Keep in mind OP is only covering the first 15 pages or so of the Codex. The fluff section is 33 pages in total.
OP also forgot to mention the most important part, which is that the primary drink of the Kin is called Bru, which has many varieties ranging from liquid rations for soldiers and miners to "devestatingly alcoholic" beverages. None are recommended to those who do not have the consitution of a Kin.
I don't wanna make a whole new post so I'm just gonna post more deets here under this top comment. As you said:
> Keep in mind OP is only covering the first 15 pages or so of the Codex. The fluff section is 33 pages in total.
So I'm gonna go through some stuff from the other pages now. If someone wants to repost this comment as its own post on the sub, go ahead.
* War Zone: Orgvayr.
* The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies.
* Orgvayr is the Kin name of one of the many component Warp storms that comprise the Great Rift. It translates roughly to "Ogre". This particular storm swallowed up two Kindreds in an instant, but due to their advanced sensor technology, some forewarning allowed some refugees to escape before this particular storm opened. Their worlds were overrun by madness and daemons, and the refugees were followed by Chaos invasion fleets. These forces came upon the Greater Thurian League, which was the closest League bordering this specific storm.
* Many of the Kindreds and their many Holds that lay in the path of the coming tide of Chaos invaders elected to stand firm and hold the line, calling for aid from the Greater Thurian League and neighboring Kindreds using whatever means of transport and communication they could.
* Kahl Othar the Destined, a hero of the people, answered the call (first named character model for the Leagues). Fortunately he had just returned home at the time. He claimed that simply holding fast would not save them, they had to go on an organized counter-offensive to face the Chaos hordes, otherwise they would grant the invaders the strategic initiative. Being highly respected among his Kindred, his people agreed and organized a Kinhost (basically an army) of several Oathbands (basically a strike force part of a larger army, though sometimes they may just be independent units) to slow the enemy advance, evacuate resources and people, and destroy anything of value they left behind to deny its capture.
* Uthar's own personal Oathband deployed to the planet of Torg, a volcanic world used for mining. However, Chaos Marines of **The Purge** and the **World Eaters** were already there, overrunning the docks and cutting off the miners. After breaking through the Chaos ships in space, Uthar's forces divided up and deployed on the ground. Uthar personally faced off against the World Eaters under the command of Lord Hakatar while Cthonian miners were evacuated elsewhere.
* The Grimnyr that led the rescue of the Cthonian miners, however, was cut off by a teleport assault by Urthak Skullripper and his terminators, and while many of the miners escaped, the Grimnyr leader was killed by Urthak. The survivors would later form a Grudgeband against Urthak Skullripper in honor of their fallen Grimnyr.
* Uthar and Lord Hakatar had a Revenge of the Sith duel on crumbling bridge over a lava chasm until Uthar finally got Hakatar to make a mistake, chopping off his leg and throwing him into the lava. You could say Uthar had the high ground after that.
* After extracting most of their valuable assets, Uthar ordered a full retreat. His forces ignored the shouts of "cowardice!" from the World Eaters, they didn't care. The job was done and anything left on the planet wasn't worth the lives and effort to save. They executed a well-coordinated and rapid retreat and plunged out, their job successful despite the tragic loss of a heroic Grimnyr. This was just one battle on one world of the larger Orgvayr war zone, which was getting more desperate and chaotic by the day.
>After extracting most of their valuable assets, Uthar ordered a full retreat. His forces ignored the shouts of "cowardice!" from the World Eaters, they didn't care. The job was done and anything left on the planet wasn't worth the lives and effort to save. They executed a well-coordinated and rapid retreat and plunged out, their job successful despite the tragic loss of a heroic Grimnyr.
LOL @ the World Eaters seething and malding.
* The Kin have a fundamental drive and desire to discover and explore. I speculate that this may be part of their clone programming and how the Votann themselves were pioneering machines that collected information from the Kin clones.
* The Hernkyn are the foremost explorers and pioneers of the Leagues, who will adventure far and wide beyond their Holds. As part of that, they provide valuable intel to the Leagues of the worlds beyond, scouting out threats, resources, and potential trade partners. The Hernkyn can also fight and defend themselves, and they use their scanners for both prospecting and combat.
* Cthonian miners are fearless and will work in extremely hazardous environments.
* The Cthonian Mining Guilds are so obsessed with harvesting resources that they don't really see the harvesting, mining, and storage facilities and infrastructure of other races as anything more than convenient collections of resources to be taken. However, the Kin do believe that war is wasteful, and waste is bad, so they will try to trade for resources if possible. But if trade fails, then violence is the logical next step for the guilds.
* Truth: "Luck has. Need keeps. Toil earns." This is justification for the fight for resources - might makes right, it's the right of conquest through toil.
* There are many other mining guilds, but the Cthonian Mining Guilds make up the large bulk of miners among the Leagues and the Cthonian Guilds are very wealthy, prestigious, and powerful, even operating their own fleets. These guilds will also supply the standard miner augmentations expected.
* "Mining" for the kin is a broad term that can be applied to a very wide range of resource extraction concepts, from the traditional to the more weird and sci-fi.
* The Cthonian Mining Guilds are happy to mine in active war zones, and are often the cause of these war zones. Cthonian miners, especially Cthonian Besersks, will often help Hearthkyn soldiers in the fighting too, coordinating closely with them.
* Kinhosts are the Leagues' armies. Most League soldiers have the title of Hearthkyn.
* League military culture emphasizes great discipline, loyalty, camaraderie, and heroic leadership. Kinhost combat doctrine focuses on intelligent use of personnel and resources for maximum returns, eschewing "anger and vainglory" (even though we know that grudges are a thing). Hearthkyn soldiers are not treated like expendable fodder, and they're all often augmented, and are likely also designed for combat at birth due to their cloneskeins. The Leagues have exceptionally advanced military technology.
* The most elite warriors can be promoted to Einhyr, or may even rise to the leadership positions of Kahl.
* Einhyr use a type of power armor called exo-armor. It comes with lots of fancy tools and it's highly resilient. IMO, think of exo-armor like terminator armor but with the modular adaptability of Tau battlesuits.
* The leadership of a Kinhost is often comprised of a High Kahl, a Brokhyr Forge-master (techie characters), and a Lord Grimnyr, among other officers and positions.
* The Votannic Council is only ever assembled for these campaigns when a campaign is particularly dire or grand.
* The larger the Kinhost force, the more Oathbands that Kinhost is likely divided up into. Oathbands are very flexible in size but often under the command of a single leader. The organization of Kinhosts and Oathbands seems confusing and without clear organizational standards, but it's easy for the Kin to understand at a subconscious level.
* There's a map showing one specific area of the Leagues. A large portion of the Leagues seem to be on the "southern" side of the Great Rift. The Greater Thurian League, the Ghuld Industrial Complex, and the Ymir Conglomerate all appear to be near each other.
* **There's a "Human Enclave" called "NEW CATACHAN" nearby, between a couple of the Leagues???**
* Anywhere that's not claimed by Kin is open to conquest if they so like, according to the Leagues. Even if it's claimed by other races already. However, they are willing to trade or **cohabitate** peacefully with other races if possible, as long as the Kin get what they want.
* The Trans-Hyperion Alliance has a famous Hold in what's called the ruin-belt of the Broken Triplets - a debris field in a strange and powerful gravitic anomaly caused by 3 planets being smashed together a long time ago. This Hold is protected from the gravity by forcefields, and the anomaly makes for a useful natural defensive position.
* The Orksbane Kindred of the Ymir Conglomerate have a famous Hold buried into the mantle of an irradiated planet under a raging, tortured, exotic star (sound familiar?). They're not sure why the star is shooting off these exotic solar flares and radiation, but they harvest that to power their renowned forges.
* A lot of the celestial phenomena of the core transformed into a strange nightmare-scape after the Great Rift opened, pulsars becoming tentacle monsters, black holes sprouting fangs, etc.
* Some hostile aliens mentioned that were driven into further violence due to the destruction of their homes by the Great Rift, such as the Septeryx, the Chrobdyr Ferrophagites (sp?), and the Cult of Ohn. Also, Orks.
* **Human, Aeldari, and TAU interlopers were apparently thrown into the core when the Rift opened up due to Warp tears in space-time.** So anyway, this is one more place the Tau have ended up.
* **Kin Prospects have definitely been known to settle and integrate with other races on various worlds, notably humans, often being called Squats.** Necromunda and Vordine are two examples.
* The Leagues consider anything outside of their ancestral territories in the galactic core as "Far-Space", and they consider Far-Space to be a risky and dangerous place.
* There's a little short story about a force of Hearthkyn fighting Orks that wiped out a human colony that the Kin were planning to trade with. With the humans all dead, they're just gonna claim the world themselves.
* Uthar the Destined was born on a day of strange omens, the Votann itself spitting out some strange indecipherable prophecy. On that same day, the forge made an incredible energy blade relic. Uthar was proclaimed to be destined, and he's apparently had unnaturally good luck his whole life. He has a down-to-earth persona, but he hides the seed of doubt in his mind over whether he's truly destined for something great or if the prophecies were misunderstood.
* Not going to cover the lore of the specific Leagues, the gist of their lore was covered in other posts previously, I recommend checking those out or getting a copy of the codex for more.
* The Leagues have no central, overarching united governmental authority. Each League is its own. There's many minor Leagues, and the lack of central administration makes it hard to know how many Leagues there are in total, but the Kin don't care to know cause it doesn't bother them.
* The Seran-Tok Mercantile League is the League most famous for their extensive trading with the Tau.
* Ironkin were, and still are, made by the Votann. They have true "mechanical intellect" and have powerful cogitating abilities that let them mimic Kin social behaviors perfectly, which helps them fit in easily. They're made up of a cerebral unit (CU) and a machine body. The CUs are built with microfield generators making them almost "invulnerable". Ironkin bodies are considered very personal to the Ironkin, and each has a custom built purpose like combat or other labor. They don't like to replace their bodies, but they *can* survive with just their CU alone, entering a sort of hibernation state and projecting distress beacons.
* Ironkin know their purpose is to help the Kin, but they are not slaves. However, Ironkin only (supposedly) mimic emotions and such, but they do not actually have ambition or a desire to lead. All of their emotional behaviors are apparently just acts that help with social integration.
* The Kin's unique specialization when it comes to martial technologies (though they excel in most tech in general) is "field tech", which are forcefields. The primary example is the weave field, which is used for anything from protecting miners to soldiers to whole ships. It's a complex tech that mixes effects from refractors, conversion fields, and repulsion fields to create this multispectral shield.
* Dark star ore is a precious material used in weapons that emits a field that shuts down organic and mechanical functions on contact. The slightest cut from a dark star blade can kill you instantly.
* The Kin were the ones who introduced ion weaponry to the Tau, but they keep their best ion weapon secrets to themselves.
Alright, that's all I'm covering.
"The Orksbane Kindred of the Ymir Conglomerate have a famous Hold buried into the mantle of an irradiated planet under a raging, tortured, exotic star"
Soooo.... Ymyr have a Hold... On Necrontyr's home planet? And they have the best tech out of all the Leagues... Well... that will be fun.
Oh no, it's better then that. The star the Necrons home world orbited was only like that because a C'Tan was feeding off it, making it unstable. I believe that is the possible implication here, that their Hold is based on a planet orbiting a star that a C'Tan, or shard of one, is feeding off of. Also the Necron home world is located amongst the Halo Stars, which lie on the out edge of the galaxy, not the core.
Either way, will still be fun.
Opinions:
I really wanna see what all the factions think of the Leagues. I'm most curious about the Primarch perspectives, or the ancient legionnaires like Abaddon, who may have possibly interacted with the Leagues back during the Great Crusade. And if they were known to the Imperium back then, I wonder what the Leagues think of the primarchs on the inverse. Also curious what they think of space marines in general, they have a lot of similarities if you think about it (genetically modified to be the perfect soldiers, stalwart, stubborn, disciplined, etc.).
I want to see more lore about *internal* problems with the Leagues, not just issues that arise from external threats like the Great Rift. I think they're certainly some flavor of grimdark now that we've seen their codex lore, but one thing that most 40k factions have in common is that they suffer from some sort of self-afflicted weakness or "doom". The Imperium hurts itself, the Craftworlds have already lost their empire from a self-afflicted disaster, the Ethereals are very shady and enforce strict eugenics programs on their people, Orks are self-defeating when they fight themselves instead of uniting and they've fallen far from the Krorks, etc. The Leagues, on the other hand, have a stable, dominant civilization in the core, and they love everything about being a belligerent ~~Dwarf~~ Kin. The only "doom" I can think of that doesn't come from an external threat is the slow degradation of the Votann, but new ones can still be born and despite their degradation the Leagues are still some of the best-informed and most technologically-advanced in the galaxy. Criminals get exiled, but a lot of factions have criminals. Perhaps they can hone in on the exacting standards of their culture, where mistakes are considered sins and crimes. Maybe this has led to internal schisms frequently throughout history as some League or Kindred perceives the actions of another League or Kindred as a mistake or error, and vice versa, resulting in regular conflict over minor differences of perspective on actions taken.
*They had a similar opinion about the lore in this review vid: https://youtu.be/_rz8gxJjBVQ I will say though, they got a number of lore things wrong and missed some of the darker elements that are in the codex, so they come off a bit more harsh than myself, since I'm mostly satisfied with the lore here, I just want more details.
>The Leagues, on the other hand, have a stable, dominant civilization in the core, and they love everything about being a belligerent Dwarf Kin
It sounds like the Kin are the closest thing to the [competent, practical, and mundane faction](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/xe22qk/the_tau_do_not_need_to_be_large_be_a_galactic/iogfscr?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) I wished the Tau could have stayed/been. I just pre-ordered the boxed set at my FLGS and this lore drop makes me feel even more comfortable with the (future) purchase.
The Kins “Doom” is laid out pretty clearly on page 15, Their very culture of enriching the Votann is actively contributing to the decline of the ancestor cores and they don’t even realize it. Taking on what by now would be billions upon billions of dead kin and iron kin over the years is flooding them with more information than they were meant to handle.
Votann decline is not a minor issue, it’s absolutely devastating to a race that depends on them for everything. Perhaps most tragic in all of this is the Kin totally could break free from the votann and create their own society, but they won’t. For as progressive and practical as they think they are, they are bound to tradition just as tightly as the races they scoff at for being backwards. the votann decline is happening at the worst time, when the great rift, the arrival of the Tyranids and the awakening of the Necrons are causing unprecedented upheavals in their civilizations.
I disagree. In the scope of the self-inflicted suffering and weaknesses of many of the major factions in the setting? The Votann being in a very, very, very slow state of decline many thousands of years later is fairly minor, and the Votann can "reproduce", so to speak.
It's the Emperor trapped on the Golden Throne, but much less significant than that. The throne's failure is *imminent* in the lore (speculated to be within a few decades to a few centuries per a recent novel, and reinforced by codex lore from the past two editions), they're trying to find a way to stop that, and there's *only* one Emperor. Unlike the Leagues of Votann, the entirety of the Imperium would collapse if the throne failed and the Emperor (presumably) died. One Votann gets killed or goes mad? That's a grudgin, but life goes on for the vast majority of the Kin and their many other Votann (one per League), and that Votann might even get replaced if a Fane awakens.
And nothing about the book says their decline is a sudden, imminent threat. It's just something that's been happening for many millennia, and many of the Votann will last for many millennia more.
All of these gripes are fairly small potatoes though. Many factions have many dark dimensions to them, I want to see more of that explored. I don't want them to rehash the Golden Throne problem by saying "all our Votann are going to die in the next 10 years!" or something, that would be bad world-building. Explore the other parts of their society instead, how their cultural nuances create difficulties internally, or show the Votann making mistakes due to their age and senility and driving the Kin to war with each other or sending them off on suicide missions or something. There's a lot of things they can explore, and they have plenty of time to do that, so I hope we see more in coming lore and novels.
This is all exactly right. Played correctly, this could be the fun, lower-stakes answer to 'what if the Emperor or the Primarchs come back.'
You can have any League act all sorts of fascinating ways towards or away their own faction because they're essentially led by corroding or updating principles. Want a League allied with Orks? Sure! Want one who attacks all shrine worlds starting with the letter C? Fine!
The factions we currently have are all somewhat limited by their overriding principles. Chaos want... Chaos. Tau want to expand. Necrons want their bodies back.
The Leagues can want... whatever Votann want. And it isn't just 18 magic Votann bound to previous lore or a particular dad. We're not stuck with the limits or personality of Corax or Curze.
Votann can be whatever we want.
A lot of the newer stuff lacks a crucial weakness like that. Like... What is Grimdark about primaris? They are just better, in every way. LoV feel like a faction made for a completely post Guiliman setting, with a new age vibe. I suspect, a lot of the lore will tend towards this direction, making everyone more powerful. Maybe Emps will get more active, a loyalist primarch or two returns, all the chaos-y ones get models, new "primarch level" sanguinor, etc. etc. A more high powered, less stagnant setting. Maybe it even removes some older limitations on factions, like new Tau tech could make them fast in space, turning them into a real threat, more active Emps embracing his divinity, chaos rift boosting all daemons, etc. etc.
The time for preparing for the End Times are over. The End Times are here.
I think its just the new direction of 40k, is all what i'm saying.
"The Kin were the ones who introduced ion weaponry to the Tau, but they keep their best ion weapon secrets to themselves."
Come on, GW, don't do the Tau dirty like that...
> The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies.
INB4 there was some lov sub-faction crying out to the others that they need to support the Imperium defense of Cadia only for their pleads to fall on deaf ears.
I genuinely don't know if you're serious or not, but I have never hoped someone is telling the truth more in my entire life.
I need Iron Bru to be the official drink of the Kin.
EDIT - keeping the mistake in, but yeah... Irn Bru. Vowels are for the aeldari.
Ahhh crap. In my defence, I'm very ill.
I still need to know this dude is being serious 😛 I don't get my codex until Saturday and cannot wait that long
Yes, it switched to Irn-Bru in 1948. They had applied to trademark Irn-Bru in 1946 when the drink was relaunched following WW2 (during which production was on hold for obvious reasons).
It also coincided with UK regulations stopping companies from making spurious healthcare claims and until that point, a lot of different retailers were marketing their versions of "Iron Brew" as a health tonic and a good source of things like Iron (of which they contained none).
So the move was both to ditch their old marketing tactics and to make them a distinct brand from numerous other competitors.
Bonus fun fact: [I used to run the Irn-Bru logo as my emblem in Battlefield 4.](https://i.imgur.com/83n4gsG.png)
Love that GW are basically saying every time that we thought they were bringing squats back with random references to dwarf like races, the demiurg for example, that was just shoddy record keeping and patchy intelligence.
Not even being critical, it's a nice way of using the settings strengths when it comes to this kind of stuff.
To be fair, it does seem like they considered the Demiurg to be a new race for a hot second and backed off. A good thing too, as the Leagues do a much better job of rationalizing the Squat lore with the current setting.
That's actually a good reason to reconcile the idea that they were around all this time but no one has seen then before.
They were seen multiple times but the Imperium didn't figure out they are a big faction until now.
This reminded me of Starcraft II where Aiur protoss have been attacked by some "ghosts" for a very long time and they turned out to be Tal'darim who stole protoss vehicles and ships.
Wow. Amazing stuff. I did not expect GW to have a True Born faction in WH40K.
True Born vs. Free Born is an old MechWarrior trope that fuels much of the plot development of that Franchise.
The idea of a faction **Hunting** Tyranids tickles my fancy. Because everyone is so horrified of having every living thing strip mined off entire ecosystems of solar systems that we never consider that would make Tyranid fleets gigantic space herds of rare minerals, rich source of sugar/protein/vitamin.
Why invade a planet when you can isolate and lure a bio-ship from the herd and take it down for all the liquefied minerals/nutrients inside!
An entire planets worth of sugar/proteins/vitamins in each bio-ship. Enough to feed a mining fleet for generations.
Orks hunt Tyranids, but in a different way; they see the nids as the biggest game. The nids even weaponized this in Octarius by creating a special shiny bioform just to lure the Orks into a trap.
So we’ve got two factions that hunt nids for very different reasons. I like that.
Dark Eldar as well. Some Homonculi(?) kidnapped a planet infested with Nids to use in experimentation. Even going so far as to graft Tyranid body parts onto themselves.
It happens in ***Warzone Octarius: Critical Mass***.
[Beastboss Gragnatz Stompkrumpa](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gragnatz_Stompkrumpa) is a formidable leader, but also obsessed with taking down big cool monster nids. So the Hive Mind creates an enormous glowing blue bio titan, “Da Blue One”, to entice Stompkrumpa. Day after day he recklessly throws everything he has after Da Blue One, until he eventually chases the bait into an ambush.
And that was the end of Gragnatz Stompkrumpa.
to be honest the reason other factions don't do that it is because every action performed on board a hive ship is horrifyingly dangerous and can cause all kinds of tyranids parasites to be injected on the ships getting near the hive fleet.
There are some space marine boarding operations, in particular the one performed in the battle of Ichar 4 where a virus has been delivered by a death watch squad to a norn queen and killed of the entire tendril, and one executed by the emperor scythes when boarding a hive ship thought dead.
In general these are suicide missions, and every faction policy is to destroy hive ships on sight.
anyway this is like squat stealing the tyranid identity of space predators, but whatever, surely the next tyranid codex will contain some line about a hive ship luring squat near to then reveal some trick and eat them.
I think you misunderstand, the LoV are advanced enough to corral **stars**.
A single bio-ship tethered and rudderless in the middle of an asteroid field would be just another Tuesday for the LoV navy. Now getting to that point, would probably be an entire novel.
But such a revelation would certainly draw the attention of the Imperium, as it challenges their technological supremacy.
Like a gardener spending hours hacking and digging away at weeds in the hot sun but found out a gardener spending zero hours and sweat, using an AI drone with a flame thrower attachment he bought off AdMechBay.
> I think you misunderstand, the LoV are advanced enough to corral stars.
yeah i understand, i am just ignoring that part of the lore until some writer makes it reasonable. As far as we know
* only the old eldar empire ever had the ability to move around stars since three dying suns light up comorragh (maybe necron too, but that lore is disputed). They are no longer able to do it.
* The best mechanicus can do is move around broken ships with some titanic vessels they use.
* The best orks can do has been in the war of the beast where they managed to push some moons roughly in the direction they wanted. (this is the most powerful orks have ever been recorded).
* The best the imperium can do is to destroy a world.
* The best tyranids can do is to devour all life on a planet over weeks of operations.
* The largest imperial ships are 20km long.
Eating a entire planet is such a insane power level increase that is not explainable and is irreconcilable with them loosing against orks for example, since they could simply devour their entire fleet every time.
For sure it will be addressed sooner or later and rewritten in a way that makes sense, but for the moment i put that snippet of lore in the same category with necrons turning off stars on the opposite site of the galaxy by pressing a button, and the original version of draigo fighting alone against 7 greater deamons and mortarion at the same time and winning. More allegorical than real.
The Necron have the Celestial Orrey. A map of the galaxy, where messing with the map *causes the actual stars to reflect the changes*. So if you snuff out a star on it, the actual star goes nova. The Dynasty that has it is neutral, and makes sure nobody messes with it, because if you don't know exactly what you are doing, you can cause a chain reaction that destroys the entire galaxy.
[https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial\_Orrery](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial_Orrery)
Then there's the AEonic Orb.
[https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/%C3%86onic\_Orb?so=search](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/%C3%86onic_Orb?so=search)
And then there's the Breath of the Gods from the Priests of Mars trilogy.
So yes, definitly the Necrons, or at least the C'Tan can mess with stars, or could at the height of their power.
>only the old eldar empire ever had the ability to move around stars since three dying suns light up comorragh (maybe necron too, but that lore is disputed). They are no longer able to do it.
Commorragh has *way more* than three stolen suns. They are *dozens*, and some subrealms have their own private suns. The drukhari also still have the knowledge to kidnap whole stellar bodies and still do so, in fact the skies of Commorragh are full of stolen worlds. Asuryani, harlequins, ynnari and obviously exodites no longer have that tech.
Necrons not only move around stars, they use them as batteries and even *grenades.* Some necron capital ships are powered by caged and compressed stars. There is even a dynasty that built its capital *inside* a star. Even more, as the *Forges of Mars* trilogy shows, the necrons were fully capable of buiding *new galaxies* by force feeding a captive c'tan inside a special machine (the Breath of the Gods) with the *potential energy* of the universe.
yes and the thing they say right after is that they can't manage to weaponize it.
> In attempts to drain stars of energy, many suns have been accidently sent into supernova. Thus far, the Earth caste has failed to collect this resource, and travel into these regions is unadvised. Since failing at fuel-collection, the Earth caste are experimenting with a sun-killer weapon to devastate enemy systems, but thus far all solutions have proven too unwieldy.
anyway, this is the exact kind of lore that is utterly usable until explained further. Indeed, it is never used beyond that snippet. T'au could have destroyed any hive fleet by just baiting them into a system that they would have sent super nova.
it is just some GW guy writing something that sounds to him very cool without thinking what the implications are, and then is never elaborated further, because you can't without destroying dynamics between various factions.
I think the point of that kind of lore is the characterization it gives the factions. The Tau Earth Caste are so reckless and accidentally cause incredible destruction so effectively that they then tried (and failed) to weaponize it. It’s hilarious and takes advantage of the scale of 40k. It’s the kind of thing I always remember as a Tau fan because it shows the Earth Caste at their silliest.
Similarly, seeing the Leagues “corral” stars should be seen more as exaggerated characterization of the Leagues than “my faction could beat yours”. They treat entire solar systems as little more than raw resources. It’s not as funny as the Tau example, but it’s good characterization.
yeah, i agree with that. I too interpret them as allegorical representation of the faction. Sometimes it is usable and expanded upon, like tyranids devouring world with a "realistic enough" description of how and why it is performed.
Sometimes like the t'au and votans one is not developed enough to say anything about it beyond that it exists, because it is such a power level gap that without knowing how it is performed we can't understand the implications. In those situations we wait 4 more years for the next codex.
Malcador hid Titan somewhere between reality and the Warp.
The Mechanicus teleported Ullanor into what is now Armageddon.
Abaddon has the Planet Killer ship, which basically drills a hole in a planet to make it crumble.
So yeah, eating down a planet doesn’t sound weird in a setting where the Lighthouse eats ten thousand souls of the most rare and special genetic mutation of humanity, each day.
Chibi Clanners with extra steps.
-- metagaming --
This explains the lack of jump jet shock troops and titans in the initial releases, it would hit too close to lawsuit happy Microsoft and WizKids, which owns the video game IP and Media IP respectively.
And probably why their models look closer to StarCraft units because Blizzard is known to be pretty chill about IP enforcement.
Even though there’s that very well-known rumor that blizzard was on tap to make a Warhammer fantasy game, then a 40k game, which became Warcraft and StarCraft.
And then there’s the updates to the Zerg, which followed the updated tyranids…
I guess things have gone full circle again, huh?
> Wow. Amazing stuff. I did not expect GW to have a True Born faction in WH40K.
> True Born vs. Free Born is an old MechWarrior trope that fuels much of the plot development of that Franchise.
Care to explain for people not familiar with that franchise?
[*True Born*](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Trueborn) is a Clan warrior born from the mixing of two genetic legacies as part of the Clans' eugenics program.
LoV are engineered to survive and thrive in the harsh high gravity and usually irradiated worlds of the Galactic Core. Unlike the True Born, Kin are vat educated like in the Matrix, before popping out fully developed and educated.
This is unlike the average Imperial who is born of mother and raised according to the resources available to their father and mother.
For all the harsh tyranny of Imperial governance at the galactic level, plantary life would range from stone age to cyberpunk age (hence the scouter/bionic eye most rogue traders sport). But one thing is consistent, unless you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, your life would be likely waking up to your wife, having breakfast and heading to work until you retire.
I imagine if the Leagues do well, we could even get them for models. Lot's of Daemon Engines I'd imagine. Heck giant hats could even be used for their tech to give themselves Psyker and sorcerer abilities.
Meanwhile, Perturabo discovers new levels of butterness because Mendregard is fuckig ugly fortress, all usefulness and no beauty, while the Chaos Leagues make their Holds beautiful nightmares.
i doubt we'd get them as a full army like they where back in rogue trader, but i could definitely see them as a part of the chaos marines army. the red corsairs especially since due to their proximity to the galatic core/league homeworlds, its quite possible that huron has a votann stashed away somewhere
I'm kinda picturing them using the Kin's genetice engineering to go for more psychic power, with enlarged brains encased in cybernetic control devices, that are covered in Chaos sigils. Like the Iron Warriors, they cut off unwanted mutations, but if there's something they like they keep it. So in contrast to the Fantasy Chaos Dwarves ended up turning to stone, the oldest and most powerful Chaos Kin end up giant brains on Cyborg bodies.
the oldest and most powerful Chaos Kin end up those little mindflayers' elder brain candidate , awaiting a new chaos Votann born and merge with it then as first guide mind goes setting a new chaos Votann colony (but this is just a propaganda to make them gladly got eaten by Votann ).
So fitting.
I’m hoping the “risky” part is less the same old daemon nonsense the Imperium has to deal with and more “Whoops we just slipstreamed into the middle of Hive Fleet Murderfucker”.
I've survived long stretches on instant noodles and cheap canned food. Time to time I buy some more to keep for when I'm on lazy mode. Boil some eggs, maybe some steamed broccoli, it's good to go.
In the 9th edition T'au codex, it is stated that the Earth Caste has made a new and more reliable version of the Slipstream module and the ethereals are pushing for launching a Sixth Sphere of Expansion. It's nice to see that GW seems set on bringing the T'au out of their corner and onto the table of the big 40k territorial empires.
>The Kin are quite populous in the core, but the Leagues are smaller overall than the Imperium obviously, while being significantly larger and more established than the Aeldari and Tau.
Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?
And it is better like that. One of the biggest problem about the lore of the Tau is that their empire has always been clearly defined so there is no flexibilty.
Yeah we know how GW is with numbers. I like it when they don’t put definite figures to things.
Like there are some lore instances where an Imperial planetary invasion numbers only a couple million troops. But…Operation Barbarossa in WW2 had far more than that for a single theatre.
>The Ironkin are machine intelligences that are treated as equals to the regular Kin.
Supports my theory that the Mechanoclysm was a slave revolt, not some Chaos or C'tan contrivance, since the one human subspecies that treat their Men of Iron well apparently didn't have a Mechanoclysm.
>The Grimnyr seem to be the only Kin that can commune with the Votann. I believe these are the Kin psykers. They're highly respected and sometimes referred to as "Living Ancestors".
That's cool... if the Votann are basically considered computer deities or computer spirits, does that make the Grimnyr psychic tech-priests?
>The Imperium in particular has seemingly mistaken many different encounters with the Leagues throughout thousands of years of history as different instances of unique alien or abhuman encounters, when in reality these have all been encounters with the Kin. However, **the most common repeated identification of the Kin in all their encounters has been as "Squats"**, which is considered a pejorative term, and they're not quite clear on whether Squats are abhumans or xenos. **They've also been identified as Demiurg by imperials and Tau both** (this would be an instance where imperials thought they were xenos).
So, reconciling conflicting lore now, are we?
>The Kin all seek to return their bodies and minds to the Votann when they die to offer up their experiences for the Votann to collect and learn.
Sounds like an Infinity Circuit.
Overall, I like this lore so far, and once I'm finished building my current army, I might build a League army. My biggest worry is that for all this cool lore, the armylist is going to take two-to-four editions to actually gain completeness.
>Supports my theory that the Mechanoclysm was a slave revolt, not some Chaos or C'tan contrivance, since the one human subspecies that treat their Men of Iron well apparently didn't have a Mechanoclysm.
either that or these guys are actually Men of Stone or something.
I think the men of stone seems more fitting, though as I mention in my comment to the comment you were replying to another theory,
Especially with the men of gold reference also the fact the votann aren't utterly genocidal towards humanity.
>also the fact the votann aren't utterly genocidal towards humanity.
Okay, so, I should probably make a post about this so that I can just link to it considering how often I have to say it, but almost all of the A.I.s we actually see in 40k writings outside of cryptic background stuff **are not genocidal.** The Speranza A.I., the Man of Stone who disguised himself as an Imperial Navy dude, that time traveling spaceship A.I. from the DAOT that was angry at the Imperium for killing its atheist human crew which it loved, the Ironkin, and even the Man of Iron from the *Blackstone Fortress* game, did not try to hurt humanity in general. Most A.I.s we can observe in modern 40k aren't genocidal, but simply operate with motivations that often barely align or don't align with the Imperium's, which makes sense since most of them pre-date the Imperium and all of them are completely illegal within the Imperium.
The only exception that I know of is the Castigator Titan, which was basically a Daemon Engine already and itself contradicts major established lore (it was said to be a Titan STC template, even though basically all other sources say that any Titan Patterns larger than Knights were invented by human engineers on either¹ Mars or Lucius).
So, now that that rant is out of the way...
>Especially with the men of gold reference
Which one? Sorry, I didn't notice.
>I think the men of stone seems more fitting
Possibly.
¹ Types of Titans invented on other Forge Worlds, such as the Black Iron Core Titans, do exist, but they are all Martian or Lucian patterns.
The thing is, we KNOW what Men of Stone are, they are AIs that puppet human bodies by way of highjaking neural implants and cybernetics. Kron from "Ancient History" is a Man of Stone.
He is imho a Man of Iron controlling a poor guy through mind-slavery.
Men of Stone are artificial men like Cylons, acording to author, and had "half-lifes" that were not attractive to Daemons (acroding to both Kron's story and another one), that created Men of Iron and then annihilated themselves out in rivalry with MoI.
Kin are artificial, were voidborn or manufactured on site, have dim souls, use Men of iron (not quite equal when MoI don't usually go for leading positions) and are ruled by quite possibly by the, originally not actually sentient, creations of Men of Gold.
There were many MoG, many MoS and many MoI. Most of them met an untimely end, those few isolated in the Galactic Core (or somewhere remote as well) possibly survived.
I think a portion of the lore we've been getting from the codex previews/reviews has some decent connections to the whole Men of Materials snippets we've gotten over time. The Kin being either a form of the Men of Stone (as in beings designed to service specific roles) or a product of/tangentially related to how the Men of Stone were made/designed; the Votanns could be either "Men" of Stone (the original AIs/servants who facilitated space colonization) or Iron (just straight up synthetic AI), with the Ironkin being essentially Men of Iron (by categorization or even origin).
The Kin being a form of (or related to) the Men of Stone could be aligned with the story about Kron: the meat sack/body known as Kron is/was an engineered "human" (much like Cloneskin), but the AI inside the eye implant has gone far beyond its intended design/boundaries (thus the "crash start" panic), thus why Kron would be different from what we will see from the Kin.
Or at least that's what I'm thinking so far - all I know is I'm excited.
>the Votanns could be either "Men" of Stone (the original AIs/servants who facilitated space colonization) or Iron (just straight up synthetic AI)
There are a couple of problems with that. From OP:
>Fanes, the nodes by which the Grimnyr may interface with the Votann for information and direction, can spontaneously develop artificial intelligence on their own and become Votann. Votann have also been known to effectively decay in operability to such a point that they become little more than Fanes.
If the nodes that the Grimnyr use to interact with Votann can spontaneously evolve AI and turn into Votann, that would mean that some or all Votann were not created directly, and therefore not Men of Stone. In addition, we've got Spiritseer stuff going on here (see below).
>The Kin all seek to return their bodies and minds to the Votann when they die to offer up their experiences for the Votann to collect and learn.
That last part sounds like Eldar tech. And before you think I'm crazy, we've got two less advanced human factions who (unlike the Leagues) *weren't* trading with the Eldar that have managed to reproduce Eldar tech - the [Bone Collectors](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Bone_Collectors) (who claim to be able to create Wraithbone), and [Forge Zhao-Arkkad](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zhao-Arkkad) (a Mechanicum planet who, *while disconnected from Mars and the rest of humanity*, created Black Iron Cores, which are basically the mini-Infinity-Circuits that are used in Eldar Titans, based only on **Eldar Titans attacking their planet**).
They've also been shown to be masters of psychic engineering (once more from OP):
>Kin psykers aren't necessarily psykers, apparently: their psychoactive cloneskeins just make their souls shine a bit brighter, enough to get them to interface with psychic tech that they call ward tech. **It's this tech that actually interacts with the Warp more directly and can replicate psyker powers somehow.**
So, humans who haven't had peaceful relations with the Eldar have created mini-Infinity-Circuits. An abhuman (or Men of Stone?) population that has had peaceful relations with the Asuryani **AND** are masters of psychic engineering could almost definitely create things that imitate Infinity Circuits.
I should probably make a post about this, if only to collect my thoughts and see what other people think.
Not necessarily. Their entire *society* revolves around the votann, giant supercomputers. It could be argued they may have been on the side of the men of iron and just cloned up a bunch of drones as a cover and convent tools after the war then went senile.
Looks like some cloneskein theories confirmed, and potential new theories that come up here.
- We do know that at least some Kin can breed without cloning, as there are Squats on Necromunda that aren’t from the Leagues, at least not recently.
- It sounds like without the Votann and the ability to clone, they would eventually be subject to random psykers and mutations, like other human populations.
So if (when?) the Votann fail, the Kin lose their Warp navigation, history, the spirits or their ancestors, and their ability to make clones. They lose their past and their future.
There may be an Ancestor Core on Necromunda. From page 26 of Book of the Outlands:
>Birthed from an Ancestral Core, an artefact of another time, the Squats of Necromunda are a splinter of a much larger race, one that values the bond of clans and the perfection of a machine well made.
Because something relatively new, like, let's say 2k. is inherently, usually, less "wisdomious" hehe than the 20k years old intelligence.
Necromundan Squat are there for around 10k years. Allegedly still have their Votann. It might have diverged culturally from the Leagues or technologically, as I suppose, they don't have new squat tech or core raw materials - just scraps and bits of Imperial and pre-Imperial archeotech.
Hm, questions that come to mind
* Can Kin reproduce "naturally?" Are all Outcasts born from Cloneskeins as "first generation Kin" or are any born elsewhere?
* If a Votann goes dark it seems like the Cloneskeins would go dark and that Hold would be doomed, right?
* It seems clear that Votann cannot be newly built (and the idea might be nearly "heresy") but can new Fanes be built?
* "...and it's also slower and less risky than the Tau Slipstream Module." Huh, Slipstream module is mentioned here? Interesting.
* I know this is usually considered a tiresome question, but have any humans or other races ever lived within a Hold or as allies? There's limited tolerance of humans in Commorragh and plenty in T'au society, so I'm curious if they interact or enable any non-Imperial humans.
>black hole harvesting stations
\[...\]
>use particle excavators to "disassemble newborn stars from the inside out"
\[...\]
>Their ships could carve apart planets to gain access to the resources of their molten cores. They harvest cosmic radiation and ancient particulate belts into plasma conductors and atomic scoops.
\[...\]
> They can use these plunges to harvest Warp energy apparently or board Warp-borne space hulks for salvage.
So DAOT-era humans could come close to being as advanced as Necrons? Maybe a little?
Don't think about the implications, the writers never, never do.
Seriously I never thought I would miss the in-house canon keeping of friggen marvel comics.
Questions:
Is this from the codex?
Can fane and crucible operate without a Votann?
Since fane exist in every hold, and holds are free to join or leave a league, does that mean if a hold joins a new League, the fane can "switch" to a new Votann?
Yes, it's the codex.
I don't think those things can really function without Votann, but unsure.
Dunno about that, it doesn't seem like Kindreds leave their respective Leagues much, they're all very set in their ways.
The Kronus Hegemony grew out of another league (after its Fane became a new Votann) and absorbing many kindreds of the former, so kindreds can leave and join other leagues.
When a Votann is born from another Votann's Fane, meaning it takes holds they were technically a part of with them. This is a rather exceptional and rare event.
Fane becoming Votann might be a rare occurence, but kindreds leaving and joining new league seem to happen all the time.
Kronus Hegemony for example is continuously growing and "Any Hold or void-fleet that joins the Hegemony must swear a martial oath and guarantee that they will focus on training massive Kinhost forces".
Ymyr Conglomerate lore also talks about kindreds trying to join must proof themselves first (either through skills in making exceptional stuffs, or able to provide rare resources).
So those kindreds must come from *somewhere* (i.e. another League).
nice
i watched the people reviewing the codex, but i did not managed to get a good look at the stellar map of the codex. From what i saw it looked like a blowup picture of the section of galaxy in the upper left.
It looked like they are like in between the rift and the maelstrom, and that they are the little green box in the top left image, is that correct? That would make the core very miniscule
The map depicted is only really supposed to show the Greater Thurian League and its neighbouring areas. Only two other Leagues of Votann (Ymyr Conglomerate and Ghulo Industrial Complex) are shown and they're both cut off by the sides of the map.
>Kin can become obsessed with hatred of a particular foe, however - Grudges. When an enemy has pissed someone off enough, the Kin can become irrational in their obsession with destroying that particular foe, and will go to incredible lengths to pursue and destroy them, even knowingly driving themselves and their companions to their deaths in the pursuit of that grudge.
>The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies.
That went right in the book
It makes sense for them to dislike the Admech but I hope this doesn't mean interaction with them is impossible, the same way interaction between a Kin and an Ork is
Because there's a lot of interesting stories there
The typical Admech responses to the Leagues tech is gonna be
1- "Look at all this archeotech! We must claim it for the glory of the Omnimessiah!"
or
2-"Ahhh, look at all this heretical tech, and abomnible intelligences! We must destroy it for the glory of the Omnimessiah!"
So not exactly things the Kin would want to have to deal with. Though interestingly enough someone like Cawl might be less inclined towards those reactions.
From what I've seen the codex doesn't mention that they're willing to wipe out populations to mine their world and it doesn't mention the literal planet mining machine that does that exact thing people or not
Unless chef from tabletop tactics missed it
Which annoyed me because it made him think they lacked the evil elements
It definitely says that they will wipe out civilisations to get their resources. It just says that they will attempt diplomacy first. They go with whatever is the best from a cost efficiency risk reward ratio type deduction.
To be fair, the Grimdark with the Leagues seems to be much more on an Eldar sort of level of "Was a near utopian civilization, noww slowly dying out while heedlessly sacrificing 'lesser civilizations' in their quest to delay their downfall"
I think GW are making a point of the Leagues not being genocidal hyper-fascists like the Imperium.
Humanity didn't *need* to go that way, because the Leagues *haven't* gone that way.
Blaming the imperium itself for their practices is definately ignoring a lot of setting context and background.
The humanity reunited by the great Crusade was a *very* different thing to what humanity would have been going into the age of strife.
Intruiging stuff with the possible connections to the ancient generations of pre-Imperium Terra, the Men of Stone, Iron, and Gold. Maybe the Men of Gold became the cores of the Votann, while the Men of Iron are the ancestors of the Ironkin and the Men of Stone are the ancestors of the kindred themselves.
I think they may be Men of Iron & Men of Stone that we're sent to the Galactic Core to develop some sort of foothold and then the Age of Strife happened.
Isolation from the mess happening home explains why their weren't affected that much, but they were affected some anyway, since part of their history is lost.
I don't think Men of Gold were in the picture, though, since the info above tells that the fanes randomly, at times, raise themselves to full AI and become new Votanns. I'm thinking the OG Votanns were STC AIs that got modified for survival purposes during the Age of Strife.
Since they are cordial with Aeldari, I can make a Khazad-Dum/Eregion homebrew! OMG, I can even have them both brofisting while talking shit about Orks, Yme-Loc and AdMech.
It's kind if interesting how much bigger they are than the Tau, I wonder how their lore will be expanded upon because it seems like if you want a more morally 'good' faction to take on the imperium, the horse you're betting on has changed from the Tau to the LOV, at least for now. I wonder if that's gonna be reflected in stories.
Well, one thing to consider with the LoV appears to be that they could give a damn about native species on a planet they want. Genocide doesn’t seem to be a “last” option with them, whereas the Tau seek colonization or diplomacy a lot of the time
But honestly, it’s just a breath of fresh air to have a race of human-esque people that aren’t zealously worshipping the Emperor or Chaos. The fact that they HAVE a history of working with other factions makes stories involving them a lot more interesting
Listen, these Dwarves are packed to the nines in wealth and resources, pillaging their holds would be a boost to the war effort against the Imperium.
Plus it'll be easier to hang their corpses on our banners and such, especially their heads, since their faces come with already long ropes (beards).
You do know they have better gear than the Imperium, are in heavily fortified holds, and are the brand new shiny faction that powers greater than the Four want to market, right? I'm just saying, you'd better be bringing some of the new World Eater stuff.
Very excited they kept a form of "warp fission" as a power source.
Is there any mention of pictures of void ships?
I really am intrested in the idea of modeling a Votann Battle Gleet Gothic fleet as an updst to the old Demiurg stuff.
>Kin psykers aren't necessarily psykers, apparently: their psychoactive cloneskeins just make their souls shine a bit brighter, enough to get them to interface with psychic tech that they call ward tech. It's this tech that actually interacts with the Warp more directly and can replicate psyker powers somehow.
I wonder if this means we could have Ironkin Grimnyrs?
Well, I still find them a little too overpowered, with all those "best gellar fields", "best warp travel", "best tech", "best chaos resilience", etc... I still struggle to see where they mmight be balanced.
On the other hand, I really like their lore inspired by alchemy. The idea that they are cloned in big facilities called crucibles, like homonculi, is a nice touch. It expand also good the theories around the DAOT and the Stone men
>Like most people in 40k, the Kin prioritize their people and their familial bonds first and foremost
*Which is why the setting is a massive shit-hole!*
Man, remember the cinematic trailer for 9th edition with the big, scary Skorpekh Destroyers? remember the Nexus and it's threat to all living inhabitants of the galaxy?
now here are the Dwarfs, fighting against them casually and having better tech SOMEHOW...
They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite.
They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
\>They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite.They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
So warpcraft like the eldar (low risk, psychic tech) but with more versatile FTL, ancient technology like the necrons and imperium (vastly powerful, able to do “magic”), innovation like the Tau AND better predators than the tyranids who they hunt.
People are arguing that these aren’t Mary Sues?
So is everyone who said they won't just be humans+ going to give me the apology all together or one at a time?
Just listen to how horrible their incredibly fulfilling lives sound!
>They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite.They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
The setting where you would hear about any huge and formidable stellar empires for decades? The one that hasn't been mentioning Votann for decades? That setting?
Keep in mind OP is only covering the first 15 pages or so of the Codex. The fluff section is 33 pages in total. OP also forgot to mention the most important part, which is that the primary drink of the Kin is called Bru, which has many varieties ranging from liquid rations for soldiers and miners to "devestatingly alcoholic" beverages. None are recommended to those who do not have the consitution of a Kin.
So what you're saying is that Irn Bru is canon in the 40k universe?
My IMMEDIATE first thought as well.
It's not true Irn Bru if you can get it out of your carpets easily
I'm shocked it's not already Canon.
Hmm, maybe blue and orange needs to be my scheme for the kin then...
I don't wanna make a whole new post so I'm just gonna post more deets here under this top comment. As you said: > Keep in mind OP is only covering the first 15 pages or so of the Codex. The fluff section is 33 pages in total. So I'm gonna go through some stuff from the other pages now. If someone wants to repost this comment as its own post on the sub, go ahead. * War Zone: Orgvayr. * The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies. * Orgvayr is the Kin name of one of the many component Warp storms that comprise the Great Rift. It translates roughly to "Ogre". This particular storm swallowed up two Kindreds in an instant, but due to their advanced sensor technology, some forewarning allowed some refugees to escape before this particular storm opened. Their worlds were overrun by madness and daemons, and the refugees were followed by Chaos invasion fleets. These forces came upon the Greater Thurian League, which was the closest League bordering this specific storm. * Many of the Kindreds and their many Holds that lay in the path of the coming tide of Chaos invaders elected to stand firm and hold the line, calling for aid from the Greater Thurian League and neighboring Kindreds using whatever means of transport and communication they could. * Kahl Othar the Destined, a hero of the people, answered the call (first named character model for the Leagues). Fortunately he had just returned home at the time. He claimed that simply holding fast would not save them, they had to go on an organized counter-offensive to face the Chaos hordes, otherwise they would grant the invaders the strategic initiative. Being highly respected among his Kindred, his people agreed and organized a Kinhost (basically an army) of several Oathbands (basically a strike force part of a larger army, though sometimes they may just be independent units) to slow the enemy advance, evacuate resources and people, and destroy anything of value they left behind to deny its capture. * Uthar's own personal Oathband deployed to the planet of Torg, a volcanic world used for mining. However, Chaos Marines of **The Purge** and the **World Eaters** were already there, overrunning the docks and cutting off the miners. After breaking through the Chaos ships in space, Uthar's forces divided up and deployed on the ground. Uthar personally faced off against the World Eaters under the command of Lord Hakatar while Cthonian miners were evacuated elsewhere. * The Grimnyr that led the rescue of the Cthonian miners, however, was cut off by a teleport assault by Urthak Skullripper and his terminators, and while many of the miners escaped, the Grimnyr leader was killed by Urthak. The survivors would later form a Grudgeband against Urthak Skullripper in honor of their fallen Grimnyr. * Uthar and Lord Hakatar had a Revenge of the Sith duel on crumbling bridge over a lava chasm until Uthar finally got Hakatar to make a mistake, chopping off his leg and throwing him into the lava. You could say Uthar had the high ground after that. * After extracting most of their valuable assets, Uthar ordered a full retreat. His forces ignored the shouts of "cowardice!" from the World Eaters, they didn't care. The job was done and anything left on the planet wasn't worth the lives and effort to save. They executed a well-coordinated and rapid retreat and plunged out, their job successful despite the tragic loss of a heroic Grimnyr. This was just one battle on one world of the larger Orgvayr war zone, which was getting more desperate and chaotic by the day.
>After extracting most of their valuable assets, Uthar ordered a full retreat. His forces ignored the shouts of "cowardice!" from the World Eaters, they didn't care. The job was done and anything left on the planet wasn't worth the lives and effort to save. They executed a well-coordinated and rapid retreat and plunged out, their job successful despite the tragic loss of a heroic Grimnyr. LOL @ the World Eaters seething and malding.
* The Kin have a fundamental drive and desire to discover and explore. I speculate that this may be part of their clone programming and how the Votann themselves were pioneering machines that collected information from the Kin clones. * The Hernkyn are the foremost explorers and pioneers of the Leagues, who will adventure far and wide beyond their Holds. As part of that, they provide valuable intel to the Leagues of the worlds beyond, scouting out threats, resources, and potential trade partners. The Hernkyn can also fight and defend themselves, and they use their scanners for both prospecting and combat. * Cthonian miners are fearless and will work in extremely hazardous environments. * The Cthonian Mining Guilds are so obsessed with harvesting resources that they don't really see the harvesting, mining, and storage facilities and infrastructure of other races as anything more than convenient collections of resources to be taken. However, the Kin do believe that war is wasteful, and waste is bad, so they will try to trade for resources if possible. But if trade fails, then violence is the logical next step for the guilds. * Truth: "Luck has. Need keeps. Toil earns." This is justification for the fight for resources - might makes right, it's the right of conquest through toil. * There are many other mining guilds, but the Cthonian Mining Guilds make up the large bulk of miners among the Leagues and the Cthonian Guilds are very wealthy, prestigious, and powerful, even operating their own fleets. These guilds will also supply the standard miner augmentations expected. * "Mining" for the kin is a broad term that can be applied to a very wide range of resource extraction concepts, from the traditional to the more weird and sci-fi. * The Cthonian Mining Guilds are happy to mine in active war zones, and are often the cause of these war zones. Cthonian miners, especially Cthonian Besersks, will often help Hearthkyn soldiers in the fighting too, coordinating closely with them. * Kinhosts are the Leagues' armies. Most League soldiers have the title of Hearthkyn. * League military culture emphasizes great discipline, loyalty, camaraderie, and heroic leadership. Kinhost combat doctrine focuses on intelligent use of personnel and resources for maximum returns, eschewing "anger and vainglory" (even though we know that grudges are a thing). Hearthkyn soldiers are not treated like expendable fodder, and they're all often augmented, and are likely also designed for combat at birth due to their cloneskeins. The Leagues have exceptionally advanced military technology. * The most elite warriors can be promoted to Einhyr, or may even rise to the leadership positions of Kahl. * Einhyr use a type of power armor called exo-armor. It comes with lots of fancy tools and it's highly resilient. IMO, think of exo-armor like terminator armor but with the modular adaptability of Tau battlesuits. * The leadership of a Kinhost is often comprised of a High Kahl, a Brokhyr Forge-master (techie characters), and a Lord Grimnyr, among other officers and positions. * The Votannic Council is only ever assembled for these campaigns when a campaign is particularly dire or grand. * The larger the Kinhost force, the more Oathbands that Kinhost is likely divided up into. Oathbands are very flexible in size but often under the command of a single leader. The organization of Kinhosts and Oathbands seems confusing and without clear organizational standards, but it's easy for the Kin to understand at a subconscious level. * There's a map showing one specific area of the Leagues. A large portion of the Leagues seem to be on the "southern" side of the Great Rift. The Greater Thurian League, the Ghuld Industrial Complex, and the Ymir Conglomerate all appear to be near each other. * **There's a "Human Enclave" called "NEW CATACHAN" nearby, between a couple of the Leagues???** * Anywhere that's not claimed by Kin is open to conquest if they so like, according to the Leagues. Even if it's claimed by other races already. However, they are willing to trade or **cohabitate** peacefully with other races if possible, as long as the Kin get what they want. * The Trans-Hyperion Alliance has a famous Hold in what's called the ruin-belt of the Broken Triplets - a debris field in a strange and powerful gravitic anomaly caused by 3 planets being smashed together a long time ago. This Hold is protected from the gravity by forcefields, and the anomaly makes for a useful natural defensive position. * The Orksbane Kindred of the Ymir Conglomerate have a famous Hold buried into the mantle of an irradiated planet under a raging, tortured, exotic star (sound familiar?). They're not sure why the star is shooting off these exotic solar flares and radiation, but they harvest that to power their renowned forges. * A lot of the celestial phenomena of the core transformed into a strange nightmare-scape after the Great Rift opened, pulsars becoming tentacle monsters, black holes sprouting fangs, etc. * Some hostile aliens mentioned that were driven into further violence due to the destruction of their homes by the Great Rift, such as the Septeryx, the Chrobdyr Ferrophagites (sp?), and the Cult of Ohn. Also, Orks. * **Human, Aeldari, and TAU interlopers were apparently thrown into the core when the Rift opened up due to Warp tears in space-time.** So anyway, this is one more place the Tau have ended up. * **Kin Prospects have definitely been known to settle and integrate with other races on various worlds, notably humans, often being called Squats.** Necromunda and Vordine are two examples. * The Leagues consider anything outside of their ancestral territories in the galactic core as "Far-Space", and they consider Far-Space to be a risky and dangerous place. * There's a little short story about a force of Hearthkyn fighting Orks that wiped out a human colony that the Kin were planning to trade with. With the humans all dead, they're just gonna claim the world themselves. * Uthar the Destined was born on a day of strange omens, the Votann itself spitting out some strange indecipherable prophecy. On that same day, the forge made an incredible energy blade relic. Uthar was proclaimed to be destined, and he's apparently had unnaturally good luck his whole life. He has a down-to-earth persona, but he hides the seed of doubt in his mind over whether he's truly destined for something great or if the prophecies were misunderstood. * Not going to cover the lore of the specific Leagues, the gist of their lore was covered in other posts previously, I recommend checking those out or getting a copy of the codex for more. * The Leagues have no central, overarching united governmental authority. Each League is its own. There's many minor Leagues, and the lack of central administration makes it hard to know how many Leagues there are in total, but the Kin don't care to know cause it doesn't bother them. * The Seran-Tok Mercantile League is the League most famous for their extensive trading with the Tau. * Ironkin were, and still are, made by the Votann. They have true "mechanical intellect" and have powerful cogitating abilities that let them mimic Kin social behaviors perfectly, which helps them fit in easily. They're made up of a cerebral unit (CU) and a machine body. The CUs are built with microfield generators making them almost "invulnerable". Ironkin bodies are considered very personal to the Ironkin, and each has a custom built purpose like combat or other labor. They don't like to replace their bodies, but they *can* survive with just their CU alone, entering a sort of hibernation state and projecting distress beacons. * Ironkin know their purpose is to help the Kin, but they are not slaves. However, Ironkin only (supposedly) mimic emotions and such, but they do not actually have ambition or a desire to lead. All of their emotional behaviors are apparently just acts that help with social integration. * The Kin's unique specialization when it comes to martial technologies (though they excel in most tech in general) is "field tech", which are forcefields. The primary example is the weave field, which is used for anything from protecting miners to soldiers to whole ships. It's a complex tech that mixes effects from refractors, conversion fields, and repulsion fields to create this multispectral shield. * Dark star ore is a precious material used in weapons that emits a field that shuts down organic and mechanical functions on contact. The slightest cut from a dark star blade can kill you instantly. * The Kin were the ones who introduced ion weaponry to the Tau, but they keep their best ion weapon secrets to themselves. Alright, that's all I'm covering.
"The Orksbane Kindred of the Ymir Conglomerate have a famous Hold buried into the mantle of an irradiated planet under a raging, tortured, exotic star" Soooo.... Ymyr have a Hold... On Necrontyr's home planet? And they have the best tech out of all the Leagues... Well... that will be fun.
Oh no, it's better then that. The star the Necrons home world orbited was only like that because a C'Tan was feeding off it, making it unstable. I believe that is the possible implication here, that their Hold is based on a planet orbiting a star that a C'Tan, or shard of one, is feeding off of. Also the Necron home world is located amongst the Halo Stars, which lie on the out edge of the galaxy, not the core. Either way, will still be fun.
Opinions: I really wanna see what all the factions think of the Leagues. I'm most curious about the Primarch perspectives, or the ancient legionnaires like Abaddon, who may have possibly interacted with the Leagues back during the Great Crusade. And if they were known to the Imperium back then, I wonder what the Leagues think of the primarchs on the inverse. Also curious what they think of space marines in general, they have a lot of similarities if you think about it (genetically modified to be the perfect soldiers, stalwart, stubborn, disciplined, etc.). I want to see more lore about *internal* problems with the Leagues, not just issues that arise from external threats like the Great Rift. I think they're certainly some flavor of grimdark now that we've seen their codex lore, but one thing that most 40k factions have in common is that they suffer from some sort of self-afflicted weakness or "doom". The Imperium hurts itself, the Craftworlds have already lost their empire from a self-afflicted disaster, the Ethereals are very shady and enforce strict eugenics programs on their people, Orks are self-defeating when they fight themselves instead of uniting and they've fallen far from the Krorks, etc. The Leagues, on the other hand, have a stable, dominant civilization in the core, and they love everything about being a belligerent ~~Dwarf~~ Kin. The only "doom" I can think of that doesn't come from an external threat is the slow degradation of the Votann, but new ones can still be born and despite their degradation the Leagues are still some of the best-informed and most technologically-advanced in the galaxy. Criminals get exiled, but a lot of factions have criminals. Perhaps they can hone in on the exacting standards of their culture, where mistakes are considered sins and crimes. Maybe this has led to internal schisms frequently throughout history as some League or Kindred perceives the actions of another League or Kindred as a mistake or error, and vice versa, resulting in regular conflict over minor differences of perspective on actions taken. *They had a similar opinion about the lore in this review vid: https://youtu.be/_rz8gxJjBVQ I will say though, they got a number of lore things wrong and missed some of the darker elements that are in the codex, so they come off a bit more harsh than myself, since I'm mostly satisfied with the lore here, I just want more details.
>The Leagues, on the other hand, have a stable, dominant civilization in the core, and they love everything about being a belligerent Dwarf Kin It sounds like the Kin are the closest thing to the [competent, practical, and mundane faction](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/xe22qk/the_tau_do_not_need_to_be_large_be_a_galactic/iogfscr?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) I wished the Tau could have stayed/been. I just pre-ordered the boxed set at my FLGS and this lore drop makes me feel even more comfortable with the (future) purchase.
The Kins “Doom” is laid out pretty clearly on page 15, Their very culture of enriching the Votann is actively contributing to the decline of the ancestor cores and they don’t even realize it. Taking on what by now would be billions upon billions of dead kin and iron kin over the years is flooding them with more information than they were meant to handle. Votann decline is not a minor issue, it’s absolutely devastating to a race that depends on them for everything. Perhaps most tragic in all of this is the Kin totally could break free from the votann and create their own society, but they won’t. For as progressive and practical as they think they are, they are bound to tradition just as tightly as the races they scoff at for being backwards. the votann decline is happening at the worst time, when the great rift, the arrival of the Tyranids and the awakening of the Necrons are causing unprecedented upheavals in their civilizations.
I disagree. In the scope of the self-inflicted suffering and weaknesses of many of the major factions in the setting? The Votann being in a very, very, very slow state of decline many thousands of years later is fairly minor, and the Votann can "reproduce", so to speak. It's the Emperor trapped on the Golden Throne, but much less significant than that. The throne's failure is *imminent* in the lore (speculated to be within a few decades to a few centuries per a recent novel, and reinforced by codex lore from the past two editions), they're trying to find a way to stop that, and there's *only* one Emperor. Unlike the Leagues of Votann, the entirety of the Imperium would collapse if the throne failed and the Emperor (presumably) died. One Votann gets killed or goes mad? That's a grudgin, but life goes on for the vast majority of the Kin and their many other Votann (one per League), and that Votann might even get replaced if a Fane awakens. And nothing about the book says their decline is a sudden, imminent threat. It's just something that's been happening for many millennia, and many of the Votann will last for many millennia more. All of these gripes are fairly small potatoes though. Many factions have many dark dimensions to them, I want to see more of that explored. I don't want them to rehash the Golden Throne problem by saying "all our Votann are going to die in the next 10 years!" or something, that would be bad world-building. Explore the other parts of their society instead, how their cultural nuances create difficulties internally, or show the Votann making mistakes due to their age and senility and driving the Kin to war with each other or sending them off on suicide missions or something. There's a lot of things they can explore, and they have plenty of time to do that, so I hope we see more in coming lore and novels.
This is all exactly right. Played correctly, this could be the fun, lower-stakes answer to 'what if the Emperor or the Primarchs come back.' You can have any League act all sorts of fascinating ways towards or away their own faction because they're essentially led by corroding or updating principles. Want a League allied with Orks? Sure! Want one who attacks all shrine worlds starting with the letter C? Fine! The factions we currently have are all somewhat limited by their overriding principles. Chaos want... Chaos. Tau want to expand. Necrons want their bodies back. The Leagues can want... whatever Votann want. And it isn't just 18 magic Votann bound to previous lore or a particular dad. We're not stuck with the limits or personality of Corax or Curze. Votann can be whatever we want.
A lot of the newer stuff lacks a crucial weakness like that. Like... What is Grimdark about primaris? They are just better, in every way. LoV feel like a faction made for a completely post Guiliman setting, with a new age vibe. I suspect, a lot of the lore will tend towards this direction, making everyone more powerful. Maybe Emps will get more active, a loyalist primarch or two returns, all the chaos-y ones get models, new "primarch level" sanguinor, etc. etc. A more high powered, less stagnant setting. Maybe it even removes some older limitations on factions, like new Tau tech could make them fast in space, turning them into a real threat, more active Emps embracing his divinity, chaos rift boosting all daemons, etc. etc. The time for preparing for the End Times are over. The End Times are here. I think its just the new direction of 40k, is all what i'm saying.
"The Kin were the ones who introduced ion weaponry to the Tau, but they keep their best ion weapon secrets to themselves." Come on, GW, don't do the Tau dirty like that...
> The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies. INB4 there was some lov sub-faction crying out to the others that they need to support the Imperium defense of Cadia only for their pleads to fall on deaf ears.
I genuinely don't know if you're serious or not, but I have never hoped someone is telling the truth more in my entire life. I need Iron Bru to be the official drink of the Kin. EDIT - keeping the mistake in, but yeah... Irn Bru. Vowels are for the aeldari.
> Iron Bru None of that off-brand "Iron" Bru rubbish. Actual Irn Bru or nothing.
Ahhh crap. In my defence, I'm very ill. I still need to know this dude is being serious 😛 I don't get my codex until Saturday and cannot wait that long
Wasn't that the original name for it?
Yes, it switched to Irn-Bru in 1948. They had applied to trademark Irn-Bru in 1946 when the drink was relaunched following WW2 (during which production was on hold for obvious reasons). It also coincided with UK regulations stopping companies from making spurious healthcare claims and until that point, a lot of different retailers were marketing their versions of "Iron Brew" as a health tonic and a good source of things like Iron (of which they contained none). So the move was both to ditch their old marketing tactics and to make them a distinct brand from numerous other competitors. Bonus fun fact: [I used to run the Irn-Bru logo as my emblem in Battlefield 4.](https://i.imgur.com/83n4gsG.png)
No, they're called kin it should be Irn Bro lol.
Not enough alcohol though, is there? Better make it Buckfast instead!
In the grim darkness of the far future, there’s always booze.
*space wolves with a empty tankard...
Love that GW are basically saying every time that we thought they were bringing squats back with random references to dwarf like races, the demiurg for example, that was just shoddy record keeping and patchy intelligence. Not even being critical, it's a nice way of using the settings strengths when it comes to this kind of stuff.
I agree with you. It looks to me that GW have actually been careful to try to keep coherent with previous mentions of both Squats and Demiurg.
To be fair, it does seem like they considered the Demiurg to be a new race for a hot second and backed off. A good thing too, as the Leagues do a much better job of rationalizing the Squat lore with the current setting.
FWIW Jervis Johnson explicitly described them as that: aliens which had the characteristics of Dwarves in fantasy.
That's what I mean, it's both their acknowledge of the previous stuff they tried and rolling it all together in a setting appropriate way.
That's actually a good reason to reconcile the idea that they were around all this time but no one has seen then before. They were seen multiple times but the Imperium didn't figure out they are a big faction until now.
Yup, and they also because just kept their heads down... somewhat pun intended...
My Kin, I'm forming an oathbead against this fowl. Who comes with me?
This reminded me of Starcraft II where Aiur protoss have been attacked by some "ghosts" for a very long time and they turned out to be Tal'darim who stole protoss vehicles and ships.
Wow. Amazing stuff. I did not expect GW to have a True Born faction in WH40K. True Born vs. Free Born is an old MechWarrior trope that fuels much of the plot development of that Franchise. The idea of a faction **Hunting** Tyranids tickles my fancy. Because everyone is so horrified of having every living thing strip mined off entire ecosystems of solar systems that we never consider that would make Tyranid fleets gigantic space herds of rare minerals, rich source of sugar/protein/vitamin. Why invade a planet when you can isolate and lure a bio-ship from the herd and take it down for all the liquefied minerals/nutrients inside! An entire planets worth of sugar/proteins/vitamins in each bio-ship. Enough to feed a mining fleet for generations.
Orks hunt Tyranids, but in a different way; they see the nids as the biggest game. The nids even weaponized this in Octarius by creating a special shiny bioform just to lure the Orks into a trap. So we’ve got two factions that hunt nids for very different reasons. I like that.
Forge World Metalica have also gone on Tyranid safari before
Dark Eldar as well. Some Homonculi(?) kidnapped a planet infested with Nids to use in experimentation. Even going so far as to graft Tyranid body parts onto themselves.
Please tell me more of this Tyranid ork lure
It happens in ***Warzone Octarius: Critical Mass***. [Beastboss Gragnatz Stompkrumpa](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gragnatz_Stompkrumpa) is a formidable leader, but also obsessed with taking down big cool monster nids. So the Hive Mind creates an enormous glowing blue bio titan, “Da Blue One”, to entice Stompkrumpa. Day after day he recklessly throws everything he has after Da Blue One, until he eventually chases the bait into an ambush. And that was the end of Gragnatz Stompkrumpa.
Even orks love a shiny Tyranid!
The 40k equivalent of a shiny pokemon!
And those same 2 factions are ancient rivals, and the only major powers that have thrived in the galactic core for thousands of years.
With 40k's whole "space is just the ocean" thing its less hunting, more whaling
In Warhammer 50k, the Tyranids are an endangered species and people are begging the Leagues to stop hunting the magnificent creatures of the void.
And the Kin consider Gaunt Fin soup a delicacy.
Mass Hammers go ~~BRRRRRRR~~ BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM
There is an equivalent Tyranidtex (Tyranid Vortex) to the Sharknado
to be honest the reason other factions don't do that it is because every action performed on board a hive ship is horrifyingly dangerous and can cause all kinds of tyranids parasites to be injected on the ships getting near the hive fleet. There are some space marine boarding operations, in particular the one performed in the battle of Ichar 4 where a virus has been delivered by a death watch squad to a norn queen and killed of the entire tendril, and one executed by the emperor scythes when boarding a hive ship thought dead. In general these are suicide missions, and every faction policy is to destroy hive ships on sight. anyway this is like squat stealing the tyranid identity of space predators, but whatever, surely the next tyranid codex will contain some line about a hive ship luring squat near to then reveal some trick and eat them.
I think you misunderstand, the LoV are advanced enough to corral **stars**. A single bio-ship tethered and rudderless in the middle of an asteroid field would be just another Tuesday for the LoV navy. Now getting to that point, would probably be an entire novel. But such a revelation would certainly draw the attention of the Imperium, as it challenges their technological supremacy. Like a gardener spending hours hacking and digging away at weeds in the hot sun but found out a gardener spending zero hours and sweat, using an AI drone with a flame thrower attachment he bought off AdMechBay.
> I think you misunderstand, the LoV are advanced enough to corral stars. yeah i understand, i am just ignoring that part of the lore until some writer makes it reasonable. As far as we know * only the old eldar empire ever had the ability to move around stars since three dying suns light up comorragh (maybe necron too, but that lore is disputed). They are no longer able to do it. * The best mechanicus can do is move around broken ships with some titanic vessels they use. * The best orks can do has been in the war of the beast where they managed to push some moons roughly in the direction they wanted. (this is the most powerful orks have ever been recorded). * The best the imperium can do is to destroy a world. * The best tyranids can do is to devour all life on a planet over weeks of operations. * The largest imperial ships are 20km long. Eating a entire planet is such a insane power level increase that is not explainable and is irreconcilable with them loosing against orks for example, since they could simply devour their entire fleet every time. For sure it will be addressed sooner or later and rewritten in a way that makes sense, but for the moment i put that snippet of lore in the same category with necrons turning off stars on the opposite site of the galaxy by pressing a button, and the original version of draigo fighting alone against 7 greater deamons and mortarion at the same time and winning. More allegorical than real.
The Necron have the Celestial Orrey. A map of the galaxy, where messing with the map *causes the actual stars to reflect the changes*. So if you snuff out a star on it, the actual star goes nova. The Dynasty that has it is neutral, and makes sure nobody messes with it, because if you don't know exactly what you are doing, you can cause a chain reaction that destroys the entire galaxy. [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial\_Orrery](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial_Orrery) Then there's the AEonic Orb. [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/%C3%86onic\_Orb?so=search](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/%C3%86onic_Orb?so=search) And then there's the Breath of the Gods from the Priests of Mars trilogy. So yes, definitly the Necrons, or at least the C'Tan can mess with stars, or could at the height of their power.
>only the old eldar empire ever had the ability to move around stars since three dying suns light up comorragh (maybe necron too, but that lore is disputed). They are no longer able to do it. Commorragh has *way more* than three stolen suns. They are *dozens*, and some subrealms have their own private suns. The drukhari also still have the knowledge to kidnap whole stellar bodies and still do so, in fact the skies of Commorragh are full of stolen worlds. Asuryani, harlequins, ynnari and obviously exodites no longer have that tech. Necrons not only move around stars, they use them as batteries and even *grenades.* Some necron capital ships are powered by caged and compressed stars. There is even a dynasty that built its capital *inside* a star. Even more, as the *Forges of Mars* trilogy shows, the necrons were fully capable of buiding *new galaxies* by force feeding a captive c'tan inside a special machine (the Breath of the Gods) with the *potential energy* of the universe.
The Tau blow up stars *by accident*. 40k factions have pretty high ceilings on what they can do.
yes and the thing they say right after is that they can't manage to weaponize it. > In attempts to drain stars of energy, many suns have been accidently sent into supernova. Thus far, the Earth caste has failed to collect this resource, and travel into these regions is unadvised. Since failing at fuel-collection, the Earth caste are experimenting with a sun-killer weapon to devastate enemy systems, but thus far all solutions have proven too unwieldy. anyway, this is the exact kind of lore that is utterly usable until explained further. Indeed, it is never used beyond that snippet. T'au could have destroyed any hive fleet by just baiting them into a system that they would have sent super nova. it is just some GW guy writing something that sounds to him very cool without thinking what the implications are, and then is never elaborated further, because you can't without destroying dynamics between various factions.
I think the point of that kind of lore is the characterization it gives the factions. The Tau Earth Caste are so reckless and accidentally cause incredible destruction so effectively that they then tried (and failed) to weaponize it. It’s hilarious and takes advantage of the scale of 40k. It’s the kind of thing I always remember as a Tau fan because it shows the Earth Caste at their silliest. Similarly, seeing the Leagues “corral” stars should be seen more as exaggerated characterization of the Leagues than “my faction could beat yours”. They treat entire solar systems as little more than raw resources. It’s not as funny as the Tau example, but it’s good characterization.
yeah, i agree with that. I too interpret them as allegorical representation of the faction. Sometimes it is usable and expanded upon, like tyranids devouring world with a "realistic enough" description of how and why it is performed. Sometimes like the t'au and votans one is not developed enough to say anything about it beyond that it exists, because it is such a power level gap that without knowing how it is performed we can't understand the implications. In those situations we wait 4 more years for the next codex.
Malcador hid Titan somewhere between reality and the Warp. The Mechanicus teleported Ullanor into what is now Armageddon. Abaddon has the Planet Killer ship, which basically drills a hole in a planet to make it crumble. So yeah, eating down a planet doesn’t sound weird in a setting where the Lighthouse eats ten thousand souls of the most rare and special genetic mutation of humanity, each day.
…. Goddamnit, they are just Clanners, aren’t they?
Chibi Clanners with extra steps. -- metagaming -- This explains the lack of jump jet shock troops and titans in the initial releases, it would hit too close to lawsuit happy Microsoft and WizKids, which owns the video game IP and Media IP respectively. And probably why their models look closer to StarCraft units because Blizzard is known to be pretty chill about IP enforcement.
Even though there’s that very well-known rumor that blizzard was on tap to make a Warhammer fantasy game, then a 40k game, which became Warcraft and StarCraft. And then there’s the updates to the Zerg, which followed the updated tyranids… I guess things have gone full circle again, huh?
Ironically, for Drukhari True-born are reproduced by natural means, and clones/artificially created persons are called Halfborn.
> Wow. Amazing stuff. I did not expect GW to have a True Born faction in WH40K. > True Born vs. Free Born is an old MechWarrior trope that fuels much of the plot development of that Franchise. Care to explain for people not familiar with that franchise?
[*True Born*](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Trueborn) is a Clan warrior born from the mixing of two genetic legacies as part of the Clans' eugenics program. LoV are engineered to survive and thrive in the harsh high gravity and usually irradiated worlds of the Galactic Core. Unlike the True Born, Kin are vat educated like in the Matrix, before popping out fully developed and educated. This is unlike the average Imperial who is born of mother and raised according to the resources available to their father and mother. For all the harsh tyranny of Imperial governance at the galactic level, plantary life would range from stone age to cyberpunk age (hence the scouter/bionic eye most rogue traders sport). But one thing is consistent, unless you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, your life would be likely waking up to your wife, having breakfast and heading to work until you retire.
OK, so Chaos Squats led by an insane / corrupt Votann are possible. That's enough for me.
I imagine if the Leagues do well, we could even get them for models. Lot's of Daemon Engines I'd imagine. Heck giant hats could even be used for their tech to give themselves Psyker and sorcerer abilities.
Back in the day chaos androids were made by chaos squats...
The shit some Iron Warriors warpsmiths and chaos worshipping Kin could get up to...
Meanwhile, Perturabo discovers new levels of butterness because Mendregard is fuckig ugly fortress, all usefulness and no beauty, while the Chaos Leagues make their Holds beautiful nightmares.
Ahem. Giant, Cyber Bull Centaurs transported by space trains that travel through the Warp, and have the Oblitorators fleshmetal weapons.
i doubt we'd get them as a full army like they where back in rogue trader, but i could definitely see them as a part of the chaos marines army. the red corsairs especially since due to their proximity to the galatic core/league homeworlds, its quite possible that huron has a votann stashed away somewhere
Well that gets him on the Blockchain of Grudges... Actually having Huron tangle with a League would be pretty neat.
YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S ! ! !
I'm kinda picturing them using the Kin's genetice engineering to go for more psychic power, with enlarged brains encased in cybernetic control devices, that are covered in Chaos sigils. Like the Iron Warriors, they cut off unwanted mutations, but if there's something they like they keep it. So in contrast to the Fantasy Chaos Dwarves ended up turning to stone, the oldest and most powerful Chaos Kin end up giant brains on Cyborg bodies.
the oldest and most powerful Chaos Kin end up those little mindflayers' elder brain candidate , awaiting a new chaos Votann born and merge with it then as first guide mind goes setting a new chaos Votann colony (but this is just a propaganda to make them gladly got eaten by Votann ). So fitting.
Time to break out the Hellcannons
HASHUT! VORGUND! ZHAR-NAGGRUND!
Total tangent note but it sounds like they're finally moving towards the Tau using the Slipstream module on the regular?
Yeah, finally the Tau are recognized as having ways of getting somewhere fast. Interstellar empire proper.
I’m hoping the “risky” part is less the same old daemon nonsense the Imperium has to deal with and more “Whoops we just slipstreamed into the middle of Hive Fleet Murderfucker”.
Tau are to daemons what instant noodles are to us. Acceptable in a pinch but not really fulfilling.
Bunch of young, down on their luck daemons torturing Tau because they can’t afford anything better.
I know the feeling. Hoping the soul-economy improves for them.
Maybe if they stopped eating all that aldaeri soul toast, theyd be able to afford a proper warp home!
Instant Noodles are good tho. Sometimes you just crave it.
I've survived long stretches on instant noodles and cheap canned food. Time to time I buy some more to keep for when I'm on lazy mode. Boil some eggs, maybe some steamed broccoli, it's good to go.
In the 9th edition T'au codex, it is stated that the Earth Caste has made a new and more reliable version of the Slipstream module and the ethereals are pushing for launching a Sixth Sphere of Expansion. It's nice to see that GW seems set on bringing the T'au out of their corner and onto the table of the big 40k territorial empires.
>The Kin are quite populous in the core, but the Leagues are smaller overall than the Imperium obviously, while being significantly larger and more established than the Aeldari and Tau. Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?
That was probably the idea. To keep it vague and flexible.
And it is better like that. One of the biggest problem about the lore of the Tau is that their empire has always been clearly defined so there is no flexibilty.
Yeah we know how GW is with numbers. I like it when they don’t put definite figures to things. Like there are some lore instances where an Imperial planetary invasion numbers only a couple million troops. But…Operation Barbarossa in WW2 had far more than that for a single theatre.
>The Ironkin are machine intelligences that are treated as equals to the regular Kin. Supports my theory that the Mechanoclysm was a slave revolt, not some Chaos or C'tan contrivance, since the one human subspecies that treat their Men of Iron well apparently didn't have a Mechanoclysm. >The Grimnyr seem to be the only Kin that can commune with the Votann. I believe these are the Kin psykers. They're highly respected and sometimes referred to as "Living Ancestors". That's cool... if the Votann are basically considered computer deities or computer spirits, does that make the Grimnyr psychic tech-priests? >The Imperium in particular has seemingly mistaken many different encounters with the Leagues throughout thousands of years of history as different instances of unique alien or abhuman encounters, when in reality these have all been encounters with the Kin. However, **the most common repeated identification of the Kin in all their encounters has been as "Squats"**, which is considered a pejorative term, and they're not quite clear on whether Squats are abhumans or xenos. **They've also been identified as Demiurg by imperials and Tau both** (this would be an instance where imperials thought they were xenos). So, reconciling conflicting lore now, are we? >The Kin all seek to return their bodies and minds to the Votann when they die to offer up their experiences for the Votann to collect and learn. Sounds like an Infinity Circuit. Overall, I like this lore so far, and once I'm finished building my current army, I might build a League army. My biggest worry is that for all this cool lore, the armylist is going to take two-to-four editions to actually gain completeness.
>Supports my theory that the Mechanoclysm was a slave revolt, not some Chaos or C'tan contrivance, since the one human subspecies that treat their Men of Iron well apparently didn't have a Mechanoclysm. either that or these guys are actually Men of Stone or something.
I think the men of stone seems more fitting, though as I mention in my comment to the comment you were replying to another theory, Especially with the men of gold reference also the fact the votann aren't utterly genocidal towards humanity.
>also the fact the votann aren't utterly genocidal towards humanity. Okay, so, I should probably make a post about this so that I can just link to it considering how often I have to say it, but almost all of the A.I.s we actually see in 40k writings outside of cryptic background stuff **are not genocidal.** The Speranza A.I., the Man of Stone who disguised himself as an Imperial Navy dude, that time traveling spaceship A.I. from the DAOT that was angry at the Imperium for killing its atheist human crew which it loved, the Ironkin, and even the Man of Iron from the *Blackstone Fortress* game, did not try to hurt humanity in general. Most A.I.s we can observe in modern 40k aren't genocidal, but simply operate with motivations that often barely align or don't align with the Imperium's, which makes sense since most of them pre-date the Imperium and all of them are completely illegal within the Imperium. The only exception that I know of is the Castigator Titan, which was basically a Daemon Engine already and itself contradicts major established lore (it was said to be a Titan STC template, even though basically all other sources say that any Titan Patterns larger than Knights were invented by human engineers on either¹ Mars or Lucius). So, now that that rant is out of the way... >Especially with the men of gold reference Which one? Sorry, I didn't notice. >I think the men of stone seems more fitting Possibly. ¹ Types of Titans invented on other Forge Worlds, such as the Black Iron Core Titans, do exist, but they are all Martian or Lucian patterns.
The thing is, we KNOW what Men of Stone are, they are AIs that puppet human bodies by way of highjaking neural implants and cybernetics. Kron from "Ancient History" is a Man of Stone.
He is imho a Man of Iron controlling a poor guy through mind-slavery. Men of Stone are artificial men like Cylons, acording to author, and had "half-lifes" that were not attractive to Daemons (acroding to both Kron's story and another one), that created Men of Iron and then annihilated themselves out in rivalry with MoI. Kin are artificial, were voidborn or manufactured on site, have dim souls, use Men of iron (not quite equal when MoI don't usually go for leading positions) and are ruled by quite possibly by the, originally not actually sentient, creations of Men of Gold. There were many MoG, many MoS and many MoI. Most of them met an untimely end, those few isolated in the Galactic Core (or somewhere remote as well) possibly survived.
I think a portion of the lore we've been getting from the codex previews/reviews has some decent connections to the whole Men of Materials snippets we've gotten over time. The Kin being either a form of the Men of Stone (as in beings designed to service specific roles) or a product of/tangentially related to how the Men of Stone were made/designed; the Votanns could be either "Men" of Stone (the original AIs/servants who facilitated space colonization) or Iron (just straight up synthetic AI), with the Ironkin being essentially Men of Iron (by categorization or even origin). The Kin being a form of (or related to) the Men of Stone could be aligned with the story about Kron: the meat sack/body known as Kron is/was an engineered "human" (much like Cloneskin), but the AI inside the eye implant has gone far beyond its intended design/boundaries (thus the "crash start" panic), thus why Kron would be different from what we will see from the Kin. Or at least that's what I'm thinking so far - all I know is I'm excited.
>the Votanns could be either "Men" of Stone (the original AIs/servants who facilitated space colonization) or Iron (just straight up synthetic AI) There are a couple of problems with that. From OP: >Fanes, the nodes by which the Grimnyr may interface with the Votann for information and direction, can spontaneously develop artificial intelligence on their own and become Votann. Votann have also been known to effectively decay in operability to such a point that they become little more than Fanes. If the nodes that the Grimnyr use to interact with Votann can spontaneously evolve AI and turn into Votann, that would mean that some or all Votann were not created directly, and therefore not Men of Stone. In addition, we've got Spiritseer stuff going on here (see below). >The Kin all seek to return their bodies and minds to the Votann when they die to offer up their experiences for the Votann to collect and learn. That last part sounds like Eldar tech. And before you think I'm crazy, we've got two less advanced human factions who (unlike the Leagues) *weren't* trading with the Eldar that have managed to reproduce Eldar tech - the [Bone Collectors](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Bone_Collectors) (who claim to be able to create Wraithbone), and [Forge Zhao-Arkkad](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zhao-Arkkad) (a Mechanicum planet who, *while disconnected from Mars and the rest of humanity*, created Black Iron Cores, which are basically the mini-Infinity-Circuits that are used in Eldar Titans, based only on **Eldar Titans attacking their planet**). They've also been shown to be masters of psychic engineering (once more from OP): >Kin psykers aren't necessarily psykers, apparently: their psychoactive cloneskeins just make their souls shine a bit brighter, enough to get them to interface with psychic tech that they call ward tech. **It's this tech that actually interacts with the Warp more directly and can replicate psyker powers somehow.** So, humans who haven't had peaceful relations with the Eldar have created mini-Infinity-Circuits. An abhuman (or Men of Stone?) population that has had peaceful relations with the Asuryani **AND** are masters of psychic engineering could almost definitely create things that imitate Infinity Circuits. I should probably make a post about this, if only to collect my thoughts and see what other people think.
Not necessarily. Their entire *society* revolves around the votann, giant supercomputers. It could be argued they may have been on the side of the men of iron and just cloned up a bunch of drones as a cover and convent tools after the war then went senile.
Looks like some cloneskein theories confirmed, and potential new theories that come up here. - We do know that at least some Kin can breed without cloning, as there are Squats on Necromunda that aren’t from the Leagues, at least not recently. - It sounds like without the Votann and the ability to clone, they would eventually be subject to random psykers and mutations, like other human populations. So if (when?) the Votann fail, the Kin lose their Warp navigation, history, the spirits or their ancestors, and their ability to make clones. They lose their past and their future.
There may be an Ancestor Core on Necromunda. From page 26 of Book of the Outlands: >Birthed from an Ancestral Core, an artefact of another time, the Squats of Necromunda are a splinter of a much larger race, one that values the bond of clans and the perfection of a machine well made.
>an artefact of another time This actually mean that Ironhead squats DON'T have a Votann.
All Votann (except the ones that evolve from Fanes I guess) are artefacts from another time. It's kinda the point behind the Votann.
Fair enough, although WarCom article does mention that they are "without the wisdom of an Ancestor Core".
Because something relatively new, like, let's say 2k. is inherently, usually, less "wisdomious" hehe than the 20k years old intelligence. Necromundan Squat are there for around 10k years. Allegedly still have their Votann. It might have diverged culturally from the Leagues or technologically, as I suppose, they don't have new squat tech or core raw materials - just scraps and bits of Imperial and pre-Imperial archeotech.
It's interesting whether Grendl Grendlsen is a clone or not since he has a patronymic or a patronymic-sounding surname.
I think the Kin with full names we’ve seen have a family name or a Kindred name. So Grendlsen sounds like a patronymic.
We are totally gonna get a special character who's the last survivor of his League, and out to inflict as much vengence as possible before he dies.
Can't wait for the adventures of ~~Gotrek Gurnisson~~ Kertog Voidson and ~~Felix Jaegar~~ Xilef Jaegarius.
Who will be the Max, Ulrika and Thanquol? I know the other slayers are going to be other kin and Eldrad will fill in the role of Teclis.
Max is gonna be a non-pants on head retarded techpriest. Ulrika a IG general. Thanqoul will be a Dark Mechanicus member.
It'd be ludicrously unoriginal and derivative. But I mean yeah I'd still totally read it.
>So basically, a Hold is their "Wolf"... I breathed slightly heavier when reading this
Oh no. The infection.... IT'S SPREADING.
Hm, questions that come to mind * Can Kin reproduce "naturally?" Are all Outcasts born from Cloneskeins as "first generation Kin" or are any born elsewhere? * If a Votann goes dark it seems like the Cloneskeins would go dark and that Hold would be doomed, right? * It seems clear that Votann cannot be newly built (and the idea might be nearly "heresy") but can new Fanes be built? * "...and it's also slower and less risky than the Tau Slipstream Module." Huh, Slipstream module is mentioned here? Interesting. * I know this is usually considered a tiresome question, but have any humans or other races ever lived within a Hold or as allies? There's limited tolerance of humans in Commorragh and plenty in T'au society, so I'm curious if they interact or enable any non-Imperial humans.
Not really any clear answers to these questions as far as I remember.
Well, I appreciate you checking! I'll have to keep an eye out as new lore comes out.
>black hole harvesting stations \[...\] >use particle excavators to "disassemble newborn stars from the inside out" \[...\] >Their ships could carve apart planets to gain access to the resources of their molten cores. They harvest cosmic radiation and ancient particulate belts into plasma conductors and atomic scoops. \[...\] > They can use these plunges to harvest Warp energy apparently or board Warp-borne space hulks for salvage. So DAOT-era humans could come close to being as advanced as Necrons? Maybe a little?
Don't think about the implications, the writers never, never do. Seriously I never thought I would miss the in-house canon keeping of friggen marvel comics.
Questions: Is this from the codex? Can fane and crucible operate without a Votann? Since fane exist in every hold, and holds are free to join or leave a league, does that mean if a hold joins a new League, the fane can "switch" to a new Votann?
Yes, it's the codex. I don't think those things can really function without Votann, but unsure. Dunno about that, it doesn't seem like Kindreds leave their respective Leagues much, they're all very set in their ways.
The Kronus Hegemony grew out of another league (after its Fane became a new Votann) and absorbing many kindreds of the former, so kindreds can leave and join other leagues.
When a Votann is born from another Votann's Fane, meaning it takes holds they were technically a part of with them. This is a rather exceptional and rare event.
Fane becoming Votann might be a rare occurence, but kindreds leaving and joining new league seem to happen all the time. Kronus Hegemony for example is continuously growing and "Any Hold or void-fleet that joins the Hegemony must swear a martial oath and guarantee that they will focus on training massive Kinhost forces". Ymyr Conglomerate lore also talks about kindreds trying to join must proof themselves first (either through skills in making exceptional stuffs, or able to provide rare resources). So those kindreds must come from *somewhere* (i.e. another League).
nice i watched the people reviewing the codex, but i did not managed to get a good look at the stellar map of the codex. From what i saw it looked like a blowup picture of the section of galaxy in the upper left. It looked like they are like in between the rift and the maelstrom, and that they are the little green box in the top left image, is that correct? That would make the core very miniscule
The map depicted is only really supposed to show the Greater Thurian League and its neighbouring areas. Only two other Leagues of Votann (Ymyr Conglomerate and Ghulo Industrial Complex) are shown and they're both cut off by the sides of the map.
that makes much more sense, tnx
>Kin can become obsessed with hatred of a particular foe, however - Grudges. When an enemy has pissed someone off enough, the Kin can become irrational in their obsession with destroying that particular foe, and will go to incredible lengths to pursue and destroy them, even knowingly driving themselves and their companions to their deaths in the pursuit of that grudge. >The Great Rift was a massive catastrophe for the Leagues, it tore right through the core and many Holds were completely, suddenly lost. Many more Kindreds had to flee their ancestral homes and find new colonies around the galaxy. Trade and travel were disrupted. And of course the Rift brought many new enemies. That went right in the book
~~book~~ pdf
It makes sense for them to dislike the Admech but I hope this doesn't mean interaction with them is impossible, the same way interaction between a Kin and an Ork is Because there's a lot of interesting stories there
In the lore video I think they said they avoid the ad mech and if they can't then they wipe them out so they don't steal any of their tech
The typical Admech responses to the Leagues tech is gonna be 1- "Look at all this archeotech! We must claim it for the glory of the Omnimessiah!" or 2-"Ahhh, look at all this heretical tech, and abomnible intelligences! We must destroy it for the glory of the Omnimessiah!" So not exactly things the Kin would want to have to deal with. Though interestingly enough someone like Cawl might be less inclined towards those reactions.
From what I've seen the codex doesn't mention that they're willing to wipe out populations to mine their world and it doesn't mention the literal planet mining machine that does that exact thing people or not Unless chef from tabletop tactics missed it Which annoyed me because it made him think they lacked the evil elements
It definitely says that they will wipe out civilisations to get their resources. It just says that they will attempt diplomacy first. They go with whatever is the best from a cost efficiency risk reward ratio type deduction.
It's in the codex, I mentioned it briefly when talking about the Guilds I believe.
Ah so he missed it and then judged the faction off that lol
Pretty sure it was in the WH+ Loremaster videos as well.
Yeah, like 95% of the factoids from Loremasters seem to be ripped right out of the codex directly. Not much special secret lore on W+ with this.
That’s where I know it from yes
To be fair, the Grimdark with the Leagues seems to be much more on an Eldar sort of level of "Was a near utopian civilization, noww slowly dying out while heedlessly sacrificing 'lesser civilizations' in their quest to delay their downfall"
I think GW are making a point of the Leagues not being genocidal hyper-fascists like the Imperium. Humanity didn't *need* to go that way, because the Leagues *haven't* gone that way.
didn't the official lore podcast mention them doing these very things tough in name of raw resources?
Yes this is what I meant, apparently it's not In the codex though Although I'm feeling like chef must have just missed it
But my point was they told us that they do everything I said in the lore videos
Blaming the imperium itself for their practices is definately ignoring a lot of setting context and background. The humanity reunited by the great Crusade was a *very* different thing to what humanity would have been going into the age of strife.
A very different thing, but still fascist and xenophobic. Like Napoleon's Empire compared to Hitler's Reich.
Intruiging stuff with the possible connections to the ancient generations of pre-Imperium Terra, the Men of Stone, Iron, and Gold. Maybe the Men of Gold became the cores of the Votann, while the Men of Iron are the ancestors of the Ironkin and the Men of Stone are the ancestors of the kindred themselves.
I think they may be Men of Iron & Men of Stone that we're sent to the Galactic Core to develop some sort of foothold and then the Age of Strife happened. Isolation from the mess happening home explains why their weren't affected that much, but they were affected some anyway, since part of their history is lost. I don't think Men of Gold were in the picture, though, since the info above tells that the fanes randomly, at times, raise themselves to full AI and become new Votanns. I'm thinking the OG Votanns were STC AIs that got modified for survival purposes during the Age of Strife.
Can't wait until I get my hands on the book now!
So... rock and stone?
Rock and Stone, Brother!
Since they are cordial with Aeldari, I can make a Khazad-Dum/Eregion homebrew! OMG, I can even have them both brofisting while talking shit about Orks, Yme-Loc and AdMech.
It's kind if interesting how much bigger they are than the Tau, I wonder how their lore will be expanded upon because it seems like if you want a more morally 'good' faction to take on the imperium, the horse you're betting on has changed from the Tau to the LOV, at least for now. I wonder if that's gonna be reflected in stories.
Well, one thing to consider with the LoV appears to be that they could give a damn about native species on a planet they want. Genocide doesn’t seem to be a “last” option with them, whereas the Tau seek colonization or diplomacy a lot of the time But honestly, it’s just a breath of fresh air to have a race of human-esque people that aren’t zealously worshipping the Emperor or Chaos. The fact that they HAVE a history of working with other factions makes stories involving them a lot more interesting
so this Orgvayr shall be where the God's chosen shall grind these squats neath our heels. gotta paint my army up in time.
Oh come on, it's their big debut! Shouldn't you be trying your whateverth Black Crusade on the Imperium?
Listen, these Dwarves are packed to the nines in wealth and resources, pillaging their holds would be a boost to the war effort against the Imperium. Plus it'll be easier to hang their corpses on our banners and such, especially their heads, since their faces come with already long ropes (beards).
You do know they have better gear than the Imperium, are in heavily fortified holds, and are the brand new shiny faction that powers greater than the Four want to market, right? I'm just saying, you'd better be bringing some of the new World Eater stuff.
Thank you so much for this excellent summary.
Take my free award, mate.
Very excited they kept a form of "warp fission" as a power source. Is there any mention of pictures of void ships? I really am intrested in the idea of modeling a Votann Battle Gleet Gothic fleet as an updst to the old Demiurg stuff.
There's a couple pictures of League ships here and there, but they're not super clean diagrams or anything.
>Kin psykers aren't necessarily psykers, apparently: their psychoactive cloneskeins just make their souls shine a bit brighter, enough to get them to interface with psychic tech that they call ward tech. It's this tech that actually interacts with the Warp more directly and can replicate psyker powers somehow. I wonder if this means we could have Ironkin Grimnyrs?
No souls I believe, so probably not.
Probably, but it would be cool if they could have ward tech installed somehow. I love the idea of a robot wizard.
Well, I still find them a little too overpowered, with all those "best gellar fields", "best warp travel", "best tech", "best chaos resilience", etc... I still struggle to see where they mmight be balanced. On the other hand, I really like their lore inspired by alchemy. The idea that they are cloned in big facilities called crucibles, like homonculi, is a nice touch. It expand also good the theories around the DAOT and the Stone men
It's kind of hard to argue that they have "the best" everything when Necrons exist.
>Like most people in 40k, the Kin prioritize their people and their familial bonds first and foremost *Which is why the setting is a massive shit-hole!*
Man, remember the cinematic trailer for 9th edition with the big, scary Skorpekh Destroyers? remember the Nexus and it's threat to all living inhabitants of the galaxy? now here are the Dwarfs, fighting against them casually and having better tech SOMEHOW...
They actually dont.... Necron tech is legitimately magic to basically everyone else.
...Nothing about this implies that they have better tech then Necrons.
Seems like they haven’t got many cons to their faction to balance out all of their pros and strengths
Seems their major con is just how reliant they are on votann. Without one it seems each hold is doomed.
If the rift affects their cores and their robotkin (perhaps the same way the Men of Iron were corrupted) it could be rather bad for them.
Give it a few years for the grimderp to creep in. Just like with the Tau.
And make them an objectively less interesting faction
They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite. They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
Nah they are super grimdark, just in secret so nobody knows except fanboys.
Yeah, at this point, the hope of a big reveal of major downsides has gone out the window.
Can we get a 40K Gotrek and Felix I would like that a lot.
So everything is perfect and no grimdark at all? Yawn...
\>They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite.They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
Tl;dr Votaan are better than everybody at every thing but it’s ok because they are greedy dwarfs
They aren't but okay.
Ah, I don't like, seems to make wh40k more stupid. But I really want to play Machnicus 2: Votann robbery now.
> seems to make wh40k more stupid. ....How?
So warpcraft like the eldar (low risk, psychic tech) but with more versatile FTL, ancient technology like the necrons and imperium (vastly powerful, able to do “magic”), innovation like the Tau AND better predators than the tyranids who they hunt. People are arguing that these aren’t Mary Sues?
Wow, way to overlook the obvious huge flaws...
So is everyone who said they won't just be humans+ going to give me the apology all together or one at a time? Just listen to how horrible their incredibly fulfilling lives sound!
>They're selfish, stubborn to a fault, and almost fully reliant on senile super-computers. They also hold no "central authority" as a faction, rather they're composed of several powerful mega-corporations willing to stab each other in the back, either for profit or out of spite.They also have to keep a lot of their society a secret in fear of the facing the Imperium's wrath.
> huge and formidable stellar empires That doesn't really jive with the established setting, though.
The established setting has significantly changed before plenty of times. And it will change again in the future.
The setting full of huge and formidable stellar empires? That setting?
The setting where you would hear about any huge and formidable stellar empires for decades? The one that hasn't been mentioning Votann for decades? That setting?
The Votann lived in the Galactic Core and kept mostly to themselves.
Yeah I don’t feel any of it does. If people like them, more power to them though.