Warhammer 40K’s new Arks of Omen lore, explained

Warhammer 40,000 has a new tabletop recreation sort, which launched in January, primarily based round boarding events that may be performed with Citadel miniatures. Boarding Actions is a 500-point recreation mode, accompanied with a e-book full of lore to elucidate why your miniatures are duking it out. A new, extra compact option to make your miniatures struggle is at all times attention-grabbing, however Arks of Omen additionally provides intriguing lore unfold throughout 4 books, just one of which has been launched to this point. The first e-book, Arks of Omen: Abaddon, units the stage, and it appears to be like just like the 40K universe is about to get even spicier.

Instead of large-scale battlefields, Boarding Actions relies round smaller boarding events preventing via the claustrophobic environments of enemy ships, just like the new and mysterious Balefleet. The Arks of Omen plot explains why Boarding Actions are taking place, and units up tons of lore across the mode. This new storm of enemy ships is because of an unlikely buddy-cop-style team-up between two of the setting’s baddies. One is a longtime veteran of the setting and a terrifying Chaos Space Marine, and the opposite is an intriguing new daemon demigod.

Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of each corrupted and disloyal Space Marine, desires to take down the Imperium of Man and turn out to be a new, higher Emperor — with anarchism and feats of energy! In order to take action, he vies for the favor of all 4 Chaos Gods with out ever pledging himself to anyone of them. In Warhammer 40K, the Chaos Gods all play the Great Game of vying for fixed dominance, they usually’re as prone to betray one another as struggle an enemy collectively. It’s just like the world’s worst Thanksgiving dinner.

Image: Games Workshop

Enter Vashtorr the Arkifane. If you’ve ever performed Doom, you might need puzzled: Where are all of these skeletons getting jetpacks and weapons? In 40K, that’s Vashtorr’s job — he’s the demonic arms seller who peddles to the massive 4 Gods, and he desires a seat on the desk for himself. Every Chaos God feeds off some form of excessive emotion. Khorne is all about blood and skulls, Slaanesh feasts on extra and the pursuit of perfection, Nurgle focuses on illness and decay, and Tzeentch loves nothing greater than enjoying 5D chess. Vashtorr is about obsession, creation, and invention.

Warhammer 40K is a sprawling setting with a long time of lore unfold throughout video video games, supply books and tabletop video games, novels, animated sequence, and quick tales. The big-picture lore, which has usually been stagnant, paints the image of a galaxy the place nothing will ever get higher. Humanity guidelines the celebs below the enormously corrupt and decayed administration of the Imperium of Man, toiling below the attention of the decayed corpse Emperor who sits upon the Golden Throne. The Imperium will fail, both from civil battle or one of the numerous hungry alien threats who wait on the door.

It’s intriguing to see Games Workshop transfer the setting ahead lately, first with the Dark Imperium plot — which noticed the Imperium break up in two between a large rift in actuality — and now the Arks of Omen. Things actually appear as grim and darkish as ever, however new characters like Vashtorr present that regardless of the large setting, there’s at all times room for a shock reveal or mysterious plot twist.