon, because Chaos cannot be allowed to win. Which I think is the biggest problem with Abaddon, on paper he's an impressive leader who has the blessings of all 4 chaos gods and has the in game stat-line to back it up, but because he is the war-master of Chaos Undivided if he was to ever win a Black Crusade Warhammer 40k would be changed irreversibly. So in the end it's more a problem of the setting than the character, it's only recently that Games Workshop have realised that in trying to not break status quo they've gone and made one of their 4 or so big bad guys look loving incompetent. There's an easier solution than saying he's been working at different goals this whole time that GW won't ever do, just say he only led the first and the thirteenth, use the line that the first was him trying to weaken all the other chaos space marines to stay on top, have the second through twelfth be a bunch of other big-shot chaos space marines trying to prove how bad-rear end they are and failing, then have Abaddon lead the thirteenth and have it be mildly successful. Suddenly he no longer looks like a massive failure and it gives a reason for the repeated failings not getting Abaddon fired, from a cannon, into a black hole.
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Aug 25, 2015 03:27
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Night10194 posted:GW keeps trying to make the Orks into Chaos's pets and minions in Fantasy and 40k both, and it never works. The Ork players loving hate it and never go along with it. It's one of the biggest things that hosed Chaos over in the Storm of Chaos campaign and led to the amazing moment where the Ork warboss punched out Archaon the Everbore and then dropped the mic and moonwalked off set. God forbid anything fun happen in Warhammer. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 04:18
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It can be justified why Abbadon despite failures was never replaced by another. The guy is a badass warrior. When used in the game he tends to rip apart almost any opponent. And the lore makes it clear that he is a badass Warrior as well. Anyone of the numerous Chaos Space Marines that would like to replace him would have to beat him in a fight. Something Abbadon would have always won. For someone who is just trying to take him down with the help of an army. Then Abbadon has the help of his Black Leigon. Were Abbadon did an admittedly smart thing. All members of the Black Leigon (A group consisting of more Space Marines then any other group in the universe.) have to swear their souls to Abbadon, even above the chaos gods themselves. This means no member of the Black Leigon can oppose Abbadon or replace him. In cooler Chaos dudes I am reminded of Fabius Bile. The Mad Scientist of Chaos. He is memorable to me if only for this one line when talking to a Blood Angels Space Marine. Fabius Bile posted:Unlike you, whelp, I once walked the same ground as your Idol. I breathed the same air as him. And I tell you this, without lie or artifice. He never wanted to become what you have made him! He did not wish to be your god-thing. He abhorred such ideals! The slavery of your crippled, blind Imperium would sicken him, if he had eyes to see it. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 05:01
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I don't wanna post too much lore stuff in an otherwise fun thread, especially lore speculation butLord_Magmar posted:Except if Huron was war-master he'd fail just as much as Abaddon, because Chaos cannot be allowed to win. isn't quite correct. Inside the fluff section of each faction codex there are resounding victories and dismal failures - one of the few brightsides of the stormtroopers codex was that there's a good blend of each since the current trend has been that each faction has been written like a mary sue in its own codex. Anyway the issue Abbandon has was that an outstanding success of the Imperial Guard codex ("maybe if all of our enemies came at us one at a time, we could beat them all! but welp we're fighting everywhere all the time and we're boned") was instead rebranded as inching chaos victories for the chaos marine codex. That didn't sit well with fans. GW could have invented literally anything for the chaos' fluff, it's a big galaxy perhaps there are previously undiscussed major chaos gains elsewhere that Abbandon led that have nothing to do with the black crusades, but they didn't - they were only limited by the imaginations of the writers here. The tau for example, are definitely 'allowed' measured successes against the Imperium. If you really wanted to tie abaddon's horse completely to the black crusades maybe by distracting the imperium with a big pitched battle at cadia lesser incursions were allowed to succeed elsewhere that wouldn't have. Anyway the other issue that abaddon has is that he's sort of a corporate champion that GW pushes onto unwilling fans - the black crusades are cool why don't you think they're cool? Fans, it seems, prefer people like Huron et al as their own champion, to make a geeky analogy. The same could be said of the ultramarines as far as loyalists go.
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Aug 25, 2015 05:24
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CommissarMega posted:Yeah, I keep wishing they went this route with Slaanesh. Obsession is another path they could take it, since the Prince of Pleasure is all about loving something enough to take it to extremes. Just look at the Black Crusade RPG- the Slaaneshi example character is such a gourmand, he starts out eating people, and at the end consumes himself. That's the kind of And with the Doof warrior from Mad Max, the scene has never been better for ome of Slaneesh's more exotic warriors, such as the Noise Marines, to come on stage. Downplay the sex angle, make it ALL about the search for perfection. Heck, you can even have Slaaneshi regulars (not cutlists, but actual Guard-traitors and Marines) be disdainful of the usual nobility/sex cult appeal. "Harumph, they revel in mere momentary pleasures. Catch a las blast just to feel pain. True devotion is not in seeking whatever experience one can find. It is in creating new experiences the likes of which the universe has never seen! The perfect note. The perfect picture. The perfect moment."
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Aug 25, 2015 05:45
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we should expect from Slaanesh, not just "I do COCAAAAINE! And demon whores!"
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Veloxyll posted:And with the Doof warrior from Mad Max, the scene has never been better for ome of Slaneesh's more exotic warriors, such as the Noise Marines, to come on stage. "Five years ago, a man's fantasy became a reality in a forum never seen before: Kitchen Stadium, a giant cooking arena. The motivation for spending his fortune to create Kitchen Stadium was to encounter new original cuisines which could be called true artistic creations. To realize his dream, he secretly started choosing the top chefs of various styles of cooking, and he named his men the Iron Chefs: the invincible men of culinary skills... Using all their senses, skill, creativity, they are to prepare artistic dishes never tasted before. And if ever a challenger wins over the Iron Chef, he or she will gain the people's ovation and fame forever. Every battle, reputations are on the line in Kitchen Stadium, where master chefs pit their artistic creations against each other. What inspiration does today's challenger bring? And how will the Iron Chef fight back? The heat will be on!"
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Aug 25, 2015 06:20
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Lazy Gun posted:"Five years ago, a man's fantasy became a reality in a forum never seen before: Kitchen Stadium, a giant cooking arena. The motivation for spending his fortune to create Kitchen Stadium was to encounter new original cuisines which could be called true artistic creations. To realize his dream, he secretly started choosing the top chefs of various styles of cooking, and he named his men the Iron Chefs: the invincible men of culinary skills... Using all their senses, skill, creativity, they are to prepare artistic dishes never tasted before. And if ever a challenger wins over the Iron Chef, he or she will gain the people's ovation and fame forever. Every battle, reputations are on the line in Kitchen Stadium, where master chefs pit their artistic creations against each other. What inspiration does today's challenger bring? And how will the Iron Chef fight back? The heat will be on!" also works. so much potential!
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Aug 25, 2015 07:36
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The Campaign mentioned earlier, Medusa V? Although most of you are aware by now GW is a Company Made out of Fail. And Medusa showed it again. It is telling, that it was the last such event of its Kind since then. (I think 2008? Not sure right now) First of all, it was a World Campaign, with all factions involved, giant recipe for a Major clusterfuck right there, even with competent writers. GW promised this time it will have lasting consequences and your actions will matter for really realzis this time. Welp, being young and naive(r) back then, i believed them and a whole bunch of other People Too i think. And i actually believe they wanted to and even tried, but being what they are, they did not thought the Fans would be that dedicated to make an impact. Story was that the Planet Medusa was placed was about to be obliterated by an gently caress huge warpstorm and everybody had a reason to care. Imperial forces: hold the scum at bay while we evacuate the civilians. Tyranids: there is a unique Kind of lictor here, get it. Eldar: Close the gate into out webway before the storm fucks it up. Necrons: (oldcrons) build obelisks to keep the storm at bay. Tau: lets See what the gently caress is the Warp and How we can harness it. ( they build an Research Station on a Mountain and monitored the storm) Orks: we are stranded here, loot poo poo to repair our Space Hulk. Chaos: sorcerer Ygethmor (no, seriously, that was his Name) wanted to get into the webway. Dark eldar: raid and plunder. I was Part of the Organisation for the Tau back then. So i actually have seen quite a Bit of the workings for that Part. It was interesting, for at first it seemed that GW actually was accepting what was going on. there was an Tau/Eldar alliance in the works and at the hight of the conflict in full effect. (At least in our warzone) Orks got their poo poo pushed in fairly Hard. (Courtesy of an old rear end Codex back then) Even nids werent doing so Hot. And things looked pretty good right up to the end. So of course, at the end the nids got their deathleaper no questions asked. Orks got away from the Planet and Chaos was only stopped because the farseer sacrificed herself to kill Ygethmor. And the Tau, getting impatient steal a bunch of bonesingers from the eldar for their Warp stuff and ultimately decide "gently caress the Warp and everything associated" So again, the Future refused to change. Because Gw had other Plans (or none)
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Aug 25, 2015 08:09
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I get the Impression that You might be An Alien pretending To be a Human Being.
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Aug 25, 2015 08:21
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I looked up what looked to be a heavily fellated version of the Eye of Terror campaign, now I want you to realize, this took place in 2003quote:The campaign ran for eight weeks, in which more than 40,000 players registered to submit over a quarter of a million games results to the campaign website. The conclusion of the campaign resulted in a minor victory for Chaos. The line was held in many places but on the strategic level the Disorder players were considered to have consistently out-fought and out-maneuvered their opponents, and held over half of Cadia itself. The Forces of Chaos made slow but somewhat steady progress on many fronts, yet could not claim a decisive victory, especially when a "backstage" plan to gain a foothold in the Eldar Webway system turned into a complete and total failure. In addition, Abaddon suffered severe losses to his fleet in the Crusade, which allowed the forces of Order to bottle up the Chaotics on Cadia itself, preventing them from launching a full invasion of the Imperium. HA! That last loving line.
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Aug 25, 2015 09:23
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What's the over/under on Abaddon being a secret loyalist?
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Aug 25, 2015 10:22
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The Lone Badger posted:What's the over/under on Abaddon being a secret loyalist? Funnily enough it sort of fits with the fact that he's been repeatedly awful at doing his job, and also he has a huge dislike for Horus. He says it's because Horus lost but if he's a secret loyalist it'd be because Horus is the Arch-Traitor, not the first one mind but the one who dragged half the forces of the Imperium behind him on his road to Chaos. It's definitely not true but I think it's a joke that shows up on /tg/ and is documented on 1d4chan.
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Aug 25, 2015 10:59
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Everyone knows that the true Loyalist in the Traitor camp is the Primacrh Alpharius. Maybe. Iunno. Or maybe Omegon...Eimi posted:A loyalist Araghast is zogging beautiful. I know, right? 
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Aug 25, 2015 11:03
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Time for more Ork-stream! Necrooons. Tau are solved though! Edit: Links! Part 5 part 6 Part 7 Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 11:51
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Eimi posted:Well they could always do the whole Doomrider route. (He does COCAINEEEEE) Though I'd prefer if they just steal from JoJo's and do the Pillar Men as a Slaaneshi villain. Really buff guys who are shirtless and posing all the time. It would be perfect. They tried that in Warhammer Fantasy, didn't really stick sadly. Sigvald the Magnificent, who's bodyguards carried mirror shields so that when he wasn't in combat (and sometimes even if he was) he could admire his perfection any time he wanted. I believe also canonically Slaanesh's favoured son, had a super high statline but also suffered a punishing negatrait that not only could immobilise him, but also his entire unit with him. Still, some people swore by him considering he was the only Chaos general who was as charismatic as Archaon, the Everchosen of Chaos (and could bring leadership 10 to the field). Sadly there's no REAAALLL equivalent to him in 40k, which is honestly a shame given how many other characters got exported or pseudo-exported. General things that Games Workshop tries to push that make their players fight them: Make Orks subservient to Chaos during any event. Continue to push SPEECCEEE MEEHHRRIIINNSS as the primary force that fights off the enemies of the Imperium. Don't even get people started on the Grey Knights and what they've done to the lore, particularly for the poor sisters of battle. Never update the Sisters of Battle in the hopes that people forget they exist. Give them a horrible online codex to try and make them shut up. Convince people that Abbaddon is an actual threat: you can't take a man with that much failure seriously anymore, let him WIN at something, the rest of the BIG NAMES of chaos do! Fabius Bile, Ahriman, even if they don't alter the status quo at least they accomplish their goals and make a clean getaway. Never update an army list unless it's something one of the boys at White Dwarf plays: Newcrons may have annoyed people, but then remember how LONG it was between their books? Hmmm, need to contribute to the game discussion now: My tactical assessment basically says to me you have the rest of the planet in the BAG: with Forward Bases, being able to drop wherever the hell you want and attack twice in a turn, you can now slam your face into whatever the hell you want and there's not a lot the AI armies can do about it because they're HILARIOUSLY underarmed once you have set up bases on maps they hit. Strangely, I always had an issue where my bases across the map vanished if an AI army hit it (leaving just my upgraded main base). I'm also going to talk about the army I used in this game: The other super-shooty guys, the Imperial Guard. We haven't fought them as yet, but in multiplayer they're a royal bastard for the Tau to deal with. They have technically worse infantry (shorter range, less armour, less damage), but they, through their own upgrade tree, can deal out respectable damage with their flashlights and special weapons (plasma guns, grenade launchers, etc). They've also three specialist leader units you can attach to squads that do fun things: The commissar can shoot a member of the squad dead, but in exchange make all your infantry nearby COMPLETELY UNBREAKABLE and deal more damage for a short period of time. The chainsaw wielding priests, as well as having a vicious melee attack, can also make their entire squad invulnerable for a short time, while the sanctioned psyker can lightning bolt all the things and help morale break enemies really fast. The Guard also have a bunch of interesting alternate infantry if you prefer having less men on the ground, such as their kasrkin (elite troops with better guns and armour) or their Ogryns, mutant giants with no brains, an automatic shotgun and a bigass bayonet. They're really good at standing and dying so you can shoot things up, much like Kroot. Sorry Kroot. The thing that tau are really good at doing though is shooting them from beyond their range and morale breaking them. While the Guard have really really good vehicles (the Sentinel is a really good counter to heavy mechanised forces), the Tau have the range on their Railgun units and infantry options that can also deal reasonably well with vehicles while also dealing with infantry (Hi stealthsuits/Fire Warriors!). The Guard also adore setting up a million turrets and secondary bases all over the place, since they can garrison their squishy infantry inside and tunnel into other buildings if they need to fast travel around the map. Most fights I had that weren't ended by a rush on either side (Stealth suits and the Tau Commander are a royal pain, but the Command Squad of the Guard ) generally became huge slogfests because the Guard have comsat to counter stealth spotters (and their psykers and commander can also spot stealthy shenanigans going on) and Basilisk counterbattery fire can inflict horrific casualties on masses tau infantry, especially when their Earthshaker rounds land on target and knock everyone around the blast zone into the air. That said, tau are faster, harder to remove and longer ranged, and I generally hated playing against the blues in any game because turrets and fortifications are meat before Tau railguns and pulse rifles. The Baneblade is a nice equaliser though.
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Aug 25, 2015 13:55
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You forgot one thing about the Priest, though- he increases the damage of any squad he's attached to. Stick him in with some plasma Guardsmen, have a Commissar shoot a dude in a nearby squad, and even Terminators start melting.
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Aug 25, 2015 14:51
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quote:Convince people that Abbaddon is an actual threat: you can't take a man with that much failure seriously anymore, let him WIN at something, the rest of the BIG NAMES of chaos do! Fabius Bile, Ahriman, even if they don't alter the status quo at least they accomplish their goals and make a clean getaway. I'm not understanding. As it's been described; Players reject Chaos as a threat, and make sure to bring it down without fail because they object to Chaos Wins because Creator's Pet. Then the playerbase blame Abbadon for the failing, and thus hate Chaos more. Explain how this meme of Abbadon being terrible even started, because I think I missed something in everyone repeating 'Failadon'. Bloodly fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 15:18
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Technically, i also missed that the commisar adds health and morale to the squad he joins too just by being there. I just looked up at my wall'o'text and went 'whelp, no more time to talk about little things (like how the Command Squad is the most versatile commander in the game or how heavy weapon teams are SHOCKINGLY bad). The common use for the priest late-game is to stick him in either kasrkin squads or ogryn squads. Both elite squads benefit from the increased damage (from his traits) and survivability (from his faith invulnerability). Unfortunately, if you've got this happening you've generally got fully upgraded enemies knocking on your door, and you better hope your combined arms works or it doesn't matter how cool your unit/commander combinations are. One thing I find that can turn a game for the guard is when they hit t2: they get access to the priests, and their two vehicles are both great. Sentinels wreck control points and chimera are pretty good against lighter infantry, and in a tau game can drive your squads of infantry right up to the tau lines so the command squad can get stuck in. SUPER HUGE EDIT HERE HOOOOO: Bloodly posted:I'm not understanding. Players reject Chaos as a threat, and make sure to bring it down without fail because they object to Chaos Wins because Creator's Pet. Then the playerbase blame Abbadon for the failing. Explain how this meme of Abbadon being terrible even started, because I think I missed something in everyone repeating 'Failadon'. The issue for Abbaddon is that they've talked him up as a galaxy-ending threat. Everchosen of Chaos, leader of the Black legion, leader of the Black Crusades. Yet, these massive invasions have occured 12 times in the past, and each time DIDN'T EVEN BREAK THROUGH THE FIRST DEFENSIVE LINE. The writers tried to retcon that all his previous invasions were mere probing attacks that accomplished small objectives to pave the way for his ultimate victory, which doesn't make sense given the sheer losses the chaos space marines suffer during each Crusade: there's a reason that Fabius Bile is literally untouchable even by Abbaddon himself. He's the only one who can clone together/steal enough geneseed to allow the various Chaos Legions to recoup their losses outside of the occassional absorbed former loyalist chapter turned to chaos. In most of the media he's presented in, he outright fails to show even a modicum of tactical or strategic sense (herrr durr, my Grand Cruiser can go it alone heerrr duuurrr), and rather than the Supreme Threat to the Imperium he's hyped to be he instead comes across as a Team Rocket member. Terrible Planning, Blasting off again, etc. Hence his reputation as Failadon. He needs some media appearances, be it books, games, fluff, whatever, that is both unrelated to the Black Crusades and shows that he can actually accomplish things that advance his cause that aren't the result of a subordinate. The issue isn't that it's Abbaddon's fault people reject Chaos as a threat: there's a hell of a lot of fiction and media where the bad guys wreck shop, but every time Chaos was present in a global campaign? Black Legion. EVERY. TIME. Abbaddon was apparently behind every global campaign (except armageddon because FORTUNATELY they picked orcs vs humans for that one and it was fun ). The issue for him though is that if you let abbaddon win in the context of a Black Crusade, the setting falls apart as the legion of chaos march on terra burning everything in their path. Since GW is a company that wants to sell figures for money, if they break the Cadian Gate they have to deal with the lore consequences. Since they can't, and they've tied Abbaddon so securely to the Leader of the Black Crusades (and therefore the leader of the Chaos Marines in general) that he's never going to get anything done until/unless they give 40k the Age of Sigmar treatment. Bahumat fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 15:21
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Bloodly posted:I'm not understanding. Players reject Chaos as a threat, and make sure to bring it down without fail because they object to Chaos Wins because Creator's Pet. Then the playerbase blame Abbadon for the failing. Explain how this meme of Abbadon being terrible even started, because I think I missed something in everyone repeating 'Failadon'. Okay so... Abaddon is the leader of the Black Legion, the legion that was headed by Horus who was kind of a big thing because of the Horus Heresy. Now in theory he's a perfectly fine character. He's taken after his master, he's a beast in melee, he's got the support of the Chaos Gods, he's got everything a bad guy needs to have... Except A. He's not really written that interesting and B. This is the 13th black crusade, and before the last set of retcons, the Black Crusade is the attempt to go from the Eye of Terror to Holy Terra and destroy the Imperium. And it's not just that he failed 12 times, it's that he failed in the exact same spot 12 times. Cadia. And that's the thing, if you lose 12 times in a row, always stalling and sputtering out at the exact same place over the past 10,000 loving years... How can anyone take you seriously as a villain. And the thing is GW instead of giving their big bad a few big wins, he just kept failing. Finally FINALLY they went back in their lore and they said "Actually, none of those 12 crusades was an attempt to take Holy Terra, they all had their own objectives and he totally succeeded!" but the thing is they didn't write any stories for those, at least not really, they just hit the retcon button and hoped the fans would accept that the failure was now a badass. The thing is, it's not that we hate Abaddon for being the creators pet, because there are creators pets that people come to like. It's that every other Chaos villain, Fabius Bile, Honsou, Kharn, Huron, It's like someone trying to sell you on the shadowy Big Bad when he's done nothing but fail and all of his underlings are actually cool. He's Dr. Eggman or Dr. Wily but with no actual personality. Just daddy issues.
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Aug 25, 2015 15:36
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Since we're talking about Imperial Guard and I don't think there will be a particularly good place to bring this up but it is one of the things about the Imperium that is nice to know from a lore standpoint. The Imperium has an officially sanctioned group of Assassins called the Officio Assassinorum who come in a myriad of delicious deadly flavours. I don't know all of them but the four I can remember off my head are as follows: Vindicare, who are in this game as a sniper specialist unit the Imperial Gaurd get, their trick is they are the best marksmen in the Imperium capable of doing kill-shots from an unnecessarily long distance. These are arguably the most well adjusted members of the Officio Assassinorum, they're perhaps a little mission focused but beyond that they're perfectly nice people, the same cannot be said for the rest of the Office. Also one of them is the main male protagonist of Love Can Bloom, a much derided/beloved piece of horrible heretical fan-fiction about Farseer Taldeer and said assassin falling in love. Callidus, who are all female because they're injected with a substance called Polymorphine which allows them to defile the holy form of humanity by appearing as any other living being and only works on women for "reasons". Basically they're the infiltrations specialists who pretend to be Eldar Warlocks to get close to a Farseer and stab them right through the gut before escaping disguised as an Eldar Ranger. They're also fairly well adjusted apart from the fact that they can sometimes forget who they are and end up believing the disguise is real, which is bad for a number of reasons including the fact that it isn't true and they have knowledge of the inner workings of the Office. Culexus, who are anti-psykers who can shoot bullets of not soul from the special helmet they wear that gets better the more psykers around. Literally soulless they are so soulless they can do the aforementioned shooting of their own lack of soul to seriously gently caress up psykers and give everything else an unpleasant day. Being soulless is a huge personality problem in of itself because it makes them unpleasant to be around for everyone because of said lack of soul. Eversor, who are the most 40k thing in all of 40k by being little more than a flesh sack full of so many combat drugs they have to be kept in cryo-stasis between missions and literally destroy everything they see when woken up and given the command word. Their primary use is to be dropped in the middle of the enemy army pointed at the enemy commander and let to go hog loving wild. Those drugs make them feel no pain, run at speeds not even a loving war-bike can match, and upon death they explode. So yeah these guys mean business. To show how absurd these things here is a completely accurate quote from one of them in a lucid moment; "Fear me, for I am your apocalypse." Of course they're also the most broken members of the Office and as such don't get to do anything except charge headlong at enemies or sleep in a refrigerator. Of course the head of the Officio Assassinorum is one of the seats on the council of Terra and counts as a High- Lord. Also sorry for wall of text but the Officio Assassinorum is my second favourite thing in the Imperium after the Adeptus Mechanicus.
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Aug 25, 2015 15:39
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Lord_Magmar posted:Eversor, who are the most 40k thing in all of 40k by being little more than a flesh sack full of so many combat drugs they have to be kept in cryo-stasis between missions and literally destroy everything they see when woken up and given the command word. Their primary use is to be dropped in the middle of the enemy army pointed at the enemy commander and let to go hog loving wild. Those drugs make them feel no pain, run at speeds not even a loving war-bike can match, and upon death they explode. So yeah these guys mean business. To show how absurd these things here is a completely accurate quote from one of them in a lucid moment; "Fear me, for I am your apocalypse." Of course they're also the most broken members of the Office and as such don't get to do anything except charge headlong at enemies or sleep in a refrigerator. Isn't there a story floating around about an Eversor getting its hands on a Halo device and basically murdering the entire planet?
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Aug 25, 2015 16:19
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Lord_Magmar posted:Callidus, who are all female because they're injected with a substance called Polymorphine which allows them to defile the holy form of humanity by appearing as any other living being and only works on women for "reasons". Not true. A couple of books feature men making use of polymorphine. There are also the Venenum Temple (poison and biowarfare experts), and Vanus Temple (data manipulators - they won't kill you, but they'll leak your information to your enemies who will).
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Aug 25, 2015 16:23
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Lord_Magmar posted:Also one of them is the main male protagonist of Love Can Bloom, a much derided/beloved piece of horrible heretical fan-fiction about Farseer Taldeer and said assassin falling in love. Love Can Bloom actually got referenced/semi-canonized in one of Fantasy Flight Games' 40k RPG books (I'm almost absolutely sure it was Ascension), what with a quote from a Vindicare Assassin with the cognomen LIIVI opposite a full page picture of a Vindicare stalking a female Eldar farseer.
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Aug 25, 2015 16:36
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apostateCourier posted:Isn't there a story floating around about an Eversor getting its hands on a Halo device and basically murdering the entire planet? It was a thought experiment in one of the 40K RPG threads here as I recall, with a Halosor fighting a Bloodthirster. For those of you new to 40K, a Bloodthirster is a Greater Daemon of Khorne, capable of murdering entire armies on its own and with the stats to back this up. A Halo Device on the other hand, is a kind of xeno artifact of unknown providence from the 40K RPGs that slowly turn their bearers into inhuman monsters. The Bloodthirster barely got a strike off before the Halosor tore that daemon into ribbons. GhostStalker posted:Love Can Bloom actually got referenced/semi-canonized in one of Fantasy Flight Games' 40k RPG books (I'm almost absolutely sure it was Ascension), what with a quote from a Vindicare Assassin with the cognomen LIIVI opposite a full page picture of a Vindicare stalking a female Eldar farseer. FFG is great with bringing in fan references. I know Castus Grendel was referenced at least twice, once as an Acolyte candidate and another time as a full-blown Interrogator. Even a minor character like Boone was mentioned twice. CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 16:52
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What's interesting about the Assassins is they're all enhanced humans, and Assassins are basically on a level beyond Marines. Like, a Vindicare isn't just a dude who's really good with (and has a really good) rifles. A Vindicare (who is not a close combat specialist) still has strength and toughness on the same scale as a Marine, can take multiple injuries that would kill a normal human on par with a Marine hero, and the guys can dodge bullets like an action hero. And that's common to every single type of Assassin, who are all said to be heavily genetically and cybernetically enhanced. It's kind of interesting to speculate what produced effectively more insane supersoldiers than Astartes, though as far as I know there isn't any real fluff on it besides 'These guys are basically action heroes so of course they're that badass'.
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Aug 25, 2015 17:31
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Night10194 posted:What's interesting about the Assassins is they're all enhanced humans, and Assassins are basically on a level beyond Marines. Like, a Vindicare isn't just a dude who's really good with (and has a really good) rifles. A Vindicare (who is not a close combat specialist) still has strength and toughness on the same scale as a Marine, can take multiple injuries that would kill a normal human on par with a Marine hero, and the guys can dodge bullets like an action hero. And that's common to every single type of Assassin, who are all said to be heavily genetically and cybernetically enhanced. It's all steps along the path of human evolution, after all regular humans can become Space Marines due to the Gene-Seed, but even that's more of a cheat. The Assassins are similar "Cheats" that humanity will one day be able to achieve. It's something like Human->Assassin->Space Marine->Custodes->Primarchs->The motherfucking Emperor. During the Great Beheading, an Astarses Chapter (or company I forget) was wiped out to only a single survivor when the Grand Master of the Assassins went bugfuck insane and killed all the other high lords.
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Aug 25, 2015 17:35
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I can't believe no one linked this.
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Aug 25, 2015 17:47
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Note this is entirely accurate and basically how they do.
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Aug 25, 2015 17:47
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They're also really loving expensive and hard to produce.
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Aug 25, 2015 18:04
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If they turn the music too loud though then they fall to Slaanesh!!!!
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Aug 25, 2015 20:18
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When your soldiers number in the countless trillions you can bet The Best Marksman in the Universe will be somewhere in there. The only trick is finding him.
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Aug 25, 2015 22:18
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INTJ Mastermind posted:When your soldiers number in the countless trillions you can bet The Best Marksman in the Universe will be somewhere in there. The only trick is finding him. Sadly, he was already ordered into a suicidal frontal assault as punishment because the one-armed, one-legged space laudanum addict commanding his space army thought his unit hadn't shown sufficient 'spirit'. He dead. Time to find the 2nd best marksman.
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Aug 25, 2015 22:22
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Which is the other problem the Imperium suffers. Sure it has countless planets of humans on hive worlds etc But how do you find the expert marksman and get him to live + succeed over the OTHER BILLIONS of terrible shots.
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Aug 25, 2015 23:20
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Stick enough drugs, gene-enhancements and cybernetics in a dude, you'll end up with a Best Marksman easily enough.
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Aug 25, 2015 23:47
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There's a story of some Valhallan regiment, like the 11254th or some hilariously high number like that, being ordered by a BRILLIANT LORD GENERAL to suicidally assault a Chaos fortress's walls until enough of them had died that their corpses formed a ramp for the remaining men to breach it with. I think anyone with any real aptitude gets pulled out of the line infantry to be some kind of specialist though.
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Aug 25, 2015 23:53
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Theantero posted:I say Orestan plains to prevent the Guard from nabbing the necron stronghold from us. Then we can start a clockwise victory lap around the map.  Shas'ui Thean'tero shows great wisdom and acumen. We shall prevent any possibility of the Imperial Guard killing the Necron for us. Although it would make reconquering Kronus easier, I want the satisfaction of eliminating each invading army myself. On that note: we're attacking The Pavonian Heartland, because that is actually the province that the Imperial Guard have bordering on the Necron Stronghold.  It's a beautiful place, the Pavonian Heartland. Full of little forests and trees. Lakes spattered about. And vast, vast plains. I hate it. This map is incredibly frustrating. On Hard, if the enemy gets a chance to build up their defenses, than you don't stand a chance at capturing it without a huge Honour Guard. This map is massive, making it difficult to trap to enemy in a choke-point and create a defense. Also, the Strategic Points are awkwardly spaced out, allowing the enemy to attack from either their North or East base with relative impunity. If you're facing a well entrenched foe, you have to rush each base and hope you can wipe them out before the enemy can snowball you. That said, if you can get this territory early on and fortify the choke-points by the lakes, you'll be laughing. Oh, by the way, I found the Imperial Guard. They only have a single base in the North-East and I'm firing missiles at them from a bush.  Where's that gunfire coming from? Stand your ground, men! Find the enemy! Yeah, see? There they are: a group of Guard with a Commissar. Guardsmen are decent against all sorts of infantry, but they need upgrades. Reinforce their squad, get some heavy weapons, and give them a leader. Without any of that, they die fast, and put out too little damage. Oh, it's also embarrassingly easy to break their morale. I haven't really spoken on the effects of morale yet. When you break a squad's morale, that squad loses 20% to their weapon accuracy and moves 20% slower. There are a few exceptions, but that's more or less how it works for all units. Now, Commissars boost the health and morale of any squad they're attached to. They can also execute a single member in order to make the Guardsmen fight harder, mitigating the problem of broken morale. Whoa! The Imperial Guard become more dangerous when they start rolling out the heavy weapons. Lasguns are nothing compared to Tau Plasma Fire, but that Grenade Launcher just sent me flying. Ah, Kasrkins. Elite units, the Guard can only afford to field a single squad at a time. Long range, high damage, and they're faster than regular guardsmen. Overall, they're just better. You must be Shas'o Kais, the leader of the Tau forces on Kronus. I am Governor-Militant Lukas Alexander of The Liberators. This planet belongs to the Imperium and you shall return it! You're welcome to try and take it from me. Pah, I thought as much. Is it true you don't know how to fight in hand-to-hand combat? Allow me to give you a taste of my blades! Why ever would I want to bother with "melee" when I can do-- --this! Eat Plasma Fire! Fight on, men! Do--do not let this province fall-- Sanctioned Psykers. They have abilities that can do heavy damage to squads or individuals. They can also detect infiltrated units. A dangerous leader for the Guardsmen. Ah, the Techpriest Engineer. Finally, something the Guard has that I'm jealous of. They are the quickest builder units of all the armies. Fasted to build, fastest to repair. They're also pretty solid defensively and offensively. In fact, they've got the most armour of all builder units. All Tau Castes are supposed to do their part, but I really feel like the Earth Caste phoned it in with their Builder Drones. While giving time for the Earth Caste Drones to reinforce the Heartlands, the Guard tried to build up a proper defense. See, a GOOD Imperial Guard commander would have these Guardsmen inside of a turret or a bunker. Without Alexander, I'm afraid these Guardsmen are just prolonging their deaths. Let's see how they stand up against my Fire Warriors in a shoot out:  Shameful.  OUR DEFENSeS ARE READY. Excellent. Tear it down!   You might as well stay where you are, O'Kais. Governor Alexander is coming back for another go.  They have vehicles this time. I'll admit, the Guard have some decent vehicles. The Chimera here is pretty solid against infantry, and can hold three squads inside of it. There are ports on the sides of it, allowing garrisoned squads to fire out, making it extremely dangerous in capable hands. There are no squads inside this Chimera, so I'm wonder just how capable Alexander is. Make this quick.  That's one.  And two!  While you were defending the Heartland, Taldeer attacked the Demes Northlands. Here are the reports: First base down within minutes thanks to Broadside cannons. Second base demolished a few minutes later thanks to Drone Squads.   Another failed Chaos attempt against the Orkz, otherwise no enemy movements. It seems they mostly just want a piece of the Tau Empire. Well, we can more or less attack Strongholds at our leisure. We have quarantined the Eldar, the Space Marines, and the Imperial Guard. The Orkz, Necron, and Chaos Forces don't have many places to go. What's our next move?
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Aug 25, 2015 23:55
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Every Guard squad should have a grenade launcher. It should be the true backbone of the Imperium: an endless supply of high explosives and enough men to properly direct them.
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Aug 26, 2015 00:03
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 10:27 |
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Broken morale is far more dangerous than that. Broken squads take much more damage, do much less damage, and actually move slightly faster than normal, since they're rather eager to get the hell outta dodge. You skipped the best Sanctioned Psyker ability - the curse. Gives an enemy vehicle infantry armor (and either stopping or weakening its attack). If the guard has more psykers than you have vehicles and is controlled by a player, you might as well retreat. e: Squash the IG. Move next to the Necron stronghold next turn.
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Aug 26, 2015 00:06
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