Ultramarines -- Why No Love?

By venkelos, in Deathwatch

Oh yeah, I remember that one.

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I'd say I would expect to see stuff like this only in some of the novels rather than an official codex, but the writing has taken some strange turns in other recent studio material, too.

Now, it should be pointed out that it's not as bad as the neckbeard hyperbole suggests (it is very much a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of temporary truce), but when the franchise spends 25 years of stressing that the IoM doesn't like aliens, it's hard to put blame with the fans for overreacting a bit to such things.

Edited by Lynata

In the "Titan" series in Inferno, there was a very well done, plausible and touyching story of imperial forces, a warlond titan, allying with eldar to stop tyranids. Both sides respected the other, and certainly preferred the other to the 'nids. The eldar developed a deep respect for the humans.

oh, do not forget that in 'the outer reaches' it was said that a necron dynasty had been devastated by 'nids, and there was a lot of speculation about how and why nids would or even could mess with necrons. But it was established that at least one necron dynasty took a real pasting by the 'nids so they apparently can be a threat to the necrons. So, it nay be possible that necrons see nids as a bigger threat that blood abgels.

when'd the blood angles team up with the necrons?!?! HOW did the blood angels team up with the necrons?!?! I have to see that story!!!

It's not even a story in the novels It's right smack in the codex! The Shield of Baal ones I believe.

So even if you say "bah! the novels are heresy anyway I only stick to the codexes." then you're still stuck with it. ;)

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shield_of_Baal:_Exterminatus

I love how the wiki sez: "yes, the necrons!"

Oh yeah, I remember that one.

I'd say I would expect to see stuff like this only in some of the novels rather than an official codex, but the writing has taken some strange turns in other recent studio material, too.

Now, it should be pointed out that it's not as bad as the neckbeard hyperbole suggests (it is very much a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of temporary truce), but when the franchise spends 25 years of stressing that the IoM doesn't like aliens, it's hard to put blame with the fans for overreacting a bit to such things.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Nice saying. there's another one. By the Emperor no less: " Suffer not the alien to live!" Also it makes a mockery of the "hive minds is a C'tan, fan theory" This never would have happened with the Old Necrons.

Blood Angel: "Look, the swarm will devour your tombs as readily as the rest of the world! We need to ally ourselves against the tyranids!"

Oldcron: *fires gauss flayer* " All. Life. Must. End."

Edited by Robin Graves

Now, it should be pointed out that it's not as bad as the neckbeard hyperbole suggests (it is very much a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of temporary truce), but when the franchise spends 25 years of stressing that the IoM doesn't like aliens, it's hard to put blame with the fans for overreacting a bit to such things.

We'll even in the 40k universe, there's still a certain amount of ''reality'' to contend with. Yes, the imperium hates all xenos scum and cclaims aaliens commit a crime against humanity by existing, all xenos are to be hunted aand exterminated, etc.

All fine and good rrhetoric for the masses, all xenos are bad, don't think about them just let uncle imperium protect you from tthe big bad xenos scum.

In reality when you've got a couple billion bugs coming to eat yyour world and, say, the evil eldar are willing to help you stop them even if it's in ttheir own interests you probably aaccept their aid. If you really are so stupid and fanatical that you rrefusedtheir aid bbecause ''XENOS FILTH!!!'' you die out aand maybe the next world facing the same situation learns from it.

A mmajor character in deathwatch is wwilling to wwork with an eldar, you know.

I admit that spacemarines allying with necrons against nids seems extreme. But maybe the nids were a threat tto the necrons, or at least an annoyance. The blood angels may have decided they needed to survive to serve tthe imperium another day, plus it gave them a chance to gather Intel on 2 enemies..... Let's see now, we can all die here with zero benefit to our emperor and humanity, and never be able to defend our people again because ''xenos filth!!!'' Or we can stop a 'nid incursion, gather intel on two enemies andlive to serve another day..... Yeah, if ol' Dante was really over a millennium old I ddon't see him havinga hard time with that call.

Now yes, working with ekdar or tau would be mmore plausible. But tthe necrons are enigmatic. TThey had a reason to do it, I'mssure

Reality, yes, but personally I'm drawing the line at Eldar, maybe the Tau as well. Those are pretty much the only two races who aren't hell-bent on destroying Mankind -- and though the IoM as a whole is pretty stupid, they know the difference between an alliance of convenience with someone you merely dislike, and one who you absolutely cannot trust at all. Like Necrons.

And then of course it should also play a role just who makes that decision. The most likely candidate is an Inquisitor, as here you have the largest amount of difference in personalities, from the alien-hating fanatic all the way to the pragmatic diplomat with access to the Eldar's Black Library. The second most-likely group is perhaps some of the Imperial Guard regiments who just want to survive and aren't so brainwashed/paranoid as to reject help if offered by an alien, as long as they see they have no other choice.

Space Marines and Necrons sounds pretty far-fetched, a little too much for my taste. Even if we assume a lack of xeno-hate (which would go against the contents of some rather important Space Marine quotes), an alliance with the alien generally means you can't get it done on your own, and hubris is one of the Marines' largest issues.

It's not nearly as bad as some of the other stuff I could criticise in newer codex books (hence my mention of ridiculous hyperbole in regards to what the internet made of this incident), but I did take note. ;)

A mmajor character in deathwatch is wwilling to wwork with an eldar, you know.

FFG's Deathwatch is rather different from Games Workshop's original version , anyways.

I guess them operating independently from the Ordo Xenos in this interpretation of the setting means they "need" to have some more liberal characters to facilitate various plots that would otherwise have to involve an Inquisitor.

And force them to make a stat set that lets a Human safely, and enjoyably, walk side by side with the Angels of Death, in combat (they die), and in social interaction (leave most Astartes in the dust). ;)

Yeah, i always got a laugh at this particular event. Not to just be an Ultrasmurfs fanboy, but I was REALLY happy that it was the Blood Angels. They, and the Space Wolves, can just be so ridiculous, between character traits, the special things that make them need their own codex, all the love they get, from the fan base, etc. I almost never hear anyone take these two beloved Chapters down a peg, while they beat on the Ultramarines, whether they are "just being vanilla", or actually trying to do something similarly interesting. Admittedly, such efforts have backfired in Papa Smurf's face, too, whether Matt Ward was writing, or not, but when I can listen to people ignore the amount of cheese in the Blood Angels novels, on Cybele, and try to just cover for when Fabius Bile effectively tricks them into giving up blood samples of their Primarch to him, forcing Dante to call in every Astartes remotely connected to his Primarch, and tell them all their getting crap done, one way, or another, it pleases me to see them sort of look less than perfect. Certainly, I'm a bit biased, as I want the Blood Angels, and the Space Wolves, to occasionally look bad, and feel I rarely ever get that, but the thing with the Necrons was a good day, for me. ;)

Also, grimdark, or no, I do appreciate when some of the factions we are supposed to tentatively refer to as "the good ones" actually do see past their dogma, and occasionally help each other out, when something worse comes along. I even feel that way for the Blood Angels, as the Nids can be an unholy terror to battle, when they aren't being held back by their own codex. Either Ultramar, or Iyanden, likely wouldn't be there, anymore, if the Tyranids hadn't split up their forces, and just hit one; the Ultramarines, and the Eldar, both needed the help of the other, even if indirect, in order to persevere.

Teaming up with the Eldar isn't so bad. Altough the imperium hates/distrusts/underestimates them a lot, you have guys like inquisitor Chevak who are a bit more "pro eldar". And they really hate chaos, nids and crons to. Now if only if they could be trusted a bit more - err I mean distursted a bit less.

Also 3d edition retconned the Eldar away from being the imeperium's occasional ally and into them gleefully sacrificing entire human worlds to save a handfull of humans. In second edition imperial guard armies could pick eldar units in the "support" section of their codex.

And force them to make a stat set that lets a Human safely, and enjoyably, walk side by side with the Angels of Death, in combat (they die), and in social interaction (leave most Astartes in the dust). ;)

I wouldn't say that anyone was "forced"; it just comes down to what version of Astartes you'd prefer. Deathwatch was meant to be a game for Marine players, so I guess for them it made sense to play to the fans' expectations, which nowadays seem to be influenced more by the novels (which generally focus on epic tales about protagonists with plot armour) rather than codex fluff -- even if it meant retconning existing Marine stats from earlier Dark Heresy material.
What really breaks compatibility isn't even the Marines' stats (the ones in Games Workshop's Inquisitor game have higher ones!), it's how those numbers work out in the mechanics. And Toughness works totally different here than it does in GW's game, to the point where issues arise even in vanilla DH (if you consider it a problem that even normal Human PCs can effectively "outgrow" feeling threatened by lasguns).

Also 3d edition retconned the Eldar away from being the imeperium's occasional ally and into them gleefully sacrificing entire human worlds to save a handfull of humans. In second edition imperial guard armies could pick eldar units in the "support" section of their codex.

I wouldn't say there was a retcon, the Eldar have always been focused on the preservation of their race. Sometimes this means fighting the Imperium, sometimes it means working with them against a common foe. It also depends on what the Imperium does, which comes down to the Adeptus and/or the individual official; from the Eldar point of view it operates as fickle and unpredictabe as the Eldar do to the Human eye. ;)

It's pretty much like with the Protoss in StarCraft, except that the IoM doesn't have a Jim Raynor to forge a lasting pact.

Edited by Lynata

Well, the tyranids are really not a race per se'. They or it is more like a disaster, a plague, whatever. Allaying with them is impossible, allaying against them is like working together to stop a fire from desroying your homes.

So to ally with anyone against the nids is like facing a disaster together or a least fighting a fire instead of each other as long as the fire threatens both sides impartially.

The imperium has it's dogma and rhetoric, but it hasn't survived 10,000 years by not facing reality once in a while. And even the klingons have a saying ''Only a fool fights in a burning house.''

Also, sometimes the imperium just can't bully it's way to victory or exterminate every last xenos race, so it has little face saving ideas to cover itself. One of the most famous sayings te imperium uses to cover it's weaknesses is " To withdraw in disgust is not cowardice! " So if defeating or exterminating every last member of a xenos race would be too hard, too expensive or just impossible, they claim "We withdrew in disgust!" to make it seem alright.

"Yes, we'd have exterminated those filthy little blue vermin but their whole collective mindset and peaceful ways just disgusted us so much we couldn't fight on, we had to get away from them! They were too disgusting to fight on agains t!" Nudge nudge wink wink.

Avoiding xenos contamination is another CYA meme the imperium has. "We couldn't stay in combat with them because we were being contaminated by their unholy xenos ideology! My men were being contaminated by xenos thoughts! If we'd stayed long enough to exterminate them all my men would have had to have been purged to prevent the spread of xenos taint! killing them all wasn't worth that cost!" Yeah, uh huh.

And of course, when there's nothing else there's the emperor card. "Yes, we fought alongside the foul eldar to defeat chaos! It was the emperor's will we use one type of filth to fight another! Truly the emperor's wisdom is beyond mortal grasp! He sent us to eldar to use in our war against an even fouler abomination, Praise the emperor! " Oh, sure. The emperor wanted us to ally with the eldar this time.

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

Of course, the Commissar or Inquisitor might see things differently when you try to explain your actions using such reasoning. The Imperium isn't really surviving, either, it's just dying a very slow death by losing more worlds than it gains.

Ultimately, it also comes down to how you want to see the Imperium, of course -- and to me, it absolutely is a fool who would fight in a burning house, which in itself is merely a form of intense paranoia caused by the fanaticism and extremism that are ultimately an important part of the values the Imperium propagates.

As it happens, GW lead designer Gav Thorpe actually wrote a rather cool short story about just this topic, featuring a Salamanders task force that gets killed off precisely because they didn't trust the warnings of the Eldar, preferring to fight them rather than help them stop a greater foe. The title was, aptly, "Know Thine Enemy".

It's pretty much a Catch-22 kind of situation for the Imperial forces, though. After all, how would you know when to trust? Maybe you need that ally to survive. But maybe they're just going to stab you in the back, making sure that you bear the brunt of the assault only to slaughter you when you are weak.

Never trust the Xenos. ;)

Gav Thorpe. He's a good 'un.

Never trust the Xenos. I dunno, those dark eldar seem pretty trustwhorthy and oh god where are my entrails!? ;)

With me, it's not so much that i get hung up on the Bangels teaming up with the 'crons, it's the 'crons actullay teaming up instead of "wake up the c'tan and kill everything!"

Oh, yeah. Though to be fair, it's in line with the Newcrons I guess.

Which in itself is only an addition rather than a retcon -- but the fact that we didn't know said addition (boss personalities) beforehand massively changes our perception of the 'crons, which makes it feel like a retcon either way, and understandably few people appreciate changes to something they've grown to like because it looked like it did. Trust me, I'm an expert on this sort of disappointment when it comes to 40k fluff. :P

On a sidenote, the Prof made a new thread to discuss Xeno Alliances for Deathwatch over here !

Well , the imperium is made of people, y'know. People come in an assortment of views, dispositions, etc. Some may rather see tthe entire imperium die in blessed and righteous purity than take one word of advice from xenos filth. Others may suffer a case of the heresy known as reason. It may be these heretics that save humanity.

As to how do you kknow what xenos to trust and when , in 40k it would be omens, psyker advice , the imperial tarot, prayers to the emperor , etc.

Gav Thorpe. He's a good 'un.

Never trust the Xenos. I dunno, those dark eldar seem pretty trustwhorthy and oh god where are my entrails!? ;)

With me, it's not so much that i get hung up on the Bangels teaming up with the 'crons, it's the 'crons actullay teaming up instead of "wake up the c'tan and kill everything!"

Um, while I don't buy gw stuff anymore, according to death watch the necrons pretty much royally XXXXed the c'tan like 60 million years ago, shattered them into shards and likely aren't interested in waking them up now.

Now that necrons have characters with personalities anything is possible. I remember rreading aa bit about a necron lord who collected military units tthanking an iimperial governor or ccommander for ssending him a bunch of guardsmen to help complete his collection and sending her a tessaract trap as a ''gift''. He sure had a sense of humor.

They have c'tan chards in tesseract vaults. They are apocalypse game units you can also have unbound c'tan fragments in your army. Actually with the way the rules for Unbound army lists (ignore charts, just throw everything together) work, you can have an entire army of C'tan! ... so roughly 5 of them in a 2000 pt game. I once concidered actualy fielding this army since it meant I would only have to paint five models But even with 5 star gods you still get wiped against helldrakes/Knights/ just about everything Eldar.

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Edited by Robin Graves

The Blood Angel/Necron teamup seems dumb. I don't even mind the newcrons so much (a bit more variety in motives) but it's like allying with less friendly grim reapers. Best to try and avoid them while fighting the common enemy.

The Imperium not trusting xenos isn't some downside of fanaticism - it's solid practice. Bear in mind mankind's history with xenos. If they're not actively trying to murder humans on sight (e.g. most orks), they're plotting to screw us over later (e.g most eldar). Not trusting them is a wise default position. Even Eldar or Tau will cheerfully backstab the Imperium for their own gain or for more esoteric reasons (eldar corsairs are especially notorious for this).

Occasionally desperation or the needs of the moment force a temporary truce or even alliance. But nothing that can last.

Actually the Kroot would make good allies, they are mercs who are soley in it for the money and the chance to meet intersting people and eat them. And the imperium -if only they would have them- would provide a smorgasboard of xenos for the kroot to kill and eat.

Or harlequins, yes they are mysterious even to other eldar and they got some really scary plans for the universe, but c'mon they are harlequins! I love harlequins! :)

Edited by Robin Graves

Actually the Kroot would make good allies, they are mercs who are soley in it for the money and the chance to meet intersting people and eat them.

Isn't someone who "is only in it for the money" (or the flesh) a rather bad ally in that their loyalty may switch at any time? ;)

Not that I believe this to hold true for the Kroot; they seem to follow some sort of honourable warrior code or whatever, but "mercenary" is generally considered to be the opposite of "trustworthy".

#justkuritathings

Actually the Kroot would make good allies, they are mercs who are soley in it for the money and the chance to meet intersting people and eat them.

Isn't someone who "is only in it for the money" (or the flesh) a rather bad ally in that their loyalty may switch at any time? ;)

This is what Deccesor is on about and how grimdark 40k is:

The ones for the money you can trust. (you just have to make sure you can outbid everybody else!)

Eldar: Mysterious, shifty, untrustworthy and if their farseers start going "this preson must die, or his decendants will mindly inconvience our race somewhere in the far future..." yeah you can't trust an eldar

Double for dark eldar (you can actually trust them to turn upon you. that's a given.)

Triple for harlequins!

Orks: Motivated by teef, loot and prospect of a good scrap. Fail to provide sufficiant combat will get even a warboss kicked in the head. Also they might decide to start beating up their allies because they got bored beating up the enemy.

Tau: the only xenos race to use propaganda. The Imperium is having none of it...

Newcrons: "That trazyn guy seems on the level, say do we have any spare primarchs-in-stasis lying around we can use to barter with?

Genestealer cult: Lol I would like to see the looks on the faces of the Deldar raiders when they attack some small mining outpost only to find the populace consisting of 90% genestealer hybrids and a few purestrains.

Incubi: "Come little human, Don't be scared, this will hurt... A lot! Bwahahha! *steps closer*

Genstealer hybrid: *attacks* "Forthefourarmedemperor ssssshghaaaaaaaaagh!!"

Incubi: "Aaaaaargh!"

I'm having a flashback to the Predator-Xenomorph hybrid, at the end of one of the AvP movies, and wondering if a branch of Genestealer Cult could move away from infecting humans, and effect (Dark) Eldar? I know some sources claim that Zoanthropes are a result of Eldar DNA being worked into a Tyranid shape, but the genetically-manipulated Eldar often seem immune to disease, to infirmity, and such, so I don't know if the Genestealer's trick would work on one. If they found a ship filled with Genestealers, and Cultists (whoy shouldn't ONE of them still be mobile, and not a hulk?), I think it would be awesome to watch that backfire in the DE's face. Haemonculi would have a field day, probably, if they had a chance to notice it.

Eldar are probably as "immune" to disease as Space Marines are, which means just highly resistant. I'm fairly sure the DE also use their poisons on each other rather than just against non-Eldar! ;)

Yes, I think an eldar would quickly spot the psychic taint of the genestealer infection. Likewise I'd bet a space marines super immune system would reject infection. As to tau, they are almost certainly infectable, but their very socialist lifestyle would make it hard for the infected to deviate and breed secretly, and their medical science would likely detect the infection quickly or at least aberrant behavior. Also, given the tau aren't too impressed by psychic powers could that whole genestealer "Hypnotic forget this happened" thing work on them? Plus could ethereal control override their enslavement to the genestealers?

I think we need to assume orks are immune to genestealer infection, else at the rate orks breed the hybrids would have taken them over by now.

It actually might not having anything to do with the physical. You can genestealer hybrid an ORK! and those are genetically enegineered fungus!

It might be down to the Eldar's psychic abilities. When a purestrain gives you the ol' face-full-alien-wing-wong routine it does something to your mind that makes you forget it happened and makes the horrid creature you will give birth to looks like a normal baby. With the eldar that last bit might not work and they'll have the genestealer's seed (yuck!) removed.