Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XV: You Must Be THIS Tall To Witness The Grimdark

[hamishspence]

Of all the World Eaters, Khârn is probably the worst example of a furious, insane psychopath. Sure; prior to and during the Heresy he was every bit as nuts as the rest of his brothers, but after almost dying at the Siege of Terra he came back.... different.

Kharn was in some respects "the voice of reason" for his legion in the period leading up to the Siege of Terra. He was equerry to his primarch, he was the guy who finally broke Angron out of his "kill all own his legionaries" rut that he fell into after the Emperor rescued him from the gladiator planet, and so forth.

In Betrayer there seems to be a strong trend of him being less crazy than the average berserker.

[Grim Portent]

Regardless of how bloodthirsty and psychopathic he is in battle or when being forced to retreat from battle (he was pretty pissed off when Abaddon had him teleported away from a battle but left other berzerkers there to die for example,) he's still capable of spending long periods of time not killing many people at all. He can still form alliances, maintain his wargear, command warbands and captain ships. He's only doing that to further the goal of killing more people in the future, but he's still lucid enough to make such decisions.

Most World Eater's are the same, they spend ages in a state of restrained fury occasionally butchering slaves or fighting duels to keep themselves under control until they get to warzones where they can let loose and abandon most of their rationality and reason. They aren't foaming at the mouth 24/7 and killing anything that bumps into them. Most of the time they're just really angry marines.

[Lord Torath]

So, the new Abaddon model, to me, reveals why the Imperium still stands.

I didn't see a new version of Abbadon on GW's website. Is it official? Can I get a link?

[Brookshw]

I didn't see a new version of Abbadon on GW's website. Is it official? Can I get a link?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...mepage-post-1/

[deuterio12]

Kharn was in some respects "the voice of reason" for his legion in the period leading up to the Siege of Terra. He was equerry to his primarch, he was the guy who finally broke Angron out of his "kill all own his legionaries" rut that he fell into after the Emperor rescued him from the gladiator planet, and so forth.

Only because Kharn appealed to even greater killing.

If Angron killed all his legionaires he would be kinda stuck.
If Angron killed all his legionaires he would never be able to have revenge against the emprah.

But if Angron accepted to lead the World Eaters, then together they could kill forever.

In Betrayer there seems to be a strong trend of him being less crazy than the average berserker.

Even berzekers are reasonable enough to know to stop fighting when the weather starts getting cold enough to freeze them in their power armor, while Kharn was the one going KILL! MAIM! BURN! back in Skalathrax.

More in particular, Kharn didn't become the most famous World Eater for being a calm reasonable guy, quite in the contrary.

Despite his CRAZED nature, Kharn will still offer his services to brave Chaos warlords. However many are reluctant to call upon him, for his allies are often as at much risk as his enemies.[

That's right, even the bravest chaos lords are afraid of Kharn the crazed teamkiller.

He may have a moment of lucidity or two once every 1000 years, but the rest of the time he's been rightfully building a reputation as one of Khorne's more favored servants.

[LansXero]

Kharn was the one going KILL! MAIM! BURN! back in Skalathrax.

Thats after he dies at Terra and Khorne brings him back, right?

[hamishspence]

Thats after he dies at Terra and Khorne brings him back, right?

Indeed. Prior to the Siege of Terra, he was a lot "saner". Tropes that apply:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...TraitorLegions

Ax-Crazy: Subverted. Because of the Butcher's Nails, he's often prone to this, but he's also known for being one of the few that can actually keep others from the Legion (including Angron) from going all out to a point of utter stupidity (most of the time, anyway).

The Berserker: Interestingly enough, he resents it. It's very hard to face an entire force of highly trained and professional Astartes when your Legion is literally running everywhere without communicating with each other.

The Consigliere: The first captain not to get killed by Angron after the latter's reunited with the Legion and try to quench his lord's fury to more productive work. Not that it helps, but at least he tries.

Reasonable Authority Figure: Tries to be this for World Eaters, as Angron isn't eager to take the place.

Red Oni, Blue Oni: He tries to be blue Oni to his gene-sire, but has troubles with it.

White Sheep: Played with. Kharn is one of the few genuinely nice and caring World Eaters, and is typically calm and rational to a degree that's a little disturbing considering those he's surrounded by.

[The Glyphstone]

It is nice to think of Kharne as the epitome of the guy who's gone so far into crazy that he's come out the other side in a sort of meta-stable sanity.

[LansXero]

It is nice to think of Kharne as the epitome of the guy who's gone so far into crazy that he's come out the other side in a sort of meta-stable sanity.

nah, its just that 30k Kharn dies at Terra, to be reborn as the 'burns allies to keep warm' parody of himself that he is in 40k. That was Erebus plan all along anyways, and the reason why Argel Tal has to be killed.

[The Glyphstone]

Was that even his intent (the burning of shelters)? The sense I had was that he found 'shelter in our bunkers till it gets warm' unacceptably cowardly - by burning his own side's shelters, he made the enemy's shelters the only viable place to go if they wanted to live.

[hamishspence]

Was that even his intent (the burning of shelters)? The sense I had was that he found 'shelter in our bunkers till it gets warm' unacceptably cowardly - by burning his own side's shelters, he made the enemy's shelters the only viable place to go if they wanted to live.

The classic depiction was "he attacked everyone on his own side he came across" - not just their bunkers:

3e:

On Skalathrax the World Eaters drove the Emperor's Children back from city after city with their bloody assaults. At the last and greatest city the World Eaters sensed that victory was near: they needed only to gain one more victory to claim the planet as their own. The battle needed to be won soon, for in the long, dark night of Skalathrax, anyone not in shelter would freeze.

The World Eaters hurled themselves at the foe with the strength of madmen until only a few pockets of resistance survived. There the attack was halted as darkness fell. But Kharn cursed his fellow warriors for seeking shelter while their enemies still lived. He burned the city and slaughtered anyone that he found, friend or foe.

[The Glyphstone]

I guess I misremembered then.

[Wraith]

It is nice to think of Kharne as the epitome of the guy who's gone so far into crazy that he's come out the other side in a sort of meta-stable sanity.

This is what was strongly implied in The Eight-Fold Path. He feels the pull of the nails and wants to indulge in the slaughter of the Blood Angel.... But he also knows that if he does, he'll probably get hurt and be unable to take any more skulls, so he puts the rage and bloodlust aside in order to one-shot his enemy, ready to fight later.

He does it a couple of times - first against a hapless scribe who is sent to fetch him from his lair to meet with the Warlord who wants to hire him. Khârn imagines tearing the guy limb from limb and smashing his skull on the floor like an eggshell... And then consciously chooses not to because it's not worth his time, regardless of "Khorne cares not whence the blood flows" and all that meme stuff.

Khârn has weaponised his insanity. He switches it on when he needs to massacre an army, but for the rest of the time he overrides it and continues on his mission for Khorne, which often involves not killing people. He represents the greatest extremes of the World Eaters - the most violent and frenzied of rage held back by the coldest and most unrelenting self-control.

I guess I misremembered then.

The 7th Edition Codex is somewhat more neutral about the event. He burns the buildings out of contempt, but there's no description of him being berserk while he does it - he drives his soldiers at the walls and kills them if they turn back, so it could be interpreted as a cruel form of motivation, rather than a deranged rampage.

[Silverraptor]

I thoroughly enjoyed this and wish to know more about the actual 40k context that this is talking about!

[Cheesegear]

I thoroughly enjoyed this and wish to know more about the actual 40k context that this is talking about!

Once upon a time, Perturabo was supes jelly that Rogal Dorn was a cool guy.
Fulgrim (definitely trolling), said "Yo Dorn, do you reckon you could build a castle so good that Perturabo couldn't break it?"
Dorn said yes. Unknowingly, Perturabo was standing behind Dorn the entire time. Fulgrim laughs manically.
"He's standing behind me, isn't he?"
...He sure is.

Dorn was like...I probably shouldn't have said that...On the other hand, Perterabo is a cuck, so I don't care what he thinks about me anyway. The only person whose opinion I actually give a **** about is Dad's.

At which point for ten thousand years the Iron Warriors get perverse glee out of breaking the Fists' stuff.
...But the Fists don't care, 'cause they win the fight anyway, then they just rebuild.

[Grim Portent]

Put another way, the Iron Warriors spent most of the Great Crusade in siege works and trenches, knee deep in mud under near constant artillery fire. They were good at it, the best really, so that was what they were used for. But being typecast into fighting WW1 over and over again has detrimental effects on morale even for astartes. They took pride in their ability to break fortresses and build their own very good ones, but they resented that they never got any real public acknowledgement of their skills. There weren't many remembrancers making epic poems about how many artillery shells the IW used to shatter a wall, or statues of them digging a sappers tunnel.

They got to a sort of war fatigue mentality that meant the part of a fight they liked most was the rush of activity at the end of the siege, when they could get in close and shoot people or hack them apart to release pent up stress and spite, and they eventually stopped offering the chance to surrender just so they could excuse killing everyone in a fortress, like patient methodical versions of the World Eaters.

Doesn't help that Perturabo was one of the socially awkward primarchs and his legion inherited a lot of that stilted cold attitude and an unhealthy does of his paranoia.

The Fists on the other hand were pretty good at socialising, got to build lots of pretty nice stuff* and were generally well liked but arrogant about their own speciality of defending against sieges (as almost all astartes are when it comes to their thing) and got decent remembrancer attention. Dorn and the IF were extremely proud of the Imperial Palace's fortifications and would boast that the IW would stand no chance against them, which is rather rude when talking about your own brother and comrade in arms to be honest.

On a tangential note, Corax of the Ravenguard hated the IW on the grounds that their tactics didn't involve any sneaky hit and run style warfare.

*Which was actually also Perturabo's main desire. Similar to Lorgar he was more interested in building up things rather than tearing them down.

[LansXero]

Should also mention Perturabo played 30k against their officers, and in the most pro-like move ever he won with his army then took their army, gave them his and beat them anyways. Thats anime-protagonist levels of attitude right there.

[noob]

Should also mention Perturabo played 30k against their officers, and in the most pro-like move ever he won with his army then took their army, gave them his and beat them anyways. Thats anime-protagonist levels of attitude right there.

Assuming equal skill and that they both got identical armies it have a 1/4 chance of happening which is not very unlikely.

[LansXero]

Assuming equal skill and that they both got identical armies it have a 1/4 chance of happening which is not very unlikely.

It was entirely assimetrical. They had to hold the Imperial Palace against him, and he broke them. Then he gave them his toys, and managed to hold off their assault and defend the Palace.

If you ever played card games, losing against your own deck using your opponents deck that just beat yours is very, very humilliating.

[deuterio12]

Should also mention Perturabo played 30k against their officers, and in the most pro-like move ever he won with his army then took their army, gave them his and beat them anyways. Thats anime-protagonist levels of attitude right there.

It was entirely assimetrical. They had to hold the Imperial Palace against him, and he broke them. Then he gave them his toys, and managed to hold off their assault and defend the Palace.

If you ever played card games, losing against your own deck using your opponents deck that just beat yours is very, very humilliating.

In Gundam Build fighters (anime where kids build gundam miniatures and then hold matches with them) there's an episode where one of the secondary characters just got his ass handed down to him and is all depressed, then the world champ comes and challenges him.

And the world champ requests they swap their miniature toys gunplas right at their first match.

Notice that in Gundam Build Fighters the minis are actually animated to fight each other and so suffer actual damage that needs to be repaired by hand, thus the world champ ended up using a gunpla that started the match already pretty beat-up while the secondary protagonist was using the champ's gunpla in pristine condition.

Then of course the champ procceeds to win thanks to his superior skillz despite the damage handicap.

But that ends up actually ending the secondary protagonist's depression and getting him motivated again because he believed his gunpla building skillz plain sucked, but turns out they were just fine, so all he needed was to work more in his play skillz.

So just saying, if the super pro can beat you with swapped army lists, at least you know your building skillz aren't that bad.

[Drasius]

Listened to our martyred lady the other day, the first part was pretty great, the second was pretty good, the third was as close to the audio-drama definition of filler as it gets and the last was... OK?

There's a bit of interview stuff on the last CD with most of the major characters actors as well as the author, so if that's your jam, it's worth a listen (apparently one of the VA's is a big name from doctor who, but I wouldn't know Catherine Tate from a bag of rocks since I have no interest in Dr who whatsoever ). There's a fair bit of talk about how great it is for GW to be focusing on two strong female characters as the leads and how GW is trying to be more inclusive of females and all that jazz if anyone cares about that sort of thing.

I did notice some of the VA's got little bits of the background of their characters wrong which irked me more than it should have, but it's also interesting to hear how a bunch of the audio-dramas come together, especially this one since unlike most others, there's no narrator present here.

Overall, it's not bad, but it doesn't even crack my top ten list, though I will say that the last chapter of part 1 is absolutely amazing and as a major plot point, it does deal with a pretty interesting development with regards to the sisters of battle (and possibly a hint for their upcoming model release) but that alone isn't enough to edge out many of the other audio-dramas which are substantially better (not to mention much cheaper). If you like celestine and/or greyfax, then it's worth picking up, but otherwise, I'd suggest skipping it.

[LeSwordfish]

There's a bit of interview stuff on the last CD with most of the major characters actors as well as the author, so if that's your jam, it's worth a listen (apparently one of the VA's is a big name from doctor who, but I wouldn't know Catherine Tate from a bag of rocks since I have no interest in Dr who whatsoever ).

Dr Who who?

(For reference, I think most of us were so confused by the casting choice because we were thinking of the linked video, not her dramatic roles.

[Platinius]

I have finally come around to playing DoW III and...

it is so stiff to play -.-

[Cikomyr]

I have finally come around to playing DoW III and...

it is so stiff to play -.-

I had a lot of fun playing DoW

I adoooore DoW2

I wouldn't touch DoW3 with a boltpole

[Brookshw]

I have finally come around to playing DoW III and...

it is so stiff to play -.-

I started it, got maybe 2/3 through and was annoyed by a lot of it. Eventually came back to finish it. Wasn't a fan, wouldn't buy again. Campaign jumping factions constantly was frustrating. Would have preferred a DOW I approach (soulstorm and dark crusade remain great).

[Platinius]

You all know this, but it is so good, how about we talk about it for a bit.

Otherwise, how about we discuss the the Night Lords Trilogy for a bit. It is not just good 40K literature, but straight up great literature in general. So very human and so very melancholic. It is the only book where I genuinely dare to root a bit for what are objectively bad (and badly damaged) people.

PS: I think Soul Hunter is the best book the Black library has ever brought forth and even if all of 40k disappears in the mists of time, if this one piece gets preserved, it would be worth it. It is so well told and well structured that it serves as a great gateway drug for the new fans^^

[Wraith]

The Night Lords trilogy is quite easily tied in first place with my two other favourite Black Library stories, Talon of Horus and Ravenor.

All three are because I specifically like the protagonist and how they interact with other people in a none-psychotic fashion. Well.... Talos interacts with people psychotically, of course, but only because he chooses to - there's plenty who he has meaningful conversation with, and even a few who he jokes with.

That's probably my favourite part of the Night Lords - they have a sense of humour, as dark and morbid as it is, and their casual, informal way of speaking to each other is way, way better than the stick-up-the-butt formality of their Loyalist counterparts. The best part of transhumans, is seeing their human side and how they act around each other outside of the strict hierarchy of Chapter or Legion.

Also, I kind of want a T-shirt with a Night Lords' helmet depicted in infra-red/'Predator' vision, with the word "Preysight" beneath it. Almost no-one else would get the reference, but I would enjoy it.

[LeSwordfish]

I've not read all of Vigilus Ablaze yet, but it specifically mentions that the Night Lords are mostly attacking Ulthwe: I like that, especially since Fall Of Cadia made no mention of it and just put the Night Lords wherever it wanted.

[LansXero]

[ It is so well told and well structured that it serves as a great gateway drug for the new fans^^

I dont remember which of the three its from, but the bit with Talos sarcastically going 'he was a good man. the rapist. the murderer. my brother, the good man' about Xarl's death while also tearing up was a pretty powerful scene. That and the death of Talos' mother, but thats more 'cause it hit close to home.

all in all, such a nice book.

[Drasius]

I enjoyed the NL trilogy, but only once I realised it was a great 40k book, but a terrible NL story - they all seemed far too ... nice for NL's from how I imagined them to be.