Let's talk about the Recent(past year or so) WH40K fluff updates. Spoilers all

[NecronLord]

Their purposes were often assigned before the chaos gods put them on their respective planets. And if there's one thing apparent in the heresy, the Wolf puppies

The doctrine the wolf puppies reject is Guilliman's, not the Emperor's.

That said, the most relevant thing is that every Fenrisian has a superstitious hatred and fear (except they can know no fear!) of sorcery, so they can be relied on to interact with corrupted marines without trouble. The wolves also don't ask questions, something Horus exploits when he changes their retrieve order on Magnus to 'exterminate' - most other legions, going by the early Heresy Books, would have had some soul-searching about that. The wolves just open fire the moment they enter orbit.

I'm also not sure about them winning 2/3 conflicts against other legions:

Night of the Wolf vs Angron - Tactical victory, but symbolic loss, where the Wolf puppies managed to defeat the War Hounds/World Eaters, until Angron overcame Russ and was about to kill him. I really wouldn't know where to put that one.

We see in Corax that when Russ is wounded the entire Spulf legion goes into mourning and retreat. If Angron had taken Russ's head, they would have been casting down their weapons in despair (which they do until Corax beats sense into them in Corax, just from Russ being wounded) which would have easily let the World Eaters butcher them.

If that battle had continued to the bitter end, the wolves would have been destroyed.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Executioners. i.e to wipe out other rogue Primarchs or even chapters.
(Their track record isn't as good as the Lunar Wolves, but at least they tried hard )

Aren't they on 2 out of 3? not terrible odds. Is is there some other book that tells us the Lunar Wolves did in the two missing chapters?

They failed with the 1k sons, and we don't know how much of a role they had with the 2 missing legions. (But that the recruits from said legions may have ended up in the Ultramarines, and that other legions were involved).

Horus on the other hand, wiped out 70-90% of 5 legions

[Eternal_Freedom]

Whether the Wolves were intended as executioners originally seems at odds with the existence of the later Minotaurs chapter, who exist purely to fight other Space Marines (their Chapter Tactics even gives them Preferred Enemy: Space Marines).

[Imperial Overlord]

Whether the Wolves were intended as executioners originally seems at odds with the existence of the later Minotaurs chapter, who exist purely to fight other Space Marines (their Chapter Tactics even gives them Preferred Enemy: Space Marines).

The Space Wolves are the Emperor's dogs and will tell the High Lords of Terra to fuck off if they don't like their orders. That's why the Minotaurs (who are nicely obedient) exist.

[NecronLord]

Yeah, the Minotaurs are the same thing for the High Lords, essentially.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fair point.

[Bedlam]

I think there's some difference between the 30K Space Wolves legion and the 40K Space Wolves Chapter.

The original legion seemed to play at being barbarians for the psychological impact I.e. the leather masks where as at some point over the 10 thousand years they bought into their own advertising and became the full space Vikings they appear today.

Is there anything recent that states the Space Wolves still consider themselves the other space marines executioners? (I must admit I'm about 4 editions behind at this point and most of my up to date reading is from the Horus Heresy novels).

[Imperial Overlord]

It's not quite playing at being barbarians, it's more hiding their sophistication behind their "barbarian" customs and traditions. Guys who wear war paint and furs and like noisy drinking parties couldn't possibly be able master technical skills or sophisticated tactics right?

[Alkaloid]

Horus on the other hand, wiped out 70-90% of 5 legions

Well, Horus and fully half the space marines in existence managed to account for most of 3 and a bit of the rest. Really, once the rest of the galaxy realised they were at war with them their performance went entirely to pot.

Actually, thinking about it Horus' plan for the heresy was terrible. It entirely revolved around a surprise attack involving most of his forces against a relatively small portion of his enemies, then hoping that he could storm the most heavily fortified position in existence before the enemy he knew was at his back arrived.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Horus on the other hand, wiped out 70-90% of 5 legions

Well, Horus and fully half the space marines in existence managed to account for most of 3 and a bit of the rest. Really, once the rest of the galaxy realised they were at war with them their performance went entirely to pot.

Actually, thinking about it Horus' plan for the heresy was terrible. It entirely revolved around a surprise attack involving most of his forces against a relatively small portion of his enemies, then hoping that he could storm the most heavily fortified position in existence before the enemy he knew was at his back arrived.

Well, it almost worked.
He thought he could convinve additional legions (e.g. the White scars especially, and Fulgrim had promised him that Ferrus Manus would join them).
He still came within an inch of killing the Emperor, and had the palace under siege.

[Alkaloid]

Starting a war relying on an army you don't actually have isn't much better though, is it?

[Bedlam]

I think Horus saw that he had two options to try and take out the Imperium, he could slowly try to take it over subtly planet by planet, legion by legion or he could grab as much force as possible and strike, cause chaos and do a decapitation attack as quickly as possible before the loyalists could get their act together.

Logar had basically started with the first plan and had been doing to for the last 50 years or so, warrior lodges had started in various legions, ships had been ordered etc then he turned Horus. Horus could have carried on the same but sooner or later someone would figure out what was going on, it might be soon and he might loose the element of surprise. Particularly given when chaos revealed the 'truth' to him Magus found out and was ready to spill the beans to the Emperor. Maybe no one would believe Magus but even if he did get killed or dragged away in chains someone would probably look into his claims sooner or later so Horus was forced to act quicker than he might have liked. He pulled together as much military force as he could, purged the possible loyalists in his ranks and then managed to slaughter a good chunk of the Emperors available forces then sent the legions he trusted the least (Alpha legion, Word Bearers, Night Lords, World Eaters) to bleed and tie up what other legions he could and took the core of his army straight for Terra (although thanks to GW wanting to write as many books as possible it apparently still look 5 years or more to get there, although given how communication is in 40K is that's not actually all that bad). He knew it was a loosing proposition in the long term but it was the only option really available to him, he risked it all on a roll of the dice thinking he had fairly good odds.

Now maybe he would have actually have done better if's he'd tried to turtle and claim a fair chunk of the galaxy and fortify it before the Imperium figured out what was going on but then the best he can hope for is a stalemate and more likely a slow loss (maybe even a quick loss given I can see a good chunk of his forces crumbling as they get corrupted i.e. Night Lords, World Eaters).

Another point is that chaos itself doesn't really care what happens to Horus and his forces once the Emperors gone, once he's out and Imperial Society is turned away from it's path from the gods point of view it doesn't matter if Horus and all his forces and defeated they can get back to corrupting humanity as much as they want, it might even be better if Horus dies all the more chaos for them.

[Lonestar]

So, GW just sent out an email basically implying that there will be Primaris captains and command team personnel(Librarians and whathave you) available. While I guess it makes sense if there are entire chapters of Primaris Marines out there for there to be Primaris Captains, I'm having a hard time seeing Primaris Marines slotted into command roles this early into existing chapters.

[NecronLord]

The Indomitus Crusade, at the 'current' time has been going on for a hundred years, which is probably an excuse to rationalize this.

So they've advanced the timeline by a hundred years.

[bilateralrope]

Has anything happened with the nids or Tau now that the timeline has advanced ?

[NecronLord]

Genestealer cults have been found on Holy Terra and more hive fleets with nastier monsters have turned up, the tyranid advance proceeds as the Hive Mind plans.

The Tau lost a major expansion expedition to a warp storm, scattering them across the galaxy presumably to let them be regional powers in more places; Tau lore.

[Marko Dash]

can't wait to see how 'the emperor's text-to-speech' handles this, it's going to be hilarious.

[NecronLord]

Ultimately they went ahead and mostly ignored it.

The Emperor is described in the new Dark Imperium novel as Guilliman reflects on having had mental contact with him, as an emotionless monster (for officianados of the older fluff, this should be unsurprising, as he excised his compassion and it became the Star Child), nothing like the ETTS character.

[Lonestar]

ETTS?

[NecronLord]

The semi-popular 40K fan comedy animation called "What if the Emperor had a Text To Speech Device?" It presents a sardonic, and irascible version of the space tyrant.

[Elheru Aran]

ETTS is a fan creation anyway, GW doesn't give much of a shit as long as it's a just-for-fun project that doesn't make the creators any money. They're certainly under no obligation either way, and I can see how it might work for Alfabusa and company to simply ignore updates in favor of keeping their period feel (seems like they're shooting for a mix of recent 40K with early-2000s 40K?).

GW has also returned to the classic Kill-Team game, releasing small boxes of models for it, as another intro-to-40K type project. Officially they call it 'Shadow War' but who are they kidding, it's Kill Team.

They are also releasing a few different boxed sets, focusing right now on Primaris and Death Guard though. I guess this edition's focus is going to be classic Imperium vs Chaos?

[NecronLord]

Shadow War Armageddon is actually a bit closer to Necromunda, ruleswise.

[Elheru Aran]

...right. I'll just be over here with the casuals in the corner, then...

(I knew it was based on a classic GW game, just couldn't remember the name for the life of me and thought it was Kill-Team...)

[NecronLord]

They actually released Kill Team a little while back, with a cute mini 7th edition rulebook and a rulebook for kill teams too. It had Raven Guard vs Tau in the box.

They're doing a lot of stuff like this at the minute.

They've also brought the specialist games back, and the amount of urban terrain done for Shadow War Armageddon is perhaps intended to support a future full re-release of Necromunda itself with modern models.

Kill Team itself is off-sale at the moment while the rules are migrating, don't know if it'll come back, but it's still available in Japanese, possibly because the translation of 8e might not be done yet? Kill Team.

[Eternal_Freedom]

They're also apparently (according to the guy in my local shop anyways) bringing Adeptus Titanicus back as well. Which could be cool.