My Heresy-era Imperial Fists

[Haighus]

Nice militia models! Also interesting fluff, and a good attempt at creating pre-cursors to each of the Necromunda gangs in Hive Primus. Fits very nicely with an IF force too, with their Necromundan recruitment rights. Although I'm pretty sure you've crafted this overall force based around that link.

[YorkNecromancer]

Mostly my idea was based around 1.) [url=http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?59076-Frodo-Will-Never-Get-To-Go-To-The-Moon]my utter hatred of the Medieval Stasis trope[/url] and 2.) the idea of portraying human combatant civilians at the highest point of Imperial culture. So every squad has to clearly link to a Necromunda gang whilst simultaneously not being them. So, for example, I really like the idea taking something like the relatively super-tech Van Saar and having them be the poorest, whilst simultaneously giving them a reason for a culture facility with machinery. I mean, obviously, in real-life, that's probably a change that'd happen over a handful of generations, not ten thousand years, but f**k it, it's 40K , you have to accept that some handwaving of your ideas is always going to be necessary.

The models mostly came about because I had a bunch of cultists knocking about, but no idea what to do with them. Then I got some of those AoS Khorne figures, turned them into Servitors, and the rest of it sort of happened organically from there...

[Haighus]

To be fair, technological stasis and even regression is possible within a culture, so long as the culture is both deliberately trying to suppress progress, and isn't in contact with other cultures which are not trying to suppress progress. In the case of most worlds of the Imperium, this is the situation, so technological regression and limited change in technology, is possible. It is probably partly why the IoM is having such trouble with the Tau Empire, not from a military perspective, but from worlds defecting because they have more than one way of doing things being shown to them.

It is also worth noting that, when forced by particularly massive threats, even the IoM is capable of (relatively) rapidly innovating weaponry and tactics to aid in defeating the foe. The biotoxins and so on developed against the Tyranids, and the change in tactics (even the Ultramarines have broken from following the Codex Astartes to the letter and created the Tyranid Hunters...) as an example. I guess if you are screwed anyway, a bit of techno-heresy is the last of your worries...

For a real world example, China often actively suppressed it's own technological advancement at the whim of it's current Emperor, because the Emperor could do so- China was unified as a country very early in history, and had few competitors around it for a long time, so whatever the Emperor said, went, and there was no competition to force a different choice. It is possible that this early unification, and subsequent examples of deliberate technological stasis and regression, is the reason that Europe ended up being the dominant continent in world politics, and not China and the far east.