Lore Does NOT Matter in Warhammer...At Least to Games Workshop. A 40K Rant.

[@Captain-Thievius]

40K is making the exact same screw up Starwars did under Disney, completely disregarding canon.

[@markandrew207]

Oh it is a dark day for warhammer lad

[@CharlieKennedy-gp2kl]

EXACTLY 💯

[@everopeneye3290]

they will 100% make it softer and more malleable to a wider audience, part of me also thinks that they really don’t like the grim dark ascetic and the people it attracts

[@mattslucas1521]

I think there's two sides to the coin; it all depends on what you're introduced to first. I'm old, and I was introduced to 40k by some older friends who could afford it. I didn't know anything about the lore, and they didn't go into the details. The models were cool, though. So I bought some, and eventually the 2nd edition box. Rulebook lore, and the occasional White Dwarf is all we had to go on. So my early group and I we're into it for the models first, then the lore. It can snowball, though, no matter which you start with. One can lead to the other, which in turn leads back to the first, and on and on. It is disappointing with how little lore there is on the website. Here's a wargame, but why there's a war to begin with is missing.

[@mattslucas1521]

@@everopeneye3290 of course they will, case in point: the new Emperor's Children models.

[@hathatterhat]

When I was done the initial experience of Space Marine 2, i didnt think to myself "I want to indulge in a competitive tabletop game of this", i thought to myself "wow, i wonder what stories there are to what i just saw throughout, how do i exp3rience more?"

[@mastermide77]

And you would probably then go to KZbin to watch lore videos, and find some wikis.

[@WarsmithThanatos]

Many of the new players are this way too. I wanted to geek out about his army and his characters and got a "idk, internet said he´s a must buy" I die a little bit every time

[@evilabelincoln3787]

I play a very narrative guard army list. It's essentially a mechanized infantry platoon, a few stormtrooper squads and a shadowsword, and i get beat often because I don't have much support besides the shadowsword, and the new players constantly try to tell me about meta lists they found on reddit that would be better. I have tried telling them I don't care, but they just don't get it.

[@WarsmithThanatos]

@@evilabelincoln3787 Yeah, I know that feeling. I play a White Scars with only bikes and speeders. But with the reduced attacks, no character support and reliable anti tank option makes always an uphill battle. But I love the concept.

[@evilabelincoln3787]

@WarsmithThanatos reddit meta dorks: why don't you build an army based off this list? Hobbyists: because my shit looks cool.

[@kraftyevan]

I'm a 40k Zoomer that got in during later 7th edition, similar to how I got into DnD late 4th edition. Joining my hobbies at these very awkward times showed me the environment before the explosion AND after the explosion. GW has changed so much it's not even funny, and even worse is how much the audience has changed. I often don't even recognize the community I knew as a kid.

[@bulletbelt7792]

Literally every nerd and even normie that i know thinks the lore is the best part. Youre right about this 100%. The reason I'm not as attracted to other settings, is the lore. Not the models

[@ltGargoyle]

i stopped caring about the lore around 6th edition 40k and 7th WFBs. its changed to sell models which is fine. but then its pointless. so give me cool models with good rules. oh wait, they do not know how to do that. those are written so they are broken and have to be replaced every 3 years which then invalidate them. just write the basic rules. Once upon a time, they made it so you could build and customize your own heroes/characters models so you could customise your faction heros. that's going away if its not gone now for most factions.

[@redcrest3643]

Sadly I've found that every hobby I've ever loved, from Warhammer to comic books to videogames to Roleplaying games, have been coopted by a new crop of owners that hold the lore of their own IPs in very low regard

[@mastermide77]

North, you kind of answered your own question. Why would gw spend tens of thousands of dollars on adding an extensive wiki to their website when there's already thousands of hours of youtube content and dozens of wikis made by fans over the years. Honestly, 99% of new players probably won't touch the website for months. I also think most people pick up models by what looks cool and then find all the fluff about it.

[@an0gr0br]

100%. I’m (very) new to the hobby. My gateway in was the fact that SM2 bumped a bunch of 40k content into my KZbin algorithm, my wife and I just had a new baby, and 60 minute + long form lore videos were great late night feeding zone out content. My interest grew from there. Even if they wanted to, would GW care to make content similar to Janovich’s 4 hour fall of Horus video, or his 20 part (and counting) breakdown of the siege of Vraks? Would it be as good if they tried?

[@mastermide77]

@an0gr0br and that's why the current arrangement is for the best. I'm not saying gw couldn't do more than what they do. There's just no way to compete with the fan content except for just removing it.

[@mtgmac1]

Hey North, do you remember Kirby? Then you'd also do well to remember that "the Hobby is buying Games Workshop's products".

[@Capt.DanInJapan]

The lore has always been a vehicle to sell more toy soldiers. If GW are pushing the more superluminal way of selling models and it works better than screaming the story of the Imperium into a small room, why would GW worry about it? What sells more models, a jaded staffer droning on about the 35+ years of lore or seeing people enjoying themselves with the cool looking toys? I know which one little Timmy is going to enjoy more and I know that GW has lore to flesh out the atuff when Timmy wants to learn more. On a slight tangent, it's why I don't really care all that much if the lore gets retconned, updated or scrapped. I saw it happen with the Squats, I saw it happen woth multiple versions of the Chaos books, and so on. I'd probably say that I'd be a little more insulted with the insinuation that GW's new target audience can't or doesn't read, but that's just me. Ultimately, the website should just be a hook for new fish. It's not really for the whales.

[@kennyleung9909]

Agreed. I've always just looked to the lore as a bonus. The models are my priority.

[@CrabbieCrapple]

Scrolls onto Classic Blood Bowls minis being released - "See how badly these need updating" Love watching your vids for these takes

[@kenupton4084]

@9:45 I got into the hobby cause i like collecting little soldier things... Battle Beasts, GI Joes, TMNT, Marvel action figures, Army Ants, Micro Machines etc. My first army was Chaos in 3rd. I wanted to play 40k based on a single image. The Obliterator artwork in the margin of their unit entry. No lore. Just a machine dude with a cannon in his chest. I played Ultramarines because they were generic which meant i had access to all the unit options. I played Tyranids because i wanted an army that didnt have any ranged weapons. I played Eldar be ause i owned a collection that resulted in a broken overpowered list. I played tau cause i knew i could get them painted quickly. I played Imperial Fists to prove that painting yellow is easy. I played Krieg because i wanted to paint a guard army but i hate painting faces. Plus i always wanted a bunch of tanks and theyre the only army you can really do that with. Curtently working on Dark Angels cause i like Terminator models. None of my choices were based on a story or particular character. Mostly aesthetic choices.

[@SirFailsalot91]

I remember one version of the old Warhammer website when I was first getting into the hobby, around 17 years ago: >Showing off kit-bashes and conversions, with the High Elf Dragon being very popular >Print-offs for colouring your own armies, like Space Marine, Eldar, Tau and Chaos Marines >Rules for armies using Chaos Daemons before they were their own army, and inventing scenarios why they're working with non-Chaos armies, with the Tau fighting alongside a Bloodthirster as an example >Using spare Tyranid bitz to invent species not found in the Codex, such as treating Adrenal Glands as parasites latched onto Guardsmen and brainwash them (pre Genestealer Cults return) >Multiple pages of army colours beyond a handful of select armies - Successor Chapters, Splinter Fleets, Guard Regiments, Chaos Renegades - paint schemes of all stripes by the 'Eavy Metal studio staff, not just Ultramarines, Black Legion or Hive Fleet Leviathan all the time. That was fun, that had me excited before I even delved into the lore, and my first Black Library books, "Fulgrim" and "Daemon World" had me hooked - now their website is solely aimed at selling products and everything else is the bare minimum, it's disappointing.

[@bulletbelt7792]

My theory on what could be done to preserve 40k, is to treat the time between horus heresy and indomitus crusade as its own period, much as horus heresy is treated. 'Age of the imperium' or something, Might have to be organised by fans, but it would allow 'new40k' to exist, and still the long time fans can enjoy the old setting.

[@SMIDSY609]

To be fair, the old Blood Bowl models are part of an made to order promotion and not part of the normal Blood Bowl models you get

[@theRemyLuna]

GW makes it really hard to get into 40k, fantasy/OW, AOS, BB, etc. They dont care about the people wanting to delve into this universe. An interactive map setting would help those just starting so much. But that isnt buying models in their minds. Even though people that love the setting WILL stick around and purchase for years and years.

[@mastermide77]

Who actually gets into the hobby by going to the official website?

[@cheesemarine]

Man you're making me nostalgic for that old site. I used to pour over it over and over, downloading my favourite art work and putting them into power points lol (for those newer to the hobby, all those classic art works were literally there in a gallery section by faction). I remember when the website had stuff like rules and conversion tips for Tau human auxilleries, guides on how to make your own terrain, lore... I believe the store was actually a seperate section of the site back then. The worst thing about ppl coming to the hobby now is they don't know what they took from us.

[@DarkKnightCuron]

LIKES FOR THE LIKE GOD; COMMENTS FOR THE COMMENT THRONE!

[@TempoLOOKING]

What Chaos God Will North become 😂

[@APremiumDegenerate]

I wish the item description on their website explained what that character’s purpose was. I don’t need exact rules, but a summary of how it affects gameplay would be nice

[@brassviking486]

We need to get a mirror of some of the older sites if there's any knocking around. They were really good for the articles.

[@skycommander2153]

Completely right North all the armies I've bought have been directly due to the Lore. My main army is The Black Templar because of how Stalwart and resolute they were in keeping their word to hold the Martyr's Rampart in The Fall of Cadia by Robert Rath. I have The Custodes because of The Gate of Bones and The Master of Mankind. I have my Cadian Imperial Guard army because of The Minka Lesk series and the Fall of Cadia. I have the Orks because of how hilariously awesome they are in the Mike Brooks novels. I buy the models because of the Lore not the other way around I wouldn't even give them a second glance if it weren't for the amazing stories behind each model. GW is insane if they think fan collect & play 40k for any other reason. The game itself is a slog to play in 10th even a small one because the rule book has the dumbest layout I've ever seen why isn't there a dedicate Special abilities section instead them scattered throughout the book? Put it all in one place so I don't have to jump over dozens of pages between weapons vehicles fighting and movement just to find out what one stupid ability does.

[@GlennM53]

I've always liked the background north. It's pleasant to look at without being distracting. Sometimes I have to rewind 10-20 seconds because I zoned out watching the gameplay 😅

[@Marinealver]

Good, then my 3d printed army isn't "Infringement" on their IP since GW doesn't have one!

[@rsilvestercellphone]

I'm a painter first, then lore, and tabletop play a distant third. A pretty mini? You have my interest. Fascinating lore behind the mini? Now you have my attention. Now it gives depth to the pretty mini, what the little details mean, the heraldry and colours. Now my little masterpiece is a shard of something greater, a vignette with a story behind it. (To a lesser extent, the game rules also add value to my hobbying, in that these pieces have a defined practical function beyond just looking pretty in a case. My art needs to do something, aside from just eliciting an emotion. Weird, perhaps, but that's how I'm wired)

[@spnked9516]

If you want to see the importance of fluff then look no further than the recent success of Trench Crusade. The game was hard carried by a handful of art pieces and a couple of PDFs running through their setting's lore. Fluff is the thing that builds, maintains, or destroys attachment to IPs like these. GW used to understand this. Hell - they literally built a publishing house from the ground up to service the fluff. The sad reality is that GW is a creative writing company that thinks its a miniatures company, and unfortunately, this has trickled into every aspect of the hobby over time.

[@FirstLegion123]

Hi North! I joined the hobby right before 10th edition. I remember sitting on the toilet until my legs fell asleep, 😂 reading lore and introductions of every faction, trying to decide what mldels to buy. That was before GW launched their current website! Probably 1.5-2 years ago?! Great video as always! And in case you couldn't tell, i selected Dark Angels asy first faction.

[@iceburnard]

I always wondered why this background only shows up now and then.

[@andrebrooks1961]

GW said there is no lore, at lease that's what some of their writers said and they can do whatever they want with lore

[@SirFailsalot91]

I think it was that "The 40K universe is full of fallacies," basically implying that since there are so many points of view, that trying to gain any solid evidence that something happened would be almost impossible, so "Imperial records" would be full of lies and half-truths instead of actual facts - in that case, why is The Horus Heresy a recognised historical event? Why doesn't the Emperor have four arms and purple skin if the Genestealer Cults claim He does? How do we know that the Unforgiven are loyal and the Fallen are the traitors? Why shouldn't the T'au be able convince Astartes into joining them? If there's no solid ground to build your setting and everything is as malleable as necessary to make anything happen when GW needs it to, then why bother setting up rules in the first place?

[@Deefry]

It's like management decided "We can't put it on the website, the lore goes in the Codexes" and then they forgot to put any new lore in there, too.

[@mastermide77]

Or they can bank on the almost infinite amount of free labor done by the fans

[@DG23-ey2tc]

Just been listening to Vox in the Void’s story about an Eversor Assassin. It’s the grimmest of dark…

[@40KWill]

Yeah. Lore did not matter before it just was not this big of a divergence

[@mogwaiman6048]

I think people, especially new people. Have to understand that Warhammer settings are primarily settings where stories take place.

[@NornQueenKya]

Wait the toys have a story behind them?

[@H4zardWarning]

Eeehhh, I buy stuff for cool models,to be fair I’m probably in the minority. I started at the end of 9th and I was torn between sisters and death guard, sisters cause I love their aesthetic and death guard because mortarion’s model is awesome. All of my army choices since has been on how cool the models look and how interesting they are to play against. I had known the bare bones of the lore, started reading/listening to the books/audiobooks and to be honest I haven’t been impressed. The books are well written dont get me wrong but they tend to "tell" you about combat scenes instead of "show" you and for books about unending war I want to "see" combat not have a primarch say "we fought hard for 4 days and nights" and then move on. I read a book about the fall of cadia, one of the biggest events in the lore and it jumped between a few small groups of guardsmen getting ready to fight/ ambush some chaos guys and right as their about to start it jumps to another group, does the same thing etc etc. I loved the start of the Horus heresy but kinda lost interest when Horus fell to chaos faster than anakin fell to the dark side. I know a bit more of the lore now but honestly I just pull up a lore video if I want to know more.

[@TheFunContinues]

Honestly what are you on about?? the models are an offshoot?

[@JohnDJ08]

As long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be. IMO GW want us to forget what warhammer fundamentally is to make way for a more wider modern audience friendly setting. GW have banned those that quote their own lore on social media so it seems they don’t like their fan base of lore purists. GW clearly has no interest in continuity and are clearly looking for investment money to subsidise the current direction they’re going in. But as we have seen with Star Wars, D&D and games like dragon age if you destroy your own lore, setting and attack your fans you’ll eventually lose out.

[@trifarianboi3043]

If games workshop thinks I buy 40k models because i just have a tremendous desire to spend hundreds of pounds and hundreds of hours to build and paint models then they really are lost. Ask anyone why they got into 40k. It's that simple

[@seanclarke8015]

Those models at the start of the video are made to order, they have already been updated in their mainline products for bloodbowl....

[@tomasv8732]

The rules suck, everything is too expensive, it's hard to get into, the codexes are boring, new stories are bad and contradictory, most new models are meh, they treat their employees like slaves, hate their customers and sue their content creators. And people STILL THROW MONEY AT THEM. It's never gonna improve, it's literally pointless, the only thing keeping the players in, is that space marines are a cool concept and the world used to be interesting 10 years ago.

[@reverenddmo8944]

Lore is not a commodity to GW. Or at least to contemporary GW. You can't put a price on something so intangible. You can't control it. A mythic world full of ideas to be explored, mused upon, used as inspiration? At that point it becomes no longer theirs, no longer in their control, no longer something they can really keep inflating the price of despite it costing them the same amount it did twenty years earlier. What money it can make them is way, way less than the up-front profit of plastic. You can't fill a pocket with something like ideas! You can't buy a Bentley with inspiration! Let the consumer do that for us for free! Oh, unless they make a funny series about a 95% dead man with a text to speech device...

[@royboley5510]

Hate to burst your bubble there exile but I have never bought a single black library book and only really played dawn of war on scenario mod. Got into 40k back in 89 and play Onepagerules using gw minis now. So yeah could care less about current 40k setting and only care about the minis. If I want lore I have an imagination and can come up with my own like in 1989 when orks had a few pages in the Rogue Trader rulebook.

[@couchdweller9364]

I see it as GW feels they dont need to have lore front and center on their website. I say this because of my experience entering the hobby. 40k has always been that thing on the other wall of my FLGS. I didnt know much about it and my main exposure went from my friend being like "dued space marine 2" to playing SM2 to then looking up youtube gameplay tips and from there the algorithum took over and 5 mounths later im comenting on a northern excile video that im listing to while painting my 83rd termagant 😅 i have only been to the gw website to look at models. Its been redit youtube and other fandoms thay inhave learnd from.

[@trinstonmichaels7062]

O no all the lore channels will not survive this.

[@JW-mx4zq]

Of course GW doesn't care about the lore anymore. The old guard left and the people in charge now are bad caretakers. Why? -As north mentioned, the sorry state the horus heresy novels are in so much meaningless filler. -age of sigmar, what is it even? The background is so bland. I tried and I can't get into it. -40k is losing grimdark and also heading the way of sigmar. The reveal of primarchs should have been monumentous. Handled delicately because you have to when you bring legends back. Storytelling 101. What we have now is largely forgettable and more akin to a wrestling show and sat morning cartoon heroes and villians. I feel Alan Bligh (RIP) was the last good lore writer GW had. What we have now is cheap and the bare minimum to prop up the setting to sell models. It is very uninspiring. Hell I used to collect every codex from every edition, not anymore, there's nothing new and and there's less lore in it. GW is smart in some ways but absolutely drunk at the wheel in others.

[@smoore6461]

Games Workshop does not respect the canon of their own lore, any more than Disney respected the Mountains of EU Star Wars Material. It's clearly got no real consistency to the lore for GW so why push something they don't respect at all?

[@paulbain1760]

Lore is the ONLY thing that matters!!! Its just current hack writers are talentless!!! Writers used to have retcon with skill to honour what came before and move onto the new... now the just say 'doh' and if anyone questions.. they roll out all the excuses and bans!!!

[@akumaking1]

The cult of woke Chaos only corrupts and destroys.

[@Draconic_Savant]

I’ve very recently gotten into Conquest by Para Bellum Games. Their website, though less clean than GW’s, is basically what you’re asking for here. It absolutely drowns you in lore. Both in general, and for each specific faction.

[@monkeyinapanzer]

40K is just really weird and kind of disappointing once you actually start looking at anything past the major posters boys of the poster boy factions. It’s like the lore is as deep as an ocean with random patches where it’s as deep as a bone dry mud puddle. Try looking into any random chaos space marine warband and the vast vast majority of them consist of “mentioned in a book once as jobbers to make another faction look cool.” Or “it’s just one of the four god aligned legions with a different name and MAYBE a different color scheme if that is even mentioned.” Now I’m not saying I need every random sub faction that ever shows up to have lore on par with first founding chapters, but the vast majority of them also shouldn’t have zero real inspirational ability beyond having a cool name and dying.

[@mattrichardson6629]

I had to back off from the money train GW create, it's depressing and dangerous for my mental health. Specifically this was related to the old world relaunch, I like the rules but in terms of lore the 8th edition army books have it nailed hands down. Suddenly in reading the older books I was intrigued, I could make sense of it, it was no longer being messed with by the company and, despite liking the new ruleset, which I have, I have the eighth edition stuff in my back pocket if I dislike any changes. And no, base sizes are irrelevant provided both armies are based for the same ruleset you can use ANY edition of fantasy. I have a second army which I really needed lore input from 8th - Vampire Counts.....

[@CTimmerman]

I got into 2nd edition because the models looked cool.

[@phantomjoker5]

depression 😔

[@Bruh-ye7dg]

I guess this dude never heard of visual story telling lol If lore mattered Gw would be suffering going off the logic of this video, but they aren't, they're making record sales and $$, people buy the models because they look cool, period. I've grown to realize the lore just adds a little spice and flavor to the minis you're buying, basically a form of context (that's not needed tbh), why do night lords have skin on there armor? Because they're traitor psychopaths that were raised as criminals and became demi gods. If selling a new mini requires changing the lore, they'll do it, so there's zero point in getting invested. Which in a way is a shame because the setting of 40k could be great, but Gw doesn't take it seriously, so I don't, overall it's simply a joke. But I enjoy my minis and playing the table top still.

[@donpapas7387]

In short BUY MODELS YOU SCRUB

[@ilikefruit666]

To be fair painting and playing are way harder and need more guidance and practice for new people than getting into the lore. I can listen to a podcast and get the lore. I can't listen to a podcast and have nicely painted models or become a competent player. It's lazy I agree but a lot of other people are carrying the lore torch for them.

[@Grimmlocked]

from what i can tell teh players don't care about the lore either

[@kenupton4084]

Gamesworkshop makes games. They arent Loreworkshop. Their lore was never that great to begin with. I stopped caring about any GW lore after Matt Ward. And that was forever ago now.

[@-nope3030]

I don't even know why you even play anymore. I've completely walked away from it now because of how bad it is now. It's been awful since 8th edition and with stuff like Trench Crusade, what's the point anymore?

[@royalguard2609]

Good video mate, really solid opinions tbh.

[@hanschmitt4421]

They've become to big in the genre, they have been for awhile to be fair. Imagine how much better treated the lore would be if GW were the underdogs trying to stay afloat in this business. It's not that I don't want them to be successful, but the hunger and passion someone chasing initial success is just so pure.