Artificial "depth" in lore affecting immersion?

[Ishagu]

That's a tough balance to strike.

 

Yes, in some ways the setting can feel smaller when the same characters show up, but it also has more weight and meaning.

We've already had a hundred stories about plucky Imperial servants who achieve a pyrrhic victory or get eaten by Nids, and that can only work so many times before it becomes meaningless. The setting does have a narrative now, and every good narrative needs characters.

 

The narrative is overall a positive thing because it can be linked to the model releases and beyond that, can have an impact on Novels, future tv projects or movies, etc etc.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Ishagu

[apologist]

Great discussion (and calmly discussed, which is lovely to see). Seems that we'd all agree that there's a balance to be struck between making some connections, leaving others unresolved, and creating new ones. The balance of those three points is where individual taste comes into things.

 

On the Lance specifically, I think it's also worth noting that we've essentially got the 'study notes' from the preview. It'll be interesting to return to this discussion once we see it in the round, as it were. 

 

Secondly, seeing another High Lord of Terra appear as a model is interesting. Ignoring the specifics on whether or not we like the idea of High Lords on the front lines (personally, I prefer a bit more grimy realism, but if you are going to have a High Lord abroad, then it makes sense to have one from a militant group), it's nice to have an insight into how these distant figures interact with the wider galaxy. 

[Ishagu]

The High Lords are actually very interesting. The stories that make mention of them and actually discuss them, such as Watchers of the Throne, do describe them as a largely competent bunch which was surprising to me. I always imagined them as a bunch of bloated, incompetent buffoons. Of course some of them are insidious and power mad - and that makes things even more interesting.

 

We have to remember that the Imperium is overstretched, the whole thing is analogous to the Roman Empire at the point before collapse. It isn't an issue in terms of having competent people in charge or not, it's more of the unresolved issues of it's massive size, slow communication and travel and unwieldy nature. The Empire is so big that thousands of planets on the fringes could burn, but they would not be visible or even have an impact on core worlds such as Terra which immediately makes it hard to even contemplate them or rule them effectively.

 

I think the High Lords are a fascinating bunch, I want more stories about them and I actually welcome the idea of having one of them as a central character for future narratives - especially one that represents the religion, something which Guilliman is internally opposed to.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Ishagu

[Jings]

I reckon having the High Lord of the Administratum on the table top running around killing people with autoquills, as gnarly as that would be, wouldn't make sense. But the head of a militant order, like Trajan or this new Abbess chick, totally does. It's not as if they'd be actively engaged outwith the largest of fronts, and their presence on the tabletop would be indicative of the importance of mission itself (narratively speaking). 

 

Pulling lore out of a hat is kind of a fair point, though that's more a problem with Games Workshop saying the quiet parts out loud instead of keeping things murky - the Horus Heresy is a key culprit here. Probably wouldn't have hurt to just say it was Valdor's spear or whatever, but they're likely saving him and, as others have said, everything in 40K is basically a mystical relic at this stage - particularly Custodes gear - so it's kind of a moot point, if a missed opportunity to tie it in to something else. But even then, that's easily retconned, or can be a "reveal" in the future that it's actually some super famous piece of kit. 

 

Gotta echo Ishagu though in that any more lore or details on the High Lords and the tippy tops of Imperial politics is more than welcome. The politicking of the High Lords of Terra during the Beast Arises series, particularly the Proletarian Crusade and the role of the Officio Assassinorum, is some of the best 40K fiction in the past decade and I'd love to see more of that especially if it gives us some insight to the goings on in light of Guilliman's return. 

[Kastor Krieg]

 

 

Introducing something new, giving it a history out of nowhere and then having other people treat it as important is the definition of world building.

I'm not saying they aren't world building, I'm saying this is shoddy, sloppy, shallow world building. It's a ten-year old's fanfic level world building to spring something out of nowhere and have it be THE FABLED WHATEVER.

 

A good, mature world builder plants the seeds beforehand, interweaves and connects the new item/person/event with the story, inserts premonition and hints at something greater and only then makes a reveal.

 

Telling me "it's important!" is not good world building. Good world building is entrenching that thing in the lore / story deeply, so that when it's shown to me I gasp, because by myself I suddenly realize it's importance.

 

The difference cannot be overstated.

Regardless of your personal feelings about if it’s cool or good world building, it’s still world building. Getting hung up over a special spear, which has zero impact on the universe or immersion at all, and not the baby carrier suit or Guilliman being alive is a waste of time.

I'm sorry mate, but the point of the thread is not my feelings about the spear or whether the authors of this fluff are world building at all.

 

"they ARE world building, what do you want from them?" is your own strawman. My issue is with how they are worldbuilding and one can definitely see whether they're utilizing the depth or just the breadth of the lore.

[DOGGED]

Could this be the spear that Russ was granted by the Emperor?

 

The Dyonisian Spear was not kept by the Custodes but by the Space Wolves. Russ not liking to wield it, it was "forgotten" in a shrine in a planet named Garm after a wolf lord.

 

I think we (longtime fans I mean; I first knew 40K in the Rogue Trader era) sometimes suffer of a lack of perspective (ironically). As we know a lot of accumulated background info, we can tend to want to see part of that info being materialised instead of continually getting new lore generated for objects which happen to be wielded by the character portrayed by the latest brand new, just released miniature. For example, why is it a "Lance of Illumination" and not the Dyonisian Spear?

 

 

 

The truth is that everyone in 40k was suddenly written in at one point. People often forget this because we've had 20 years of lore or longer for certain characters, but the truth is that they were formed over time from initial ideas to icons of the setting after many lore expansions and revisions.

 

Cawl is a recent example of a character done effectively. Yes, it's still jarring in some ways but he's a well known character in the setting. 5-10 years from now he'll be as established and entrenched as someone like Calgar or Dante.#

 

The same applies to relic, planets, etc. If a Battleship called "The Illustrious Lance" was suddenly mentioned in a story, and it was an iconic ship that had battled against the forces of Mortarion as well as several Hive Fleets, it would be much the same thing.

 

Well, it's because of this. A good point made by Ishagu. Truth is that 40K is continually growing in its entirety. The Horus Heresy is still being released also. So what if a new novel features the Lance of Illumination and all of a sudden we find it's a weapon which was once wielded by a primarch nonetheless? It will be canon from then on and years later it will be outta question.

 

Another example is that provided by the Custodes, who were for 25 years pictures on the wall and not much else. Suddenly they feature in the Prospero Burns box, they get a range of their own and a BL book every year since 5 years ago: Master of Mankind, Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, Auric Gods (it's a novella, much larger than a short story, if you get my point) and the Watchers of the Throne series. So fluff on Custodes is quickly expanding and becoming canon, an opportunity to exploit.

 

Frankly it happens to me the reverse as the OP felt: the continually growing background, in breadth but also in depth, is affecting me in a positive manner, and drawing me into 40K way more than before. Moreover: as it is not stagnant, as even when nothing happens which changes the storyline (as people says about Psychic Awakening) things are happening all the time. And the storyline changes; see the Rift for example. So new and old players have plenty of room to imagine and create and references in terms of places, characters, objects and organizations.

 

At the end, nobody wants the never ending story to end or fantasy to be fenced in.

 

Addendum: yes I know the OP and several posters referred to poor world building; undoubtedly it's a matter of tastes, but quite sincerely I find it a problem of personal creativity. If you don't like the way GW builds background by whatever reason, you're free to make your own interpretation. That Lance of Illumination could be a not so important object the Custodes have given to a militant High Lord for political reasons, Valoris gaining leverage as a result. Whatever. It's your game, remember.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

 

 

Introducing something new, giving it a history out of nowhere and then having other people treat it as important is the definition of world building.

I'm not saying they aren't world building, I'm saying this is shoddy, sloppy, shallow world building. It's a ten-year old's fanfic level world building to spring something out of nowhere and have it be THE FABLED WHATEVER.

 

A good, mature world builder plants the seeds beforehand, interweaves and connects the new item/person/event with the story, inserts premonition and hints at something greater and only then makes a reveal.

 

Telling me "it's important!" is not good world building. Good world building is entrenching that thing in the lore / story deeply, so that when it's shown to me I gasp, because by myself I suddenly realize it's importance.

 

The difference cannot be overstated.

Regardless of your personal feelings about if it’s cool or good world building, it’s still world building. Getting hung up over a special spear, which has zero impact on the universe or immersion at all, and not the baby carrier suit or Guilliman being alive is a waste of time.

I'm sorry mate, but the point of the thread is not my feelings about the spear or whether the authors of this fluff are world building at all.

 

"they ARE world building, what do you want from them?" is your own strawman. My issue is with how they are worldbuilding and one can definitely see whether they're utilizing the depth or just the breadth of the lore.

Are you under the impression the Imperium of man and specifically the Emperor’s own personal guardians have an armory consisting only of Guardian Spears and not vaults upon vaults of esoteric weaponry from millennia upon millennia or collecting?

 

Like, I don’t even think you’re wrong about 40K losing all interesting depth and feeling small and contrived. You’re right on the money. The specific evidence you’re using is just like the worst possible thing you could’ve used.

 

To use a recent pop culture reference, take John Wick. Would we sit around and argue that John always uses one specific type of M4? No. The character uses lots of weapons. In universe, take Guilliman. He’s got his gladius and his fist during the Heresy, and a major scene is Thiel walking into his personal armory like a kid in a candy store. Abnett didn’t spend any time saying, this was an ace Guilliman got during a compliance that makes an otherworldly nyoooom noise when it swings, but we can assume Ultramarines seeing Guilliman with that axe would go ‘oh hey, that’s the nyoooom axe’

Edited May 5, 2021 by Marshal Rohr

[Noserenda]

Tbh when the commander of the defence of the Lions gate starport with tens or hundreds of thousands of troops under tham ran away from his actual job to go stand in a shield wall and that was neither a mistake or really pointed out i just gave up on 40k having sensible or realistic commanders entirely :D 

I may not be transhuman or particularly well trained but ive found leading 30 troops a full time job! 

[N1SB]

What a meaningful topic going forward.  As Games Workshop expands its efforts from the tabletop to streaming media (not saying they're abandoning one for the other, they augment each other, but it's what GW is working on), when it's no longer about just the miniature and more about the lore, this is the type of stuff it has to work on.

 

 

+++ It's not the existence of a spear, it's the lack of the fable that it supposedly has +++

 

 

Now that Brother Krieg mentioned it, this Warhammer Community article...and it might be JUST this article, we'll confirm when the Sisters of Battle Codex comes out...is that this character's spear is described as "fabled".  They could have used other hat-pulled terms, "thrice-blessed", "sacred", "symbolically significant politically".  "Legendary" was another term used in the same paragraph, and that has the same problem, because...

 

...if you say it's "fabled" or "legendary", there better be a fable or legend or something to back it up.  It's so unearned.

 

 

+++ It's not that it's a loose end, it's the laziness of it +++

 

 

I met Andy Chambers (the godfather of 40k) once.  I was like a teenager at a time, so even stupider than I am now, but he taught me 2 lessons that I think he himself learned from Rick Priestley (the...god...of 40k):

 

1st, "Don't tie up loose ends."

 

2nd, "I don't mind people using my ideas as long as they do something with it."  This later turned out to be strangely prophetic, but that's a story for another time.

 

The 1st is what you guys have rightly pointed out, this was always how 40k lore worked, it creates an expanding universe.  It serves a purpose in the Warhammer Hobby, the loose ends are designed to give us room to create our own Warhammer projects, serving as a platform for ideas.  We're willing to do the work, but c'mon, give us something to work with.

 

The 2nd is where I think Brother Krieg and frankly I have a problem with it, which is at least do something with it.  By that, I mean I also remember the Horus Heresy was mentioned as a throwaway line, but it was a masterfully-crafted throwaway line.  There was some important dude called Horus and he was involved in some Heresy so serious they capitalised it.  It was a memorable alliteration, it was inserted exactly where it needed to be, it sounded epic.  Sting is a great sword name, it sounds small and thus it's perfect for a hobbit, but it clearly stings!  The Spear of Illumination, it sounds so generic, does it even light up, can we do something with it?

 

The result is it just seems so lazy.  Loose ends, rather than being a tool for us, became an excuse for laziness.

 

 

+++ So Imma do something with it, to show it can be done +++

 

 

I got literally 10 minutes before the Black Library Preview, so time crunch, here I go:

 

Morvenn Vahl tilted her head quizzically as the Custodes held the mighty weapon before her.  Behind her, a voice as smooth as oil on a blade yet as deep as rolling thunder echoed through the halls of the High Lords of Terra, "The legendary Spear of Illumination."

 

She turned to see Roboute Guilliman approaching them, cast in the beams of light from the arches in the cyclopean architecture.  Vahl was as shocked to see him as how she was unable to hear the approach of a Primarch, but she realised the beating of her heart masked the sound of his heavy footsteps.  The newly-elevated High Lord bowed, half out of respect, but also half out of shame, "I had studied the histories of the Great Crusade, from Keeler to Voss, and...I have never heard of the Spear of Illumination, Lord Commander."

 

Guilliman gave a courteous nod towards the Custodes with an outstretched palm, who understood the gesticulation and handed him the weapon.  "Well, I must confess, I myself only know how its fable begins.  The rest of its story, " he said, lifting it in both hands to bequeath it to Vahl, "is up to you."

 

tl;dr - the legend of the spear begins with Vahl herself, this is just a proof-of-concept of how to do something with it, which GW itself should do, not me.

 

I wrote this in 15 minutes, tuning to the Twitch now golly it's Gaunt's Ghosts holy hell they look awesome, but seriously, I did this under time pressure to No-Prize this, but I shouldn't have to.  And we'll see if the Codex does something cool with it...but all we want is for them to do something with it.

 

 

+++ Important update after the Warhammer Fest: Black Library stream +++

 

 

There was this great interview between Dan Abnett by Wade the Voxcaster.  Wade said something like to Dan like, "You want to hand the story back to the players."  That had weight, and it's very much how Dan Abnett works, he gives us something to work with.

 

Fiction is an artifice, so when we complain about artificial depth in lore and you say back, well, the lore is artificial, you're absolutely right.  But the passion is real, the struggle is real.  It's that lack of effort that's really becoming obvious, you can see the gaps, the seams, and it's immersion breaking.

Edited May 6, 2021 by N1SB

[Matcap86]

Yeah the warhammer fest shows what I'm talking about! A new book on the Volpone Bluebloods, a group that plays second fiddle to the Ghosts and that now gets deepened out. Lovely!

Edited May 5, 2021 by matcap86

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

What a meaningful topic going forward.  As Games Workshop expands its efforts from the tabletop to streaming media (not saying they're abandoning one for the other, they augment each other, but it's what GW is working on), when it's no longer about just the miniature and more about the lore, this is the type of stuff it has to work on.

 

 

+++ It's not the existence of a spear, it's the lack of the fable that it supposedly has +++

 

 

Now that Brother Krieg mentioned it, this Warhammer Community article...and it might be JUST this article, we'll confirm when the Sisters of Battle Codex comes out...is that this character's spear is described as "fabled".  They could have used other hat-pulled terms, "thrice-blessed", "sacred", "symbolically significant politically".  "Legendary" was another term used in the same paragraph, and that has the same problem, because...

 

...if you say it's "fabled" or "legendary", there better be a fable or legend or something to back it up.  It's so unearned.

 

 

+++ It's not that it's a loose end, it's the laziness of it +++

 

 

I met Andy Chambers (the godfather of 40k) once.  I was like a teenager at a time, so even stupider than I am now, but he taught me 2 lessons that I think he himself learned from Rick Priestley (the...god...of 40k):

 

1st, "Don't tie up loose ends."

 

2nd, "I don't mind people using my ideas as long as they do something with it."  This later turned out to be strangely prophetic, but that's a story for another time.

 

The 1st is what you guys have rightly pointed out, this was always how 40k lore worked, it creates an expanding universe.  It serves a purpose in the Warhammer Hobby, the loose ends are designed to give us room to create our own Warhammer projects, serving as a platform for ideas.

 

The 2nd is where I think Brother Krieg and frankly I have a problem with it, which is at least do something with it.  By that, I mean I also remember the Horus Heresy was mentioned as a throwaway line, but it was a masterfully-crafted throwaway line.  It was a memorable alliteration, it was inserted exactly where it needed to be, it sounded epic.  Can we do something with it?

 

The result is it just seems so lazy.  Loose ends, rather than being a tool for us, became an excuse for laziness.

 

 

+++ So Imma do something with it, to show it can be done +++

 

 

I got literally 10 minutes before the Black Library Preview, so time crunch, here I go:

 

Morvenn Vahl tilted her head quizzically as the Custodes held the mighty weapon before her.  Behind her, a voice as smooth as oil on a blade yet as deep as rolling thunder echoed through the halls of the High Lords of Terra, "The legendary Spear of Illumination."

 

She turned to see Roboute Guilliman approaching them, cast in the beams of light from the arches in the cyclopean architecture.  Vahl was as shocked to see him as how she was unable to hear the approach of a Primarch, but she realised the beating of her heart masked the sound of his heavy footsteps.  The newly-elevated High Lord bowed, half out of respect, but also half out of shame, "I had studied the histories of the Great Crusade, from Keeler to Voss, and...I have never heard of the Spear of Illumination, Lord Commander."

 

Guilliman gave a courtesy nod towards the Custodes with an outstretched palm, who understood the gesticulation and handed him the weapon.  "Well, I must confess, I myself only know how its fable begins," he said, lifting it in both hands to bequeath it to Vahl, "The rest of its story...is up to you."

 

tl;dr - the legend of the spear begins with Vahl herself, this is just a proof-of-concept of how to do something with it, which GW itself should do, not me.

 

I wrote this in 15 minutes, tuning to the Twitch now golly it's Gaunt's Ghosts holy hell they look awesome, but seriously, I did this under time pressure to No-Prize this, but I shouldn't have to.  And we'll see if the Codex does something cool with it...but all we want is for them to do something with it.

N1SB, you never fail to impress with your well-crafted and thought out posts. The second quote is especially powerful, and speaks to me as a fanfiction writer for both the 40k universe and other fiction (especially science fiction) franchises. What can be done in this sandbox we've been given? 

 

I especially love your little blurb at the end of your post. The spear is fabled because Guilliman says it will be. To borrow a phrase from another 'philosopher king', he is telling her to "Make it so." (You should totally drop this as a separate post down in the fanfiction subforum because I would hate for this to get lost here).

[deathspectersgt7]

N1SB nailed it. Most here know how I felt about Primaris Marines when they came out. Now I see this as a new chapter in my crafting my own lore and legends on these new Marines. Like the new model even knowing will never by or build.

[Kastor Krieg]

Thank you, N1SB :)

[MegaVolt87]

Its the new GW way crowbar something in, maybe go back and make it fit better later. She could likely get some dedicated BL character series novels to correct her introduction. I think she is a good candidate for new sisters BL novels IMO. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Boba Fett was introduced in 1980 and in 2020 we finally got the full picture of who he is, what his code is, how he perceives his place in the universe, and a killer set up to deep dive into him as a character and I’m not saying this to start a topic about Boba Fett but ADB once said Boba is a great example of the best and worst excesses of world building and how to handle characters, iirc, and we should keep that in mind with how GW introduces things across its franchises.

 

GW will drop a character like Astorath, and shoe horn everything about them in at once. GW will also mention the first interlegionary war and a huge following blows up around it until it’s a separate niche of the fandom. They are inconsistent but one thing GW can do other franchises either don’t try to or don’t want to us pass things off to experienced authors to give it context and depth. The new Sisters baby carriers are just kind boggling dumb, but the first time ADB or Wraight explains and world builds around why an exosuit is necessary in a setting with ubiquitous power armor and flight packs it’s going to click.

[Felix Antipodes]

Snip

What a meaningful topic going forward. As Games Workshop expands its efforts from the tabletop to streaming media (not saying they're abandoning one for the other, they augment each other, but it's what GW is working on), when it's no longer about just the miniature and more about the lore, this is the type of stuff it has to work on.

 

GW has always resisted the idea of a setting bible for its creatives to reference. Now they are moving into streaming media, where this sort of thing is the norm, they may have to entertain the concept again.

[Marshal Rohr]

Whatever choices eventually lead us to an Incredible Cross Sections series :D

[Azekai]

Trajan Valoris is a High Lord and no one had any issues with it.

I didn’t know that, but that is dumb too.

 

Guilleman gets a pass because that balancing act of administrator/warrior is basically what his entire character is about. Like his brothers, he is a weapon crafted by the Emperor, but he also possesses unparalleled organizational acumen.

 

These others like Trajan and the Super Sister face a similar problem, of balancing their duties with (apparently) needing to contribute to their own personal kill count. I get that this is a model game and people will want cool toys but making these factions have their own battlefield-ready High Lords strikes me as very silly.

 

Hard to be present and ruling the Imperium while purging heretics on campaign.

[Rik Lightstar]

 

Trajan Valoris is a High Lord and no one had any issues with it.

I didn’t know that, but that is dumb too.

 

Guilleman gets a pass because that balancing act of administrator/warrior is basically what his entire character is about. Like his brothers, he is a weapon crafted by the Emperor, but he also possesses unparalleled organizational acumen.

 

These others like Trajan and the Super Sister face a similar problem, of balancing their duties with (apparently) needing to contribute to their own personal kill count. I get that this is a model game and people will want cool toys but making these factions have their own battlefield-ready High Lords strikes me as very silly.

 

Hard to be present and ruling the Imperium while purging heretics on campaign.

 

 

It only really went wrong for the Emperor once he stopped Campaigning, as soon as he left that side of it to someone else it all went wrong.

 

For all we know, this is an intentional "teeing up" of the next big plot developments. Specifically what happens when the three most loyal influences on the Council of Terra are all away for extended periods?

 

The balance of the Council would be completely different without the most Militant members.

 

Rik

[Closet Skeleton]

 

Introducing something new, giving it a history out of nowhere and then having other people treat it as important is the definition of world building.

I'm not saying they aren't world building, I'm saying this is shoddy, sloppy, shallow world building. It's a ten-year old's fanfic level world building to spring something out of nowhere and have it be THE FABLED WHATEVER.

 

A good, mature world builder plants the seeds beforehand, interweaves and connects the new item/person/event with the story, inserts premonition and hints at something greater and only then makes a reveal.

 

Telling me "it's important!" is not good world building. Good world building is entrenching that thing in the lore / story deeply, so that when it's shown to me I gasp, because by myself I suddenly realize it's importance.

 

The difference cannot be overstated.

 

 

But its already been set up that its normal for special characters to have relic weapons and even basic infantry models can be dripping in relics. We've had whole novel series like the Ragnar books about how the Imperium over-values relatiely minor relics. A new special character having a 'fabled spear' is not out of nowhere at all even if said spear isn't important.

 

'Gothic Space Fantasy' without random relics of dubious value wouldn't be thematicly consistant. 40k has always cared about theme over depth and a 10,000 year old galactic Imperium that wasn't shallow in some elements of its world building would feel small (it already does a lot of the time).

 

We also don't even have this new character's actual codex entry. This is like complaining about an old black and white catalogue page having no thematic depth.

[Quantum]

I understand what the OP is saying, but a adding a single 'fabled' spear to the lore is hardly the biggest of GW's all too common sin of adding a new unit/character/model/concept and pretending it has always existed.

 

Whether it is Belisarius Cawl, the Warmaster Titan or any other new addition to an existing army, it has always existed, has been in service for millennia, and was renowned and respected (or hated) by everyone.

 

And that doesn't even address the many retcons in the lore, or the inconsistencies they introduce. Heck, I even wrote some fanfiction in order to rationalize why in-universe everyone suddenly started to call the Eldar the Aeldari. 

 

So a single spear is hardly the biggest background-lore headache GW has given me.  

[Marshal Rohr]

The Warmaster is a good example of introducing something new from snippets about different and larger classes of Titan existing from old AT, through Heresy, to new AT.

[chapter master 454]

Maybe it isn't a problem with characters and items we have problems with, it is how GW aren't good at presenting the story. Though to be honest, I still have serious doubts over new characters ever since the false Cato Sicarius appeared and how badly he was done. I know that was Matt Ward but still, it makes me look at each new character who gets massive fan fare and is "super duper awesome" with a great deal of skeptism that they will have to overcome in time, whether you can call that a good thing or not is up to you. He is an easy target to pick though for this and it is doubly sore in my opinion because I have memories of another Sicarius, one from one of their world campaigns...Medusa (whichever number it was) and he was the special space marine captain for it. Twin Lightning claws, looks ragged and for some reason I want to think he was some former tyrannic war veteran...though this is from when I was much younger and details can go in and out of focus fast.

 

I do suppose in recent times their writing has become much better but I trust GW writing as much as I trust Dark Angels not to suddenly run off because "some heretics left our stove on, brb"

[MegaVolt87]

Yeah a lot of people missing the point that a good general/ leader doesn't necessarily need to be directly in the front line, elbow deep in heretics. Another good example is an IG commander, they never needs to leave the command table if they have done their job properly, unless something really bad has happened. More so for a High Lord of Terra no less. 

[Ishagu]

How can anyone say the introduction of this character into the lore is shoddy?

 

We haven't seen the lore yet! We've only had a brief name and title!

 

Let's wait for the codex and a novel featuring the character before we come to any conclusions. She might become a popular and compelling hero.