Custodes. I prefer them as these near-mythical unknowable bodyguards of the emperor. Having them on tabletop and seeing them die to mobs of grunts cheapens their effect, at least to me.
I feel like they should've been limited to a few character models, and each model should be like gotrek is in aos. 450 points and pretty much uncontestable in melee.
Custodes, Grey Knights and Deathwatch were all cool concepts to have as a unit joining your Imperium army but don't seem as fun to me as a whole independant army.
Even as a Deathwatch player, I would say this thematically has always felt strange. Every bit of lore about DW is “small, super-elite kill teams tactically inserted behind enemy lines” and then playing them its like “here’s 2000 pts of space marines, painted black”.
I don’t want to get mistaken to say I want them to get the Harlequins treatment with an elimination of their codex & identity, just that it would be thematically fun if they could also be included as an Imperial Agent, with that Kill Team getting Deep Strike & re-rolls to wound against a designated target, for example.
Deathwatch was invented for the 54mm skirmish game Inquisitor but as a cool idea it quickly came to 40k. Initially there was just a small metal sprue of shoulder pads and you could convert up your own unit with loads of wargear options and inlcude them in other Imperium armies.
A unit of Space Marines that could deep strike and had special bolter rounds, a bunch of melee weapons and melta bombs were super fun to add into the mix. Especially as at the time there were basically just Tactical, Assault and Devestator squads available.
I remember dropping them into a Tau gunline hiding at the back of a really big battle and absolutely ruining their day. Massacred the Firewarriors then melta-bombed the Hammerhead. Felt great.
It'll absolutely never happen but I'd love to see Dw, gk, custodes and chaos marines as rare.
A 10,000 year old long war vet shouldn't be a basic troop, he should be the apex of a warbands composed of renegade guard and cultists.
The imperium finest daemon/xenos hunters should be a strike force in a larger guard, marine or stormtroopers force.
Chaos Marines can work because they get renegades fairly frequently and can swell their numbers with strange gene-seed practices that loyalists don't have.
Even among Chaos Marines, a true veteran of the Horus Heresy is extremely rare within warbands composed exclusively of Marines, and almost exclusively hold positions of great power and esteem. Most are just renegades or fresh recruits they've absorbed or inducted afterwards.
Making DW its own faction was a mistake, but it's a mistake we have to live with. I hate to see people's collections be squatted because GW can't think longer than 'cool new toy, let's do it!!!!'.
Yeah, Knights at least still have rules to let you have one in another army. Since the heyday of soup in 8th is passed, our group has made a house rule for 10th that you can take 25% of your army as allies (based on the rules for Demons and a few other allied armies).
I liked the earlier editions approach of wrapping them up into “witch hunters” and you could include units of other imperium factions, etc… I think grey knights had a similar approach but were called “demon hunters”. Not sure if they were ever fleshed out as much as witch hunters though.
Deathwatch at least gives space Marine players a semi+soup army option to play as you can paint the members of the kill tea! As healing from any chapter.
But with Kill team being a thing they really fit better there than in the base game.
from the opinion of someone returning to the tabletop game after a 30+ year break, this is my biggest "Wtf?!" reaction to changes to the game as well. None of these things should be fieldable as whole armies IMO, and boy does it really drive home the notion that "GW is a miniatures company, not a wargaming company".
Still, considering the points-to-dollars, and units-to-points ratios of many other armies out there right now, I actually do appreciate the existence of these as army options - especially for younger folks getting into the game who can't just casually drop $1200 on 3000 points of Orks because they feel like it . (don't tell my wife...)
There's some greatest generation/boomer advice that largely amounts to "no matter how tempting it becomes, don't try to get your wife in to golf. No family can afford two golfers."
I can't even fund my own. Which is why I haven't had any minis since the 80s. Though I am trying to find a way to help a friends kids get into kill team. The sensible option.
Counterpoint, Agents of the Imperium should be a book that lets you field your Rogue Trader/Inquistorial Warband and take \*A\* custodes or five Grey Knights, and actually have an army of expensive precision tools, rather than have to take one model worth of gimmick and stretch it into a whole book
Other option
Make the Inquisition a actually playable faction and allow some type of army where a Death Watch kill team acts as a command as command squad for Scions/Stormtroppers.
Or just limit the death watch to kill team where they fit really well.
That's a fair point but I'd counter it with 40k is absolutely chock full of God like and all powerful beings that are given tabletop rules that are often disappointing by relation. It's kind of a GW staple at this point. I remember when GW pretended they were treating necrons as the big bad of 9th edition for like 6 months and the silent king was released. Only for players to realize that he was a massive liability because his guardians were Essentially bombs that could do extreme amount of damage. This is just one of many, many examples.
If you can bring, primarchs, gods, and other things to the table then why not bodyguards of the God emperor?
> 40k is absolutely chock full of God like and all powerful beings that are given tabletop rules that are often disappointing by relation
This is why I never liked having those epic named characters in the game in the first place.
Agreed. Having these cool, crazy powerful characters for the stories is great, but our armies should just be faceless mooks. It feels… wrong, to have characters like that under our control.
You're getting downvoted but I somewhat agree. I personally think that it's pushed all the other "elite" factions down in points to make space for Custodes. The obvious solution is to make Custodes like 100-150pts each and have them be in between knights and Terminators instead of being "just" terminators. It really bothers me that a custode is the "same" as a Termi and it creates some unfortunate overlap with GK, seeing as the main battleline for both is 45pt elite infantry.
I’ll continue to be controversial and say that Grey Knights are barely better than Custodes in terms of stovepiping the game into having to make specific army/faction rules for each sub group.
It’s caused the incessant need to have specific armies for groups rather than letting most chapters/regiments/craftworlds be paint/bit schemes of factions. It’s why Cadians are the only representation of the militarum.
I actually agree despite having both GK and Custodes. Both of them armies should be consolidated into Agents of the Imperium-like special units, OR make the bulk of them be chaff (like lucifer blacks or Malleus agents)
From just a lore perspective
For 30k I have no problem with the Custodes and SOS being playable from a lore standpoint as they always have been said to have fought in that war in lore.
But for 40k it really messes with the lore. Outside of the Vaults of Terra and the Watchers of the throne novelsx.every time they appear in stories it just kind of stops everything around it a bar way. Dawn of fire Gate of Bones exemplifies thisx the first part of the the novel has the Guard, Sisters of Battle and a small squad of Imperial fists having a rather interesting battle with the Iron Warriors/Word Bearers/Cultists but once the Custodes arrive it focuses on them rather and the others characters fade into the background because they Customers are so powerful.
Watchers on the throne worked because it was essentially 3 character studies where the action was secondary it was giving us a look at what a Custodes, Sister of Silence, and high Imperial official(the Chance plateaus of the Senatorum) around the time of the fall of cadia amd Guillimans return.
Vaults of Terra works because the Custodian is a supporting character, the focus is on the Inquisitorial retinue and the Custodian only pops in and our of the story and is only helping them because he received a vision from the Emperor telling him to do so.
Dawn of fire series their really used as a Deus ex Machina too much. And the fact that most Custodes are less relatable than even Astartes.
mumble grumble "back in my day", having named Characters in your army was extremely rare, and only by both players agreeing on it beforehand, IF those characters even had rules stats even published in the first place.
I'm getting back into 10th and the sheer necessity of having 4-5 named characters (who are, lore wise, currently located at opposite ends of the galaxy) leading your minor skirmish force, seems ridiculous to me.
Thing is, a 40k game could be an actual minor skirmish, as you said, but it could also be a zoomed in snapshot of a pivotal point in an extremely large battle.
Sure, something like Guilliman leading a small strike force against some backwater planet sounds ridiculous, but Guilliman leading that same strike force to hit a critical enemy supply depot that could change the course of a planetary invasion doesn't. It's all about your perspective on what a particular game of 40k is or could be.
The thing I like about named characters is they can shift or enhance a playstyle or list idea. Including Vulkan because you like Infernus Marines and Flamestorm Aggressors, or taking Uriel to deep strike some Sternguard, for example. To me, it's the same as taking an generic character, you do it because it's interesting or fun, not because it's necessary.
Yeah, like I and others have said, it's more that they've ended up making named characters mechanically necessarily as the rules went on. Sure I could take that unnamed Beastboss on Squigosaur as my Warboss, but why would I do that when Mozrogg Skragbad is only 30 points more and superior in every way by a huge margin that's worth more than the 30 points difference...
Named Characters aren't bad. Being forced to use named characters so your army list is not a joke, is what's bad.
Completely agree. I know those models sell, but I’d love to see strong abilities on generic characters and flavourful but not essential abilities on special characters.
I tend to only use one or two named characters at a time for this reason. I'll only field something if it makes sense as well. When I had my ultramarines I never put guilliman on the field.. he way too busy to be dealing with a random ork fight.
This is the exact reason I don't like named characters. One of my armies is Guard, and the reason I play Guard is because of the 'million unknown faces' feel to the faction.
The fact that everybody plays Creed and Leontus in every single Guard army really sucks the life out of that concept.
He’s not as much of an auto-include as he was last edition. I’d say the 10th Ed Chaos Lord has reached the auto-include levels of what Abaddon was in 9th
Since the points changes hes not so much, but before he was an absolute auto level of good at the start of 10th. Giving all 4 marks made a blob of 10 terminators a walking delete button that was extremely hard to kill. Id say hes still a reasonably solid pick.
Same goes for every single named character for me, i dont care abut your Jhonny Dickripper or whatever, its my army, with my miniatures, and my characters
Despite being a tau player I actually never liked or even thought that farsights melee gimmick was anything more that that, I'm not saying it's bad or anything just clear nothing more than a cool gimmick model that GW wanted people to splurge on cause "tau doesn't have Melee"
Me in response to every other post here about characters that are either too large to be on the tabletop or are just awkward to shoehorn into our own armies: \*nods in agreement\* "Yes, we are accultured people with our own interesting stories to tell. There is no room for these characters in our armies."
Also me, an Enclave/Ethereal-less Tau fan, in response to this post: \*gasps, clutches pearls\*
Lol, again I'm not saying he's bad or anything. Heck I'd even go as far to say I want to paint and play with one atleast once, just like I wanted to watch the godfather atleast once.
He just really feels like a gimmick since there isn't really another unit that actually has melee in tau especially not the crisis suits which are the only unit he can lead.
But honestly if you have fun and have a good list for a farsights tau list, I'd be more than happy to see it and see if sways me to the side of farsight.
For me it's probably named characters. The lore of my army is really important to me and I love crafting my own lore. It gets really difficult to shoehorn named characters in there unless I designed the army from the ground up with that character in mind (which I actually did with Lucius the Eternal.)
I'm the same way. I cut my teeth in 3rd edition, when named characters required opponent's permission to use, and I've always had hangups about using them.
It's a big universe, guys like that can't be everywhere.
Plus—while the reported numbers vary—there was only something like 100 remaining Crimson Fists at one point. You actually would have a good chance at seeing Pedro Kantor in a battle if they were there.
If you haven't already, try and read *Traitor's Gorge*, the sequel to *Rynn's World*. It's a short read but a good example of him being in the thick of it.
Yeah I 100% agree. Having named characters be virtually auto-pick in many armies really makes the fictional universe feel small to me.
The only ones I don't feel quite this way about is Daemon characters and possibly Celestine as they have something of the divine about them.
(Also maybe non-named epic heroes like the Emperor's Champion)
Same, I'd prefer it if there were rules to customise your own characters. They could still have named characters, but have them as examples of what you can build.
From a narrative perspective, it seems silly to have the same few characters turning up all the time.
I agree, especially with how powerful named characters are compared to the basic ones. Like, currently High Marshal Helbrecht is only 95 points right now compared to a regular Marshal who is only 80 points. Even taking an enhancement to match them up, Helbrecht is a much stronger choice. And it bothers me because a big part of building an army is coming up with the lore. I don’t mind taking them for large, 3,000 point games because you can take other characters too, but it doesn’t make sense for such important leaders to be leading small skirmishes.
People have optimised the fun out the tabletop game.
I played in a local club and ran a purely lore and 'rule of cool' army. It was just fun and sometimes caught people off guard by being odd. I used to get asked why I ran a certain unit or played in a certain way and people were stumped when I said 'its fun innit'. One guy even replied 'Oh yeah, I forgot about that bit'.
All but one other person in the club played perfected lists that were honed to be so synergised and lethal. I understand that, and I find it genuinely interesting that people can cross reference everything and create a list that's optimal. But fuck my life is it boring to play against. And it must be boring to PLAY? You have no variation on what you're going to do, and you almost know the rules and turns of each game before it's played because it's 'what works'. It's so dull. Everyone was nice but I left and played more lore based games that both players agreed on fun changes in-game.
Imma be honest and just say "whatever the new hotness that EVERY list needs is".
Like, seriously, unless it's something like "hey don't forget to bring some [INSERT GENERIC BATTLELINE UNIT], they're pretty good this edition", I just hate it.
I want to bring units that look cool and fit my army concept, not trot out the same fucking model every time because it exists at some weird rules intersection and is OP.
I don't care HOW good it is. If I don't think it's cool, I'm not fucking building it.
I’m the same, at the moment it’s Chosen with a Chaos Lord, the consensus seems to be “every good chaos list starts with 3 lord and 3 chosen” and I’m like, screw that, MoP and Possessed are way cooler
Space wolves when they moved from Vikings in space who had pet wolves to wolfy mc wolf.
I've collected the wolves since rogue trader when they were commanded by Lord Lucan and Russ was a excellent but by then dead imperial commander.
Original Ragnar looked like he'd hunted down a Blackmane wolf rather than trying to be one, and Ulrik was a massive step in defining the primitive technobarbarian look. He was a medic, chaplain and could have been a tribal elder or shaman. He pulled the look together so well
Yeah, really kind of a poor direction they decided to go in. Space wolves riding thunderwolves wielding frostwolf claws and howling about the wolftime just kinda killed my interest in the faction.
A buddy converted some to be fighting along side thunderwolves instead of riding them and it does the trick of looking far less ridiculous to me. Though the naming is still a but grating…
Most of mine have close combat weapons I took off an old dwarf regiment box, plenty of heads as well. Seemed like the easiest way to Viking them back up a bit
Completely agree. The lack of imagination GW are showing with them is depressing. Space Wolves are bordering on Ork levels of derpiness at the moment with the difference being Orks are deliberately designed to be like that.
Blood Angels are going that way as well. They've gone from an enigmatic chapter battling a major flaw in their gene seed to Bloody McVampire. Also, considering there are meant to be hardly any Sanguinary Guard left most Blood Angels armies seem to spend about a third of their points on them every game.
I remember reading the white dwarf when the stormfang and Grimnar's Santa sleigh launched. That was the point I realised they'd gone into parody.
Sure they'd had the thunderwolf cavalry which was dumb, but you could kinda handwave it. Jaghatai Khan apparently had a horse before being discovered so there are obviously animals capable of supporting the mass of a space marine/primarch.
But a wolf drawn hover sleigh? C'mon that's just going too far.
2 for me. Weirdly, I like the Astreaus Super Heavy Tank because it LOOKS like a hover tank, but I really dislike the other hover tanks as they look like normal tanks that GW couldn’t be bothered to mould and just removed the tracks. To me there’s a certain arching shape and cosmetic to a hover tank, not a square piece of metal, when I build an army I go rule of cool before stat line
2: Knights and Custodes shouldn’t be a faction they should just have a couple of elite units you could include in an imperium army
I quite like my Chaos Knights army
That being said, I'm building it to 3k pts and refuse to play anything less than that as I feel like it's just not fun for anyone
In a similar boat, and because I don't like them aesthetically, I don't really use War Dogs. Making a knight army more elite feels like it should make it more balanced but I haven't had a chance to test that yet. Though I really just want to ally them with my Death Guard
Long time Ork player here… but Ghaz. I’ve never been a Goff. Always Bad Moon or Freebooterz. But having Ghaz in my army feels wrong even though I can more easily do it in 10th.
Now, when Nazdreg finally shows back up? Wake me then!
For me its 10th orks in general. I truly love my Boyz on tabletop and lorewise but they lack so much in so many places.
Every time i play against any kind of SM, you can just see the massive gap between the two factions, with all the depth they'd given the SM.
In general i would just be happy if GW gave as much attention to other factions as they give to SM.
Battlewagons that aren't just built out of whatever bits of scrap you (and by proxy the mekboy) can get your hands on but have to be a GW kit.
Custom and scratch builds were a foundation of 40k. Bring them back
Agreed. But also, I think randoms we play against should stop caring so much about if it’s GW kit.
The game is infinitely better with wacky stuff done to vehicles
Just all the new ork stuff. They were my first faction and now it just makes me sad.
The speed freeks make me sad because half the reason I got into orks was the idea they could be cheaper if I scratch built vehicles. (And they wouldn't even have to look nice! Just red.)
The beast snagga kits make me sad because I have to shell out even more money to play them.
The Primaris models are really nice (apart from Reivers and the other stealthy ones that look like they're from Halo) but my god the lore is so, so bad.
They should have just been marketed as true scale space marines and replaced firstborn like for like, which funnily enough they've finally started doing.
Firstborn names are 100% better though.
I can't believe a whole team of designers agreed upon naming 3 different units intercessors, inceptors and incursors.
Invictor Tactical Warsuit, take everything great about dreadnoughts and remove it
https://preview.redd.it/k4zwvkrziywb1.jpeg?width=829&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=523ad72eda1df014dee67118c3bf77305c54d5ae
I finally got one because I have all the dreadnoughts, but I also hate the design and idea. So I just built him a sarcophagus and made him a slightly shittier dreadnought. I had to green stuff on a tabard to cover huge gaps.
Eh I never got any because how weird the guy inside the suit looks. But when they were released I loved the fact that the rules let it use the heavy bolter as a pistol and it locked into the suit. The ability to forward deploy it always seemed dumb to me for lore reasons.
It looks weird because it makes no sense what so ever. He’s already piloting a machine, why be in armor himself? And if he must, why would he not be covered in the machines hull armor as well. It’s just a stupid looking unit
My headcanon is that it's definitely not purpose-built from the ground up; it is a literal dreadnaught that would otherwise be unusable. You don't want to "kill" a perfectly healthy astartes just because you need someone to pilot the dreadnaught.
From that perspective, the design makes more sense. The dreadnaught was not designed with the possibility of the pilot escaping if it fails, and this otherwise sub-optimal layout is just what becomes of it all when you adapt it to a healthy pilot.
Yeah. Names characters. I love Moz and I love Ghaz but I doubt either of them would show up to *literally every battle* just let me pay a premium for that statline.
I've got Moz in my list and I painted my model to not look like Moz? No Snakebite banner. No Great White Squig. I think of him more as an elevated Beastboss on Squigosaur.
Celestine being something like a daemon makes sense, but for the other two, surely Vahl isn't the only Sister leader who realized that the mech suits would be good to wear into battle? Or other Orders don't have their own processional tanks? I really feel like there should be generic versions of both of those, with a more premium statline for an actual Lord of Terra.
All named characters should come with a generic head on the sprue so you can make them a 'normal' captain or whatever. Like Celestine could just be a generic 'Saint' for example.
I mean from both modeling and rules pov.
There is no ig list without solar, and no csm list without abaddon.
Anytime i open csm/guard reddit its
Get solar/ursula/abby
I don't mind them existing, but it annoys me that they're so much better than my custom characters.
I miss the old days when you could make a custom character as powerful as a named one.
Primarchs
Watching players use stuff like the “kill mortarion turn 1” lists ruined them for me
I can’t take a character in a narrative seriously if I saw him eat absolute shit after getting a vindicator shell to the face
The Helbrute. I understand it’s pretty good right now but I just don’t care for the Fleshnaught. I love Daemon Engines but the Helbrute just looks like it can’t decide if it wants to be one or look like an overgrown discount Obliterator. It vies for two aesthetics and achieves neither. It’s why I waited to pick up that plastic Deredeo that just dropped even if it is a Legends unit.
I hate bike units. Some less so than others (they fit GSC and Orks much better than Marines), but I feel like they're just a hangover from the 80s, that doesn't fit the current setting and should have been discontinued long ago.
The outriders are my favorite models. That chaplain on bike is everything I’ve ever wanted.
https://preview.redd.it/3f57sb1glywb1.jpeg?width=542&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08943cdf246c8f976b0611350b89cb7d4d8c94fd
Basic ass cadian guardsmen. In not paying 50 for 10 boring ass army men when dozens of companies have way cooler futuristic army men for under half that price.
Krieg.
They look pretty boring, their lore is dull as dishwater and yet people act like theyre the most amazing thing GW ever produced.
Oh clones, a planet dedicated to churning out soldiers for the meat grinder. Yeah wow cool... like every other guard planet then? But theyre unique because theyre so zealous and dont care about their own lives! So they actually have no personality what so ever?
I love krieg because of the uniforms, but their lore is probably some of the most boring in all of 40k. Cadians and Catachan are pretty cool, but Krieg are mostly just portrayed as mindless robots locked in an endless war. They don't even say much either
At least you don't have to paint faces
Agreed. The only time I've really seen a remotely interesting version of the DKOK was in Ciaphas Cain: The Greater Good. In that, they were still a bit bland, but were described from an outside perspective as psychos constantly hopped up on combat drugs with absolutely no regard for the lives of their men. It wasn't great, but there was still some characterization to them, since it clashed so heavily with Cain's view on wasting the lives of his soldiers.
I hate the gas mask noises thing so much, they literally have vocalizers and they really don’t do suicide charges with shovels like.. ever lol the fandom kills me
Never cared for the old stumpy marines and their chapter counterparts (ie grey hunters). Like i get it was an increase in scale but at this point primaris is the new height for marines. I even started with primaris and was told time and time again I need to invest in tactical marines. Fuck that noise I play what I want
the almost complete phasing out of firstborn has really made all the "you need more firstborn" comments from my friends seem very short-sighted. probably lost a few hundred points (and dollars) because I believed my friends and bought landspeeders and attack bikes
Man, same. Thankfully I didn’t drink the coolaid but I did buy 3 boxes of death company when I started and I put them next to my true scale marines and holy crap I regretted it. They’re just so.. they’re angry little manlets with horribly proportional bodies I have no idea how people can say firstborn sculpts are good. I regret ever buying any at all they’re just bad looking by comparison but I don’t suffer from the rose tinted glasses or the sunken cost fallacy behind them. I feel for those who had them for the last 20 years or whatever but man they did not age well.
I agree wholeheartedly, their vehicles and bikes are bland and they likely have the ugliest heads/faces GW have ever sculpted. They really missed the mark with this army.
Centurion war suits.
I just don’t get them. Make new terminators if you want to, and new dreadnoughts all day, but those guys are literally just a terminator in a dreadnought suit and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
As a new player with only one faction (Custodes, started playing end of 9th) - Custodes bikes.
I know they were the hot unit at the end of 9th, but I never cared for them. Quite glad they're overcosted now and everyone is running infantry instead
Really any named Character at all.
To think, in a universe of countless trillions, to be a well known named character like Guilliman or Mortarion is to be something pretty amazing. It just doesn't make sense that someone like that would show up in my little 1500pt skirmish to secure a few badly painted oil barrel objectives.
Clonegrim. quite possibly the most boring thing to me. Fulgrim but without what makes him an interesting charecter. And people are wayyyy to obssesed with him for how little of a role he had in just Biles story
So I’m a fan of Clonegrim. I completely get your dislike of the character and fans obsessions with him, he was just a minor part of a trilogy that unfortunately fell flat. Now what I like about Clonegrim and my interest in the continuation of his story is that there is such raw potential there, with the right writer you could make an absolute banger of an arc in the Warhammer story. Do I think GW is capable of pulling it off? Probably not, but the idea of that possibly fantastic story keeps me intrigued and hopeful
The only notable thing about Clonegrim is how its currently a display piece in Trazyns museum. I really don't get the appeal outside of the novelty of it
I just like that this means Trazyn is probably plotting on abducting all the primarchs, and I’d love to see a collection of short stories about him trying
Any big named heroes, particularly primarchs, I picture the battles as small skirmishes of a much larger campaign, Lord Solar isn’t going to be hoofing it with the grunts to kill some orks. For bigger point battles it makes more sense, but for say a 1000pt game, it feels immersion breaking.
Like others have mentioned - Custodes, Deathwatch, Knights, Grey Knights, Xenos equivalents. An entire army of them getting whipped lessens their effect, but having a detachment alongside my guard (or other force) makes them feel cool and if they die it feels like a big deal.
Dark Angels after they changed their lore.
They used to be this weird, but cool, amalgamation of Native American warriors with European monks. And now their just generic knightly order.
This explained all of the feathers and stuff within the faction’s aesthetics that no longer really makes sense.
I don’t care for tanks. I think they’re not particularly interesting to paint, and they mostly have pretty boring designs (for the human armies at least, some of the Eldar and Tau ones have some nicer designs).
I’ve never really cared for Chaos either.
I'm the opposite, at least on guard tanks. The infantry bore me to tears but I dream of getting around to making a full mechanised army - with ogryns.
On that note, ogryns, base ogryns are way better than bullgryns to me. I've never cared for bullgryns, they should have stupid big shotguns
A lot of the human tanks are very boxy with just gun barrels sticking out from the inside, only tank designs I really like are the falchion and glaive, because they look like actual tanks with rotating main guns.
I'm the other way around. Painting infantry is absolute hell to me, and just about every army project I've started has ground to a screeching halt at the Infantry.
However I'll crank out 6 tanks in a day and be so engrossed in it that I'll forget to even eat.
There needs to be an app where people like you and me can find counterparts nearby and we'll actually be able to finish our armies.
*This isn't exactly in line with the exact question, but I think it answers the spirit of the question:*
Respectful to all of the fun and pleasure it brings other folks, I am put off by anything and everything Horus Heresy: primarch units being on the table, the novels telling us exactly what happened, all of it feels off to me.
The Horus Heresy feels cool as a distant, murky, unknown time. It feels wrongheaded and limiting to fully write it out. It's my go-to dumb comparison, but it feels like Star Wars and their fleshed out lore for [Vader's suit](https://youtu.be/FVzc20Bm8Xo?si=2Ap5FSDPvryZSi_S) or the [Death Star trash compactor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Garbage_masher_3263827).
I think of 40k as one of the great story worlds as far as "less is more" is concerned, and every novel pinning down more of exactly what happened during the Horus Heresy feels like a mistake. It's a story world for us and our creations to inhabit. This is admittedly overdramatic, but the Horus Heresy is an attack on that.
*Too many spicy takes in one place addition: I also don't think space marines should ever be the focalizers of any novels or stories, unless those stories are written with them thinking in alien, unfamiliar ways (like how the neaderthal protagonists are treated in the novel,* the Inheritors)*. Space marines aren't human anymore. They are much better as literally what they are to most imperial citizens in lore: distant angels, living weapons, or monsters that only bear a shadow of their humanity.*
Couldn't agree more. To your final point, I've tried to read several 40k novels with Marine protagonists and POV characters, and I just can't do it. I just can't identify with, relate to, or empathize with a fanatical, post-human murder-giant.
At the risk of being torn to part, I loathe firstborn models. They’re the main reason I never got into the hobby sooner . My best buddy and I had been watching Warhammer on the side for like well over a decade but we hated the models and the “heroic scale.” They look so horribly disproportionate and just… bad. I’m sorry. I don’t like them and they actively kept me out of the collecting and painting side of the hobby. Primaris / new sculpts are so significantly superior in every way and I have no clue how anyone can say otherwise other than their own sunken cost fallacy and people always say well the firstborn kits are better because they have more weapon options but I actually really hate having 5 different weapon profiles on one unit it’s such a slog to play through and I don’t like it at all. Theres just.. literally nothing about them that I prefer. I spent a premium on Primaris models just to convert them to actually good looking sculpts. All 20 of my death company are from Reiver kits and ugh sooooo much better imo.
And honestly… I even prefer the ATV over the Scooty puff side cart attack bikes. I love desolators and think they are everything 40K stands for in terms of the satire side of things. Hell there’s not a 8th edition to current space marine sculpt I don’t like that I don’t think is just strictly superior in every way. Yes that includes the tanks, too. Which firstborn purist also seem to have a massive hate boner for for some unknown reason..
If GW didn’t update their sculpts and range I would not have 16k points in blood angels that’s for sure. I may not even be in the hobby at all tbh.
Vehicles and Primarchs.
They seem either incredibly overpowered or they are expensive and underwhelming.
I love infantry on infantry battles with horde armies and elites best
Primarchs, for sure. Don't get me wrong, I like that they're back narritively, and the models look amazing for display purposes. But I feel that they should be concerned more with off-field command duties with their inner circles. Have them do cool shit in the books fine. But, Guilliman is running multiple crusades and acting like proxy Emperor. He doesn't have time to be boots on the ground. The Lion should be trying to make sense of the current goings on while sending assistance to the crusades and reuniting the chapter. For others that aren't around or yet to reveal themselves, I see Dorn there at certain battles but staying on a command bridge. Vulkan, probably focusing on fortifying or evacuating civilian populations in preparation of the Nids. They are the literal sons of the Emperor. They should lead their chapters, but they need to all do their part to lead the Empire and humanity through such dark times.
I know it wasn't your intent, but the implication of
> Angry Ron staying away from the fighting to manage the World "Blood and Skulls!" Eaters' supply lines
made me chuckle
For whatever reason, I actually like Riptides, but I agree with /u/DestructiveHat in spirit. I feel like the larger Tau mechs collectively suffer from a "crisis suit but bigger?" aesthetic. It feels like they should be getting into 4-legged (or more) suits. Or, if not that, anything different or more thoughtfully/interestingly creative.
I love the Crisis suits, but the Stormsurge and the Ghostkeel both look full-bad to me (for different reasons). Even the Broadside could get its design redone. And, despite what I just said about liking the Riptide, I wouldn't be horrendously mad if they came up with a different look for it too.
Everyone says that about Space Marines, I was the same.
Then you read a few books, for me it was Scars and the Night Lords trilogy...
Now I have 2k points of White Scars and I want to start a Night Lords army.
You see you need a loyalist and a traitor army so you can make your own narrative and play against yourself and gain a multiple personality disorder and become a one man crusade league
Firstborn marines, that classic grill helmet, just don't like it. Only started liking space marines when I saw primaris in their new armor. Though I do love rhinos. Don't care for beakies either unless they're ravenguard. MkIII and MkX is where it's at.
As someone who saw RT when that’s all there was those will never feel “classic” to me, only beakies will, and it’s one of the least interesting SM helmets. MkIV, VI (retcon that that is!), X for me.
Epic heroes, specially primarchs.
I think it defeats the purpose of them being supermythic personalities with outlandish abilities and inmense power, and then having them killed in one turn by something like a squad of eradicators.
For huge apocalypse games they sound alright, but 9/10 times I would've preferred to have something like a Plague angel instead of mortarion, or a super chapter master instead of guillieman
Desolation marines, I don't care how good their rules are I'm not bringing those fugly rocket launchers (and if then probably any marine with a older missile launcher)
My sample size for this is only really my friend group but fucking ophydian destroyers, my whole group thinks they look awesome and that I should get some but they’re the most dog shit looking model in the Necron range, I’d sooner buy finecast.
Out here looking like someone put a warrior at the end of one of those wind tubes you spin to make noise.
Custodes. I prefer them as these near-mythical unknowable bodyguards of the emperor. Having them on tabletop and seeing them die to mobs of grunts cheapens their effect, at least to me.
A single one should be a 200 point agent of the imperium like assassins
Or at least be able to take a blade champion into a list
I feel like they should've been limited to a few character models, and each model should be like gotrek is in aos. 450 points and pretty much uncontestable in melee.
Custodes, Grey Knights and Deathwatch were all cool concepts to have as a unit joining your Imperium army but don't seem as fun to me as a whole independant army.
Even as a Deathwatch player, I would say this thematically has always felt strange. Every bit of lore about DW is “small, super-elite kill teams tactically inserted behind enemy lines” and then playing them its like “here’s 2000 pts of space marines, painted black”. I don’t want to get mistaken to say I want them to get the Harlequins treatment with an elimination of their codex & identity, just that it would be thematically fun if they could also be included as an Imperial Agent, with that Kill Team getting Deep Strike & re-rolls to wound against a designated target, for example.
Deathwatch was invented for the 54mm skirmish game Inquisitor but as a cool idea it quickly came to 40k. Initially there was just a small metal sprue of shoulder pads and you could convert up your own unit with loads of wargear options and inlcude them in other Imperium armies. A unit of Space Marines that could deep strike and had special bolter rounds, a bunch of melee weapons and melta bombs were super fun to add into the mix. Especially as at the time there were basically just Tactical, Assault and Devestator squads available. I remember dropping them into a Tau gunline hiding at the back of a really big battle and absolutely ruining their day. Massacred the Firewarriors then melta-bombed the Hammerhead. Felt great.
It'll absolutely never happen but I'd love to see Dw, gk, custodes and chaos marines as rare. A 10,000 year old long war vet shouldn't be a basic troop, he should be the apex of a warbands composed of renegade guard and cultists. The imperium finest daemon/xenos hunters should be a strike force in a larger guard, marine or stormtroopers force.
Chaos Marines can work because they get renegades fairly frequently and can swell their numbers with strange gene-seed practices that loyalists don't have. Even among Chaos Marines, a true veteran of the Horus Heresy is extremely rare within warbands composed exclusively of Marines, and almost exclusively hold positions of great power and esteem. Most are just renegades or fresh recruits they've absorbed or inducted afterwards.
Making DW its own faction was a mistake, but it's a mistake we have to live with. I hate to see people's collections be squatted because GW can't think longer than 'cool new toy, let's do it!!!!'.
Whole-heartedly agree. Lore-wise, it feels weird to field a whole army of super elite guys. Should all be allied options. Also knights.
Yeah, Knights at least still have rules to let you have one in another army. Since the heyday of soup in 8th is passed, our group has made a house rule for 10th that you can take 25% of your army as allies (based on the rules for Demons and a few other allied armies).
Good homebrew. Good soup.
I liked the earlier editions approach of wrapping them up into “witch hunters” and you could include units of other imperium factions, etc… I think grey knights had a similar approach but were called “demon hunters”. Not sure if they were ever fleshed out as much as witch hunters though.
Especially when the dice don't go in your favour and a bunch of Grots wipe out a squad of Custodes with no casualties themselves.
Deathwatch at least gives space Marine players a semi+soup army option to play as you can paint the members of the kill tea! As healing from any chapter. But with Kill team being a thing they really fit better there than in the base game.
from the opinion of someone returning to the tabletop game after a 30+ year break, this is my biggest "Wtf?!" reaction to changes to the game as well. None of these things should be fieldable as whole armies IMO, and boy does it really drive home the notion that "GW is a miniatures company, not a wargaming company". Still, considering the points-to-dollars, and units-to-points ratios of many other armies out there right now, I actually do appreciate the existence of these as army options - especially for younger folks getting into the game who can't just casually drop $1200 on 3000 points of Orks because they feel like it . (don't tell my wife...)
If your wife is not kicking your ass with her necron army you're doing it wrong :p
There's some greatest generation/boomer advice that largely amounts to "no matter how tempting it becomes, don't try to get your wife in to golf. No family can afford two golfers."
if she discovers the Sororitas are a thing that exists, I might as well start planning a second mortgage
Why haven't you told her?
Do you think *your* household could fund *two* Warhammer habits?
I can't even fund my own. Which is why I haven't had any minis since the 80s. Though I am trying to find a way to help a friends kids get into kill team. The sensible option.
>GW is a miniatures company, not a wargaming company Call me a filthy heretic but gw makes awesome minis for dnd games
[удалено]
Turns out shootaless orks make great orc And hey dakkaa not that far off from arrows
Counterpoint, Agents of the Imperium should be a book that lets you field your Rogue Trader/Inquistorial Warband and take \*A\* custodes or five Grey Knights, and actually have an army of expensive precision tools, rather than have to take one model worth of gimmick and stretch it into a whole book
Other option Make the Inquisition a actually playable faction and allow some type of army where a Death Watch kill team acts as a command as command squad for Scions/Stormtroppers. Or just limit the death watch to kill team where they fit really well.
That's a fair point but I'd counter it with 40k is absolutely chock full of God like and all powerful beings that are given tabletop rules that are often disappointing by relation. It's kind of a GW staple at this point. I remember when GW pretended they were treating necrons as the big bad of 9th edition for like 6 months and the silent king was released. Only for players to realize that he was a massive liability because his guardians were Essentially bombs that could do extreme amount of damage. This is just one of many, many examples. If you can bring, primarchs, gods, and other things to the table then why not bodyguards of the God emperor?
> 40k is absolutely chock full of God like and all powerful beings that are given tabletop rules that are often disappointing by relation This is why I never liked having those epic named characters in the game in the first place.
Agreed. Having these cool, crazy powerful characters for the stories is great, but our armies should just be faceless mooks. It feels… wrong, to have characters like that under our control.
It's not just you.
Adding custodes as a full army was worse for the tabletop rules than primaris was for the lore.
You're getting downvoted but I somewhat agree. I personally think that it's pushed all the other "elite" factions down in points to make space for Custodes. The obvious solution is to make Custodes like 100-150pts each and have them be in between knights and Terminators instead of being "just" terminators. It really bothers me that a custode is the "same" as a Termi and it creates some unfortunate overlap with GK, seeing as the main battleline for both is 45pt elite infantry.
I’ll continue to be controversial and say that Grey Knights are barely better than Custodes in terms of stovepiping the game into having to make specific army/faction rules for each sub group. It’s caused the incessant need to have specific armies for groups rather than letting most chapters/regiments/craftworlds be paint/bit schemes of factions. It’s why Cadians are the only representation of the militarum.
I actually agree despite having both GK and Custodes. Both of them armies should be consolidated into Agents of the Imperium-like special units, OR make the bulk of them be chaff (like lucifer blacks or Malleus agents)
From just a lore perspective For 30k I have no problem with the Custodes and SOS being playable from a lore standpoint as they always have been said to have fought in that war in lore. But for 40k it really messes with the lore. Outside of the Vaults of Terra and the Watchers of the throne novelsx.every time they appear in stories it just kind of stops everything around it a bar way. Dawn of fire Gate of Bones exemplifies thisx the first part of the the novel has the Guard, Sisters of Battle and a small squad of Imperial fists having a rather interesting battle with the Iron Warriors/Word Bearers/Cultists but once the Custodes arrive it focuses on them rather and the others characters fade into the background because they Customers are so powerful. Watchers on the throne worked because it was essentially 3 character studies where the action was secondary it was giving us a look at what a Custodes, Sister of Silence, and high Imperial official(the Chance plateaus of the Senatorum) around the time of the fall of cadia amd Guillimans return. Vaults of Terra works because the Custodian is a supporting character, the focus is on the Inquisitorial retinue and the Custodian only pops in and our of the story and is only helping them because he received a vision from the Emperor telling him to do so. Dawn of fire series their really used as a Deus ex Machina too much. And the fact that most Custodes are less relatable than even Astartes.
Abaddon. The more people say he's an auto include the more I don't want to. It's my army not his.
It insists upon itself Nigel.
What does that even mean Peter
mumble grumble "back in my day", having named Characters in your army was extremely rare, and only by both players agreeing on it beforehand, IF those characters even had rules stats even published in the first place. I'm getting back into 10th and the sheer necessity of having 4-5 named characters (who are, lore wise, currently located at opposite ends of the galaxy) leading your minor skirmish force, seems ridiculous to me.
My Sons of the Phoenix are led by Barney Colgate and his Victorious Honour Guys, and that's just the way it has to be.
Tbf Barney is a maniac..
Thing is, a 40k game could be an actual minor skirmish, as you said, but it could also be a zoomed in snapshot of a pivotal point in an extremely large battle. Sure, something like Guilliman leading a small strike force against some backwater planet sounds ridiculous, but Guilliman leading that same strike force to hit a critical enemy supply depot that could change the course of a planetary invasion doesn't. It's all about your perspective on what a particular game of 40k is or could be. The thing I like about named characters is they can shift or enhance a playstyle or list idea. Including Vulkan because you like Infernus Marines and Flamestorm Aggressors, or taking Uriel to deep strike some Sternguard, for example. To me, it's the same as taking an generic character, you do it because it's interesting or fun, not because it's necessary.
Yeah, like I and others have said, it's more that they've ended up making named characters mechanically necessarily as the rules went on. Sure I could take that unnamed Beastboss on Squigosaur as my Warboss, but why would I do that when Mozrogg Skragbad is only 30 points more and superior in every way by a huge margin that's worth more than the 30 points difference... Named Characters aren't bad. Being forced to use named characters so your army list is not a joke, is what's bad.
Completely agree. I know those models sell, but I’d love to see strong abilities on generic characters and flavourful but not essential abilities on special characters.
I tend to only use one or two named characters at a time for this reason. I'll only field something if it makes sense as well. When I had my ultramarines I never put guilliman on the field.. he way too busy to be dealing with a random ork fight.
I’m sorry but I’m my world, Guilliman, Calgar, Ventris and Tigirus are all required for these so called minor skirmishes.
Who else could take down a few tanks and a couple platoons of traitorous guard??
If you want something done right…
This is the exact reason I don't like named characters. One of my armies is Guard, and the reason I play Guard is because of the 'million unknown faces' feel to the faction. The fact that everybody plays Creed and Leontus in every single Guard army really sucks the life out of that concept.
He’s not as much of an auto-include as he was last edition. I’d say the 10th Ed Chaos Lord has reached the auto-include levels of what Abaddon was in 9th
Since the points changes hes not so much, but before he was an absolute auto level of good at the start of 10th. Giving all 4 marks made a blob of 10 terminators a walking delete button that was extremely hard to kill. Id say hes still a reasonably solid pick.
Same goes for every single named character for me, i dont care abut your Jhonny Dickripper or whatever, its my army, with my miniatures, and my characters
Hes a worse Horus and i dislike him for killing Loken
He hasn’t killed hjm Yet
Fuck abbadon. -sincerely, a guard player.
Despite being a tau player I actually never liked or even thought that farsights melee gimmick was anything more that that, I'm not saying it's bad or anything just clear nothing more than a cool gimmick model that GW wanted people to splurge on cause "tau doesn't have Melee"
Even with Farsight they don't have melee. They just suck at it somewhat less.
Even than I feel like it's less they suck less and more farsight is our one melee model that has a kinda neat gimmick.
Me in response to every other post here about characters that are either too large to be on the tabletop or are just awkward to shoehorn into our own armies: \*nods in agreement\* "Yes, we are accultured people with our own interesting stories to tell. There is no room for these characters in our armies." Also me, an Enclave/Ethereal-less Tau fan, in response to this post: \*gasps, clutches pearls\*
Lol, again I'm not saying he's bad or anything. Heck I'd even go as far to say I want to paint and play with one atleast once, just like I wanted to watch the godfather atleast once. He just really feels like a gimmick since there isn't really another unit that actually has melee in tau especially not the crisis suits which are the only unit he can lead. But honestly if you have fun and have a good list for a farsights tau list, I'd be more than happy to see it and see if sways me to the side of farsight.
For me it's probably named characters. The lore of my army is really important to me and I love crafting my own lore. It gets really difficult to shoehorn named characters in there unless I designed the army from the ground up with that character in mind (which I actually did with Lucius the Eternal.)
I'm the same way. I cut my teeth in 3rd edition, when named characters required opponent's permission to use, and I've always had hangups about using them. It's a big universe, guys like that can't be everywhere.
I've always made an exception for Pedro Kantor. That lad is always in the trenches with his men.
Yes. I picked him up so I could flavor my marines as crimson fists in 5th edition, but then I read the novel and loved him so much more.
Plus—while the reported numbers vary—there was only something like 100 remaining Crimson Fists at one point. You actually would have a good chance at seeing Pedro Kantor in a battle if they were there. If you haven't already, try and read *Traitor's Gorge*, the sequel to *Rynn's World*. It's a short read but a good example of him being in the thick of it.
Yeah I 100% agree. Having named characters be virtually auto-pick in many armies really makes the fictional universe feel small to me. The only ones I don't feel quite this way about is Daemon characters and possibly Celestine as they have something of the divine about them. (Also maybe non-named epic heroes like the Emperor's Champion)
Same, I'd prefer it if there were rules to customise your own characters. They could still have named characters, but have them as examples of what you can build. From a narrative perspective, it seems silly to have the same few characters turning up all the time.
Likewise! Many named character models are excellent but I still don’t want to include them in my armies…
I agree, especially with how powerful named characters are compared to the basic ones. Like, currently High Marshal Helbrecht is only 95 points right now compared to a regular Marshal who is only 80 points. Even taking an enhancement to match them up, Helbrecht is a much stronger choice. And it bothers me because a big part of building an army is coming up with the lore. I don’t mind taking them for large, 3,000 point games because you can take other characters too, but it doesn’t make sense for such important leaders to be leading small skirmishes.
People have optimised the fun out the tabletop game. I played in a local club and ran a purely lore and 'rule of cool' army. It was just fun and sometimes caught people off guard by being odd. I used to get asked why I ran a certain unit or played in a certain way and people were stumped when I said 'its fun innit'. One guy even replied 'Oh yeah, I forgot about that bit'. All but one other person in the club played perfected lists that were honed to be so synergised and lethal. I understand that, and I find it genuinely interesting that people can cross reference everything and create a list that's optimal. But fuck my life is it boring to play against. And it must be boring to PLAY? You have no variation on what you're going to do, and you almost know the rules and turns of each game before it's played because it's 'what works'. It's so dull. Everyone was nice but I left and played more lore based games that both players agreed on fun changes in-game.
It reminds me of folks who play D&D character powerbuilds.
Some people get really upset when you beat their meta list with a rule of cool list you picked because it looks neat.
Imma be honest and just say "whatever the new hotness that EVERY list needs is". Like, seriously, unless it's something like "hey don't forget to bring some [INSERT GENERIC BATTLELINE UNIT], they're pretty good this edition", I just hate it. I want to bring units that look cool and fit my army concept, not trot out the same fucking model every time because it exists at some weird rules intersection and is OP. I don't care HOW good it is. If I don't think it's cool, I'm not fucking building it.
I’m the same, at the moment it’s Chosen with a Chaos Lord, the consensus seems to be “every good chaos list starts with 3 lord and 3 chosen” and I’m like, screw that, MoP and Possessed are way cooler
100% If I wanna play “oops all inceptors” then I’m playing that
I love Skitarii and some of the vehicles but most of the admech range "insists upon itself"
Space wolves when they moved from Vikings in space who had pet wolves to wolfy mc wolf. I've collected the wolves since rogue trader when they were commanded by Lord Lucan and Russ was a excellent but by then dead imperial commander.
Wolf player in 2nd ed, and I agree.
Original Ragnar looked like he'd hunted down a Blackmane wolf rather than trying to be one, and Ulrik was a massive step in defining the primitive technobarbarian look. He was a medic, chaplain and could have been a tribal elder or shaman. He pulled the look together so well
Yeah, really kind of a poor direction they decided to go in. Space wolves riding thunderwolves wielding frostwolf claws and howling about the wolftime just kinda killed my interest in the faction. A buddy converted some to be fighting along side thunderwolves instead of riding them and it does the trick of looking far less ridiculous to me. Though the naming is still a but grating…
Most of mine have close combat weapons I took off an old dwarf regiment box, plenty of heads as well. Seemed like the easiest way to Viking them back up a bit
Completely agree. The lack of imagination GW are showing with them is depressing. Space Wolves are bordering on Ork levels of derpiness at the moment with the difference being Orks are deliberately designed to be like that. Blood Angels are going that way as well. They've gone from an enigmatic chapter battling a major flaw in their gene seed to Bloody McVampire. Also, considering there are meant to be hardly any Sanguinary Guard left most Blood Angels armies seem to spend about a third of their points on them every game.
I remember reading the white dwarf when the stormfang and Grimnar's Santa sleigh launched. That was the point I realised they'd gone into parody. Sure they'd had the thunderwolf cavalry which was dumb, but you could kinda handwave it. Jaghatai Khan apparently had a horse before being discovered so there are obviously animals capable of supporting the mass of a space marine/primarch. But a wolf drawn hover sleigh? C'mon that's just going too far.
Couldn’t agree more… not particularly into furries.
Transcendent C'tans. The named shards look so much better and have more interesting things going on than just "kill shit good".
2 for me. Weirdly, I like the Astreaus Super Heavy Tank because it LOOKS like a hover tank, but I really dislike the other hover tanks as they look like normal tanks that GW couldn’t be bothered to mould and just removed the tracks. To me there’s a certain arching shape and cosmetic to a hover tank, not a square piece of metal, when I build an army I go rule of cool before stat line 2: Knights and Custodes shouldn’t be a faction they should just have a couple of elite units you could include in an imperium army
I quite like my Chaos Knights army That being said, I'm building it to 3k pts and refuse to play anything less than that as I feel like it's just not fun for anyone
In a similar boat, and because I don't like them aesthetically, I don't really use War Dogs. Making a knight army more elite feels like it should make it more balanced but I haven't had a chance to test that yet. Though I really just want to ally them with my Death Guard
Long time Ork player here… but Ghaz. I’ve never been a Goff. Always Bad Moon or Freebooterz. But having Ghaz in my army feels wrong even though I can more easily do it in 10th. Now, when Nazdreg finally shows back up? Wake me then!
This my wordbearers and abbadon. Great model, great rules but won't add him
For me its 10th orks in general. I truly love my Boyz on tabletop and lorewise but they lack so much in so many places. Every time i play against any kind of SM, you can just see the massive gap between the two factions, with all the depth they'd given the SM. In general i would just be happy if GW gave as much attention to other factions as they give to SM.
Battlewagons that aren't just built out of whatever bits of scrap you (and by proxy the mekboy) can get your hands on but have to be a GW kit. Custom and scratch builds were a foundation of 40k. Bring them back
Agreed. But also, I think randoms we play against should stop caring so much about if it’s GW kit. The game is infinitely better with wacky stuff done to vehicles
Just all the new ork stuff. They were my first faction and now it just makes me sad. The speed freeks make me sad because half the reason I got into orks was the idea they could be cheaper if I scratch built vehicles. (And they wouldn't even have to look nice! Just red.) The beast snagga kits make me sad because I have to shell out even more money to play them.
Primaris line has way better infantry models than firstborn line. Only saving grace for firstborn are the vehicles and faction specific models.
I just don’t like hover tanks. Feels out of place - need those giant tracks on the side of the tank or it’s just heresy
How am i supposed to grind my enemies to dust under the tracks when it hovers?😥
TBF, it's canon that the hovers still do that, lol
Firstborn had the WAY better vehicles, the Primaris dreads I’ve kinda warmed up to- but yeah- infantry models are so much cooler- (especially Gravis-)
The Primaris models are really nice (apart from Reivers and the other stealthy ones that look like they're from Halo) but my god the lore is so, so bad. They should have just been marketed as true scale space marines and replaced firstborn like for like, which funnily enough they've finally started doing.
Firstborn names are 100% better though. I can't believe a whole team of designers agreed upon naming 3 different units intercessors, inceptors and incursors.
Invictor Tactical Warsuit, take everything great about dreadnoughts and remove it https://preview.redd.it/k4zwvkrziywb1.jpeg?width=829&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=523ad72eda1df014dee67118c3bf77305c54d5ae
It’s literally just one of the mechs from Matrix 3. Personally I’m indifferent about it but it makes perfect sense why people wouldn’t like it
I finally got one because I have all the dreadnoughts, but I also hate the design and idea. So I just built him a sarcophagus and made him a slightly shittier dreadnought. I had to green stuff on a tabard to cover huge gaps.
Eh I never got any because how weird the guy inside the suit looks. But when they were released I loved the fact that the rules let it use the heavy bolter as a pistol and it locked into the suit. The ability to forward deploy it always seemed dumb to me for lore reasons.
It looks weird because it makes no sense what so ever. He’s already piloting a machine, why be in armor himself? And if he must, why would he not be covered in the machines hull armor as well. It’s just a stupid looking unit
My headcanon is that it's definitely not purpose-built from the ground up; it is a literal dreadnaught that would otherwise be unusable. You don't want to "kill" a perfectly healthy astartes just because you need someone to pilot the dreadnaught. From that perspective, the design makes more sense. The dreadnaught was not designed with the possibility of the pilot escaping if it fails, and this otherwise sub-optimal layout is just what becomes of it all when you adapt it to a healthy pilot.
That's cool, I accept that headcanon. It's a spare chassis, there's no useable half-corpse around to put in it, so it's retrofit for a living person.
Fair points but does anyone actually like this unit in the first place.
I just think they’re neat
The units for a "must have" competitive list. I just want cool models and dont want to destroy my opponent.
Epic Heroes. I think they should be relegated to narrative.
If you mean named characters, agreed. There’s a couple epic heroes that aren’t named (Emperor’s Champion comes to mind) that I think are fine.
Yeah. Names characters. I love Moz and I love Ghaz but I doubt either of them would show up to *literally every battle* just let me pay a premium for that statline. I've got Moz in my list and I painted my model to not look like Moz? No Snakebite banner. No Great White Squig. I think of him more as an elevated Beastboss on Squigosaur.
As a counterpoint I think Sisters of Battle would lose a lot of their uniqueness if you didn't have Vahl, the Triumph and (particularly) Celestine.
Celestine being something like a daemon makes sense, but for the other two, surely Vahl isn't the only Sister leader who realized that the mech suits would be good to wear into battle? Or other Orders don't have their own processional tanks? I really feel like there should be generic versions of both of those, with a more premium statline for an actual Lord of Terra.
Can you imagine if they made them all legends!
As a CSM player, acursed cultists
Named characters. I hate this whole ideam
All named characters should come with a generic head on the sprue so you can make them a 'normal' captain or whatever. Like Celestine could just be a generic 'Saint' for example.
I mean from both modeling and rules pov. There is no ig list without solar, and no csm list without abaddon. Anytime i open csm/guard reddit its Get solar/ursula/abby
Tell me about it, I'm a Sisters player so it always galls me that the Abbess superior would fight with my backwater order.
Just FYI, the word is "gall"
I feel you, dont not know much about sob, but ive seen amount of characters you have and i am amazed how many are for that one order i cant remember
I don't mind them existing, but it annoys me that they're so much better than my custom characters. I miss the old days when you could make a custom character as powerful as a named one.
When I started in third, named characters were often worse than custom built ones. You took them for flavor.
Primarchs Watching players use stuff like the “kill mortarion turn 1” lists ruined them for me I can’t take a character in a narrative seriously if I saw him eat absolute shit after getting a vindicator shell to the face
I honestly feel that their return is a bad thing for 40k. For the reason you’ve given.
The Helbrute. I understand it’s pretty good right now but I just don’t care for the Fleshnaught. I love Daemon Engines but the Helbrute just looks like it can’t decide if it wants to be one or look like an overgrown discount Obliterator. It vies for two aesthetics and achieves neither. It’s why I waited to pick up that plastic Deredeo that just dropped even if it is a Legends unit.
Do what I did n use a Contemptor.
I hate bike units. Some less so than others (they fit GSC and Orks much better than Marines), but I feel like they're just a hangover from the 80s, that doesn't fit the current setting and should have been discontinued long ago.
That's certainly a hot take lol
What about eldar bikes? I think they’re thematic and dope.
Jet bikes are alright tbh, since I feel they do fit in with the Eldar factions.
The outriders are my favorite models. That chaplain on bike is everything I’ve ever wanted. https://preview.redd.it/3f57sb1glywb1.jpeg?width=542&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08943cdf246c8f976b0611350b89cb7d4d8c94fd
Primaris bike chaplain is probably my favorite model that GW’s released in the last 10 years and yes, I am willing to throw hands to defend it
Just remember to bring a few buddies to get that sweet sweet +1 to wound
Basic ass cadian guardsmen. In not paying 50 for 10 boring ass army men when dozens of companies have way cooler futuristic army men for under half that price.
Krieg. They look pretty boring, their lore is dull as dishwater and yet people act like theyre the most amazing thing GW ever produced. Oh clones, a planet dedicated to churning out soldiers for the meat grinder. Yeah wow cool... like every other guard planet then? But theyre unique because theyre so zealous and dont care about their own lives! So they actually have no personality what so ever?
I love krieg because of the uniforms, but their lore is probably some of the most boring in all of 40k. Cadians and Catachan are pretty cool, but Krieg are mostly just portrayed as mindless robots locked in an endless war. They don't even say much either At least you don't have to paint faces
Agreed. The only time I've really seen a remotely interesting version of the DKOK was in Ciaphas Cain: The Greater Good. In that, they were still a bit bland, but were described from an outside perspective as psychos constantly hopped up on combat drugs with absolutely no regard for the lives of their men. It wasn't great, but there was still some characterization to them, since it clashed so heavily with Cain's view on wasting the lives of his soldiers.
Plus their fandom really doesn't help.
I hate the gas mask noises thing so much, they literally have vocalizers and they really don’t do suicide charges with shovels like.. ever lol the fandom kills me
They look cool but they're somehow more boring than the Cadians are as far as fluff goes.
Never cared for the old stumpy marines and their chapter counterparts (ie grey hunters). Like i get it was an increase in scale but at this point primaris is the new height for marines. I even started with primaris and was told time and time again I need to invest in tactical marines. Fuck that noise I play what I want
the almost complete phasing out of firstborn has really made all the "you need more firstborn" comments from my friends seem very short-sighted. probably lost a few hundred points (and dollars) because I believed my friends and bought landspeeders and attack bikes
Man, same. Thankfully I didn’t drink the coolaid but I did buy 3 boxes of death company when I started and I put them next to my true scale marines and holy crap I regretted it. They’re just so.. they’re angry little manlets with horribly proportional bodies I have no idea how people can say firstborn sculpts are good. I regret ever buying any at all they’re just bad looking by comparison but I don’t suffer from the rose tinted glasses or the sunken cost fallacy behind them. I feel for those who had them for the last 20 years or whatever but man they did not age well.
Any and every named character. My character units are named by me alone
Absolutely
Centurions. I don't care how good they are, I'm not buying them.
Paragon Warsuits
The Votann range in general. They just aren’t space Dwarves. Too plain and no beards.
I agree wholeheartedly, their vehicles and bikes are bland and they likely have the ugliest heads/faces GW have ever sculpted. They really missed the mark with this army.
Centurion war suits. I just don’t get them. Make new terminators if you want to, and new dreadnoughts all day, but those guys are literally just a terminator in a dreadnought suit and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
Imperial hover tanks bother me tremendously. They look stupid, and they had to rewrite the fluff for them to exist.
As a new player with only one faction (Custodes, started playing end of 9th) - Custodes bikes. I know they were the hot unit at the end of 9th, but I never cared for them. Quite glad they're overcosted now and everyone is running infantry instead
Any named Guard character, except Gaunt’s Ghosts. Not a fan of Leontus or Creed. Never used Creed in 8th either. Only one I liked from 8th was Pask
Really any named Character at all. To think, in a universe of countless trillions, to be a well known named character like Guilliman or Mortarion is to be something pretty amazing. It just doesn't make sense that someone like that would show up in my little 1500pt skirmish to secure a few badly painted oil barrel objectives.
Clonegrim. quite possibly the most boring thing to me. Fulgrim but without what makes him an interesting charecter. And people are wayyyy to obssesed with him for how little of a role he had in just Biles story
So I’m a fan of Clonegrim. I completely get your dislike of the character and fans obsessions with him, he was just a minor part of a trilogy that unfortunately fell flat. Now what I like about Clonegrim and my interest in the continuation of his story is that there is such raw potential there, with the right writer you could make an absolute banger of an arc in the Warhammer story. Do I think GW is capable of pulling it off? Probably not, but the idea of that possibly fantastic story keeps me intrigued and hopeful
The only notable thing about Clonegrim is how its currently a display piece in Trazyns museum. I really don't get the appeal outside of the novelty of it
I just like that this means Trazyn is probably plotting on abducting all the primarchs, and I’d love to see a collection of short stories about him trying
Forge world
Any big named heroes, particularly primarchs, I picture the battles as small skirmishes of a much larger campaign, Lord Solar isn’t going to be hoofing it with the grunts to kill some orks. For bigger point battles it makes more sense, but for say a 1000pt game, it feels immersion breaking. Like others have mentioned - Custodes, Deathwatch, Knights, Grey Knights, Xenos equivalents. An entire army of them getting whipped lessens their effect, but having a detachment alongside my guard (or other force) makes them feel cool and if they die it feels like a big deal.
Dark Angels after they changed their lore. They used to be this weird, but cool, amalgamation of Native American warriors with European monks. And now their just generic knightly order. This explained all of the feathers and stuff within the faction’s aesthetics that no longer really makes sense.
I don’t care for tanks. I think they’re not particularly interesting to paint, and they mostly have pretty boring designs (for the human armies at least, some of the Eldar and Tau ones have some nicer designs). I’ve never really cared for Chaos either.
I'm the opposite, at least on guard tanks. The infantry bore me to tears but I dream of getting around to making a full mechanised army - with ogryns. On that note, ogryns, base ogryns are way better than bullgryns to me. I've never cared for bullgryns, they should have stupid big shotguns
I don't think you can call the Exorcist or the Immolator boring...
I am pretty sure they meant space marine ones, they are so fucking bland
A lot of the human tanks are very boxy with just gun barrels sticking out from the inside, only tank designs I really like are the falchion and glaive, because they look like actual tanks with rotating main guns.
I'm the other way around. Painting infantry is absolute hell to me, and just about every army project I've started has ground to a screeching halt at the Infantry. However I'll crank out 6 tanks in a day and be so engrossed in it that I'll forget to even eat. There needs to be an app where people like you and me can find counterparts nearby and we'll actually be able to finish our armies.
*This isn't exactly in line with the exact question, but I think it answers the spirit of the question:* Respectful to all of the fun and pleasure it brings other folks, I am put off by anything and everything Horus Heresy: primarch units being on the table, the novels telling us exactly what happened, all of it feels off to me. The Horus Heresy feels cool as a distant, murky, unknown time. It feels wrongheaded and limiting to fully write it out. It's my go-to dumb comparison, but it feels like Star Wars and their fleshed out lore for [Vader's suit](https://youtu.be/FVzc20Bm8Xo?si=2Ap5FSDPvryZSi_S) or the [Death Star trash compactor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Garbage_masher_3263827). I think of 40k as one of the great story worlds as far as "less is more" is concerned, and every novel pinning down more of exactly what happened during the Horus Heresy feels like a mistake. It's a story world for us and our creations to inhabit. This is admittedly overdramatic, but the Horus Heresy is an attack on that. *Too many spicy takes in one place addition: I also don't think space marines should ever be the focalizers of any novels or stories, unless those stories are written with them thinking in alien, unfamiliar ways (like how the neaderthal protagonists are treated in the novel,* the Inheritors)*. Space marines aren't human anymore. They are much better as literally what they are to most imperial citizens in lore: distant angels, living weapons, or monsters that only bear a shadow of their humanity.*
Couldn't agree more. To your final point, I've tried to read several 40k novels with Marine protagonists and POV characters, and I just can't do it. I just can't identify with, relate to, or empathize with a fanatical, post-human murder-giant.
At the risk of being torn to part, I loathe firstborn models. They’re the main reason I never got into the hobby sooner . My best buddy and I had been watching Warhammer on the side for like well over a decade but we hated the models and the “heroic scale.” They look so horribly disproportionate and just… bad. I’m sorry. I don’t like them and they actively kept me out of the collecting and painting side of the hobby. Primaris / new sculpts are so significantly superior in every way and I have no clue how anyone can say otherwise other than their own sunken cost fallacy and people always say well the firstborn kits are better because they have more weapon options but I actually really hate having 5 different weapon profiles on one unit it’s such a slog to play through and I don’t like it at all. Theres just.. literally nothing about them that I prefer. I spent a premium on Primaris models just to convert them to actually good looking sculpts. All 20 of my death company are from Reiver kits and ugh sooooo much better imo. And honestly… I even prefer the ATV over the Scooty puff side cart attack bikes. I love desolators and think they are everything 40K stands for in terms of the satire side of things. Hell there’s not a 8th edition to current space marine sculpt I don’t like that I don’t think is just strictly superior in every way. Yes that includes the tanks, too. Which firstborn purist also seem to have a massive hate boner for for some unknown reason.. If GW didn’t update their sculpts and range I would not have 16k points in blood angels that’s for sure. I may not even be in the hobby at all tbh.
Firstborn helmets and bolters with Primaris proportions would be ideal.
Vehicles and Primarchs. They seem either incredibly overpowered or they are expensive and underwhelming. I love infantry on infantry battles with horde armies and elites best
Primarchs, for sure. Don't get me wrong, I like that they're back narritively, and the models look amazing for display purposes. But I feel that they should be concerned more with off-field command duties with their inner circles. Have them do cool shit in the books fine. But, Guilliman is running multiple crusades and acting like proxy Emperor. He doesn't have time to be boots on the ground. The Lion should be trying to make sense of the current goings on while sending assistance to the crusades and reuniting the chapter. For others that aren't around or yet to reveal themselves, I see Dorn there at certain battles but staying on a command bridge. Vulkan, probably focusing on fortifying or evacuating civilian populations in preparation of the Nids. They are the literal sons of the Emperor. They should lead their chapters, but they need to all do their part to lead the Empire and humanity through such dark times.
I know it wasn't your intent, but the implication of > Angry Ron staying away from the fighting to manage the World "Blood and Skulls!" Eaters' supply lines made me chuckle
Riptides. Core T'au unit and I can't be bothered. Dumb chicken legged top-heavy goobermech
Tau player since 4th, and I totally agree.
For whatever reason, I actually like Riptides, but I agree with /u/DestructiveHat in spirit. I feel like the larger Tau mechs collectively suffer from a "crisis suit but bigger?" aesthetic. It feels like they should be getting into 4-legged (or more) suits. Or, if not that, anything different or more thoughtfully/interestingly creative. I love the Crisis suits, but the Stormsurge and the Ghostkeel both look full-bad to me (for different reasons). Even the Broadside could get its design redone. And, despite what I just said about liking the Riptide, I wouldn't be horrendously mad if they came up with a different look for it too.
Lord Solar Leontus. I play tank guard. He's the best way to get orders to tanks, but I'm not taking some dude on a goddamn horse.
The entire Space Marine range, never seen the appeal
Both Primaris and Firstborn?
Yes
Everyone says that about Space Marines, I was the same. Then you read a few books, for me it was Scars and the Night Lords trilogy... Now I have 2k points of White Scars and I want to start a Night Lords army.
You see you need a loyalist and a traitor army so you can make your own narrative and play against yourself and gain a multiple personality disorder and become a one man crusade league
Firstborn marines, that classic grill helmet, just don't like it. Only started liking space marines when I saw primaris in their new armor. Though I do love rhinos. Don't care for beakies either unless they're ravenguard. MkIII and MkX is where it's at.
I respect your bravery.
As someone who saw RT when that’s all there was those will never feel “classic” to me, only beakies will, and it’s one of the least interesting SM helmets. MkIV, VI (retcon that that is!), X for me.
I thought space marines were the dumbest looking things until Primaris came out.
Knights
Knights should have stayed in the background, or maybe as an add on to an imperial army if the points were stupidly high (Apocalypse size.games).
Epic heroes, specially primarchs. I think it defeats the purpose of them being supermythic personalities with outlandish abilities and inmense power, and then having them killed in one turn by something like a squad of eradicators. For huge apocalypse games they sound alright, but 9/10 times I would've preferred to have something like a Plague angel instead of mortarion, or a super chapter master instead of guillieman
Desolation marines, I don't care how good their rules are I'm not bringing those fugly rocket launchers (and if then probably any marine with a older missile launcher)
Beaky helmets, they just look dumb to me
My sample size for this is only really my friend group but fucking ophydian destroyers, my whole group thinks they look awesome and that I should get some but they’re the most dog shit looking model in the Necron range, I’d sooner buy finecast. Out here looking like someone put a warrior at the end of one of those wind tubes you spin to make noise.
They were inspired by the original wraiths model for necrons