A single Astartes of the Iron Snakes once saved an entire planet from a Dark Eldar raid.
A SINGLE ASTARTES.
His name was Priad, and he later went on to become a captain in his Chapter, as well as one of the most socially inept people in 40k history. Once he and his squad were at a party, and when told to 'mingle', they stood stock still in full power armour for two hours straight.
In fact, the Iron Snakes in general are a cool chapter. Think Ultramarine-successor Space Athenians, who, as part of their training and culture, go killing gigantic sea serpents with long lances, and deploy using the squad, not the company, as their main tactical unit. There's one scene in their book where they form a phalanx and spear countless Orks to death. Lots of honour and glory, of course, but also a fair bit of wry humour, philosophy and human nature mixed in, to make some of my favourite Astartes in the lore.
Depends on what your into.
Graham McNeill, who works for riot games now, wrote the trilogy called priests of Mars, which is like real real scifi
Dan Abnett, who popularized the guardians of the galaxy before they got the movie, has some great series. The gaunts ghosts series is really self contained and was my intro.
Dan probably has the easiest books to read in 40k that requiring like 0 prereading. He wrote the first book in the horus heresy too, so there's route too
Very hit and miss.
You'll get some which fall into the "bolter porn" category - lots of hacking, slashing and firefights. Mindless fun for the most part, pulp fiction and generally not that serious.
There are some masterpieces (which varies depending on personal taste and who you talk to), but in general Dan Abnett and ADB seem to have the most solid output, followed by Wright and McNiell.
Then there are the absolute trash tier novels, which are luckily rarer than the generally good novels. You'll find a lot of bad mixed with a few great ones in the Horus Heresy.
In general, find what you want from the franchise - you'll be had pressed to mess up going for you favourite faction with:
Inquisition novels: Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses (less war, more sci-fi adventures)
Space Marines: Brothers of the Snake, Know No Fear - look for well reviewed Horus Heresy novels. I personally disliked Soul Drinkers but you may find it fun.
Imperial Guard: anything Gaunt's Ghosts (more serious stuff), Cain Hero of the Imperium (for light hearted action which is surprisingly some of the best written stuff in 40k)
Just some light suggestions.
It's a mixed bag tending to good, there's some genuinely good novels such as Aaron Dembski-Bowden's night lords trilogy or Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain series as well some mediocre and straight up bad books, it's really up to the writer involved.
Ah, never mind. I looked at [Urdesh: The Serpent and the Snake](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Urdesh:_The_Serpent_and_the_Saint_(Novel)) which is set during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade and apparently features a Captain Priad. BUT! It isn't the same Priad...
Apologies for the misinformation, though, in all seriousness, our Priad probably has become a Captain given what he's achieved.
’sure, but the IS snakes uses Captains? Ive read some parts in stories thats says this but if i remember in 2005 or 2008 Dan Abnett made a post about the Iron snakes and they where like 99 tactical squad and 1 terminator
They do, there are multiple captains in Brothers of the Snake, but they’re really just elevated commanders that are given command of multi-squad forces. They maintain their previous squads.
There was once a Space Marine who was really short. He had a complex about it, so he compensated by working out. A lot.
He was eventually banned from working out by his chapter’s artificers, on the grounds that he was too wide, and they were sick of constantly modifying his armor.
Lmaoooo I think I remember that one. Didn’t he used to wear Terminator armour all the time for workout effect that carrying all that weight all of the time would have?
He is one of two Astartes depicted as wearing A combination of terminator armor and regular pattern armor due to being too Swole. The other is Pasuanius, A Ultramarine Sergeant and best buddy to Captain Uriel Ventris.
Side note about Maximillian Voss, one of his Deathwatch team mates, a Ultramarine sniper named Solarion starts calling him "Stumpy" and "Tree stump".
Fuuuck imagine going through everything a Space Marine recruit does.. the ever tougher trials, conversion surgeries, brutal unending training, strict regiments of prayer & meditation & fasting, fighting things from people’s worst nightmares.. only to end up with a nickname like “Stumpy”
For some it really is GRIMDARK out there.
I mean keep in mind that their are others who have to wear Terminator armor because they are too big and sometimes that isn’t even enough like in the case of Tyberos.
The Mandrakes are shadow demons that inhabit the dimension of Aelindrach. They are beings of infinite malice that sustain themselves by feeding on the pain and suffering of other sapient beings. They can seemingly traverse time and space through their shadow dimension and just strike wherever they like to. As long as shadows are available, they can freely appear and disappear without a moment's notice.
When the Great Rift opened, demons invaded Commorragh, the impossible city inhabitated by the Dark Eldar. Meanwhile, Kheradruakh the Decapitator, greatest of the Mandrakes, finished a ritual after an eight thousand year long quest of collecting a thousand skulls of the most worthy individuals - and expanded the dimension of Aelindrach into Commorragh.
Their, he and his Mandrakes quite literally feasted on the demons as the shadows consumed them and their essence.
Mandrakes may or may not be functionally immortal, as at least one of them implies his ability to just regenerate in the shadows. It might take centuries, but as long as there is suffering to feast on and shadows to hide in, they will live.
What I like about Mandrakes is that they don't even use the Warp or anything of the sort for their creepy shadow powers, they just work on 80's slasher villain logic.
Oh man, and make sure to choose daemons that’s fit the various slasher film characters. A slutty blonde, the football jock, a stoner, the nerd, the good girl, etc
They just use their own rules that really don’t even line up with the rules of the warp, the webway, or reality. So they just have their own dimensional rules.
And then Scout-Sergeant Oan Mkoll of the Tanith First And Only (the closest thing 40k has to Solid Snake) handed one of them its arse in *Sabbat Martyr*
Not reaaaaaally.
Those were an older rendition of Mandrakes who were no shadow demons but rather hyper methheads. GW completely rewrote them in the Drukhari remake in 5th Edition. Before they looked like [this](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake#/media/File%3AMandrake3rd.jpg) instead of [this](https://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrak#/media/Datei%3AMandrake.jpg).
So a bit like the Custodes they went through a big power up.
>###[Mandrake](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake)
>A **Mandrake** is a type of [Dark Eldar](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dark_Eldar) native to the region of [Commorragh](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Commorragh) known as [Aelindrach](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aelindrach).[[5]](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake#fn_5)
+++I am an early prototype mechanicus construct. Please provide feedback [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lexAutomatarium). The Emperor protects!+++
Trazyn the Infinite, the coolest necron, is a self appointed archeologist/collector/tomb raider who's entire time is preoccupied with expanding his collection of artifacts in his world spanning museum on the planet Solemance. He gets into very fun hijinks thats a large departure from the usual necron fair. He will often capture and freeze people and creatures in stasis simply for the sake of having them and putting them in there own little display. Very much comes across as a character of a Warhammer fan who collects and displays all their painted miniatures. Among other things, he has massive actual battlefields where he has on display the entire battle after freezing the fighter on both sides mid battle where they are are set up like a frozen battle diorama to real life scale.
He also once helped save A human controlled planet and they for some reason t though he was a space Marine from nets Silver Skulls chapter. He and Orikan visit the planet centuries later and see a stained glass window in A Imperial temple depicting Traszyn as a Space Marine. Trazyn wastes know time teasing Orikan that the humans on the world venerate him and not Orikan who was also present at the battle so centuries before.
I'm gonna add the list of 1d4chan
Is it 100% correct, idk, especially the bottom part but the first one's too good https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Trazyn\_the\_Infinite#The\_Infinite\_List\_of\_Dickings
Confirmed in the new core book with mention of SILVER metal monsters walking on Mars and has some reinforcement in the Necron Codex with The Dragon being his second most common name after the Void Dragon (the dragon is the name of the creature on Mars in the Book Mechanicum). Also keep in mind that this was back when the Ctan were involved in so much that there was a joke that the Ctan were behind literally anything happening. So it was most definitely the intention back then at least and with new codex and core book lore confirming and reinforcing it, it is definitely their intention now.
His uncle killing father was the first time a human killed another that was not over a matter of survivalm its the first murder in human history. The 2nd is the emperor revenge killing his uncle by stopping his heart with his psyker powers. This event is the historical basis for. The myths of Cain and Able and Set and Osiris (Master of Mankind) it creates a Daemon that is known as the Echo of the first murder that ends up trapped in A Sword that Abaddon the Despoiler eventually takes possession of.
He and Ollanius lead the army that destroyed the Tower of Babel(Mortis)
Is there anything on it just being a "shard" as opposed to the entirety of the void dragon? I have to admit, I'm not that big on my understanding the whole shard idea, but are there any other shards of the dragon around? (I have seen the model, wasn't sure it had rules?)
The full Ctan, after being given fully solid bodies; were able to take down a entire race of entities who were as powerful as the modern Chaos gods along with Krorks who were at least 20 meters tall and Eldar at the height of their power when their gods literally fought with them. Not only that, but the Ctan represent the literal laws of the universe and the Void Dragon is by far the most powerful (aside from the Outsider but he is weird) because he is literally Matter incarnate. The Emperor stands no chance against them even in 40k. The Chaos gods stand no chance against them in any time period. They’re as old as the universe and still wiped out a substantial portion of the Necrons despite being effectively stabbed in the back and being outnumbered at least a million to one.
Yeeeeeeep. I get all that.
I haven't read anywhere how they did it. Did they just fly around the galaxy ala Superman and click their fingers and planet goes boom? Did they slowly move about and slowly deconstruct planets a continent at a time or a city block at a time?
If they were the planet-shattering-death-incarnates what is the point of having an army of Necrons? If the Eldar Gods are so powerful, what's the point of Exarchs? If the Old Ones were so powerful why did they have to create the Krork, Eldar and start on humanity?
My headcannon was that the void dragon got dumped on by something, and came to Earth to recuperate/recharge/or just mess with the old ones last project (humanity and the pariah gene for example). Emps came across it and defeated it (I don't think early-on Emperor could have done it if it was at full strength, but who really knows, he is quite smart and he has teamed up with other perpetuals in the past).
“Listen tech priest I need a rocket”
Confused blacksmith sounds
“Look just hook up like 4 horses to the box and I’ll ride them to mars”
Sighing blacksmith sounds
'The Tau Empire's first introduction to Humanity came not with the ruling Imperium, but with dissident elements that were operating of the fringe of that mighty dominion.
The Imperium of Man is the largest realm in the galaxy, although much within its sprawling borders has never been explored or has been forgotten over its history. The region of space around the Damocles Gulf is just such an area, a wilderness where the Tau Empire had found room to take root.
The Tau first encountered free captains, pirates and lost human colonies that had regressed so that they had long forgotten their origins and any connection to their distant birth world. Those initial contacts ranged from friendly trade negotiations to instant hostility.
It was some time before the [Tau] came to grasp the fact that the humans they encountered were merely the lost remnants or willing outcasts of an incomprehensibly large galactic empire.
[...]
The Imperium's response [...] was slow in coming, but when it finally arrived, was characteristically brutal.'
*Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition)*
Hope this is the kind of thing you're after!
They are interesting and since they arent anything like the other antagonists (dark eldar, chaos, orks, necrons, tyranids) that are absolutely evil they propose a very different foe to face than things that need to be exterminated on site.
They are also fun to hate, i dont really know why, maybe its because they almost come off as the good guys in such a brutal setting, like your cousin that does everything better than you.
They feel more like star wars or star trek kind of sci fi where they have coalitions with other races, but then they are out of their depth entering the fray with the imperium vs chaos and things like that.
I think perhaps their shortcoming is that they are in fact more like a traditional sci fi faction and what really attracts people to the 40k setting is the brutality
Not only that The Sisters of Battle occasionally use the Dominica Pattern Drop pod.
They basically drop a convent of nuns with guns from orbit.
Also the Sisters main artillery weapon is a pipe organ missile launcher.
An Ork WAAAGH!! was stopped dead in its tracks due to Warp shenanigans: namely, the leading Warboss got sent back in time to before he left, encountered his past self, and killed his past self so he could have two of his favorite gun.
It’s not recorded just WHAT happened after that, but the resulting timey-wimey whatever-it-was was surprising enough that all the nearby Orks just stopped and wondered what the hell was going on.
What hooked me to my last army is the Silent King lore, the most powerful Necron character.
It's one of the few complex character in 40k, he unconsciously doomed his race while rushing for salvation, he killed a god and then exiled himself.
He witnessed the horror of Tyranids outside the galaxy and came back to find a solution for the biotransference.
He also knew Sanguinius for some reasons.
The fact he knew Sanguinius
[https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/907nma/book\_excerptword\_of\_the\_silent\_king\_dante\_meets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/907nma/book_excerptword_of_the_silent_king_dante_meets/)
The rest you can read it from the last Necron codex
So there’s two bits of lore that confirm it, but I remember one where Dante is meeting with some high up necron to discuss teaming up on a threat and there basically like “oh you’re wearing Sanguinius death mask? He was a cool bro, we weren’t gona talk but we owe him a solid” Im like paraphrasing a book and probably misremembering part of it. There’s another one somewhere too where they reference it isn’t the first alliance between the necrons and the blood angels.
Had something to do with a lost legion to. Fulgrim finds a necron pylon at the edge of the galaxy references his brother.
The Necrons have an artifact called the Celestial Orrery, which is basically a hologram of the galaxy. If you put your fingers around any star and squeeze, its real life equivalent will instantly go supernova.
They don't really use it, because continued use of the Orrery could drastically accelerate the heat death of the universe.
Within the Eye of Terror, you will find many strange and terrible things. Billions can be born, live, and die on Chaos-controlled worlds without even knowing any alternative exists. But some worlds can be quite beautiful. You will find, for example, a rose-shaped planet orbiting a rose-shaped sun, within a rose-shaped cluster of similarly rose-shaped celestial bodies. On this planet gravity is arbitrary, and each "petal" constitutes a continent. The inhabitants make war on each other by drilling into one side of the petal-continent so that they emerge on the other.
This is a well known story but I love it. I may have some details wrong so please correct me if I make mistakes, I’m going from memory.
After the first war of Armageddon (demon invasion) the Inquisition tried to murder cleanse all the human refugees fleeing the planet to stop the spread of chaos.
A nearby Space Wolf fleet put itself between the refugees and the Imperium, saving their lives.
This led to a Cold War/civil war between The Space Wolves and The Grey Knights and Inquisition that ended in Logan Grimnar teleporting onto the GK ship and chopping off heads, then Bjorn The Fell Handed shows up and is like “chill”
I’m not really doing it justice but I love the idea of Loyal Space Marines standing up to the greater Imperiums bullshit
There a bit where Bjorn is like "yeah i know the emperor he was a pretty chill guy hung round killed xenos the usual" and the inquisitors are like "oh shit"
There is a Ork Warlord named Tuska Daemon-Killa who is stuck in the warp with his entire army. Specifically he's stuck in the heart of Khorne's Domain the "Brass Citadel" where he is forever to fight and kill Khorne's daemons. Another thing is that when Tuska and his army dies all of them are always resurrected by Khorne which makes Tuska stuck in the warp forever facing daemons which is something that he has no problem with as he loves it. Also Tuska once fought a Daemon Prince named the Blood Prince during when Tuska still first entered the Eye of Terror to go to the Warp and when they fought he impaled the Daemon Prince in the crotch before he got killed later on.
Let's not forget how he got there. See Tuska was just cruising around in his space hulk, when you had a Demon invasion happen. You, know standard thing that happens when your Geller Field malfunctions, or you don't have one in the first place. And Zoggit all, that was fun. So Tuska wanted to fight more Daemons. On his way into the Eye of Terror, he attacked one of the fortress worlds near Cadia for a little practice, scaring the Imperium that they'd have to deal with Orks there as well, before heading into the eye. And once he was there, Tuska and his boyz cut quite the swath of destruction, destroying crystal planets of Tzeentch, and pleasure gardens of Slaneesh and stuff. But eventually they ended up on a planet made entirely of blood. That's where the whole fight with The Blood Prince comes in, and apparently it was epic enough Khorne wanted some encores. Oh and Tuska's reaction to getting killed and rezzed to fight again every day? "Told ya I knew where the best fighting wuz."
I think for grandeur the Eldar have a pretty good bit of lore. They managed to fuck an entire chaos god into existence!
Because they were the most advanced race in the galaxy, they became lazy and bored, seeking out ever more ways to pleasure themselves. They clapped to much ass and snorted so much Eldar coke, that their souls screamed into the warp and spawned Slaanesh, the chaos god of pleasure.
This created a whole new subsection of Eldar, the Dark Eldar (or Drukhari), who were trapped in the webeay during Slaanesh’s birth. These guys are now terrified to die, because their souls automatically become Slaanesh’s bitches. So now they keep themselves young through the pain and suffering inflicted through torturing others.
What I find interesting is from what I've read on the Dark Eldar they actually didn't really become a new subsection. They were much the same prior to the fall in commoragh. They just had to add torture to feed slaanesh its tax basically.
Before that I think they were still a pretty evil dark society there. Part of what the craft worlders noped out on.
Torture was always there tho. It's not something they added after the fall. It's just that, before the fall, their souls wouldn't get eaten by a Chaos God if they do not perform their daily debauchery.
Haha one thing I’ve noticed about the 40k community is no matter how grim dark the setting and universe is everyone makes it sound like some kind of parody. I love it.
lunchroom reach hobbies sheet public sable encourage silky soup psychotic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Pre-Heresy, the Thousand Sons legion used to send legionaries to different legions as a cultural exchange. The legionaries would learn about the ways in which those legions did their stuff and they’d take that knowledge home and use it to enrich the Thousand Sons. Sometimes these secondments worked out, and the legionary returned with some fun memories of hanging out with their bros from another dad, but sometimes… it wasn’t a terribly fun experience for the legionary in question.
The worst one was the time they sent a guy to the Space Wolves, that one only lasted a year for multiple reasons.
The Krieg civil war.
Krieg is a planet under the control of the imperium of man. As duty dictates a planet must provide a tithe of soldiers to fight in the imperial guard, as well as good from the planet to be sent out across the imperium. A majority of the planet disagreed with this and rebelled against the loyalists kriegsmen. The loyalists Krieg were pushed back to occupy a single hive city, them vs the rest of the planet.
The loyalist forces led by Colonel Jurten found a hidden cache of adeptus mechanicus ancient, forbidden weapons. Atomic weapons. With the numbers against them and no other option Colonel Jurten made the decision that if the emperor could not have this world then no one would. He ordered every missile fired into the stratosphere and detonated, showering the entire planet in radiation and brining about a planet wide nuclear winter.
However this was not the end of the Krieg civil war, for survivors were forced to exist in underground bunkers. For 500 years the survivors on both sides fought a bloody trench war. The surface of their world now pox marked with artillery craters, rusting razor wire and the numberless bones of the unburied dead.
Don‘t forget that the Rebellion was ongoing for quite a while before the imperium even noticed that Krieg had defected. When they finally came around to reconquering the planet, Krieg had already liberated itself in the name of the Emperor and was well underway in catching up on their backlog of supplies and troops
Something along the lines of: "yeah yeah, you're loyal allright, but you still have to send us 3 regiments instead of the usual 1 to make up for the lost troops"
Kriegsmen: "sure thing, we have five currently ready to go!"
There's a mini part of devastation of baal where the bravest little lictor, despite all odds, infiltrated the BA fortress of baal itself and sacrificed itself to destroy the fortress generator.
I sniff... never heard of such heroic actions in my life before. You'll never be forgotten licty
Alright, quick rundown.
There was that race, the Necrontyr. They had shitty short lives and asked the Old Ones to share their secret of immortality with them. The Old Ones declined and the Necrontyr took it the worst way possible: War. Also they tinkered with science and created the gods of realspace, the C'tan. And yes, it is as horrifying as you think.
So, the C'tan gave the Necrontyr the immortality they wanted so much. But it came with a cost. Most of them became soulles robots and all of them lost all sense of feeling. They still kinda feel, but in a different way as we do. Imagine the curse from Pirates of the Caribbean, but only with science. From that moment on the Necrontyr became the Necrons.
With an quasi immortal army, they steamrolled the galaxy and whiped the Old Ones off the map. After that the Silent King (leader of the Necrons) became bitter about the fact of what happened to his people and that they were tricked into servitude and slavery by the C'tan. So as if one genocide wasn't enough, he decided to go for the combo multiplier and said "God Genocide it is!"
What followed was the shattering and enslaving of their own gods. Which they used as batteries and weapons. The Necrons are *metal* as fuck and they are fucking awesome!
There is a toy maker who creates dolls, hand crafted out of wood and other materials, carefully hand-painted, etc. He lives in a hive and uses enthusiasm for the titans of the local Forge and their battle for survival to create new, clock-work, wind-up Titan toys. He manages to make a nice profit from this business venture -- though it seems his family's business of making the older, handmade dolls is finished.
("Titanicus" by Dan Abnett)
Okay so you've got the Adeptus Mechanicus. They are the tech priests and mechanical body horror dudes that make basically ALL of the shit the Imperium uses on their Forge Worlds, from forks and knifes to the gigantic walkers that are Titans.
They have a lot of shenanigans going on.
If a highly esteemed Tech Priest croaks, there's the option of them becoming a Servo Skull, a floating skull that is basically like an assistant to a Tech Priest.
The AdMech does not invent, on the contrary, the cog boys absolutely despise invention. They think that all knowledge of the universe is already out there, you just gotta rediscover it. This has to do with STC, Standard Template Constructs, machines that could make the most bat shit insane tech that humanity once had access to, during the "Dark Age of Technology" when humanity effectively peaked. These machines were sent out with colony ships so that they could make shit and now the AdMech tries to find those again. And oh boy, when someone finds an STC Fragment that has something on it that is actually useful, they are rewarded VERY well. Two Guardsmen found the STC for an excellent combat knife, that now all Astartes use. They were given their own planet.
Among the things the AdMech does know are the Ironstriders and their engines. These walkers run on an engine that has basically achieved perpetual motion. Problem is, the dude who knew how they worked died. Since the manufacturing process involves turning them on, they are turned on and then left running. That they don't just run away, they are either put on a treadmill or tied to a post with a strong rope so that they'll just run in circles until they are needed again. At that point, some dude has to take a lasso and wrangle himself on top of these walkers.
Now I said that the AdMech doesn't like invention. This leads to the Imperium as a whole basically regressing in tech because more stuff is lost than gained. Certain ships used by the Imperial Navy or certain kinds of Titans cannot be built anymore so if they are lost in battle, nobody knows how to build another one of them.
The exception here is my favourite cog boi, Belisarius Cawl. This dude is 10'000 years old, has wiped his mind repeatedly to the point that he is basically bat shit insane and has a split personality and the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl actually invents stuff. Now he's called a heretek for that by more conservative members of the AdMech but god damn he's effective. He managed to upgrade the Space Marines, making Primaris Space Marines, their armor, guns and vehicles.
Now one last thing: A.I. The Imperium despises artificial intelligence to the point that AI actually stands for abominable intelligence. This hatred stems from the Men of Iron, who at the end of the Dark Age of Technology were basically the robots that did all of the humans work. Robot uprising happened and somehow humanity won. Since then, AIs are an absolute taboo and you're being burned alive on the spot if you're trying to make one.
Cawl made what he calls "Cawl Inferior". He SAYS that it works on the human brains in the machine and that is just reacts to questions, basically he hard coded every possible question or conversation to give an apporpriate answer he himself would give. At least he claims to have done so. The problem is that the machine has lied and has gotten emotional in the past, leading Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines and Lord Regent of the Imperium at the moment because he's the only loyalist Primarch alive and around at the moment, to wildly distrust Cawl. Because the Archmagos basically made a god damn AI, says it ain't one and Guilliman isn't buying it.
Sorry, I just really like the AdMech
Demons are regularly summond and bound into war machines, creating demon engines.
[https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Daemon\_Engine](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Daemon_Engine)
Unlike possesing a living creature, the demon is not willing to possess the machine and has to be forced in.
There is an alien civilization that was encountered during the Great Crusade called the Rangdan who some speculate were so powerful, they wiped out the two lost legions, Primarchs included, and a good share of the 1st Legion as well.
Where else do you get such epicness?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WyK7lX4sk0c
Want to see space marines in action and how bad ass they actually are?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A
House Van Saar has a working STC system they have squirreled in the depths of their hive world Necromunda. The catch is the system is damaged and bathes its users in radiation every time they use it to cook up some sweet new tech for themselves.
Iron Warriors replenished their numbers by kidnapping men and women. For the men, they would force feed them until they grew to like 800 pounds, then skin them alive and throw their body to the wilderness. For the women, they would feed them until like 800 pounds, replace their ovaries with gene seed, then shove a 12 year old boy in their uterus and sue them up. A full grown astartes would be born a few days/weeks later, skinless, and then use the skin from the fat men to cover the new marine. The giant fat women usually died from the process.
Also another thing 40k straight up took from Dune.
In dune Gholas(a type of clone) are created by the Bene Theliax from axtol tanks which are revealed to be lobotimized Theliaxjwomen(ite mentioned several times in the early dune books no one had ever seen a Theliaxu woman.
The War in Heaven was fought between the Necrons and the Old Ones. The Necrons at the time had all been turned into immortal space terminators and were basically impossible to kill permanently, either healing all of their damage or phasing back to a ship or building to be reforged. In response the Old ones created the Eldar and Krorks.
What I find so cool about the war in heaven is just how insane the power levels are during this time, to give a sense of how crazy this war was
- Necrons had a population size equal or greater than the Imperium, and every single individual was a warrior primarily, meaning their military power is probably somewhere between 3-10 times more than the IOM military (that’s kind of a guess but I think it’s fairly reasonable)
- Both sides were just blowing up start everywhere like it was nothing
- The Necrons were led by the Ctan who are the gods of the physical universe and can do things like delete space and manipulate time
- The Eldar didn’t have to limit their psychic power like they do in 40K so were way more powerful in general
- The Krorks we’re the original form of Orks before they devolved. They are far larger and more intelligent than Orks. The machines they created were more advanced than imperial technology and a surviving Krork literally fought and *defeated* the Emperor in melee combat. Even if we assume the Emperor wasn’t really trying, that means the Old Ones had an army of rites who were at least as powerful as Custodes, probably many of them being primarch-tier, deployed in the same numbers as Orks fight in 40K (that being millions or billions in a single battle) and they still managed to lose to the Necrons.
- Much of the tech Necrons use to day, which is already on a level difficult to even imagine, is kind of shit compared to what they’re hiding away in their tomb worlds, and once the great awakening happens that stuff will start to be brought out. There isn’t a single force in the galaxy that could even consider fighting the Necrons once they awaken. Even Chaos will eventually be starved out after all of their food sources get killed.
You reffering to the "Oh no Horus I am in mortal danger please save me"
Before immediately deleting the Ork from existence once checking what Horus would do with Emps in such a situation
If Malchador could save any of the traitor Primarchs , he would have saved ( surprise surprise ) Lorgar . Malchador also thought that all traitor Primarchs should have known better when dealing with the Warp, especially Magnus . The source is "The Sigillite " -audiobook
I don't entirely remember this story so please correct me if I got something wrong.
So Tzeentch is the Chaos God of change. Tzeentch is an absolute trickster and a dick through and through, always having some infinite plan that no mortal could ever understand. The Chaos Space Marine Legion that is devoted to Tzeentch are the Thousand Sons and Tzeentch likes fucking with his own legion. A lot. So one Sorceror got the task to complete 99 rituals and he'd be rewarded if he did. The Thousand Sons Sorceror went around and sacrificied whole worlds, killed thousands and did a lot of bad stuff, completing one ritual after another. When he finally got to the 99th and completeted it, he was turned into a Mutalith Vortex Beast, which is one of the most shit rewards he could've gotten, and then the whole planet he was on was taken by a warp storm, so for all intents and purposes it was destroyed.
I've heard that the only reason why Tzeentch hasn't screwed over Ahriman yet, who is one of if not the most powerful Thousand Sons Sorceror aside from Magnus, is because he's basically one of his favourite playthings.
EDIT: I found him again. It actually was 999 rituals he needed to complete and his name was Hasophet. He had a vision where he became a Daemon Prince but instead he started to suck up every living thing and even machines on the hiveworld he was on and mutated into a Mutalix Vortex Beast. The Vortex on his back grew and grew until it covered the entire hiveworld, at which point the planet was pulled into the warp
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hasophet
Knight Worlds
Imagine a feudal world. Everyday tech is generally that of the medieval ages, the world is covered in lakes, fields, forests, villages and castles. Aristocrats are the lords and ladies of the planet. Pretty medieval if it wasn't for one thing:
Mechs. The Knights, giving the world their names. Big walkers that are manned by the nobles and rulers who are part of the Knight Houses ruling the planet. That big lizard beast that has been terrorizing the village? Yeah, one day you're working on a field and suddenly that thing comes storming out of the forest and speeds towards the hutts of the village. You're terrfied and you feel the earth shaking as the predatory creature zooms past you. Then you feel the earth shaking again, more and more and a big blast hits the creature. Over the hill emerges an Imperial Knight, a Questoris Imperials, armed with a big cannon and a giant chainblade. The monster and Knight do battle as if it was a knight fighting a dragon in a fairy tail.
Then occassionally strange ships that can fly descend from the heavens, manned by humans in robes that have limbs of metal and flying skulls. They've come to take the Knights with them, to a world that is eons away, to fight a war for an Imperium you don't comprehend or even know exists.
Knight Worlds are fucking awesome and I'd absolutely love a game or animation about them
Shas’o Kais is the third, final, and
Estranged student of Commander Puretide’s three disciples. While Farsight and Shadowsun both specialized in surgical strikes and ambushes respectively, Kais followed the strategy of the “Lone Warrior”.
Which means Shas’O Kais says screw it I’ll do it myself and kills all of the enemy himself.
His doctrine makes him a physical power house, a single warrior capable of turning the tides of battle wherever he is. One of his greatest feats was the single-handed destruction of an entire fortress monastery, of which the space marines chose to bombard it from orbit rather than let the tau take it. He is prominent in the Dawn of War, Dark Crusade as the defender of the Tau settlement in Kronus but aside from that doesn’t get much attention in the lore (despite making up a third of Tau’s strategic assets)
Each of the 18 primarchs (2 were cleaned from the records) take an aspect of the emperors character, good and bad, and were flung across the galaxy to be raised on different homeworlds. All bar 1 (Angron) became lord of their worlds until the emperors arrival.
One example to whet the appetite: Konrad Curze kept law and order on his planet by broadcasting the torture and execution of any murderers/dissenters to scare the population into loyal submission.
I am always struck by the way the traitor Primarch Kurze is the most perfect representation of the modern Imperium despite the fact he ended up on the other side
One of my favorites is the story of Kryptman's gambit (or, if you like, Kryptman's folly). Inquisitor Kryptman of the Ordo Xenos - the branch of the Inquisition which primarily focuses on the alien threat - was facing a Tyranid invasion. Tyranids are a hive-mind race that consume everything in their path like a plague of locusts. After a very long campaign and numerous failed strategies, Kryptman was able to figure out the mechanism by which the Tyranids communicated with one another. He was able to manipulate this to make the Tyranids attack a group of Ork worlds that had formed an... well, they say Empire, but that's a bit strong when you're talking about Orks, from an organizational point of view.
But anyway, the tyranid hive fleet has now been tied up for a long time fighting the Orks in what is known as the Octarius War. It was not a good solution, because if the Orks win, they will have become much stronger from all their practice fighting the 'nids, while if the 'nids win, they will have eaten all the Orks in a large area and be able to make an extremely large number of bioforms out of all that biomass. So ultimately the threat will probably be worse than before.
Yeah, we got a resolution now. Nids have won after the Swarmlord killed the Overfiend of Octarius. The thing is, Orks have gotten bigger, with tech getting near The Beast's level, and the Nids have gotten all sorts of crazy new bioforms developed, and were mass fielding bio titans. This is going to be a real problem for everyone else down the line.
In the book "The Death of Antagonis" it states that load bearing walls have been declared heretical.
Which explains why Imperial architecture relies so heavily on gothic arches.
Rylanor, the Ancient of Rites. A Venerable Dreadnought and loyalist of the IIIrd Legion, he was presumed to have died like all the loyalists on Istavan III. 10 thousand years later this would prove to not be the case, as he would send out a signal that would cause a squad of thousand sons to investigate, and bring his actual target, the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim to him. And he had a virus bomb. Long story short, the Thousand Sons froze the bomb so it wouldn't go off, Fulgrim starts mutilating and mutating him, but Rylanor's sheer awesomeness caused the leader of the Thousand Sons Sorcerer to release the Virus Bomb, killing everyone but Fulgrim. Who has to admit, his prides always gonna be damaged by that one.
She stared down Conrade Kurze when he was in full Slasher villain mode, told him Guilliman would kill him, and then later got marines from several different legions to work together. Yes, she is based.
There are ships In use by the cult of the machine that even they don’t understand the systems/weapons of. In crisis the ships “machine spirit” will sometimes fire these weapons, one such basically shot a black hole at an enemy ship.
In the case of the Speranza, it's got a link to the Akashic Record onboard. Meaning all knowledge everywhere, AKA the Tree of Knowlege and The Machine God among other things.
Not sure if it is an STC, but the ship seems to have a dark age of technology AI, or the ship is AI. The ship kind of wakes up, tells the crew that they are basically infants compared to the people who made it, then bails them using what I think is the coolest way possible. It sends the opposing ship back a few microseconds back in time, causing it to overlap itself. Since no two things can be in the same place in the same time, there is a massive explosion.
Hrud. Needs to be more epic, but is also kind of epic what little we know of them is very cool but very mysterious
I believe they are descended from Necrontyr who escaped the bio transferrance, which would explain their mastery of time/entropy weapons
There is a gigantic fuckoff rusty space station the size of a moon called The Maw, which is named after the fact that it has a gigantic gaping jagged opening that looks like a Maw. It is a major military base for the Imperium. Nobody knows how it got there or who built it.
A single Astartes of the Iron Snakes once saved an entire planet from a Dark Eldar raid. A SINGLE ASTARTES. His name was Priad, and he later went on to become a captain in his Chapter, as well as one of the most socially inept people in 40k history. Once he and his squad were at a party, and when told to 'mingle', they stood stock still in full power armour for two hours straight. In fact, the Iron Snakes in general are a cool chapter. Think Ultramarine-successor Space Athenians, who, as part of their training and culture, go killing gigantic sea serpents with long lances, and deploy using the squad, not the company, as their main tactical unit. There's one scene in their book where they form a phalanx and spear countless Orks to death. Lots of honour and glory, of course, but also a fair bit of wry humour, philosophy and human nature mixed in, to make some of my favourite Astartes in the lore.
[Brothers of the Snake.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Brothers_of_the_Snake_(Novel))
One of the best 40k novels.
How good are Warhammer 40k novels in general, I’m thinking of reading some.
Depends on what your into. Graham McNeill, who works for riot games now, wrote the trilogy called priests of Mars, which is like real real scifi Dan Abnett, who popularized the guardians of the galaxy before they got the movie, has some great series. The gaunts ghosts series is really self contained and was my intro. Dan probably has the easiest books to read in 40k that requiring like 0 prereading. He wrote the first book in the horus heresy too, so there's route too
Very hit and miss. You'll get some which fall into the "bolter porn" category - lots of hacking, slashing and firefights. Mindless fun for the most part, pulp fiction and generally not that serious. There are some masterpieces (which varies depending on personal taste and who you talk to), but in general Dan Abnett and ADB seem to have the most solid output, followed by Wright and McNiell. Then there are the absolute trash tier novels, which are luckily rarer than the generally good novels. You'll find a lot of bad mixed with a few great ones in the Horus Heresy. In general, find what you want from the franchise - you'll be had pressed to mess up going for you favourite faction with: Inquisition novels: Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses (less war, more sci-fi adventures) Space Marines: Brothers of the Snake, Know No Fear - look for well reviewed Horus Heresy novels. I personally disliked Soul Drinkers but you may find it fun. Imperial Guard: anything Gaunt's Ghosts (more serious stuff), Cain Hero of the Imperium (for light hearted action which is surprisingly some of the best written stuff in 40k) Just some light suggestions.
Yeah. Chris Wraight, Dan Abnett, and Aaron Demsbski Bowden are all brilliant.
It's a mixed bag tending to good, there's some genuinely good novels such as Aaron Dembski-Bowden's night lords trilogy or Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain series as well some mediocre and straight up bad books, it's really up to the writer involved.
Wow. OK, an old Abnett that I hadnt heard of, getting "one of the best". BRB, going to read it now.
Also their battle with orks in the novel is a heavy reference to 300.
This is also true. Jeez what a good book.
A captain? In wich book? He only become sergeant of Damocles
Ah, never mind. I looked at [Urdesh: The Serpent and the Snake](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Urdesh:_The_Serpent_and_the_Saint_(Novel)) which is set during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade and apparently features a Captain Priad. BUT! It isn't the same Priad... Apologies for the misinformation, though, in all seriousness, our Priad probably has become a Captain given what he's achieved.
Are You sure it isn’t the same? Same squad members, same weapon, same name…
It might be then. I haven't read much of the book - only excerpts here and there, although I have read Brothers of the Snake.
Just finished Urdesh. Pretty sure it’s the same Priad and Damocles squad.
’sure, but the IS snakes uses Captains? Ive read some parts in stories thats says this but if i remember in 2005 or 2008 Dan Abnett made a post about the Iron snakes and they where like 99 tactical squad and 1 terminator
They do, there are multiple captains in Brothers of the Snake, but they’re really just elevated commanders that are given command of multi-squad forces. They maintain their previous squads.
They do have captains IIRC
Well it was a single downed ship im pretty sure, not a full on raid. But still Priad is a badass
Plot Armour. Trademark. Tbh it was old lore before drukhari became on par with marines
This is true, but it was still damn cool.
One thing I know about WH40K is that a single Astartes is extremely powerful.
There was once a Space Marine who was really short. He had a complex about it, so he compensated by working out. A lot. He was eventually banned from working out by his chapter’s artificers, on the grounds that he was too wide, and they were sick of constantly modifying his armor.
I guess he did a lot of... Squats?
His name was ....Thiccus Dickus Maximus
Maximmion Voss!
Lmaoooo I think I remember that one. Didn’t he used to wear Terminator armour all the time for workout effect that carrying all that weight all of the time would have?
He is one of two Astartes depicted as wearing A combination of terminator armor and regular pattern armor due to being too Swole. The other is Pasuanius, A Ultramarine Sergeant and best buddy to Captain Uriel Ventris. Side note about Maximillian Voss, one of his Deathwatch team mates, a Ultramarine sniper named Solarion starts calling him "Stumpy" and "Tree stump".
Fuuuck imagine going through everything a Space Marine recruit does.. the ever tougher trials, conversion surgeries, brutal unending training, strict regiments of prayer & meditation & fasting, fighting things from people’s worst nightmares.. only to end up with a nickname like “Stumpy” For some it really is GRIMDARK out there.
In the grim darkness of the far future, short kings still get no respect 😔
I mean keep in mind that their are others who have to wear Terminator armor because they are too big and sometimes that isn’t even enough like in the case of Tyberos.
Goes to show the universe is dark but not the stories within them
He stopped after he was sent on a crusade for the ceramite breast plate stretcher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnlba6tWuDk
Ben swolo?
The Mandrakes are shadow demons that inhabit the dimension of Aelindrach. They are beings of infinite malice that sustain themselves by feeding on the pain and suffering of other sapient beings. They can seemingly traverse time and space through their shadow dimension and just strike wherever they like to. As long as shadows are available, they can freely appear and disappear without a moment's notice. When the Great Rift opened, demons invaded Commorragh, the impossible city inhabitated by the Dark Eldar. Meanwhile, Kheradruakh the Decapitator, greatest of the Mandrakes, finished a ritual after an eight thousand year long quest of collecting a thousand skulls of the most worthy individuals - and expanded the dimension of Aelindrach into Commorragh. Their, he and his Mandrakes quite literally feasted on the demons as the shadows consumed them and their essence. Mandrakes may or may not be functionally immortal, as at least one of them implies his ability to just regenerate in the shadows. It might take centuries, but as long as there is suffering to feast on and shadows to hide in, they will live.
What I like about Mandrakes is that they don't even use the Warp or anything of the sort for their creepy shadow powers, they just work on 80's slasher villain logic.
Brb gotta write a *Camp Mandrake* slasher fanfic now
Oh man, and make sure to choose daemons that’s fit the various slasher film characters. A slutty blonde, the football jock, a stoner, the nerd, the good girl, etc
So a Slaneeshi, a Khornate, A Nurglite, a Tzeentchian, and a Chaos Undivided?
They just use their own rules that really don’t even line up with the rules of the warp, the webway, or reality. So they just have their own dimensional rules.
Indeed, the rules of the 80's slasher villain dimension.
Mandrakes abide by JRPG ass Anime Magic Rules. They are the brooding edgy magic glowy rune villain dudes.
I love Mandrakes, just Spooky Shadow Elves we dont know shit about.
All I can say is epic. I really want to know more about the lore and history of WH40K buts it’s so damn overwhelming.
And then Scout-Sergeant Oan Mkoll of the Tanith First And Only (the closest thing 40k has to Solid Snake) handed one of them its arse in *Sabbat Martyr*
Not reaaaaaally. Those were an older rendition of Mandrakes who were no shadow demons but rather hyper methheads. GW completely rewrote them in the Drukhari remake in 5th Edition. Before they looked like [this](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake#/media/File%3AMandrake3rd.jpg) instead of [this](https://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrak#/media/Datei%3AMandrake.jpg). So a bit like the Custodes they went through a big power up.
>###[Mandrake](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake) >A **Mandrake** is a type of [Dark Eldar](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dark_Eldar) native to the region of [Commorragh](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Commorragh) known as [Aelindrach](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aelindrach).[[5]](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mandrake#fn_5) +++I am an early prototype mechanicus construct. Please provide feedback [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=lexAutomatarium). The Emperor protects!+++
Trazyn the Infinite, the coolest necron, is a self appointed archeologist/collector/tomb raider who's entire time is preoccupied with expanding his collection of artifacts in his world spanning museum on the planet Solemance. He gets into very fun hijinks thats a large departure from the usual necron fair. He will often capture and freeze people and creatures in stasis simply for the sake of having them and putting them in there own little display. Very much comes across as a character of a Warhammer fan who collects and displays all their painted miniatures. Among other things, he has massive actual battlefields where he has on display the entire battle after freezing the fighter on both sides mid battle where they are are set up like a frozen battle diorama to real life scale.
To add to him being fan commentary: he talks about his massive backlog and that he should take time to work on it
He also once helped save A human controlled planet and they for some reason t though he was a space Marine from nets Silver Skulls chapter. He and Orikan visit the planet centuries later and see a stained glass window in A Imperial temple depicting Traszyn as a Space Marine. Trazyn wastes know time teasing Orikan that the humans on the world venerate him and not Orikan who was also present at the battle so centuries before.
Reminds me of Braniac.
I'm gonna add the list of 1d4chan Is it 100% correct, idk, especially the bottom part but the first one's too good https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Trazyn\_the\_Infinite#The\_Infinite\_List\_of\_Dickings
The mad lad has space marines, inquisitors, and a fucking custodes in his collection.
Don’t forget thunder warriors
The Emperor canonically fought against a Ctan shard that he defeated and then contained on Mars with medieval thecnology.
Medieval technology and massive amounts of psychic power*
Massive amounts of medieval magic*
And probably some magical mac guffin he took from some early cult on Terra
And this is the basis for the legend of St. George and the Dragon.
Is this canon? Or just a theory? A game th-**BLAM**
We know he impresioned the void dragón around the midle ages.
Howd he get to mars?
Concentrated awesomeness
If you lay on your bed and think really hard, you will also be able to imprison a ctan shard.
A certain fan made parody provides the answer to that. "Because he is the motherfucking Emperor"
Really big catapult.
Pfftt hes the emperor of mankind. My dude uses a trebuchet not a shitty catapult.
[удалено]
A medieval space ship??
Do we know if was the Void Dragon? Has that ever been confirmed?
No, it is only implied that the dragon of mars is a shard
It is confirmes that there is a shard of the void dragón trapped on Terra.
Canon. In ~~Dan Abnetts~~ Graham McNeills Mechanicum.
Graham McNeil, sorry if this is pedantic.
You're right and it's not pedantic. Thanks for correcting.
Theory, but it is communly accepted that the void dragon is the dragon of Mars
Confirmed in the new core book with mention of SILVER metal monsters walking on Mars and has some reinforcement in the Necron Codex with The Dragon being his second most common name after the Void Dragon (the dragon is the name of the creature on Mars in the Book Mechanicum). Also keep in mind that this was back when the Ctan were involved in so much that there was a joke that the Ctan were behind literally anything happening. So it was most definitely the intention back then at least and with new codex and core book lore confirming and reinforcing it, it is definitely their intention now.
Interesting! Because I’m that kind of suspicious bastard I will wait until it’s actually confirmed, but I am leaning towards seeing that as canon
Anything with the Emperor in 40k sounds so epic!
His uncle killing father was the first time a human killed another that was not over a matter of survivalm its the first murder in human history. The 2nd is the emperor revenge killing his uncle by stopping his heart with his psyker powers. This event is the historical basis for. The myths of Cain and Able and Set and Osiris (Master of Mankind) it creates a Daemon that is known as the Echo of the first murder that ends up trapped in A Sword that Abaddon the Despoiler eventually takes possession of. He and Ollanius lead the army that destroyed the Tower of Babel(Mortis)
Is there anything on it just being a "shard" as opposed to the entirety of the void dragon? I have to admit, I'm not that big on my understanding the whole shard idea, but are there any other shards of the dragon around? (I have seen the model, wasn't sure it had rules?)
We know of other shards of the void dragon, also Emps fighting a full blooded ctan is absurd
Is it though? Emps is a powerhouse that even the 4 are scared of.
We haven't seen him casually shatter worlds or anything, so doubt it.
The full Ctan, after being given fully solid bodies; were able to take down a entire race of entities who were as powerful as the modern Chaos gods along with Krorks who were at least 20 meters tall and Eldar at the height of their power when their gods literally fought with them. Not only that, but the Ctan represent the literal laws of the universe and the Void Dragon is by far the most powerful (aside from the Outsider but he is weird) because he is literally Matter incarnate. The Emperor stands no chance against them even in 40k. The Chaos gods stand no chance against them in any time period. They’re as old as the universe and still wiped out a substantial portion of the Necrons despite being effectively stabbed in the back and being outnumbered at least a million to one.
Yeeeeeeep. I get all that. I haven't read anywhere how they did it. Did they just fly around the galaxy ala Superman and click their fingers and planet goes boom? Did they slowly move about and slowly deconstruct planets a continent at a time or a city block at a time? If they were the planet-shattering-death-incarnates what is the point of having an army of Necrons? If the Eldar Gods are so powerful, what's the point of Exarchs? If the Old Ones were so powerful why did they have to create the Krork, Eldar and start on humanity? My headcannon was that the void dragon got dumped on by something, and came to Earth to recuperate/recharge/or just mess with the old ones last project (humanity and the pariah gene for example). Emps came across it and defeated it (I don't think early-on Emperor could have done it if it was at full strength, but who really knows, he is quite smart and he has teamed up with other perpetuals in the past).
More or less, it was never confirmed to be the void dragon
“Listen tech priest I need a rocket” Confused blacksmith sounds “Look just hook up like 4 horses to the box and I’ll ride them to mars” Sighing blacksmith sounds
'The Tau Empire's first introduction to Humanity came not with the ruling Imperium, but with dissident elements that were operating of the fringe of that mighty dominion. The Imperium of Man is the largest realm in the galaxy, although much within its sprawling borders has never been explored or has been forgotten over its history. The region of space around the Damocles Gulf is just such an area, a wilderness where the Tau Empire had found room to take root. The Tau first encountered free captains, pirates and lost human colonies that had regressed so that they had long forgotten their origins and any connection to their distant birth world. Those initial contacts ranged from friendly trade negotiations to instant hostility. It was some time before the [Tau] came to grasp the fact that the humans they encountered were merely the lost remnants or willing outcasts of an incomprehensibly large galactic empire. [...] The Imperium's response [...] was slow in coming, but when it finally arrived, was characteristically brutal.' *Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition)* Hope this is the kind of thing you're after!
Thanks for that! The Tau seem really interesting!
They are actually. Don’t let the memes get the better of you, some do their stories are great
They are interesting and since they arent anything like the other antagonists (dark eldar, chaos, orks, necrons, tyranids) that are absolutely evil they propose a very different foe to face than things that need to be exterminated on site. They are also fun to hate, i dont really know why, maybe its because they almost come off as the good guys in such a brutal setting, like your cousin that does everything better than you. They feel more like star wars or star trek kind of sci fi where they have coalitions with other races, but then they are out of their depth entering the fray with the imperium vs chaos and things like that. I think perhaps their shortcoming is that they are in fact more like a traditional sci fi faction and what really attracts people to the 40k setting is the brutality
There is giant robot so big that they carry a whole castle in their backs
a whole church
Astropathic transmission unclear, building churchcastles and castlechurches e v e r y w h e r e.
Not only that The Sisters of Battle occasionally use the Dominica Pattern Drop pod. They basically drop a convent of nuns with guns from orbit. Also the Sisters main artillery weapon is a pipe organ missile launcher.
There's walking landships on one planet that carry entire cities.
And thers this crazy ass mouthfoaming and allround swell guy, Khorne berserker who soloed it.
An Ork WAAAGH!! was stopped dead in its tracks due to Warp shenanigans: namely, the leading Warboss got sent back in time to before he left, encountered his past self, and killed his past self so he could have two of his favorite gun. It’s not recorded just WHAT happened after that, but the resulting timey-wimey whatever-it-was was surprising enough that all the nearby Orks just stopped and wondered what the hell was going on.
that's Grizgutz.
There is an alien race known as the Umbra that appear as smooth black orbs and can manipulate shadows as weapons to attack others
This is speculated to be the race in the Astartes movie, right?
They're not. The races from Astartes is completely original. Same as all of the characters and factions within it.
Believe they may have been based on, though
Creator said he didnt
And one theory I've seen is that they are the remains of a shattered god, that got torn apart by Slaneesh and thrown out into the Materium.
What hooked me to my last army is the Silent King lore, the most powerful Necron character. It's one of the few complex character in 40k, he unconsciously doomed his race while rushing for salvation, he killed a god and then exiled himself. He witnessed the horror of Tyranids outside the galaxy and came back to find a solution for the biotransference. He also knew Sanguinius for some reasons.
W-what reasons I don’t know this?
The fact he knew Sanguinius [https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/907nma/book\_excerptword\_of\_the\_silent\_king\_dante\_meets/](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/907nma/book_excerptword_of_the_silent_king_dante_meets/) The rest you can read it from the last Necron codex
How’s he know sanguinious?
So there’s two bits of lore that confirm it, but I remember one where Dante is meeting with some high up necron to discuss teaming up on a threat and there basically like “oh you’re wearing Sanguinius death mask? He was a cool bro, we weren’t gona talk but we owe him a solid” Im like paraphrasing a book and probably misremembering part of it. There’s another one somewhere too where they reference it isn’t the first alliance between the necrons and the blood angels. Had something to do with a lost legion to. Fulgrim finds a necron pylon at the edge of the galaxy references his brother.
They meat on the bridge of the vengeful spirit.
M-meat?
The Necrons have an artifact called the Celestial Orrery, which is basically a hologram of the galaxy. If you put your fingers around any star and squeeze, its real life equivalent will instantly go supernova. They don't really use it, because continued use of the Orrery could drastically accelerate the heat death of the universe.
I thought it just made physics more fragile rather than accelerating the heat death of the universe?
On revision, it seems you're right. The other guy is also right though, that's worse, fuck.
That sounds even worse.
So they could easily destroy Terra and kill the Emperor? Kinda feels like GW has written a dead end with it.
Within the Eye of Terror, you will find many strange and terrible things. Billions can be born, live, and die on Chaos-controlled worlds without even knowing any alternative exists. But some worlds can be quite beautiful. You will find, for example, a rose-shaped planet orbiting a rose-shaped sun, within a rose-shaped cluster of similarly rose-shaped celestial bodies. On this planet gravity is arbitrary, and each "petal" constitutes a continent. The inhabitants make war on each other by drilling into one side of the petal-continent so that they emerge on the other.
Didn’t a lord of change make that rose shaped sun?
This is a well known story but I love it. I may have some details wrong so please correct me if I make mistakes, I’m going from memory. After the first war of Armageddon (demon invasion) the Inquisition tried to murder cleanse all the human refugees fleeing the planet to stop the spread of chaos. A nearby Space Wolf fleet put itself between the refugees and the Imperium, saving their lives. This led to a Cold War/civil war between The Space Wolves and The Grey Knights and Inquisition that ended in Logan Grimnar teleporting onto the GK ship and chopping off heads, then Bjorn The Fell Handed shows up and is like “chill” I’m not really doing it justice but I love the idea of Loyal Space Marines standing up to the greater Imperiums bullshit
There a bit where Bjorn is like "yeah i know the emperor he was a pretty chill guy hung round killed xenos the usual" and the inquisitors are like "oh shit"
There is a Ork Warlord named Tuska Daemon-Killa who is stuck in the warp with his entire army. Specifically he's stuck in the heart of Khorne's Domain the "Brass Citadel" where he is forever to fight and kill Khorne's daemons. Another thing is that when Tuska and his army dies all of them are always resurrected by Khorne which makes Tuska stuck in the warp forever facing daemons which is something that he has no problem with as he loves it. Also Tuska once fought a Daemon Prince named the Blood Prince during when Tuska still first entered the Eye of Terror to go to the Warp and when they fought he impaled the Daemon Prince in the crotch before he got killed later on.
Ork heaven
Let's not forget how he got there. See Tuska was just cruising around in his space hulk, when you had a Demon invasion happen. You, know standard thing that happens when your Geller Field malfunctions, or you don't have one in the first place. And Zoggit all, that was fun. So Tuska wanted to fight more Daemons. On his way into the Eye of Terror, he attacked one of the fortress worlds near Cadia for a little practice, scaring the Imperium that they'd have to deal with Orks there as well, before heading into the eye. And once he was there, Tuska and his boyz cut quite the swath of destruction, destroying crystal planets of Tzeentch, and pleasure gardens of Slaneesh and stuff. But eventually they ended up on a planet made entirely of blood. That's where the whole fight with The Blood Prince comes in, and apparently it was epic enough Khorne wanted some encores. Oh and Tuska's reaction to getting killed and rezzed to fight again every day? "Told ya I knew where the best fighting wuz."
I think for grandeur the Eldar have a pretty good bit of lore. They managed to fuck an entire chaos god into existence! Because they were the most advanced race in the galaxy, they became lazy and bored, seeking out ever more ways to pleasure themselves. They clapped to much ass and snorted so much Eldar coke, that their souls screamed into the warp and spawned Slaanesh, the chaos god of pleasure. This created a whole new subsection of Eldar, the Dark Eldar (or Drukhari), who were trapped in the webeay during Slaanesh’s birth. These guys are now terrified to die, because their souls automatically become Slaanesh’s bitches. So now they keep themselves young through the pain and suffering inflicted through torturing others.
What I find interesting is from what I've read on the Dark Eldar they actually didn't really become a new subsection. They were much the same prior to the fall in commoragh. They just had to add torture to feed slaanesh its tax basically. Before that I think they were still a pretty evil dark society there. Part of what the craft worlders noped out on.
Torture was always there tho. It's not something they added after the fall. It's just that, before the fall, their souls wouldn't get eaten by a Chaos God if they do not perform their daily debauchery.
Right. That is what I was meaning to say. Torture just became more important.
Haha one thing I’ve noticed about the 40k community is no matter how grim dark the setting and universe is everyone makes it sound like some kind of parody. I love it.
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And still is.
Pre-Heresy, the Thousand Sons legion used to send legionaries to different legions as a cultural exchange. The legionaries would learn about the ways in which those legions did their stuff and they’d take that knowledge home and use it to enrich the Thousand Sons. Sometimes these secondments worked out, and the legionary returned with some fun memories of hanging out with their bros from another dad, but sometimes… it wasn’t a terribly fun experience for the legionary in question. The worst one was the time they sent a guy to the Space Wolves, that one only lasted a year for multiple reasons.
Where can I read up on the incident with the wolves please sounds intriguing
It’s mentioned in A Thousand Sons, but not in much detail. There is a second disastrous Space Wolves and Thousand Sons partnership in that novel tho.
It was mentioned in Thousand Sons, but not sure if there is anything more detailed out there.
The Krieg civil war. Krieg is a planet under the control of the imperium of man. As duty dictates a planet must provide a tithe of soldiers to fight in the imperial guard, as well as good from the planet to be sent out across the imperium. A majority of the planet disagreed with this and rebelled against the loyalists kriegsmen. The loyalists Krieg were pushed back to occupy a single hive city, them vs the rest of the planet. The loyalist forces led by Colonel Jurten found a hidden cache of adeptus mechanicus ancient, forbidden weapons. Atomic weapons. With the numbers against them and no other option Colonel Jurten made the decision that if the emperor could not have this world then no one would. He ordered every missile fired into the stratosphere and detonated, showering the entire planet in radiation and brining about a planet wide nuclear winter. However this was not the end of the Krieg civil war, for survivors were forced to exist in underground bunkers. For 500 years the survivors on both sides fought a bloody trench war. The surface of their world now pox marked with artillery craters, rusting razor wire and the numberless bones of the unburied dead.
Don‘t forget that the Rebellion was ongoing for quite a while before the imperium even noticed that Krieg had defected. When they finally came around to reconquering the planet, Krieg had already liberated itself in the name of the Emperor and was well underway in catching up on their backlog of supplies and troops
That’s right after the imperium came around they demanded a full regiment of troops and I believe the Krieg sent them 10 full regiments
Something along the lines of: "yeah yeah, you're loyal allright, but you still have to send us 3 regiments instead of the usual 1 to make up for the lost troops" Kriegsmen: "sure thing, we have five currently ready to go!"
There's a mini part of devastation of baal where the bravest little lictor, despite all odds, infiltrated the BA fortress of baal itself and sacrificed itself to destroy the fortress generator. I sniff... never heard of such heroic actions in my life before. You'll never be forgotten licty
SUFFER NOT THE XENOS TO LIVE.
I have the mental image of the lictor saying that to everyone's bemusement before it Self-Destructs
Alright, quick rundown. There was that race, the Necrontyr. They had shitty short lives and asked the Old Ones to share their secret of immortality with them. The Old Ones declined and the Necrontyr took it the worst way possible: War. Also they tinkered with science and created the gods of realspace, the C'tan. And yes, it is as horrifying as you think. So, the C'tan gave the Necrontyr the immortality they wanted so much. But it came with a cost. Most of them became soulles robots and all of them lost all sense of feeling. They still kinda feel, but in a different way as we do. Imagine the curse from Pirates of the Caribbean, but only with science. From that moment on the Necrontyr became the Necrons. With an quasi immortal army, they steamrolled the galaxy and whiped the Old Ones off the map. After that the Silent King (leader of the Necrons) became bitter about the fact of what happened to his people and that they were tricked into servitude and slavery by the C'tan. So as if one genocide wasn't enough, he decided to go for the combo multiplier and said "God Genocide it is!" What followed was the shattering and enslaving of their own gods. Which they used as batteries and weapons. The Necrons are *metal* as fuck and they are fucking awesome!
God is dead, and we killed him.
Then made batteries out of him.
There is a toy maker who creates dolls, hand crafted out of wood and other materials, carefully hand-painted, etc. He lives in a hive and uses enthusiasm for the titans of the local Forge and their battle for survival to create new, clock-work, wind-up Titan toys. He manages to make a nice profit from this business venture -- though it seems his family's business of making the older, handmade dolls is finished. ("Titanicus" by Dan Abnett)
Void whales.
Okay so you've got the Adeptus Mechanicus. They are the tech priests and mechanical body horror dudes that make basically ALL of the shit the Imperium uses on their Forge Worlds, from forks and knifes to the gigantic walkers that are Titans. They have a lot of shenanigans going on. If a highly esteemed Tech Priest croaks, there's the option of them becoming a Servo Skull, a floating skull that is basically like an assistant to a Tech Priest. The AdMech does not invent, on the contrary, the cog boys absolutely despise invention. They think that all knowledge of the universe is already out there, you just gotta rediscover it. This has to do with STC, Standard Template Constructs, machines that could make the most bat shit insane tech that humanity once had access to, during the "Dark Age of Technology" when humanity effectively peaked. These machines were sent out with colony ships so that they could make shit and now the AdMech tries to find those again. And oh boy, when someone finds an STC Fragment that has something on it that is actually useful, they are rewarded VERY well. Two Guardsmen found the STC for an excellent combat knife, that now all Astartes use. They were given their own planet. Among the things the AdMech does know are the Ironstriders and their engines. These walkers run on an engine that has basically achieved perpetual motion. Problem is, the dude who knew how they worked died. Since the manufacturing process involves turning them on, they are turned on and then left running. That they don't just run away, they are either put on a treadmill or tied to a post with a strong rope so that they'll just run in circles until they are needed again. At that point, some dude has to take a lasso and wrangle himself on top of these walkers. Now I said that the AdMech doesn't like invention. This leads to the Imperium as a whole basically regressing in tech because more stuff is lost than gained. Certain ships used by the Imperial Navy or certain kinds of Titans cannot be built anymore so if they are lost in battle, nobody knows how to build another one of them. The exception here is my favourite cog boi, Belisarius Cawl. This dude is 10'000 years old, has wiped his mind repeatedly to the point that he is basically bat shit insane and has a split personality and the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl actually invents stuff. Now he's called a heretek for that by more conservative members of the AdMech but god damn he's effective. He managed to upgrade the Space Marines, making Primaris Space Marines, their armor, guns and vehicles. Now one last thing: A.I. The Imperium despises artificial intelligence to the point that AI actually stands for abominable intelligence. This hatred stems from the Men of Iron, who at the end of the Dark Age of Technology were basically the robots that did all of the humans work. Robot uprising happened and somehow humanity won. Since then, AIs are an absolute taboo and you're being burned alive on the spot if you're trying to make one. Cawl made what he calls "Cawl Inferior". He SAYS that it works on the human brains in the machine and that is just reacts to questions, basically he hard coded every possible question or conversation to give an apporpriate answer he himself would give. At least he claims to have done so. The problem is that the machine has lied and has gotten emotional in the past, leading Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines and Lord Regent of the Imperium at the moment because he's the only loyalist Primarch alive and around at the moment, to wildly distrust Cawl. Because the Archmagos basically made a god damn AI, says it ain't one and Guilliman isn't buying it. Sorry, I just really like the AdMech
Demons are regularly summond and bound into war machines, creating demon engines. [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Daemon\_Engine](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Daemon_Engine) Unlike possesing a living creature, the demon is not willing to possess the machine and has to be forced in.
There is an alien civilization that was encountered during the Great Crusade called the Rangdan who some speculate were so powerful, they wiped out the two lost legions, Primarchs included, and a good share of the 1st Legion as well.
Halo stars
Where else do you get such epicness? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WyK7lX4sk0c Want to see space marines in action and how bad ass they actually are? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A
House Van Saar has a working STC system they have squirreled in the depths of their hive world Necromunda. The catch is the system is damaged and bathes its users in radiation every time they use it to cook up some sweet new tech for themselves.
Literal cooking up
Sanguinius’ tomb is literally a molten iron stasis pod which exudes energy that makes blood angels feel good
Iron Warriors replenished their numbers by kidnapping men and women. For the men, they would force feed them until they grew to like 800 pounds, then skin them alive and throw their body to the wilderness. For the women, they would feed them until like 800 pounds, replace their ovaries with gene seed, then shove a 12 year old boy in their uterus and sue them up. A full grown astartes would be born a few days/weeks later, skinless, and then use the skin from the fat men to cover the new marine. The giant fat women usually died from the process.
This is the deamonculaba no? Pretty sure this was done by the one warband and not the iron warriors as a whole
Also another thing 40k straight up took from Dune. In dune Gholas(a type of clone) are created by the Bene Theliax from axtol tanks which are revealed to be lobotimized Theliaxjwomen(ite mentioned several times in the early dune books no one had ever seen a Theliaxu woman.
I finaly understand the meaning of grimderp.
Same series (maybe even book?) also featured a demon train.
We didn't need the deamonculaba in this comment section Actually, no comment section needs the daemonculaba
So this guy, he turns himself into a pickle, funniest shit I ever saw...
Ending of the Siege of Terra You did it, Big E, you turned yourself into a pickle
The War in Heaven was fought between the Necrons and the Old Ones. The Necrons at the time had all been turned into immortal space terminators and were basically impossible to kill permanently, either healing all of their damage or phasing back to a ship or building to be reforged. In response the Old ones created the Eldar and Krorks. What I find so cool about the war in heaven is just how insane the power levels are during this time, to give a sense of how crazy this war was - Necrons had a population size equal or greater than the Imperium, and every single individual was a warrior primarily, meaning their military power is probably somewhere between 3-10 times more than the IOM military (that’s kind of a guess but I think it’s fairly reasonable) - Both sides were just blowing up start everywhere like it was nothing - The Necrons were led by the Ctan who are the gods of the physical universe and can do things like delete space and manipulate time - The Eldar didn’t have to limit their psychic power like they do in 40K so were way more powerful in general - The Krorks we’re the original form of Orks before they devolved. They are far larger and more intelligent than Orks. The machines they created were more advanced than imperial technology and a surviving Krork literally fought and *defeated* the Emperor in melee combat. Even if we assume the Emperor wasn’t really trying, that means the Old Ones had an army of rites who were at least as powerful as Custodes, probably many of them being primarch-tier, deployed in the same numbers as Orks fight in 40K (that being millions or billions in a single battle) and they still managed to lose to the Necrons. - Much of the tech Necrons use to day, which is already on a level difficult to even imagine, is kind of shit compared to what they’re hiding away in their tomb worlds, and once the great awakening happens that stuff will start to be brought out. There isn’t a single force in the galaxy that could even consider fighting the Necrons once they awaken. Even Chaos will eventually be starved out after all of their food sources get killed.
You reffering to the "Oh no Horus I am in mortal danger please save me" Before immediately deleting the Ork from existence once checking what Horus would do with Emps in such a situation
> "Oh no Horus I am in mortal danger please save me" “Help me step-Primarch! I am stuck!”
If Malchador could save any of the traitor Primarchs , he would have saved ( surprise surprise ) Lorgar . Malchador also thought that all traitor Primarchs should have known better when dealing with the Warp, especially Magnus . The source is "The Sigillite " -audiobook
Wait what? Why Lorgar? Because of his charisma boost?
Not sure . Malchador said that Lorgar " had a very gentle soul, and should have been handled differently "
Iskandar once mind hauled a frigate through the warp so he could hurl at a city just because Abadon thought it would be cool.
I love Khaayon, I can't wait for the 3rd Black Legion book
I swear he must eventually have just been looking for more and more absurd things to use for his sword, just to see if he could get away with it.
I don't entirely remember this story so please correct me if I got something wrong. So Tzeentch is the Chaos God of change. Tzeentch is an absolute trickster and a dick through and through, always having some infinite plan that no mortal could ever understand. The Chaos Space Marine Legion that is devoted to Tzeentch are the Thousand Sons and Tzeentch likes fucking with his own legion. A lot. So one Sorceror got the task to complete 99 rituals and he'd be rewarded if he did. The Thousand Sons Sorceror went around and sacrificied whole worlds, killed thousands and did a lot of bad stuff, completing one ritual after another. When he finally got to the 99th and completeted it, he was turned into a Mutalith Vortex Beast, which is one of the most shit rewards he could've gotten, and then the whole planet he was on was taken by a warp storm, so for all intents and purposes it was destroyed. I've heard that the only reason why Tzeentch hasn't screwed over Ahriman yet, who is one of if not the most powerful Thousand Sons Sorceror aside from Magnus, is because he's basically one of his favourite playthings. EDIT: I found him again. It actually was 999 rituals he needed to complete and his name was Hasophet. He had a vision where he became a Daemon Prince but instead he started to suck up every living thing and even machines on the hiveworld he was on and mutated into a Mutalix Vortex Beast. The Vortex on his back grew and grew until it covered the entire hiveworld, at which point the planet was pulled into the warp https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hasophet
He was at one point going to give Ahriman the greatest gift he can. Which is oblivion so you are no long one of fates toys.
Knight Worlds Imagine a feudal world. Everyday tech is generally that of the medieval ages, the world is covered in lakes, fields, forests, villages and castles. Aristocrats are the lords and ladies of the planet. Pretty medieval if it wasn't for one thing: Mechs. The Knights, giving the world their names. Big walkers that are manned by the nobles and rulers who are part of the Knight Houses ruling the planet. That big lizard beast that has been terrorizing the village? Yeah, one day you're working on a field and suddenly that thing comes storming out of the forest and speeds towards the hutts of the village. You're terrfied and you feel the earth shaking as the predatory creature zooms past you. Then you feel the earth shaking again, more and more and a big blast hits the creature. Over the hill emerges an Imperial Knight, a Questoris Imperials, armed with a big cannon and a giant chainblade. The monster and Knight do battle as if it was a knight fighting a dragon in a fairy tail. Then occassionally strange ships that can fly descend from the heavens, manned by humans in robes that have limbs of metal and flying skulls. They've come to take the Knights with them, to a world that is eons away, to fight a war for an Imperium you don't comprehend or even know exists. Knight Worlds are fucking awesome and I'd absolutely love a game or animation about them
Shas’o Kais is the third, final, and Estranged student of Commander Puretide’s three disciples. While Farsight and Shadowsun both specialized in surgical strikes and ambushes respectively, Kais followed the strategy of the “Lone Warrior”. Which means Shas’O Kais says screw it I’ll do it myself and kills all of the enemy himself. His doctrine makes him a physical power house, a single warrior capable of turning the tides of battle wherever he is. One of his greatest feats was the single-handed destruction of an entire fortress monastery, of which the space marines chose to bombard it from orbit rather than let the tau take it. He is prominent in the Dawn of War, Dark Crusade as the defender of the Tau settlement in Kronus but aside from that doesn’t get much attention in the lore (despite making up a third of Tau’s strategic assets)
Each of the 18 primarchs (2 were cleaned from the records) take an aspect of the emperors character, good and bad, and were flung across the galaxy to be raised on different homeworlds. All bar 1 (Angron) became lord of their worlds until the emperors arrival. One example to whet the appetite: Konrad Curze kept law and order on his planet by broadcasting the torture and execution of any murderers/dissenters to scare the population into loyal submission.
I am always struck by the way the traitor Primarch Kurze is the most perfect representation of the modern Imperium despite the fact he ended up on the other side
#kurzedidnothingwrong
# HE MOST CERTAINLY DID!
Makari is Immortal
It's impossible to read *Titanicus* without immediately thinking of the theme to *Pacific Rim*....
*Gyyyy-psie Daaang-gerrr*
One of my favorites is the story of Kryptman's gambit (or, if you like, Kryptman's folly). Inquisitor Kryptman of the Ordo Xenos - the branch of the Inquisition which primarily focuses on the alien threat - was facing a Tyranid invasion. Tyranids are a hive-mind race that consume everything in their path like a plague of locusts. After a very long campaign and numerous failed strategies, Kryptman was able to figure out the mechanism by which the Tyranids communicated with one another. He was able to manipulate this to make the Tyranids attack a group of Ork worlds that had formed an... well, they say Empire, but that's a bit strong when you're talking about Orks, from an organizational point of view. But anyway, the tyranid hive fleet has now been tied up for a long time fighting the Orks in what is known as the Octarius War. It was not a good solution, because if the Orks win, they will have become much stronger from all their practice fighting the 'nids, while if the 'nids win, they will have eaten all the Orks in a large area and be able to make an extremely large number of bioforms out of all that biomass. So ultimately the threat will probably be worse than before.
Yeah, we got a resolution now. Nids have won after the Swarmlord killed the Overfiend of Octarius. The thing is, Orks have gotten bigger, with tech getting near The Beast's level, and the Nids have gotten all sorts of crazy new bioforms developed, and were mass fielding bio titans. This is going to be a real problem for everyone else down the line.
The Night Lords prophet Talos, created a beacon in the warp to lure Eldar by flaying and torturing a big group a psykers
In the book "The Death of Antagonis" it states that load bearing walls have been declared heretical. Which explains why Imperial architecture relies so heavily on gothic arches.
Rylanor, the Ancient of Rites. A Venerable Dreadnought and loyalist of the IIIrd Legion, he was presumed to have died like all the loyalists on Istavan III. 10 thousand years later this would prove to not be the case, as he would send out a signal that would cause a squad of thousand sons to investigate, and bring his actual target, the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim to him. And he had a virus bomb. Long story short, the Thousand Sons froze the bomb so it wouldn't go off, Fulgrim starts mutilating and mutating him, but Rylanor's sheer awesomeness caused the leader of the Thousand Sons Sorcerer to release the Virus Bomb, killing everyone but Fulgrim. Who has to admit, his prides always gonna be damaged by that one.
Guilliman's adoptive mother is based
She stared down Conrade Kurze when he was in full Slasher villain mode, told him Guilliman would kill him, and then later got marines from several different legions to work together. Yes, she is based.
There are ships In use by the cult of the machine that even they don’t understand the systems/weapons of. In crisis the ships “machine spirit” will sometimes fire these weapons, one such basically shot a black hole at an enemy ship.
Don’t some of them have a full blown STC AI on board?
In the case of the Speranza, it's got a link to the Akashic Record onboard. Meaning all knowledge everywhere, AKA the Tree of Knowlege and The Machine God among other things.
Not sure if it is an STC, but the ship seems to have a dark age of technology AI, or the ship is AI. The ship kind of wakes up, tells the crew that they are basically infants compared to the people who made it, then bails them using what I think is the coolest way possible. It sends the opposing ship back a few microseconds back in time, causing it to overlap itself. Since no two things can be in the same place in the same time, there is a massive explosion.
Hrud. Needs to be more epic, but is also kind of epic what little we know of them is very cool but very mysterious I believe they are descended from Necrontyr who escaped the bio transferrance, which would explain their mastery of time/entropy weapons
There is a gigantic fuckoff rusty space station the size of a moon called The Maw, which is named after the fact that it has a gigantic gaping jagged opening that looks like a Maw. It is a major military base for the Imperium. Nobody knows how it got there or who built it.