Interested in a Warhammer 20K? and an alternate 40k universe?

[CoffeeGrunt]

I always felt that stuff like Titans or Baneblades are customised and adapted designs from the Dark Age. Who's to say they're any more legitimate as actual field-deployed designs than that massive tank the Na*is were reportedly developing until they realised it couldn't move? We don't know in what capacity STCs were regarded at the time, they might not be the bibles of technological knowledge people in the 30K/40K continuum consider them to be.

There's a story, I can't remember which, where they accidentally activate a Chrono weapon on an ancient Imperial battleship, wiping out a Necron fleet as it turns them to dust. I think the Dark Age is meant to be the apex of human civilisation, the highest we could ever hope to get as the stumbling, blind species we are in the grand scheme of things. It's possible that the Warp was harnessed directly as an energy source, maybe development of a pseudo-Webway between worlds was underway. Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

I've always seen 40K as the story of what happens after every other Sci-Fi universe ended their story. Firefly, Star Trek, even Halo could all have happened in some form or other, and even as Mankind pushes towards increasing greatness in stories like Star Trek, it'll ultimately end in collapse afterwards. Sci-Fi is full of the stories of Mankind's rise to galactic power, 40K is the story of the fall from grace and how long, how drawn out the end would be. It's not in any way realistic, but it's amusing how almost every sci-fi story out there could theoretically be happening in the 40K universe, or at least, have happened in said universe.

[Mr.Pickelz]

I would love to see the Ork race during the DAoT or 20k setting. With the Ullanor Ork warboss almost killing the Emperor, it would be pretty cool to see the scale of such stuff. I think if the Baneblade was a medium tank or Leman Russ a Scout Tank/Tractor, then maybe using the Epic set of rules and that scale (15mm?) would be best to represent what great marvels that the universe lost. Humans weren't the only race to loose tech over the course of time.

[Cactus]

I was actually thinking about a 20k game setting might be like the other day and then I found this thread...

I think the central themes would have to still be rooted in the Gothic tradition, mostly the hubris of humanity; Imperialism, colonization, "missionaries", and of course the creation of artificial intelligence that turns on humanity - ala Frankenstein.

Personally, I'd set the game during the period where interstellar travel was still possible and the Men of Iron are just starting to turn against their human masters. This would allow for a variety of factions to battle in a variety of settings. Colonists, Imperial armies, trade groups (like the East India Co.), native populations of Xenos, robot men, as well as even a few corrupted armies touched by Chaos.

[Khain Mor]

actually, the Crusade forces encountered a "lost colony" of humanity that had what appeared to be the STC for Power Armour iirc - in one of the Horus trilogy books methinks... Technocracy or some such? and anyway, it's not like Power Armour hasn't been "invented" today, so the thought that the Dark Age of Technology shouldn't have thought of powered armour seems quite silly imho...

I do remember this, don't remember the book either, but I know what you're talking about, their armor was something close to the SM armor, but they were smaller, though still formidable opponents. They basically had the armor, but no the genetics behind it.

[Khain Mor]

you know it'd be a pretty interesting universe, there would be a ton of human factions, just on earth alone, several factions (which the Emperor united). Lower tech, but still fair tech. You did have rogue psykers already, the Emperor had to deal with them during his unification of earth.

There would be a ton of xenos factions in space, some even with some chaos influence, but no deamons yet very far from that, mainly chaos taint or some minor influence, though they could posses some chaos artifacts.

The big bad guys would be the eldar, a super advanced race with robot armies, they would be the tyranids of the universe except that they already colonised it. No proto dark eldar yet, only regular eldar, you'd barely see any eldar in their armies, as their armies were compremised of wraithconstructs only.

You also had orks, like always, necrons would be deep asleep, Tau didn't exist yet, nids didn't arrive yet, obviously none of the eldar subfactions. Modelwise it wouldn't be too easy to create, humans would have so many alternatives, same for xenos, you'd have to create a ton of new xenos races from scratch both fluff & aethetics coming from nothing.


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Now the tech talk, you know it's very interesting how humans did colonise the entire universe even without warp travel & such, somehow they were very advanced, at some point humanity mastered antigravity tech and they did have a good fast way to travel, possibly webway travel?

[Psychosplodge]

I don't, I tried to Youtube it, but no such luck.

It's a black library book. *spoiler -do not quote* they burn down the archive and kill all the witnesses*spoiler*

[Broodingman87]

Oh, Where I quoted H.P. Lovecraft? I thought I did it right, it was a obvious quote and I attributed the artist.

Edit: Oh, I thought you were calling me out on something... but now I see what you did there!

[Psychosplodge]

[Jmaximum]

actually, the Crusade forces encountered a "lost colony" of humanity that had what appeared to be the STC for Power Armour iirc - in one of the Horus trilogy books methinks... Technocracy or some such? and anyway, it's not like Power Armour hasn't been "invented" today, so the thought that the Dark Age of Technology shouldn't have thought of powered armour seems quite silly imho...

I don't remember which titled book it was, but it was early in the series, before all of the spinoff shenanigans story lines.
Great story... I believe the technocracy invited the Imperium with open arms, even Loken speaking amiably with a cptn of the Techno forces, and things are going great, until Erebus steals the Anatheme sword from the Technocracy museum that eventually almost kinda but not quite kills Horus, setting the path for his downward spiral.

[dusara217]

I'd love it if someone started doing 20k stuff, it's part of the 40k lore I always wished had more meat on it's bones because there's a lot of potential.

I always think the references to enormous DAoT weapons (Imperator Titan's bigger brother and tanks that make Baneblades look like ride on mowers etc.) it doesn't really fit well with the rest of the DAoT lore (such as it is). As I understand it in 20k humans were a new kid on the galactic block at the time, having to deal with larger, more established Xenos neighbours who had access to much more resource that they did. If that were true it would make more sense for them to have small, nimble, flexible forces that could be rapidly deployed and fit with a maneuverist strategy, just like 40k Tau do. Uber Titans and Super Duper Heavy tanks don't really fit with this, these are more the kind of weapons used by forces who fight wars of attrition, using their superior numbers and resources to grind smaller enemies down over time, because massive stuff like this requires huge resources to build and probably can't be deployed rapidly either. I think DAoT vehicles would be more advanced, but on the whole smaller and lighter than 40k Imperium stuff, not bigger & heavier

I would think the current Admech stuff would be a good start point for the look of DAoT human tech, tentacles, servo skulls, insect like walkers, tanks with weird weapons etc. (lets face it, it's probably DAoT technology giving the Admech that 'look' anyway), but with fully robotic Iron Men rather than servitors and cyborgs. I think it would be a shame to make the DAoT forces look like a 'normal' Starship Troopers type sci fi army. Whilst the tau have stuck to safer, more convetional tech, DAoT humans were all about messing about with the warp and other strange forces, nothing was off limits. References to tech from the era often refers to it as 'weird' and outlandish, this would need to be reflected in their weaponry, the vehicles and weapons should look a bit weird and sinister (just like the admech stuff), to reflect that they are built using dangerous 'heretical' tech. The Iron Men should definitely have an unmistakable air of menace about them.

You do realize that DAoT humans had tech that rivalled necron tech, right? Not only that, they only Empire that rivalled them was the Eldar Empire, as they were able annihilate any foes that didn't ally with them. When the Iron Men rebelled, it was devestating, but the death knell to their empire was Slaanesh's birth; the preceding Warp Storms isolated the human planets and the lack of trade and communication screwed everyone over for 5k years (when Slaanesh finished birthing).

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I would love to see the Ork race during the DAoT or 20k setting. With the Ullanor Ork warboss almost killing the Emperor, it would be pretty cool to see the scale of such stuff. I think if the Baneblade was a medium tank or Leman Russ a Scout Tank/Tractor, then maybe using the Epic set of rules and that scale (15mm?) would be best to represent what great marvels that the universe lost. Humans weren't the only race to loose tech over the course of time.

Orks would likely be the same as they are in 40k, just less united