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If you could chose a brand new Xenos faction to add to 40K would your rather expand on an existing wider faction (eg Eldar Exodites) or a completely new faction?

I've excluded Imperium as (even as an Imperial player) we have plenty already and Chaos as Emperor's Children, World Eaters and Lost & the Damned all have hints as being on the way at some point.


Personally I'd love to see the Tau Empire expanded to full lists for Kroot and Demigurg with expanded options for Vespid within the Tau Empire main book.
Also adding a regimental option in the Imperial guard to represent inducted humans within the empire.

What would you chose and why?

Corsairs. Because I still have mine and I'm mad they got squatted.

Agree with Tau Empire, open it up and make it a proper federation of Xenos, introduce a couple more gnarly minor xenos races. You can still have the Tau core worlds suit based armies, but give us the whacky xenos army of our dreams!

I think the best thing to do with Tau is to do what they did with Tyranids - split the army. That is have a Tau pure army which is the current force, a few allies from other races, but dominated by the pure Tau and their mecha style suits and mode of battle.

Then a second totally separate Tau allies army which likely focuses around Kroot as a core, but with a lot of other xenos forces added in.

That way you retain what has proved popular with the current Tau, without diluting it and you can add a huge amount of xenos models without tripping over the feet of what the mech approach already offers.


Ergo exactly what GW did with Tyranids and Genestealer Cults (and also what GW did with Genestealer Cults and Imperial Guard - esp once the second wave of cult models landed).


That way you give each wing room to expand and be its own thing with some cross over being possible. It lets you keep what works and expand on it without damaging what is already there.






I'd also like to see GW do Exodites - yes I know they are sort of there as ploy to coax you into making conversions; but I'd really love to see GW use that theme and run with it. It's a concept GW has never let go of, but over the decades they've never done more than the odd model (and that was back in the old days). I'd love to see a full monsters and technology Eldar army.





After that honestly I think more Xenos side things. I think the problem with Imperials is GW has done them to death so much that they've even tried making assassin armies into a thing and such. Imperials have "enough" of a force to do anything and everything and its hard to add to them without tripping over its own feet. Rather let that energy and focus allow them to bulk out what they've got. Make the separate Marine subfactions stand out more; release one or two more plastic guard kits that let guard players have different guard groups (they did this during the old metal days and with sales as they are they could repeat it with plastic and do well).

Otherwise I think Xenos allows GW to do new things and try out new ideas. They've already been bold with Tau and shown that the lore can support new Xenos rising up. They've even been building the story up in that the Imperium is really under pressure. Those same story tricks that let Tau thrive can allow others to thrive as well.

I think that is exactly the right approach. I would be well up for that!

A couple of kits for vespid, a couple of kits for Kroot, a new vehicle or something, and some Demiurg or other Xenos client race and you'd have a pretty decent faction. And you could go hog wild with the aesthetics. Grab that Star Wars esque rag tag bunch of weird aliens appeal.

Exodites would also be cool and were honestly my second idea, and I think they would make SO MUCH MONEY with dinosaurs and lasers, but they seem reticent to do it. I was surprised when I heard of a new Eldar faction and it was all about the Slaanesh Eldar stuff. I guess the people writing the eldar must be really into that. I would have prefered to see space elves on dinosaurs!

I do kinda feel there isn't room for another xenos faction entire though. You've got
- Vulcan/Romulan future space elves in the Eldar and Dark Eldar
- Orks as your ramshackle post apocalyptic ravager faction
- Necrons for your Cybermen death robot vibes
- Tau for some mech suits and optimistic sci fi, with underutilised secondary factions.
- Tyranids for your full on Xenomorph fun
- Genestealer cult for your alien corruption vibes

I mean how many Sci Fi tropes are left to mine? I love the space Dwarf concept and am working on a Demiurg force made from closed helmet mantic forgefathers, but I kinda wonder if that is really a viable niche. Maybe something really wacky and out there, like aliens that are all really big, like the Zoats, or something very intentionally a synthesis of biology and cybernetics.

I'd be interested to hear what people think though!

 Da Boss wrote:
I think that is exactly the right approach. I would be well up for that!

A couple of kits for vespid, a couple of kits for Kroot, a new vehicle or something, and some Demiurg or other Xenos client race and you'd have a pretty decent faction. And you could go hog wild with the aesthetics. Grab that Star Wars esque rag tag bunch of weird aliens appeal.

Exactly. Tau were clearly envisioned to be that at the start, but the Mech side took over in a big way. I don't mind that at all, but it has squashed the xenos allies side to the point where you can't really just add them back in now. Far better to split them off and let them be their own thing rather than try to keep them together. It allows far greater room to expand and means that GW hasn't got to abandon the mech side of things, nor even dilute it. And they can still do combined arms forces - either within one or both of the books or they can do what they did with Yinnari*


*which whilst its a cheesy marketing concept to take 2 separate armies and make them into a new one with combined arms; it can work. The only reason it currently keeps failing is that one full half of the most characterful models - aspect warriors for Craftworld - are ancient models sold in metal and finecast. Every time GW tries to push Yinnari it hits the wall that the army itself only has 1 set of models unique to it; whilst a full half of the models are old plastic and old metal/finecast designs. Craftworld needs the update Necrons have recently had to bring them up to standard alongside most other 40K factions.

We did get a hint of a Kroot spin off when they did a Mercenary list in White Dwarf a few additions ago.

Kroot with wings & snipers were an easy conversion shown along with "super" shapers.

A refresh of that could be a good starting point

I would prefer no more until GW fully fleshes out the existing Xenos factions.

If I had to pick something, it would be Corsairs.

I would like to see a better Vespid kit along with some of the Kroot options like Kroothounds and Krootox in plastic, and then at least one extra Xenos race. Sprinkle a few characters and you're ready to go. I wouldn't even say the core Kroot kit needs redoing, though maybe some squad weapons would be good.

I'd like to see Demiurg pop up, but largely because I love anything derivative of Dwarves.

That said, Tau definitely need their Auxiliaries emphasised more. Does seem like GW's deliberately steered away them from to sell more Big Stompy Robots. Expanding Kroot into their own 'dex seems the most obvious choice.

Ynnari Codex.

IMO the best thing they ever did with Eldar, making them relevant in the "current" 40K-timeline, instead of only moaning about some past nonsense.

Seconded (or thirded, not the first to mention this ITT!) on the various auxiliary race thing for Tau. The army is built for adding random things in, yet GW just don't (not enough room in the release list with all of those Primaris Lieutenants...) for whatever reason.

Pipe dream new faction is the Rak'Gol, but there I might be a little biased.

Rak Gol are a really cool idea actually. They had a cool aesthetic, cool themes of cybernetic allied with biology, and were a chaos supporting Xenos faction.

I used them in my Rogue Trader campaign and was very happy with them.

 harlokin wrote:
I would prefer no more until GW fully fleshes out the existing Xenos factions.

If I had to pick something, it would be Corsairs.

This.

It seems silly to be talking about bringing new Xeno factions into the game when GW won't even support the existing ones.

I don't care too much about support, I just want cool new models to mess around with honestly!

 vipoid wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
I would prefer no more until GW fully fleshes out the existing Xenos factions.

If I had to pick something, it would be Corsairs.

This.

It seems silly to be talking about bringing new Xeno factions into the game when GW won't even support the existing ones.

Agreed.

If we're wishlisting though: I'd happily trade some Marine subfactions/chapters for a variety of Tau allies. And concerning "Xenos faction of their own" I'd love to see redone Squats/Demiurg.

While I'd prefer to see exisiting models given better support and updates, including moving from finecast to plastic before a new faction gets introduced, I'd be interested in a Tau empire expansion fleshing out kroot, vespids and adding demiurg and some other xenos races to the mix as a faction.

Darnok...so basically you want to exchange Grey Knights or Deathwatch or Blood/Dark Angels...for what?

Because the rest have basically no model support outside of a one-off special character in plastic and an upgrade kit for shoulderpads. And if you really want to throw a fit over that well...that's on you.


Anyways:
No new armies until existing stuff gets fleshed out. Supplemental stuff? Hell yeah, let's do that.

Craftworlds and Drukhari getting a Corsairs 'shared' supplement book.
Tau getting an Alien Auxiliaries supplement book and a Farsight Enclaves supplement book.
...that's really all I have. Orks don't lend themselves as much to 'supplements' outside of full on Clan ones, Necrons the same, and Tyranids the same.

I would happily get rid of Deathwatch and Grey Knights for more Xenos. Just reduce them down to a single squad each to be taken by Imperial armies. And you forgot Space Wolves Kan, probably the Space Marine faction with the most unique models.

It is remarkable how consistent the desire for an expanded Tau auxiliaries roster is in this thread though!

So I did forget Space Wolves...but I'd still say that none of these things being exchanged would ever actually satisfy people who just hate Marines getting anything.

As far as Auxiliaries though? I don't think an 'expanded Tau auxiliaries' roster was sidelined because of mechs. It was seemingly sidelined long before we ever saw big suits as official GW products. I cannot really fault them for introducing big suits when some of the most popular scratch-builds prior to the Riptides were in fact...big mechs!

There were always rumors/insinuations floating around that the designers did not like the ability for people to play 'Tau-less Tau' out of the army book--which purportedly led to the old Chapter Approved/WD lists for Kroot Mercenaries.

Personally, if we have to see 'new factions'? I'd also like to see some revisions to things happening. I'd loooooooooooove to see a retcon to the Guard to rollback the Cruddace mess of every single Guard Regiment being DKoK/Valhallan "Throw more men at it!" things.
Calgar's revision to the Astartes to make them closer to the way the Legions used to operate feels like a good time to bring the Imperial Army back.

I don't hate Marines getting stuff, I just always found the Daemonhunters and Alienhunters as an idea of stand alone faction very poor game design, as they have so many specialist tactics for particular factions, it really showed the "Space Marines PCs, Chaos Villains, Xenos NPCs" dynamic too clearly for me.

I'd be up for scrapping the Tau in favour of a Kroot book.

 Da Boss wrote:
...I mean how many Sci Fi tropes are left to mine?...

The top-level broad-strokes kind of stuff has been explored pretty thoroughly, but there's still a lot of sci-fi tropes left to explore in expanding on existing stuff. GW doesn't usually spend a lot of mental energy on parallel factions (how does a different civilization handle the same problems?), so while we've got (for example) stuff for the Inquisition (the Imperium's internal security/dedicated anti-Chaos troubleshooting folks) we don't get to see the White Seers (the leadership of the Black Library, that serve a similar purpose for the Eldar) or the Prefecture Magisterium (the AdMech internal police) on the tabletop at all. The Triarchs are one unit and one vehicle, but if you go read the fluff they could easily have been a separate Codex that serves the same function for the Necrons.

You could also expand on "alliances"; they've been a weird part of the game ever since 6e introduced the concept of allowing general alliances in standard-size games just because books are so unevenly distributed across factions. There was a thing called "the Cabal" briefly in the Heresy period; it was an alliance containing the Eldar and a number of other species of similar age and knowledge. The Cabal itself is no more but some of those other species showing up as allies to the Eldar could expand their alliance beyond just the books with Eldar in them. There's enough lore to make the Kroot their own book in the Tau "alliance", definitely, you could expand Vespid/Demiurg to their own books, and make up new client races aplenty.

Orks/Necrons/Tyranids tend to kill people rather than talking to them but there's still plenty of design space within their single species to play around with. Orks have had Kult of Speed/Dread Mob variant lists in past editions, Necrons could get expanded Triarch/Canoptek content or supplements for various Dynasties (like the Manyarkh list of IA12), Tyranids could get a vanguard list or other specialist sub-forces.

Demiurg and Tau auxiliaries, yes. Also, Farsight Enclaves expanded. Myself and a couple of friends were discussing this last night, but Tau should allow their suit close support weapons to have melee stats. So all fusion guns have the fusion blade option, flamers have a melee stat as well. Give them a chance, lol.

As for a brand new Xenos race, I think a full on psychic force is needed. Imperium have GK, Chaos have TS, Xenos should get one. You then need to decide if they are also decent at shooting or melee, but not both.

What about the Khrave? Start out with a few kits, and then utilize Guard etc as psychically enslaved minions. So strong psykers, and then add in Guard shooting.

 harlokin wrote:
I would prefer no more until GW fully fleshes out the existing Xenos factions.

Agreed. Though sadly I don't think we're getting that. At last not for Dark Eldar.



---
But if a real 'new faction' were to happen, it also needs to be Xenos.
Lots of room now for someone to creep into the power vacuum in the northern half of the galaxy.

 Da Boss wrote:
I don't hate Marines getting stuff, I just always found the Daemonhunters and Alienhunters as an idea of stand alone faction very poor game design, as they have so many specialist tactics for particular factions, it really showed the "Space Marines PCs, Chaos Villains, Xenos NPCs" dynamic too clearly for me.

In my own projects I've always struggled with this; the Inquisition forces ought to be able to have anti-whatever tools without having stuff that depends on what Codex you're fighting against. The Ordo Xenos/Deathwatch should get things like hellfire rounds or anti-skimmer tech because MCs and skimmers are more common in xenos armies, and the Ordo Malleus/GK should get things like anti-Inv tech or anti-Deep Strike tech because those are common tools in Chaos armies, but I agree that rules and bonuses that reference your opponent playing a specific Codex are bad design.

The funny part is that when they were actually referencing your opponents playing specific Codices for you to succeed...people complained they were too focused and needed more. :-D

Or are we forgetting when Daemonhunters actually let you give your opponent a bonus?

Some of the comments about sub-elements with Xeno factions could actually go quite deep.

Maybe take an Imperium subfaction and show how other factions would do it.

For example, Admec matched with Dark Mec, Tau earth caste, Ork Mekboys, Eldar Spirt weavers (any any others I may have forgotten)

That way we could see various takes on the basic concept of engineering.

I don't think expanding the Tau auxiliaries is presenting a new faction any more than beefing up one that already exists (and Demiurg currently exist, just only in Battlefleet at present).

How many remember there was an Imperial Armour article which presented the Kroot Mercenary concept? Technically this wouldn't be a NEW faction, but more a resurrected one. They could even bring a "Wood Elf gone wrong" type atmosphere in to the game.

Da Boss wrote:I do kinda feel there isn't room for another xenos faction entire though. You've got
- Vulcan/Romulan future space elves in the Eldar and Dark Eldar
- Orks as your ramshackle post apocalyptic ravager faction
- Necrons for your Cybermen death robot vibes
- Tau for some mech suits and optimistic sci fi, with underutilised secondary factions.
- Tyranids for your full on Xenomorph fun
- Genestealer cult for your alien corruption vibes

I mean how many Sci Fi tropes are left to mine? I love the space Dwarf concept and am working on a Demiurg force made from closed helmet mantic forgefathers, but I kinda wonder if that is really a viable niche. Maybe something really wacky and out there, like aliens that are all really big, like the Zoats, or something very intentionally a synthesis of biology and cybernetics.

I'd be interested to hear what people think though!

Honestly, I'd like to see an Army of the Old Ones being presented. You know, the ones that beat the Necrontyr, but were owned by the Necrons? It would basically be a very upgraded Lizardmen force, but the lore for doing that exists by taking some Fantasy elements and putting them in to 40K. I started working on the idea back in 7th, but didn't take it far enough for doing much but broad ideas before 8th Edition came out.

People talk about the Hrud, and while it would probably share the ramshackle post-apocalypse theme combined with the Skaven of Fantasy, they would be doing even wackier tech concepts, but that could be more aesthetic than anything.

Da Boss wrote:Rak Gol are a really cool idea actually. They had a cool aesthetic, cool themes of cybernetic allied with biology, and were a chaos supporting Xenos faction.

I definitely think that there is room for a Chaos Xenos faction in the game, scratching both itches. The one problem with Chaos is your choice is Daemons or Humans, but ignoring all the other species out there. Maybe even combine one of my previous points and bring out a faction where the Rak'gol have conquered the Hrud, sublimated them in to Chaos worship, and then start going on a tear throughout the galaxy. To make things interesting, they could even worship Malice

So to start, I agree heartily with the "Plasticize all finecast before anything new" philosophy. And I think they should do it exactly like that, rather than worrying about timing the release schedule- just announce that "Hey, next month, instead of theming it up around a codex, we might be dropping models for 6 different factions, because we've decided that finecast has to go.

I'd like them to do it that way, because then it could get done quickly for everyone.

Now if you want to combine the eliminate finecast agenda with xenos faction updates, some of the replacement kits could be dual builds; like a new plastic Kroot shaper could be a dual build that gives you a captain equivalent and a lieutenant equivalent in the same box.

Kroot had a decent army once, and they still have enough units to provide a base; gnarlocs, gnarloc riders and greater gnarlocs need to come back. And yes, agree- give them dexes (or supplements) of their own, with Tau book as the core.

As for Ynarri, Exodites and Corsairs, you can kill all three birds with one stone. Release a Ynarri dex where the new units are mostly reborn Corsairs and Reborn Exodites. Minimize the overhead by making all of them dual builds. One box for each battlefield role for Corsairs and one for each battlefield role for Exodites. That's five boxes for each- six if you give them flyers and seven if you give them a fortification. This gives you a lot of stuff for your Ynarri dex- a potential 31 units in total.

Now obviously, not everyone likes Ynarri, so it may seem like a risk. But that's where White Dwarf comes in. Because they could create great mini-dexes for stand alone exodites and stand alone corsairs using the readily available Ynarri dual build kits. These would be 10-14 unit small lists for the duration of 9th, but if they prove popular, they can get some bespoke faction models and their own dexes (or supplements) in 10th.