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.

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.

Space Marines

they are being replaced anyway.

Roll em all into one dex, drop all the flanderised crap and get on with it.

Tau might have to go. Agree with all the little imperial ones being rolled up together. And chuck grey knights in there too. Make them a small elite add on rather than an army. And roll all the marine chapters into one book.

Id say Tau as well.
Its really dull and the army it self is incredibility redundant.

now remove them and replace them with a new xeno empire with the existing tau models but add a ton of new ones that have all sorts of cool units like pyskers melee, monsters and the like and id be down.

but if i had my way id say remove the LOW and Titanic models. send them back to Apoc only.

Custards, followed by Grey Knights.

Maybe make a return as part of a collection of minor Imperial forces, but definitely not separately--at least in the case of Custodes.

Oh, this is easy; kill off the dog humping, flea-bitten furfag Space wolves. They think they’re better than everyone else, they think they’re special, and they think they’re above the rules. Given their bungled handling of the TKSons, and their attitude about the whole situation, they deserve to be crushed.

Vanilla Chaos Marines.

I'd destroy the concept and then move towards a Renegades concept and a Legions of Old concept.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Oh, this is easy; kill off the dog humping, flea-bitten furfag Space wolves. They think they’re better than everyone else, they think they’re special, and they think they’re above the rules. Given their bungled handling of the TKSons, and their attitude about the whole situation, they deserve to be crushed.

I'd go with that - then have a new "old School" Wolves Chapter.

This is what I would do if I had magical powers and could tinker with the faction mix.

This would be my lineup.

1. Codex Adeptes Astartes - This book would encompass all loyal Space Marine Chapters, including Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves but excluding Grey Knights and Deathwatch. Chapter Tactics would be reworked to restrict access to certain units. "This unit may only be included in a Space Wolves detachment."
2. Codex Astra Militarum - This book would encompass all existing Imperial Guard units.
3. Codex Adeptes Mechanicus - This book would include all AdMech units and would include a "Chapter Tactic" for one forge world that grants the Chaos keyword, allowing for Dark Mechanicum builds. Imperial Knights go in here.
4. Codex Imperial Agents - This book would include everything else Imperial. Unlocking Deathwatch units would require either a Deathwatch HQ or Xenos Inquisitor. Unlocking Grey Knights units would require either a Grey Knights HQ or Malleus Inquisitor. Unlocking Sisters of Battle would require either a Sisters of Battle HQ or whatever the third kind of Inquisitor is.
5. Codex Aeldari would cover all flavors of Eldar.
6. Codex Greater Good would cover T'au, Kroot and a limited number of human auxilliary units.
7. Codex Necrons stays more or less as is, with limited allies being available with certain HQs... i.e., Trazyn opens a pokeball.
8. Codex Tyranids would cover traditional Nids as well as Genestealer Cults. The GSC section would list all relevant Astra Militarum options. They'd just have GSC keyword only and not GSC/Tyranid.
9. Codex Orks is more or less the same, but add an option to take an Aux Detachment of whichever Kultur is the mercenary crew with other armies.
10. Codex Forces of Chaos would include Heretic Astartes and Daemons. Deathguard and Thousand Sons would be handled the same way as Space Wolves, etc. above.

I don't think the faction selection is inherently bad, but I do think they're spread across way too many books. Realistically, we don't need a half dozen Codexes with a Rhino entry.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
T'au, because as someone who played Dark Eldar and Space Wolves at that time, made me super salty these new NobleBright Mechas got two codexes in the time we got NONE.

Funny, I must've imagined all of the those SM codexes (that by extension modified the SW codex it was parent to) in every edition update of the game...






Love how everyone is getting salty over Tau. and still saying they don't fit. I've got some bad news fellas- 40k with Tau in it has existed for longer than 40k without Tau in it. 1987-2001 no Tau 14 years, 2001 to present with Tau- 17 years and counting.

On the one hand, I do want to say Tau. Mostly because of how GW has basically just made them the "Gundam" faction as opposed to a more "generalized scifi heavy skimmer tanks and specialized power armor" faction, and I'm just not a fan of most of their more recent background, despite having some 3k points of Tau. However, I think they're salvageable.

That said, above all others, it would probably have to be Space Wolves. I love the concept of the nordic power armored super soldier. However they suffer not only from irredeemably poorly written and directly contradictory fluff, but they've taken the wolf theme motif and run it right past the line of parody, jumped over the shark, and straight into the ground. Everything about them reads like some 13 year old's bad fanfic of their custom chapter. Everything that gets released for them just ends up looking...stupid and goofy.

I think Tau should stay. They're popular, they work differently from other factions (when done properly), and the thing is: the Eldar, humans and Necrons all had a Tau phase. They are entirely in keeping with the setting, just the main faction is the "present/waning" empire and the other xenos are the "past/remnant" empires.

Edit: this doesn't mean the Tau are right about being destined to rule the galaxy. Cracks in their manifest destiny are already showing themselves, they have serious limitations what with not having any psykers, and the galaxy is a huge and cruel place.

@Vaktathi- I agree with you that it is annoying that GW went from the Tau thinking giant robots are stupid to making giant sized versions of their three battle suits. I don't even think the design idea behind the bots are that great. If you can make a ghost kneel, why not slap Stealth field generators on Crisis Suits or Broadsides instead? Let's face it though, most people think giant robots are cooler than hover tanks and I think Tau players like us were a minority to those who wanted giant robots, even if it went against fluff.

Knights are the Gundum faction though and probably be left for AT.

Skaorn wrote:
@Vaktathi- I agree with you that it is annoying that GW went from the Tau thinking giant robots are stupid to making giant sized versions of their three battle suits. I don't even think the design idea behind the bots are that great. If you can make a ghost kneel, why not slap Stealth field generators on Crisis Suits or Broadsides instead? Let's face it though, most people think giant robots are cooler than hover tanks and I think Tau players like us were a minority to those who wanted giant robots, even if it went against fluff.

Hovertanks are also a bit harder to work into lists given the points costs and the size of the models proper.

Fluffwise, it's not unbelievable that the stealth field generator and the control suite for the drones(remember: it's a two part system, not just a stealth field) might not be able to get miniaturized enough for Crisis Suits or Broadsides. Or it might be that they wanted something larger that can pack a heavy punch to range ahead with Stealth Teams and Pathfinders.

Speaking for myself: I'm not too fussed by the addition of the Riptide and Ghostkeel. Yeah, we could have gotten some kind of tank or aircraft...but playability and space on the table needs to be factored in. A Riptide or Ghostkeel takes up a bit less space than a tank or aircraft IMO.

Space Marines - all of them! They attract too many low-skill whiners

(not entirely facetious)

Ynnari

Or least shift them down to a specialist detachment, with the three HQ's doing varying things and Soulburst being a stratagem

In my view picking a faction without a codex to be dropped is a cop out and saying a faction should be rolled into another or replaced is not actually destroying it.

Being a smartass aside, I would second Tau as the full army to be dropped (after Imperial Knights IMO) for reasons others have described pretty well; they do not occupy an essential place in the fluff, the army style (all shooting, all the time) is not fun on the table as compared other concepts, and their aesthetic fits in the least with the 40k setting.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, above all others, it would probably have to be Space Wolves. I love the concept of the nordic power armored super soldier. However they suffer not only from irredeemably poorly written and directly contradictory fluff, but they've taken the wolf theme motif and run it right past the line of parody, jumped over the shark, and straight into the ground. Everything about them reads like some 13 year old's bad fanfic of their custom chapter. Everything that gets released for them just ends up looking...stupid and goofy.

Say what?

I would get rid of Tau, hands down.

The Tau hate is almost as ridic as the Woofs models

Astra Militarum.

Just go and play Bolt Action or something, if you're into that. Get out of my Space Wizards vs. Bug-Alien-Swarms setting!!

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Astra Militarum.

Imperial Guard are the faction that "grounds" 40k and prevents it from being more of a full-on parody than it is becoming. Take away the IG, and there's no baseline, no center.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Astra Militarum.

Imperial Guard are the faction that "grounds" 40k and prevents it from being more of a full-on parody than it is becoming. Take away the IG, and there's no baseline, no center.

Nah. Imperial Guard is just a remnant of a cheap attempt by GW to leech over some players from historical wargaming clubs in the 80s or so, that's just a blight on the IP in general.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The Tau hate is almost as ridic as the Woofs models

For me it's that Space Wolves are intertwined in the fluff with numerous other factions and important events; they would have to be replaced with another legion-chapter with a similar enough temperament to have done what they did instead (or retcon/rewrite HUGE sections of fluff). Far more effective to reform the fluff and make it more reasonable and reform the line to reign in certain elements. The central idea of 'space marines but savage' is not a bad one, better than Blood Angels 'space marines but emo vampires' IMO. Plus the core of the line; infantry, dreadnought, and a lot of the characters look fine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Astra Militarum.

Imperial Guard are the faction that "grounds" 40k and prevents it from being more of a full-on parody than it is becoming. Take away the IG, and there's no baseline, no center.

Nah. Imperial Guard is just a remnant of a cheap attempt by GW to leech over some players from historical wargaming clubs in the 80s or so, that's just a blight on the IP in general.

I really doubt that. John has the right idea of them grounding the setting. They are also a swarm army that is not biological (unlike every other sci-fi setting where the bug faction is the only swarm army), is supposed to be the heavy shooting army of the setting (looking at you Tau) and fills a niche as the 'tank army'.

Corsairs. Chaos Astartes Legions need books down to five codexes (Vanillia, World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Emperor's Children). Space Marines down to five as well (Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Vanilla, Blood Angels... oh wait there are only 5).

I would condense all loyalist marine armies into one book and all traitor marine armies into another.

40K has a ludicrous number of marine factions, It is boring as hell.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Nah. Imperial Guard is just a remnant of a cheap attempt by GW to leech over some players from historical wargaming clubs in the 80s or so, that's just a blight on the IP in general.

Only if you insist on making them so.

Of all the factions in 40k, the Imperial Guard is by far the most diverse in terms of look and feel within its background. You can have an army of gothic religious lunatic doomsday fanatics fighting alongside junglefighting aircav supported by lawrence of arabia-esque guerilla fighters and gearpunk trench fighters and cyberpunk drug crazed ganger conscripts.

The breadth and range of Guard regiment variation is endless. Take any human faction concept/culture from any time or setting and you can make it work within the Imperial Guard as long as it doesn't rely on power armor or hovertanks.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Say what?

Indeed

Skaorn wrote:@Vaktathi- I agree with you that it is annoying that GW went from the Tau thinking giant robots are stupid to making giant sized versions of their three battle suits. I don't even think the design idea behind the bots are that great. If you can make a ghost kneel, why not slap Stealth field generators on Crisis Suits or Broadsides instead? Let's face it though, most people think giant robots are cooler than hover tanks and I think Tau players like us were a minority to those who wanted giant robots, even if it went against fluff.

Knights are the Gundum faction though and probably be left for AT.

Yeah, I'm usually into the giant robot stuff and I agree, the Tau big bots just dont seem all that great conceptually. I forgot about Knights for the purposes of this thread. I really like their place in the background between Titans and conventional forces, but their inclusion as a distinct and cohesive army for normal play as a force unto themselves was a mistake and forced the scale of the game upwards in a manner that really devalues stuff like basic infantry.

@Thread

Sometime I feel alone in loving Tau, their place in the fluff and their giant suits. I think they look awesome. I could do with more Kroot and have them be decent in CC again for some extra flexibility in gameplay.

Daemons. I don't like them, they feel out of place, and they're kind of boring.

After that, I guess, as a group [Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Death Guard, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons]. There doesn't really need to be 4 Loyalist and 3 Chaos basically-the-same codecies.


Deathwatch, Sisters, and Grey Knights should also be consolidated as the Inquisition, as an honorable mention.

Excellent! When nobody mentions Militarum Tempestus explicitly and we can survive by our unfortunate rolling-into the IG codex.