Character Deaths

[Kinstryfe]

Really, if a named unique character has a model and unique rules, there's really nothing to be gained by killing them off. The number of people who will go buy a new model because they killed that character off is likely insignificant, whereas the people who won't but it because they were killed off is likely larger. So right at the start, it's likely a bad business decision. There's also nothing stopping them from introducing new characters anyway. While it could be neat to kill Calgar and replace him with a new Primaris Chapter Master there's no reason they couldn't keep Calgar and just make a new character for an Ultramarines successor Chapter. Honestly I wish named characters were just archetypes so that the lore wouldn't be beholden to the tabletop. Marneus Calgar could die and the new Master Narneus Dalgar could take over with no change in rules.

[Closet Skeleton]

when we were talking about in the Space wolves sub forum, i made the bold claim that i don't think characters with miniatures should ever die. here is my reasoning:

 

 

90% of Warhammer Fantasy special characters were dead on arrival and nobody ever felt constrained to put Vlad Von Carstein down on the table. Most Horus Heresy characters are dust by definition.

 

The only way a canonical death limits creativity to a wargame player would be in making their in game death scenarios incompatible with canon.

[Slasher956]

sorry not read the thread (yet)... but just want to point towards every bodys favourite eldar psyker... ELDRAD

 

He died, proper dead - no soul stone left etc etc... during the 3rd Eds 13th Black Crusade global campaign...  people didnt like it (or the whole 13th crusade campaign results as a whole....)

 

So when they re-coned the campaign they also re-conned his death...

 

That gives us the idea that GW will not kill off named, modeled characters.... others I feel are fair game - like the Eldar spirtseer character

[Volt]

Also I feel that Abaddon himself should actually die. He doesn't really have any character arc or development to speak of by this time period with him just being a Chaos brain-rotten zealot. He's a one note figure with not much else role to play and it might be a good idea to bump him off in favor of a new Everchosen to take over; ideally somebody completely original rising up from the bottom.

[apologist]

With the upcoming campaign and story pushing forward what are peoples thoughts on the *final* deaths of named characters? It's been coming up more and more that a character should die  crossing the Rubicon yet I just don’t see why anyone at this point needs to die to show how dangerous it is. They said it was dangerous when Calgar went through it. He DID die during the process.

 

Keeping in mind everyone discussed here is somebodies favorite character so let's be respectful, how do people feel about this or other situations where a character with or without a model is or should be killed? 

 

 

I'd like to see characters die permanently, for the following reasons:

 

1) At the very core of 40k is the concept of eternal, senseless and hopeless war. Without specific, meaningful deaths, the catalogue of losses become statistics. 

2) Death provides a meaningful end to a character arc; allowing progression, increased characterisation, and a sense of excitement and genuine tension – essential to good narrative.

3) Death clears space for new characters, and also provide a sense of scale and danger to the setting.

4) Perhaps most importantly, it encourages the development of your own characters, adding further breadth and personal interest.

 

A number of the current special characters are simply archetypes of an army, and would – in my opinion – be best treated as variants on stock datasheets explained in a narrative box-out. For example, 'Marneus Calgar was Chapter Master of the Ultramarines between XXX and YYY [big blurb on his history]; he can be represented during the Tyrannic Wars by selecting a Chapter Master and choosing the following Relics:

• ; or in the last years of his life by selecting a Chapter Master and choosing the following Relics LIST]. Fielding Calgar provides access to [such and such a] Stratagem' etc.

 

+++

 

The following quote sums it up for me:

 

 

 

Forget the power of technology and science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

 

But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed...

 

There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only war.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Apologist

[Robbienw]

Some of the chaos characters should be killed off, as should some of the characters from xenos factions.

[Brother Tyler]

I think that tons of characters, with and without miniatures, should be dying off. The combination of time progression and constant warfare, not to mention the Rubicon Primaris for the Adeptus Astartes, make that the likely outcome for the majority of characters. Not killing off characters is just pandering to/appeasing hobbyists that are too emotionally attached to fictional characters. They could kill off legacy Adeptus Astartes character A and give us Primaris Adeptus Astartes character B as a replacement just as easily as turning legacy Adeptus Astartes character A into Primaris Adeptus Astartes character A+. And the non-Adeptus Astartes humans should all be replaced due to simple longevity issues. Okay, maybe not "all" of them - just 95% of them.

Chaos characters and longer-lived xenos characters (Aeldari and Necrons come to mind) should largely be safe, but killing off one or two wouldn't be amiss.

[Arkaniss]

Blood Angels already have a dead character, any and all people talking about killing off Dante can get in the sea It's a time of change for 40K and who knows where the future takes us, but as a long time BA player I'll be pretty sad if they kill off Dante, Mephiston or Corbulo - doesn't matter how epic or heroic or whatever they make it. I just won't be happy

 

Big named characters with their own models are pretty entrenched in 40K, some have been for decades. It will be a big upheavel to kill any off.

[DeadFingers]

Chaos characters and longer-lived xenos characters (Aeldari and Necrons come to mind) should largely be safe, but killing off one or two wouldn't be amiss.

You know what would be fun? Killing off Fabius Bile only to later on discover that he cracked the Primaris code and a primarised clone of himself shows up and takes his place.

Edited September 11, 2019 by DeadFingers

[apologist]

I agree with Brother Tyler: we should be seeing most characters dying off. Some characters, like the Phoenix Lords Avatar of Khaine, or other Daemons, etc. make sense as immortals, but most mortal characters would be well-served by allowing their arcs to close.

 

On a broader note, the lack of deaths means there's a sense of 'age inflation'. Back in 2nd/3rd, there were grizzled Space Marine characters for both Space Wolves and Ultramarines who were notable for having seen their respective Chapter Masters join the Chapter. Cassius was noted as exceptionally old, but since the soft shift to Space Marines being seemingly immortal, that causes a few temporal problems. Nothing dreadful – after all, everything you have been told is a lie – but niggling. Apart from anything else, the lack of death makes the exceptional longevity of characters like Dante, Bjorn and Eldrad less special. 

 

+ Progression +

For those who want no deaths, I'd like to suggest that there are already some examples where it's happened:

 

Some characters were introduced as historical figures – that is; they had already lived and died/retired. Lord Commander Solar Macharius, and Stumper Muckstart were two examples.

 

Other characters have had multiple versions, and with the exception of Tycho the Lost, the old versions have been 'retired'. Sergeant Lysander, for example. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Apologist

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

My personal feeling is that killing a character in the lore is ok, but it needs to be handled correctly. A chapter master failing the Rubicon would be a ridiculous death as it lacks the glory and saga we expect from 40k and would be a pointless waste of the lore tied to the character. But if a character duel was portrayed in an epic fashion, both characters taking hits and bringing the other down with then one rising to the top and winning the duel I would not feel hard done by. I also agree with apologist, that they should leave a way to play the character with relics etc to let people keep playing them after their death as peoples time and investment in a character should be rewarded and preserved. This is arguably less necessary for side characters without established rules or relics but I do think the side characters should still be afforded the same saga worthy death courtesy of others characters. Just my 2 cents on the whole thing

[Lucerne]

I'll note that the Chaos bigwigs- well, and Necrons- are about the only characters that have actual excuses for character immortality. Literal divine (or infernal) intervention and techno-sorcerous resurrection explain why they're not going anywhere.

[Haywire]

I personally agree with the idea that characters can and should die within the lore. However, I will disagree with the notion that the Rubicon Primaris should be ruled out as a vehicle for the character demise. As with the argument that characters should die from constant war (Or the passage of time for Tau and human characters), I feel the Rubicon as a device for character slaying would help better convey just how dangerous the process is, otherwise it just becomes another case of Blizzard-style storytelling where pretty much every named character is safe and there's not a single iota of tension. Planets burn all the time. Billions die in the crucible of war on a daily basis. Yawn. Show, don't tell.

 

(A little bit off-topic, but I would personally love to see a Space Marine character actually get a degraded statline as a result of a failed Rubicon crossing, but with more command abilities to compensate, again to show us how the process is supposed to be dangerous to ALL Marines, not just the ones that have names in the codexes.)

[Sandlemad]

RE: special characters being too archtypal, that's definitely an issue. What is there to Chronus besides 'he's good with tanks and stands maybe just a little outside the standard hierarchy'? Dude has no character or personality or decent hook, drop him. I'd say you could do the same for a lot of characters. They don't necessarily need a BL book, though that can help - Ragnar actually has quite a bit of depth and history beyond being the youngblood because of his history and because of what King, Wraight and ADB have done with him - but someone like Belial or Vulkan He'Stan have no real character besides their office.

 

The flip side of the coin here is that this makes their loss somewhat less meaningful if they are killed off but still. There could have been something interesting had Calgar died and been replaced by Sicarius. Maybe an arc of maturing and decreased vainglory could have been interesting.

[Volt]

I'll note that the Chaos bigwigs- well, and Necrons- are about the only characters that have actual excuses for character immortality. Literal divine (or infernal) intervention and techno-sorcerous resurrection explain why they're not going anywhere.

That only works for Daemons. Chaos Space Marines beyond the big four are still very much mortal, and even Abaddon should stay dead whenever he's put down. And really he should be put down because at this point he's really lost any sense of terror with how long he's been a bloody clown. His intimidation as a villain is entirely spent with even ADB not being able to salvage him from the memes. We really need a new Everchosen who is actually SCARY instead of Abaddon "fail to achieve anything meaningful in the history of his bloody character" the Despoiler. You could even start off a new Everchosen by them bumping off Abaddon after his favor trailing in the lackluster follow-up to the 13th Black Crusade.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

Blood Angels already have a dead character, any and all people talking about killing off Dante can get in the sea It's a time of change for 40K and who knows where the future takes us, but as a long time BA player I'll be pretty sad if they kill off Dante, Mephiston or Corbulo - doesn't matter how epic or heroic or whatever they make it. I just won't be happy

 

Big named characters with their own models are pretty entrenched in 40K, some have been for decades. It will be a big upheavel to kill any off.

But isn't that sort of the point, we are attached to those characters so their deaths have more meaning when they die a heroic and meaningful death. If you just off Red Armor #5 who was just named for the campaign and no one cares about them it has no impact on the reader. This should not be done carelessly and it should be done properly. On a side note, maybe it is because I'm a Horus Heresy player but I believe dead characters should not be discontinued from the game. They are in fact iconic and as such they should still be supported with rules while no longer being part of the continuing narrative so that you can easily play them in "historic" campaigns, battles taking place before their death.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Legionnaire of the VIIth

[Marshal Rohr]

Games Workshop shouldn’t worry about killing characters because it’s a setting and not a story. Calgar dies crossing the Rubicon? That just means if you love Calgar you’re playing games from when he was alive. Tycho may be dead, but you can still play games with him without any issue whatsoever.

[Chapter Master Valrak]

Vorn to pass a new Chapter Master takes the mantle of the Imperial Fists...

[Triszin]

I could see canis wolfborn dying and then we're told we can make him with the dreadnaught kit.

 

Let's be honest canis wolfborn model isn't... The greatest, and I rarely see him in use or being painted.

[Marshal Reinhard]

I think arguing that the rubicon should take lives of special characters is kinda missing the point. Getting it backwards, even? Yes I agree that on a whole, too few characters die, but their deaths should be because of the lethality of constant war in our only war future dystopia. 

 

If you're thinking "Finally, a way for some of these overabundant heroes to die off" with regards to the rubicon, like some kind of band-aid to the lethality problem, it just feels to me like it's gone wrong somewhere. This, of all settings, shouldn't have a shortage of ways to die. And yeah I get it, the problem isn't of our making, bur rather GW's reluctance to pull the trigger.

 

But can anyone of you wanting rubicon deaths honestly say it is for any other reason than you feel the that the "numbers need to be pruned", or is anyone out there genuinely excited about the story telling potentials that characters dying on the rubicon operating table may bring? And do you even have dog in the race with regards to any of these characters, or will literally just anyone do?

 

I dunno, this discussion probably isn't for me. I just feel like the above is such a slap in the face, I wouldn't want it on anyone, regardless if I care for whatever character it affects or not. By all means, kill them off, but do it properly?

[Haywire]

I think the Rubicon is brought up so much because of the dramatic impact it has had on the setting for being the tool to completely turn all Space Marines into Primaris Marines. For a more cynical outlook, the Rubicon exists as an excuse to simply turn their vanilla special characters into Primaris versions, and the 'danger' aspect was tacked on to make it more grimdark. As people have said, the Space Marine range is ridiculously expansive and probably could do with pruning. From both a narrative and business standpoint, it serves as a fairly easy device by which some characters can make the cut and get upgraded models while those that don't can be consigned to oblivion with the rest of the Vanilla Marines.

[Commander Dawnstar]

I feel like there's an argument for characters to die crossing the rubicon only if it was done as part of a story-centric arc that was deliberately meant to inflame tensions surrounding the whole Primaris conversion process and to play into a greater narrative concerning the divisions between classic Marines and Cawl's creations. There's a lot that can be done with the ramifications of a great hero dying in such an inglorious fashion and how that might put a certain spark of fear and doubt even into those who are professed to know no fear ... but we're past that point in the narrative now anyway. There really isn't a whole lot of point to it when crossing the rubicon now feels as though it's being framed as the norm rather than a victory in of itself.

 

In my opinion GW's own storytelling has kinda 'killed' death. There's no real reason why major characters shouldn't be able to die in a setting such as this - you'd think their effective immortality goes against the grimdark factor - but the fundamental problem with taking such action is that the stories being told simply aren't regular enough and approaching things from the right sort of direction to make such deaths actually matter. Kau'yon killed off the Raven Guard's Chapter Master as no more than a matter of course to giving Shrike his station, and Mont'ka followed that up by unceremoniously killing off Aun'va, only to have the death of the supreme spiritual leader of the T'au Empire be hand-waved into irrelevance through the use of holograms and such. We simply aren't seeing the right kind of support from the writing and BL beyond to actually make it feel like major character deaths impact the setting. If a character dies then it feels as though at best we can expect some big hero moment and then little to nothing more beyond.

 

Imagine that Calgar had died on Vigilus and a new Primaris Chapter Master took his place: how long would we have to wait to feel the consequences of that beyond the immediate short-term, much less in a novel that actually explored it and looked to flesh out this new individual?

 

In a grimdark setting such as this there absolutely should be a place for characters dying ingloriously, but instead GW has created a situation where there's fair arguments against significant characters dying at all.

[Marshal Rohr]

All of this is because they moved the timeline forward and introduced new types of stronger marines. Before, we just had the Chapter Masters at the point in time that was two minutes to midnight, but now its 200 years later and they have to come back and make them into Primaris, but not kill them, so it feels cheap and comic book. No one was clamoring for Calgar to die before the timeline moved so far forward it raises questions of how he's still around. 

[mactire]

I'd actually just started a new GC when they killed off Egil Ironwolf. But the Ironwolves just elected a new Wolf Lord so I figured just get on with it.

[apologist]

Kor'sarro Khan is a good example of a character that could easily have died in a cool, heroic way rather than crossing the Rubicon Primaris. Being such an archetype – to the point of caricature – a new White Scars character could have been a great way to explore some narrative space for the Chapter. Equally, a new 'Master of the Hunt' could have been created who would , for all intents and purposes, have been identical to Kor'sarro Kan.

 

As an illustration, are these quotes about Kor'Sarro Khan or White Scars in general?

 

 

 

Fierce to the point of savagery, bold to the point of recklessness and brash to the point of insubordination

 

 

 

direct and unyielding as a well-forged blade, [...]violent determination with no time for the niceties of diplomacy or courtly manners

 

 

 

A bolt of lightning in clear skies, a sudden gale from an unexpected quarter

 

 

Deaths allow for new storylines – a protegé seeking revenge for his mentor's death; a reluctant junior placed into bigger boots; an 'heir apparent' dismayed at being passed over in favour of another... Many of these concepts have been hinted at already – Agemmon and Sicarius, for example – but without death, they can't happen.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Apologist