Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-14745711-20130821214539/@comment-7123746-20130906160804

Exactly. Pull some threads, make alterations, take a few things out, add some story hooks... But don't throw out the previous writers' entire body of work! To me, it reeks of laziness to not spend the bit of time it takes to do it right.

I remember when GW euthanized the Squats. GW sicced their new hot product at the time, The Tyranids, on the Squat Homeworlds and all of a sudden... no more Squats. They were entirely justified in doing so, it's their product after all and it wasn't selling well and didn't share the popularity of the other armies. At the time I had even been considering making an army(I loved the space biker theme) but I understood, because they gave us a good reason why the Squats weren't there any more.

You see, it didn't fit with the GrimDark vibe to have these drunken, party animal, tech-dwarves turning the 40k Universe into their own personal frat house. GW knew they had dead weight, so they used the Tyranids to cut the string, rid themselves of the Squats and even created an awesome story thread that clearly showed the menacing threat that loomed over the entire Galaxy now.

The GW of that era killed off an entire race and made it look good, because they bothered to put a little thought into the background material they already had. What they didn't do, however, was simply take the Squats and toss their entire history in the trash.

A provocative question: What if The End Times don't come from some unheralded threat from the far corners of the Void? What if The Chaos Gods, Necrontyr, Orks or 'nids have nothing to do with the end of the 40k Universe as we know it?? What if it's just some idiot with a pen that decided he doesn't like The Imperium, The Primarchs or the Emperor storyline and erases it all and starts over?