The Warhammer 40.000/Fantasy Discussion Thread Mk.III

[Vassenor]

Also yeah I was kind of hyped for the not-High Elves at one point. Not any more.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Only thing i dont like is the helmets on the hammer infantry, other than that i like everything ive seen about them so far.

[The Armed Republic of Dutch Coolness]

Don't exactly need to use every unit that's available to an army, either, in the end.

[Jetan]

New Lumineth models for AoS:

(Image)

(Image)

(Image)

The only thing i dont like are the helmets on the infantry, i think they are a tad awkward. I think they would look a lot better if the horns were down on the main body of the helmet instead.

My reaction can be summed up with this:

[Chan Island]

But the rest of them look silly too. The big mountain-carrying cows things look like what happens when a Craftworld eldar decides to make a wraithknight after looping cyriak for 10 hours.

..............................................................

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about what a 40k grand strategy game could look like and I think I've got it.

First of all; giant map in the total war sense. Each province is a planet. I'm talking like 100 provinces. Fighting and getting them takes 2 stages of army- the fleet which transports the armies, and the land forces, which actually capture planets. Each planet has a stat for how corrupted it is, like in that warhammer fantasy game, and the higher chaos, tau or ork corruption it has, the more likely it will rebel. And if it's got low corruption, it might well try to flip to join the Imperium or go independent if they're not happy with the Emperor.

Over half of the planets (around 60 in my mind) are either directly a part of or affiliated with the Imperium of Man - and playing as the Imperium itself should really convey the fact that you are struggling to maintain an overly large, but very underdeveloped and under-garrisoned faction that is being attacked on all sides. The win condition would be to hold onto at least 6 out of 10 listed 'hive worlds' that each represent giant, well fortified but in universe attacked planets. Not sure about all of them, but feel that they should be: Agrellan, Armageddon, Vigilus, Cadia, Badab, Necromunda, Baal, Damnos, Krieg and Catachan. Possibly Vraks could be here as well.

Now the thing is- you WILL lose at least one of those planets. As the imperium at large you're up against too many all at once. But if you pick and choose where to defend, and who to utterly crush in a glorious crusade of extermination, then victory is assured. Just gotta find a way to wake up Bobby G, get an STC or figure out the Necron pylons.

Except if you somehow lose Terra, the strongest planet in the game. Because honestly if you're the Imperium and you lose Holy Terra that obviously has to be an instant game over.

But don't worry, the Imperium is not alone! It will have overlordship over Ultramar, who I'm thinking as basically a tutorial/easy mode good guy faction. Lots of space marines, relatively protected, well developed, just gotta expand a bit here and there and help out the Imperium at large when you've got your shit together.
And also the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclisiarchy. Now they don't work like normal factions- their planets are scattered almost randomly across the map- but their main goal is to influence the Imperium to go down their like 'questlines', with each step rewarding the empire in different ways. I feel that each should represent a winning end state for humanity- for the mechanicus, you end with an STC, lots of pylons pushing back chaos, and technowizardry machines of war to stomp out everyone else (like titans!). Meanwhile the ecclesiarchy gets you lots of burny things, no constant chaos/rebel uprisings all over the place and finally get Bobby G or even Big E himself to take the wheel.

Speaking of chaos- they in my mind get 3 playable factions. One is the Blood Pact, basically for anybody who wants to just play "Evil Ultramar". Standard troops, nothing too fancy, can conventionally capture and hold territory. The win state being to capture and hold 20 planets from the Imperium.
Then there's the more spicy ones. Basically Abaddon starts in the Eye of Terror and has to first unite the region under his rule. Now the thing about warp rifts is that the Imperium and Xenos can't go there at all, but each planet there has a high chance of just randomly rebelling because warp nonsense. Oh, and somehow find a way to capture for at least 1 full turn each of the Imperium planets that surround it (to destroy their necron pylons) and then capture Cadia. Once that Herculean task is done, you get the Cicatrix Malledictum open up and then have to take out Vigilus to completely cut the Imperium in 2. After that....
Finally there's Huron Blackheart. Basically it's the same deal as with Abaddon but the main target is to capture Badab after uniting the Maelstrom. Oh, and if Abby does make that Cicatrix open up [read- if you're playing as Huron, he'll be hardcoded to win that quest line eventually], then you better make yourself the lord of Vigilus and the warp rifts too!

Last of all there's the xenos. Tucked in the southeast are the Tau Empire and the minuscule Farsight Enclaves. They have to compete over who is the real Greater Good by quests such as defending Pech from the orks, developing the Riptide first- oh and also race to capture Agrellan from the Imperium.
Then there's various ork empires, who are the only xenos to not care about warp rifts, who are just here to say waaaagh and have some good scraps. Ghazghul though will want his prophesy fulfilled though, so winning would have to include capturing Armageddon. Otherwise though it would be all about gathering waagh energy through getting into lots of scraps very quickly- win or lose.
Necrons would have a 2 empires. One is the Maynarkh dynasty, which needs to wake everybody up, capture Damnos and summon the Silent King so that he can rule the galaxy once again.
Meanwhile Trollzyn is all about building more pylons, maybe even wiping out the warp rifts, and collecting things for his museum as he goes. Because maybe the real 40k was the friends we made along the way. And then kidnapped and froze in a museum. My thought on that was that Trollzyn has to win a battle against every single other faction in the game at least once, so he can pick up some of their prized possessions.

Meanwhile Tyranids just show up with a giant armada right next to Tyrann and get income from eating everyone. Goal is to wipe out at least 50% of the galaxy. Made easier if you can get the mutation to eat warp stuff so you can add a side order of demons and chaos nonsense to your buffet. And with genestealers you could get a planet to surrender everything it has when you show up so no resources wasted on fighting them.

Nobody cares about the eldar. If they're there at all, they'd be minor factions. Other minors would be a bunch of made-up chaos lords in the warp rifts, Vraks, Precipice and a couple of other small human but not imperium territories, a bunch of small ork empires, a couple of minor necron dynasties and the Kroot. Oh, and the squats can be invited to that party too, because why not.

Thoughts?

[Jetan]

But the rest of them look silly too. The big mountain-carrying cows things look like what happens when a Craftworld eldar decides to make a wraithknight after looping cyriak for 10 hours.

..............................................................

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about what a 40k grand strategy game could look like and I think I've got it.

First of all; giant map in the total war sense. Each province is a planet. I'm talking like 100 provinces. Fighting and getting them takes 2 stages of army- the fleet which transports the armies, and the land forces, which actually capture planets. Each planet has a stat for how corrupted it is, like in that warhammer fantasy game, and the higher chaos, tau or ork corruption it has, the more likely it will rebel. And if it's got low corruption, it might well try to flip to join the Imperium or go independent if they're not happy with the Emperor.

Over half of the planets (around 60 in my mind) are either directly a part of or affiliated with the Imperium of Man - and playing as the Imperium itself should really convey the fact that you are struggling to maintain an overly large, but very underdeveloped and under-garrisoned faction that is being attacked on all sides. The win condition would be to hold onto at least 6 out of 10 listed 'hive worlds' that each represent giant, well fortified but in universe attacked planets. Not sure about all of them, but feel that they should be: Agrellan, Armageddon, Vigilus, Cadia, Badab, Necromunda, Baal, Damnos, Krieg and Catachan. Possibly Vraks could be here as well.

Now the thing is- you WILL lose at least one of those planets. As the imperium at large you're up against too many all at once. But if you pick and choose where to defend, and who to utterly crush in a glorious crusade of extermination, then victory is assured. Just gotta find a way to wake up Bobby G, get an STC or figure out the Necron pylons.

Except if you somehow lose Terra, the strongest planet in the game. Because honestly if you're the Imperium and you lose Holy Terra that obviously has to be an instant game over.

But don't worry, the Imperium is not alone! It will have overlordship over Ultramar, who I'm thinking as basically a tutorial/easy mode good guy faction. Lots of space marines, relatively protected, well developed, just gotta expand a bit here and there and help out the Imperium at large when you've got your shit together.
And also the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclisiarchy. Now they don't work like normal factions- their planets are scattered almost randomly across the map- but their main goal is to influence the Imperium to go down their like 'questlines', with each step rewarding the empire in different ways. I feel that each should represent a winning end state for humanity- for the mechanicus, you end with an STC, lots of pylons pushing back chaos, and technowizardry machines of war to stomp out everyone else (like titans!). Meanwhile the ecclesiarchy gets you lots of burny things, no constant chaos/rebel uprisings all over the place and finally get Bobby G or even Big E himself to take the wheel.

Speaking of chaos- they in my mind get 3 playable factions. One is the Blood Pact, basically for anybody who wants to just play "Evil Ultramar". Standard troops, nothing too fancy, can conventionally capture and hold territory. The win state being to capture and hold 20 planets from the Imperium.
Then there's the more spicy ones. Basically Abaddon starts in the Eye of Terror and has to first unite the region under his rule. Now the thing about warp rifts is that the Imperium and Xenos can't go there at all, but each planet there has a high chance of just randomly rebelling because warp nonsense. Oh, and somehow find a way to capture for at least 1 full turn each of the Imperium planets that surround it (to destroy their necron pylons) and then capture Cadia. Once that Herculean task is done, you get the Cicatrix Malledictum open up and then have to take out Vigilus to completely cut the Imperium in 2. After that....
Finally there's Huron Blackheart. Basically it's the same deal as with Abaddon but the main target is to capture Badab after uniting the Maelstrom. Oh, and if Abby does make that Cicatrix open up [read- if you're playing as Huron, he'll be hardcoded to win that quest line eventually], then you better make yourself the lord of Vigilus and the warp rifts too!

Last of all there's the xenos. Tucked in the southeast are the Tau Empire and the minuscule Farsight Enclaves. They have to compete over who is the real Greater Good by quests such as defending Pech from the orks, developing the Riptide first- oh and also race to capture Agrellan from the Imperium.
Then there's various ork empires, who are the only xenos to not care about warp rifts, who are just here to say waaaagh and have some good scraps. Ghazghul though will want his prophesy fulfilled though, so winning would have to include capturing Armageddon. Otherwise though it would be all about gathering waagh energy through getting into lots of scraps very quickly- win or lose.
Necrons would have a 2 empires. One is the Maynarkh dynasty, which needs to wake everybody up, capture Damnos and summon the Silent King so that he can rule the galaxy once again.
Meanwhile Trollzyn is all about building more pylons, maybe even wiping out the warp rifts, and collecting things for his museum as he goes. Because maybe the real 40k was the friends we made along the way. And then kidnapped and froze in a museum. My thought on that was that Trollzyn has to win a battle against every single other faction in the game at least once, so he can pick up some of their prized possessions.

Meanwhile Tyranids just show up with a giant armada right next to Tyrann and get income from eating everyone. Goal is to wipe out at least 50% of the galaxy. Made easier if you can get the mutation to eat warp stuff so you can add a side order of demons and chaos nonsense to your buffet. And with genestealers you could get a planet to surrender everything it has when you show up so no resources wasted on fighting them.

Nobody cares about the eldar. If they're there at all, they'd be minor factions. Other minors would be a bunch of made-up chaos lords in the warp rifts, Vraks, Precipice and a couple of other small human but not imperium territories, a bunch of small ork empires, a couple of minor necron dynasties and the Kroot. Oh, and the squats can be invited to that party too, because why not.

Thoughts?

While interesting enough, that doesn't really sound like a grand strategy game to me.

[Crookfur]

But the rest of them look silly too. The big mountain-carrying cows things look like what happens when a Craftworld eldar decides to make a wraithknight after looping cyriak for 10 hours.

..............................................................

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about what a 40k grand strategy game could look like and I think I've got it.

First of all; giant map in the total war sense. Each province is a planet. I'm talking like 100 provinces. Fighting and getting them takes 2 stages of army- the fleet which transports the armies, and the land forces, which actually capture planets. Each planet has a stat for how corrupted it is, like in that warhammer fantasy game, and the higher chaos, tau or ork corruption it has, the more likely it will rebel. And if it's got low corruption, it might well try to flip to join the Imperium or go independent if they're not happy with the Emperor.

Over half of the planets (around 60 in my mind) are either directly a part of or affiliated with the Imperium of Man - and playing as the Imperium itself should really convey the fact that you are struggling to maintain an overly large, but very underdeveloped and under-garrisoned faction that is being attacked on all sides. The win condition would be to hold onto at least 6 out of 10 listed 'hive worlds' that each represent giant, well fortified but in universe attacked planets. Not sure about all of them, but feel that they should be: Agrellan, Armageddon, Vigilus, Cadia, Badab, Necromunda, Baal, Damnos, Krieg and Catachan. Possibly Vraks could be here as well.

Now the thing is- you WILL lose at least one of those planets. As the imperium at large you're up against too many all at once. But if you pick and choose where to defend, and who to utterly crush in a glorious crusade of extermination, then victory is assured. Just gotta find a way to wake up Bobby G, get an STC or figure out the Necron pylons.

Except if you somehow lose Terra, the strongest planet in the game. Because honestly if you're the Imperium and you lose Holy Terra that obviously has to be an instant game over.

But don't worry, the Imperium is not alone! It will have overlordship over Ultramar, who I'm thinking as basically a tutorial/easy mode good guy faction. Lots of space marines, relatively protected, well developed, just gotta expand a bit here and there and help out the Imperium at large when you've got your shit together.
And also the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclisiarchy. Now they don't work like normal factions- their planets are scattered almost randomly across the map- but their main goal is to influence the Imperium to go down their like 'questlines', with each step rewarding the empire in different ways. I feel that each should represent a winning end state for humanity- for the mechanicus, you end with an STC, lots of pylons pushing back chaos, and technowizardry machines of war to stomp out everyone else (like titans!). Meanwhile the ecclesiarchy gets you lots of burny things, no constant chaos/rebel uprisings all over the place and finally get Bobby G or even Big E himself to take the wheel.

Speaking of chaos- they in my mind get 3 playable factions. One is the Blood Pact, basically for anybody who wants to just play "Evil Ultramar". Standard troops, nothing too fancy, can conventionally capture and hold territory. The win state being to capture and hold 20 planets from the Imperium.
Then there's the more spicy ones. Basically Abaddon starts in the Eye of Terror and has to first unite the region under his rule. Now the thing about warp rifts is that the Imperium and Xenos can't go there at all, but each planet there has a high chance of just randomly rebelling because warp nonsense. Oh, and somehow find a way to capture for at least 1 full turn each of the Imperium planets that surround it (to destroy their necron pylons) and then capture Cadia. Once that Herculean task is done, you get the Cicatrix Malledictum open up and then have to take out Vigilus to completely cut the Imperium in 2. After that....
Finally there's Huron Blackheart. Basically it's the same deal as with Abaddon but the main target is to capture Badab after uniting the Maelstrom. Oh, and if Abby does make that Cicatrix open up [read- if you're playing as Huron, he'll be hardcoded to win that quest line eventually], then you better make yourself the lord of Vigilus and the warp rifts too!

Last of all there's the xenos. Tucked in the southeast are the Tau Empire and the minuscule Farsight Enclaves. They have to compete over who is the real Greater Good by quests such as defending Pech from the orks, developing the Riptide first- oh and also race to capture Agrellan from the Imperium.
Then there's various ork empires, who are the only xenos to not care about warp rifts, who are just here to say waaaagh and have some good scraps. Ghazghul though will want his prophesy fulfilled though, so winning would have to include capturing Armageddon. Otherwise though it would be all about gathering waagh energy through getting into lots of scraps very quickly- win or lose.
Necrons would have a 2 empires. One is the Maynarkh dynasty, which needs to wake everybody up, capture Damnos and summon the Silent King so that he can rule the galaxy once again.
Meanwhile Trollzyn is all about building more pylons, maybe even wiping out the warp rifts, and collecting things for his museum as he goes. Because maybe the real 40k was the friends we made along the way. And then kidnapped and froze in a museum. My thought on that was that Trollzyn has to win a battle against every single other faction in the game at least once, so he can pick up some of their prized possessions.

Meanwhile Tyranids just show up with a giant armada right next to Tyrann and get income from eating everyone. Goal is to wipe out at least 50% of the galaxy. Made easier if you can get the mutation to eat warp stuff so you can add a side order of demons and chaos nonsense to your buffet. And with genestealers you could get a planet to surrender everything it has when you show up so no resources wasted on fighting them.

Nobody cares about the eldar. If they're there at all, they'd be minor factions. Other minors would be a bunch of made-up chaos lords in the warp rifts, Vraks, Precipice and a couple of other small human but not imperium territories, a bunch of small ork empires, a couple of minor necron dynasties and the Kroot. Oh, and the squats can be invited to that party too, because why not.

Thoughts?

You may not care about the eldar but it's quite clear that far more folk care about them than the tau. They are also a key story element and it would appear will continue despite the fact that thier own story development has been forced to pause. An eldar quest line would probably focus on playing defensively around the craft worlds whilst launching raids. Some as the dark eldar to keep a stream of souls available and some as the craftworlds/hareliquins to meet randomly generated sub quests. Ultimate quest line is of course to complete the whole Ynarri thing and get rid of slaanesh.

[Tethys 13]

I recently purchased the Palatine Subjugator kit for Necromunda, and it is horrible. Let us look at the different pieces to assemble one model -
1. Front torso
2. Back torso
3. Neck
4. Back armour
5. Left leg
6. Right leg
7. Front of helmet
8. Rear of helmet
9. Left arm
10. Right upper arm
11. Right forearm
12. Shield
13. Maul or gun (some of which come in multiple parts)

And the assembly instructions add in another few details like pouches and grenades. It might be worse than the plastic Grave Guard, which were not quite as horrible to assemble but came in larger units.

My apologies if I sound petty, it just seemed a bit much.

[New Visayan Islands]

(Image)

Oh my

Two sucker punches were thrown that day. Only one Primarch walked away.

[The Biggles Syndicate]

What chapter is that? Sons of Horus?

Dark Angels. Its Lion El Johnson, their primarch. He finally got a Horus Heresy mini

The Dark Angels colour scheme in 30k is Black and Red as opposed to the Dark Green in 40k

If you mean the marines he is killing those are the night lords.

Is there an option for his face to be shown, like alternate heads for the model like with Abbadon?

[Jetan]

Dark Angels. Its Lion El Johnson, their primarch. He finally got a Horus Heresy mini

The Dark Angels colour scheme in 30k is Black and Red as opposed to the Dark Green in 40k

If you mean the marines he is killing those are the night lords.

Is there an option for his face to be shown, like alternate heads for the model like with Abbadon?

Indeed there is. The helmeted head is much better though, IMO.

[Germanic Templars]

Holy crap, forgot that this existed... So yeah, wanna say right off the bat that, Salamanders are my #2 Space Marine legion with Imperial Fists being my #1. However, I more prefer the Mechanicus overall. That said, I recently finished painting some Mechanicus Skitarii, or rather as I call them, Crumpcanicus Swagtarii due to how ornate they are dressed in silver, gold, and purple with rifles made with wood.

I just like painting the models and reading the lore.

[Chan Island]

But the rest of them look silly too. The big mountain-carrying cows things look like what happens when a Craftworld eldar decides to make a wraithknight after looping cyriak for 10 hours.

..............................................................

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about what a 40k grand strategy game could look like and I think I've got it.

First of all; giant map in the total war sense. Each province is a planet. I'm talking like 100 provinces. Fighting and getting them takes 2 stages of army- the fleet which transports the armies, and the land forces, which actually capture planets. Each planet has a stat for how corrupted it is, like in that warhammer fantasy game, and the higher chaos, tau or ork corruption it has, the more likely it will rebel. And if it's got low corruption, it might well try to flip to join the Imperium or go independent if they're not happy with the Emperor.

Over half of the planets (around 60 in my mind) are either directly a part of or affiliated with the Imperium of Man - and playing as the Imperium itself should really convey the fact that you are struggling to maintain an overly large, but very underdeveloped and under-garrisoned faction that is being attacked on all sides. The win condition would be to hold onto at least 6 out of 10 listed 'hive worlds' that each represent giant, well fortified but in universe attacked planets. Not sure about all of them, but feel that they should be: Agrellan, Armageddon, Vigilus, Cadia, Badab, Necromunda, Baal, Damnos, Krieg and Catachan. Possibly Vraks could be here as well.

Now the thing is- you WILL lose at least one of those planets. As the imperium at large you're up against too many all at once. But if you pick and choose where to defend, and who to utterly crush in a glorious crusade of extermination, then victory is assured. Just gotta find a way to wake up Bobby G, get an STC or figure out the Necron pylons.

Except if you somehow lose Terra, the strongest planet in the game. Because honestly if you're the Imperium and you lose Holy Terra that obviously has to be an instant game over.

But don't worry, the Imperium is not alone! It will have overlordship over Ultramar, who I'm thinking as basically a tutorial/easy mode good guy faction. Lots of space marines, relatively protected, well developed, just gotta expand a bit here and there and help out the Imperium at large when you've got your shit together.
And also the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclisiarchy. Now they don't work like normal factions- their planets are scattered almost randomly across the map- but their main goal is to influence the Imperium to go down their like 'questlines', with each step rewarding the empire in different ways. I feel that each should represent a winning end state for humanity- for the mechanicus, you end with an STC, lots of pylons pushing back chaos, and technowizardry machines of war to stomp out everyone else (like titans!). Meanwhile the ecclesiarchy gets you lots of burny things, no constant chaos/rebel uprisings all over the place and finally get Bobby G or even Big E himself to take the wheel.

Speaking of chaos- they in my mind get 3 playable factions. One is the Blood Pact, basically for anybody who wants to just play "Evil Ultramar". Standard troops, nothing too fancy, can conventionally capture and hold territory. The win state being to capture and hold 20 planets from the Imperium.
Then there's the more spicy ones. Basically Abaddon starts in the Eye of Terror and has to first unite the region under his rule. Now the thing about warp rifts is that the Imperium and Xenos can't go there at all, but each planet there has a high chance of just randomly rebelling because warp nonsense. Oh, and somehow find a way to capture for at least 1 full turn each of the Imperium planets that surround it (to destroy their necron pylons) and then capture Cadia. Once that Herculean task is done, you get the Cicatrix Malledictum open up and then have to take out Vigilus to completely cut the Imperium in 2. After that....
Finally there's Huron Blackheart. Basically it's the same deal as with Abaddon but the main target is to capture Badab after uniting the Maelstrom. Oh, and if Abby does make that Cicatrix open up [read- if you're playing as Huron, he'll be hardcoded to win that quest line eventually], then you better make yourself the lord of Vigilus and the warp rifts too!

Last of all there's the xenos. Tucked in the southeast are the Tau Empire and the minuscule Farsight Enclaves. They have to compete over who is the real Greater Good by quests such as defending Pech from the orks, developing the Riptide first- oh and also race to capture Agrellan from the Imperium.
Then there's various ork empires, who are the only xenos to not care about warp rifts, who are just here to say waaaagh and have some good scraps. Ghazghul though will want his prophesy fulfilled though, so winning would have to include capturing Armageddon. Otherwise though it would be all about gathering waagh energy through getting into lots of scraps very quickly- win or lose.
Necrons would have a 2 empires. One is the Maynarkh dynasty, which needs to wake everybody up, capture Damnos and summon the Silent King so that he can rule the galaxy once again.
Meanwhile Trollzyn is all about building more pylons, maybe even wiping out the warp rifts, and collecting things for his museum as he goes. Because maybe the real 40k was the friends we made along the way. And then kidnapped and froze in a museum. My thought on that was that Trollzyn has to win a battle against every single other faction in the game at least once, so he can pick up some of their prized possessions.

Meanwhile Tyranids just show up with a giant armada right next to Tyrann and get income from eating everyone. Goal is to wipe out at least 50% of the galaxy. Made easier if you can get the mutation to eat warp stuff so you can add a side order of demons and chaos nonsense to your buffet. And with genestealers you could get a planet to surrender everything it has when you show up so no resources wasted on fighting them.

Nobody cares about the eldar. If they're there at all, they'd be minor factions. Other minors would be a bunch of made-up chaos lords in the warp rifts, Vraks, Precipice and a couple of other small human but not imperium territories, a bunch of small ork empires, a couple of minor necron dynasties and the Kroot. Oh, and the squats can be invited to that party too, because why not.

Thoughts?

While interesting enough, that doesn't really sound like a grand strategy game to me.

It doesn't sound grand strategy to you?

Do you consider the Warhammer Total War games as grand strategy? Because that was the sort of 'baseline' I had in my mind for this convoluted thought.

But the rest of them look silly too. The big mountain-carrying cows things look like what happens when a Craftworld eldar decides to make a wraithknight after looping cyriak for 10 hours.

..............................................................

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about what a 40k grand strategy game could look like and I think I've got it.

First of all; giant map in the total war sense. Each province is a planet. I'm talking like 100 provinces. Fighting and getting them takes 2 stages of army- the fleet which transports the armies, and the land forces, which actually capture planets. Each planet has a stat for how corrupted it is, like in that warhammer fantasy game, and the higher chaos, tau or ork corruption it has, the more likely it will rebel. And if it's got low corruption, it might well try to flip to join the Imperium or go independent if they're not happy with the Emperor.

Over half of the planets (around 60 in my mind) are either directly a part of or affiliated with the Imperium of Man - and playing as the Imperium itself should really convey the fact that you are struggling to maintain an overly large, but very underdeveloped and under-garrisoned faction that is being attacked on all sides. The win condition would be to hold onto at least 6 out of 10 listed 'hive worlds' that each represent giant, well fortified but in universe attacked planets. Not sure about all of them, but feel that they should be: Agrellan, Armageddon, Vigilus, Cadia, Badab, Necromunda, Baal, Damnos, Krieg and Catachan. Possibly Vraks could be here as well.

Now the thing is- you WILL lose at least one of those planets. As the imperium at large you're up against too many all at once. But if you pick and choose where to defend, and who to utterly crush in a glorious crusade of extermination, then victory is assured. Just gotta find a way to wake up Bobby G, get an STC or figure out the Necron pylons.

Except if you somehow lose Terra, the strongest planet in the game. Because honestly if you're the Imperium and you lose Holy Terra that obviously has to be an instant game over.

But don't worry, the Imperium is not alone! It will have overlordship over Ultramar, who I'm thinking as basically a tutorial/easy mode good guy faction. Lots of space marines, relatively protected, well developed, just gotta expand a bit here and there and help out the Imperium at large when you've got your shit together.
And also the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclisiarchy. Now they don't work like normal factions- their planets are scattered almost randomly across the map- but their main goal is to influence the Imperium to go down their like 'questlines', with each step rewarding the empire in different ways. I feel that each should represent a winning end state for humanity- for the mechanicus, you end with an STC, lots of pylons pushing back chaos, and technowizardry machines of war to stomp out everyone else (like titans!). Meanwhile the ecclesiarchy gets you lots of burny things, no constant chaos/rebel uprisings all over the place and finally get Bobby G or even Big E himself to take the wheel.

Speaking of chaos- they in my mind get 3 playable factions. One is the Blood Pact, basically for anybody who wants to just play "Evil Ultramar". Standard troops, nothing too fancy, can conventionally capture and hold territory. The win state being to capture and hold 20 planets from the Imperium.
Then there's the more spicy ones. Basically Abaddon starts in the Eye of Terror and has to first unite the region under his rule. Now the thing about warp rifts is that the Imperium and Xenos can't go there at all, but each planet there has a high chance of just randomly rebelling because warp nonsense. Oh, and somehow find a way to capture for at least 1 full turn each of the Imperium planets that surround it (to destroy their necron pylons) and then capture Cadia. Once that Herculean task is done, you get the Cicatrix Malledictum open up and then have to take out Vigilus to completely cut the Imperium in 2. After that....
Finally there's Huron Blackheart. Basically it's the same deal as with Abaddon but the main target is to capture Badab after uniting the Maelstrom. Oh, and if Abby does make that Cicatrix open up [read- if you're playing as Huron, he'll be hardcoded to win that quest line eventually], then you better make yourself the lord of Vigilus and the warp rifts too!

Last of all there's the xenos. Tucked in the southeast are the Tau Empire and the minuscule Farsight Enclaves. They have to compete over who is the real Greater Good by quests such as defending Pech from the orks, developing the Riptide first- oh and also race to capture Agrellan from the Imperium.
Then there's various ork empires, who are the only xenos to not care about warp rifts, who are just here to say waaaagh and have some good scraps. Ghazghul though will want his prophesy fulfilled though, so winning would have to include capturing Armageddon. Otherwise though it would be all about gathering waagh energy through getting into lots of scraps very quickly- win or lose.
Necrons would have a 2 empires. One is the Maynarkh dynasty, which needs to wake everybody up, capture Damnos and summon the Silent King so that he can rule the galaxy once again.
Meanwhile Trollzyn is all about building more pylons, maybe even wiping out the warp rifts, and collecting things for his museum as he goes. Because maybe the real 40k was the friends we made along the way. And then kidnapped and froze in a museum. My thought on that was that Trollzyn has to win a battle against every single other faction in the game at least once, so he can pick up some of their prized possessions.

Meanwhile Tyranids just show up with a giant armada right next to Tyrann and get income from eating everyone. Goal is to wipe out at least 50% of the galaxy. Made easier if you can get the mutation to eat warp stuff so you can add a side order of demons and chaos nonsense to your buffet. And with genestealers you could get a planet to surrender everything it has when you show up so no resources wasted on fighting them.

Nobody cares about the eldar. If they're there at all, they'd be minor factions. Other minors would be a bunch of made-up chaos lords in the warp rifts, Vraks, Precipice and a couple of other small human but not imperium territories, a bunch of small ork empires, a couple of minor necron dynasties and the Kroot. Oh, and the squats can be invited to that party too, because why not.

Thoughts?

You may not care about the eldar but it's quite clear that far more folk care about them than the tau. They are also a key story element and it would appear will continue despite the fact that thier own story development has been forced to pause. An eldar quest line would probably focus on playing defensively around the craft worlds whilst launching raids. Some as the dark eldar to keep a stream of souls available and some as the craftworlds/hareliquins to meet randomly generated sub quests. Ultimate quest line is of course to complete the whole Ynarri thing and get rid of slaanesh.

You're right. Truth be told I only remembered the Eldar while writing it, so just threw that in and with hindsight that was very much not the right approach. Should have just spent a bit more time seriously considering it as I had with the other factions.

So with the Eldar I've thought of splitting them into 3 groups: the craftworlds, the dark eldar and the Exodites.

The exodites would be your more standard total war conventional game play experience, in a similar way to how the Blood Pact or the Imperium work. They would clearly have to be a very defensive, slowly expanding type faction that would have to play a challenging diplomatic game to try and get the craftworlds and the drukari to ally with them and assist with the heavy lifting. But with, like all eldar, very very powerful units. And dinosaurs, because we know that's canon. ^^

The Craftworld eldar meanwhile would be a mobile faction similar to how the tyranids work, mostly only capable of raiding and when they do conquer a planet they hand them over to the exodites. However, that's just a secondary focus to 2 main things: the first is to maintain the discipline of the craftworld life, not falling into murderous bloodlust yet also not becoming decadent with boredom.

The other end goal here would be to walk the true path, unite the other factions of the galaxy against chaos and thus beat back she who thirsts.
This would be achieved by awaking the Ynarri, getting the eldar to play along and then ultimately waking up the eldar god of the dead.

Meanwhile the dark eldar is the most funny in my mind.

Basically you only have one province, but Comorragh is this completely unconquerable, gigantic province that is far in excess of even Holy Terra. Only chaos, the Imperium, orks and other eldar can attack the dark city (unless there is a story out there of necrons, tyranids or tau having a go at it), and even then their attacks only count as a raid for game play purposes.

The dark eldar broadly have the same goal of awaking the eldar god of the dead and breaking she who thirsts, but their hand is a to play a very different game. On the one hand, Asdrubel Vect would have to constantly be fighting to maintain control of Commorragh, with a lot of petty politics behind the scenes. On the other hand, his forces would have to be constantly raiding for souls to torture (something that will get gradually harder to do over time if the necrons, tyranids or chaos starts to seriously get the upper hand so make sure to just beat them up from time to time purely to weaken them). Oh, and find the forces to still do those quests to get the Ynarri thing done. Have fun!

Thoughts?

[Jetan]

While interesting enough, that doesn't really sound like a grand strategy game to me.

It doesn't sound grand strategy to you?

Do you consider the Warhammer Total War games as grand strategy? Because that was the sort of 'baseline' I had in my mind for this convoluted thought.

Well, no. Not at all actually. Its a mix between rts and turn based strategy like all the other Total War games. Eu, Stellaris, Ck, etc. are Grand Strategy games.

[Ameriganastan]

Next episode of Astartes is out.

[Jetan]

Next episode of Astartes is out.

And it is glorious. I was tempted to start a Brain Power in the stream but I couldn't because I was too focused on the episode itself.

[Baltenstein]

In a chain of events that surprises absolutely noone, the Inquisition screws up, because of course it does.

[The Huskar Social Union]

It was really cool, i hope he goes on to make more projects, which he seems to be doing based on the little teaser at the end. His work is incredibly high quality.

[The Huskar Social Union]

All my valhallans are assembled now, and most of them are undercoated in black.

Was thinking of doing the following colour scheme:

Greatcoats/Fatigues: Zandri Dust (Base) Agrax Earthshade (Shade) Zandri Dust/White (Drybrush) < Cant decide on this one, im leaning more towards white but yet to pick a specific one

Helmets/Caps: Castellan Green (Base) Agrax Earthshade (Shade) Castellan Green (Optional Layer, i like dark greens)

Trousers/Bed Rolls: Steel Legion Drab (Base. Possibly an Army Painter Brown instead) Agrax Earthshade (Shade)

Lasguns/Metal: Same Brown above for lasgun body (Base) Leadbelcher (Base for most metal) Nuln Oil (Shade)

Flesh: Bugmans Glow (Base) Agrax Earthshade (Shade) Cadian Fleshtone (Layer/Highlight)

Dont know what im doing for the base yet, probably something wintery lol. Also im not gona do a ton of highlighting because i dont trust my hands.

Oh and the fur will probably be a grey of some kind with agrax as a shade.

[Hurdergaryp]

Next episode of Astartes is out.

And it is glorious. I was tempted to start a Brain Power in the stream but I couldn't because I was too focused on the episode itself.

I like how Astartes pretty much goes straight back to the early days of WH40K with the Giger-esque elements. Hell, I would even go so far as to say that Astartes has certain arthouse qualities, given how there is an almost complete lack of spoken words and a very strict aesthetic. Good animation, too.

[Northern Davincia]

Holy crap, forgot that this existed... So yeah, wanna say right off the bat that, Salamanders are my #2 Space Marine legion with Imperial Fists being my #1. However, I more prefer the Mechanicus overall. That said, I recently finished painting some Mechanicus Skitarii, or rather as I call them, Crumpcanicus Swagtarii due to how ornate they are dressed in silver, gold, and purple with rifles made with wood.

I just like painting the models and reading the lore.

I am heartbroken that Salamanders aren't #1 for you.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Holy crap, forgot that this existed... So yeah, wanna say right off the bat that, Salamanders are my #2 Space Marine legion with Imperial Fists being my #1. However, I more prefer the Mechanicus overall. That said, I recently finished painting some Mechanicus Skitarii, or rather as I call them, Crumpcanicus Swagtarii due to how ornate they are dressed in silver, gold, and purple with rifles made with wood.

I just like painting the models and reading the lore.

I am heartbroken that Salamanders aren't #1 for you.

Could be worse. You could be me and have your favorite Legion be the WORLD EATERS

[Northern Davincia]

I am heartbroken that Salamanders aren't #1 for you.

Could be worse. You could be me and have your favorite Legion be the WORLD EATERS

Who would win? Loyal, walking hug machines or 1 angry boi

[Ameriganastan]

I am heartbroken that Salamanders aren't #1 for you.

Could be worse. You could be me and have your favorite Legion be the WORLD EATERS

So long as it's not the Ultrasmurfs or Word Bearers, it's fine.

[Tethys 13]

Could be worse. You could be me and have your favorite Legion be the WORLD EATERS

So long as it's not the Ultrasmurfs or Word Bearers, it's fine.

This is how I would rank my legion preference currently:
1. V White Scars
2. IV Iron Warriors
3. VII Imperial Fists
4. XIII Ultramarines
5. XVIII Salamanders
6. XIV Death Guard
7. XIX Raven Guard
8. IX Blood Angels
9. VI Space Wolves
10. XVII Word Bearers
11. X Iron Hands
12. VIII Night Lords
13. XX Alpha Legion
14. I Dark Angels
15. XV Thousand Sons
16. XII World Eaters
17. XVI Sons of Horus
18. II and XI Missing legions
20. III Emperor's Children

I will point out that while I think the Horus Heresy Space Wolves are amazing, the Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves are a joke taken too far.