They've Always Been There (just retcon it!)

[Chris*ta]

Oh, and as for whether the we-just-discovered-an-STC or it-was-always-there-stop-asking-questions arguments are better, I like a mix of both.

I do feel I need to point out there is the rarer it's-an-unapproved-modification-of-an-existing-STC (like the new Land Raiders in the previous SM Codex).

[Psychosplodge]

They're as cannon as anything else the Black Library releases surely?

[jgebi]

I just want the emperor to die or get of his ***. But with the whole retconing of fluff as I came in about 3 months before the new necron dex and they were my first army (I don't care what people think BTW as I have a bloody good reason for them) after reading the new dex first then the old one, new one better I could see a little missing but it just felt more complete. same with all the new dexs, I have taken to reading the new realese dex then the one before and these new ones are good and retcon dose work and by god I love to watch the 30 year old virgins at my club rage at retconned fluff

[Wolfshade]

Cannon is cannon unless I disagree with it then it just fluff.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

by god I love to watch the 30 year old virgins at my club rage at retconned fluff

As a nearly 30, definitely not virgin, I object.
I often find retcon to be a bit of a letdown, but that's just because I've been playing for long enough to remember when the background actually developed.
The novels seem to be driving in the right direction, fostering change WHILST filling out the background gaps, but change is inevitable. Heck the Cain ones are (sort of) set AFTER the 13th Black Crusade and Mitchel doesn't seem to be back-tracking on that.
The background needs to evolve, there's still a place for the 41st millennium, but tipping into M42 with the sentence "41,001 new stc for the imperial guard pig-launcher-tank discovered" wouldn't exactly destroy the fluff.
Apart from the pig bit obviously.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

It can't be a retcon. There's no continuity. It's not a story. They're just expanding the background.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

You have a good point there actually. we think in terms of continuity but actually the changes from RT to 2nd ed were an EPIC re-write of the setting, races and abilities in hundreds subtle and unsubtle of ways.
The nature of the Space Marine is a fantastic example, they weren't always post humans after all. And we're fine with the Horus Heresy adding a Primarch or the re-writing the death of Sanguinius, so why do we really care so much?

[Wildeybeast]

doesn't generally bother me either way, only time I have been annoyed by something along these lines is the new warriors of chaos book which rams the latest special characters into existing stories about archaon as though they are trying to sell you them.

People moan about 40k being stuck in time but Warhammer has actually gone back in time. The whole Storm of Chaos has been erased from history as if it never happened.

[ElectricPaladin]

...the re-writing the death of Sanguinius, so why do we really care so much?

Just curious - what was it like before?

[Psychosplodge]

He went
'Tis but a flesh wound, come back Horus, I'll bite your legs off