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Curious about chapter champions. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of info out there on them. Two specific questions I have, do all of Them wear the “champion helmet”? And were there any champions before the codex? Whatever else you got id love to hear it

I don’t know why I didnt thnk of it before, but when Ferruse’s spirit spokr to sanquinius, he lists off all of the dead primarchs, and he brings no mention to the two lost primarchs- considering he knew off every single one of the other primarchs- he wouldve known if they where dead, meaning that they are not dead. Id assume one of them was simmilar to Alpharius and Omegon with their power to blend into their legion, and thats why he thiught he got them- it was a legionary who was pretending to be the primarch.

I just read a terrifying article about how AI is being used in a current conflict, Captain America style, to designate and eliminate targets.

I know in the lore hatred of technology and innovation is used as an example of the stultifying orthodoxy of the Imperium and the Mechanicum, but crikey, things are different now than in the 1980's- the noosphere seems like a utopia compared to the billionaire controlled, dopamine hijacking hate software that the internet is in its current form.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony I am using a dopamine hijacking website to post this)

This post is gonna be more of a fun one where we make fan made weapons and devices that could be possible with DAoT tech level. Try following these rules as much as possible when making them or don't its your choice:

(I’m really excited for weapons that can transform and genetically or mentally turn enemies into your own somehow, either that or AI tech that can scan the warp and say the names of demons in the warp to control them)

1- should be possible with DAoT tech level.

2- can be considered a man made horror.

3- try to make it grimdark.

"The first death is experienced at around ten Terran years of age, when an aspirant first begins the gene-seed organ implantation process. The aspirant is injected with a lethal toxin, and remains dead until he revives on his own.
Failure leads to oblivion. The second death takes place at the end of the aspirant's implantation process, when the neophyte takes his place amongst the Chapter.
This death is much more intense, as the aspirant experiences death for solar hours rather than minutes. A third death can also sometimes take place, but this is only for members of the Librarius who wish to attain the rank of codicier, and greater power as a result.
A deeply held belief within the Death Spectres Chapter is that of the "Black River," which is seen by aspirants of the Librarius during the ritual deaths they experience (it is unconfirmed if non-psyker aspirants experience this as well).
Though their first death is for the shortest duration, it also is the greatest, as during the trial, one is assailed by the Black River's currents (which seem to symbolise fate and time) and the "forces" that are drawn to it and the person experiencing it (Daemons by another name).
This first trial is an arduous one, as it is a task the aspirant has no experience in dealing with, and so failure is quite common. "

Hi there, I am searching for any and all lore and tidbits on Thunder Warriors. If a group had hidden themselves and worked on their genetic flaws for the last 10,000 years and had started to rebuild themselves, what would their grievances be, what would they believe, who would they like?

The headcannon I have at the moment is that they believe (correctly or not) that it was the Custodes acting independently of the Emperor during their attempted eradication. And, in fact, the Custodes saw the Thunder Warriors as a threat to their position as guards of the emperor.

That’s how they are still loyal to the emperor.

I have more ideas but I would LOVE more input.

They aren’t exactly fond of daemons as allies or daemonic mutations, so how do they perceive their father going full daemon? (The ones that stuck around with him of course)

I am working through a couple of series at the moment: Horus Heresy, Eisenhorn, Dark Imperium.

But I like reading some standalone books inbetween as a palate cleanser.

There are 2 subjects of 40k im interested right now:

Imperial Guard from the point of view of a regular Joe, not Cain or Gaunts style. About the propaganda, the logistics, the warfront life, the Starship Troopers/Helldivers schtick.

The other is the religious side of the Imperium. So either about how the relegion itself, the ministorum priests etc, or about the Faith as a weapon side of things with Sororitas and the Saints.

Would love to hear reccomendations for either.

Requiem Infernal is a maybe for me right now.

To get ready for space marine 2 I was watching the last space marine game with Titus in it and I notice that Titus acted a lot more nicer compared to space marine 2 I would like to hear what people have to say to this

I mostly hear they're not canon because they were created for the FFG games(and thus cannot ever get GW models and additional lore from BL or GW), but since they're part of the plot in head of the hydra, which isn't related to FFG, I am confused.

1. Is the Webway a physical thing in the warp? Like a demon could be floating around in the warp and face planted on a Webway outer wall? Can someone in the warp actually see this long tunnels structure?

2. Can the Webway be permanently open? Like on a distant world the Eldar just let a tiny Webway constantly open indefinitely.

Blanks are born with pariah gene and the Illuminati is one that fought off daemonic possession.

Do they have the same abilities as Blanks?

• Been Immune or resistant to psychic powers?
• Been invisible in the warp?
• Making Psykers very uncomfortable in their presence?
• Do they still have souls?

While it’s impossible for a blank to become a space marine but not for a space marine to become an illuminati as the Exorcists chapter have proven because it is part of their recruitment process.

How is it possible for a illuminati psyker to exist yet the Exorcist chapter has Librarians?

The sources are from lexicanum 40k and Warhammer 40k wiki describe them as very similar if not the same.

With the newest revealed lore of Titus's ordeal between both games, specifically how Marneus Calgar was so angrily demanding him be returned to the Ultramarines by the Inquisition, it absolutely has to be brought up that Leandros himself violated the Codex Astartes by turning Titus in to the Inquisition instead of the Master of Sanctity. Leandros might very well have had a bad 200 years parallel to Titus, including much soul searching. The reunion between them is what I am waiting for the most in the new game.

I struggle to keep up with lire but if I understand correctly, the silent king returned because he saw the larger fleet of Tyranids and wants to destroy them before they can destroy the galaxy right? But if the main focus of his return and that being the necessary bs main story rn, then why was indomitus focused on space marines vs necrons? Wouldn't it have made more sense for it to be necrons vs Tyranids? Then we could have gotten a bunch of new models for 2 xenos factions instead of just necrons and more space marines.

Anyway back to the point. If the necrons main goal rn is to wipe out the Tyranids, then why are they even bothering with fighting the space marines? Are the space marines just getting in their way because of their xenophobia or do the necrons have a reason to go after the Imperium rn?

I know that the lore has moved past this already for now, on to the next plot point, it seems to be Tyranids vs space marines, but like I said I'm kind of slow with lore.

As title. I was listening to the Gathering Storm series on youtube, and noticed that Ep 1. Fall of Cadia had 2+ mil views, while Ep 2. The Fracture of Biel Tan had only one tenth of that (yikes). Granted, Ep 3. The Rise of G Man only doubled Ep 2 in views, but it still reminded me of how small a portion of the fandom is interested in and buy Xenos-related work.

Is there a source for how much certain books sells? Or is it just word of mouth?

To be fair, the Ynnari storyline is not too well-written, hence its abandonment. So how about more well-received storylines? Like Twice-dead King? Do outlier bangers like those sell enough to make GW commission more from the writers?

Worst case scenario, xenos books sale are all low, and GW don't expect them to pay for themselves, so they set out a minimum amount of releases per year to appease xenos fan, and that's it. Hope this isn't the case, would appreciate your insight.

Glory to Ithakas!

Knights are a very interesting faction that would be amazing if well done, so why aren’t there more? There are less than twenty Knights only or centric stories out there, is it a popularity issue or a lack of time for them to gain stories? If for every four poorly written space marine story we instead got a banger knight story it would be nice. I just want more of the knights fighting in mech suits please.

My sense is that by the numbers hive world citizen is the most common way of being in the imperium. I don't think this is anywhere confirmed but it makes sense given how common they are and their population figures. Also (with the exception of a brief discussion of Ultramar hive worlds in one of the Dark Imperium books, which is explicitly framed as Ultramar being unlike the rest of the the imperium) they are basically all corrupt and keep most of their populations squalid and poor. What is more, feeding these behemoths is what leads to the need for industrial agriworlds, which are all polluted nightmare places to live and who range from miserable planet sized factories to straight up technofeudal hell states.

Hive worlds are one of the main sources of grimdark as far as I'm concerned, the knowledge that if you're born into this future you're almost certainly a superstitious impoverished half starving oppressed proletarian subject to a cruel arbitrary aristocracy who themselves answer to a regime that will at a moment's notice happily conscript you to go fight in its pointless forever-war. If you're on the wrong side of the Great Rift it's all that plus mass starvation either in process or a serious risk, with chaos or xenos raiders able to take a bite out of your world as they see fit. Very metal.

So, basically, question: in light of all this, is there any possible happy end state for humanity that doesn't involve mass die offs? I sometimes see people expressing hope that Guilliman will genuinely improve the imperium, but to my mind it seems that while this sort of planet is the mainstay it's impossible for life to be anything but miserable for the vast majority. Wondering if anyone knows any reason to think otherwise, examples of hive worlds getting genuinely better?

(This is not at all a complaint to be clear. I like grimdark it's why I'm in this fandom! I think it's cool that they've designed a universe that is not just miserable at the moment but when you think about what it would take for it to get better you realise "oh we'd have to just die". It's an entire universe built to affirm my clinical depression! I feel so seen etc.)

I haven’t read the heresy books but have heard about the man Malcador would revive time and again because he keeps killing himself over Malcador’s confessions

I’m just wondering of what atrocities has Malcador committed because I would imagine if you have a guy wanting to kill themselves over confessions then the confessor has to be on a level compared to Judge Holden

Which brings to the second question, even Malcador has committed such acts, would it be safe to say that he got what was coming to him sitting on the golden throne? Of course it could also be argued given his character journey in the heresy books.

I feel like one of the few 40k fans that is intrigued by the storylines that could told through the Beastmen. It's been suggested they are close to losing their status as imperial citizens. So why not create a storyline out of that? The fight for them to remain citizens while trying to push back those who have made them look bad by joining Chaos. I just think there is a potential for a nuanced story that could go in many interesting directions from them. What does everyone else think though?

I know a lot of people don’t like the way Gav Thorpe writes them, I find myself tending to agree with that sentiment.

Now I suspect a large part of the reason why Thorpe is pretty much the only one writing them are bc other BL writers prefer writing other factions, but if you suddenly had the power to choose, which author do you think would do the best job at writing stories about Eldar?

I'm trying to get a real sense of the alloys used in 40k. Obviously the Eldar make everything out of Wraithbone, the Necrons use a self repairing necrodemis which is probably a combo of shape memory alloy and active nanotech. And the orks....well, I'm just gonna assume they use similar stuff to the Imperium unless they get to Prime Ork levels of organization.

Well that brings me to the Tau, who seem to use a nano-crystaline composite for their battlesuits and perhaps their starships, and seems to offer similar protection stats to Imperium armor but are much lighter.

And with the Imperium I keep seeing Plas-steel, Cermanite, Adamantium and Auromite. The first two are pretty obvious, plas-steel is probably metamaterial of some manner of super durable plastic and high grade steel, especially given the numbers GW gives on Power Armor defense against known stubbers. Cermanite is obviously a ceramic, and basically it's a given that cermanic armor is a given in this setting as the explanation of why lazguns suck so very very much, when they should absolutely put the stubbers out of business all together.

But Adamantium? I get that it's a naturally occurring alloy, but other than weight neither plas-steel nor adamantium seem to be leagues above high quality steel except in terms of weight. I suspect the ceramite is the only reason the opposition to Marines don't use RPG rounds. I'm going off this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjkVam2gDI0

And the thing about auromite, is the info I've been able to get is seemingly contradictory. It's quantumly inert, which means I have a decent idea of what it's made out of, but some sources say auromite enhances the wearer's psychic potential another that it protects against psychic attacks. So while only the Custodies use this armor, it's not clear if a specialist IG unit (with no blanks or psykers) would want scaled down Primaris armor or scaled down Custodian armor when fighting the forces of chaos. Assuming they got a choice, this is theoretical. And moreover, I know Auromite makes for good protection against material threats, but I don't know if it's significantly better or better at all than the laminate configuration the Marine power armors use.

I heard that in old lore Catachans had agoraphobia due to being raised in dense jungles and walled cities causing them to be useless outside of urban and jungle warfare and that this used to be represented in the game by having a rule that made them have roll disadvantages ( is that what it's called I don't play tabletop) when they don't have alot of cover around.

I know that there is a lot of variations and that legionnaires had their own personalities. But what are the stereotypical psychological traits of each legion?

Dark Angels- paranoid, obsessive, protective

2nd legion- spy vs spy, elusive

Emperors children- perfectionist, arrogant, aesthetically minded

Iron warriors- calculating, paranoid, worker mentality

White scars- cerebral, intelligent, jovial

Space wolves- feral, proud, loyal, superstitious

Imperial fists- straightforward, stubborn, honest, masochist

Night lords- black & white worldview, retributive, dark humor

Blood angels- quick thinking, aggressive, aesthetically minded

Iron hands- straightforward, self hating, kratocracy

11th legion- 🫥🫥🫥🫥

World eaters- aggressive, straightforward, brotherhood seeking

Ultramarines-straightforward, disciplined, honorable

Death guard- superstitious, stubborn, xenophobic

Thousand sons- information seeking, arrogant, dour

Sons of Horus- proud, aggressive, straightforward

Word bearers- zealous, serious, calculating

Salamanders- self sacrificing, honorable, stubborn

Raven guard- watchful, calculating, secretive

Alpha legion-secretive, cerebral, calculating

If you have anything to add for any of them or have a better thesaurus than me please add to the list. Also if you could kindly separate the serious and smart ass answers I would love to know everyone’s thoughts.

Context: Apothecary Telach is examining the severed head of a chaos tainted mutant and is beginning to find his armour bothersome and considers removing it.

For a moment longer he kept looking, observing the way the mutant’s bloated cells had fused together into straggling ganglia. Even now, many hours after the creature had died, low-level metabolic activity still existed amid the swamp of semi-dried body fluids and membranes.

Telach felt his concentration begin to slip. He withdrew his flenser and stood up straight. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the resistance from his armour as he did so. At times his battle-plate felt like a second skin; at others, it felt like a monstrous burden.

He pondered removing it. That would free up his arms to act without the interference of the suit’s nerve-muscle interface, but the procedure would take time and distract him further from the task at hand.

Telach remembered when he’d first donned power armour. Back then, more than two hundred years ago, he’d been a raw neophyte with only a standard stint in Raukaan’s Scout detachment behind him. The honour had been overwhelming.

Then, as the long years had passed, more and more of his flesh had been cut away and replaced. The itch, he called it – that nagging, persistent desire to strip away the weakness of organic matter and replace it with mechanical components.

Such augmentation had made him better. It had made him faster, stronger, less prone to fatigue, more capable of endurance.

It had also eroded the distinction between his body and the armour that encased it. Some sections of his torso-cladding were now difficult to remove without the supervision of an Iron Father, so he rarely did so.

He could imagine a time when he and his armour would never part. He could imagine a time when the idea of removing his plate would be as ludicrous as taking off the skin he’d been born into. Already his bodily functions were almost perfectly discrete, locked within the complex embrace of ceramics, metals and plastics.

Telach suspected that Rauth was locked inside his Terminator plate, fused into it as perfectly as a heart lodged within a circulatory system. The clan’s Iron Fathers certainly were, as were many of its sergeants.

Was that a bad thing? Was it not simply the logical outcome of everything his Chapter believed in?

Perhaps one day he would think so. But just then, standing alone in the apothecarion of the command complex on Shardenus with the dissected head of a dead mutant in front of him, Telach couldn’t quite imagine himself ever truly believing it.

You embrace your corrupted flesh, he mused, looking at the eyeless slab of cold meat on the table. We shun it. Which of us, I wonder, has the worse affliction?

In recent days I've seen a lot of discussion about Magnus and his Thousand Sons duribg the HH and the actions of different parties up to the burning of Prospero. What I don't see around here is what happened after all of it. Why after he tries to warn the Emperor about Horus's betrayal he joined him? Why not take a third path? He did not like what Horus was doing, but he and his almost got killed by the Space Wolves. Why not jusy give a big FU to all of it and stay out the conflict? I get that he might want revenge, but joining Horus?

I was wondering if there was ever a Chapter that suffered some kind of schism, be it ideological or through physical means that caused a split in the Chapter where one side remains the previous Chapter and the other became a brand new Chapter?

I was learning about the Blood Angels and how they were originally dubbed the “Revenants” for how brutal they were. I’m just thinking about how much of a relief it must’ve been for Emps when he met Sanguinius and he was a literal angel and NOT a blood-crazed monster.

What other expectations do you think the Emperor would’ve built for how the Primarchs were based on what he intended for them and how their legions were?

The First Heretic time skips the entire period of ullanor to after the events of the first three books of the Heresy.

Shouldn't the emperor have gotten at least a whiff of something at Ullanor? Curious if there is any material about the Word Bearers from this point in time

We know that the inquisition and the grey knights were founded prior to the final battle of the siege and the inquisition was given their vast powers since Malcador and the emperor needed a qrf that could do whatever it needed to in order to guard the imperium but was not subject under a single person that could be turned by chaos. But what if Malcador survived the events of the heresy? Would the organization of the inquisition be revised to a state where Malcador is the grandmaster of the inquisition, the same way he was the original grandmaster of the assassinorum?

I know Dante is one of the oldest if not the oldest Space marine, right up their with Logan Grimnar, Marneus Calgar, and Mephiston, but what are some in lore examples of the absolutely insane difference between them and a neophyte, or someone who is still in their first or second century? I'm curious because with time comes experience, and id like to see how much the combat effectiveness of these veterans and others has massively increased over the centuries.