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The way I see it, they are two sides of the same coin. One is guard aligned with Xenos and one is guard aligned with Chaos. They share most of the same guard units while retaining some of their own. Yet one has its own Codex and plastic models while one has its crappy rules thrown haphazardly into an Imperial Armour book and isn’t even made anymore?. Why is this?

You're thinking of it backwards.

Genestealer Cults don't get support with plastic minis. Genestealer cults get rules because the plastic minis come first.

Minis come first with GW. Renegades have nothing because they've not made Renegade minis (yet).

I genuinely do think traitor guard will happen. Chaos Knights happened, and without traitor guard, there's just a hole in chaos, that prevents it from being the dark mirror to the Imperium.

I know R&H and Traitor guard aren't exactly the same thing, but I think what's on the Horizon will scratch the same itch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're thinking of it backwards.

Genestealer Cults don't get support with plastic minis. Genestealer cults get rules because the plastic minis come first.

Minis come first with GW. Renegades have nothing because they've not made Renegade minis (yet).

Exactly the problem.

As H.B.M.C. said, miniatures then rules.

GW made GSC models, so they made a GSC Codex.

Forgeworld made Renegades and Heretics model, so they made Forgeworld rules. Forgeworld no longer makes R&H models, so don't hold your breath for much on the rules front.

Well I mean we do have the Blackstone Fortress minis like the Traitor Commissar and Traitor Guard

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Well I mean we do have the Blackstone Fortress minis like the Traitor Commissar and Traitor Guard

which IMHO are a clear sign that we can expect traitor guard in a year or two

BrianDavion wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Well I mean we do have the Blackstone Fortress minis like the Traitor Commissar and Traitor Guard

which IMHO are a clear sign that we can expect traitor guard in a year or two

By that logic we should also be getting a Zoat force & a Men-of-Iron army.

Faulty logic.

Zoats, Men of Iron and Ambulls? Things which don’t really fit into existing 40k as an army concept. Not to be said they couldn’t be made to work, but for now they’re just single models.

Traitor Guard? Well.....we’ve a squad’s worth, plus two ‘command’ models. Other than assorted other infantry, they’d use the existing AM range in terms of tanks, Sentinels etc (much as GSC do).

So in terms polishing the existing up into a coherent 40k range? It’s really not going to take a huge amount of effort.

Why did GSC come first? They presumably had a champion in the studio vocal and coherent enough to sell them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Faulty logic.

Zoats, Men of Iron and Ambulls? Things which don’t really fit into existing 40k as an army concept. Not to be said they couldn’t be made to work, but for now they’re just single models.

Traitor Guard? Well.....we’ve a squad’s worth, plus two ‘command’ models. Other than assorted other infantry, they’d use the existing AM range in terms of tanks, Sentinels etc (much as GSC do).

So in terms polishing the existing up into a coherent 40k range? It’s really not going to take a huge amount of effort.

Why did GSC come first? They presumably had a champion in the studio vocal and coherent enough to sell them.

Gw pretty much kiilled r&h with 8th after the range finnally picked up again with ia13 .

As it Stands i also have no trust in the gw rulesteam to understand any army from fw ,which is demonstratably true considering all the cas which Broke more then did fix up not to mention the Still not working core rules after multiple inputs of the remaining players.

In essence if it happens it will just be a flanderized Version Off the concept .

GW like to use boxed games such as Warhammer Quest or DW:O to tease or start to introduce new model lines. With the new models/units in BSF, I'd say a Traitor Guard Codex and model line is on the horizon.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're thinking of it backwards.

Genestealer Cults don't get support with plastic minis. Genestealer cults get rules because the plastic minis come first.

Minis come first with GW. Renegades have nothing because they've not made Renegade minis (yet).

I still don't believe GW's absurd claim that everything they do is driven by the models.

So, what, the people who decide what GW's release pattern is going to look like for the next two plus years were just sitting in their office one day when a designer wandered in and said 'We're creating a whole new faction. Deal with it'..?

There is obviously direction from somewhere as to - at least broadly - what should be made.

We don't get a bajillion new Marines constantly because the sculptors just love Lieutenants.

Even with the Genestealer Cults example, there was clearly a whole plan to build up to the full faction release with Deathwatch: Overkill. Or did the designers just decide that they wanted to sculpt some monopose hybrids for some reason, and then it was just a happy accident that they went on to create a full range?

I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Are you listening?

Plastics.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I still don't believe GW's absurd claim that everything they do is driven by the models.

So, what, the people who decide what GW's release pattern is going to look like for the next two plus years were just sitting in their office one day when a designer wandered in and said 'We're creating a whole new faction. Deal with it'..?

There is obviously direction from somewhere as to - at least broadly - what should be made.

We don't get a bajillion new Marines constantly because the sculptors just love Lieutenants.

Even with the Genestealer Cults example, there was clearly a whole plan to build up to the full faction release with Deathwatch: Overkill. Or did the designers just decide that they wanted to sculpt some monopose hybrids for some reason, and then it was just a happy accident that they went on to create a full range?

I agree to some extent, but I do believe the models are a major driver and that the rules aren't written until after the models, and even the fluff is changed to suit the models, not the models to suit the fluff. Clearly a few people, somewhere, the likes of Jes Goodwin perhaps and Phil Kelly from a different perspective, have an overview, but they only produce models that they think they can sell. But they can also only produce models that someone in the team can design. And if they have an awesome design idea, they'll change the fluff to fit. After all, GSC had no particular mining background until these models came out.

In your GSC example, I would say that they created the DW:O boxed set as a trial run to see what both the sales and critical response to the models would be. Once they were good enough, they carried on with the rest of the conceptual work they had been doing and turned it into a range.

I agree with some above that some of the recent releases indicate that a Traitor Guard or Renegades and Heretics codex might be on the horizon, IF sales and critical response looks strong enough. (Which I expect it probably does. I've seen huge enthusiasm for it in my gaming circles.)

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You're thinking of it backwards.

Genestealer Cults don't get support with plastic minis. Genestealer cults get rules because the plastic minis come first.

Minis come first with GW. Renegades have nothing because they've not made Renegade minis (yet).

I still don't believe GW's absurd claim that everything they do is driven by the models.

So, what, the people who decide what GW's release pattern is going to look like for the next two plus years were just sitting in their office one day when a designer wandered in and said 'We're creating a whole new faction. Deal with it'..?

There is obviously direction from somewhere as to - at least broadly - what should be made.

We don't get a bajillion new Marines constantly because the sculptors just love Lieutenants.

Even with the Genestealer Cults example, there was clearly a whole plan to build up to the full faction release with Deathwatch: Overkill. Or did the designers just decide that they wanted to sculpt some monopose hybrids for some reason, and then it was just a happy accident that they went on to create a full range?

That is clearly the case; it isn't really GW's position, nor do they say it is. Just some posters on a website.

Deathwatch: Overkill sold more copies than GW hoped for (indeed, I think you can almost map its release as the inflection point to GW's subsequent increase of revenues and share price until the latest market crash - although the success of 8th is obviously the big one.)

That would have suggested GSC would be popular - so full roll out. They may have decided on a full rollout anyway - but they were clearly going to do one now. DW got the same - although on a more limited scale in terms of releases and development.

I agree there is direction from somewhere - but I suspect its a bit of a mix. Saying "one day a designer just decided "Genestealer Cults" seems like nonsense. But I also doubt the Rountree (never mind Kirby) was sitting in the office and then went "you know what? Genestealer Cults."

I mean it was obviously a joke - but the sketch of how they ended up making a Zoat is probably based on a real sort of meeting.

Management: "We need something new to sell in [this period]. What ideas have we got?"
Creative person, maybe a designer maybe not: "How about Genestealer Cult? And everyone loves Marines, so what about Deathwatch? It would cash in on nostalgia."
Management: "Yeah, okay not sure on a cold release though. We think Harlequins suffered because of that."
Creative type: "Okay, what about a board game? I'm thinking (something that became Deathwatch Overkill)."
Designer "I can already think of three great sculpts. Lets get some mock ups and report back".
Manager: Okay, draw something up and lets meet up later.

Flash forward.
"Models look great, game seems okay, lets go with it."

 Fifty wrote:
I agree to some extent, but I do believe the models are a major driver and that the rules aren't written until after the models, and even the fluff is changed to suit the models, not the models to suit the fluff. Clearly a few people, somewhere, the likes of Jes Goodwin perhaps and Phil Kelly from a different perspective, have an overview, but they only produce models that they think they can sell. But they can also only produce models that someone in the team can design. And if they have an awesome design idea, they'll change the fluff to fit. After all, GSC had no particular mining background until these models came out.

In your GSC example, I would say that they created the DW:O boxed set as a trial run to see what both the sales and critical response to the models would be. Once they were good enough, they carried on with the rest of the conceptual work they had been doing and turned it into a range.

I agree that the designers have some impact, but on specific models/units rather than larger project as a whole. They must be given instructions along the lines of 'We need three new units for this release. One of them needs to be a big ticket model'. presumably things like almost every faction getting fliers in 6th edition wasn't coincidence either; or Age of Sigmar getting their equivalent of Imperial Knights now, or most Nightvault warbands suddenly including magic users...

The timescales we used to be given (which are supported by the (supposed) turnaround for the Sisters of battle release) is that it takes two years to put together a new model range.
With that assumption, Deathwatch: Overkill couldn't have been a tester for Genestealer Cults/Deathwatch to see if there was demand.

Umbros wrote:
That is clearly the case; it isn't really GW's position, nor do they say it is. Just some posters on a website.

GW designers have made this claim repeatedly in White Dwarf articles within the relative recent past.

Umbros wrote:
That is clearly the case; it isn't really GW's position, nor do they say it is. Just some posters on a website.

They have confirmed that models are made first and then rules are made to fit those models in. What we don't know is what, if any, collaboration there is with the design team (e.g. can the design team talk to them about what the game needs to put it on the schedule to make) but from what they've indicated there isn't any collaboration at all between teams, the design team gets told to make rules for XYZ models that have already been designed. So for all we know the model team has their own marching orders (from who we don't know) and the design team doesn't know about it until they get the mockups or whatnot and told to fit it into the game because they are scheduled for next month.

I was shocked (in a very good way) when Genestealer Cults got a release. At the time I definitely only believed it when I saw it.

I think there’s good justification to say we should get Traitor Guard (or whatever you want to call them), hopefully the signs are pointing to a release in the not too distant future.

As Always though don’t bemoan GSC players for having a Codex, just hope that the codex you do want comes soon

El Torro wrote:
I was shocked (in a very good way) when Genestealer Cults got a release. At the time I definitely only believed it when I saw it.

I think there’s good justification to say we should get Traitor Guard (or whatever you want to call them), hopefully the signs are pointing to a release in the not too distant future.

As Always though don’t bemoan GSC players for having a Codex, just hope that the codex you do want comes soon

Yeah, I would be super excited to see traitor guard.

The only problem is, you need to find players willing to play the single, mookiest, faction in all of warhammer 40,000. The guys who the heroes casually kill on the way to the distraction masking the true threat.

historically, the factions that have sold the worst for GW are the factions that

1) are a niche within a niche (Tomb Kings being a subset of people interested in undead, Brettonians being a subset of people interested in humans, Dark Eldar being a subset of people interested in eldar)

2) are disposable mooks that tend to lose a lot in fiction and require you to buy tons of minis, and tend to have worse rules than the big pumped up hero faction because fans of the big pumped up hero faction throw a hissy-fit whenever you have a cool guy who can do a cool thing (Beastmen, Tyranids, guard, orcs (to a lesser extent orks because their 40k persona had a more interesting personality)

3) are factions they just decide to leave in 100$ metal squads for 20 years

Considering that Chaos Cultists don't *technically* have a dedicated plastic kit (though hoo boy with warcry and necromunda the kitbashing options are through the dang roof) the idea that GW would release essentially codex: cultists all at once seems a little unlikely.

ALTHOUGH they did release a bunch of LOTD monopose stuff with BSF, so a man can dream!

the_scotsman wrote:

historically, the factions that have sold the worst for GW are the factions that

1) are a niche within a niche (Tomb Kings being a subset of people interested in undead, Brettonians being a subset of people interested in humans, Dark Eldar being a subset of people interested in eldar)

2) are disposable mooks that tend to lose a lot in fiction and require you to buy tons of minis, and tend to have worse rules than the big pumped up hero faction because fans of the big pumped up hero faction throw a hissy-fit whenever you have a cool guy who can do a cool thing (Beastmen, Tyranids, guard, orcs (to a lesser extent orks because their 40k persona had a more interesting personality)

3) are factions they just decide to leave in 100$ metal squads for 20 years

Considering that Chaos Cultists don't *technically* have a dedicated plastic kit (though hoo boy with warcry and necromunda the kitbashing options are through the dang roof) the idea that GW would release essentially codex: cultists all at once seems a little unlikely.

ALTHOUGH they did release a bunch of LOTD monopose stuff with BSF, so a man can dream!

Being a niche definitly isn't enough, the different SM books prove that. It gets bad when multiple of those things come together. TK had bad rules and anchient battleline units which probably played a big part in that.

Dark Eldar grew in popularity only after getting ne models for basically everything.

Not featuring a faction in fiction and it never getting new releases is a big factor in popularity and therefore sales. It is a circular problem, things that gett less attention by gw sell less and get less attention by gw because of that.

Jorim wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

historically, the factions that have sold the worst for GW are the factions that

1) are a niche within a niche (Tomb Kings being a subset of people interested in undead, Brettonians being a subset of people interested in humans, Dark Eldar being a subset of people interested in eldar)

2) are disposable mooks that tend to lose a lot in fiction and require you to buy tons of minis, and tend to have worse rules than the big pumped up hero faction because fans of the big pumped up hero faction throw a hissy-fit whenever you have a cool guy who can do a cool thing (Beastmen, Tyranids, guard, orcs (to a lesser extent orks because their 40k persona had a more interesting personality)

3) are factions they just decide to leave in 100$ metal squads for 20 years

Considering that Chaos Cultists don't *technically* have a dedicated plastic kit (though hoo boy with warcry and necromunda the kitbashing options are through the dang roof) the idea that GW would release essentially codex: cultists all at once seems a little unlikely.

ALTHOUGH they did release a bunch of LOTD monopose stuff with BSF, so a man can dream!

Being a niche definitly isn't enough, the different SM books prove that. It gets bad when multiple of those things come together. TK had bad rules and anchient battleline units which probably played a big part in that.

Dark Eldar grew in popularity only after getting ne models for basically everything.

Not featuring a faction in fiction and it never getting new releases is a big factor in popularity and therefore sales. It is a circular problem, things that gett less attention by gw sell less and get less attention by gw because of that.

Yes, but even being a subfaction of space marines doesn't seem to make you immune to being a low priority. See: Black Templars, Dark Angels for years, Grey Knights and Deathwatch now...

All I'm saying is, it is a feedback loop. Less support means less interest, but less interest most definitely leads to less support. I don't doubt if you composed a list of the most popular 40k factions, it'd be something like

Space Marines
Chaos Space Marines
Knights
Eldar
Orks
Tau
necrons
Guard
Nids

and near the bottom you'd get

Dark Eldar
Deathwatch
Grey Knights
Harlequins
GSC
Thousand Sons

etc


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Deathwatch and GK for example do have a book, but they've between the two of them had

-3 model releases since 5th (I am counting GM Voldus, one of the models in a 3-pack, as his own discrete model release)

-8 unique plastic kits between them total.

El Torro wrote:
I was shocked (in a very good way) when Genestealer Cults got a release. At the time I definitely only believed it when I saw it.

I think there’s good justification to say we should get Traitor Guard (or whatever you want to call them), hopefully the signs are pointing to a release in the not too distant future.

As Always though don’t bemoan GSC players for having a Codex, just hope that the codex you do want comes soon

I’m not trying to complain about GSC having a Codex, for me it comes down to wondering why they get support while something like R&H gets ignored

Because Renegades and Heretics was a follow-on/placeholder while FW updated the lists out of Siege of Vraks and Tyrant's Legion from Badab War.

Since they're not really doing FW campaign books anymore, you're not seeing much movement on that front.

Also another reason is probably due to the fact that they likely have been exploring ways to make the army different and unique. GSC, for example, play differently to Guard despite just basically being a Guard reskin.

the_scotsman wrote:
The only problem is, you need to find players willing to play the single, mookiest, faction in all of warhammer 40,000. The guys who the heroes casually kill on the way to the distraction masking the true threat.

Every non-Imperial faction are Mooks for the Space Marines. Guard are Mooks for non-Imperial factions to kill, especially in post-8th lore where that is literally their one and only contribution to the narrative thus far.

Genestealers are Mookier than Lost & Damned because the assumption is that after you win your game on the tabletop, the beings you've been worshipping come down and eat you. At least a successful Lost & Damned force can go onto greater conquests and potentially even reach Daemon Prince status.

You don't get much more Mook than GSC being literal Useful Idiots who become a source of nutrients for their uncaring gods (who aren't even gods it), having the wool lifted from their eyes before they die to boot.

I wonder if GW would make special spikey sprues for Traitor IG vehicles, or just reuse the ones that come with the csm vehicles. If they were to release independent sprues I hope that they would also bring back Chaos Bastions, or make the sprues available to be ordered separately.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Because Renegades and Heretics was a follow-on/placeholder while FW updated the lists out of Siege of Vraks and Tyrant's Legion from Badab War.

Since they're not really doing FW campaign books anymore, you're not seeing much movement on that front.

Also another reason is probably due to the fact that they likely have been exploring ways to make the army different and unique. GSC, for example, play differently to Guard despite just basically being a Guard reskin.

It's not as if you could leave the Formations in the past and use ia13 for a baseline for plenty diffrent feel.....

 Arbitrator wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
The only problem is, you need to find players willing to play the single, mookiest, faction in all of warhammer 40,000. The guys who the heroes casually kill on the way to the distraction masking the true threat.

Every non-Imperial faction are Mooks for the Space Marines. Guard are Mooks for non-Imperial factions to kill, especially in post-8th lore where that is literally their one and only contribution to the narrative thus far.

Genestealers are Mookier than Lost & Damned because the assumption is that after you win your game on the tabletop, the beings you've been worshipping come down and eat you. At least a successful Lost & Damned force can go onto greater conquests and potentially even reach Daemon Prince status.

You don't get much more Mook than GSC being literal Useful Idiots who become a source of nutrients for their uncaring gods (who aren't even gods it), having the wool lifted from their eyes before they die to boot.

TBF, the fact that all GSC are unwitting is no longer canonical. Many Genestealer Cults are fully aware the nids come and eat the worlds they infest, they just do it anyway because they want the destruction of the imperium and they can just...leave. All the cults represented by cult traits are now multi-world spanning cults, most of which are fully aware of the nids.

It would be interesting to see sales by faction.

I suspect for instance DE are considerably more popular than Necrons - but this is because DE have been fairly solid in 8th, while Necrons have been much more limited/outright bad for most of it.

But I don't know if "my meta and seeing things on the table" reflects sales across the world. Mono Thousand Sons is very alien but Ahriman turning up in soup really hasn't been. I think he's fallen out of favour though due to nerfs to the 2 DP supreme command you'd use to bring him.

Before the virus we saw Grey Knights suddenly shuffling into the picture again - because their PA update made them viable, perhaps even good. Whether this continues when we go back to normal remains to be seen.

Really I think its rules+models=played (which by definition=bought at some point). A faction with a lot of old models, which sucks on the table, unsurprisingly isn't inspiring interest from either side of the hobby.

I mean unlike some people I wasn't really convinced by the traitor guard from BSF but if the faction came out, and it had good models, and an interesting set of rules/mechanics, I'd think about it. Why not? If however its just "Guard-1, because chaos are worse" then probably not.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
The only problem is, you need to find players willing to play the single, mookiest, faction in all of warhammer 40,000. The guys who the heroes casually kill on the way to the distraction masking the true threat.

Every non-Imperial faction are Mooks for the Space Marines. Guard are Mooks for non-Imperial factions to kill, especially in post-8th lore where that is literally their one and only contribution to the narrative thus far.

Genestealers are Mookier than Lost & Damned because the assumption is that after you win your game on the tabletop, the beings you've been worshipping come down and eat you. At least a successful Lost & Damned force can go onto greater conquests and potentially even reach Daemon Prince status.

You don't get much more Mook than GSC being literal Useful Idiots who become a source of nutrients for their uncaring gods (who aren't even gods it), having the wool lifted from their eyes before they die to boot.

TBF, the fact that all GSC are unwitting is no longer canonical. Many Genestealer Cults are fully aware the nids come and eat the worlds they infest, they just do it anyway because they want the destruction of the imperium and they can just...leave. All the cults represented by cult traits are now multi-world spanning cults, most of which are fully aware of the nids.

Almost everything I've read in the GSC 'dex and recent fluff paints them as completely unaware of what exactly the Star Children are and even their more Tyranid-esq forms (Acolytes, Metamorphs, etc) they perceive with a kind of filter over them as beautiful, angelic beings - which makes it notable when that screen is removed and they see the Tyranids for what they actually are (hideous monsters). The Scourged try to lift the wool from their eyes in Vigilus Aflame, and they just submerge themselves even more into fanatical denial that they're nothing more than food.

There's some contradictions to this in places - one of those paragraph stories mentions a Cultist watching the digestion pools and getting a sinking feeling in his gut he'll be going into one, but shrugs it off as being necessary. By enlarge though it seems they're still ignorant, almost tragic villains.