It’s been a couple of weeks now but I managed to make it to games night this week, although I did turn up late so I didn’t manage to get a game in. But we did have an interesting chat about the future of the 40K. We were saying that whilst it was 40K that got us into gaming not of us have played a game of 40K in a long time. In fact I don’t think any of us actually own a rule book or an up to date codex. Now just to be clear this wasn’t a Games Workshop bashing session we were just saying that they had gone in one direction and we had had gone in another. The upshot of that being that you get so out of date that it would be almost like starting again to get back into the game. And that’s where we were pondering how long it will be before 40K gets the Age of Sigmar treatment. Be that a complete re-boot or some sort of lower point entry to the game, a bit like combat patrol used to be but where you can literally us any model you have.
My view was that whilst I like the idea of the game going down this route I don’t want to lose all of the rich background that is the major draw of 40K for me. But Al said you wouldn’t need to lose what had gone before to really shake things up. You could just kill the Emperor and open things up to a new chapter in the game. Which we all thought could be a really interesting thing to do. You don’t lose any of the history that has been built up but it does give you endless possibilities for future developments.
So now that I’ve set the scene this is how I would like to see the story develop, and it contains some spoiler alerts if you haven’t read the Horus Heresy books. It also builds my Pete’s view that the Dark Angels nearly fell to chaos but that it was in fact the Fallen that were truly loyal to the Emperor.
Based on the knowledge we have of the Emperors history prior to him becoming Emperor and that fact the John Grimaticas know him, and indicates that he was also a perpetual
My take on the story would be that whilst the Emperor is a very powerful physker he is also a perpetual like John Grematicaus. In fact John makes several references to him when he is referring to his own past. This is key because we know that when a perpetual is killed they don’t stay dead, they come back into existence in some as yet unexplained way. So if the Emperor were to be killed he wouldn’t stay dead for long. But unfortunately for him no one knows anything about this. Thus at the end of the Horus Heresy instead of being allowed to die, and then return, he was placed in the Golden Throne. Which is in effect keeping him prisoner, because he isn’t strong enough to break out of it but he’s not weak enough to die, so he’s trapped in limbo, and has been for ten thousand years.
Now step in the Dark Angels. Scattered throughout the fluff for the Dark Angels is a story which indicates that Cypher is trying to get the Lion Sword, which was lost during the battle of Calaban to the Emperor. But what if Cypher knows the true nature of the Emperor and what he is actually trying to do is to use the Lion Sword to free the Emperor from the Golden Throne.
Just think of what would happen if the Emperor were to return after ten thousand years of being trapped in limbo seeing the secular Empire he work so hard to establish turn into the bloated religious behemoth it is today. My view is that he wouldn’t be very happy and it would be anybody’s guess is wouldn’t be a happy bunny and that he would be looking to bang a few heads together. That would give plenty of scope for new stories to develop and even more reasons for the various races and factions to want to have a scrap or two.
Anyway that was my take on how things could develop. I know none of that is every likely to happen but how would you like things to go for 40K. Are you happy with how things are or would you like to see any changes, big or small. And just remember this isn’t a GW bashing exercise its just some musing on how things could develop.
On the hobby front I set my stall out this week to do something from start to finish. In this case it turned out to be another Guild Ball model with the alternate sculpt for ‘Flint’ that I picked up last week. As a guide I used the existing model that I had already painted up, and got a bit of shock. Now you need to understand that I painted up the original some time ago and I’ve not actually played a game with the Masons yet. So when I stood the two models side by side I thought that the scale of the new one was wrong. It was just way too big to be the same character. But after standing the two models alongside the Brewers, that a still on my work bench, it turns out the new model is in scale with them and the original looks like a child in comparison.
Scales aside I think this new sculpt has a nice dynamic feel to it and really fits the footballing nature of Flint. He just looks like he is about to score a screamer and there is nothing that anyone can do about it.
Also on the Guild Ball front I’ve been working on some nice simple terrain pieces from Solid Ground Studios which Al picked up following our recent tournament. They came as a pack and include one Obstacle, two pieces of rough ground and two pieces of fast ground. I’m not exactly sure how I am going to paint them but I’ve got them primed up ready to start. I think the general idea will be to give the fast ground a wet look as I could imagine someone sliding through it and just paint the rest up as normal terrain.
And that’s it for this week, have a good weekend and I hope to see you all again next week.
