Is GW forcing us to play the narrative more than we relize?

[bfmusashi]

I can't recall that model of knight ever being available to chaos. Some rumors said anyone could take it, but nothing official, so it's not like GW pulled a fast one on you. This seems like a lot of hilarious whining. And Gir's point is a pretty fair summation of Daboarder's. It makes no sense to be upset you didn't gain access to a model from a different army. A model your army never had access to through history.

[daboarder]

I can't recall that model of knight ever being available to chaos. Some rumors said anyone could take it, but nothing official, so it's not like GW pulled a fast one on you. This seems like a lot of hilarious whining. And Gir's point is a pretty fair summation of Daboarder's. It makes no sense to be upset you didn't gain access to a model from a different army. A model your army never had access to through history.

Love it when people take off hand comments and extrapolate them to "whining"

its even better when they ignore the posts that are on topic

edit: just so we're clear. How long do chaos players need to give you guys before you accept that "Chaos Knights" aren't coming. How long before you accept that? a year? 5? 10?

we're not likely to get some mythical "CHAOS VARIANT" at some later date.

its like all those rumours "chaos supplements" or the legions codex.

[daboarder]

For myself, I've mostly read Ciaphas Cain (light-hearted and a little bit silly), the Blood Angels series (lots of mixed, bittersweet endings), and Ravenor (seriously mixed "victory but at a cost" ending). I'm starting Eisenhorn, which is supposed to end the same way. I started Horus Heresy, but it didn't really grab me. I know there's a lot of other Black Library stuff out there, and can't really comment on the full breadth of it.

Yeah the cain stuff is great! But I'm finding its getting a little repetative as the series goes on, but such is the nature of the beast.
The eisenhorn/ravenor books are GREAT some of the best
as to teh blood angel stuff, not a fan. Its really bizarre and butchers much established BA background for odd reasons, But swallows not a bad writer and his HH books are some of my favourite (fear to tread aces it)
For the Horus Heresy, can I reccomend the audio books, its so much easier o listen while your driving/working/hobbying

[Learn2Eel]

I know what you mean! I cancelled my Harpy pre-order when I found out I couldn't field them in my Blood Angels army!

Neither of your examples make any sense whatsoever.

Knights have a long history of turning traitor, most prominently during the Horus Heresy. Denying their usage by Chaos Space Marines but allowing Xenos to use them as Allies is incredibly silly.
A Harpy can only ever be aligned to a Tyranid force as it is a Tyranid organism; either it is controlled by the Hive Mind or it becomes a mindless beast following instinct alone.
A Heldrake would never be aligned to Loyalist forces because it is a Daemonic Entity, a daemon engine. Any Loyalist force consorting with a Daemon of any kind would cease to be a Loyalist force.

Use better examples if you are going to try and argue this point.

[Morgrim]

Maybe the solution to the over-saturation of Imperial only dataslates of far too broad a scope is to come out with some that are explicitly 'anyone BUT the Imperium'. The Imperium are genocidal xenophobes, there has got to be a way to have, for example, a cadre of kroot mercenaries that are furious with the Imperium because of [x] and willing to side with their enemies. Substitute kroot for any alien without their own codex. Hell, if they insist on humans give us stuff for some piratical Rogue Traders that have broken away and tried to make their own fiefdom, it cannot be hard to put out a kit with conversion parts for some guard, a list of appropriate vehicles, a transfer sheet and maybe a HQ or two.

[bfmusashi]

Love it when people take off hand comments and extrapolate them to "whining"

its even better when they ignore the posts that are on topic

edit: just so we're clear. How long do chaos players need to give you guys before you accept that "Chaos Knights" aren't coming. How long before you accept that? a year? 5? 10?

we're not likely to get some mythical "CHAOS VARIANT" at some later date.

its like all those rumours "chaos supplements" or the legions codex.

You're upset you aren't getting something, and you've complained about it, often repeating yourself, all over the boards. Something no authority told you were going to have. It's whining. It's a sobbing tantrum of entitlement that is most unbecoming. But, hey, maybe you could come up with a way of saying 'GW is screwing me by not giving me this thing I want that doesn't go with my armies' that doesn't sound petulant.
I hope Chaos never gets knights. They have too many neat design ideas to waste time on "Knight that ran into a wrought iron fence." As to the Legions supplements, really man, just stop reading rumors and thinking they're real.

[bfmusashi]

Neither of your examples make any sense whatsoever.

Knights have a long history of turning traitor, most prominently during the Horus Heresy. Denying their usage by Chaos Space Marines but allowing Xenos to use them as Allies is incredibly silly.
A Harpy can only ever be aligned to a Tyranid force as it is a Tyranid organism; either it is controlled by the Hive Mind or it becomes a mindless beast following instinct alone.
A Heldrake would never be aligned to Loyalist forces because it is a Daemonic Entity, a daemon engine. Any Loyalist force consorting with a Daemon of any kind would cease to be a Loyalist force.

Use better examples if you are going to try and argue this point.

The knights that turned traitor in the Heresy do not look anything like this model now. Current Imperial Knights serve the interests of the Imperium and Mechanicus Knights serve the interests of the Machine Cult. Those interests have coincided with those of Xenos in the past, but only coincide with Chaos when the group is already traitorous. Now, if we're going to assume they're fresh converts fine, that makes sense, but the current Chaos Space Marine codex isn't about fresh converts, nor is their model design.
But, if you want to apply the mental gymnastics necessary to make that happen why not do it on the others? A Harpy has a brain, the Imperium likes to make cybernetic familiars with partial lobotomies. Is it really odd to think someone isn't working on a way to make a mini hivemind using a synapse familiar as a relay? Or, if nothing else, it's way more metal than a wolf or bird. This makes as much sense as Chaos having a knight titan that isn't hilarious looking.
40k also seems to be in love with ornithopters lately, making a helldrake far more normal by the Imperium's standards. These guys see weird stuff all the time and the tech priests are always going on about machines being alive. Step 2 is ???? step 3 is helldrake tolerance!

[Cap'nSmurfs]

What Phil Kelly said was not "I hate Chaos, have a crappy book", it was that in his view, the Dark Eldar are the most Classic Movie Villain of all the 40k races. They're the nightmare princes of a realm of wishes and make-believe, who do what they do out of careless, callous spite. There's none of the tragedy or insidiousness of Chaos; they're just *******s who love being mean.

That's what he said, and what he meant.

Interpreting that as saying he "hates Chaos" and so "wrote a crap book" is a failure to read, comprehend and think on a frankly ridiculous degree. I know this because what's being paraphrased, half-remembered, here, is Phil's interview/design notes on the Dark Eldar codex, which I remember reading. I can even dig out the White Dwarf, if necessary.

This seems to happen a lot around here - people vaguely remember someone from the GW Studio saying something or other, which makes them an Authority or some kind of Insight into What GW Really Thinks, and that half-remembered snippet gets used as evidence in an argument, without being able to properly remember or cite it, let alone mention where it came from. Worse, it'll be from an unsourced "private conversation", at "some Games Day". Man, that sounds legit! It's just an appeal to authority without actual evidence, marshalled to support whatever chip is already on the poster's shoulder. Then people don't question it, and so we continue with this vicious circle of bellyaching, even though the "evidence" that GW Hates (x) Army isn't anything of the sort.

tl;dr - got some "information"? Cite your ****ing sources.

[daboarder]

You're upset you aren't getting something, and you've complained about it, often repeating yourself, all over the boards. Something no authority told you were going to have. It's whining. It's a sobbing tantrum of entitlement that is most unbecoming. But, hey, maybe you could come up with a way of saying 'GW is screwing me by not giving me this thing I want that doesn't go with my armies' that doesn't sound petulant.
I hope Chaos never gets knights. They have too many neat design ideas to waste time on "Knight that ran into a wrought iron fence." As to the Legions supplements, really man, just stop reading rumors and thinking they're real.

[Takerukau]

Ok so Chaos doesn't get knights. So what? Imperials didn't get a "Golden Throne of Servo Skulls" either. I don't think that it does much good or has much of a point to complain one way or the other. Do we all want to play the same army, with the same stuff that does the same stuff but just has different skin? If you do, I recommend playing the original Warcraft game, where that was more-or-less true. My army has had its ups and downs on the balance roller coaster, but I love playing it just because I love what it is, not necessarily what it can do. Even with my "antiquated" Blood Angels, I still pull of more wins than losses, and even table Chaos Drake Armies and even a Tau army or two at my local tournament. Just relax and play the game!

So far as the subject of the thread is concerned, I don't think that there is a deliberate conspiracy to make the good guys better than the bad guys. The notion of "good guys" in and of itself is rather convoluted and ambiguous, even throughout the lore. A pervasive theme throughout all of the codices that I have read is about the inevitable decline and defeat of the Imperium. This has been emphasized more and more with each iterations of the rules, and I don't think that the good guys are stacked to win at all. The only reason I think there might be some potential for a victory out of left field comes from our(people in general's)fondness for heroes winning at the end of the day, whether tragically or otherwise. The universe is so expansive that there is so much potential for ANYTHING to happen.

Birth of a new Chaos God? Possible
Death of a Chaos God? Possible
Tau Dark Age of Technology? Possible
Tyranids eating the universe, killing good and evil together? Possible
Orks uniting under Ghazzy and conquering the universe? Possible
The return of the Primarchs? Possible
The Death of the Emperor? Most Possible
The Dark Eldar? They don't care either way lol

I'm just stoked to play. I just miss the days when there were campaigns worldwide like the 13th Black Crusade. Stuff like that... player driven narrative gameplay that teased at a potential lore influence? I remember logging in my game wins/losses on a website they made for the event and I felt really involved, even though it didn't matter ha ha. That would be so cool to do again, even if it was stacked to go a certain way. I love going to competitive tournaments, but I think that GW is missing out on a lot of player emotional investment by not doing some of the stuff they used to that were the most "narrative" fun.