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.

After reading a few threads about the addition of new Races or Codices to the current 14, pretty much every suggestion is just be a rehash of one already in play. Not caring about fluff, but an alternative in game play, what about extra-galactic energy beings that all move like jetbikes, have no CC attacks, and cannot be harmed by CC attacks? Although I particularly do not want to play this style of army, I think it would represent a pretty decent challenge to the play styles and current meta of the game, especially for tournament and all-comers players. What do you think?

Because that would be very difficult to balance in the game.

Not attempting to be too harsh or aggressive but...

That is a horrible idea.

For one, it is ludicrously impossible to balance.

For two, it would make the game noticeably less fun. I like my assault units, and you roll up this army and hey! My dedicated assault units with no guns can do absolutely nothing. And we lose an entire phase of the game.

For three, why? "represent a pretty decent challenge to the play styles and current meta of the game" is NOT a reason. That's just a thinly veiled attempt to say that you want to hose over the current meta game by introducing a new overpowered race.

For four, what would they do?

Having no CC attacks and cannot be harmed by CC attacks doesn't sound truly alien, it sounds like some crap from a fantasy game.

If you want truly alien, you need creatures that behave in ways humans cannot comprehend, such as ejecting parts of their body at foes, who die from it and possibly spawn another creature from the corpse.

juraigamer wrote:Having no CC attacks and cannot be harmed by CC attacks doesn't sound truly alien, it sounds like some crap from a fantasy game.

If you want truly alien, you need creatures that behave in ways humans cannot comprehend, such as ejecting parts of their body at foes, who die from it and possibly spawn another creature from the corpse.

So...kinda like nids then?

Basically:

Creativity =/= randomly messing with the game's rules

That way lies creative glut, unbalanced and overly complicated mechanics.

Also, madness.

Mr Nobody wrote:Because that would be very difficult to balance in the game.

Fo sho.

curran12 wrote:I like my assault units, and you roll up this army and hey!That's just a thinly veiled attempt to say that you want to hose over the current meta game by introducing a new overpowered race.

I like my assault units, too. I ain't lookin to hose over nothin. I just threw out a Sunday morning musing in a discussion forum.

curran12 wrote:For four, what would they do?

I like the idea of low toughness few wound eternal warrior beings with energy fields. Their overall strength gets weaker the less wounds they have. Their attacks get stronger the closer they are to their target, but their save gets weaker.

juraigamer wrote:Having no CC attacks and cannot be harmed by CC attacks doesn't sound truly alien, it sounds like some crap from a fantasy game.

Do you realise this is a game of vikings fighting elves in space?

juraigamer wrote:If you want truly alien, you need creatures that behave in ways humans cannot comprehend, such as ejecting parts of their body at foes, who die from it and possibly spawn another creature from the corpse.

How about hits that are greater than twice their toughness that wound them would cause 1 wound and break the model into 2 similar models with the remaining wounds divided between them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ElectricPaladin wrote:Creativity =/= randomly messing with the game's rules
That way lies creative glut, unbalanced and overly complicated mechanics.
Also, madness.

That is why I did not post this in the Proposed Rules Forum. I was just thinking about a Race or units that have not been represented amongst the current 40K Codices. I know nothing about Fantasy, so something similar may be out there.

I think in order to go for a truly alien race, you would have to ignore rules for the time being and think in lines with fluff. Personally I've devised an alien race that are 4-legged arachnid people in a sort of tribal era and mild to potent psychic powers.

Ultimately though if you were to add a new race in, you would have to go into areas not explored. We have the old race, the new, the allies and enemies, the mutuals and the outsiders. Robots, dinosaurs, humans, elves, barbarics (orks), demons and their worshippers. There isn't much else to go for besides an alien race based on some other aspects not touched.

An that effectively ignores one of the biggest segments of the game is a terrible, horrible, god awful idea. It's one thing to have an army that doesn't assault much like Tau or Guard, but to eliminate that weakness altogether is frankly one of the worst game design ideas I've ever heard.

Brother SRM wrote:An that effectively ignores one of the biggest segments of the game is a terrible, horrible, god awful idea. It's one thing to have an army that doesn't assault much like Tau or Guard, but to eliminate that weakness altogether is frankly one of the worst game design ideas I've ever heard.

yeah, it probably is a bad game design idea, but it is a more alien race idea than any I have ever read about in this forum.

And its completely dumb. Why should they be immune to C&C? There is no reason for it.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:And its completely dumb. Why should they be immune to C&C? There is no reason for it.

Ghenghis Jon wrote:extra-galactic energy beings

They are floating clouds of energy. Ever punch an electric field?

Ghenghis Jon wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:And its completely dumb. Why should they be immune to C&C? There is no reason for it.

Ghenghis Jon wrote:extra-galactic energy beings

They are floating clouds of energy. Ever punch an electric field?

Ever shot an electric field?

Ghenghis Jon wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:An that effectively ignores one of the biggest segments of the game is a terrible, horrible, god awful idea. It's one thing to have an army that doesn't assault much like Tau or Guard, but to eliminate that weakness altogether is frankly one of the worst game design ideas I've ever heard.

yeah, it probably is a bad game design idea, but it is a more alien race idea than any I have ever read about in this forum.

But that isn't strictly true. What you've done is outlined an army that is immune to CC but cannot fight in CC. So lets translate that to rules: you have an army of a certain size that is in effect a powerhouse because its a shooty army that cannot be stopped besides being shot to pieces. That's daft. In fluff that dictates a very awkward race that either has no limbs capable of grasping weapons or has a shield that effectively keeps organisms out. I don't buy that really - its far fetched and indicates an almost infantile super-race that baffles the mind how it came into existance, let alone become a intergalactic power.

If you want a true alien race, just convert an army using the 'nid codex and rename everything. The race you suggested was a horrible, horrible, horrible idea

Actually, they already have that race. They call them the Enslavers.

Psienesis wrote:Actually, they already have that race. They call them the Enslavers.

enslavers are axe proof but not bullet proof?

Without a host body, an Enslaver is just a floating cloud of fog without any arms or legs. They're described as "out of phase" with the physical world, similar to the Necron Wraith, though it's a psychic effect, rather than some space-tech-magic thing.

Psienesis wrote:Without a host body, an Enslaver is just a floating cloud of fog without any arms or legs. They're described as "out of phase" with the physical world, similar to the Necron Wraith, though it's a psychic effect, rather than some space-tech-magic thing.

So...both bullet proof and axe proof?
How do you kill it, mind bullets?

Juvieus Kaine wrote:In fluff that dictates a very awkward race that either has no limbs capable of grasping weapons or has a shield that effectively keeps organisms out.

It's not that they keep them out, they just pass right through, just like cars do every day through the Earth's magnetic field. However, a piece of metal traveling fast enough (especially spiraling ballistic-ally) or an energy weapon could disrupt a magnetic field enough to diminish it.

Juvieus Kaine wrote:I don't buy that really - its far fetched and indicates an almost infantile super-race that baffles the mind how it came into existance, let alone become a intergalactic power.

There is a decent short story written by George R. R. martin called Nightflyers (and an awful 1987 movie adaption my dad took me to see). At this point in human development, psioncs had been integrated into technology where the electomagnetic field variances they caused could be detected and deciphered. Well, they start picking up psionic signals from between the stars and go to investigate these intelligent multi-kilometer wide energy rings that are floating between the stars. These could be similar beings.

The few bits of fluff that describe battles between Inquisitors or Space Marine elements against Enslavers and Enslaved populations don't give a lot of detail on how they managed to kill the few Enslavers the Imperium has managed to successfully destroy, though it seems stasis fields and null fields were required.

There's a chapter on them in one of the Dark Heresy books, I'll try to find it and see what it says. I do remember that, most of the time, the Enslavers themselves are never killed or captured, simply the host bodies they're residing in which causes the Enslaver to withdraw.

So, I guess I am not that original.

The only areas that to me need to be addressed are certain "looks" and "feels" issues... most archtypes of armies already exist ... so for me it comes down to fluff and looks.

For example ... the rules difference between an IG army and a renegade IG army would be more or less minimal (lots of guys, lots of tanks, lots of big guns and/or any combination there of depending on what you want). Yet I think we could all agree that if GW were to create a new line of renegade IG models in plastic that they would probably sell like hot-cakes, and those sales would be driven PURELY by the look and feel of the army, not that it is necessarily any different tactically when compaired to current loyal IG.

These are the categories I feel are already covered ... feel free to fill in the blanks:

Speed: Average, Fast, Very Fast (all 3 are covered already ... and this is really just a function of how many transports you build into your list)

Ranged Fire Power: Slingshots, Average, Nukes (all 3 are covered already)

Close Combat: Please don't hit me!, Average, Above Average, I'm the guy who is about to behead "please don't hit me" on a roll of 2+ (again all covered)

Durability: Nude, T-shirts, Armored, Walking Tanks (All covered)

So unless there is something that I'm missing here, I think its just models that need to be added and slight alterations to rules that exist that would be able to create a new race.

Or instead of a new race, if people stopped spamming the best stuff only and/or copying all those interweb lists, there would be much more variety on the table. Not saying everyone does, but it's still a problem. That and the flavor/army of the month/codex creep issue. When's the last time anyone saw a sisters army on their opposite end of the table?

races have to be somewhat similar to have meaningful conflict. Energy beings as described probably wouldnt be made of organic material, breathe air or eat food so they would likely not need to compete with the current races for anything.

Exergy wrote:races have to be somewhat similar to have meaningful conflict. Energy beings as described probably wouldnt be made of organic material, breathe air or eat food so they would likely not need to compete with the current races for anything.

Well...there are the C'tan...

I could definitely see GW making this range of models though...They would basically be a completely empy plastic blister with a flying stand...

The finecast versions for characters would be identical, except that instead of being empty, they would have a cotten ball in them...

To balance an army, a race based on it must meet certain criteria that prevents them from being "truly alien". You get this with the Tyranids, the most alien of the races, yet they still run around with guns and have a command/combat structure that matches conventional military doctrine. It's unavoidable.

There are "truly alien" races that exist in fluff though, like these guys:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Umbra#.T3FLRNWweG4

Reminds me of Cubes of Tzeentch

But essentially, "intelligent engery clouds" and all that always get stuck in the same dead-end IMO. If they are so truly alien and incomprehensible, why are they duking it out in close-quarters with Marines and Eldar over strategic objectives. Especially, what would you do with them in more extended campaign-play.

It's a similar drawback which kinda limited the appeal of the old-crons. Their mono-motivation of "we're old, we've come to destroy all life" was rather limited in appeal beyond the initial "wow-that-is-scary-moment". After the 3rd campaign game at the local club at the latest, when their respective opponents on the Marine and Eldar side were starting to develop more personal background and individual stories, ever old-Cron player I've ever known threw the towel simply because "we're here to destroy all life.. don't stand in my way" get's rather simplistic rather fast.

Zweischneid wrote:Reminds me of Cubes of Tzeentch

But essentially, "intelligent engery clouds" and all that always get stuck in the same dead-end IMO. If they are so truly alien and incomprehensible, why are they duking it out in close-quarters with Marines and Eldar over strategic objectives. Especially, what would you do with them in more extended campaign-play.

It's a similar drawback which kinda limited the appeal of the old-crons. Their mono-motivation of "we're old, we've come to destroy all life" was rather limited in appeal beyond the initial "wow-that-is-scary-moment". After the 3rd campaign game at the local club at the latest, when their respective opponents on the Marine and Eldar side were starting to develop more personal background and individual stories, ever old-Cron player I've ever known threw the towel simply because "we're here to destroy all life.. don't stand in my way" get's rather simplistic rather fast.

Agree 100% ... it's the narative, the fluff, the "emotional" attachment to the game (and the entire 40k universe) that drives people. Disembodied vapors, just dont have the same spirit as a snarling face.