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

[Platinius]

Shields have also been known to disrupt Teleportation. Although classic Black Library, it's really inconsistent.

Indeed, also consider this, teleporting in is probably more difficult/dangerous than teleporting out.
Also, some Space Hulks are just unsafe to teleport (for reasons) while others are safe(r).
Also, once the reason(s) teleportation is unsafe are resolved, suddenly the Termis can zap about the place. The writing possibilities are vast

[Wraith]

Indeed, also consider this, teleporting in is probably more difficult/dangerous than teleporting out.
Also, some Space Hulks are just unsafe to teleport (for reasons) while others are safe(r).
Also, once the reason(s) teleportation is unsafe are resolved, suddenly the Termis can zap about the place. The writing possibilities are vast

It's occasionally been shown that a Teleport Homing Beacon has to be activated before it can be used - it's not 'Always On' to... I dunno, save power, or make sure you don't get picked up on sensors, or something.

The idea being that if you turn off your beacon so that you can instead use your respirator or night-vision or your power fist or something, and then you die, there's no way that your suit can be 'found' without someone physically going out and looking for it.

[comicshorse]

It's occasionally been shown that a Teleport Homing Beacon has to be activated before it can be used - it's not 'Always On' to... I dunno, save power, or make sure you don't get picked up on sensors, or something.

The idea being that if you turn off your beacon so that you can instead use your respirator or night-vision or your power fist or something, and then you die, there's no way that your suit can be 'found' without someone physically going out and looking for it.

Or when the Genestealer rips your heart out he also damages the Homing Beacon so no 'porting out

[Artanis]

I'd say Blood Ravens probably also have a great many Terminator armor since they most likely keep "finding them"

There is literally a mission in DoW 2 where this very thing happens

[Cikomyr2]

There is literally a mission in DoW 2 where this very thing happens

Exactly.

All these Thousand Sons Terminator armor have been left doing nothing for 10,000 years.

[Renegade Paladin]

"If you bought into the hype that Primaris Space Marines were unswervingly loyal at all times, you might want to sit down for this one."

[Haruspex_Pariah]

"If you bought into the hype that Primaris Space Marines were unswervingly loyal at all times, you might want to sit down for this one."

Turns out my first instinct was right: https://www.warhammer-community.com/...-consequences/

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Turns out it's a rather striking example of how unreasonable Imperial doctrine can be. The Primaris were new additions to the Chapter, and presumably had never even communicated with them.

But I suppose Gerion could have handled things better. Hmm.

[The Glyphstone]

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That story suddenly raises questions in me. It goes out of its way, at least twice that I counted, to mention how helpless ordinary mortals are in a battle between demigods, and how quickly they just get slaughtered for trying to get involved. But the narrator isn't just able to survive in the midst of a fight between Primaris and Custodes, she's able to kill several Primaris and land a crippling blow on Gideon. Does this indicate the Silent Sisters are somehow augmented to an Astartes-level combat capability, or do we just have Batman Training with a Protagonist Power multiplier?

[hamishspence]

Regarding Silent Sister durability

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They wear power armour, and are Blanks. And are very experienced combatants. Imagine Jurgen from the Cain books, think about all the horrors he's gone against and lived to tell the tale. Then give him power armour on top of that.

Suddenly her survival doesn't look so implausible.

[Lord Torath]

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So, just to clarify, the brand new Primaris marines being transported to support their new chapter, that had never even seen or communicated with any member of their new chapter, were accused of heresy because there was a war going on on the homeworld of their new chapter?

[The Glyphstone]

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That part's not super surprising. "Bad Seed = Tainted Fruit" is a long-running prejudice in 40k, particularly with regards to Space Marines. They did (officially) purge all the geneseed of the Traitor chapters from the gene-vaults after the Heresy. And I can see a Custodes captain being even more inflexible than usual on that point.

[bluntpencil]

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That story suddenly raises questions in me. It goes out of its way, at least twice that I counted, to mention how helpless ordinary mortals are in a battle between demigods, and how quickly they just get slaughtered for trying to get involved. But the narrator isn't just able to survive in the midst of a fight between Primaris and Custodes, she's able to kill several Primaris and land a crippling blow on Gideon. Does this indicate the Silent Sisters are somehow augmented to an Astartes-level combat capability, or do we just have Batman Training with a Protagonist Power multiplier?

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Isn't she a Knight-Centura - effectively Space Marine Captain equivalent rank-wise? That's fine - another Silent Sister gets unceremoniously clubbed to death, after all.

[Wraith]

Sisters of Silence are more or less like the Assassin Temples; they're humans rather than transhumans/Astartes, BUT they're exquisitely trained, exotically armed and augmented way above that of a normal human.

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A really, really good one could sensibly get the jump on an unsuspecting Astartes - particularly a newly unfrozen one as the story suggests - but generally speaking I wouldn't count on that as a reliable outcome.

[The Glyphstone]

Sisters are just Trained That Good then, I guess. I just wasnt sure if I had missed some 8e fluff about the Sisters being Custodes-grade superhumans somehow.

[hamishspence]

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Isn't she a Knight-Centura - effectively Space Marine Captain equivalent rank-wise? That's fine - another Silent Sister gets unceremoniously clubbed to death, after all.

Assuming that

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a 42K-era Knight-Centura is the same thing as a 31K-era Oblivion Knight-Centura, then yes, she's Captain-equivalent.

Currently, 8e has no stats for Silent Sister army commanders, but I think we can presume they still exist, even if GW hasn't bothered to stat them out yet.

[bluntpencil]

Assuming that

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a 42K-era Knight-Centura is the same thing as a 31K-era Oblivion Knight-Centura, then yes, she's Captain-equivalent.

Currently, 8e has no stats for Silent Sister army commanders, but I think we can presume they still exist, even if GW hasn't bothered to stat them out yet.

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I'm assuming that this is a hint towards the Sisters of Silence Psychic Awakening

[Haruspex_Pariah]

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So, just to clarify, the brand new Primaris marines being transported to support their new chapter, that had never even seen or communicated with any member of their new chapter, were accused of heresy because there was a war going on on the homeworld of their new chapter?

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Yes. This is an aspect of the Imperium that sometimes gets forgotten. When it comes to heresy, the "correct" response can seem disproportionate to the average reader. I'm genuinely surprised that GW chose to remind us of that, at the expense of the Primaris (their shiny new mascots) however. Interesting decision.

[Wraith]

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Yes. This is an aspect of the Imperium that sometimes gets forgotten. When it comes to heresy, the "correct" response can seem disproportionate to the average reader. I'm genuinely surprised that GW chose to remind us of that, at the expense of the Primaris (their shiny new mascots) however. Interesting decision.

A big rumour is that one of the next Psychic Awakening books will introduce Renegade Primaris, so as motivation for that it makes as much sense as anything.

[Cheesegear]

A big rumour is that one of the next Psychic Awakening books will introduce Renegade Primaris, so as motivation for that it makes as much sense as anything.

Just keep releasing Primaris Upgrade Kits for anything you want that even vaguely resembles forcing people to buy Space Marines.
Want some AdMech Primaris to represent Cawl's Renegades? ...Boom. Shoulder pads with with the AdMech Cog. It would be incredibly easy for GW to make an Upgrade Kit for literally anything the community wants. All's it takes is a drag-and-drop in CAD and they have a new upgrade kit.

[LeSwordfish]

A big rumour is that one of the next Psychic Awakening books will introduce Renegade Primaris, so as motivation for that it makes as much sense as anything.

Hasn't Renegade Primaris been rumored since the start of 8th Ed? Is there anything to make it seem more likely now?

[Renegade Paladin]

Hasn't Renegade Primaris been rumored since the start of 8th Ed? Is there anything to make it seem more likely now?

You mean apart from Warhammer Community literally depicting a Primaris Chapter going renegade in the story yesterday?

[Wraith]

Hasn't Renegade Primaris been rumored since the start of 8th Ed? Is there anything to make it seem more likely now?

There was conjecture, right at the very beginning of the edition, that it could happen because Cawl was sketchy and no one trusted him as far as they could throw him.

This is however the first time that it has been depicted in official media, as far as I know, and it's the first time that rumours/leaks have been made about a specific product containing their stats rather than just "it could happen at some point".

[Cheesegear]

This is however the first time that it has been depicted in official media, as far as I know...

There were a number of suggestive lines in War of Secrets that hinted that the Primaris Marines sent to the Dark Angels were loyal to Cawl, rather than Guilliman - let alone Lion.

[Wraith]

There were a number of suggestive lines in War of Secrets that hinted that the Primaris Marines sent to the Dark Angels were loyal to Cawl, rather than Guilliman - let alone Lion.

I got a few Chapters into that and decided that the Primaris Marines sounded like high school jocks, with weirdly contemporary language and some odd, casual turns of phrase.

I'm used to Astartes being stuck-up and overly formal, and hearing Primaris making snide comments to each other really put me off, and I never went back to it. What I did read didn't seem like rebellious talk as such, just.... kind of childishly insolent.

[hamishspence]

I get the impression from the Horus Heresy books that Heresy-era marines, at least in some chapters, are less formal than their 40K counterparts. And some Primaris chapters have been in stasis since the Heresy era.

[Cheesegear]

I get the impression from the Horus Heresy books that Heresy-era marines, at least in some chapters, are less formal than their 40K counterparts.

Well, you see:
When ADB writes bantz between the Night Lords, or when John French writes a number of Legion Captains roasting Sigismund for having a stick up his arse. Or when Josh Reynolds writes White Scars dunking on each other.

...John French doesn't write people making fun of Ahriman. That's not what the Thousand Sons do. And that's not the Theme of the story he's trying to set up. And even if that did happen, Ahriman would not take it well. ADB even wrote a JokingNotJoking post about Sevatar definitely not calling Ahriman 'an unbearable Terran ****head'. Yeah. That's probably in Sevatar's character to say that. But it's not in ADB's writing, to have Sevatar say that, to Ahriman. Josh Reynolds didn't have Bretonnian Knights make fun of each other (holy **** that series was good), Josh Reynolds did have an Empire man tear the Bretonnians a new a*hole. But he didn't have Bretonnians doing it to each other.

Phil Kelly is...Well...Phil Kelly. He's already not that good. And then he's inserting 'those guys' into a Dark Angels book.
Like. What are you doing?

What even is the tone you're trying to set? And why can't you even execute it?

[LeSwordfish]

You mean apart from Warhammer Community literally depicting a Primaris Chapter going renegade in the story yesterday?

Am I badly misreading this story or is everyone else? The fleet arrives at the planet to find the OG Brazen Drakes are heretics, and everyone immediately mistrusts the Primaris Drakes. The Primaris drakes object to this and one of them gets shot, they try and take the fleet in self-defense, and get butchered by the Custodes/Sisters. That's a very broad definition of "going renegade" - surely the whole point of this story is the Imperium's fanatic inflexibility causing it to meaninglessly murder a whole bunch of its own soldiers?

If you knew that the reason the OG Drakes fell was because of some geneseed flaw then maybe you'd have a point in mistrusting the new ones, but "your estranged father who you never met was a murderer. we're going to give you the death penalty" is... well, its one of those things we were talking about where the point is that the Imperium does things wrong.

[Forum Explorer]

Am I badly misreading this story or is everyone else? The fleet arrives at the planet to find the OG Brazen Drakes are heretics, and everyone immediately mistrusts the Primaris Drakes. The Primaris drakes object to this and one of them gets shot, they try and take the fleet in self-defense, and get butchered by the Custodes/Sisters. That's a very broad definition of "going renegade" - surely the whole point of this story is the Imperium's fanatic inflexibility causing it to meaninglessly murder a whole bunch of its own soldiers?

If you knew that the reason the OG Drakes fell was because of some geneseed flaw then maybe you'd have a point in mistrusting the new ones, but "your estranged father who you never met was a murderer. we're going to give you the death penalty" is... well, its one of those things we were talking about where the point is that the Imperium does things wrong.

They should've surrendered. Protest your innocence sure, but comply. Because there is no take-backs when you betray the Imperium. And going against a Custodes is almost the definition of betraying the Imperium.

Was the Custodes being unreasonable and inflexible? Almost certainly. But the only way they could've stayed loyal was to comply. Anything else is going Renegade and almost inevitably falling to Chaos.

[Renegade Paladin]

No, you're not misreading it; they were indeed forced into it by the Custodian. But if they win and seize the fleet, what do you think happens next?

[Thragka]

They should've surrendered. Protest your innocence sure, but comply.

This is a terrible idea in a non-fascist, non-authoritarian context. If the Drakes captain feels any responsibility to his troops, he can't do this. This is the opposite of the A Team.