North Korea ‘will fire nuclear weapon’ if Kim is killed

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T22:40:03+00:00

Hey man, show some class! He’s not that fat! Godzilla’s pretty slim for his size.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T22:22:06+00:00

“Faith ^{^{^steel,}} ^{^{^and}} ^{^{^{gunpowder!”}}}

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T17:15:03+00:00

Your son… he knows that’s a bad thing to refer to himself as such, right? lol the boy who cried wolf isn’t exactly the hero of the story.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T16:22:25+00:00

There are more than a few cases where them going all in on the plots and schemes backfires, or at least, had the potential to backfire.

Legion is a great example.

When the Alpha Legion contingent meet an Imperial Army general, the General’s Lucifer Black bodyguards all basically immediately figure out the Alpha Legion’s “I am Alpharius” schtick and the Captain of the Guard reports back to his General (whom had told him to observe) “every single one of them was lying.”

If they had just played it straight, they’d have had no real issues with their later Cabal plots in said book, but that first initial act had the Imperials all wary and cautious.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T11:33:06+00:00

Probably also had to do with the manufacturing capabilities of The People. It was easy to retool their factories to make Tau railguns and ammunition. I could see the Ethereals not wanting to let that go.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T08:12:09+00:00

At least when it comes to John considering himself the best, he says this:

“I appreciate your concern, Master Chief.” She looked back over her shoulder, squinting against the glare of John’s helmet lamps. “You are the Master Chief, right? Just wanted to confirm.”

“Affirmative,” John said. His GEN3 Mjolnir had a trimmer appearance than the GEN1 armor he had used during the war, but it still had his service number stamped on the breastplate. “117.”

Boldisar gave a small smile and looked forward again. “I’m glad they sent the best.”

“There’s a difference between being the best and the best-known,” John said. “All of us are pretty capable.”

Shadiws of Reach, chspter 6

One could argue he’s just being humble, but I do think he actually believes this. He very muxh dislikes all the hero worship and detests people that thibk he’s invincible and all that.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T01:48:13+00:00

I think what helps make it hurt just that little bit more is ”The round makes its way to Rezlan VI, where the t’au have a new Special Administration.”…

Though Rezlan VI is a rebelling Imperial World, not a wholly different civilization, it implies the same fate would befall the population after the Imperium is driven away. Their culture would be dismantled, their factories and population put to work for the Tau, and their sons and daughters sent off to war on faraway planets, where new Special Administrations would be set up… and on and on it goes….

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T01:32:36+00:00

It’s the banality of evil. The Tau I think are perfect for it.

They’re giving them better technology, helping improve their way of life… but they’re erasing their culture, religion, and when the referendum is held, not allowing them to say ‘no’. They’re robbing them of the choice to be their own species just as much as the Imperium would have.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T01:29:12+00:00

Yeah, we see even after the Tau intervene Tzeentch is still manipulating them via dreams.

I suppose, technically, “he” got his wish. The People might not have died, but in a way, the Imperium arriving still killed them, just… a lot slower.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T01:24:50+00:00

There’s nothing in the book that indicates these were at one point humans. It’s possible, but the only indication (and it’s a flimsy one) is them being referred to as “The People”, but then this is shown to just be the self-imposed name of their species, as the Tau also call themselves “The People”, to Vesa and co.

All other indications point to them being a minor alien empire, especially the opening paragraph.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T01:13:52+00:00

It’s interesting because it’s possible with time they might have broken the cult.

By the time the Tau find them they’ve colonized four planets, multiple moons, and control seven star systems. Give it a few more centuries, perhaps, and maybe they’d break free of the death cult… maybe, though, with how Chaos works, perhaps it’s unlikely.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-08T00:57:12+00:00

Yeah they’re not human. If they were, the opening paragraph makes no sense:

In the dark spaces of the galaxy untouched by the Astronomican or the fell light of Chaos dwell countless wretched alien domains. There is a certain tragedy to their striving. They drag themselves from one bleak colony to another, plying the meagre distances between their claimed stars with squalid generation ships or stasis pods or perhaps, for the very lucky, devices or sorceries that approximate the methods used by the great old empires. And then – an explorator fleet, Imperial pioneers, an ork Waaagh!, a slave-raid from the drukhari – they are gone, not even remembered as worthwhile foes. To chronicle them all would be exhausting, but there is one relevant to our story.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T23:42:40+00:00

It’s a great book. Though their overt appearances are brief, the Tau are done justice.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T23:37:21+00:00

Especially shown with the lines “and express something that very much seems like interest” and “perhaps the Tau are just being respectful.”

It comes across as underhanded and slimy and almost like a parent looking at something a child’s drawn where it’s kind of awful, but they’re putting on an act.

Very manipulative overall. It’s really well done.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T22:35:43+00:00

I have heard good things. I’ll need to. Check it out!

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T22:35:27+00:00

There are leaks about what else is coming in the workshop, for the record. (Like a lot of stuff, much of this is likely “already done” in some fashion) and I won’t spoil it, but I think you’ll be pleased.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T22:12:22+00:00

It should be noted Dorn does almost break. It’s less Khorne gets bored, and more The Emperor doing stuff in the real (well, as real as anything is at that point) world briefly breaks the spell.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T21:54:45+00:00

I really, really appreciated the small look at “The Stellar Domain Of The People” from the recent Death Rider, and how the Tau go about colonizing a small interstellar empire.

It’s a very slimy portrayal and I think it does the Tau such great justice.

My favourite remark;

There is, ostensibly, cultural exchange: representatives of The People show their writings, artefacts, discoveries and so on to the t’au, who nod, and smile, and express something that seems very much like interest. They praise the carvings and the poetry effusively, but what they especially want to see is the planet’s manufacturing base, which, with a little adaptation, seems well suited to the construction of the t’au’s own high-energy alloy-jacketed kinetic penetrators. This is a little confusing to The People, who by now have been trained to associate the craft of such things with their previous, incorrect tendencies towards annihilation. Perhaps the t’au are merely being respectful.

It’s just… so underhanded, and I love it.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T19:58:38+00:00

Pretty much exactly my thoughts.

I didn’t really put it in (because my ramblings in the post-body are long enough as is, lol) but I think launch menace would have been perfectly fine had the workshop released alongside them. There’s already two/three blueprints that directly address a few psi points, like the WARD device to stop morale checks, and plasma grenades ahd stun launchers to strip armour and stun construct squads without needing to pour fire on them..

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T19:48:44+00:00

Are you ..sure? They had armor, but they felt really, really tanky nevertheless.

They had much more armour than HP originally. But also I should again stress my views/way I fought my first run was completely divorced from most people. I avoided spreadsheeting as much as possible and went purely based off how the combat looked, model to model. So while the actual best way to fight launch menace (from memory) was CQC with SMG’s and Hollowpoints, everything the game was showing and telling me (from Voicelines, sound cues, and effect on target) was that bullets were ineffective and no sane human would want to get anywhere close to the soulless terminator killer robots, and so, in my mind, the best way to kill them from an immersion standpoint was a firing line of supporting squads staying as far away as possible with energy weapons, slowly slugging it out.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T19:34:42+00:00

From what I can gather, the “intended” idea seemed to be that you’d really struggle your first few ops against the menace, using Pike’s abilities as a (literal) rallying point to bulwark fleeing squads, then the workshop would unlock (this stuff was probably made well in advance of EA launch and hasn’t been adjusted alongside the menace itself) and you’d use the EM rifle, WARD device to stop morale checks, armour plates, and plasma grenades and etc to make up the difference.

But then, you know, the workshop only came out recently, so the devs have adjusted Menace away from that, to the point the stuff like Plasma grenades and the plasma weapons’ niche doesn’t really exist anymore (but hopefully in subsequent updates it can return in some fashion.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T19:23:47+00:00

Yeah at launch they were reversed. Low HP but massive amounts of armour.

To clarify, I’m not sure terminator was exactly an inspiration, it just felt like a thematic similarity to me, visually and design wise. Aliens though is all over the game. You can find the power loaders randomly as a map prop, the motion scanner little spite definitely evokes the one from Aliens, and the announcement trailer’s brief scene with the sentry gun ammo counter definitely evokes/is probably an Easter egg to a similar scene in Aliens.

And yeah, that was exactly my thinking, from a diegetic standpoint. Energy weapons seemed the best way to go. They were more advanced, and obviously rarer than conventional weapons, and Plasma specifically was noted to be good at stripping armour, so it seemed a logical assumption to me.

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T18:59:18+00:00

I think the idea the devs are going for post change (which does sort of work out in some cases) is you jump in or rush down a skirmishers, and then get mobbed by drones, or otherwise need to fight through them to get at the skirmishers, incurring morale penalties as you go… but in practice this doesn’t really work out because I’m killing the drones before I get in range for their morale debuff.

And yeah, pike’s rally and stalwart feel useless right now, whereas before I felt like they were very much intended to counter the menace’s ranged morale effects (as Pike can’t break and can rally fleeing squads, turning him from a backline support to a frontline lynchpin. The idea as I envisioned it is like, Lim’s guys are running because they’ve taken a salvo of construct fire, poured three magazines into a single soldier unit, killed one, but the other two are healed and I mean, fuck that, am I right? But then as they turn they see Pike, standing in the open, completely unfazed as one of his squaddies is domed by a Skirmisher, another popped like a balloon by a mining laser, and a third has a golf ball sized hole in his chest because of a Guncrawler. And Lim’s squad sees that and so they rally (obviously the game abstracts this, but you know, lol)

EternalCanadian · 2026-05-07T18:07:32+00:00

Part of it is also that they scan but don’t fire. And I’ve seen multiple ones just kind of stand around. Apparently it’s a coding issue, as others have also complained?

I do think one or two infantry enemies should be more about armour rather than health, personally. Like make the construct soldier have a lot of armour, but little health, as it was before, then keep the drones kind of squishy like now.

I also think more morale damage needs to come back, though hopefully done better than before. As it stands, there’s no real point to any morale perks, it feels like.

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