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.

Grey Knights. They were a terrible idea from conception and GW hasn't really handled them well in a long time. And now with Custodes and Primaris what do they really offer?

Reanimation_Protocol wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Get your hater hats on. If a faction had to bite the dust who would you want on the chopping block?

I'd have either Necrons as they are an incredibly boring army or Tau simply because they don't do Melee.

I'd lose both - mostly because they still feel like late arrivals to me (2E player who had a two decade break from the arrival of 3E) and they still don't feel part of the 40k universe from my perspective.


That said, I like there being a no melee army (though IG are primarily this too) because it makes in a sci fi context. On the other hand, it's a sci fantasty context with wall-to-wall farcical weaponry on all fronts so who cares?

Me too, they've never seemed like real armies to me, only the 2nd edition armies will ever be true armies.

Oh wow .. Like THAT is it ? well how about we get rid of Chaos in it's entirety? I mean honestly, what has Chaos ever done for us ?

other than opening the warp and letting the rabid feral cats daemons in.

at Least Necrons want something to happen rather than just tear it all down 'cuz we're still angry at Dad!'

Dude, chill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not a faction, but in the lore I think there are far too many space marine chapters. It's hard to keep up reading through lexicanum. I think the original legions, sure. But I think the 2nd founding chapters should've been limited to maybe 5 max per parent legion. Keep outliers like the carcharodons, and the badab war stuff, but can the rest. Just unnecessary filler.

For me it would be Grey Knights, followed Death Watch and by sisters for the simple fact all three should be choices un a codex representing thier branch of the inquisition, and be relativly rare options compared to inquisitorial henchmen and troops.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
But if we want to talk about full on removal from the lore probably the Ynnari. If the Eldar are going to get a God back od rather it be the reemergence of one of the old ones to shake things up.

Imperial knights. Easiest faction to remove that would have no impact on the fluff at all really. It would be nice to scale down the super heavies on the tabletop as well.

Knights.

Even if grey poupon..knights can predict where critical battles involving things like Orks or tyranids will take place they would be better to give that information to conventional forces amd save themselves for daemon fighting.

I don't disagree and wasn't saying it was any less silly to have the GK steal the Eldar Farseer's schtick of, erm, seeing far.

Just saying that it was retconned, handwavium avadra Wardius.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Even if grey poupon..knights can predict where critical battles involving things like Orks or tyranids will take place they would be better to give that information to conventional forces amd save themselves for daemon fighting.

I always thought GK, DW and SoB made sense because they are not solitary organisations (like the space marine chapters are). SoB are a little special since their super involved in the ecclisiarchy, imperial politics, the inquisition and because there's so many of them. The DT and the GK are both so involved in the inquisition, an organisation that stretches across the entire Imperium, that they rarerly (if ever) acted alone but where rather deployed by inquisitorial authorisation or behest. Unfortunantely GK fluff has for some reason wanted to cut its ties with the Imperium at large but hey...

It's the same thing as with GK really, innit?

"We have 1,000 highly-trained, super-cereal-snowflake dudesmen to oppose Daemons/Xenos across the entire Imperium, so we'll deploy them in massed formations in three places."

Several Imperial factions as there are too many. Imperial knights, Adeptus Mechanicus, Deathwatch, Sisters of Silence, and Custodes. Instead of making new factions supported the existing factions better including the non imperial factions. What will probably happen is after these new factions lose their excitement they will be left by the side with a few units and another new imperial faction will be invented.

Knights. Also, get rid of cultists.

Morkphoiz wrote:
Space Wolves and Grey Knights can go imo.

Space Wolves fluff is just ridiculous. Seriously. It's Wolf gak riding on a Wolf. I hate this Chapter. Just go and count the word "Wolf" in their Codex for funsies. Dont forget to include "wolf" in foreign languages. Overwolf Wolf Wulf-Wolf, Son of Wolf Wolf-Wolf riding his Wolf to battle while swinging the Sword of Wolves. It is that bad.

I like the looks and of the Grey Knights. But thats about it. Their lore is bad and an army of dedicated demonhunters should only hunt demons period. There is just no place for them in the game.

That is freaking hilarious

I'm in complete agreement with most of the posts here. Hard reset of Space Wolves to be less wolfy; they're ridiculous now. Knights as LoW options for mechanicus. GK and Deathwatch as units available to the imperium but not full armies in themselves.

I don't mind Tau but I'd like to see their mech stuff redone aesthetically. It would be good if they were expanded on to include more interesting xenos allies. I think there's potential in them where the other major factions feel complete, and adding things like dinobots, wulfen, centurions, haruspex and boomdakka snazzwagons hasn't really offered much of interest (to me at least). It would be good if the Tau codex provided options that encouraged more varied playstyles.

Knights, Deathwatch and GK (all in one Inquisition Army would be cool)

Genestealer Cult should go, in my opinion.

They're a mayfly faction that only exists in the short time between uprising against whoever rules the planet they're on, and the arrival of the tyrnids to nom everything.

They can hold no territory, design no weapons, build no ships, and thus can have no real impact on the galaxy at large. Which is the scale that 40k operates at, fluff wise.

All that effort should have gone into bringing a background only xeno race onto the tabletop.

 Graysparrow wrote:
Genestealer Cult should go, in my opinion.

They're a mayfly faction that only exists in the short time between uprising against whoever rules the planet they're on, and the arrival of the tyrnids to nom everything.

They can hold no territory, design no weapons, build no ships, and thus can have no real impact on the galaxy at large. Which is the scale that 40k operates at, fluff wise.

All that effort should have gone into bringing a background only xeno race onto the tabletop.

In all fairness, Genestealer Cults are known to travel using Space Hulks and stolen ships to move around and they do seem to make their own weapons by modifying civilian tools and weapons for usage in a war. Some Genetealer Cults have been mentionned as controlling their own little empires while waiting for the Tyranids to come (which might take centuries). They aren't irrelevent on the galactic scale, but its odd they went with them instead of making Lost and Damned or indeed a new xeno race.

 Graysparrow wrote:
Genestealer Cult should go, in my opinion.

They're a mayfly faction that only exists in the short time between uprising against whoever rules the planet they're on, and the arrival of the tyrnids to nom everything.

They can hold no territory, design no weapons, build no ships, and thus can have no real impact on the galaxy at large. Which is the scale that 40k operates at, fluff wise.

All that effort should have gone into bringing a background only xeno race onto the tabletop.

That's all easily fixed. Remove the ridiculous retcon that genestealers are tyranid things that attract more tyranids and stupidly feed themselves to the hive fleet.

They can even be kept as tyranid scout/disruption organisms if they really have to be. It's still in the interest of the hive fleets to have wide spread scouting organisms and their prey disrupted and fighting civil wars on worlds they aren't immediately consuming.

Internal threats to the Imperium are a huge part of the background that are woefully under-represented. Squatting the one that managed to scrabble back to the light of the tabletop would be a shame.

Make Zoats Great Again!

 Freeflow44 wrote:

Morkphoiz wrote:
Space Wolves and Grey Knights can go imo.

Space Wolves fluff is just ridiculous. Seriously. It's Wolf gak riding on a Wolf. I hate this Chapter. Just go and count the word "Wolf" in their Codex for funsies. Dont forget to include "wolf" in foreign languages. Overwolf Wolf Wulf-Wolf, Son of Wolf Wolf-Wolf riding his Wolf to battle while swinging the Sword of Wolves. It is that bad.

I like the looks and of the Grey Knights. But thats about it. Their lore is bad and an army of dedicated demonhunters should only hunt demons period. There is just no place for them in the game.

That is freaking hilarious

Hardly unique to Space Wolves, though. Blood Angels suffer a similar problem with all their Blood-things and primarch Bloodyman.

It's a convention used to some extent through most of the different Space Marine forces. Sure, it's silly, but it seems peculiar to single out one specific example of it.

jorzolek wrote:
I would drop T’au. They just aren’t that interesting. They should have been developed as a human, or primarily human with Xenos allies, non-Imperium faction.

Yes, that's what's uninteresting about them, the fact that they're not human.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
It's the same thing as with GK really, innit?

"We have 1,000 highly-trained, super-cereal-snowflake dudesmen to oppose Daemons/Xenos across the entire Imperium, so we'll deploy them in massed formations in three places."

Grey knights were always more badass/viable in their role within older fluff/second edition ways of using them. You only had access to 1x 5 man squad of GK terminators as an ally, nothing more and they were of adequate power to be able to take out anything they touched, yet being only 1 squad of 5, a whole army could defeat them when concentrating, or you could ignore them.

The same should be for deathwatch... Lay off the additional units/vehicles, it should be just 1 squad with badass rules and equipment you ally in.

I'd get rid of either the Imperium or Chaos. Just one human faction please and add some more Xenos.

Leaning more towards Chaos. 40k Chaos is pretty lame compared to the old Warhammer fantasy Chaos Warriors.

 Graysparrow wrote:
Genestealer Cult should go, in my opinion.

I like the Genestealer Cult. They make for a nice ally faction for the Tyranids, who are otherwise a bit one note. Admittedly since I've been following 40K since the RT days it just makes me happy to see them as an officially supported tabeltop force again.

Voss wrote:
That's all easily fixed. Remove the ridiculous retcon that genestealers are tyranid things that attract more tyranids and stupidly feed themselves to the hive fleet.

To be fair that retcon has been in place for as long as the Tyranids have been a fully realised tabletop faction, which if I recall correctly was the start of 2nd edition.

I also like the idea that while some cults might cheerfully feed themselves to the hive fleet in best doomsday cult fashion there might be others who will be horrified when they realise that they too are going to end up on the menu.

Voss wrote:
Squatting the one that managed to scrabble back to the light of the tabletop would be a shame.

Agreed.

For myself, I'll agree with everyone who says that the multitude of imperial mini-factions could do with being consolidated into alles rather than independant forces (I'd call the Tempestus Scions the worst offender here - being essentially a one-unit army.) Whilst I wouldn't want to remove any of them outright the Sisters of Silence and especially the Custodes feel particularly gratuitous.

I don't play Genestealer Cults myself but their release was something like a glimmer of hope that GW does in fact care for its community be reviving a faction hat had almost entered meme territory.

I also think they do have a place in 40k because they provide a link between Tyranids and Humans and flesh out both factions in the process, while offering the opportunity to play something akin to a Hive Scum faction with a bit of Tyranids sprinkled in there if you want it.

Eldar. Hate the models. Hate how the writers at GW HQ are obviously space elf fan boys. Hate how they play on the table top. Hate how their fluff always has to be updated to 'trump' other factions fluff. Hate that they've never been outside of the top 3 armies.

Space Wolves are a distant second because they are just stupid wolfy nonsense

Cynista wrote:
Eldar. Hate the models. Hate how the writers at GW HQ are obviously space elf fan boys. Hate how they play on the table top. Hate how their fluff always has to be updated to 'trump' other factions fluff. Hate that they've never been outside of the top 3 armies.

Eldar though? They haven't gotten any new models in years now... I love playing them and love seeing their cool units on the field. And really space elf fanboys? Elves are used as the plot demands in terms of how many have to die to make a marine look cool.

I think the greyknights, and other inquisition forces need to be merged into one book. That limits what units you can take based on what ordo you go with.

Custodes and Sisters of Silence should be one codex... The Talons of the Emperor. Would give Custodes a cheap troop choice with sisters and the anti-psychic they need to deal with the majority of the threats they meet.

"Hate how their fluff always has to be updated to 'trump' other factions fluff"
When has this happened? The fluff regarding how powerful they are hasn't changed in... not sure it has changed?

"Hate that they've never been outside of the top 3 armies."
Neither have Humans.

The question is a bit vague.

Do you mean which faction in the game should lose its codex or be rolled into another book? In that case...half of the factions are not large enough to warrant a full codex and could easily be combined. GW just knows that codices, dice, and strategy cards are an easy sell.

Fluff-wise? There are plenty of decent nominees. Orks being pretty high up there. They have zero depth with regard to system-spanning involvment in stories other than being the "big bad" who randomly shows up in every warzone etc. They have shortsighted goals and are little more than thugs, bandits and comic relief. They add very little to the actual fluff or lore or existence of the universe. They have no sworn enemies, etc. If you removed them, would any major story lines in 40K suffer? Not really. Admittedly Tau and Necrons could disappear with very little impact to anything as well.

The only major, genuine movers and shakers for the entirety of the known space in which our game occupies...would be Chaos and the Imperium. Sure, Tyranids are spooky when they show up - but for galaxy spanning impact? Imperium and Chaos. Everyone else could (and often does) play a background role. Dark Eldar never added anything of genuine value to the story that wasn't occupied by Eldar pirates or corsairs. Eldar are so few in number that they should have very little impact (though their background is written well enough to allow them to show up frequently). Harlequins should just be in the Eldar book, unnecessary as a separate force.

Almost all the other factions roll into either Imperium or Chaos, and that's arguably suitable given the fluff of the game at the moment.

Cynista wrote:
Eldar. Hate the models. Hate how the writers at GW HQ are obviously space elf fan boys. Hate how they play on the table top. Hate how their fluff always has to be updated to 'trump' other factions fluff. Hate that they've never been outside of the top 3 armies.

Eldar are often portrayed poorly in fluff. Space Marine Librarians and even some Necrons have taken their foresight schtick, the Tau have encroached on their mobile, high firepower stuff, the Necrons have toppled them from their most technologically advantaged faction perch.

They get outmanevoured by Space Marines in Rhinos in Codex fluff, one of their largest Craftworlds (Alaitoc) gets threatened by a Space Marine Chapter and a few Imperial Guard regiments and have to resort to diplomacy. Their foresight routinely backfires.

How exactly is their fluff trumping everyone elses?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Cynista wrote:
Eldar. Hate the models. Hate how the writers at GW HQ are obviously space elf fan boys. Hate how they play on the table top. Hate how their fluff always has to be updated to 'trump' other factions fluff. Hate that they've never been outside of the top 3 armies.

Eldar are often portrayed poorly in fluff. Space Marine Librarians and even some Necrons have taken their foresight schtick, the Tau have encroached on their mobile, high firepower stuff, the Necrons have toppled them from their most technologically advantaged faction perch.

They get outmanevoured by Space Marines in Rhinos in Codex fluff, one of their largest Craftworlds (Alaitoc) gets threatened by a Space Marine Chapter and a few Imperial Guard regiments and have to resort to diplomacy. Their foresight routinely backfires.

How exactly is their fluff trumping everyone elses?

Don't forget the fact that their literal god of war is a Worf.