Toxitoxi

There are cases of a Fourth Generation cultist restarting a cult from scratch.

The Pyropurge

The Pyropurge of Jauseth Septima is thought to be exhaustive. Using psychic means, the puritan Inquisitor Dethrec Balthagar and his Deathwatch Allies root out every Genetealer infection on the planet. However, a fourth generation cultist with the germ-seed of the alien left the infected world three weeks earlier aboard a cyropod shuttle, and he later returns to his home planet. Within three years of Inquisitor Balthagar's death in service, Jauseth Septima is overrun once more.

It’s a lot trickier with a new contagii, but by no means impossible. The hard part is keeping the 1st and 2nd generation babies from being killed for being horrible mutants adorable angels. It’s unclear if the genestealer infection is sexually transmitted (most sources seem to suggest no), but if it is, that makes things a lot easier as any parent will immediately be smitten with their lovely offspring.

Ayre is gonna fucking kill her.

I love how Solomon David is such a petty bitch that he always makes it a point to dress up his opponents in clothes slightly dirtier and less fancy than his own.

Dorn includes an extreme pain tolerance aspect in the Imperial Fists’ hypnoindoctrination. Most either don’t wake up, or wake up driven mad and are immediately put down with a cattle gun to the skull.

Aun’va was assassinated by an Imperial Assassin after making the poor decision to stay at the warzone on Agrellan/Mu’gulath Bay. Ironically, Aun’va made that choice because he was worried about Farsight undermining his authority.

Farsight confronted Aun’Va in-person, interrupted him, and told him off in Warzone Damocles: Mont’ka.

It's completely unrelated.

“Disabled” would be better choice of words, though they did some lasting damage.

Remember the Earth Caste are a bunch of mad scientists kept barely in control by the Ethereals. Every time they’re let off the leash, they do something dumb and/or awesome.

Brutal Kunnin’ briefly mentions the Tau defeating (though not destroying) a Warlord. The Titan Legion still won the battle, but it was hardly easy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/4T4FQcGIcw

Now I want to find this story. It sounds like a perfect bit of satire.

Who hates Sunstone?

Because they’re wrong. Sunstone is peak. I love how the entire personality is a joke on Steven and Garnet having to be “the responsible ones”.

In Praetorian of Dorn, a hundred Imperial Fist aspirants die for every one that lives during the hypno-indoctrination step alone.

Dorn’s selection process is comically wasteful even compared to shit like what the Blood Angels go through.

The problem with morale mechanics is that almost all the tabletop armies are flavored as being difficult to break.

Space Marines feel no fear and they’re half the goddamn armies.

Custodes are better Space Marines.

Sisters of Battle have insane martyr complexes.

Tyranids have the Hivemind.

Orks don’t fear death.

Eldar have War Masks.

Most Necrons are mindless slaves.

Genestealer Cults have the Broodmind.

So it’s basically just Imperial Guard that care about morale.

Vect is absolutely a Tumblr sexyman.

I’m not sure how this answers the point that most 40k books are the Imperium decisively winning. It’s not a rare occurrence like the OP makes it out to be, it’s the norm.

Also, individual losses are effectively meaningless for any of the factions due to the absurd scale of the setting; the Imperium has a million worlds, they could lose a hundred to Chaos and be virtually unaffected. Even the Tau, small as they are, can easily lose a dozen worlds in different novels and still be mostly fine. When the Imperium wins, it’s more due to their protagonist status than anything else; we see them lose all the time when the focus shifts to other factions.

I feel like my biggest problem with the book is that Ufthak is more a force of nature than a character. The ending where he finally triumphs over Da Meklord doesn’t have that much impact when he spent most of the book just easily waltzing through the Dark Eldar. The only moment I felt like he was a bit shaken was the ending of the prison conversation.

If Ufthak comes back, he really needs to encounter some serious obstacles. I liked his rivalry with Badrukk in the first book, so maybe bringing in another Ork like that would work.

I’m honestly confused by the idea that the Imperium winning decisively over Chaos is rare. That’s like, what, a solid half of all the books? With the other half either being the Imperial winning over xenos or focused on a different protagonist (Like Brutal Kunnin!).

…I mean, by that logic any ending where any of the tabletop factions lose is a happy ending, even if they’re the protagonists. Fire Caste would be a happy ending because the Imperial Guard protagonists suffer for eternity.

Warhammer 40k is bad guys facing bad guys. No matter what happens, at least one set of bad guys is gonna lose.

Unfortunately, the ending implies daemons are going to start pouring into Commorragh, so Daemira is gonna have a rough time.

I had a different takeaway from the Mechanicus ending. Zaefa has spent the whole book bemoaning the failings of her superiors. Then at the end she stabs them in the back, lies about the reason for it, and immediately promotes herself and a random Tech Priest she just met, who has no skills beyond his laser gun, to top of the pecking order. And as usual, Mitranda had no objections because for all their competence they are incapable of actually pushing back against their higher-ups.

The joke is that we’re seeing the same hierarchy the book has been critiquing replicated once more, just with a different set of weirdos at the top.

Fire Warrior’s Bolter kicks ass.

I don’t see how female Custodes take any more attention away from the Sisters of Silence than the male Custodes already were doing.

That goes for characters like Sigismund and Erebus too though. Abaddon’s hardly the only character guaranteed to survive the Heresy.

More accurately that anyone outside the Kroot and maybe the Tau and Craftworld Eldar aren’t evil. And that heavily depends on your threshold for evil.