40K: How To Slice Up the Armies
We got a giant hint at how GW may divide up some 40K factions in 8th Edition – but what about the others?
Fall of Cadia offered a Solid glimpse of exactly what Nottingham may have in mind for one “Grand Alliance”.
On page 130, we get the the big new detachment that uses an old-style FOC and combines the units from a slew of codexes under one giant banner of the Imperium
Castellans of the Imperium
Allows free mix and matching between the following codexes:
- Assassins
- Angels of Death
- Astra Militarum
- Adepta Sororita
- Death from the Skies (Imperial parts)
- Inquisition
- Imperial Agents
- Imperial Knights
- Monk’ta (the Imperial parts)
- Militarum Tempestus
- Space Marines
You know what that feels a lot like?
This!
The detachment has brows raising around the world as comparisons are being made to what we saw happen during the transition from Warhammer Fantasy to Age of Sigmar, when all the WFB Army Books got condensed from over a dozen factions into this:
Already we are seeing the beginnings in fluff of a unified Eldar race, which leaves them a safe bet to be combined into a single faction, covering Craftworlds, Dark Eldar & Harlequins. There is no guarantee that GW would aim for the same goal of 4 Grand Alliance Books for the Grimdark. With 40k’s much higher amount of codexes compared to Fantasy a higher number than 4 might be a safe bet. Taking a quick glance at the codex shelf gives us these remaining codexes aside from the Castellans of the Imperium and Eldar ones:
- Orks
- Ghazkhull
- Tau Empire
- Farsight Enclaves
- Kau’yon
- Chaos Space Marines
- Traitor Legions
- Traitor’s Hate
- Crimson Slaughter
- Chaos Daemons
- Khorne Daemonkin
- Necrons
- Tyranids
- Genestealer Cult
- Grey Knights
- Deathwatch
- Skitarii
- Cult Mechanicus
- Blood Angels
- Dark Angels
- Space Wolves
I’m sure I forgot some… but you get the point.
If GW intends to move towards a giant “uber-allies” system of huge mix-and-match factions, the big issue will be making sure that the big ones don’t just swamp the smaller ones by nature of so many more choices in making sick combos (let’s be honest, regardless of rules there will ALWAYS be sick combos).
That codex list can be chopped up into 4 obvious factions fairly easily:
- Imperium
- Eldar
- Chaos
- Xenos
But you start to get issues with the Imperium being as big as the others put together, so it might make sense to split them up in some fashion. The arrival of Genestealer Cult actually gives the Tyranids some allies for a unified faction, so they aren’t left out in the cold. But it’s still a big challenge to try to section off the Grimdark in the manner we see pointed out in the Castellans of the Imperium detachment. If you look at Age of Sigmar, you know that Chaos and Order get all the love with Destruction and even more-so Death left a bit out in the cold.
I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen to anyone in the Grimdark, but exactly how to simplify the Allies Matrix and keep things fair is going to be a bear.
Less complex please…
~How would you slice up the 40k alliance pie?
For extra credit assign each of your 40k factions a matching piece of this pie – and WHY 🙂
