Warhammer 40k: Primaris Space Barbies

[souran]

I am a 35 year old man who has not actually been able to play a game of 40k in almost a decade. I know that the lore associated with the game is basically the result of sticking Dune and Judge Dread in a blender set to "add Nazi imagery and sell for cash." The game took 20 years and 5 editions to figure out they were basically simulating the tactics of the first world war and another 3 editions before they actually made dynamic fire and movement a part of the game. They are a wargames company that knows less than nothing about any military, modern or historical. I find myself torn between wishing they could hire away a single flames of war designer who could go through and make all their force structures not be devised by people with serve brain damage and the worry that if they ever get a flames of war designer on staff they will go from a company that accidentally puts nazi ss runes on models to one that straight up makes swastika transfer sheets for space marine shoulder pads. Yet I am apparently so stupid and damaged that I still care about this game.

That rant having been stated; lets talk about the newest additions to the iconic space barbie line: The Primaris Marines. These marines are super marines. This idea may seem asinine to you because marines were already defined as super soldiers and that would be because the idea of Primaris marines is in fact asinine. If we discover in 5 years after GW has fired all their design staff, let them leak company secrets all over the internet, and then rehired them because that is what GW does that they were getting ready to squat the entire existing Marine Line and move to only Primaris and then backed off at the last second because they feared a player revolt I wouldn't even be mildly startled. This is a compnay that at times outright hates its own players and has at times had ownership that wished they could kick all the poors out of their shops.

The Primaris exist in lore becuase after GW did a soft reboot of the marine line they couldn't very well have 2 sizes of marine models without an explanation so they came up with something that nobody wanted and makes almost no sense. Basically the chief mad-scientist of the imperium perfected the recipe for space marines and has been waiting for somebody with enough authority to let him unleash them on the universe to tell him he could. Space Julius Caesar/Space King Arthur finally woke up and gave him that authority. Why didn't he activate them before the imperium got torn in half, or before maccragge almost fell, or before cadia exploded, or before earth almost got overrun by demons? Because the lore is garbage that's why.

Anyway, lets talk about them in the game. Primaris marines have the typical level of combat proficiency, strength and toughness associated with marine models (3+s to hit/3-4+ to wound/3+ armor save). They typically have an extra wound and an extra attack. With the new codex they have enough special rules that they approach the efficiency of guardsmen on a point-per-point basis.


The biggest change is the design philsophy of the units. OG Marines were "elite generalists" they did not include many highly specialized units. Their close combat troops had the same stats as their line infantry but were armed with the close combat gear that standard squads could give their sargents. Their heavy weapons squads had the same weapon options as their line infantry squads just more of those heavy weapons.

By comparison, the Primaris Marines are typically part of single weapon squads that feature a fairly unique armorment. They are considerably more specialized in role. This is not a bad thing on its surface, however it is a fairly big change to the nature of the force. Additionally, those famiiar with 40k may be aware that there is already a faction that makes use of squads with high specialization and single unique weapons.

Congrats GW! You managed to turn the space marines into Eldar Aspect Warriors! I wonder how long it is before the there are even fewer Xenos players as they realize that the character of one of the non-human factions has been leached to breath a tinly glimmer of new life into the space marine line?

[Koumei]

I love how they waited until units could split their fire at different targets before turning Space Marines into Aspect Warriors. The reason why people liked teams of 5 Fire Dragons (or Tankbustaz or Burna Boyz or whatever) is of course that if you have 1 Melta, 3 Bolters and 1 Bolt Pistol, you are either wasting a model's cost when all of them are chewing infantry up or you are wasting the entire existence of four models when only one of them is shooting a tank. That's no longer the case, so being able to super-specialise is no longer as much of a big deal*.

I can understand them wanting to upscale the minis to "true scale" so they can look a little less stunted (which admittedly only really looks like an issue when the standard ones are stood next to some other minis), and actually bigger than people rather than just having bloated heads. But they went about implementing it in entirely the wrong way, assuming there is a right way.

They absolutely shouldn't get WWII rules designers on board, because they seem a very dry, boring sort of people with no imagination, and there is the risk that in doing that, they'd end up excising every aspect of the game that doesn't fit WWII combat. No giant tyranids (carnifexes, I'm not even talking about the giant resin things that never really interact with normal 40K rules very well), no necrons standing back up after getting shot, no mecha, just two different Imperial Guard armies with updated rules.

What they should instead do is look at their older stuff (including things like Epic 40K) for ideas of what worked well at different scales. They're finally turning Apocalypse into its own game that is more like Epic was, and that's the right move rather than constantly pushing at the boundaries of their normal game (which isn't great even in ideal conditions), maybe spend some time looking at what other sci-fi/fantasy mini games do (they can just grab the rulebooks for Infinity, Relic Knights etc.) and turn-based vidyas.

*outside of situations where your enemy hyper-specialises** or simple targeting issues where you only happen to be in range of A or B, not both.

**not that that even matters now that you can just fucking shoot tanks to death with lasguns and it could very well be more effective on a point-for-point basis to do exactly that.

[Mord]

They are a wargames collectible miniatures company that knows less than nothing about any military, modern or historical.

FTFY

That's how GW thinks of itself, how they present themselves to investors, and how they make their business decisions. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, GW makes minis first, then slaps some rules together to give people more reasons to buy more minis. They will not change course on this without a serious shakeup in their board of directors, executive leadership, and company culture. The most likely scenario I can think of where 40k moves to a game-first paradigm is one in which GW declares bankruptcy and the IP is purchased by Fantasy Flight or Asmodee.

If you want to use your minis on a game that is designed as a game, may I suggest Grimdark Future? It's theoretically only one page long, which is a fantastic selling point.

[Thaluikhain]

The game took 20 years and 5 editions to figure out they were basically simulating the tactics of the first world war and another 3 editions before they actually made dynamic fire and movement a part of the game.

When did they do that?

Anyway, I'm a bit conflicted about Primaris Marines. On one hand, the models look great...if you've never seen real Marines or anything else from 40k. If you started out with them way back when, that'd be fine, nowdays 40k has a look and those aren't really it.

And the fluff is awful, but that's a given nowdays,

[maglag]

The game took 20 years and 5 editions to figure out they were basically simulating the tactics of the first world war and another 3 editions before they actually made dynamic fire and movement a part of the game.

When did they do that?

8th edition, each model in a squad can fire at whatever they want regardless of what the others are shooting at.

Anyway, I'm a bit conflicted about Primaris Marines. On one hand, the models look great...if you've never seen real Marines or anything else from 40k. If you started out with them way back when, that'd be fine, nowdays 40k has a look and those aren't really it.

And the fluff is awful, but that's a given nowdays,

For one, I was quite pleased that Abaddon finally destroys Cadia not with demonic powers, not with super ancient tech, not with a sword nor sorcery, but simply by going "Fuck it, let's just drop some really big rocks on them from orbit".

But everything else yeah prettwy awful.

[Whiysper]

I'm sorry to be that guy, but as a Guard player (fuck off with your 'Astra Militarum' bullshit. Yes, I know that I'm the worst type of player to play against .), I have to answer that no, it's never point-efficient to plink tanks to death with lasguns.

That's why we have lasCANNONS .

But yeah, hoping Apocalypse is actually playable, 'cos the 8E design team might have a side hustle working on DND5 or PF2. No new or good ideas. Only bad ones, often recycled!

[Hadanelith]

Having just spent the last weekend wandering about the Nova Open, talking with a bunch of 40K and 40K-adjacent players, I have some thoughts here.

First: 40K proper remains huge, and continues to sell many many models. Nova had over 160 tables of 40K proper, plus side rooms for Kill Team and Necromunda.
Second: GW's new focus on bigger 'Knight-scale' models? Going absolute gangbusters. Wandering the 40K hall, *everybody* had knights, knight-equivalents, or other vehicles of similar size. Horde armies appear to be in decline. While one might think this was bad for GW, horde players *have* their armies. Knights are new, and not cheap. GW is making bank on selling the plastic crack.
Third: Primaris is very hot at the moment. This is mostly a function of the fact that the nuMarines are getting all the new shiny releases, and they are very good, rules-wise.
Fourth: Imperial soup is also hot right now. Tagging in any combination of AdMech, Knights, Custodes, and Guard seems to be quite popular, presumably because of the new shinies.
Fifth: Even in the unrestricted environment of the regular 40K room, most battles I was seeing were Imp-on-Imp violence. Xenos were *rare*. Less than half a dozen each of Ork, Necron, and Tyranid players. Eldar and Tau were in evidence, but uncommon. Chaos wasn't particularly well represented, but they were there.
Sixth: looking at recent releases, all of this comes into focus. GW seems to have more or less ignored non-Imperial factions for...a good long while now. Marine releases, Knight releases, AdMech toys, the Custodes coming into existence...up next is new Sisters of Battle. In the mean time, Orks got something last October (none of which was in evidence, and it seems no one really cared). Tau haven't gotten anything in more than a year. Eldar are apparently about to get some new plastics to replace old poses, but not a significant rules update or *new* units. Tyranids and Necrons appear to have just been forgotten entirely.
Conclusion: GW *loves* selling Knights, and giving Imperial players new shinies, and non-Imperials can suck it.

Then there's the other guys. The next floor down, Horus Heresy got a solid pile of players. HH is GW's secret shame. HH still runs on 7th Ed rules, and frequently involves minis that people are pulling out of closets from the 80s. GW makes up for this by relegating any new releases to Forge World resin, and the books are (admittedly very nice) hundred dollar hardbacks. The Horus Heresy guys I talked to all had the same complaint: 8th Ed sucks, and so we're gonna stay with the ruleset we like. GW having managed to continue to sell to the guys from the previous rules *and* the new edition? That's a trick that WotC *wishes* they could have managed.

Adeptus Titanicus also got played. I'm actually going to sound weird, here: AT is actually a good skirmish game. This surprises me a LOT, considering who made it, but it actually has decent rules! Generally, each side topped out around 7 Titans or so, they all had significant actions to take, there were actual tactics involved...and the game is surprisingly accessible, cash wise. Building an army can be less than 200 bucks. I didn't know GW could manage this! I actually *hope* whoever wrote the AT rules gets to do Battlefleet Gothic, because it might also be a solid game.

[Koumei]

Orks and Genestealer Cults both got "some bits and bobs" over the last year, but not a massive overhaul. Chaos got some similar things, as well as faction-specific books and stuff - Nurgle was an entirely new "not just an update from 7E with no new minis" thing, and Slaanesh is getting similar treatment soon. I can't say how impressive that actually will be.

No word on how playable Apocalypse is, but it looks a lot better as an actual "massive armies" game. They started by simplifying almost everything - maybe too much, maybe "actually this is precisely enough". So the majority of sub-faction rules and "this unit" special rules and "this weapon" special rules are gone if they can't be represented by one of the basic ones in the book (for instance, a Melta Gun has a good Wound roll against Tanks but not against Infantry, and anything that used to be a flamer template auto-hits, but Splinter weapons don't have a special Poison rule to make them particularly different from lasers, and Gauss is not a thing any more).

Then there's the fact that you put your units on bases, with models closer together than before, and you don't actually care about individual models. You could have a squad of five Marines with 1 Wound and 1 Attack or increase it to ten Marines with 2 Wounds and 2 Attacks. The unit has "Boltguns" allowing it to make 1 shot (or 2 if close) per Wound (yes if it suffers a point of damage it fights at half effectiveness so goes down to 1 Attack), and if you add a Plasma Gun it fires independently and can't be sniped out.

It has a lot in common with old Epic, and in all likelihood is resolved fairly quickly. There are other nice things like "more or less simultaneous actions, with all resolution at the end of the round so you can still act on the same turn that you get shot to death" and "you need to stay within range of the leader of your formation or you risk routing" but the above specific things help make it playable and, from first glance, take the focus away from "I have Special Rule X that lets me ignore this core rule" and slow-grind of things, and more on "moving things about in a coherent fashion and acting like you might expect a milita to do."

[TheGreatEvilKing]

Fifth: Even in the unrestricted environment of the regular 40K room, most battles I was seeing were Imp-on-Imp violence. Xenos were *rare*. Less than half a dozen each of Ork, Necron, and Tyranid players. Eldar and Tau were in evidence, but uncommon. Chaos wasn't particularly well represented, but they were there.

I guarantee you this is 100% the souping rules. I play Necrons. Necrons are completely fucked by 8th edition rules, and GW doesn't seem to grasp that Reanimation Protocols are the albatross around the neck of the faction (they seriously nerfed it twice, it's hilarious). Orks are good, but again locked to a single book while you can build an army with Imperium's Greatest Hits. (Knights, Custodes grav tanks, and the Loyal 32, oh my!). Tau are good because "shooting across the entire table" will never not be good, and Eldar also have about 4 different factions they can voltron together though this is harder with the new Ynnari and errata.

I can go rant about Necrons if people like, but there's all of 1 competent Necron list right now that is either going to crush hard and has matchups that it will straight up autolose to (Tau). GW is trying to actually make 8th a balanced game, but is running into the problem that...they're GW.

[OgreBattle]

How does Titanicus play?

[Username17]

Games Workshop from a financial standpoint is making like twice as much money now as they were in 2015. I'm not sure if that's good or not.

See, 2015 was a point of severe contraction for Games Workshop. They released Age of Sigmar and everyone hated it. Their sales contracted severely. Doing sales that are double of a terrible year is obviously better than continuing at that level, but I can't see far enough into the past as to see whether that's historically good or not.

The other issue of course is that they've done more with stuff like Thunderspire that's basically a board game, and I can't tell how much of their revenue is actually their proper miniatures wargames anymore. I would believe that 40K is financially successful, because those models are expensive. But it's genuinely hard to say.

-Username17

[MGuy]

Fifth: Even in the unrestricted environment of the regular 40K room, most battles I was seeing were Imp-on-Imp violence. Xenos were *rare*. Less than half a dozen each of Ork, Necron, and Tyranid players. Eldar and Tau were in evidence, but uncommon. Chaos wasn't particularly well represented, but they were there.

I guarantee you this is 100% the souping rules. I play Necrons. Necrons are completely fucked by 8th edition rules, and GW doesn't seem to grasp that Reanimation Protocols are the albatross around the neck of the faction (they seriously nerfed it twice, it's hilarious). Orks are good, but again locked to a single book while you can build an army with Imperium's Greatest Hits. (Knights, Custodes grav tanks, and the Loyal 32, oh my!). Tau are good because "shooting across the entire table" will never not be good, and Eldar also have about 4 different factions they can voltron together though this is harder with the new Ynnari and errata.

I can go rant about Necrons if people like, but there's all of 1 competent Necron list right now that is either going to crush hard and has matchups that it will straight up autolose to (Tau). GW is trying to actually make 8th a balanced game, but is running into the problem that...they're GW.

Necron and Tau are my favorite 40k factions. I also like rants.

[souran]

40K has way to many imperial factions. GW is also not good at realizing the appropriate level of detail that should be fed into certain factions.

Lets say you were GW and you cared about your wargame and not just about selling space barbies to 40 year old men. You have already stumbled into a really good idea in making your sci-fi wargame use tolkien fantasy races in space. This was novel and it gave you a HUGE leg up. You even did some things that were even novel like linking your army of terminator inspired robots to the concepts associated with the undead.

So to make sure your game does not devolve into stagnation and everybody playing the same lines you might realize that you need between 6-8 "core" representative factions. Factions beyond this core are fundamentally vanity factions that are going to be hard keep up to date unless the game brings in a ton of money.

So, knowning that what factions does your "Fantasy Wars In SPAAAACCCEEE" need to keep up?

A smart list might look like this:

Space Marines: This is obvious. They are central to the imagery for your space wars. These guys take the place of a "human knights" type faction from your fantasy game. Making multiple sub factions for these guys is probably a given. However, the more subfactions of this you make the more you are going to dilute the playerbase and deter people from picking other full factions. The correct number of sub factions should not be more than 2 or 3.

Space Elves: Elves sell. A space fantasy without elves won't work. The correct number of subfactions for elves is not more than 2. That lets you have good guy elves and bad guy elves. Any more than that and the elf wank becomes to strong.

Space Dwarves: If you are GW you shit the bed with your space dwarves faction. However, you recovered strong because the Imperial Guard cover the sorts of things that dwarf type players want. A facation of war machines that is strong on defense.

Honestly, if you could reboot the whole thing you would get rid of the guard entirely, make the space marines the human faction and make the "tanks" faction be space dwarves for realz.

Space Undead: You jumped on this before it became a trope and figured out that robots and the undead share a lot of similarities. Unfortunetly, you burried these guys in the lore and they are not supposed to exist in numbers to challenge the imperium anymore. Space is huge, having big fuckoff empires of the evil factions isn't even hard.

Space Orcs: Almost as iconic as the marines. The issue that GW has is that they cannot always keep this faction from becomming an "NPC" faction which is terrible for a wargame. Everybody can slaughter orcs because they are basically uncountable.

If we were actually doing a Fantasy wargame the 6th faction should be "evil humans" Especially for games workshop that really built of their evil humans into a recognizable IP by paring the asthetic of 80s connan movies with the ramblings of micheal morcock.

However, this is a sci-fi game and a sci-fi game without a H.R. Giger faction is missing avenue to make money. The tyranids have some of the same issues as the orcs. GW sometimes treats nids as the faction benchmark, little more than an army that should always lose due to the heroics of the other factions. You can't do that, but you need this faction.

These 6 lines Marines, Guard, Eldar, Orcs, Necrons, Tyranids, are basically the mandatory ones. The first vanity faction is freaking Chaos who is central to the narrative. Keeping 7 model lines up to date and cometative is a pretty tall order.

There simply is not ROOM or TIME for there to be 9 different imperium armies without Souping becoming obviously superior. Not only that but if there is one army that is made of of 9 sub armies then it has an obvious power advantage over the factions that get one book to define an entire species.

The sisters, Custodes, mechanicus, and knights were BAD additions to the game. If you think that the game could support 8 model ranges there would be room for 1 of these factions assuming you were constantly developing the mandatory factions.

Additionally, the marines have grown basically cancerous. You have Grey Knights, Deathwatch, Dark Angles, Blood Angels, Legion of the Damned, and the Black Templars as factions that have legacy model ranges and have had their own separate army rules. That isn't even counting the fact that GW is planning on producing an army book for each of the 9 loyalist marine legions. This is a bad decision. Sure its cool that after 30 years you can finally find out how the Raven Guard are marginally different from the ultamarines. However, the practical effect on the table will be Soup armies that include only the very best elements of white scars, raven guard, smurfs, and imperial fists. Don't do this to your game. It makes it noticably shittier.

[jt]

You could keep your sane faction list for the wargame rules and still produce tons of new models. Just update the model line with a different sub-faction that uses the same rules. So this iteration of Marines is Grey Knights, this iteration of Chaos is Nurgle, this iteration of Tyranids is Hive Fleet Kraken, yada yada yada. Next iteration is different and we might never see these sub-factions again, but they use the standard Space Marines, Chaos, and Tyranids rules, so you're not left out in the cold with models that no longer work in the game. But by the time the next batch of models for your faction comes out the novelty of your old ones will have worn off and the new Blood Angels, Khorne, and Leviathan models will look so cool in comparison that you convince yourself to start updating your army.

[Username17]

Honestly, if you could reboot the whole thing you would get rid of the guard entirely, make the space marines the human faction and make the "tanks" faction be space dwarves for realz.

Disagree. There's a certain group of people who want to play Flames of War armies. The Guard has a fanbase that transcends the fanbase of "tanks" and "shootiness." There are certain players who just genuinely want to play with space Barbies that are GI Joes.

What they should have done is make the Guard and the Space Marines the same army. That is, you can have units of super space Knights and you can have platoons of regular human infantry - exactly like how the Bretonians have knights and peasants in fantasy. And then you could write up various subfactions and special army lists that are entirely space marines or entirely unaugmented human soldiers without power armor. Or like how we all agree that your Orc army also has Goblins in it - or at least has the option of doing so.

But broadly I do agree that if your "Tolkien Fantasy in Space" game doesn't have a viable Dwarf faction, you done shat the bed. It's incomprehensible to me that GW hasn't figured out some way to sell space dwarf barbies after bashing their heads on this problem for twenty five years. That's literally enough time to conceive a child, raise them to adulthood, and send them to get a master's degree in space dwarfology to solve this fucking problem.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

The big problem with Space Dwarfs is that it's not clear what their role in it should be. In Warhammer Fantasy Battle (pre-Sigmarines), the Dwarfs were the primary industrial army, lots of cannons & guns & siege engines, with a side-order of axe-wielding beserkers, miners, and associated fantasy dwarf stuff.

In 40K...they were bikers. It was really hard to differentiate them from the Guard in the same way that the Eldars or Orks. When everyone has guns, having guns is no longer a sufficient defining characteristic.

And because the Squats didn't have sufficiently distinct identities/role/playstyle, they didn't sell...and that, ultimately, appears to be what doomed them when compared to factions like the Tau which actually were different.

[souran]

Disagree. There's a certain group of people who want to play Flames of War armies. The Guard has a fanbase that transcends the fanbase of "tanks" and "shootiness." There are certain players who just genuinely want to play with space Barbies that are GI Joes.

What they should have done is make the Guard and the Space Marines the same army. That is, you can have units of super space Knights and you can have platoons of regular human infantry - exactly like how the Bretonians have knights and peasants in fantasy. And then you could write up various subfactions and special army lists that are entirely space marines or entirely unaugmented human soldiers without power armor. Or like how we all agree that your Orc army also has Goblins in it - or at least has the option of doing so.

But broadly I do agree that if your "Tolkien Fantasy in Space" game doesn't have a viable Dwarf faction, you done shat the bed. It's incomprehensible to me that GW hasn't figured out some way to sell space dwarf barbies after bashing their heads on this problem for twenty five years. That's literally enough time to conceive a child, raise them to adulthood, and send them to get a master's degree in space dwarfology to solve this fucking problem.

-Username17

I don't actually disagree with your argument. I have thought since the herohammer days that the "human" faction should be Brettonia instead of the empire.

In fantasy the "always up-to-date" factions SHOULD have been Brettonia (human cavalry), Dwarves (infantry and machines), Wood Elves (archers and good guy monster), Chaos (Warriors and Demons), Orcs (bad guy monsters), and Vampire Counts (Undead).

Merging the "Imperium" into a single faction could actually help make the space marines feel more elite. That said, my point was mostly that the things that you would probably want your space dwarf army to be good at (machines, building weapons, being strong on defense) are things that GW has rolled into the guard since they totally missed the mark with the Squats.

[Username17]

The big initial problem with the Squats was that they used the statlines from the then-current edition of Fantasy Battles. Which they did because 40K was a spinoff. The problem of course is that a lot of stats that are important in Fantasy Battles are decidedly less important when people on both sides have plasma rifles. And so it was that the base statline of the Squats was pretty much worthless in all cases. Having slow movement and good melee combat is an absolutely atrocious combination when your opponents all have ranged weapons and don't ever have to close.

Yes, the original Squats models were goofy as fuck. But lots of early 40K models are embarrassing. The Squats withered on the vine because in addition to having bad models they also had bad rules. There just wasn't a role for the army, and their basic troops ended up "paying for" stats they couldn't actually use effectively.

But obviously, you can imagine an army of technically sophisticated but slow walking dudes competing in a science fiction wargame. You just have to be willing to toss aside the Warhammer Fantasy Battle ruleset - something Games Workshop wasn't even willing to attempt until several years after the Squats had been discontinued.

-Username17

[maglag]

Sphech merines turned out stupidly popular.

Like half the playerbase are sphech merines players.

So of course GW does a zillion sphech merines spin-offs because they will sell.

Just look at Horus Heresy. No xenos. No Even fewer girls that aren't even allowed to talk. Just sphech merines. And popular enough that they can even decide to keep playing in tournaments with the previous edition's rules.

As for squats, 40K is the living 'proof that you can not only have your space fantasy lack dwarves, you can rule the hill with that decision. 40K needs no dwarves to be the most popular of the genre.

Being the slow heavy armored faction with superior tech is novel in regular fantasy, but in space fantasy everybody and their mother can do the slow heavy armored thing with superior tech. Even the space elves have slow heavily armored troops that they can build their army around (wraithguard). The dwarves don't have anything to be unique anymore.

[Orion]

But broadly I do agree that if your "Tolkien Fantasy in Space" game doesn't have a viable Dwarf faction, you done shat the bed.

Warhammer 40K already has like 5 dwarf factions in it, though. The Empire are already xenophobic traditionalists with German and Russian themes. The Adeptus Mechanicus are already engineers and archaeologists who revere the past and fight with Team Human while rejecting the Human God. The Tau are already a hyper-organized group of magic-less non-humans who rely on superior training and loyalty. The Eldar are already a reclusive and manipulative group of non-humans known for their mastery of magic and crafting. The Necrons were already a heavily-armored ancient race that lacked magic, was greedy, made terrible mistakes, lost their empire, and now lurks underground in trap-filled catacombs.

What dwarf schticks are even left un-poached?

[jt]

How would you pair fantasy tropes with space tropes if you were doing it from scratch?

Under column A: Noble humans, haughty elves, gruff dwarves, hordes of orcs, hordes of undead (and maybe human necromancers), hordes of demons (and maybe their human summoners), dragons (and maybe human riders), and some sort of beast men
Under column B: The Federation (or Empire), incredibly advanced precursors, cyborgs (or robots or both), living crystals, beings of pure energy, Gigeresque nightmares, bugs, and either humans with funny forehead wrinkles or sentient jellyfish

A couple things that strike me are that undead robots actually don't make as much sense as undead cyborgs, and that Giger never really drew hordes of stuff so Gigeresque dragons actually work pretty well.

[souran]

I actually think making a better 40k is almost trivially easy.

Assuming we want to keep the "fantasy races in space" core concept here are the factions I would have:

1) Genetically Enhanced humans. The human empire is made of 2 classes of citizens that live in a dystopian pseudo Rome/Cold War America. The Patrician class are those humans who have been genetically enhanced. They are super human possessing enhanced strength, speed and intellect. They also have super sized emotions making them act like modern day Achilles. Military service is mandatory for Patricians but they also control all the important stuff in society. The underclass are plebians. These are people who have not had genetic modification. If they serve in the military their children will receive genetic modification and be Patricians.

The units for this are guys in Awesome battlesuits doing the star ship troopers thing supported by plebian "auxilia".

2) Space Elves: Steal a little from predator for their culture and also make them really dark fey. Their culture is focused around "the hunt" You can even use ideas like the Wyld Hunt as the name of their armed forces. They are ancient and their view of the universe sounds like poetry and nonsense to the "child" species. The units in this army should be fast, with pincer type attacks the staple of how their units are supposed to work. Quickly bringing overwhelming firepower to a single spot then moving back and doing it again somewhere else.

3) Space Dwarves: We are going to follow marvel and make the space dwarves the greatest arms makers in the universe. They get the best weapons. We are also going to have them do the deal where they are normally small but can grow to be gigantic. They live in hollowed out neutron stars or something equally impossible. Giving dwarves small movement ranges but teleporting seems like it might be interesting tactically. Think marvel asgardians for these guys.

4) Space Undead: We are going to follow the 40k lead and steal straight from dune. Humans, Elves and Dwarves know that you do not make sentient machines because they all eventually fall under the control of an ancient machine intelligence called the "source" or something equally cryptic. Each space undead military force is actually only 1 or 2 artifical intellegences that forces itself into dozens or hundreds of robot bodies at a time (think Ultron). This captures that "kill the necromancer" feel because the way you defeat them is you kill their uplink and then all the robots die.

5) Space Bugs: There are littlerally a ton of ways to go here. Biological borg is easy. You could steal from "ender's game" and make them specifically spider themed for maximum creep factor. You need special rules that let a player recycle troops so they can actually play like an endless horde.

6) Space Orcs: GW really hit on a great idea by making these guys a fungus. You don't have to worry about their being women or children or an Orc society that does anything except gratuitous violence. It seems like playing up the idea that your orcs (or their space goblin allies/servants/slaves) are the "little green men" of science fiction. I actually have the hardest time developing a new persona for these because what GW has got for them is basically spot on.

The lore would steal more from footfall and the mote in God's eye and a little bit less from Dune but blenderizing all of those. I might also do some David Drake/S.M. Sterling into the mix. Additionally, a modern sci-fi wargame that doesn't bring in some Honorverse and David Weber elements is not doing it right.

The problem is that having a great background and even super smart gameplay is not enough for a wargame (see my thread on Dropzone Commander; I have now read all the fluff and looked through all its materials and it is a better game and better science fiction than 40k in just about every respect). You have to have a playerbase and the sunk costs keep people in 40k even if the game isn't good.

[Chamomile]

The key to toppling 40k is to make your stuff compatible with 40k minis. If people can use their existing 40k armies to play your game, they may well give it a shot, and if they like it, they might start playing that more and 40k less.

[Foxwarrior]

Oh yeah, obviously if I was going to play a miniatures game in physical space, I'd use warhammer figures for it. The question is, how legitimate can you make your miniatures wargame without designing, manufacturing, or selling any miniatures?

[Chamomile]

As a viable business model? No idea, but odds are grim. You could always try to get some awesome but non-copyright infringing art together and kickstart something on the basis of the illustrations, sell it as an artbook that also happens to contain superior war game rules for the minis you already own. It might work.

But you'd probably have better luck developing it as a free project. If it starts to catch on, then you can go to Kickstarter to sell an illustrated version. And if your goal is to play a good war game, then all you need to do is convince one other person to use your rules, so a plain formatted .pdf should suffice.

The gimmick of "rules compatible with every major minis game" should be pretty helpful regardless of what path you take. It also allows you to do some force consolidation without having to sell people on the idea that Games Workshop are myopic idiots for bothering to support their favorite army. You can say that Sisters, Space Marines, and whatever sci-fi shootmans Infinity has all count as the same faction with mechanically the same models, and you can tell people it's because the point of the project is to allow any army to fight any other army regardless of who made the minis, and that's a much easier sell than "supporting Sisters was dumb and Games Workshop never should've bothered updating them."