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This video got me thinking. What new playable factions/races would you like to see make their debut in say, 8th or 9th edition? Are there any other options lore wise besides the Interex, Men of Iron, Rak'gol and Squats mentioned in the above video? Got any other ideas for faction/race concepts that either you came up with or which haven't made an appearance in 40k lore wise? Feel free to discuss this topic to your hearts content. Thank you and have a good day. Take care now.

I'd say a Tau Aux army, and probably the Hrud. Maybe the Q'orl, the bug people who have more personality than Tyranids while still being cool bugs?

There isn't anything that's viable without new additions to the fluff. Tau Human Auxiliary can be done in Narrative play already. None of the other Tau client races are suitable for a 40k level battlefield.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There isn't anything that's viable without new additions to the fluff. Tau Human Auxiliary can be done in Narrative play already. None of the other Tau client races are suitable for a 40k level battlefield.

Kroot and Vespid definitely can be expanded upon. Demiurg's are 100% suitable, and Human aux should be allowed in matched play. Also, plenty of Minor Xenos empire larger than the Tau exist. Hrud? Q'orl? A few others I think too.

Dark Mechanicum.

I want DOOM! for a faction. They fit the bill perfectly.

Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

 Sir Heckington wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
There isn't anything that's viable without new additions to the fluff. Tau Human Auxiliary can be done in Narrative play already. None of the other Tau client races are suitable for a 40k level battlefield.

Kroot and Vespid definitely can be expanded upon. Demiurg's are 100% suitable, and Human aux should be allowed in matched play. Also, plenty of Minor Xenos empire larger than the Tau exist. Hrud? Q'orl? A few others I think too.

Demiurg are entirely spacebound. They are like the T'au Air Caste.

SQUATS

I would love for Dark Mech to get some love.


Exodites would be rad, dino riders and all.

I not sure if I want to see the men of iron, but a empire ruled by one. Has potential for different alien races. Some dark, and some light themes.
Also chance to get some of those obscure races as mercenary forces under one banner.
And let them ally with other army’s, particular if this new faction sees the imperium as a threat for some reason.

But I think GW does need to focus a bit more on what they have, some of the current factions need some love. Outside of the current GW it’s new buy it and that’s the only thought we had when we designed the model.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

Reduce the Imperium and Chaos to a single, albeit large, faction each and expend on new xenos and you have solved your problem of bloat and made the galaxy a lot less empty.

epronovost wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

Reduce the Imperium and Chaos to a single, albeit large, faction each and expend on new xenos and you have solved your problem of bloat and made the galaxy a lot less empty.

1 large faction, the troop choices would be larger than some factions have in their other slots:

Tac Squad
Scout Squad
Guardsmen
Conscripts
Skitarii Vanguard
Skitarii Rangers
Paladins
Vet Squads (DW)
Custodes
Sister Squads

 Sir Heckington wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

Reduce the Imperium and Chaos to a single, albeit large, faction each and expend on new xenos and you have solved your problem of bloat and made the galaxy a lot less empty.

1 large faction, the troop choices would be larger than some factions have in their other slots:

Tac Squad
Scout Squad
Guardsmen
Conscripts
Skitarii Vanguard
Skitarii Rangers
Paladins
Vet Squads (DW)
Custodes
Sister Squads

I reduced it to Guard Platoon (which can now take sentinels in option), Skitarri Maniple (kind of like Guard Platoon but with skitarii and kataphron instead) and Sisters of Battle. Space Marines are an elite choice. Most of these units can be crammed in the same profile, but with options for different loadouts and doctrines.

epronovost wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

Reduce the Imperium and Chaos to a single, albeit large, faction each and expend on new xenos and you have solved your problem of bloat and made the galaxy a lot less empty.

No, because those units still exist even in one codex, only now you have to balance even more factions. We don't need any new factions. They add nothing to the story, they add nothing to game, and can be more or less represented by extant armies. Their inclusion does nothing but throw a wrench into everything from BS'ing them into somehow being a major player at all (which has already been poorly received with the Tau over the years) and shoving a whole new faction into the game. We don't need a constant, rampant of production of new toys simply because a minority are bored with the current ones. At most what could be added is more beastmen options - anything else is galactic non-factors with a fainter footprint than the Tau. It's also hard to give a new faction any kind of faction theme that isn't already covered by the plethora of current factions.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Demiurg are entirely spacebound.

Yeah, because we all know that there's zero options for our 6x4 tables to represent portions of ships/space stations big enough to host a 40k scale battle....

 Wyzilla wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dear god why? 40K is already ridiculously bloated and needs a severe trimming of all the factions present along with an excessive amount of work to provide even a semblance of balance? Why do you want to add to the complexity, further bloating the amount of stats that need be tweaking and increasing the time to playtest across factions? 40K doesn't need any more factions and if you want to field some obscure Xenos race that doesn't even have a significant presence in the Lore, just use Tau, Tyranid, or Necron rules and proxy models.

Reduce the Imperium and Chaos to a single, albeit large, faction each and expend on new xenos and you have solved your problem of bloat and made the galaxy a lot less empty.

No, because those units still exist even in one codex, only now you have to balance even more factions. We don't need any new factions. They add nothing to the story, they add nothing to game, and can be more or less represented by extant armies. Their inclusion does nothing but throw a wrench into everything from BS'ing them into somehow being a major player at all (which has already been poorly received with the Tau over the years) and shoving a whole new faction into the game. We don't need a constant, rampant of production of new toys simply because a minority are bored with the current ones. At most what could be added is more beastmen options - anything else is galactic non-factors with a fainter footprint than the Tau. It's also hard to give a new faction any kind of faction theme that isn't already covered by the plethora of current factions.

RnH could use an official GW line. Beastmen, Traitor Guardsmen, Berserker Ogryns, the whole thing.

 Wyzilla wrote:

No, because those units still exist even in one codex,

Several units would get on the chopping block and disapear in such a move. There is a lot units within the Imperium that suffer from a "starbuck" problem.

They add nothing to the story

Only if you don't give them a story or decide not to do anything interesting with them.

they add nothing to game

Only if you don't give them an interesting design for modelism purpose or an interesting game mechanic or at least one that could be exploited further.

and can be more or less represented by extant armies.

Which especially true with the 6 different flavor of marines. Just give them a different paint job and maybe a special rule/stratagem/gimmick and call it a day.

Their inclusion does nothing but throw a wrench into everything from BS'ing them into somehow being a major player at all (which has already been poorly received with the Tau over the years) and shoving a whole new faction into the game.

Taus are rather popular these days and have been essential for some very cool stories. Sure, the hardcore conservative fanbase will flip their guns at the idea that the lore of 40K being changed, perhapse even retconned to add a new major faction, but in the end it would be better. The galaxy 200 million stars with something like ten times more planets has only three large empires in it and one smaller, but growing.

The old ones returned. Slann armies.

Taus are rather popular these days and have been essential for some very cool stories. Sure, the hardcore conservative fanbase will flip their guns at the idea that the lore of 40K being changed, perhapse even retconned to add a new major faction, but in the end it would be better. The galaxy 200 million stars with something like ten times more planets has only three large empires in it and one smaller, but growing.

Agree here. I really wished they just retconned Tau into being bigger, its such an annoyance to keep them small and basically out of conflicts. Also would remove the comments about Tau not mattering.

 Sir Heckington wrote:

Taus are rather popular these days and have been essential for some very cool stories. Sure, the hardcore conservative fanbase will flip their guns at the idea that the lore of 40K being changed, perhapse even retconned to add a new major faction, but in the end it would be better. The galaxy 200 million stars with something like ten times more planets has only three large empires in it and one smaller, but growing.

Agree here. I really wished they just retconned Tau into being bigger, its such an annoyance to keep them small and basically out of conflicts. Also would remove the comments about Tau not mattering.

Lost colonies for the Taus would have been a good excuse. Just say that colony ships got caught in a wierd space phenomenon and were stranted on the other side of the galaxy or hitched a ride on Kroot sphere which can travel far further then Tau ships.

I'd like to see more unagumented human factions.

Lost and the Damned would be cool, maybe Tau-backed insurgents and defectors.

Human vs. Alien isn't as interesting as Human vs. Human, and I'm not particularly into the superhumans aesthetic of the Space Marines.

Dark Mech would be cool, though.

I would like to see a 'Dogs of War' army in 40k like how WHFB back in 5th ed. You can have many mercs with reputation that allow themselves to be hired by certain faction keywords, positive and negative bonuses for and against as well.

Rak'gol could be really cool. They'd be very unique and fit their own niche. They have enough lore to work with, but not too much to where they can't be massively expanded on. It wouldn't be too hard to write them into the fluff either.

Dark Mechanicus could be really cool. Tons of opportunities to go wild with creativity.

I'd be up for Men-of-Iron getting a Custodes/Harlequins-style mini-dex.

AI insurgents! count me in! It be similar to Genestealer Cult, but for the machine side of things, and is an infinitely more interesting background, IMO option, for a robot army, than the dull plumbers/evil-plumbers of 40K, Mario/Wario fluff for Admech/DarkAdmech.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Demiurg are entirely spacebound. They are like the T'au Air Caste.

You are confusing the Demiurg with the Nicassar, I'm afraid. And even with them, it probably wouldn't be too hard to generate a battlesuit which provides an in internal zero g environment in order to put Psykers on the ground.

Not saying I'm an advocate of that any more than having a Gue'la Psyker on the board, but I think that such a concept has possibilities.

I think there are already too many factions and subfactions. I'd condense the entire 40k universe into 10 codexes at most. We definitely don't need other stuff that become independent and stand alone. Completely new races maybe, but not more division.

I'd hate 3 different codexes for kabals, wych cults and covens even if they all get some new kits and units.

Chaos cults, which Blackstone has given me far too much optimism for.

Some range expansion for ad mech and genestealer cults (yeah, bikes, whatever, don't care)

New xenos with some classic xenos pets, like ambulls.
They can push out of the halo stars or whatever, but something that wants to assert themselves in a sane and coherent way in face of the warp scar and the imperium being cut in half.


Men of iron I'd rather not see outside that throw away model. AI revolts are boring, predictable and irrelevant to the 40k setting.

Grey Knights.

 Galas wrote:
Grey Knights.

This guy gets it.

None. I'd say GW has slowly crept over "max capacity" in the past 5-6 years. They now have more factions than they can properly support with model releases, inclusion in content (i.e. campaigns etc.). I think business-wise, new factions are probably a huge earner for them, but all of the other factions suffer. I think we're overflowing at the moment.

GW's current method of "wave of models" followed by 3-4 years of radio silence for a single race or faction is hurting the consumer base --- assuming that consumer base doesn't move onto new and shiny factions (likely what GW wants).

I don't fault them for this as they've done all the metrics and nonsense to determine what method provides them the best return on investment...but as a player, more factions is actually worse in the long run. We're already at, what...25? And many armies are still pushing around metal from 20-25 years ago. That's a poor state of affairs - again, only from the consumer standpoint, not GW's wallet.

Honestly, I agree that there is too much going on right now. However, I would love to see a none humanoid army, something with a bit more character than tyranids.

DE might be the closest we get to xenos variety.