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I was thinking that if GW wanted to drive sales in a creative way, they should create a new race rather than re-hashing existing army codex and adding a couple of new models to already crowded rosters. In a way it seems they have lost their creative touch that would be necessary to create a raft of new minatures, a new codex and all the fluff. Lord knows a new army would probably sell in big numbers. Don't think there has been a new army since Tau or the Necrons and that' probably has been over ten years. Then they could leave the damn rule book alone for awhile.

The question would be what would the new army be like. Spending a whole ten minutes on this, I think maybe an underground bug army - mutants of Tyranids - based around slugs, grubs killer worms etc. Kinda like Chaos tainted 'Nids. Some could morph into flying bugs for fast attack, etc. I don't read much sci-fi literature, so maybe you guys have some suggestions.

The problem is that the obvious niches have already been filled. Hell, "Superior Elder Race" has actually two factions and "Super Sci Fi soldiers" has six! No, they should just work on the armies *Cough* Sisters *Cough* that need it.

Honestly, I think there are enough races. They're already stretched thin trying to keep up with so many codices at once. If anything they could afford to condense a little bit.

A few of us were geeking out on the proposed rules forum talking about a lost armada lost in the warp since the Dark Age of Technology. I pictured them like Cerberus from Mass Effect, ruthless, elite forces, that use extremely advanced technology and drone technology. But they are extremely few in number, favoring drones, decoys, and mobile shield platforms to make up for their lack of manpower.

I personally think that their should be a CSM cultists codex.
I know what your thinking, but hear me out.
I have been reading the work of Dan Abnett, mainly his Gaunt's Ghosts books, and I think if they could get guys like that to work on it, new minds and such, they could have something unique that really expands on the concept of the lowly cultists, creating a force to be reckoned with.
And with all the crazy crap that cultists do and the variations of them, they would have more then enough slots filled to create a whole codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What they could also do is just flat out take the cultists out of the CSW book, fix up the empty troop slot, and give a reason to have them as allies, maybe even, with the dawn of 7th edition, make a way for CSW to have more then one allies, creating a nice mixture of daemons, CSM and such.

I'd love to see an all new army, and there is plenty to work with in the fluff to introduce one, but I don't think GW could pull it off if they wanted too.

There is very little actual creativity left in the design studio. Just look at the recent releases, mostly just bigger versions of current stuff (bigger wraithlord, bigger crisis suit, power armour inside power armour), old stuff brought back from the 90s (khorne mower, knight), or something entirely random out of left field (the pig mobile).

Even the good stuff we get is usually a rehash of existing stuff (sternguard and stormtroopers).


I'd love to see a race of aliens that looked less humanoid or bug like and I'd love to see mercenaries or an AI factions, but it won't happen and even if it did I am not optimistic.

Personally, I can think of one or two factions I'd rather see eliminated, so I doubt I'd want a new faction.

If it is going to be new, it has to be nonhuman and highly alien.

Just say no to humanity feth yeah.

 goblinking201 wrote:
I personally think that their should be a CSM cultists codex.
I know what your thinking, but hear me out.
I have been reading the work of Dan Abnett, mainly his Gaunt's Ghosts books, and I think if they could get guys like that to work on it, new minds and such, they could have something unique that really expands on the concept of the lowly cultists, creating a force to be reckoned with.
And with all the crazy crap that cultists do and the variations of them, they would have more then enough slots filled to create a whole codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What they could also do is just flat out take the cultists out of the CSW book, fix up the empty troop slot, and give a reason to have them as allies, maybe even, with the dawn of 7th edition, make a way for CSW to have more then one allies, creating a nice mixture of daemons, CSM and such.

Wasn't that what The Lost and The Damned were kinda?

The Jokaero Consortium - experience the space apemen in a larger scale.

[Meanwhile, a GW employee catches this post and takes it as a good idea]

 ciaotym wrote:
I was thinking that if GW wanted to drive sales in a creative way, they should create a new race rather than re-hashing existing army codex and adding a couple of new models to already crowded rosters. In a way it seems they have lost their creative touch that would be necessary to create a raft of new minatures, a new codex and all the fluff. Lord knows a new army would probably sell in big numbers. Don't think there has been a new army since Tau or the Necrons and that' probably has been over ten years. Then they could leave the damn rule book alone for awhile.

The question would be what would the new army be like. Spending a whole ten minutes on this, I think maybe an underground bug army - mutants of Tyranids - based around slugs, grubs killer worms etc. Kinda like Chaos tainted 'Nids. Some could morph into flying bugs for fast attack, etc. I don't read much sci-fi literature, so maybe you guys have some suggestions.

Taking the question seriously, I see/ read a lot of noise about the Hrud. However I think the Demiurg would be the best candidate. Old players would at Squats (in a new more sci-fi version) back in the game and new players would probably just think, 'Cool looking mecha.' And GW could just do them as shorter, better-looking Power Armored dudes, so its a win all the way around. Well except you'd have to give them a major re-write in order to make it all work. But it's not like GW hasn't done large retcons in the past.

There is a new faction created in 6th edition..

Imperial Knights

Even gameplay style is different from other factions.


-Dert

 DerT84 wrote:
There is a new faction created in 6th edition..

Imperial Knights

Even gameplay style is different from other factions.


-Dert

My problem with the knight book is that it only used two out of the eight knights in epic and had the gall to call itself a full codex.

Come on, there were six more big stompy robots they could have used.

They should condense things first. All kinds of Marines in one super-book, Inquisiton + Grey Knights + Sisters + Imperial Knights in a Imperial Auxilia codex, Militarum Tempestus as an extra part of Astra Militarum (like the Armoured Group is to Astra Militarum in the IA1E2).

Then, they could think about new factions. But they won't do any of the above, because those actions would hinder sells in the short term... and GW cares mostly by the short term of things.

Yeah most marine books can be rolled into Codex Space Marines with a chapter tactic, a supplement's worth of gizmos, a unique unit or two, and speciak characters.

I like the idea of mashing the Inq, Knights, Mechanicum, and SoBs into one book, and I can roll with merging the Tempestum into the AM.

This cuts down on the Imperial faction bloat immensely.

For new armies: Lost and the Damned.
Slaugth
Demiurg
Hrud
Rak'Gol
Thyrrus

Maybes:
Kroot
Exodites/Harlequins
Genestealer Cults
Rebel Grots
Qu'orl
Fra'al.

 Kain wrote:
Yeah most marine books can be rolled into Codex Space Marines with a chapter tactic, a supplement's worth of gizmos, a unique unit or two, and speciak characters.

I like the idea of mashing the Inq, Knights, Mechanicum, and SoBs into one book, and I can roll with merging the Tempestum into the AM.

This cuts down on the Imperial faction bloat immensely.

For new armies: Lost and the Damned.
Slaugth
Demiurg
Hrud
Rak'Gol
Thyrrus

Maybes:
Kroot
Exodites/Harlequins
Genestealer Cults
Rebel Grots
Qu'orl
Fra'al.

An interesting selection of choices. Not familiar with some. Really like the idea of an Exodites and Genestealer Cults. To a lesser extend, Kroot and Rebel Grots seem like cool ideas. I used to love the idea of the old Harlequin Codex, but after seeing what happened to (another of) the small and elite forces: the Grey Knights, I'm not sure if I'd back another go at that route. Not a game which is doing its best to put as many models on the table without increasing table size. However, if old sweeping advances are back, then Harlequins would be pure (hilarious) murder. But (in your plan) if they're rolling all Imperial Armies into one book, why not do the same with the Eldar? And with Tyranid/ Genestealers and Orks. Hell, they've already done that with Kroot, though I could easily see Kroot as their own faction. I do agree that most SM Codecies need to be either rolled together, that OR give CSM back their old Legion Special Rules in the form of more Codex Supplements. As for Imperial Knights, I kind of group them in with the Escalation type stuff. The're mini-titans, to call them a separate army just feels kind of... well, wrong. Especially when they're ~300 points a piece. They kind of feel like an overpriced supplement (so everything else I guess. Maybe a Codex is a good term.)

Quick bad joke: If the Good Space Elves have Bright Lances and the Evil Space Elves have Dark Lances, what does that leave the Space Wood Elves? Wild Lances?

 ciaotym wrote:
I was thinking that if GW wanted to drive sales in a creative way, they should create a new race rather than re-hashing existing army codex and adding a couple of new models to already crowded rosters.

Everyone has to buy the new rules if they want to stay current.

Only people that find a new race appealing would buy the new race. I certainly don't make a new army every time a codex drops.

I'd like to see a new army, seeing as it's been 13 years since we had one with the Tau.

Time to bring back the Squats. Seeing as the felt they worked better in Epic where they could have lotsof giant war machines they'd fit right into 40K as it is now.

Either that or Codex: Ambull.

 Tigramans wrote:
The Jokaero Consortium - experience the space apemen in a larger scale.

[Meanwhile, a GW employee catches this post and takes it as a good idea]

I'm reading Path of the Outcast. There is a bit where a group of Exodites are gearing up to fight some Orks. The description of them was pulled wholesale from the Fantasy range... I'm hoping those don't show up on the 40k table top as a full codex. A supplement would be good though.

Honestly, the biggest thing GW could do to increase sales are:

1. Restore at least a semblance of control to remove what we all know to be bad combinations. (ie: rerollable 2++). The rush by certain elements within GW to make it a complete chaotic free for all isn't what I'd call a good plan.

2. Restore a sense of community. By this I mean actively engage us, the customers, in their future. I think the community is divided enough by current releases that it's probably time to get their head out of the sand and start addressing the biggest issues. For example, everyone was happy when FAQs started coming out regularly - some may not have been happy about the rulings, but at least we knew what to expect. When those dried up we were back to square one - when the last real FAQ included a "dice off for it" answer we actually took a step backward.

3. Engage outside play testers. Especially those known for a penchant to find what's broken. Yes, this means that things will be leaked. I'm completely at a loss as to why this is a bad thing. And, no, I don't buy that the LotR people forced GW to change how Fantasy and 40k were handled. LotR itself? yes, the others, no. To be clear, I'm not asking for *models* to be previewed, just the rules. This generates excitement, causes us to debate the viability of that rule and keeps people coming back. Pretending to be Moses with the 15.. ahem, 10 commandments coming down from on high just doesn't work in today's world anymore.

4. Simplify the crap out of the rules. This doesn't need to lead to loss of capability. Rather I mean the 5e rule book was just scatter brained, the 6e was a bit better but there are numerous rule issues that boil down to how things are resolved based on where those rules appear in the book. The codexes seem to be all over the map with where information is located. Granted the 6e ones tend to be a little better due to the summaries at the back; however, I can't trust those summaries when nearly every codex has featured a summary that was plain wrong on at least one point. (See #3 above). That said, I have no idea why info on units is scattered across 3 or 4 different areas of the books... I guess someone there really thinks page flipping is a good idea.

By simplifying the books then you reduce the amount of frustration new players experience when getting into the game. I like what Spartan Games did with the latest Firestorm Armada rules. The old book was just a jumble of things thrown together and, quite frankly, prevented me from even trying the game - which was the same issue with BFG. Then Spartan did an interesting thing. They selected a group of people from the community to review and play test the rule book that was in progress. This resulted in a book that is very clear, with information that is easy to locate and just makes sense. Comparing this back to 40k, just to figure out whether a particular model has a cover save requires looking at 3 to 5 different sections of the books.. only a couple of which refer to the others.

tldr;
If they want increased sales, engage the community more. Ignore at their peril.

 Farseer Morlengal wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Yeah most marine books can be rolled into Codex Space Marines with a chapter tactic, a supplement's worth of gizmos, a unique unit or two, and speciak characters.

I like the idea of mashing the Inq, Knights, Mechanicum, and SoBs into one book, and I can roll with merging the Tempestum into the AM.

This cuts down on the Imperial faction bloat immensely.

For new armies: Lost and the Damned.
Slaugth
Demiurg
Hrud
Rak'Gol
Thyrrus

Maybes:
Kroot
Exodites/Harlequins
Genestealer Cults
Rebel Grots
Qu'orl
Fra'al.

An interesting selection of choices. Not familiar with some. Really like the idea of an Exodites and Genestealer Cults. To a lesser extend, Kroot and Rebel Grots seem like cool ideas. I used to love the idea of the old Harlequin Codex, but after seeing what happened to (another of) the small and elite forces: the Grey Knights, I'm not sure if I'd back another go at that route. Not a game which is doing its best to put as many models on the table without increasing table size. However, if old sweeping advances are back, then Harlequins would be pure (hilarious) murder. But (in your plan) if they're rolling all Imperial Armies into one book, why not do the same with the Eldar? And with Tyranid/ Genestealers and Orks. Hell, they've already done that with Kroot, though I could easily see Kroot as their own faction. I do agree that most SM Codecies need to be either rolled together, that OR give CSM back their old Legion Special Rules in the form of more Codex Supplements. As for Imperial Knights, I kind of group them in with the Escalation type stuff. The're mini-titans, to call them a separate army just feels kind of... well, wrong. Especially when they're ~300 points a piece. They kind of feel like an overpriced supplement (so everything else I guess. Maybe a Codex is a good term.)

Quick bad joke: If the Good Space Elves have Bright Lances and the Evil Space Elves have Dark Lances, what does that leave the Space Wood Elves? Wild Lances?

The Slaugth and Rak'Gol are creations of FFG, the Slaught later being fit into Forgeworld's Horus Heresy books in the background.

The Slaugth I could see working rather like Vampire Counts in Fantasy Battle, a mixture of some of the most worthless but expendable cannon fodder units (low grade bio-engineered monsters, mind controlled slaves, zombies, that sort of thing) combined with some of the most devastatingly powerful elite units (the Slaugth themselves, high grade bio-monsters and vehicles). Now the Slaugth by canon don't use the warp for anything ever much like the Necrons. Even their FTL utilizes non-warp based methods to get their ships around.

Furthering their potential as being, to a small degree; a rounding out of other undead tropes in 40k, is that their motivation is their hunger. As a swarm of maggots in the shapes of men, the Slaugth hunger for your flesh. They don't devour like locusts (a la the Tyranids), but instead reap cultivated harvests of flesh, carefully managed and tended so that their victims will be in as little a position to fight back as possible.

Looks wise, the Slaugth basically are Kyuss from D&D in space.

As for the Rak'Gol, eight limbed, extremely savage and violent, radiation loving reptilian centauroids who utilize quite primitive technology but have a love of cybernetics. Somewhat like the Orks if you stripped the Orks of all their comic relief potential and reduced their overall threat level.

 Kain wrote:

The Slaugth and Rak'Gol are creations of FFG, the Slaught later being fit into Forgeworld's Horus Heresy books in the background.

The Slaugth I could see working rather like Vampire Counts in Fantasy Battle, a mixture of some of the most worthless but expendable cannon fodder units (low grade bio-engineered monsters, mind controlled slaves, zombies, that sort of thing) combined with some of the most devastatingly powerful elite units (the Slaugth themselves, high grade bio-monsters and vehicles). Now the Slaugth by canon don't use the warp for anything ever much like the Necrons. Even their FTL utilizes non-warp based methods to get their ships around.

Furthering their potential as being, to a small degree; a rounding out of other undead tropes in 40k, is that their motivation is their hunger. As a swarm of maggots in the shapes of men, the Slaugth hunger for your flesh. They don't devour like locusts (a la the Tyranids), but instead reap cultivated harvests of flesh, carefully managed and tended so that their victims will be in as little a position to fight back as possible.

Looks wise, the Slaugth basically are Kyuss from D&D in space.

As for the Rak'Gol, eight limbed, extremely savage and violent, radiation loving reptilian centauroids who utilize quite primitive technology but have a love of cybernetics. Somewhat like the Orks if you stripped the Orks of all their comic relief potential and reduced their overall threat level.

And I can't believe that someone at GW once said it'd be uncool to port WHFB Armies into 40k any more. I think that idea is rubbish, you just have to get more creative. Case in point: Slaugth.

 dementedwombat wrote:

EXALTING! xD