On page 229 of the Big Rule Book there's a vignette staring Brother Captain Karlsen. On the surface it's not a big deal but it is a reprint of one of the greatest battle reports of my wee hobby life. It was from a game of Space Marine (epic 40k) told from the perspective of a Thousand Sons Legionary. In the battle they were lead by Magnus ('cause the primarchs didn't always just sit on their thumbs) in 'person' taking on Blood Angels and a Titan Legion and would periodically describe what was happening to the Thousand Sons forces during the battle. He shows up again later describing the rituals the Thousand Sons use to deal with having a millennia of memories in their heads.
This is kind of a big deal to me, even if they erased any mention of his affiliation from the story as it reminds me of a time the Imperium truly seemed doomed. Not because the Imperium was beset by myriad threats, or was a calcified husk and parody of a government, but because Magnus the Red and a large scale Chaos invasion was a regular occurrence. This was Tuesday in the Imperium and was likely viewed as a snow day by the kids. I kind of miss this attitude, where the grim dark isn't a brooding place but made of *****ing guitar riffs. A canvas for awesome to happen.
I think this may be why I cut Ward some slack. In exchange for sloppy writing and some bizarre ideas about the value of being internally consistent I get codexs that throw reason out the window. It's Real Ultimate Power all the time. And that's what 40k is, it's a universe that makes little sense and can not survive any kind of scrutiny beyond the Rule of Awesome and the Check of Rad.
I celebrate the return of Karlsen and I hope it represents a return of tone. With the Chaos Space Marine codex around the corner I can only hope they embrace the loud, discordant, jerk store nature of Chaos Marines: their hate and desire to make the world burn instead of their contempt of metal boxes and their impotent sobbing at losing their shrines.