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I think this is an interesting question.

What's the most powerful force in the galaxy that has never had a playable army?

Previously, it was the Mechanicus (who are largely a bunch of arms manufacturers anyway ).


I would say that its the Enslavers. Those buggers starved the Necrons into hibernation, and now Necrons don't even do their harvests anymore.



Check out some cool enslaver art:




Not sure if this is meant to be an enslaver





All your brains are belong to us

The insectoid empire growing in the galactic east of Terra.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
The insectoid empire growing in the galactic east of Terra.

which one?

Q'Orl is their name. They relatively close to Terra on a galactic scale and they might be getting ftl travel soon.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Q'Orl is their name. They relatively close to Terra on a galactic scale and they might be getting ftl travel soon.

more spider monsters. too bad they've only been mentioned in Xenology.

Rak'gol, maybe.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Q'Orl is their name. They relatively close to Terra on a galactic scale and they might be getting ftl travel soon.

Weren't they taken out by the Imperial Fists... or reduced in number so they are not an immediate threat? Book 1 & 2 the Beast Arises.

I've always been a fan of the Rak'Gol, There's also the Hrud but they've been reduced to a minimum threat.

I would love more canon info on the Hrud tbh

 Rysgame wrote:
I would love more canon info on the Hrud tbh

Skaven Hrud?


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 NihlusX wrote:
I've always been a fan of the Rak'Gol, There's also the Hrud but they've been reduced to a minimum threat.

yeah, Rak'Gol sounds like a cool army.

No no these hrud

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hrud

Physically, Hrud tend to be impossible to study as they wear ragged cloaks which they wear habitually and helps conceal their true form... They have been depicted as being a a crouched, diminutive creature swathed in rags, its face obscured by a hood, and possessing a rat-like tail.[4] It seems that the Hrud prefer darkness and are basically scavengers and tunnel-dwellers

A lot of the GW fluff describes them similar to Skaven in appearance

I do believe the illustrations of the Hurd on that wiki page are from a deviant art account..

Chaos undivided.....





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Wood Elves, I mean Exodities

 Exergy wrote:
Chaos undivided.....





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Wood Elves, I mean Exodities

Ahh, good old Eldar.

 Exergy wrote:

Wood Elves, I mean Exodities

I'm doing my bit for that!

The most powerful forces are probably the traitor/dark/chaos versions of many IoM armies.

The Dark Mechanicus
Traitor Guard/Lost and the Damned

To be helpful:

LATD did have a list (Cadia campaign) and it was utterly badass. Tailorable, not over or underpointed, it was excellent. Look it up. It was great.

FW also has traitor guard lists.

 Frazzled wrote:
To be helpful:

LATD did have a list (Cadia campaign) and it was utterly badass. Tailorable, not over or underpointed, it was excellent. Look it up. It was great.

FW also has traitor guard lists.

Yeah, I think it depends on what that thread is about 'Without an Army'

Over the years there have been a ton of different supplements with different lists. Do all those Citadel Journal articles count? I think there is an exoditite list in one of them. I was refering to without a current codex.

Gotcha.

it suprises me traitor guard never got a codex from GW, it seemed such a natural thing what with all the other 'dexes they'd been releasing.

BrianDavion wrote:
it suprises me traitor guard never got a codex from GW, it seemed such a natural thing what with all the other 'dexes they'd been releasing.

Probably due to there already being a FW list?

BrianDavion wrote:
it suprises me traitor guard never got a codex from GW, it seemed such a natural thing what with all the other 'dexes they'd been releasing.

Yeah, it'd be natural to have that.

But I wonder how they'd look.

CSM have the gold trim, the spikes, the backpack pipes, the horns, the daemon reliefs, the flayed skins.

A lot of traitor guard depictions make them look dirty and dishevelled. Obviously, I think they'd have spikes, but it'd be much harder to transfer the other CSM features onto their flimsy flak uniforms without making them look cheesy.

I think because GW hasn't decided on a design yet, they haven't released a dex.

 Maximus Bitch wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
it suprises me traitor guard never got a codex from GW, it seemed such a natural thing what with all the other 'dexes they'd been releasing.

Yeah, it'd be natural to have that.

But I wonder how they'd look.

CSM have the gold trim, the spikes, the backpack pipes, the horns, the daemon reliefs, the flayed skins.

A lot of traitor guard depictions make them look dirty and dishevelled. Obviously, I think they'd have spikes, but it'd be much harder to transfer the other CSM features onto their flimsy flak uniforms without making them look cheesy.

I think because GW hasn't decided on a design yet, they haven't released a dex.

I think the FW sculpts look good, but GW could also just make them look similar to chaos cultists just slightly more armored and better armed.

Traitor Guard are probably the winners, as they make up a good chunk of the Chaos threat.

Adeptus Arbites, perhaps? They don't have a proper army but they're probably as effective a military force, all things being equal, as the Storm Troopers. Maybe more so, as there's probably many more Arbitors than Storm Troopers.

There are some nasty Xenos in the Halo Stars mentioned in the 40K RPG books, some of whom have small empires of several planets. I don't think they'd be more than a regional threat, though.

 Saber wrote:
Traitor Guard are probably the winners, as they make up a good chunk of the Chaos threat.

They have an army, no? Forge World have a list for them?

Adeptus Arbites, perhaps? They don't have a proper army but they're probably as effective a military force, all things being equal, as the Storm Troopers. Maybe more so, as there's probably many more Arbitors than Storm Troopers.

Maybe, Arbites are good as a hyper-powerful police force, but they couldn't take a world on their own. They are more than capable of putting down hive wars, and could probably repel some minor Ork Waaagh!s and cult uprisings, but they are not Scion-level. Scions are pretty much the best non-augmented human warriors in the Imperium, maybe excluding Sisters of Battle. Regardless, the Arbites are not on the same tier as them - better equipped than guardsmen, but lack the vehicles, ordnance and numbers, and lack the skill and equipment of Scions.

There are some nasty Xenos in the Halo Stars mentioned in the 40K RPG books, some of whom have small empires of several planets. I don't think they'd be more than a regional threat, though.

The Barghesi would be a good threat, and the Umbra but they're regional threats.

I'd say the most powerful force with a canon army not represented in game is the Hrud (I think). They age entire planets by their mere presence, and have an entropic field surrounding them. A Hrud migration is a terrifying force, because even to fight it is to age years at a time.

 Rysgame wrote:
No no these hrud

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hrud

I hate to say it, but man that is a terribly written article (so many run on sentences and grammar errors...) Is that taken directly from a GW source? (I've seen some of the articles on lexicanum as having been copied directly from GW books)

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Adeptus Arbites, perhaps? They don't have a proper army but they're probably as effective a military force, all things being equal, as the Storm Troopers. Maybe more so, as there's probably many more Arbitors than Storm Troopers.

Maybe, Arbites are good as a hyper-powerful police force, but they couldn't take a world on their own. They are more than capable of putting down hive wars, and could probably repel some minor Ork Waaagh!s and cult uprisings, but they are not Scion-level. Scions are pretty much the best non-augmented human warriors in the Imperium, maybe excluding Sisters of Battle. Regardless, the Arbites are not on the same tier as them - better equipped than guardsmen, but lack the vehicles, ordnance and numbers, and lack the skill and equipment of Scions.

It's been a long time since I read any Penal Legion fluff. Are the Penal Legions made up only of Astra Militarum soldiers who have committed some infraction, or are they also made up of regular Imperial civilians who are sentenced/given the opportunity to serve in a penal legion?

If the Adeptus Arbites sometimes raised legions from overcrowded jails I could see them possibly getting their own army.

That said, in my mind there seems to be a trend of something really cool being in the fluff, so people want to see it on the tabletop. So GW makes a unit and HQ choice for that cool thing. It doesn't really make sense for that cool thing to be a normal army, as they either serve in a civilian role or are an extremely specialized force for very specific circumstances. It would make total sense for them to be in a specific scenario, so they are awesome for fluffy, story driven games. But, as they already have an HQ and a Troops choice and can probably use an existing transport GW goes ahead and makes them a codex. Then either lots of people go out and buy them because of the cool rules/models and we end up in a weird situation where some ultra-rare specialists are fighting in every minor skirmish across the galaxy no matter that it has nothing to do with their field of expertise while the IG remain largely ignored. Or maybe they don't have the super cool rules/models and so the few people that did buy them to play as an entire army have to wait an eternity to get any scrap of an update.

That could all be in my head, rather than a trend that has happened in reality. Also, I hope I don't sound like I'm criticizing the existence of anyone's army, I just think this is a way things can end up getting bloated. If they move to more of a war scrolls/GHB system this kind of bloat might not matter nearly as much anymore.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Adeptus Arbites, perhaps? They don't have a proper army but they're probably as effective a military force, all things being equal, as the Storm Troopers. Maybe more so, as there's probably many more Arbitors than Storm Troopers.

Maybe, Arbites are good as a hyper-powerful police force, but they couldn't take a world on their own. They are more than capable of putting down hive wars, and could probably repel some minor Ork Waaagh!s and cult uprisings, but they are not Scion-level. Scions are pretty much the best non-augmented human warriors in the Imperium, maybe excluding Sisters of Battle. Regardless, the Arbites are not on the same tier as them - better equipped than guardsmen, but lack the vehicles, ordnance and numbers, and lack the skill and equipment of Scions.

It's been a long time since I read any Penal Legion fluff. Are the Penal Legions made up only of Astra Militarum soldiers who have committed some infraction, or are they also made up of regular Imperial civilians who are sentenced/given the opportunity to serve in a penal legion?

I think it was any criminal conviction, so not necessarily ex-Astra Militarum.

If the Adeptus Arbites sometimes raised legions from overcrowded jails I could see them possibly getting their own army.

If Genestealer Cults can have an army, I certainly believe that the more common Arbites could. In fact, I think that would be a very fun board game a la Betrayal at Calth or Lost Patrol. Have a force of Arbites putting down an insurrection of Genestealer Cultists, and with the new SW:A rules, I think Arbites fit right in.

I'm not saying that an individual Arbitor is as good at fighting as a Storm Trooper; rather, they both have about the same level of organic equipment and support. They both have lots of APCs, troopers with carapace armor, and excellent small arms. They don't have much in the way of heavy weapons or ordnance.

Storm Troopers are obviously better prepared to fight on a proper battlefield as they are trained and prepared for it, and they have air and orbital support that the Arbitors do not. But by and large they're roughly equivalent in their military power, so if Storm Troopers merit a mini-Codex then the Arbitors could justify one as well.

A Hive warfare Arbites force is a great idea. That would be ten kinds of cool.

Eldar knight households - exodite knights were a distinct and seperate entity to craftworld wraithknights.

Exodites generally - complete with dragon knights and megasaurs...

Arbites would be interesting: shotguns (with executioner rounds) and power maul/storm shield riot troops would be cool (if modelable with imperial agrnts now).

Rak'Gol would be cool, but Slaugth are possibly more likely, having been mentioned in FW, non-FFG publications.