Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

And we also have Forgeworld with the 30K army lists. The Legions play very differently from 40K marines, and the Mechanicum is completely different from anything else. Even the new Solar Auxilia has its unique take on elite Imperial Guard that is unlike their 40K counterpart.

Fluffwise, Eldar and Orks were manipulated by the Old Ones to assist in fighting the Necrons.
And Tau and Humans were manipulated by Eldar for who-knows-why.

So, in-fluff, wouldn't it be less that everyone else looks like humans, and more that Humans take after Necrons, like everyone else?

Having "Tyranids, but better and are people, who use stolen Imperial technology" is kind of pointless (also, flying so they could capture Imperial craft is a bit silly, I must say). You can fit a minor cybernetic human faction into the fluff if you wanted to, but that kind of thing really isn't worth making a whole product range over. The "Silent Screamers" could only really be a singular oddity, because how could that be turned into a diverse range of miniatures and rules for making armies? Your ideas aren't bad in of themselves (although I really don't like your not-Tyranids at all), but they don't work in the context of being actual armies/product lines.

If 40k has anything it is choice. Every faction is so distinct, and there is a large amount of room for variation even within themselves. Space Marine Chapters vary wildly in culture, appearance, behaviour and equipment. I agree that there is too much focus on Imperial factions (the major culprit being Space Marines, who really don't need to be split across so many books). While there is definitely room for expansion, this should be within the existing armies and not throwing in a new one entirely.

Bharring wrote:
Fluffwise, Eldar and Orks were manipulated by the Old Ones to assist in fighting the Necrons.
And Tau and Humans were manipulated by Eldar for who-knows-why.

So, in-fluff, wouldn't it be less that everyone else looks like humans, and more that Humans take after Necrons, like everyone else?

The Eldar and Orks were made by the Old Ones. The Tau are vaguely implied to be manipulated by the Eldar, but the only hinted manipulation of humanity is by the Old Ones.

I really hate how there's 5 imperial space marine factions and ONE chaos space marine one. It seems a bit silly to me. i'd roll it into two imperial and two chaos factions, then use the other two to make admech and chaos cultists as their own factions.

You could have one book of all super generic marines (like codex: space marines, and one book as a supplement for the various different chapters that exist. So one book covers the few units that really set grey knights, blood angels, dark angels, and space wolves apart. Then you could have a book on the chaos marines similar to codex: space marines with a few different legion rules, and one book that covers four main god based armies (emperor's children, thousand sons, world eaters, and death guard, respectively).

ad mech could be an army all about elite vehicles without the hordey aspect of the guard. Chaos cultists, on the other hand, could be the hordey aspect of the chaos legions.

although, in all fairness, i don't know why they don't just adapt the "chapter tactics" approach to every army. Every one so far (other than more space marines) can have enough sub theme to be it's own army.

chaos space marines: each god has it's own specific arche type of army

orks: speed freaks? foot sloggers? kan wall? elite nob army? etc.

eldar: wraith army? aspect army?jetbike army?

dark eldar: cabalite army? witch army? haemonculus army?

necrons: (don't know much), but warriors vs chariots vs skimmers?

tau: fire warriors vs battle suits vs conscripts

tyranids: horde vs elite mc's vs mix

each codex could take on its own tactics, to help with list building variation, IMO. And 40k could do with a new army or two. Or more frequently updated armies. I like their approach with the new tyranids. It's rather annoying having to wait years for any sort of new models/ rules/ faq's that do anything to alter how your faction plays.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I agree. We need more Space Marine variant chapters. I think Iron Hands and Imperial Fists should get their own Codex.

They kinda do...

A: GW is already not doing so hot from a business standpoint. (Especially not from a public relations standpoint.). Telling all the SW/DA/BA players that they aren't different enough to be separate seems like a bad move, since that's kinda the target buyer/player of those armies.

B: I don't consider all imperium to be similar. IG, sisters, admech, knights, inquisition and assassins are all very different from marines and each other on the table. Fluff wise, it's pretty easy to come up with, say, "an inquisitor that is secretly a traitor and heretic convinced the iron hands that the dark angels have joined hands with chaos, and they need to be destroyed." Marines aren't exactly the sit-and-talk-it-out type, so there's gonna be some fighting there. With all the corruption in the Imperium, it's pretty easy to find a reason to fight each other.

C: Further dividing players into even more armies seems like an odd move. We already have mindless bugs, robot guys, anime fish, green brawlers, demons, space elves, and space dark elves, plus all the loyalists. Then you have the subdivisions of each army, such as the guy who plays the haemonculi coven space dark elves, the guy who plays the foot army space dark elves, the guy who plays the super elite melee space dark elves, the guy who plays the typical bunch of raiders or venoms space dark elves...if you look hard enough, you can see pretty mechanically different armies even in the same codex.

I did once think of an alien race that on the table were masters of laser type attacks, with units carrying around mirror fields so you could draw line of sight from any unit you could see with a mirror field when shooting laser weapons. Reflecting off a field would also strengthen the shots. EG you'd have a guy in back fire a s6 ap4 laser with 24" range, he measures within range to a squad carrying a field, so it's now a s7 ap3 2 shot with 24" range coming from that squad, who then send it to another squad up front, making it a s8 ap 2 4 shot 24" weapon originating from them, and they're right in front of a squad of terminators, so they let em have it.

I would love a new faction, what kind I'm always thinking about, but for now the currently existing Xenos can all be expanded.

Eldar can be expanded beyond the Craftworlds and various styles of fighting.

There's Corsairs/Pirates, Harelequins, and Exodites!

Pirates, Cults, and Elves on Dinosaurs. That's a lot of scope.

Dark Eldar have already been given a helping hand to be Kabalites, Cults and Covens. With other aspects to them as well.



Tyranids have always sort of had the shame and under valued idea of Genestealer Cults also....


Tau have Kroot, Vespid, Gue'vasa and others, but their idea of a "Tau Empire" has been watered down. It shouldn't just be about the Caste's and the Farsight enclaves.


Necrons sort of have C'tan but, how you expand this is lost on me, they're a bit too ancient, and too few.

Then there's Chaos.

4 Gods. Check, but more differences are needed.

Daemons are massive as it is, and do deserve upgraded range and something to draw more people in.

The Legions need more variety and gear imo.

Then there's the Cults /Cultists. Not just a meat shield, but huge masses of no longer loyal to the Imperium humans. Some fanatical warriors, others just a mob of corrupted people.

Then there's the Legion of the Damned and Renegades.

Recent fallen armies of the Imperium, Power Armour down to masses of Imperial Guard.



(Orks are orks, and always will be. But a Grot/Gretchen rebellion is a possibility of Squat-like humour...)



Hrud and other exotic Xeno's few people know about should be given a book and a limited model range.

Maybe tie it in with an Inquistion box initially as something for Inquisitors and Grey Knights to hunt down in side games. Then build up the character of these races from there, adding to the challenge and beefing up their threat, depending on sales.

SoB could also get in on such action to help sell them, and push for plastic.

Give me lizardmen in space and call them Slizardmen.

Stick some guns on them and sorted

I agree that the current races need a lot of work first, and that there are too many Imperial forces as there is. I don't think they should be rolled back together, it's too late for that, but we don't need another Imperial force.

If they were to make a new faction, I think they should develop the playing style before they begin to think about history or aesthetics. Then, build what works around that. We need a unique playing style.

The aforementioned laser reflecting thing is kind of cool, but a little over complicated, but it has me thinking about some kind of "smoke and mirrors" type army, which could incorporate actual mirrors or perhaps something a little more mysterious, tricking the enemy into performing friendly fire, although obviously this wouldn't work every time and would be costly from a points perspective. But again, they need more than one gimmick.

I'm no game designer, so I don't really have any ideas, but I think there definitely needs to be something that can counter the current two strategies: gunline and body mass. Friendly fire, the possibility of not being exactly where the enemy thinks you are (represented by two models, or perhaps a rule allowing you to scatter up to D6" when fired upon if you pass a test). The obvious negative part of the two models idea is that if one is real, and one is a shadow, you either need to trust the honesty of the player (perhaps they could declare at the start of each turn which is the real one, by laying cards face down on the table, and then redoing this each turn because the unit has some interdimensional property that allows them to constantly shift their "reality focus" between two locations), or you need to model one of them differently, one in full colour, one in a kind of ghostly greyscale, but then your opponent will know which one isn't real.

If you really wanted to exaggerate the horror that this race causes, you could give them no weapons at all, but free movement around the table (very large movement distances), and have all their damage caused by "mirroring" fire back onto the enemy.

Brb writing a codex.

Peregrine wrote:No. No more armies. GW needs to fix the existing ones instead of splitting their incredibly limited design talent over even more books and lowering quality even more than they already have.

In an ideal world, but we all know it's not going to happen. It would also work out amazingly if codexs were written originally and had good reasonably balanced rules that were copy and pasted S6 AP3 Heavy weapon despite being cool in the fluff. Chapter tactics having meaning, quirkiness of the rules too. The only thing going for Nids (my army) is the models.

Synapse is boring, rarely happens, and never really impacts the game. Warlord traits, a joke. Psychic powers are fine imo though.

Otto Weston wrote:Tbh, I just find the Necrons, Tau and Eldar (both variants) too humanoid. Hell even Orks are still similar to Humans.
The only ones which are totally 'Xenos', are the nids.

This is why I'd like more races like-

The Thyrrus. Giant slug creatures with plasma who love the spectacle of war more than anything else.

Spoiler:

The Hrud. Bog Monster creatures who prematurely age anything they come near to.

Spoiler:

Umbra. Psychic Shadow Spheres that can shapeshift.

Spoiler:

I just want more Xeno-ey Xenos.

This all over. They all look cool. I would be happy if say, Blood Angels actually had different power armour, so they actually looked different and didn't share their stuff with Space Marines. Once you've played one chapter, you've played them all.

Frozen Ocean wrote:Having "Tyranids, but better and are people, who use stolen Imperial technology" is kind of pointless (also, flying so they could capture Imperial craft is a bit silly, I must say). You can fit a minor cybernetic human faction into the fluff if you wanted to, but that kind of thing really isn't worth making a whole product range over. The "Silent Screamers" could only really be a singular oddity, because how could that be turned into a diverse range of miniatures and rules for making armies? Your ideas aren't bad in of themselves (although I really don't like your not-Tyranids at all), but they don't work in the context of being actual armies/product lines.

Thanks for the feedback. In my head it seemed varied, but i'm no good with art so don't draw. I think the one lesser alien race were probably similar in appearance to a Genestealer Cult but behaved differently, more Ork like with their stealing of equipment, but had lesser numbers so used to tactics to win instead of brute force.

The way i see it is most of the current races are heavily similar in appearance. A ghost like race would just require an artist to produce some different concepts. If you look at Deamons, they literally have limitless design oppotunities as they don't need to follow suit. A ghost like entity to me follows the same route. While i can see why people would dis-like the idea, people dis-like Tyranids for the same reason, stupid aliens with no "real" technology. They have no real background, and no real future.

ancraig wrote:

although, in all fairness, i don't know why they don't just adapt the "chapter tactics" approach to every army. Every one so far (other than more space marines) can have enough sub theme to be it's own army.

This is probably a better route actually. Fix rules/ balance. Expand on current codexs. Being a Nid player, i know a lot of people really really wanted each Hive Fleet to have a purpose. One Fleet gets the Swarmlord who had his rules to become a Beast or whatever. Another Fleet gets Old One Eye, who gets beefed up also. Plus Genestealer Cult.

If that was done with other codexs, the HQ model could be awesome, but be balanced out with only be allowed select units to be taken. eg. Astorath the Grim and Death Company, but expanded even more. Death Company suicide tanks, (unfamiliar if with the fluff btw). But even with giving each army limitations, unbound still allows you to do whatever.

calamarialldayerrday wrote:
If they were to make a new faction, I think they should develop the playing style before they begin to think about history or aesthetics. Then, build what works around that. We need a unique playing style.

Nail on the head.

calamarialldayerrday wrote:
The aforementioned laser reflecting thing is kind of cool, but a little over complicated, but it has me thinking about some kind of "smoke and mirrors" type army, which could incorporate actual mirrors or perhaps something a little more mysterious, tricking the enemy into performing friendly fire, although obviously this wouldn't work every time and would be costly from a points perspective. But again, they need more than one gimmick.

I've been thinking about this, and would really like to see the BRB simplified down so expansion on rules can be made for codexs. I dunno why for example Tyranid Poison is even bothered to be called Toxin Sacs. The rule and name is very fitting, but Poison in the real world slowly kills you without a antidote. But it would take some good rule designing to make everything fluent and balanced.

Certain armies can be immune to poison disease, and others like you say able to dodge for example. The dodge would actually involve moving the model with a D3 scatter dice. Another army is dark and mysterious, so gets cover saves. Literally endless ideas, but GW just doesn't have the writters/ designers/ attitude to give us anything truly unique. Armour Penetration and Cover Saves which come under 50 different names for no good reason other than to forge some narrative via the fluff on the tabletop.

Squats. Nuff Said. Personally, I think there are enough races, if anything I think GK and the (Spanish) Inquisition should be blended back into one. If I could remove a army it would be Tau. Not because they are OP, I don't mind a army being good. It's just their fluff and their play style are kinda, well, generic. You could say the same for Eldar, but you can mix it up with them. Sit back and shoot isn't fun, and fun is why I play 40k.

#1 Keep hearing talk of FW integration with GW = obviously Admech.

#2 A codex of minor races for allied formations: Hrud, Squat, Adeptus Arbites, Genstealer cult, Rouge traders, Zoat refugees, huge floating psykic brains controlling zombies, space pirates (mix of lots of things) + whatever GW wants and thinks will sell. If it sells, expand it.

If GW could keep up with with current armies, and have better balence, I would agree.

Why hasn't anyone suggested codex Kroot? They used to be a thing and they already have some models so they'd be the easiest non-Imperial army to start.

I also think that there should be a renegades army; a mix of CSM and SM, very similar to the Tyrant's Legion army, but better.

First off, I agree with the people saying that we dont need a new army until the ones we have has been fixed.
But, is it just me who would like to see a mercenary-codex? Units that contains humans and xenos in different combinations.

Evil Party Girl wrote:
#2 A codex of minor races for allied formations: Hrud, Squat, Adeptus Arbites, Genstealer cult, Rouge traders, Zoat refugees, huge floating psykic brains controlling zombies, space pirates (mix of lots of things) + whatever GW wants and thinks will sell. If it sells, expand it.

This was my thought exactly... if you want to introduce new races it would be the first sensible use of the allies mechanic. Just make a few select pieces for each ally formation, nothing OP just interesting and different. Don't try to write a full backstory, just some hints and a description how they are percieved by the ones running into them. Keeping things a bit mysterious and easily retcon:ed if you change your mind.

That said, I agree that there is alot of work to do with the existing armies but I think the big problem there is that they don't really have anyone in charge that understands gamemechanics and balancing. This is also apparent in the multiple directions of background from different codexes and BL books. IMHO there should be a wealth of files to draw from for the authors to keep the world somewhat consistent. Think Tolkien, make up proper languages, iconography, arcitecture.

BUT this is just a tangent on how I think they go about this all wrong. If I had time I would consider starting my own game but it is not easy starting something new these days. There is alot of competition.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, I think there are enough races. But GW should take care a bit more.
This particularly concerns codex design and specific factions like SOB.

Pretty much this.

What's the point in adding more factions if GW will just keep pushing Space Marines anyways? More players that can feel neglected and under-represented in the fluff? Hooray.
Tau in particular have so much potential, even if you just look at their design right now - yet is it actually being used? Naw. Same for Eldar, 'Nids, etc.

I feel that a more balanced allocation of development time and fluff representation, as well as army lists better reflecting the fluff of a faction, would do a lot as far as diversity is concerned. It's working for other games that have less factions.

 Peregrine wrote:
No. No more armies. GW needs to fix the existing ones instead of splitting their incredibly limited design talent over even more books and lowering quality even more than they already have.

This. We've got more then enough armies, and GW's time should be spent fixing the current ones. Not releasing new, unbalanced armies.

The problem with adding new armies has a few snags:

1. Diversity is only good if it's actually diverse. The new army has to occupy a space not already occupied by another model range. Space Marines have all these codex books because GW sells a lot of Space Marines. Which leads to the second part.

2. A new army costs money to produce, and has to snag sales that didn't previously exist. If it just eats sales from other xenos armies, then it's not actually doing any good for Games Workshop the business.


Hence why new armies are so few and far between. There has to be a niche for the army to occupy, and there has to be a perceived demand for that niche. Tau, for example, were carefully designed to grab the anime market, with all of their vehicles and troops sharing that aesthetic with Japanese science fiction cartoons. This was a market segment that Games Workshop believed was one they could market 40K to. If another army was to be created, they'd have to inhabit a segment of the market that GW felt would generate new sales, rather than just taking ones away from another product.

Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Arbites are overdue, given their importance in the fluff. As for Xenos, I'd love a Hrud army where everything, even basic troops, has Shrouded, Poisoned, and Infiltrate... but makes Gretchin look robust.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Arbites are overdue, given their importance in the fluff. As for Xenos, I'd love a Hrud army where everything, even basic troops, has Shrouded, Poisoned, and Infiltrate... but makes Gretchin look robust.

Hurd are waaaaaay too powerful for TT.

Because of the "age you to death by being kind of near you" thing? Yeah, you'd have to tone that down. Or are you thinking of something else?

 SisterSydney wrote:
Because of the "age you to death by being kind of near you" thing? Yeah, you'd have to tone that down. Or are you thinking of something else?

Their control over entropy isn't limited to organic tissue. Hrud swarms are casual planet busters.

Basically, your entire army would have to consist of five guys with the opponent screaming in fury as his Titan is reduced to nonfunctional rubble, and his troops are desperately trying to put down the esoteric monsters before the Hrud get on top of them.

Actually that could be a cool special rule - any non-hrud model/unit within a certain range takes damage every turn because of (aging).