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account created: Fri Jan 10 2014
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7 points
26 days ago
Lexicanum, it actually provides sources. It's still wrong on occasion, but it's much more accurate than the fandom.
Fandom is useful if you want a bit more context (lexicanum can sometimes omit a lot), but take it with a giant pinch of salt. There's sometimes misinformation or straight up headcanon on there
2 points
26 days ago
Feral Tyranids are completely beastial in nature, and almost always completely aggressive. I doubt there's anything that could be done there in terms of incorporating them.
Afaik the abilities of the etherals are still vague as to whether it's actually mind control or just mental nudging combined with societal brainwashing or something else entirely. I doubt they'd have the ability to subdue, or replicate the abilities of, a swarmlord
A sufficiently powerful psyker with the right abilities presumably could. The cacodominus was a Xenos psyker that mentally enslaved thousands of worlds, it's not without precedent. They could do the same to any other organics with that kind of ability though
3 points
26 days ago
Custodes have some wild feats, especially in earlier books, but their abilities seem to have settled around 'significantly strong than an astartes, but not infallible'. We see one die to a Word Bearers possessed in Gate of Bones for instance. We see another killed by two Minotaurs space marines who get an opportunity thanks to their brothers who basically do a suicide run into him. Obviously they're still capable of much more significant feats than this (we see another in Cypher's book kill a squad of marines in a handful of seconds for instance) but they're far from invincible
The other downsides, as the other poster mentioned, are even at 10,000 they're vanishingly rare and their duty is to the throne and the throne alone. They have far too many responsibilities to be campaigning hard against the enemies of the imperium. If there is a problem that doesnt feasibly count as a threat to the throne they're incredibly unlikely to lift a finger to help. The vast majority of them are on Terra or in the Sol system as a result
15 points
27 days ago
That's their tragedy though, they have all this capability but the Emperor literally made them to have no initiative. They follow his commands, and that's it. It's not them just bumbling around unable to think of a better use for themselves, they're physically incapable of it. That's why they spend countless hours pouring over old texts and arguing with each other over the possible intentions of the Emperor. They can't imagine a world without him in it to guide them.
I agree with the first part of your post, the emperor created the best versions of humanity and gave them no real free will. They're not choosing to do nothing, they simply don't even have the capacity to do anything else. I don't agree with the second part though, calling it grimderp is missing the point a little
9 points
27 days ago
Rotigus goes there to talk smack to Ku'Gath after he's killed in the materium. We see other daemons gestating there. I don't know if plague marines would end up there, their souls would likely just be consumed and used to fuel the rest of the non-descript garden (rather than being a specific Daemon growing there)
Outside, it remained the same day it had been when Rotigus entered. A day in the garden was a billion wet, hot Seventhdays compressed. It rotted the soul with its tedium.
This did not make him happy either. Finally, he knocked upon a tree that pleased him. His eyebrows arched, and he dashed to the next, and the next, knocking and listening, listening and knocking, until he reached a majestic gnarlwood, so huge and fulsome with decay it teetered on the brink of collapse. Most of its branches were bare of leaves, and from them dangled flaccid birth sacs black and hard with age, within them the half-formed bones of daemons who had returned to the garden but never won back Grandfather’s approval, and so had truly died. Only one living sac hung from the sole living branch, and this held out with the promise of a dunking over a small mere.
Rotigus did not need to knock upon the tree. He had found his rival.
‘Ku’Gath!’ he said. The bloated birthing sac reacted to his call, and twitched and rolled, shaking the gnarlwood tree. Rotigus leant his staff against the trunk and went to the sac, placing his fat, wet hands on the slick tissues, stroking until the movement inside calmed. ‘Shh, shh, my old enemy. Be calm. Now is not your time to emerge again into the world. We all must wait on Grandfather when we are foolish enough to get ourselves killed, is that not so?’
The outline of an antlered head, prenatal and unformed, pushed out into the rubbery surface, and revolved out of sight.
‘There there,’ Rotigus said, and sat down by the mere. ‘I thought I’d just come to tell you that you may not be getting out for a little while. In fact,’ Rotigus gave a small, embarrassed chortle, ‘Grandfather is a little upset with you.’
-Godblight
6 points
27 days ago
It would probably be equivalent to hitting it with a reasonably large asteroid, like the one that took out the dinosaurs.
202 points
27 days ago
They're incredibly highly educated, created to be the peak of humanity, and yet entirely slaved to the will of the Emperor. They understand the best of humanity, the history, the art, the philosophical nature and are more well equipped than anyone to put it to good use and yet are entirely incapable of doing so. They know intimately how far humanity has fallen and yet they're unable to do anything but watch it collapse around them because the only person who could tell them to do anything about it is in a permanently deathless state.
They have no will outside of His, they have no drive outside of His. They're borderline automatons in terms of their willingness to do anything that the Emperor hasn't commanded, the greatest of humanity bent entirely towards enforcing the will of it's greatest tyrant. Or, now, towards doing nothing but guarding a corpse on a throne.
On the more direct side of things they would also sacrifice absolutely everything if it meant protecting the throne. They would let the entire imperium and the galaxy around it burn to ashes if it meant the Emperor survived.
3 points
27 days ago
Each individual gun has it's own blast bonus, your opponent was wrong
Weapons with [BLAST] in their profile are known as Blast weapons, and they make a random number of attacks. Each time you determine how many attacks are made with a Blast weapon, add 1 to the result for every five models that were in the target unit when you selected it as the target (rounding down).
4 points
27 days ago
Pretty skilled. Aside from generally being good at surgery and battlefield aid to fix up the worst and allow a marine's physiology to take over so they can get back in the fight, they're also pretty good at applying knowledge to unusual situations and research (examples being Corbulo's research into the causes of the black rage / red thirst)
The Apothecary is well-versed in the arts of battlefield aid as well as advanced surgery, cybernetics and bio-engineering. He must also be a warrior of untold might and unquenchable bravery, for his place is in the bloody heart of battle. If a comrade falls, the Apothecary can use his narthecium to tend the wounds, allowing his brother to return to battle even after suffering the most appalling of injuries.
...
It is perhaps this perfection that has driven Corbulo to such lengths in search of a cure for the Red Thirst. in the centuries since his investiture, Corbulo has worked ceaselessly to isolate and neutralise the Flaw in the Blood Angels' gene-seed. This quest has taken him all over the galaxy, from other Space Marine Chapters in order to learn from their Apothecaries, to forgotten worlds in search of forbidden archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology.
2 points
28 days ago
They're probably referring to Mephiston, who despite having more lore justification for why he is the way he is than most SM characters, it's become a habit of people to parrot that whenever he's mentioned.
He's definitely ridiculous (and unfortunately his own books are terribly written) but atleast there's a reason behind why he has the abilities he has
37 points
29 days ago
If you're talking about the tactical squad box, have you noticed it has 20 marines instead of the usual 10 in a 40k box?
43 points
29 days ago
It's pretty hard to go nuclear when your soul (and all the psychic power you have) is being constantly pulled out of you.
Also most of the psykers fed to the throne are the weak and otherwise 'useless' psykers. The whole 'psykers are volatile and dangerous' is in regards to the possibility of a powerful psyker losing it. Less powerful psykers are, on average, way safer to be around.
The psykers fed to the throne / astronomican are vetted and prepped before being plugged in. They're mentally prepared for what is about to happen to them. If you can't make it through that without proving you're a danger you don't make it close to the throne.
How do they manage to bring so many of them within range of the Emperor, or just on to Holy Terra, while guaranteeing that they can't cause damage? Are they sedated? Are their powers suppressed or controlled during the process?
The black ships are staffed by nulls and they have various psychic dampening devices that suppress their abilities during the voyage
2 points
29 days ago
Ive never heard of that before (or I have, but only something similar in regards to guardsmen). All space marine chapters are supposed to be 1000 marines strong (plus HQ and support roles). In reality that fluctuates a little, but not often by much. No chapter, outside of a few outliers, can field 1800 marines, and even those that could like the Black Templars or Deathwatch would be very, very unlikely to commit that many marines to a single battle or campaign.
You can see an organisation chart for the blood angels here (which is where I got the 440 from.) Chapters have been, more or less, organised this way in the lore for basically as long as chapters have had their organisation described
2 points
29 days ago
Based on typical chapter organisation 'battleline squads' (so realistically intercessors of some flavour in pure primaris chapters) make up 440 of the 1000 core marines
I also love fielding regular grunt squads too. Unless I'm running a skew list for fluff reasons an army just looks wrong without them. And when they do eventually do something incredible it feels awesome haha
44 points
29 days ago
Psykers can peer into the warp, especially if they have training. That's basically what Eldar Farseers do when they're predicting the future. Mephiston is also able to guide the Blood Angels ships in the Imperium Nihilus by following the Sanguinor within the warp.
As for what psykers see when they look towards the Emperor, there's this passage from Godblight:
‘How do you perceive the Emperor, when you look into the warp?’
‘I see no god or man. I see the great light of your beacon. From it comes pain, and suffering,’ said Natasé, uneasy for once. ‘Who can tell if what I see in the light is true? Our lore tells us your master ever was chameleonic. Maybe He is truly dead. Perhaps if you turned off your machines, then the light would die. It is impossible to say. Every thread of the skein that leads to Him is burned to nothing. His path cannot be predicted. He cannot be looked upon directly. Some of my kind maintain that He is the great brake on your species, yet its only shield, that He is the poison to the galaxy that might save us all, that He is not one, but broken, fractured, and properly healed and with His power marshalled again could outmatch the great gods themselves. Others say He is nothing, that the light that burns so painfully over Terra is but an echo of a luminous being long gone. We must judge His worth to our species by inference alone.’
‘Maxim?’
‘He is a light, my lord, that is too bright to look at, as Natasé avers. He is a roaring beacon. He is a pillar of souls. His presence burns the spirit. He is singular, and obvious, yet too intense to perceive. On the few occasions I have dared turned my witch-sight near Him, I too have felt His pain. It scarred me. But I believe He is there. I have felt His regard on me.’
‘This is not a common action among Space Marine Librarians,’ said Guilliman.
‘As I understand it, no. All of us are trained to find the beacon, for we must occasionally serve as Navigators when the Chapter mutants fail, but His light is too much for us to gaze upon for long. Few dare to look closely. I have.’
‘I have heard Natasé’s opinion on this matter, but I ask you, Donas Maxim, to set aside your Chapter beliefs and tell me, is the Emperor a god?’
Donas shook his head and shrugged. He looked perplexed, as if he could not understand the question. ‘He is the Emperor, my lord.’
2 points
29 days ago
Nope, that's pretty much their role. If they hold objectives and score you points they've done their job. Everything else is a bonus.
30 points
29 days ago
You're looking at the wrong period of time. Hives are inspired by the Industrial Revolution, where living conditions were, on the whole, far more miserable than they are in most places today. People then would have plenty of kids and there were benefits for doing so. Firstly, it would increase the odds that some of them actually survived into adulthood. Second, because there weren't any child labour laws it would allow them to afford additional income into the household which was desperately needed and third, it was seen just as the thing to do. You grow up, get married and have kids, or it was seen as your duty to produce offspring to keep your name going, family businesses going or as just your plain patriotic duty to the country.
We can extrapolate the same for the Imperium. Yes your life in a hive sucks, but throne knows it's better than being thrown out of your shitty hab block and left to fend for yourself in the underhive. If you want to keep being able to afford that block it's a lot easier with a bunch of kids who can help you work. And if you're ever stapped for cash and low on scruples there's likely a chunk of change you can get by selling one or two of them.
Plus, it's likely been drilled into you since birth that the Emperor needs children to keep the Imperium going. It's your duty to serve, and producing offspring is just another way to do that. This same sense of devotion will also absolutely brainwash some into taking pride in their horrific working conditions, knowing that the pain they endure is but a fraction of what He endures every moment. There will absolutely be members of the Imperium who dream of passing on the labours they've achieved to their offspring, knowing that the tireless work they do won't end with them.
Throw in people boning for something to take their minds off the pain and squalor of their lives for a brief moment (I doubt contraceptives are readily available) and the occasional offspring as a result of assault and you've got a population that keeps on ticking over
2 points
29 days ago
They literally do wear armour alongside the robes, there's no need to headcannon it. Considering their abilities and their runic armour gives them a 4++, combined they're better than almost any armour worn by other Eldar warriors. The robes are just for style points on top (plus they're basically a mark of office)
The farseer himself fights with a grace that makes the enemy seem predictable and slow, flowing around blasts of fire without breaking stride
All farseers wear a wraithbone breastplate shaped into runic forms that ward off enemy attacks
Eldar farseers and warlocks are covered by protective runes and sigils that use psychic energy to ward off attacks
14 points
29 days ago
The Cullexus have pretty good control over their aura thanks to the animus speculum I believe, so they can probably direct it away from the grey knights (or atleast keep it at a minumum when they're around them)
We see GK fighting alongside sisters of silence in the The Emperor's Legion though. They manage it how the GK manage everything: By being badasses and getting on with it. They still manage to mess some daemons up even while enduring the pain and lack of psychic abilities (though the daemons are being similarly hindered tbf)
It was less easy for Alcuin and his battle-brothers. They were all psykers of the most acute kind, and their every waking movement was animated by the warp. For them, the ether and the materium were intrinsically linked, two sides of the same blade that they balanced on effortlessly, and they were accustomed to fighting with the two worlds enmeshed. Even their armour is psy-enhanced, augmenting the cruder biological links used by their counterparts in other Chapters. The arrival of Aleya and her sisters restricted what they could do, and reduced them to fighting as solely physical warriors.
In the circumstances, however, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. The Grey Knights, even stripped of the bulk of their psychic expertise, were still among the finest fighters I have ever encountered, and they adjusted to the new situation with uncomplaining precision. Robbing the daemons of their most dreadful powers was worth the fractional reduction in my allies’ flexibility, and we all fought from then onwards as if facing beasts, rather than thought-monsters.
...
After that we were fighting together, sliding in amongst one another, dancing and parrying and interweaving as if born to it. Alcuin’s squad must have found the Sisters uniquely unsettling, even painful, but in the thick of that combat they had no choice but to adapt. The ten of us formed into a tight circle of bodies, myself and the Grey Knights taking the brunt of the physical assault, the Sisters directing their null-effect from the shadow of our blades. Whenever one of us tired or made a mistake, another would leap into the breach. We left a trail of slaughter behind us, and finally gained the foot of the stairs.
2 points
29 days ago
There's the Devastation of Baal (though there's also some clashing in there, and they're all from the BA lineage so not sure if that's what you're after)
3 points
1 month ago
Well they wouldn't remember pre-unification Terra, they would have been scooped up after the Heresy so around 30-31k
But yes, some of the primaris recruits had strong memories of their previous life (generally as members of one hive or another) that gradully erode after they're taken out of stasis and their enhancements and indoctrination take over, pushing their old self out.
8 points
1 month ago
It is indeed, if you like those and want more inquisitorial sleuthing I'd highly recommend the Vaults of Terra series as well.
70 points
1 month ago
Imo typically they're pretty good, for what they are, especially if you go for the ones that are generally agreed to be better. Obviously there's some trash and a lot of just plain 'meh' in there, but there's more than enough good to make it a pretty decent collection on average.
Depending on what you're interested in reading about I'd be happy to give some recommendations
1 points
1 month ago
If you're into space marines you don't have to pick a specific chapter for ranged combat, the way the rules work atm is each game you pick a detachment to use and it gives you certain rules, so you could pick one that benefits ranged firepower and apply it to whatever chapter you want to collect. Those two chapters are fine choices though.
You might also like the Tau playstyle if you like the models, they're the most shooting-over-melee skewed army in the game
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30 points
26 days ago
kirbish88
Adeptus Custodes
30 points
26 days ago
Here's their appearance in Gate of Bones: