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 Formosa wrote:
a contigent of the men of iron coming back from the outer rim, using DOA tech, tech that makes the elder look like children playing with their dads gun.

So we'd pretty much have OldCrons alongside NewCrons?

I really like this idea. After all, some people really liked necrons back before Ward got his claws on them.

Squats because Dwarves in Space are far more interesting than Elves in Space.

Also I liked their fluff.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
Squats because Dwarves in Space are far more interesting than Elves in Space.

Also I liked their fluff.

I was quite happy with Squats - but Eldar have hotter women so they win Unless of course Dwarf women look nothing like their menfolk - interesting....

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Giant codex recombination

I like this! This is a thing I'd support - but in a slightly different manner and some new stuff added, as that's what the OP asked

Space Marines - obviously! I feel like it should be split into two main sections, Codex-compliant and non-Codex, as these seem to be the big organization differences...I don't play them, though, so feel free to jump on me if that would be too difficult/cut out too much cool stuff.

Forces of the Imperium - Covers Guard, MT, Sisters of Battle, and Imperial Navy. This is the one I'd drool over. Lots of customization options to build everything from an armored regiment to a Rogue Trader's air-supported House Troops to a poorly-equipped PDF swarm. Sisters seem a bit...odd here, but they don't really fit into any of the other two Imperial books, since they're more than just allies. Total rewrite of MT fluff, of course

Imperial Agents - This would be the ally codex, like Anomander laid out. Inquisition, Assassins, Grey Knights - I agree that they fit in here more than with the Space Marines - reworked Imperial Knights, the Mechanicus...all those little dudes. Agreed that they should be allies.

Chaos - I was torn between liking the idea of Renegades, Marines, and Daemons all operating out of the same book and comparing it to the way Space Marines and IG would be in different ones...but in fairness, Chaos is more integrated anyway. So fair enough.

Renegades and Heretics - I DO, however, think that the Dark Mechanicum should be its own thing. This would be another ally codex, just with a focus on Chaos instead. Evil Admech, Chaos-aligned xenos (are the Loxatl pure mercs, or do they worship Chaos?), pirates both Marine and squishy human who aren't necessarily devotees of the Dark Gods, Chaos Knights, that sort of thing.

Eldar - Agreed again, as the split between Dark and Craftworld Eldar is more of a "you do your thing, we'll do ours" than the sort of hatred that defined Dark and High elves in WFB. All eldar covered in one book makes sense!

Orks - I'd make the book focused more on different Clans that on regular vs. feral, since you could cover that with the Snakebites, but there ought to be a rebel Grot army for sure. That and Freebootas. Maybe options for using Blood Axes as mercs?

Tau - Yup, more emphasis on the auxiliaries. Bring Gue'Vesa into play and add a couple of new client races for variety, but definitely leave the option for a Tau-focused list.

Tyranids - LOTS of options here. A 'stealer cult would be an absolute must, and I agree on the emphasis on force types over Hive Fleets. Maybe have variants based on the different stages of world consumption?

Necrons - I don't know a whole lot about them either. I guess you could do something like Tyranids and have forces based on how awake the Tomb World is...as well as the Dynasties.

Minor Empires - This would be the xenos ally codex. Lots of little things that are dangerous without being players on a galactic scale. Hrud, Tarellians, Loxatl (maybe? Unless they're with the Chaos ally book) Q'orl, Rak'gol if we can use FFG material, that sort of thing. Obviously they'd work more easily with some allies than others. Maybe Tyranids can't ally unless they take a Genestealer Cult, to represent the 'stealers getting into the local population?

Can we please just have differently coloured Space Marines instead? We still need a proper codex for purple and orange marines.


In all seriousness, I would love to see the Rak'Gol for 40k, and the Laer and Nephilim for 30k.

Squats.

Return us our glorious robots...

I think a more realistic idea than a full codex is expanded options for Xenos Inquisitor warbands. I mean if I was an inquisitor who made a point of capturing and studying dangerous xenos, I'd throw them at en enemy when I'm done with them. Especially with the more mercenary races, I'd hire them and study them as they fight.

Rouge traders re known to employ xenos...

Grots , atliest a little supplement with bounch of fast skimers and tanks and a grot hq

The Megarachnids, I think they would make a good supplement to the nids.

I would like all the xenos in the fluff to be added. It would bring more diversity to the table top.

Each faction would be too small to be represented by a single codex though, but they could all be added into a single book.

Something like a codex: xenos mercenaries or xenos free states.

Regional codices might work. Codex: Ghoul stars for example. This would give them more of an identity.

The ulumeathi - they might have something which gives d-weapons 'gets hot!'

(mentioned in the GK codex with the 'ulumeathi plasma syphon' which makes all plasma weapons 'gets hot!' on a 1 and 2)

Tau auxiliaries. Kroot, Vespid, and their other, weirder allies.

Squats. And I'm not just saying that to be a donkey-cave.

Picture it: an army that uses tunneling tanks with feth huge drills on the front to deepstrike! They can drill holes in your Aegis defense line! Squats can have access to high tech that the Imperium has forgotten... imagine troops armed with Volkite weapons (I have no idea what a volkite is, but its in 30K and not 40K, so the Imperium has forgotten it) or gravtion guns as far as the eye can seeI T4 models with ALL of the carapace armor! A tank with six Squats on the roof strapped into old-fashioned AA guns to fill the sky with flak and shoot down all your opponents' pesky flyers!

Squats can be cool! We just have to give them the chance!

I can't reccomend anyone else, because I don't know too much about the actual xenos races in 40K, apart from the Hrud, and I'm not sure they would work. They don't have much in the way of tech, and "I kill you with an entropy field my body generates" would make it kinda hard to assault them in CC...

leerm02 wrote:


Because I love discussing the 40k lore here is a fun post:

What Xenos race already mentioned in some part of the 40k fluff do YOU think deserves a modern codex/army? Pretend for a moment that you worked for GW and were given this as an assignment (so no cop out: “We already have all the races we need!” answers: the emperor ordered you! [at least: that's who I assume runs GW])

I would also like to hear some rationale for your pick, and (this is the author part of me talking) if possible some cool references to fluff pieces where they are showcased.

So how about it folks? What hideous Xenos abomination needs more love?

PS: If you say “Squats” you should please have some backup for that answer, because I've been trying to find interesting lore/info on them for about a week now and haven't found even one bit that seemed worthwhile!

Slaugth

"But, Hr-"

SLAAAAAAAUGTH!



After that though? Yeah sure the Hrud, Umbra, Rak'Gol, Kroot, Squats, Exodites, Genestealer cults, Men of Iron etc would be nice.

I BADLY want Hrud as long as they are Space Skaven, the fish boogeyman thing holds no interest at all for me, unless maybe they can be some sort of amphibious infiltrate/assault unit like Lictors on a smaller scale.

Fusils being a gun that combines sniper rules and plasma AP, that would be freaking sweet.

We don't really have a horde army backed up with truly deadly snipers.

Could have hamster wheel styled AFVs

Suicide rat bombs/swarms

And all sorts of dirty traps.

And this would be awesome

HQ:
Grey Seer/pskyer

Hurd table example with some 40K tweaks:

Primaris: Skitterleap blessing

1: Warp Lightning (witchfire/soul blaze)
2: Pestilent Breath (witchfire/ flame template, poison +4?)
3: Death Frenzy (blessing, with all the pros and cons)
4: Wither (malediction)
5: Crack's Call (beam, Play it similar to Jaws but let jump infantry/flyers/skimmers etc. avoid it. Destroy stupid crap like ADLs.)
6: 13th Spell (malediction)

A book on Snotlings, Grots and Squigs with all their variations and uses.

Kroot and hurd for me please thanks

What I'd like to see in terms of priority.

Slaugth
Hrud
Slann
Squats/Demiurg
Exodites
Rak'Gol

Then we'd have a cleaner counterparts to the Vampire Counts, Skaven, Lizardmen, Dorfs and Wood Elves in FB. The Rak'Gol can be pretty Ogreish at times too. /Silly reason.

Seriously, each would offer its own largely unique aesthetic which I think is crucial for any faction in 40k; each one needs to have its own look and feel and provide both its own flavor of stories to be told and its own unique feeling gameplay.

You can argue with me from a Watsonian perspective, but from a Doylist one I think new factions for 40k should draw from what would be largely fresh and new from doylist perspectives for the setting as opposed to rehashing things already seen in other factions. Like the Men of Iron I'm not super keen on because I'm not convinced they offer a great deal that the Adeptus Mechanicus and Necrons don't, whether aesthetically, narratively, or gameplay wise.

Spehss Dorfs I believe should be approached carefully with the goal of making them feel unique as an army kept in mind at all times. It can be done mind you, but as a designer you should approach creating the aesthetic, the kinds of stories you tell with them, and the style of play carefully. 40k is already a game with a large number of armies and a setting with a lot of factions in it, so extra care must be taken to ensure everyone has their own character.

Like with the Hrud, while just making them space skaven would be fairly lazy admittedly, it does most certainly provide for a character both fluffwise and crunchwise that is largely unique to themselves. Yes there are lots of other armies that rely on weight of numbers but each one does it remarkably differently. The way a tyranid list plop lots of things onto the board and use it is rather different than how you'd do it with the Orks or Guard, and the Hrud would in turn be able to and should provide their own special flavor. Plus we already have quite a lot of small numbers of elite unit using armies (and one that has like, three clones of itself in the game) so more model spam armies isn't exactly throwing the scale out of whack.

Similarly, while the Slaugth's likely mix of cheap disposable thralls and bio-constructs and much more potent true-slaugth and their more horrific creations may scream Tyranid to you, if you more fairly priced the Tyranid models to their capacity (so like, getting more points for using Pyrovores as repayment for actively hurting your chances of winning) you'd find that generally the big scary things are meant to be more spammable than what you'd find in other armies. Similarly, the Tyranids are a very in your face force with barely anything capable of fighting past bolter range and as a rule, are a high mobility army. So you already have openings to create something different with the Slaugth.

Now you may ask why I'm speaking mostly from gameplay; well, the thing about promoting a minor faction into the big leagues is that it entails it getting models and rulebooks in the tabletop game. So discussing their lore viability needs to take a backseat to discussing what they'd offer to the game if you really do want them to get to those lofty heights. You can't read any codex lore if they don't have a codex after all.

 ChazSexington wrote:
For codices I suggest
- Exodite Eldar
- Corsair Eldar
- Rak'Gol
- Laer
- Mix of human/xenos, like Diasporex and the Interex
- Adding varius races to the Tau codex

Laer would be fun for 30k players.

Going off of your Interex/Diasporex thought, I like the idea of a new faction that isn't xenos but rather a faction of mankind that doesn't fall under the Imperial or Chaos banner. I know it's a "Xenos" thread but I think this would be a solid idea; it's unique insofar as the current factions are considered, and could be a really cool way to expand another part of the lore.

 Jambles wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
For codices I suggest
- Exodite Eldar
- Corsair Eldar
- Rak'Gol
- Laer
- Mix of human/xenos, like Diasporex and the Interex
- Adding varius races to the Tau codex

Laer would be fun for 30k players.

Going off of your Interex/Diasporex thought, I like the idea of a new faction that isn't xenos but rather a faction of mankind that doesn't fall under the Imperial or Chaos banner. I know it's a "Xenos" thread but I think this would be a solid idea; it's unique insofar as the current factions are considered, and could be a really cool way to expand another part of the lore.

From a Doylist perspective, what would they offer aesthetically, thematically, and mechanically to the game and its setting?

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I BADLY want Hrud as long as they are Space Skaven, the fish boogeyman thing holds no interest at all for me, unless maybe they can be some sort of amphibious infiltrate/assault unit like Lictors on a smaller scale.

Fusils being a gun that combines sniper rules and plasma AP, that would be freaking sweet.

We don't really have a horde army backed up with truly deadly snipers.

Could have hamster wheel styled AFVs

Suicide rat bombs/swarms

And all sorts of dirty traps.

And this would be awesome

HQ:
Grey Seer/pskyer

Hurd table example with some 40K tweaks:

Primaris: Skitterleap blessing

1: Warp Lightning (witchfire/soul blaze)
2: Pestilent Breath (witchfire/ flame template, poison +4?)
3: Death Frenzy (blessing, with all the pros and cons)
4: Wither (malediction)
5: Crack's Call (beam, Play it similar to Jaws but let jump infantry/flyers/skimmers etc. avoid it. Destroy stupid crap like ADLs.)
6: 13th Spell (malediction)

Hrud have absolutely nothing in common with Skaven. There's no need for force WHF armies into 40K now. Somethingt that's actually original and interesting would be a far better option. Although even better- don't add any goddamn armies until the Codex Creep is beaten to death and buried in concrete.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I BADLY want Hrud as long as they are Space Skaven, the fish boogeyman thing holds no interest at all for me, unless maybe they can be some sort of amphibious infiltrate/assault unit like Lictors on a smaller scale.

Fusils being a gun that combines sniper rules and plasma AP, that would be freaking sweet.

We don't really have a horde army backed up with truly deadly snipers.

Could have hamster wheel styled AFVs

Suicide rat bombs/swarms

And all sorts of dirty traps.

And this would be awesome

HQ:
Grey Seer/pskyer

Hurd table example with some 40K tweaks:

Primaris: Skitterleap blessing

1: Warp Lightning (witchfire/soul blaze)
2: Pestilent Breath (witchfire/ flame template, poison +4?)
3: Death Frenzy (blessing, with all the pros and cons)
4: Wither (malediction)
5: Crack's Call (beam, Play it similar to Jaws but let jump infantry/flyers/skimmers etc. avoid it. Destroy stupid crap like ADLs.)
6: 13th Spell (malediction)

Hrud have absolutely nothing in common with Skaven. There's no need for force WHF armies into 40K now. Somethingt that's actually original and interesting would be a far better option. Although even better- don't add any goddamn armies until the Codex Creep is beaten to death and buried in concrete.

Accept for the fact their early artwork was CLEARLY a cloaked Skaven with a rifle. Take out the stupid fishmonger RETCON stuff and see the similarities.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/9/91/Other_dangerous_aliens.jpg

They have been depicted as being a crouched, diminutive creature swathed in rags, its face obscured by a hood, and possessing a rat-like tail

The Hrud prefer darkness and are basically scavengers and tunnel-dwellers.

From the interrogations of a Human slave that served the Hrud, its known that they are a secretive race of subterranean scavengers who lived in tunnel-cities known as "juunlak"s. These typically are formed near the greatest centres of Human population. They tend to be fiercely tribal and are expert scavengers of technology to the point that they can easily assemble from a mongrel collection of weapons and devices with the resources they have at their disposal.

Hrud Fusils...they worked as a form of "plasma musket" that uses an unfathomable mechanism to phase a plasma bolt between realspace and the warp.

The Skaven are humanoid rat creatures from Games Workshop's fantasy counterpart game to 40k, Warhammer. Both races have a similar unkempt, crouched appearance, scavenger culture, and both are depicted as having rat-like tails; both utilize warp-plasma based technology, which appears archaic but is technologically superior to other, contemporary engineering - the Hrud rifle is a "fusil" while the Skaven rifle is a jezail (a musket) - and finally both seem to have similar social habits being described as living in warrens or similar underground tunnel systems.

It could be presumed that the Hrud were originally meant to be Warhammer 40,000 counterparts to the Skaven. With the exception of the Skaven, most Warhammer fantasy races have a counterpart in Warhammer 40,000. Incidentally, early Warhammer 40,000 rules included a toxin called rodotoxin which was effective against Skaven.

So, warp/plasma tech of their own, scavenged wargear otherwise, tunnel dwelling scavengers, stick close to humans (like rats, though could fluff this out to other races easily), can breed like crazy, take slaves, etc.etc.

Not to mention since the WHF world went BOOM there is plenty of reason to bring the rats into 40K to wreck some havoc. Not to mention they are one of the few truly unique IPs GW has.

But boiled down a Space Skaven is just so cool, I'd give up my Chaos Space Marines in a nano second for one.

 Kain wrote:

 Jambles wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:
For codices I suggest
- Exodite Eldar
- Corsair Eldar
- Rak'Gol
- Laer
- Mix of human/xenos, like Diasporex and the Interex
- Adding varius races to the Tau codex

Laer would be fun for 30k players.

Going off of your Interex/Diasporex thought, I like the idea of a new faction that isn't xenos but rather a faction of mankind that doesn't fall under the Imperial or Chaos banner. I know it's a "Xenos" thread but I think this would be a solid idea; it's unique insofar as the current factions are considered, and could be a really cool way to expand another part of the lore.

From a Doylist perspective, what would they offer aesthetically, thematically, and mechanically to the game and its setting?

Today, I learned what a "Doylist" perspective is!

In truth I didn't think that far... going off the example of the Interex, in my mind's eye I imagined a very clean, utopian view of futuristic humanity (with the appropriately grimdark underpinnings of inhumanity, naturally) to contrast the dirty medieval aesthetic of the imperium. Thematically they're a subset of humanity that espouses a very different set of ideals than the imperium, which could be reflected mechanically by a more elite human army - imagine guardsmen with the kind of equipment you'd see a space marine packing. Obviously it's a pipe dream idea, but there it is.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I BADLY want Hrud as long as they are Space Skaven, the fish boogeyman thing holds no interest at all for me, unless maybe they can be some sort of amphibious infiltrate/assault unit like Lictors on a smaller scale.

Fusils being a gun that combines sniper rules and plasma AP, that would be freaking sweet.

We don't really have a horde army backed up with truly deadly snipers.

Could have hamster wheel styled AFVs

Suicide rat bombs/swarms

And all sorts of dirty traps.

And this would be awesome

HQ:
Grey Seer/pskyer

Hurd table example with some 40K tweaks:

Primaris: Skitterleap blessing

1: Warp Lightning (witchfire/soul blaze)
2: Pestilent Breath (witchfire/ flame template, poison +4?)
3: Death Frenzy (blessing, with all the pros and cons)
4: Wither (malediction)
5: Crack's Call (beam, Play it similar to Jaws but let jump infantry/flyers/skimmers etc. avoid it. Destroy stupid crap like ADLs.)
6: 13th Spell (malediction)

Hrud have absolutely nothing in common with Skaven. There's no need for force WHF armies into 40K now. Somethingt that's actually original and interesting would be a far better option. Although even better- don't add any goddamn armies until the Codex Creep is beaten to death and buried in concrete.

Accept for the fact their early artwork was CLEARLY a cloaked Skaven with a rifle. Take out the stupid fishmonger RETCON stuff and see the similarities.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/9/91/Other_dangerous_aliens.jpg

They have been depicted as being a crouched, diminutive creature swathed in rags, its face obscured by a hood, and possessing a rat-like tail

The Hrud prefer darkness and are basically scavengers and tunnel-dwellers.

From the interrogations of a Human slave that served the Hrud, its known that they are a secretive race of subterranean scavengers who lived in tunnel-cities known as "juunlak"s. These typically are formed near the greatest centres of Human population. They tend to be fiercely tribal and are expert scavengers of technology to the point that they can easily assemble from a mongrel collection of weapons and devices with the resources they have at their disposal.

Hrud Fusils...they worked as a form of "plasma musket" that uses an unfathomable mechanism to phase a plasma bolt between realspace and the warp.

The Skaven are humanoid rat creatures from Games Workshop's fantasy counterpart game to 40k, Warhammer. Both races have a similar unkempt, crouched appearance, scavenger culture, and both are depicted as having rat-like tails; both utilize warp-plasma based technology, which appears archaic but is technologically superior to other, contemporary engineering - the Hrud rifle is a "fusil" while the Skaven rifle is a jezail (a musket) - and finally both seem to have similar social habits being described as living in warrens or similar underground tunnel systems.

It could be presumed that the Hrud were originally meant to be Warhammer 40,000 counterparts to the Skaven. With the exception of the Skaven, most Warhammer fantasy races have a counterpart in Warhammer 40,000. Incidentally, early Warhammer 40,000 rules included a toxin called rodotoxin which was effective against Skaven.

So, warp/plasma tech of their own, scavenged wargear otherwise, tunnel dwelling scavengers, stick close to humans (like rats, though could fluff this out to other races easily), can breed like crazy, take slaves, etc.etc.

Not to mention since the WHF world went BOOM there is plenty of reason to bring the rats into 40K to wreck some havoc. Not to mention they are one of the few truly unique IPs GW has.

But boiled down a Space Skaven is just so cool, I'd give up my Chaos Space Marines in a nano second for one.

So basically, the irrelevant, worthless information that is hopelessly outdated and retconned.

Plus they're too powerful for TT, and their entire range would only consist of one model.

Rak'Gol. They seem like an absolutely terrifying race

This isn't 40k, and they're not xenos themselves (although they've possibly been influenced by xenos) but post-Humans that were so modified they could barely be considered Human at all, but one race that really stuck out to me was the Olamic Quietitude from the HH novel Prospero Burns. They utilised various cybernetic warriors, the largest of which was arguably superior to an average Astartes, protected by armour equivalent to power armour & gravitic force fields that could be adapted to provide maximum protection to adios threats. They were armed with gravity rifles that easily pierce power armour, silent fusion-based heat beams & kinetic hammers similar to thunder hammers.

Can we get rid of the Tau codex while were at it

Why...?

 Wyzilla wrote:

So basically, the irrelevant, worthless information that is hopelessly outdated and retconned.

Plus they're too powerful for TT, and their entire range would only consist of one model.

How? A clanrat with scavenged up space gun or even upgraded to a warp plasma fusil wouldn't be that scary. And the range would have to be at least close to what WHF Skaven have. So far from one model. Even if you take into count the fishmonsters in fluff they have attacked in great numbers and been defeated. But still Hrud will always be Space Skaven, and as the topic states What Xenos race in the lore do I think DESERVES a codex/army. For me that answer is Hrud/ Space Skaven.