do you have any advice of where to start reading wh40k? I played rogue trader and really enjoyed it, but there are so many books and tbh i don't trust the taste of reddit dudes
In my opinion, there is a very clean selection of starting/beginner choices for people wanting to get into 40k.
First, very simply, stay away from the Horus Heresy series unless you specifically want to know about the Horus Heresy. It's over 50 books long and prone to being disjointed. Moving on! (Recs under the cut)
The best two starter series are, with almost universal agreement, the Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett, and the Ciaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell. Both follow the exploits of Commissars (disciplinary officers) embedded in the Imperial Guard. The former is fairly gritty, very ground-level, and delves strongly into what it's like being regular people in a wider war and the way people in those situations behave and live their lives. The latter is lighter in tone and more episodic, with the titular Cain running into most other factions within the setting whilst really wishing he wasn't there. There's still plenty of awful shit happening, of course, but it's dressed up in a more camp/humourous perspective. I would recommend both series, with priority going to whichever sounds more inviting for you personally (tonally heavy, or something more relaxed).
If you're interested in the sort of party/group dynamics in Rogue Trader, I would also suggest the Eisenhorn and Ravenor series by Dan Abnett. Eisenhorn follows the investigations and adventures of an Inquisitor (Gregor Eisenhorn) and his retinue, and Ravenor actually ties into it, being about a former acolyte of Gregor's (Gideon Ravenor) who is a powerful psyker and inquisitor in his own right, with his own retinue. The only caveat I will give is that the first Eisenhorn book is quite old, and so can feel a bit dated/off kilter with its portrayal of setting elements.
If aliens are your thing, I recommend the Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath. Extremely fun, extremely well-written book featuring the millennia-long feuds and hijinks of a pair of Necrons (undying alien robots). If your interest in Necrons is kicked off by this book, I suggest reading the Twice Dead King duology by Nate Crowley to really dig in to Necrons as a faction.
Perhaps you want to read about Space Marines! The best starter book for them is Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Great for looking at how different astartes behave, how similar they can be despite their differences, and how they view/interact with humans.
If Chaos Space Marines have you interested, Night Lords: The Omnibus (Also by Aaron Dembski-Bowden) is the best intro book to them. It follows the lives and exploits of a group of heretic astartes (and their humans) and show off why they're terrible people, but still not devoid of complexity, humour and sympathetic elements.
There are, of course, other books I could recommend, depending on the specifics of what you want. BUT, if you are just starting out and want to familiarise yourself with things, comfortably expand your understanding of the setting, feel out what you do and don't like, I think this list should have you pretty well covered.
ive been thinking about pariahs a lot bc of the book Nemesis by James Swallow, so its got me wondering, what do we think would happen if a psychic blank underwent sanctification, the same way sanctic psykers are made?
I… think nothing would happen, honestly. Sanctification functionally weaponises the warp against the warp. While it does provide a notable anti-chaos focus, it’s still doing so via a psychic avenue. A blank is, fundamentally, anti-psychic in nature. Processes and methodologies rooted in psykery aren’t going to do anything for them. You can’t curse a blank, you can’t bless a blank.
Spear, the assassin that likely has you thinking about this stuff, has undergone a series of focused, experiments and highly fucked up diabolic rituals, as well as having a daemon basically fused into him, to become… whatever he was. And he was a unique, special kind of pariah that could reflect psychic effects. To be very blunt, Spear as a concept doesn’t make any sense for numerous reasons, has never come up again (nor have black pariahs), and is generally considered to be an inconsistent and erroneous piece of writing from a less formed time in 40k’s narrative history.
So, to reiterate; sanctifying a blank really isn’t going to do much. Also, if you’d like to see the more coherent and modernised take on heresy-era chaos assassins, take a look at the Infernus Abomination.
Legendary fantasy artist John Blanche has died. He is known mostly for his long association with Games Workshop, where he served as art director and created many of the iconic images that shaped the Warhammer and 40K worlds. He was capable of working in diverse styles, but much of his art and his own creative miniature conversions made his name synonymous with the "grimdark" aesthetic, mixing elements of moody gothic architecture and body horror with a limited color palette.
He also contributed to GW's UK edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! books, and other books and album covers. Wombat Games recently published an authorised biography, Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark. A skirmish game, John Blanche's En Garde, is in development with a setting and visual style based on his art.
Why is Warhammer obsessed with rank and file grunts that canonically have no personality or thoughts? Off the top of my head theres thousand sons, skiitari, tryanids and necrons. Like I wanna get into necrons especially but it's so much less interesting when I can't play around with lower rank personalities.
Here's what you're going to do, okay? You're going to go read the Twice Dead King novels. You're going to re-examine your statements with new context and from a more informed standpoint, and then you're going to report back.
I’m surprised. I would think TEQs would crunch if falling from that height
To give some quick examples; Crisis Suits and their variations are literally dropped from upper atmosphere during deployment. Triarch Praetorians and Lychguard can take ungodly amounts of damage and survive, temporarily adjust the density of their bodies, and the former can hover. A Wraithguard will be fine because it's a soul stone and terminal velocity wouldn't do shit to them. Einhyr Hearthguard are in armour that can comfortably withstand directed anti-tank weapons and can utilise short range teleportation.
I'm not saying they'd all be totally fine, but they would in fact survive the fall.
Rest in peace, John Blanche. You had a truly monolithic, formative impact on both Warhammer as an IP, and the lives of countless fans and artists around the world.
If Curze got his little bitch tendencies from his daddy, does that mean Emps had a phase where he whined incessantly about how the future sucked and he he just *had* to be a mass murdering serial killer? While doi bf war crimes, of course, but it’s Emps, that goes without saying
I mean, the Emperor did in fact decide the future sucked, gave multiple long and self-important speeches about how much the future would suck without his intervention, and became a mass-murdering lunatic driven by visions and his own hypocritical sense of morals
So in Infinite and the Divine, Orikan has a bit while he's in his energy state that talks about how great it feels for him to have a soul again. I know we don't treat anything in any particular book as bearing on wider canon, but if we do for a moment for fun, how do you think that works? Does Orikan re-grow a soul every time he goes into energy state and then lose it again when he reverts? Does he now have a soul again permanently? Did it just feel LIKE having a soul again and he's mistaken? Or did Orikan actually get to keep his soul the whole time, maybe because of some sorcerous technicality about not biotransfering willingly, and he just becomes more aware of it during the energy state?
Orikan doesn’t have a soul. Orikan, like every Necron, lacks 40k’s psychic-based definition of a soul. His soul was candidly destroyed by the biotransference. This is not remotely in question.
When he turns himself into a C’tan-like energy being, he attains a separated out, C’tan-like perspective of time, reality, context. When he talks about how he feels, and about shadow-souls, and the scope of what’s happening, it’s through the lens of something that is akin to a C’tan and is functionally not Orikan.
So no, he doesn’t have a soul, he doesn’t regain a soul while he’s an energy monster. The writing is simply elaborating on what it feels like to Orikan while he’s an energy monster. Half point of Orikan’s “ascension” was underlining that it made him, and would make the Necrons, into something unpleasant and ultimately alien. They wouldn’t be them anymore. It wouldn’t fix them.
Character perspective is important to note when reading.
People make fun of the Imperium for repeatedly naming their people the "[thing] wolves" but nobody seems to mind that the forces of chaos also like to name their forces the "[scary thing] wolves. A Blood Wolf (proper noun) just fired a blood wolf (living weapon) at a Dark Wolf (proper noun) so they activated a wirewolf (daemonic infrastructure) to protect their wolves (dog).
People make fun of the Imperium because it’s correct and funny to do so
I will offer one (1) potato in exchange for cursed facts about Lord Marshal Dreir
“Lord Marahal Dreir” is a fabrication designed to hide the fact that one of the greatest Militarum officers of the modern age is actually a hyper-intelligent and patriotic Krieg Steed. What you see atop the steed (henceforth known as Steed Dreir) is actually one of many servitorised clones, stuffed into battledress and secured atop the real Lord Marshal. All of Dreir’s speeches are actually subvocalisations from Steed Dreir projected from a remote vox emitter within Dreir’s mask. The inherently muffled speech of Krieg soldiers helps to hide this fact. You notice how Dreir’s steed is always saved from grievous wounds and restored to health? It’s framed as Dreir respecting and admiring his mount, but it’s actually because high-ranking members of the Militarum, Inquisition and Adeptus Terra find Steed Dreir’s battle expertise, strategic mind and ability to engage Krieg’s soldiery to be invaluable. It also helps to sell the so-called “immortality” of the Lord Marshal, because if a Dreir clone is fatally wounded, they just make a new one for Steed Dreir to utilise. They’ll even let Steed Dreir eat the old clones as a means of honouring them. Steed Dreir is, despite all of the tactical and social intelligence, still a Krieg steed, and clone meat is decently nutritious.
Is it ever mentioned what kinds of demons can be placed inside a daemon engine? I know the new Defilers had different versions for each Traitor Legion and Total War did that with Soul-Grinders for each Chaos God, but are there rules about what can be in an engine?
In other words, can you choose to shove a specific demon (pick any Chaos God) into an engine for certain benefits? Are there warpsmiths out there who go "We could really use a speed buff, so I'm gonna catfish a Slaanesh demon" or "Let's shove a Nurgley boy in there so the artillery shells have both explosions AND biological warfare"?
You can shove any kind of daemon into a daemon engine. It’s more about headhunting specific daemons, regardless of god, and the specifics of your daemonic bindings, than anything else.
You could, for example, bind a perfectionistic Slaaneshi daemon into a tank’s targeting systems to make it shoot more accurately. You could also bind a methodical Nurglite daemon, or a Khornate daemon that loves blowing up specific things, for the same effect. Trying to broadly categorise the function of a daemonic collective via the god they come from isn’t terribly practical. They’re all quite different and have their own quirks and behavioural preferences.
Additionally, the nature of the daemon could be, and often is, entirely irrelevant. Daemons, by and large, hate being bound and hate being stuck in the material realm against their will. A daemon is going to be severely fucked off about being slaved to a machine and WILL try to break free and cause issues. Because of this, daemons need to be very strictly sealed and directed. If you can’t contract them into being put in an engine, then you’re going to have to trap them and make damned sure your bindings make it do what you want and that you can keep it as appeased as possible.
You’ll notice I mentioned contracting above; this is because one of the (arguably) more reliable ways to get a daemon into a daemon engine is to make a deal with it. Some daemons, for whatever reason, do want a way to exist in and interact with the physical world for an extended period of time. Daemon engines allow them to do this, and they may agree to be sealed into one (and even help the contracted person with locking them in) as part of a deal. Now, obviously the daemon will likely try to lie, and typically the person summoning them will try to lie to the daemon -welcome to chaos y’all- but it’s still a viable avenue.
So, in summation, any sort of daemon can go in a daemon engine, and attaching a specific trait to a daemon engine might come from grabbing a specific daemon, or it might come from how you’ve bound it and what you’re making it do. Depends. Lots of layers there.
Good question!
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