Honest question, Veeky Forums: how many of you still care for 40K canon...

Honest question, Veeky Forums: how many of you still care for 40K canon? How many of you bother to keep up with what GW decides to retcon this week?

I'm the kind of lorefag who loves to write about homebrew planets, regiments, inquisitors, Trader dynasties, lesser xenos species and yes, also Space Marine Chapters. I used to try to keep it all compatible with established canon - but in between GW getting more and more comfortable with retcons, and the fact that they never really cared about consistency to begin with, I just gave up at some point.

I mean, I really like to build off little details. I love those little fluff tidbits that noone else pays attention to. I actually got Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Only War just so that I could use them for fine-tuning my homebrew fluff. But time and time again, whole chunks of my homebrew fluff were invalidated because some 'dex writer either felt like retconning shit or just didn't care about details. And after a while, it just became too much.

So I decided to give up on canon 40K alltogether. I stick mostly to alternate 40K scenarios now - that way, it's immediately obvious that I'm not even trying to stick to current canon, and I'm still free to cherrypick any good ideas from the new fluff.

I mean, GW and its writers don't even care about established 40K canon, so why should we? Black Library is a bunch of writers who get paid to insert their headcanon into the setting and snipe fluff they don't like, and the 'dex writers plain don't care about preexisting fluff. Forgeworld is the closest thing that GW has to a team that actually cares about fluff consistency - and Forgeworld is also the label that gave us pre-Heresy Leman Russ varieties when the older fluff made a point of saying that the Leman Russ tank was a post-Heresy innovation.

I'll admit that alt-40K scenarios aren't everything either, but it sure makes it easier to deal with 'dex fluff stupidity and BL shenanigans.

OP again; might as well vent for a bit.

The new Iron Hands fluff was propably the final straw for me. I had one homebrew Chapter that I was really invested in, and I had made it an Iron Hands successor because I really liked the clan companies and I wanted to have something with non-codex organisational doctrines. Then the 5th edition came along, and GW decided that the only good marine is an Ultramarine. The Iron Hands' unique organisation was gone now, and so were many of the old fluff tidbits that I had built my chapter off of.

Of course, in retrospect, that chapter wasn't all that good to begin with. Some parts were good, and it generally had decent potential but I just wanted to do way too much with a single chapter.

Anyhoo, not long after that, me and a few friends decided to make our own homebrew Astartes Legions. It started as a crazy one-off idea, but it worked out a lot better than any one of us expected. And the reason it worked so well was that we now had free rein. None of us had to care about the big damn mess that is 40K canon anymore. We just cherrypicked the stuff we liked, and discarded anything that sucked. No Codex Astartes to shit things up. No excessive grimderp from the AdMech or Inquisition. We could do our thing without having to worry about anything. It was just liberating.

I like most things that aren't Space Marines.

Sorry to burst your anti-bubble user, but the 40k Fluff/Story/Canon is pretty much the glue that holds the franchise together and one of the only reasons it has survived (and thrived) with such bad rules.

Honestly, I preferred 40k when it was a little more self aware; not full on satire like it was in the early days, but not completely grimderp like it is now.

Furthermore, I also preferred the setting when it was somewhat less fleshed out. They told you about big battles and important locations, but left huge holes is the fluff for players to tell their own stories. This isn't to say that players can't do that now, but it feels less inclusive.

I'm saying that I'm right, or that people can't feel differently, just this is how I feel about it.

It's not an anti-bubble, fellow user. I actually like the fluff - and that's exactly why the frequent retcons and such bother me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about abandoning 40K here. I still write 40K fan fluff. I still buy and read Black Library novels. Hell, I even bought one of the Forgeworld HH books.

It's just that I don't want to stick with current canon anymore when it comes to my own homebrew fluff. But I'm sure as hell still paying attention to the latest 40K releases.

I keep constant track of it. It's part of being a fan, we don't own the IP and thus we don't get to decide what is and what is not canon.

>Don't get to decide what is and what is not canon
Actually, you kind of do?
"Everything is canon. Not everything is true."

Canon seems to be pretty exclusive to the anglosphere. In latin countries the concept of diegesys seems to prevail.

I come from comics fandom, where if you don't pick the things you like and discard the rest nothing makes sense., so I do the same with ttrpgs and other settings.
It's imaginary stories, the most important thing is to have a fun time.

I think to the key to being a lorefag is not taking everything to heart. Probally even coming up with your own reasons.


40k lore threads now go one of 2 ways it either everyone talking about why they love a certain peice of lore and even say some of their own homebrews.

OR

The one I hate people who act like complete assholes and constantly correct people since "muh lore" on shit like "LOL BT niggers cant have 7k marines" or in general just act like complete assholes who stat pointless arguments.


and then the minor fact that if you want a thread to survive you kinda have to shittalk a faction to get it rolling.

This, people take 40k lore so seriously those random "Fall of Cadia" threads that have been popping up are unbearable. I love 40k but seriously I dont know if its bait or just actual autism around here.

Then shit like Beast Arises or HH also brings in pointless lore arguments aswell. To the point I feel like people should not care about current lore if this is the state of 40k lore on Veeky Forums. The fucking general is ass and the RPG general is nice but kinda slow.

I only care about the canon when it involves the factions I like or the army I play. I don't really care about the whole DA and SW thing for example, and while I am an Imperial, I don't mind if Abaddon actually wins.

>We could do our thing without having to worry about anything. It was just liberating.
Congratulations, you have finally cured your autism.

That statement is stupid, because it basically means "Everything is canon, except for the parts that aren't." It's really just a cop-out for their terrible inconsistencies and constant retcons.

It doesn't matter becausr Necrons win in the end.

40k canon sucks.
I much prefer to replace all instances of "battle" with "wacky races".

If you replace all battles with wacky races, 40k suddenly becomes fucking amazing.

>how many of you still care for 40K canon?
I do.

>How many of you bother to keep up with what GW decides to retcon this week?
I keep current on generally what's going on, but I rarely take any of it to heart anymore.

I ignore pretty much everything starting with the HH series.

40k doesnt have solid fluff, it was never really supposed to. Its entirely plausible that the people in the nobledark thread have the actual history of 40k and what gw tells us is just imperial lies to keep the populace scared into place.

40k is also so massive in a way that anything can go, you want a race of catboys? Sure it probably exists. Genestealer orks? Probably somewhere. it really comes down to what other people will take seriously. Ex: a guard regiment of catboys is wierd but id play against it, i dont think anyone would accept the possibility of female asartes however.

As a continuation of this, an assumption permeates the setting that all fluff is baised to the faction whoms perspective it is told from. As an example, all codecies fluff is baised towards their own faction, and the tanith first and only have prbably never really encountered chaos >asartes
, much less killed any.

>That statement is stupid, because it basically means "Everything is canon, except for the parts that aren't." -It's really just a cop-out for their terrible inconsistencies and constant retcons.-
Yeah, that's GW writing in a nutshell.

I enjoy all 40k lore, I accept that things change over time because thats how life works. many of the shops that existed when I was younger no longer exist and thats just fine. I've played Templars for 15 years so yea I understand that it sucks when major changes happen, but it really doesn't bother me because I can still play overpriced toy soldiers with my friends and get wasted. Plus new storylines are fucking cool.

>implying orks haven't already won

>40k doesnt have solid fluff
wtf are you talking about lol. I've been a nerd and been around groups of nerds and have nerd friends who all love lotr, star wars, warcraft etc. None of them had really ever played warhammer, so I convinced them to get warhammer total war when it came out on steam, and all of them say the same thing now "man warhammer is fucking epic, these races, these quotes, its just 10/10 nonstop". I got buddies in their late 20's texting me 40k quotes while im at work saying its the most epic shit they've ever read. obviously this kind of stuff is all personal and subjective to individual taste, but when you take a step back you start to realize how sweet things really are.

lotr is great because the story was written and it never changed, but warhammer is great because it does change and feels like a progressing story, just depends on your views I suppose.

Honestly, I don't pay that much attention to the codexes. The stuff FFG wrote was so much better, that I tend to stick to it. That's really the only way to handle the 40K "cannon"; take what you like and leave the rest.

Im not saying 40k fluff is bad, or unenjoyable. But its fluff contradicts itself over and over even in the current canon. From a writers perspectove, its clear that GW as.a whole doesnt give a fuck- you can either accept that the fluff doesn't matter and is just here to get us to buy toy soldier. Or you can make up a logical reason within the setting of why a space marines power level varies completely to fit the plot conviniences of various different novels.

>Horus died at the Wacky Races of Terra
>Wacky Races of Armageddon
>Holding out against the Tyranids at the Wacky Races of Ultramar
By god, it really is amazing

My biggest wish is that fluff and crunch would match one another

40K does have a canon.

The general rule, which people are too dumb to understand, is that newer trumps older fluff.

Unbelievable! Groundbreaking! No other fictional setting works like this.

People are perfectly aware of that, user. They're just disappointed by the lack of continuity in 40k.

And fyi, the notion of new fluff trumping old one directly contradicts the definition of canon, because it doesn't create a hierarchy set in stone.
If you want a comparison, canon is a situation where you have a constitution and a hierachy of norms (like most current democracies), your pic is a system where all laws have the same value (like the french third republic).

>Unbelievable! Groundbreaking! No other fictional setting works like this.

Then you shouldn't have lied, and should learn to read.

In the event of a contradiction. GW will review all the related lore pieces and then decide what's the most logical and consistent path forwards (also what fits their current market appeal). There is a clear canon progression for all to see. So GW's IP work just like any gaming setting.

So when people say that 40K has no canon, they are liars. GW itself never made any official statements on how their canon works.

Please forgive me, apparently I wasn't sufficiently heavy-handed in my use of sarcasm. Yes, of course every setting ever works like this.

I'm also interested in learning how renaming someone Thracian instead of Thracius adds anything meaningful to the story.

Some on at management didn't like the previous name so it was changed.

Similarly someone at management didn't like that Black Templar are way above chapter strength so they told the writer to bring their numbers down.

It doesn't have to be meaningful it just needs to give the guys in charge peace of mind.

>guys shut up I am the only one who knows what he meant you're all doing it wrong
yeah nah

>No possibility of female astartes

Chaos can do anything, user.

>The Black Templars are on crusade

>Two combat squads show up

Except conquer Terra.

See, now that's exactly what bothers me about GW's approach to 40K in recent years. "Someone in management got a bug up his ass, therefore..."

I mean, GW has always been shoddy when it comes to 40K fluff (and they still are - just look at how their new Traitor Legions supplement pretty much ignores the new Black Legion fluff). But nowadays, they'll also randomly rewrite parts of the setting just because "somebody didn't like it". They have no respect for established fluff anymore.

And the best part is, all these frivolous retcons often create more continuity problems than they solve.

> ignores the new Black Legion fluff

What Black Legion fluff?