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With the abundance of new factions that have been released in the last 1-2 years, I have not been able to keep track of what is loyal to the Imperium of Man and what is not. I'm considering starting up a 2nd army that a friend would be able to use to play a game with me. I have Space Marines right now so I would want a 2nd faction that is not "good guys." The GW has so many options these days, and it's not even clear which options comprise entire armies. Confusing

What are the "bad guy" armies?

For the Imperium any Xenos faction: Orks, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons, and all of their subfactions. Then add in Chaos anything as they are their ultimate enemy. Now some could argue that some of those races aren't too bad, such as the Eldar or the Tau, but no faction is truly good and they oppose each other all the time with alliances occurring infrequently.

Is there any precedent for Orks not having green skin? For instance, would it be 40K blasphemy to have an army of Orks with brown skin or red skin? My Space Marine army is Salamanders. If I started up another army, I'd like a color other than green. And Orks seem pretty fun

It's a big galaxy, a lot is possible. If you can think of a decent and fun reason to explain it (they grew on a world filled with krill!), and they look cool enough, people won't tend to mind.

Also, Orkz are sometimes known to use warpaint, especially Blood Axes.

Along with the afformentioned Xeno/Chaos armies, you could also play Knights/Mechanicum/Imperial Guard painted as heretics.

It's perfectly true to the lore and I'm fairly certain most of those armies have supplements that allow you play them as allies of Chaos.

it's honestly not hard to keep track of at all if you know the lore at all. of the new factions, the most obvious "non IoM" stuff would be genestealer cults, or Harliquins.

Well, I'm not a wiz at the lore, that's for sure. That's basically why I came here to ask for adivce.

I mostly feel comfortable with the background of the Horus Heresy, having read the first four novels of that series, and part of Fulgrim. But I haven't read snippets of lore from various army books, and 40k is an entirely different lore, obviously.

Are Imperial Knights a complete army all by themselves? What about Officio Assissinorum and Inquisition?

You can paint your toy soldiers however you see fit, including other-than-green Greenskins. It would be like painting an IG army up with blue skin or something.

Game-wise, 40k is moving away from monolithic armies to sub-factions. For example, GW distinguishes between Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii rather than having a single AdMech codex.

Manchu wrote:
You can paint your toy soldiers however you see fit, including other-than-green Greenskins. It would be like painting an IG army up with blue skin or something.

Game-wise, 40k is moving away from monolithic armies to sub-factions. For example, GW distinguishes between Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii rather than having a single AdMech codex.

Make them wearing blue warpaint. Problem solved.

As to who is loyal:
*The IG and Imperial Navy course, the only thing the Imperium needs!
*The Fallen

The Alpha Legion might be secretly loyal by being overtly Chaos.....or they might not be...

You can have factions simply as renegades. Not necessarily aligned to chaos.

Most rebellions within the imperium are nothing to do with chaos. For example I painted my Guard Regiment with removed imperial markings on much of their equipment to represent their partial dislike of the imperium, despite still being part of it.

Even space marine chapters are known to rebel against the imperium on occasion.

In the grimm darkness of the furute... there really are not any good guys.

honestly I think the closest is tau society where it would be close to the least oppressive you can get, but even then you are now part of a caste system.

As for a good opponent to SM if you want another durable army that would be pretty faro jn the evil needle Necrons, if you want fast and evil then dark eldar. Those are probably (other than caos demons or csm) the only really truly evil ones

depends what you mean by 'loyal' if you mean like, they care for each other. there are no factions loyal to each other. hell factions within factions are against each other.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
In the grimm darkness of the furute... there really are not any good guys.

honestly I think the closest is tau society where it would be close to the least oppressive you can get, but even then you are now part of a caste system.

As for a good opponent to SM if you want another durable army that would be pretty faro jn the evil needle Necrons, if you want fast and evil then dark eldar. Those are probably (other than caos demons or csm) the only really truly evil ones

Infidel! Of course there are good guys, the mighty freedom loving Orks. They are busy fighting Fascist dictatorships that Godwin would puke at, ravenous aliens that literally want to eat everything, killer zombies with death rays, and the ultranationalistc East Asia co Prosperity Sphere, all while having a rocking good time.

 Frazzled wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
In the grimm darkness of the furute... there really are not any good guys.

honestly I think the closest is tau society where it would be close to the least oppressive you can get, but even then you are now part of a caste system.

As for a good opponent to SM if you want another durable army that would be pretty faro jn the evil needle Necrons, if you want fast and evil then dark eldar. Those are probably (other than caos demons or csm) the only really truly evil ones

Infidel! Of course there are good guys, the mighty freedom loving Orks. They are busy fighting Fascist dictatorships that Godwin would puke at, ravenous aliens that literally want to eat everything, killer zombies with death rays, and the ultranationalistc East Asia co Prosperity Sphere, all while having a rocking good time.

sure from an ork perspective the orks are not bad guys, they just love to fight, but if somebody in our current society acted like an ork they would be judged as clinically insane and locked up. WWE would be real and determine who our world leaders are, and slavery of the weak would be how our menial labor was completed... not exactly the good guys.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
In the grimm darkness of the furute... there really are not any good guys.

honestly I think the closest is tau society where it would be close to the least oppressive you can get, but even then you are now part of a caste system.

As for a good opponent to SM if you want another durable army that would be pretty faro jn the evil needle Necrons, if you want fast and evil then dark eldar. Those are probably (other than caos demons or csm) the only really truly evil ones

Infidel! Of course there are good guys, the mighty freedom loving Orks. They are busy fighting Fascist dictatorships that Godwin would puke at, ravenous aliens that literally want to eat everything, killer zombies with death rays, and the ultranationalistc East Asia co Prosperity Sphere, all while having a rocking good time.

sure from an ork perspective the orks are not bad guys, they just love to fight, but if somebody in our current society acted like an ork they would be judged as clinically insane and locked up. WWE would be real and determine who our world leaders are, and slavery of the weak would be how our menial labor was completed... not exactly the good guys.

Except for bikers. Bikers would identify completely.

Slavery of the weak, so not really different...

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
You can have factions simply as renegades. Not necessarily aligned to chaos.

Most rebellions within the imperium are nothing to do with chaos. For example I painted my Guard Regiment with removed imperial markings on much of their equipment to represent their partial dislike of the imperium, despite still being part of it.

Even space marine chapters are known to rebel against the imperium on occasion.

This is a great point, thanks


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

As for a good opponent to SM if you want another durable army that would be pretty faro jn the evil needle Necrons...

I actually really like the look and feel of Necrons, but thought they might not be a good fit for a battle. Any reason in particular why these are a good opponent to SM, fluffwise or otherwise?

Well...pretty simple. Daemons are THE big baddies. Nids aren't truly evil, just hungry. They're the two largest threats, but Nids are just hungry insects. Daemons are other worldly monstrosities trying to destroy the universe for fun.

If you want the TRULY evil enemy of the imperium, daemons are a great choice. And they're a good, solid army. Orks are struggling, atm.

One could argue that daemons are just as much beings of pure instincts as Tyranids. They exist purely to propagate the emotions that spawned them.

 Fafnir wrote:
It's a big galaxy, a lot is possible. If you can think of a decent and fun reason to explain it (they grew on a world filled with krill!), and they look cool enough, people won't tend to mind.

Also, Orkz are sometimes known to use warpaint, especially Blood Axes.

I can imagine some snake bites painted entirely red and screaming "RED UNZ GO FASTA!!!!"