Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XVI: Where the Ordnance is Hand-Delivered!

[Cheesegear]

Talk to me about Perturabo. Especially "modern-day" Perturabo. What's known? What's hinted at? What's guessed?

He has a fight with Mortarion over a temple about who gets to summon Daemons for their Legion.

Perturabo: The longer I play this out, the more protracted the fighting becomes! I love stupid, protracted fights!
Mortarion: ...Fine with me. Say, have you ever heard the phrase 'incubation phase'? It's one of my favourites.

Mortarion then kicks the **** out of Perturabo. Because the longer the Death Guard fight, the more likely it is that they simply win by default, due to their enemy both figuratively and literally losing their water. Also, your dudes become their dudes.

That is all.

[Silverraptor]

Talk to me about Perturabo. Especially "modern-day" Perturabo. What's known? What's hinted at? What's guessed?

This was a fairly decent introduction to Perturabo.

[Renegade Paladin]

This was a fairly decent introduction to Perturabo.

Note: Do not click. Arch can go to hell.

[Wraith]

Perturabo is probably the least-utilised of the Chaos Primarchs, with the possible exception of Lorgar. Since the Iron Cage which took place a handful of years after the Siege of Terra, he's pretty much just killed more Imperial Fists, got made into a Daemon Prince, and then joined in the 13th Black Crusade in M41.999. He's popped out of the warp once or twice for the odd raid here, occasional burned planet there, but nothing of consequence comparable to running his own Black Crusade or getting involved in a notable war like Armageddon or Fenris.

It's kind of a shame really, because with so few appearences he's not had much development since M31. He's still just the angry guy who wants to tear down the Imperium, preferably in siege warfare but he'll use techno-sorcery or summon an army of daemons if he really needs to.
He has no new motivations or interactions - he's already 'beaten' Rogal Dorn twice, once by crushing the walls of the Imperial Palace and then again by annihilating his legion at the Eternal Fortress. By rights someone could make a really interesting character study about what makes him tick now that the Emperor is dead and Dorn has been humiliated; maybe he could start gunning for Guilliman who interrupted the Iron Cage, saved Dorn and has now dared to re-emerge where he can be targetted.

Note: Do not click. Arch can go to hell.

Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

[LeSwordfish]

Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

He's a "pillar of the community" that GW are having nothing to do with because he is just incredibly racist. There are better sources for any information. I can provide evidence by PM but i'm not certain that these particular citations are allowed by board rules.

[Renegade Paladin]

Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

He is formerly known as Arch Warhammer. Formerly for a reason. It takes quite a bit for GW to force YouTubers to stop associating with their brand name. Look him up; I'm not going to discuss it on this forum.

[Destro_Yersul]

Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

We don't like him. The reasons probably break forum rules. I suggest google.

[Cheesegear]

Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

In short; He is the literal definition of That Guy.

1. His fake accent is infuriating.
2. He frequently just makes **** up.
3. He has bad political views.

Anything 'good' he or his fanbase ever does (e.g; Forcing GW's hand to update Sororitas and insert more female characters into the fluff during 2018...Keep in mind that that probably wasn't his goal or desired result...That's just what happened), is more often than not, invalidated by one of the above three.

[Cikomyr2]

Perturabo is probably the least-utilised of the Chaos Primarchs, with the possible exception of Lorgar. Since the Iron Cage which took place a handful of years after the Siege of Terra, he's pretty much just killed more Imperial Fists, got made into a Daemon Prince, and then joined in the 13th Black Crusade in M41.999. He's popped out of the warp once or twice for the odd raid here, occasional burned planet there, but nothing of consequence comparable to running his own Black Crusade or getting involved in a notable war like Armageddon or Fenris.

It's kind of a shame really, because with so few appearences he's not had much development since M31. He's still just the angry guy who wants to tear down the Imperium, preferably in siege warfare but he'll use techno-sorcery or summon an army of daemons if he really needs to.
He has no new motivations or interactions - he's already 'beaten' Rogal Dorn twice, once by crushing the walls of the Imperial Palace and then again by annihilating his legion at the Eternal Fortress. By rights someone could make a really interesting character study about what makes him tick now that the Emperor is dead and Dorn has been humiliated; maybe he could start gunning for Guilliman who interrupted the Iron Cage, saved Dorn and has now dared to re-emerge where he can be targetted.



Never heard of him. We don't like Arch for some reason...?

Just reintroduce him in the same story cycle as Dorn's return. Or have him somehow motivate Dorn's return, or vice versa.

[Cheesegear]

Just reintroduce him in the same story cycle as Dorn's return. Or have him somehow motivate Dorn's return, or vice versa.

Problem; Perturabo's main problem is that he has no motivation outside of Rogal Dorn.

Solution; Keep tying him intricately to Dorn. 41K is just 30K, but again.

[Wraith]

I suggest google.

Nope, that's fine - the number of people who immediately stepped forward with the same statements is more than enough for me to take your word for it.

Problem; Perturabo's main problem is that he has no motivation outside of Rogal Dorn.

Solution; Keep tying him intricately to Dorn. 41K is just 30K, but again.

I just wrote a reason for him to go after Guilliman in 3 seconds as a throw-away line, and frankly his personality has been all over the show in the novels because he keeps being written by different authors so he could really go anywhere and do anything and it wouldn't be controversial.
The problem with Perturabo isn't that he keeps getting paired with Dorn, it's that he's one of those characters who has to be in 40k for legacy reasons, and none of the writers are particularly interested or invested in doing anything with him more than token appearances.

Kind of what happened to the codex writers between 4th and 6th edition - the rumour goes that no one in the GW offices actually played Orks or Tyranids, and that's why their codices were so uninspiring. The writers weren't invested in them and/or didn't understand how they were supposed to work because it wasn't 'their' army.

[Cheesegear]

The problem with Perturabo isn't that he keeps getting paired with Dorn, it's that he's one of those characters who has to be in 40k for legacy reasons, and none of the writers are particularly interested or invested in doing anything with him more than token appearances.

Even the Tallarn anthology, offers surprisingly little insight into his character.
Which is really weird, since John French loves writing introspective character pieces - and he's my favorite BL author because of it.

[LansXero]

The problem with Perturabo isn't that he keeps getting paired with Dorn, it's that he's one of those characters who has to be in 40k for legacy reasons, and none of the writers are particularly interested or invested in doing anything with him more than token appearances..

Even the Tallarn anthology, offers surprisingly little insight into his character.
Which is really weird, since John French loves writing introspective character pieces - and he's my favorite BL author because of it.

Spoiler

Show

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/com...pia_peturabos/

Also, throw as much shade as you want on the guy, he shat all over Dorn's 'master plan' for defending Saturn by pushing a freaking space hulk through the gate. Phalanx my leadbelcher-primed ass, eat an actual moon you giant tangerine.

Even if Horus hadn't taken a shortcut via the rift, there was no doubt the void battle was won by the traitors, even before they leveraged their overwhelming numbers.

Kind of what happened to the codex writers between 4th and 6th edition - the rumour goes that no one in the GW offices actually played Orks or Tyranids, and that's why their codices were so uninspiring. The writers weren't invested in them and/or didn't understand how they were supposed to work because it wasn't 'their' army

If true, thats pretty stupid. Who cares what your feelings are on toy soldiers? You get hired to do a job, then do that job to the extent of your skill, or get fired.

[Silverraptor]

Geez. Didn't know there was such a dislike for that guy. Sorry for posting it. I watched it and didn't really get any bad vibes from him in the video and he did seem to cover Perturabo's early life pretty detailed. Again, sorry for any discomfort I caused.

[Renegade Paladin]

Geez. Didn't know there was such a dislike for that guy. Sorry for posting it. I watched it and didn't really get any bad vibes from him in the video and he did seem to cover Perturabo's early life pretty detailed. Again, sorry for any discomfort I caused.

Go look up any video of his with "feminism" in the title or his condemnation of the cover art of Avenging Son if you want to see what we're talking about, but be prepared to take a shower afterward. Also the fake accent (and it is 100% fake; he's Norwegian and you can hear it slip sometimes) remains annoying no matter what he's talking about.

[Wraith]

Also, throw as much shade as you want on the guy, he shat all over Dorn's 'master plan' for defending Saturn by pushing a freaking space hulk through the gate. Phalanx my leadbelcher-primed ass, eat an actual moon you giant tangerine.

Don't get me wrong, I *want* Perturabo to be used better rather than just as the whiner with the martyr complex. There's tons of stories that could be written about how that develops, and how his ambition to be recognised drives him into ever more dangerous and threatening entreaties with the warp powers and his brothers like some kind of tragic figure that is blind to his own bull-headed mistakes, doomed to forever forge onwards and into deeper debt but never able to admit to it or ask for help.

But, no - he's the siege guy. He turns a planet into a dungeon and sits there forever pretending that he doesn't care that no one has complimented him on his latest great creation. At least Lorgar has the excuse that he's off communing with the Chaos Gods, deep in meditation and unravelling the great mysteries of the warp - Perturabo doesn't do very much because he's boring, and it would be so very easy for him to be otherwise.

If true, thats pretty stupid. Who cares what your feelings are on toy soldiers? You get hired to do a job, then do that job to the extent of your skill, or get fired.

Such is the rumour anyway, I won't pretend any secret insider knowledge.
It is generally said, however, that Robin Cruddace is the main culprit - he's supposed to love tanks which is why his Imperial Guard 5th edition was pretty good, but his Tyranids 5th edition (the complete opposite of tanks) almost killed the faction. It's not a matter of feelings towards the faction - I have no reason to believe that it was intended to screw over Tyranid players - it's just that he wasn't used to the style which the army needed and made a lot of wrong guesses, and there was no one else in the office who knew enough to correct him.

It was shortly after that wherein GW stopped putting the names of authors on their codices, thanks to the backlash against Tyranids 5th and Grey Knights 5th (the Matt Ward one) so make of it what you will.

[Cheesegear]

If true, thats pretty stupid. Who cares what your feelings are on toy soldiers? You get hired to do a job, then do that job to the extent of your skill, or get fired.

The way the story goes, is that back in the day, and especially before Matt Ward, people would volunteer to write Codecies. And as such, it wasn't so much merit that got you put on a Codex - it was passion.

Who wants to write Eldar/4? *Phil Kelly's hand rockets up* "Put me in, Coach. I'm ready!"
The idea being that Phil plays Eldar, and loves Eldar. He has an in-depth understanding of their fluff. He plays them on the tabletop, too, so inherently has a bias and a wish-list, too. If you let Phil design an Eldar Codex, it's going to be the best Vaul-damned Codex you've ever seen.
(Cue Eldar dominating every edition except 5th, the edition where they didn't get a Codex. Because the people who wrote Eldar Codecies [e.g; Gav Thorpe], wanted to write Eldar Codecies.)

Alright, boys. Who wants to write Orks/4? *Mumblings and grumblings heard throughout the office.*
Nobody? *Mmphberhumph*
Nobody? 'Right then. **** it. Phil! You're doing Orks. "...****."

The job was thrown onto Phil who has no interest in Orks. And as such has no idea what needs to get buffed and/or nerfed so the Codex gets to be an underwhelming garbage pile of fire-garbage on fire. But hey, he got to write his Eldar Codex, so it's not like he cares, right?

That, or...You're right.
'To the extent of their skill.' and Phil Kelly's 'skill' is bad...But that doesn't explain his Eldar/4 Codex, does it? Or his 3.5 Guard and Chaos Marine Codecies. Hell, Phil Kelly wrote the Eldar/6 book. So you know it's not that he doesn't know how to write phenomenal rules. It's that when it came to Orks/4; He either chose not to, or didn't understand the Faction at all because he didn't care to.

[LansXero]

He either chose not to, or didn't understand the Faction at all because he didn't care to.

Thats not how professional work... works, but I guess we both know that.

I blame whales / casuals for not giving a crap and buying stuff anyways. Why waste money on rules and QA when they'll lap it all up whatever they push out?

[Brookshw]

Thats not how professional work... works, but I guess we both know that.

I blame whales / casuals for not giving a crap and buying stuff anyways. Why waste money on rules and QA when they'll lap it all up whatever they push out?

You got me, what the heck is a "whale"?

[IthilanorStPete]

You got me, what the heck is a "whale"?

People who spend very large amounts of money on hobbies. I've mostly heard the tearm in association with "free" pay-to-win games; whales are the people who spend thousands of dollars on Farmville or whatever, who make up the bulk of the game's revenue.

[Renegade Paladin]

You got me, what the heck is a "whale"?

Someone who buys everything regardless of quality.

[Forum Explorer]

Thats not how professional work... works, but I guess we both know that.

I blame whales / casuals for not giving a crap and buying stuff anyways. Why waste money on rules and QA when they'll lap it all up whatever they push out?

GW's lack of professionalism aside, it's not like a lot of customers have a choice. You like Orks? Well nobody at GW likes Orks so you get less Codex updates, and they are typically of lower quality. Your options are switch factions, or quit the game outright, or stick it out. If you switch factions, all you do is tell GW that powerful faction (IE Space Marines) should continue to get all the attention. If you quit, GW doesn't know why, because back then, they didn't accept feedback or do customer surveys. Only in sticking it out would you have a 'voice' in GW's statistics. Not that it would matter because it would be drowned out by the Space Marine players anyways.

[Avaris]

What’s really ridiculous is that, both back in the day and (I believe) now, there is only really one person writing each codex. I get the impression it’s got a bit better in terms if seeking feedback from others, but every codex should be a team effort with everyone contributing, and it doesn’t sound like that’s how they run things. Sure have someone leading the project, but you should have a lot of people offering material. Instead, I get the impression that there is the core team lead, who gives feedback on everyone else’s work, then individuals have their own codex to work on individually.

[Cheesegear]

Thats not how professional work... works...

"It's only toy soldiers."

[LansXero]

"It's only toy soldiers."

Toys are one of the largest businesses in the world currently, soldier-shaped or otherwise. I always thought it was silly to want to separte GW 'super serious collectible figures' from the 'toy' category. Toys are a huge industry, while collectibles or worse scale models are niche things that barely move the needle.

[Wraith]

Despite what you may have expected, GW's rules-writing team is like, 20 guys. And that's for GW, not just 40k - they all do 40k, and 30k, and AoS, and Necromunda, and Blood Bowl season 2 is due out soon, not to mention the smaller games besides.

'Professional' in this case means to churn out 8+ games systems worth of content every 6 months, don't get credited because Codices don't have authors' names on them any more, and then burn out in under a year for not a notable amount of pay.

Play-testing? Working on passion projects? Having time to learn how something works before you're having to build a stat-block for it? What's that?

[snowblizz]

People who spend very large amounts of money on hobbies. I've mostly heard the tearm in association with "free" pay-to-win games; whales are the people who spend thousands of dollars on Farmville or whatever, who make up the bulk of the game's revenue.

A truism is that the 80/20 rules tends to apply. The whales are the 20% providing 80% of the revenue. And yea free to play (not all are pay to win) is where I seen the "whale" term originate.

What’s really ridiculous is that, both back in the day and (I believe) now, there is only really one person writing each codex. I get the impression it’s got a bit better in terms if seeking feedback from others, but every codex should be a team effort with everyone contributing, and it doesn’t sound like that’s how they run things. Sure have someone leading the project, but you should have a lot of people offering material. Instead, I get the impression that there is the core team lead, who gives feedback on everyone else’s work, then individuals have their own codex to work on individually.

I think there is a very improtant reason why they do not. With 1 person writing the book it's easier to get it internally consistent(*). Persons 2, 3 and 5 didn't just change a rule behind your back. And while you can work around that it still does become less effective. If 1 author 1 book is used those 5 people could be working on 5 projects in parallell too, instead of all mucking about in one book. GW being GW ofc I don't expect them to manage to hit any upsides but all the drawbacks of doing it like that.

Because 1 author 1 book risks turning it into a passion project, and we know that is how a lot of it used to be written. They've said as much over the years. Everyone wanted to write Space Marines, where some factions ended up with someone "stuck with it". I would argue you could almost tell from a codex where the author was "into" the army or not.

(*) yes I know, even that tends to fail, frankly I'm not sure how GW manages to make such a mess of everything

[Whoracle]

The term "Whale" stems from gambling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller. And no, I don't have anything of value to add to the discussion :)

[snowblizz]

If true, thats pretty stupid. Who cares what your feelings are on toy soldiers? You get hired to do a job, then do that job to the extent of your skill, or get fired.

I somehow managed to miss this all yet still sorta picked up there was discussion about codex writers.

It's a bit simplistic to say "do your job or get fired". They did their jobs. That was the problem. Writing a good codex is not a "just do your job" situation. Anyone can ddig a ditch and you can jsut swap out the person holding the shovel. A codex is trickier if you want it to feel right to the players. It's more than just raw mechanics, which would be the "do the job part". This is a hobby, and it needs to fuel passion or we won't buy their grossly overpriced models. The best way to do that is to get someone who "gets" the army and the players to write it. If you approach the codex like an accountant the result we will be thereafter.

Pete Haines was a massive Chaos fan and he got it right with the 3.5 Chaos codex. But you can tell it was a passion project since some of it was a bitoverblown. The 4e codex written by Gav & someone else managed to rip all that heart out. They did not get Chaos or what us players wanted from it. It was "meh" in every conceivable way, even though the machanics were solid. But, again, "meh". And then it suffers against all the other passion project codices coming along.

[LansXero]

I somehow managed to miss this all yet still sorta picked up there was discussion about codex writers.

It's a bit simplistic to say "do your job or get fired". They did their jobs.

Yeah... no. Maybe at first. You have decades of videogames, novels, previous editions, fandex, etc. to crib from. 'Getting' a faction is not super hard, you just have to care about what you do. Sure, some stuff will still feel off but Im not asking for mathhammery perfect super stats. Just something better than for example the sisters beta codex, or no day 1 errata like with space wolves, or not keeping the wraithknight useless two editions in a row. Or even worse, taking a sub-faction with a huge amount of stuff to simply steal (blood ravens) and making it as lazily generic as possible (heh just take any trait and be done lolz)