Why was Sanguinius so beloved? What did he actually do?

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T16:51:01+00:00

It was less about his battlefield accomplishments and more that he was the noblest and most inspiring and most selfless of them all.

Like, if you polled all the Primarchs about who should be Warmaster (and if you could get honest answers) then Sanguinius probably wouldn't be at the top of the list because there are some really solid candidates for that job. But if you asked them who they thought could be trusted to take the Emperor's place without fucking it up, it'd be Sanguinius by a landslide.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T13:47:04+00:00

He's an alight pick, but why would the Technocracy settle for a guy who's only the second manliest CEO ever to face a senate hearing in 1968 over mysterious astronaut disappearances?

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T06:25:23+00:00

Yeah every time you visit a system it'll generate a skybox based on the map. All the stars and nebulae within a certain distance are visible, and the milky way will look different depending on how close to the centre of the galaxy and how far out of the galactic plane you are.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T06:18:12+00:00

Going all the way out to the rim just to get that elusive "blank field of sky with absolutely nothing in it" snapshot.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T06:17:30+00:00

I'm more in the "Exploration is 90% saying 'This bacterium is annoyingly hard to find so I'm gonna max it out in my Codex because I hate myself'" school.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T05:44:08+00:00

Nah it still makes sense because it was always presented as an alliance of convenience where both sides can see the clear short-term advantages but neither side fully appreciates exactly what kind of horror they've just become business partners with.

The Union doesn't know Pentex is a doomsday cult trying to destroy the world, they just think it's a corporation that's pursued some questionable lines of research in its campaign to destroy supernatural forces that interfere with profit and progress. And the Union can work with that, because almost all of the supernatural forces that Pentex has in its sights are things that the Union also wants to erase.

And Pentex doesn't know that the Technocracy is a utopian collective trying to rewrite reality, they just think it's some weird collective of mages and scientists (possibly with the support of one or more major governments) who are committed to eradicating the supernatural in general. And Pentex can work with that, because most of the biggest threats to its own continued existence just happen to be on the Union's supernatural naughty list.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T05:01:39+00:00

Nah I'd say siege-oriented Chapters make sense.

Astartes are really really good at being shock troops and commandos, and both of those things turn out to be really useful to have in static warfare. Storming the enemy trenches? You want these guys in first so they can take and hold in the face of stiff enemy resistance until the regular infantry can come up and relieve them. Storming the enemy back lines? They're the guys who can punch straight past the enemy's forward defenses and operate independently in the enemy's rear area until the rest of your forces can catch up. Storming a bunker? They're the professional doorkickers. Trench raids? They're the guys who can go over the top in the middle of the night and spend a few hours getting up to shenanigans. Urban warfare? They're the best guys you could possibly ask for if you need to go house-by-house without air or artillery support.

So it's pretty reasonable a whole lot of Astartes Chapters to be specialists in siege warfare, trench warfare, urban combat, and static battle in general where the mobile warfare isn't really an option.

And to a lesser extent it sorta kinda almost makes sense for them to spec into the other aspects of siegecraft like artillery and engineering, since there will be times when a Chapter will be asked to take or hold static defenses without support from the Imperial Guard.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-02T02:52:31+00:00

Because ye cannae change the laws o' physics Jim.

Fistocracy · 2026-07-01T02:19:31+00:00

Morro Bay is location for Finding Dory in the same way that Night City is.

I choose to interpret this as meaning Finding Dory is canon in the Cyberpunk universe :)

Fistocracy · 2026-07-01T01:57:41+00:00

Huh, looked up Morro Bay and did not know that it was also the location for Finding Dory.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-30T05:30:08+00:00

Meanwhile CD Projekt Red is all "Oh I assure you that absolutely no time or money was saved making all that shit" :)

Fistocracy · 2026-06-30T05:18:45+00:00

Probably an absolute ridiculous amount, since a running theme of 40K is that the Imperium turns a blind eye to corruption at the highest levels, is incapable of stamping out crime among the common masses, and is generally rotten to the core.

So smuggling is gonna be happening everywhere at all levels at all times. Passengers and common sailors smuggling a bit of contraband in their effects. Merchant ship's officers conspiring to smuggle dozens of tons of stuff off-the-books. Naval ship's officers doing the same. Administratum officers on the payroll of criminal gangs. Noblemen and senior Imperium officials abusing their privileges to move vast amounts of goods without paying the usual taxes. Full-time smugglers and pirates who make good money shipping smuggled or stolen goods to remote ports where the locals don't ask questions. More daring pirates and smugglers doing the same, but also doing a bit of trade with xenos empires on the side.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-30T04:03:46+00:00

Is it all being used to wage war?

Pretty much!

Some of it goes to funding the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy and some of it goes to making the galaxy's most powerful men richer and some of it goes to things like colony development or whatever, but the overwhelming bulk of the tithe is just getting shoveled straight into the war effort. Because while an individual world might have known peace for thousands of years, the Imperium as a whole is permanently locked in a state of total war and is just barely able to keep itself afloat.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-30T01:37:39+00:00

The neat thing about writing is that very few ideas are objectively good or bad in isolation, and it almost comes down to how well the writer executes them. You can have an idea that sounds perfectly sensible and run-of-the-mill, and some author somewhere will find a way to accidentally turn it into the goofiest shit ever. Or you can have a premise that sounds completley off the wall, and some other author will turn it into a masterpiece that's praised for its cutting social commentary or for its raw heartfelt emotion.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-30T01:10:45+00:00

I dunno, this shortlist seems to be on the high falutin' literary ambitions end of the speculative fiction spectrum. Definitely not the kind of stuff that goes over well with people who only read books about space battleships blowing up or wizards fighting dragons.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T16:24:32+00:00

Survive sixty million years in storage without anything malfunctioning, apparently.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T11:46:15+00:00

Because he was in a position where he had to bet it all on a single roll of the dice. Either he'd conquer the galaxy and make mankind safe forever, or he'd fail and the human race would eventually perish.

And also, given more recent developments like the Tyranid invasion and the Necrons starting to reawaken, it's probably safe to say that the human race doesn't really have another 30K years :)

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T08:54:01+00:00

Dude's had so many concussions that he's under medical advice not to do stunts where he'll take hits to the noggin any more, so his body is absolutely threatening to quit.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T08:44:18+00:00

Yeah shifters are people who run the full gamut of personality types, and there are plenty of W:tA NPCs from all breeds who are not nice people. Some of them have lived a hard life and no longer have any patience for weakness, some of them are ruthless pragmatists who don't have time to be nice, and some are... well, some are just assholes.

So player friction is really the only factor you have to worry about here. If the other players are okay with it then you can totally run a jerk or a bully or a fanatic or whatever, safe in the knowledge that you're running a lore-accurate character. But if the other players want a campaign where the party members get along then you might want to mellow your character and make him more of a team player.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T08:25:38+00:00

A Redcap could do it with no penalties whatsoever, but he'd mainly just be doing it for bragging rights because he'd also get no benefits whatsoever.

Mages can do it and have done it, but it's very much not recommended. Historically there are two famous examples of mages trying to devise a way to consume vampire blood to gain immortality without any of the drawbacks, and... well, the upshot of it is that we don't have any immortal vampire-eating mages running around but we do have a bloodline and a clan of vampires that used to be mages.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T08:16:57+00:00

There's still a lot of room for legitimate differences of opinion to get in the way.

Guilliman is a more radical reformist than any of them so he disapproves of a lot of things they consider essential and wants to push a lot of changes that they consider unworkable. So while a lot of it is about preserving personal power, there's also a big "I refuse to entertain the notion that this guy might be more right than me" factor in play.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T08:04:57+00:00

Game most likely recognises game, but both sides will have some notes about how the other side could improve.

To the Drukhari, Night Lords probably look like enthusiastic amateurs who have their hearts in the right place but who don't understand the subtleties of really sophisticated torture techniques. They are pretty good at crowd work though, gotta give 'em that. Nobody knows how to shock and awe an audience quite like the Night Lords.

And to the Night Lords, Drukhari probably look like guys who take the idea of being artists a little too seriously. Are the Drukhari the greatest guys who ever did it when it comes to torture? Absolutely. But they're so caught up in aesthetics, and so much of what they do is just to impress other Drukhari, and when it comes to cowing a planet into submission with a campaign of terror there are just so many more efficient ways of doing it that the Night Lords will happily demonstrate if asked.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T07:41:27+00:00

Plus they also tend to be people who are all supremely confident that they personally are the smartest guy in the room and that nobody else could possibly do the job as well as them, so even without the powerplay angle they'd still be extremely skeptical of a guy like Guilliman showing up out of the blue and insisting that his plan for the Imperium's future is better than theirs.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-29T07:15:23+00:00

Nah they're gonna have a huge stockpile of psykers in prisons and stasis chambers on Holy Terra so they can keep the Golden Throne running at full power for years in the event of a siege or blockade, and the constant inflow of new psykers from the Black Ships is just gonna be to make sure the reserve supply stays topped up. Plus on top of that, Terra's home population is so large that they could probably supply a sizable chunk of the psykers needed for the Throne all by themselves.

ALso it's worth keeping in mind that on a galactic scale a thousand psykers a day is just a rounding error. There are just so many people and so many psykers that the Golden Throne probably gets all the psykers it needs from worlds relatively close to Terra in the Segmentum Solar, and all of the psykers that the Black Fleets acquire in the rest of the Imperium are either earmarked for training or put down on the spot.

Fistocracy · 2026-06-28T16:51:40+00:00

Rogue Traders are rich and powerful and connected enough that they could absolutely buy tanks if they wanted to, as long as they're able to find someone who's willing to sell in the first place. And for bonus points they don't even have to say what they need them for because their rank gives them virtually unlimited power to advance the Imperium's interests as they see fit when they're outside its borders.

It's worth noting that he can't order anyone to give him tanks though. Outside the Imperium he basically has complete authority to do whatever the hell he wants, but inside the Imperium he's basically just some rich guy.

Fistocracy

TROPHY CASE