So this time around I've skipped buying the new core rule book for WH40K, I don't play the table top mini game anymore, but I do still play all the pen and paper games so here is what I was wondering… What changed fluff wise, anyone know?

As far as I know, the new edition has not been released yet, though of course I could be mistaken. So I guess it would be difficult for anyone to know the answer to your question as of yet

Ah! I thought the bleeding thing was out…

It will be released tomorrow, Saturday 30 June 2012.

I got my grubby little hands on it just now so I'll start chewing.

*Spoilers* From here on in assume that anything I post in this thread is or may contain spoilers regarding the rulebook and other things..

You were warned.

So the first thing that really springs to mind is that the Holy Inquisition now report directly to the High Lords, no more cutting through the red tape, they have the mandate to take any action that they deem necessary to keep mankind safe. No one is safe from their eyes or ears. With the Astartes so much lower on the totem pole, Space Marines report to the Administratum, does make for a more "jump, how high?" type of universe for our transhuman friends. That said it seems like a few of the first founding chapters like the smurfs, wolves and dark angels have more or less stopped taking orders, it's hinted at, but not said outright.

This makes for some interesting role-playing and harkens to another thread on this board, so lets keep that there.

For more cool fluff we get a lot more data on holy terra, nothing really new if you have been following the Horus Heresy books, but it's still cool to see it in one place and written out specifically, there are also some cool illustrations of the cradle of man in there that I really like, actually I really like most of the art work, just for that it's worth getting, especially the fold outs. Mentioning the foldouts, have a look and see if you can find any changes on the maps then please tell me, I love updated maps .

This brings me to another thing I noted in "Emperors Gift", yes it's not the new rule book, but the two came out so close to each other. The Grey knights are created from gen-seed derived from the emperor and are apparently a lot more kick ass than a normal marine, so far so good, but!

First Founding Chapters were made by the Emperor, their seed undiluted and they are again more powerful than their successor counterparts. Logan Grimmar (sure he's a Wolf Lord, but still) takes apart a squad of Grey Knights and him and his Wolf Guard take on a ton of GK's with no hesitation, the book also alludes that the Wolves are still at Legion strength and that is why they just stomp in the chapter that attacks Fenris.

So all in all a lot of interesting stuff going on fluff-wise, what have you found and /talk

UncleArkie said:

Cheers Arkie,

Some of them seem to be changes, others were kind of patching th obvious.

The Space Wolves, with their only successor ever, just kind of lost a lot of geneseed. There were suddenly down to just over a chapter size. Makes more sense if there's a more of them. They are also one of the worst for turning up in every other battle.

Not sure if the sace marines position have changed that much, is it just showing that they are also deployed by the Departmento Munitorium (basically all the armed forces are) but they are still not directly controlled.

Mmm tasty.

SQUATS ARE BACK, BABY!

As are Imperial Beastmen and Fishmen! There's a bunch of rnadom fluff in the back, regarding abhumans, how to field dress a flesh wound, that sort of thing. And it includes Squats.

*salutes with a tear in the eye* You've made a beautiful thing, GW. I salute you!

UncleArkie said:

What do you mean the Inquisition now reports directly to the High Lords? What red tape before? They never reported to them before. Meh, dumb.

Space Marines reporting to the Administratum? Meh.

Technically, Marines have always been listed under the Administratum (being one of teh Adeptus - Adeptus Arbites, Adeptus Ministorium, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astartes etc). The chart that gives the locations of where everyone lies in Imperial Society was reprinted from the 2nd ed fluff (pg.19 of the Codex Imperialis - just double checked ).

Since then, the fluff has basically evolved to say "This is what the Administratum thinks, but let's see them enforce it on the Ad.Mech or Astartes". Personally, I like the fact they've included it again, if only to demonstrate how crazy bad the Imperium's bureaucratic processes are.

professor_kylan said:

That's a good point.

Face Eater said:

I've always seen the Space Puppies as making the most sense with their Great Companies being roughly chapter size. Give or take. (And by this, I mean like any chapter, they could range from barely 100 all the way to 1000+ depending on combat losses). Given the semi-autonomy, you've got a reasonably 'tenable' position to prevent them from getting too much discression. After all, even the Smurfs tend to keep a lot of control over their successors. At least known ones. So this is a distant but acceptable way to roll

Plus it makes them resisting Lorgar at Armageddon a lot more likely. Legion Strength to resist a Legion.

Don't quote me on this, but I seem to recall that it works out to about 200 marines on average to a great company - the wolves usually being able to field about 2500 or so battle brothers. Please don't ask me to give a page ref for that one! (I THINK it was in the Codex: Puppies, either the most recent one or the 2nd ed one).

professor_kylan said:

One of the old ones. More recent things have retconned that. I've heard anywhere from 400 to 1000+ in recent talk. Grimnars being the largest.

Kshatriya said:

Don't know if there's one in the newest chunk of dead trees, but the 3rd edition book had a blurb concerning the term "Adeptus".

"Adept is the title of a member of the Adeptus Terra the great Priesthood of Earth. It is used as a common form of address and acknowledgement of respct - hence its adoption by the Adeptus Astartes … and Adeptus Mechanicus … ."

Also keep in mind Ward had a hand in this new book. Expect fluff to make little to no sense, contradict older as well as other current fluff, and even contradict itself. Lets see how many khorne daemon princes Sgt. Harker has personnaly choked out in the coming months.

UncleArkie said:

/tinfoil hat

I've actually gained a newfound respect for mr. Ward, it seems that the contradictions are on purpose in this book, like the Imperial juggernaut is so big and so vast and so complex that you can't know the truth about the whole thing and the contradictions opens it up for you to make it in part your universe. More than ever before this version of the setting seems to cater to us t he RP crowd or at least the fluff bunnies, there are hints and half truths even in the non-fluff parts of the book.

/tinfoil hat off

As for the great companies, the foundation of the Wolf Brothers cut the chapter in half (Battle of the Fang), then they lost half a company during the siege. But this was a while ago. So that puts us at about 20000 wolves, which makes sense to me. I've always seen the companies almost as individual chapters, which puts each company strength at around 1200, give or take.

Also The Emperors Gift is Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

borithan said:

That has ALWAYS been the heavily-implied-but-unspoken origin of the Grey Knights.

UncleArkie said:

This is something that's actually been rumoured at for a long time.

And it remains to be seen whether just plugging the Marines in to that cute little (and old, and silly) chart actually really MEANS anything. Does it actually, explicitely say they take their orders from the Administratum? Cause until I see this for myself, I'm thinking it's more likely the status quo. They're technically under their purview, but they do whatever the hell they want for the most part.

Also, kinda skepticle about the Space Wolves numbering 10,000+. There are already Inquisitors and others worried about the fact that the Black Templars might have 6,000 Asartes spread around the Galaxy. With the Space Wolves being rather more concentrated, I can't see anyone turning a blind eye to a Legion strength force running around. Not that an actual Space Marine Legion would be an easy fight.

Kshatriya said:

Yep, it showed up in the Ultramarines books when Ventris and his buddy had to fight a Grey Knight, amongst other places. So it's been in place for a while.

Still, it puts the kitbosh on the Grey Knights being derived from Loyalist Traitor Legion members such as Garro, which is a bit sad. But does let us wonder what the heck they become now.

Blood Pact said:

That chart are from the days when Space Marines were Imperial Guard screw-ups lobotamized and brain-washed to be thoughtless killing machines. I.E. the whole primarch and space marine legion/chapter mechanics were not fully developed yet. Recruited from the Imperial Guard and under their command, Space Marines would indeed fall under the administrum. But, alas, since 3rd this whole Guard screw-up recruiting and part of Imperial Army bent was no longer used.

Ward and GW were just being lazy using an old, no-longer-appropriate chart, instead of creating a new one.

As for the puppies, those inquisitors better get crackin' convincing all the other space marine chapters the puppies and templars are deviants. Cause if they even try to move against them without doing it they'd risk all out war with all the Astartes, who don't like their authority or autonomy challenged.

Blood Pact said:

When you look at it, not really.

For one, the Space Wolves NEVER acquiesced to Guilliman's request from the get go, and have always been one of the staunchest defenders of the Imperium. And they've always been the sort to tell anyone who tried to mess with them where to stick it. Yet their loyalty is unquestionably to the Emperor. For all that irks the High Lords and Holy Ordos.

Second, when you squint a bit, each Great Company basically is a chapter with nominal fealty to the Great Wolf. How different are they from the Ultramarines in Ultramar and having numerous successors as part of the Ultramar domain that can somehow be called upon almost at will. Or the Blood Angels, or the Dark Angels… or even the Fists with their Feast of Blades and nominal control over the successors (Judging the Soul Drinkers). honestly, if you ask me, the break up may be little more than name only. With just enough autonomy to help police themselves and keep a Charismatic Traitor from completely dominating an entire legion.

They were always one of the smaller legions to begin with, for whatever reason (Probably to due with being the "Marine Executioners" legion… that's gotta take some heavy losses). Probably took some rather brutal losses against the Thousand Sons when they attacked Prospero.

Taking all this into account there may even be a good reason they might get that nominal acceptance… The fact that it might just be useful to have a Legion in some cases. After all, take the first battle of Armageddon, what else could resist the massed might of the World Eaters' legion but another full legion. Mustering Legion Strengthed chapters would have taken too long. Instead? The only real legion around resisted them long enough for the Grey Knights to arrive and banish Angron.

Current numbers might be a bit low though, as there's been some major disasters in the Space Wolves' recentish history. The Battle of the Fang, First Battle of Armageddon and all that's aftermath, heavy fighting in the next two battles of Armageddon and the 13th Black Crusade, all the events in the Space Wolves novels.

As a side note, it seems darned convenient for Guilliman that he basically had a bunch of Primarch-less Legions on his side. And The Khan and Corax. Because I bet had El'Jonson, Sanguinus, Vulkan, and Ferrus Mannus lived they never would have supported the division. Of course, had that many extra Primarchs survived, the Empire may well have gone on much as The Emperor envisioned.

As it stands, we had a 3-2 vote on the future, mostly decided because Dorn decided not to risk a further Civil War over something so stupid. And thus was created the Templars to hide the numbers by being spread out on Crusade.

And concern about Templars and Space Wolves or not. They're some of the most Loyal Groups around. And it ain't gonna be easy to muster forces against either… The Space Wolves resisted the Inquisition, Grey Knights, and at least one full chapter despite being spread out and trying to defend numerous Guard Regiments from being destroyed. And had they mustered their full forces for battle instead… probably would have cleaned the clocks of said groups. Mess with them and you've got a Legion to deal with, probably requiring 10+ chapters minimum… and the broad scheme of things, the Wolves have a reputation and could probably call on some others, Primogeniture chapter and all. This MIGHT even include the Dark Angels. They may not like each other, but they DO respect each other. Kind of one of those "I'm the only one that gets to take you down! And it's on MY terms, not the Empire's… (and if they go after you, they've got nearly as much on me…)"

And the Templars. Mess with them too overtly and you'd likely need at least 10 chapters to guarantee a victory. But then comes the issue, you mess with the sons of Dorn and suddenly you'd likely start a Civil War because it's almost certain the Imperial Fists get involved then, and probably the rest of the "Feast of Blades" successor Chapters. So suddenly it's not just 6 chapters worth of Templars spread out, but at least 11 more full chapters. That's -worse- than the Badaab War. Not to mention a Primogeniture Chapter can probably get other Marine Chapters, successor, ally, and the likes by simple reputation alone.

In either case, messing with a First Founding Legion is going to be impossible unless irrefutable proof of traitor to the Empire (Not just Codex) status can be proven. And that ain't gonna be easy. Because in the first case you have a First Founding involved from the get go. In the second, it's almost a certainty the other WILL get involved to defend their Brethren. And that proof better include "We found three of their leaders and numerous battle brothers with Marks of Chaos… here's the bodies!" and even then there will be some healthy skepticism. As again, Marines don't like having their autonomy messed with. And when you get a First Founding involved, suddenly any known successors are gonna have a very difficult time resisting the call to help their Founder. And all the other First Founding Chapters are gonna look long and hard at the reasoning, because if it can happen to one, it might start happening to the rest.

So no, they might be nervous. But they know it would be tantamount to civil war to go after a First Founding, or Second Founding that's got close ties to the First yet chapter. It WOULD make the Badaab war look like a skirmish.

herichimo said:

Thats as much fun as you wearing a tinfoil hat and ranting about how the government is covering up alien visitors. Making a chart like this take 10 - 15 minutes tops, trust me I do graphics for a living. But your statement is interesting as it seem that when ever anyone disagrees with something in the fluff or a new edition or something they just go "oh! Matt Ward must have had a finger in play, I can disregard this". If you disregard facts your not participating in the debate your cluttering it.

UncleArkie said:

And yet the self-same chart is the same one from 2nd Edition. Explain, if you will, why a 2nd edition chart based is being used in a 6th edition book. Then come back and reopen the argument about how we have to accept a 2nd edition chart based upon imperial guardsman being punished and brainwashed into becoming space marines instead of space marines being created by the Emperor into legions then broken into chapters and recruit from death worlds at their own leisure.

Or you can just accept Matt Ward has crapped out again, randomly shoving whatever he wants to wherever he wants it without actually thinking it through. Like I said current background contradicting itself - Hallmark of Matt Ward.

herichimo said:

In this case I'm okay with it (as much as I choose to ignore most of the GK fluff he wrote - it simply doesn't exist). A lot of fluff in sixth has been brought out of 2nd ed mothballs (Squats and Imperial Beastmen, if nothing else). The administrative chart there is the point of view of the Administratum - a giant, monolithic bureacracy that can barely hold up its own weight, let alone get stuff right. The administratum considered everything to be a simple cog in the machine - a miniscule part of the infinetely complex engine that is the Imperium of Man. This is an admin group that, fairly regularly, loses entire sectors from the map. A group that has minor tasks given to family lines, who toil away at processing information that no one will ever look for, hidden away from the local sun for generations.

If you think of the Central Bureacracy from Futurama but siphon away what little hope exists there, you're probably looking at an organisation that could produce that chart without seeing anything wrong with it.