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I've been an advocate for Traitor Guard for years. I've previously said CSM should get a rule similar to GSC "Brood Brothers".

Dark Mech and stand-alone Kroot would be nice, but I imagine their factions to be numerically smaller than people realize.

I like the idea of Exodites, but unless they uncharacteristically start colonizing the galaxy at large they should probable be left alone on their planets.

I'd be okay with return of the Rangdan/Slaught; might be a nice threat to everyone.

I'd advocate for none...sort of. At least no addition to the number of books.

I think GW should do an EC Codex to complete the 4 god-specific CSM armies. At the same time I'd take the AoS approach and roll the relevant Daemons into each of those books. So we get an extra god-aligned CSM book, but the Daemons Codex gets split out into all 4 rather than being a standalone Codex. GW never really seemed to figure out Daemons in 40k so this feels like a good way to go about things.

Other than that, I think the game is already too bloated and doesn't need any new armies at all. I'd like to see more encouragement from GW to be more imaginative with current armies, though. For example, Traitor Guard and Dark Mechanicum can easily be represented with the IG and AM Codeices. I don't think the Chaos Gods care enough about a bunch of random human soldiers worshipping them to require a whole different army list, nor do I think there needs to be any fundamental difference between Ad Mech and Dark Mech. It's not like Ad Mech are some paragon of order and logic anyway. Most of their gear is weird, esoteric stuff that fits right in with the concept of Chaos as-is. A single detachment in the relevant book for each of those would probably be enough to represent a slightly more extreme version of them, but the basic Codex should suffice for the most part.

Exodites are another faction that I just don't think justifies a whole Codex. I could see including a handful of Exodite units in the main Craftworld Codex, but I think handling htem like they have the Harlequins in 10th is the way to go.

Slipspace wrote:

Exodites are another faction that I just don't think justifies a whole Codex. I could see including a handful of Exodite units in the main Craftworld Codex, but I think handling htem like they have the Harlequins in 10th is the way to go.

I feel like story wise Harliquins work as an addon because that's basically story wise how they work. They do turn up in small troops lending their aid to larger Eldar forces. The Exodites on the other hand are shown to have worlds, large numbers and extensive forces as well as large war-engines mounted on beasts. I feel like whilst you could do a kill-team of a troop of Exodites, you can't really explore all that makes them unique without giving them a larger number of models that would at least start to add up to half to a full diverse army.

The only thing in lore that needs to advance is to simply have them decide to go on the offensive or do a few narrative stories about Imperials attacking rim-worlds where the Exodites live.

I don't think it is a dramatic departure from the existing, sparse lore of Exodites to have a faction that wishes to recolonise the maiden worlds and is aligned with the Biel Tan worldview.

Slipspace wrote:


Exodites are another faction that I just don't think justifies a whole Codex. I could see including a handful of Exodite units in the main Craftworld Codex, but I think handling htem like they have the Harlequins in 10th is the way to go.

if 1000 marines can get a book all to themselves, and votann with 5 units can get a book all to themselves, then the billions of exodites sure can. The prerelease EPIC models already covered several units 30+ years ago...

They've wasted an entire codex on imperial agents. If you want to say 'nothing will be more popular than another imperial faction' to justify not having an exodite or harlequin codex then fine, but don't use army scope or model count.

I say this as a semi joke.

Titans! So we can get some plastic, big stompy walkers to mess with. They'd probably be terrible but hey, plastic titan!

cody.d. wrote:
I say this as a semi joke.

Titans! So we can get some plastic, big stompy walkers to mess with. They'd probably be terrible but hey, plastic titan!

titans do have an index in 10th edition! i'm not sure if it's any good (probably not!) but hey, it's something

there's also the rumor that GW have a plastic warhound kit in production, but can't figure out how to price it reasonably

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
I say this as a semi joke.

Titans! So we can get some plastic, big stompy walkers to mess with. They'd probably be terrible but hey, plastic titan!

titans do have an index in 10th edition! i'm not sure if it's any good (probably not!) but hey, it's something

there's also the rumor that GW have a plastic warhound kit in production, but can't figure out how to price it reasonably

About $450, maybe $500 should do it.

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think it is a dramatic departure from the existing, sparse lore of Exodites to have a faction that wishes to recolonise the maiden worlds and is aligned with the Biel Tan worldview.

Exactly, especially with Yinnari kicking up the dust and the general direction of Eldar lore very slowly shifting from "we are a dying race retreating more and more into the shadows" to one that's more on the offensive. Right now the Imperium is faltering; Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids have had huge campaign gains; Tau are steadily ever expanding; Votann have shifted gears and stepped up as well.

Basically everyone in the setting has had a big step forward; barring the elephant in the room which is the Imperium which territory wise has faltered, but lore wise has had a huge step with the Indomitus Crusade.


So yeah the only faction that hasn't really stepped up their game in a big way is Eldar and they feel on the cusp of doing that. If GW has updated Craftworld over the last few years to a modern line (more or less) then why not launch a new Eldar force with Exodites that allows for a brand new creative direction.

 Hellebore wrote:

Slipspace wrote:


Exodites are another faction that I just don't think justifies a whole Codex. I could see including a handful of Exodite units in the main Craftworld Codex, but I think handling htem like they have the Harlequins in 10th is the way to go.

if 1000 marines can get a book all to themselves, and votann with 5 units can get a book all to themselves, then the billions of exodites sure can. The prerelease EPIC models already covered several units 30+ years ago...

They've wasted an entire codex on imperial agents. If you want to say 'nothing will be more popular than another imperial faction' to justify not having an exodite or harlequin codex then fine, but don't use army scope or model count.

The population of the faction in the lore isn't a criteria that should determine whether they get their own Codex. There are likely billions of Kroot too, but they didn't get their own book. Nor should they.

My problem with adding factions is twofold:

1. Do they bring anything new to the game in terms of how they play? The answer to this is probably "no", because of the sheer number of factions in the game right now and because so many of those factions have multiple different styles of play available - or at least could have if GW fleshed out the books a little more or were better at balance. This links to point 2:

2. We already have too many factions. We're running out of niches for armies to occupy. We're also in the position where every three years we get a new edition which usually means a new round of Codices. At the very least we need a whole new set of Codices every 6 years at this point. Constantly adding to them just means more and more armies end up waiting longer and longer, just so some tiny niche faction can get a brand new Codex.

I think we have the tools right now to allow things like Exodites, Dark Mech and similar sub-factions to be included in the main book for their faction via the detachment system. We should utilise that where we can, and encourage an approach that isn't so slaved to officialdom as we have now, with people demanding rules for every little thing instead of using what we already have, combined with some inventive modelling to create the army they want. That's how it used to work, and it was fine.

Current release schedule, 3 year editions, lack of Qualtiy controll?

None, i am sorry. As much as i'd want playable plastic traitorguard / R&H reinvigorated the current system of releases and quality controll makes it honestly impossible to condone a new faction at all. Especially seeing as we got now multiple factions that are basically at best a quarter of a full unit count.

Hrud would probably get my vote on the assumption they could do something fundamentally different.

I think to be interesting an army has to have a different art/model style, a different rules, and, while its a bit subjective (as strategies tend towards archetypes), a notionally unique style of play.

Harlequins for instance certainly exist in the fluff. And I don't think there was (or is) anything wrong with being able to play a whole army of them. But "We are a fast glass cannon army of semi-elite soldiers and grav vehicles" just prompted "oh, so like CWE and DE then."

This sort of leads into Traitor Guard. We have a Traitor Guard kit in Killteam. Do we also need "Traitor Heavy Weapon Squads"? Full unit of Traitor Ogryn? Spiky Leman Russ Variants? I guess you could come up with completely new units and tanks. Borrow stuff from 30k perhaps (that only Traitor Guard have for reasons...) but I suspect that would rub people the wrong way, and feels a bit contrived. I feel if you want to convert up some traitor Guard you can go right ahead. "We need Traitor Chimeras" feels kind of a reach.

Exodites would "visually" fit the bill of being different. (Even if there's a danger it feels like a CWE/Wood Elf/Lizardmen fan mashup). But I think you've got to be careful "a Stegadon with a big gun" doesn't just "feel" like a reskinned Fire Prism.

"Ynnari But Done Right" would also potentially get my vote. But you'd have to take the minis in a new art direction rather than just some CWE/DE mashup. And I think the mechanics would have to focus on Strength from Death being a system where models die, then get resurrected, then die again. A sort of cycle that gives power, rather than "Eldar go fast and hit hard, no not like that, like this."

The 3 year cycle is certainly a problem. More factions means the more chance we end up back like the "old days" where some armies might limp to near the end of an edition before getting a book (or miss it!). Heck we are already at factions missing half of an edition waiting for a book in 1.5 years.

But that's a problem right now and its a symptom of GW's bonkers idea of building a game every 3 years


Heck who knows perhaps adding more factions would finally make GW wake up and lengthen edition lifespans

To be honest, I've stopped caring about the rules aspect. Rules change every 5 minutes and even established units can be deleted on a whim by GW.

I want new armies for the models, which are much more permanent than rules. I can always proxy for rules.

Agreed and for me visual diversity is more important. There are game systems out there where the only difference is the models you choose and the rules for different factions are broadly identical with a few faction tweaks here and there.

Ergo every army has the same model types and they visually differ.


So I'm ok if you end up with two armies that cover the same kind of tactical approach because they will still have little differences and if nothing else they will be visually distinct. I don't mind if another "swarmy" army like Tyranids joins the game so long as they are very visually and lore distinct.

I'm here to make my yearly request for HRUD or Beast race army.

Slipspace wrote:


We already have too many factions.

The only thing we have too much of is Space Marines.

I think that you think GW set out to design a typical wargame when they built 40k, which might be why you want it to look and feel more like other wargames. But since the dawn of Rogue Trader, I'd argue that "a typical wargame" is something that GW never intended 40k to be.

Even in the RT book, it was obvious that the world (galaxy) that they designed as a setting was ALWAYS bigger than the game. T was a big book of ideas that have kept GW busy and active for 40 years while other companies with fewer and more similar factions and more typical wargame rules in their hundreds have appeared on the scene for a brief moment in the sun only to disappear forever.

GW set out to create a game with so many miniatures they could stock a museum. They set out to design a sandbox big enough to swallow the lions share of the miniature game industry world wide, and the truckloads of cash that go along with it.

I'm sorry you want a game with 6 factions of 6-10 kits each. Games that small die in a decade, and it should have been obvious that 40k was never intended to be that.

 PenitentJake wrote:

I'm sorry you want a game with 6 factions of 6-10 kits each. Games that small die in a decade, and it should have been obvious that 40k was never intended to be that.

And I'm sorry you feel the need to put words in my mouth.

Funnily enough, for quite a long time 40k was a lot closer to that than the position it now finds itself in so it seems a bit rich to say it was never intended to be that.

Still, we're a long way and multiple designers from those times. The 40k galaxy is vast, but there needs to be some restraint on what gets to be a faction or sub-faction. For me that point is when you don't have any more niches to fill from a gameplay perspective, and/or when you have so many factions you can barely get them all released in the course of an entire edition.

There's no requirement for every last faction that's mentioned in the lore to get its own Codex. This is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned the slavery to officialdom. I've seen people do really cool Exodite armies using the standard Eldar Codex and some imaginative modelling. I've seen it done using the Dark Eldar Codex. I've seen Dark Mech and Traitor Guard done really well using those Codices, because at a certain point the minutiae of specific rules to represent relatively small differences on the tabletop are just not necessary. We have plenty of options available to facilitate all kinds of different armies now. In some cases we have too many. Yes, we should have fewer Space Marine Codices, but that restraint goes along with reining in the production of new armies as well.

I did put words in your mouth- sorry about that; a bit edgy today, and probably posting more aggressively than usual- doing that thing where even though I'm quoting you, I'm responding to past arguments made by folks with similar preferences for smaller ranges.

Anyway, point taken. Sorry man.

I do want to inquire about those Exodite armies you've seen though. I'm wondering how they represented an army that, by its fluff suggests large numbers of mounted units using rules from codices that don't include any mounted units.

Lizard riders count as Shining Spears?

Armies did probably look great, but how you could make them play as they should without houseruling is beyond me. These days, I think both Artel and Wargames Exclusive have created full Exodite ranges (though it might just be one or the other).

But I'm not sure you can field them without beast rider rules, which neither CWE or DE currently have.

Edit: Also, I don't need these things to have their own dexes- I'm fine geting them in combined books like the upcoming Imperial Agents, or in Campaign books, or downloadable PDF's as units are introduced one at a time via KT or a new Warhammer Quest game, or as White Dwarf mini dexes, or even (again) stand alone units. Sorry I wasn't more clear on that.

Bringing back a dedicated Eldar Corsair faction could be neat. There is already a good kit to base things off of - you can already build a lot of the old units and characters with just that one kit actually, so the main thing you'd need is their own bikers following their aesthetic and their jump packs. Then bring one or two of the old Forge World vehicles over to plastic and its basically army done.

As many have mentioned Eldar Exodites and Lost and the Damned/Renegades and Heretics.

Tau Auxiliaries - at this point of its constant expansion over the past...what 20 years? Tau are probably outnumbered in their own empire and finally facing similar logistics problems to the Imperium. Lean into the auxiliary aspect of the Tau to compensate this - an upgrade sprue for guardsmen that has some Tau bits and gribbles and a few guns and helmets to represent Gue'vasa, Tarellians, Vespids, more Kroot (admittedly we just got Kroot but Kroot are great), and so on. Make it so each race has at least 2 units (likely a multi-build kit) and that they aren't pigeon holed into 'the ranged ones', 'the melee ones' etc.

Its also possible to bring out some deep lore, like the Stryxis or Rak'Gol, though they would need a bit more work to bring up to snuff.

You could proxy an Exodite army by just swapping all vehicles for mounted dinosaurs. So a falcon gravtank is just a dinosaur with some large guns on it; an aircraft is a winged creature (possibly with a jet engine strapped too its back). Even a unit like a warwalker or wraithlord could be some form of mounted model - a wraithknight could easily be a T-rex for example

That alone would make the army quite visually distinct from a standard craftworld force.

 PenitentJake wrote:
I did put words in your mouth- sorry about that; a bit edgy today, and probably posting more aggressively than usual- doing that thing where even though I'm quoting you, I'm responding to past arguments made by folks with similar preferences for smaller ranges.

Anyway, point taken. Sorry man.

I do want to inquire about those Exodite armies you've seen though. I'm wondering how they represented an army that, by its fluff suggests large numbers of mounted units using rules from codices that don't include any mounted units.

Lizard riders count as Shining Spears?

Armies did probably look great, but how you could make them play as they should without houseruling is beyond me. These days, I think both Artel and Wargames Exclusive have created full Exodite ranges (though it might just be one or the other).

But I'm not sure you can field them without beast rider rules, which neither CWE or DE currently have.

Edit: Also, I don't need these things to have their own dexes- I'm fine geting them in combined books like the upcoming Imperial Agents, or in Campaign books, or downloadable PDF's as units are introduced one at a time via KT or a new Warhammer Quest game, or as White Dwarf mini dexes, or even (again) stand alone units. Sorry I wasn't more clear on that.

No problem, apology accepted.

The Exodites were basically using the various biker and grav tank vehicles, with beasts in place of the vehicles for the most part. They were also using quite a lot of Rangers and using Warp Spider and Swooping Hawk rules to represent their elite trackers/hunters. As a nice bonues the rules differences between beasts and jetbikes at the time meant the Exodite beasts using the jetbike/grav tank rules were more nimble and flexible than traditional cavalry/beasts, which worked quite well within the Exodite lore.

Your comment about not being able to make them play as they should is exactly what I was getting at with regard to the cult of officialdom. The rules as used did a very good job of representing Exodites without having to do anything more than explain "these are Windriders, these are Swooping Hawks", etc. You don't need the rule to specifically single out a particular Exodite trait in order to have it work in-game. Ultimately it comes down to realising that an Exodite mounted on a lizard with some weird Eldar-tech weapon is represented perfectly fine by a Windrider with a scatter laser, or shuriken cannon. They're fast, have a decent gun, but aren't especially tough. It works fine and has the added benefit of leading to some cool modelling projects.

Slipspace wrote:


Your comment about not being able to make them play as they should is exactly what I was getting at with regard to the cult of officialdom. The rules as used did a very good job of representing Exodites without having to do anything more than explain "these are Windriders, these are Swooping Hawks", etc. You don't need the rule to specifically single out a particular Exodite trait in order to have it work in-game.

Fair enough- I see how it CAN work, I guess.

Given the mechanics of the current edition, I think it would play more like it was supposed to if it did have its own rules- people might feel that Turbo Boost is suitable datacard ability for a dragon rider, but the enhancements, strats and detachment rules might not work as well. And sure, a little bit of tweaking can fix that too, but I still think there's far better rules that could be generated in a book made for the army- especially as a Crusade player; I want the Exodite Planetary/ World Spirit defense storyline and Agendas.

I won't say it can't be done- y'all have proven it can.

Personally, I still don't like it, and I certainly wouldn't invest 100 hours of work converting up an army that's just going to play identically to an existing one. If I'm going to do the work, I want it to matter on the table... But maybe that's a me thing. Obviously, it's fine for a lot of people if armies with radically different fluff and aesthetics behave exactly the same way on the table.

Deathwatch would be cool

Yeah- not sure how good DW Lite is going to be. Too many unknown variables.

We know we're losing the Primaris KTs, but we don't know what the Ordo Xenos detachment looks like.

With the other option they've listed- using DW as Attached Agents- it looks like in a 2k game, you could attach a Watch Master to one Proteus Team, Artemis to another and put each unit into its own Blackstar. and then attach that all to a Space marine army where everyone has DW shoulderpads, and let it use whichever, in your opinion is the Deathwatchiest detachment. There may be a rule that lets you burn the Requisition slot on a Retinue or Character unit if you're not planning on using it for requisitioned troops, so you might be able to squeeze in one more KT if you want.

That doesn't feel terribly satisfying to me, so hopefully the Deathwatch detachment is designed well enough to be a better option.

Either way, I think I preferred DW having a dex. If people think it was problematic, it should have been fixed rather than eliminated. I think it's weird having one Chamber follow such a radically different path than the other two. One of the things I like about the index system is that with the right group of people, the Index cards are still compatible with the edition. So even if the Fortis, Indomitor and Spectrus teams didn't make the Agents dex, I can still use them in friendly games when it suits the Narrative.

9th edition DW Crusade content would be mostly compatible, except many of the underlying mechanics with which that content interacted are no longer in the game (lookin at you Blackshields).

Slipspace wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Slipspace wrote:


Exodites are another faction that I just don't think justifies a whole Codex. I could see including a handful of Exodite units in the main Craftworld Codex, but I think handling htem like they have the Harlequins in 10th is the way to go.

if 1000 marines can get a book all to themselves, and votann with 5 units can get a book all to themselves, then the billions of exodites sure can. The prerelease EPIC models already covered several units 30+ years ago...

They've wasted an entire codex on imperial agents. If you want to say 'nothing will be more popular than another imperial faction' to justify not having an exodite or harlequin codex then fine, but don't use army scope or model count.

The population of the faction in the lore isn't a criteria that should determine whether they get their own Codex. There are likely billions of Kroot too, but they didn't get their own book. Nor should they.

My problem with adding factions is twofold:

1. Do they bring anything new to the game in terms of how they play? The answer to this is probably "no", because of the sheer number of factions in the game right now and because so many of those factions have multiple different styles of play available - or at least could have if GW fleshed out the books a little more or were better at balance. This links to point 2:

2. We already have too many factions. We're running out of niches for armies to occupy. We're also in the position where every three years we get a new edition which usually means a new round of Codices. At the very least we need a whole new set of Codices every 6 years at this point. Constantly adding to them just means more and more armies end up waiting longer and longer, just so some tiny niche faction can get a brand new Codex.

I think we have the tools right now to allow things like Exodites, Dark Mech and similar sub-factions to be included in the main book for their faction via the detachment system. We should utilise that where we can, and encourage an approach that isn't so slaved to officialdom as we have now, with people demanding rules for every little thing instead of using what we already have, combined with some inventive modelling to create the army they want. That's how it used to work, and it was fine.

GW does not follow your criteria, so why should anyone else when playing the new faction game? You're asking us to use rules the product producers don't use. Every space marine army plays almost identically to the others. And whether an army brings something new or not is entirely on how you write the rules. Choosing to write rules that bring nothing new has nothing to do with the faction, and everything to do with the rules writer.


Your position is built on false premises around what should and should not be used to choose whether a new faction is added or not. the only rules we have to follow is the faction releases of GW themselves and they are clearly fine with releasing codexes that look virtually the same, have very few units in them or aren't even a real army (imperial agents). Whether you think that's how they should do it or not is not really relevant, because we're not trying to justify new factions in your game, but in GW's.


For reference, the Harlequins had a full army list before every current space marine army had one, in some cases by decades. They had an army list before sisters, ad mech and the eldar themselves.

Out of Left Field, but how about the Rak Gol? They are in the background, and are visually different to everything in 40k at the moment.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or, what about a compliation of all those "non-aligned" units out there that can be taken in any army> The Zoat guy, the Ambull, fortifications, etc.

When it comes to being alien, rak'gol have bilateral symmetry and other features that are mostly comprehensible if you're used to earth creatures or tyranids. So for existing minor species, why are the Saruthi not better as alien-looking aliens?

On another axis, the rak'gol don't wear clothes, so they present like centaurs, beasts with weapons but not clothes. That's pretty common for centaur aliens like Zoats or slug aliens like Jabba the Hutt from a sci-fi film called star wars. They have weapons, star ships, a complex society, but not clothes.

So what I would want from an alien species are saruthi with clothes, because that way they don't have an earth-style body plan but they do look like a multi-system starfaring society. Miniature wargames are a top format for alien-aliens than film or books, because they don't need visual fx like a film but it's a better visual format than a novel or even illustration.

But for the same reasons as other people I'm pretty cold to new factions. The Kin Leagues and the Shissellian League do actually resemble factions from other, smaller games. Drop zone, Infinity, Maelstrom's Edge, Mutant Chronicles, and Deadzone all have these random factions - this is the cyborg human faction, this is the euroamerican megacorp human faction, this is the East Asian human faction. If there were a space warmahordes or space MtG they'd have this problem too.

The Shisselian league has been around for 23 year in warhammer and they still don't have the historic links with other factions, like the way all the Eldar factions and most of the human factions were created by the birth of Slaanesh. At least the Shissells have a pretty distinct gameplay style with their jetpack crisis suits and ashigaru infantry.

Men of Iron as a stand alone Xeno's Faction?

 pelicaniforce wrote:
The Shisselian league has been around for 23 year in warhammer and they still don't have the historic links with other factions, like the way all the Eldar factions and most of the human factions were created by the birth of Slaanesh. At least the Shissells have a pretty distinct gameplay style with their jetpack crisis suits and ashigaru infantry.

...the who now?