You know I am all for letting people vent, it is good to let it all out. But let people have a little fun for Crissake. You guys don't have to dump or bait in every thread, there are plenty of vent threads lurking about. As far as the Sisters of Battle, I think they should add them to the LSM side. Would give the game something unique and help it stand out a bit.
I think sisters of battle would probably be the easiest to add in currently. Most other races have blatant issues IG with survivability and melee, tau with melee, necrons with just so many mechanics compared to other races.
Didn't they release a new version of Uriah Jacobus a few years back, with the White Dwarf SoB 'codex'? Or was that an old model that suddenly got better rules?
The second one. You saw him a ton because pairing him with a Battle Conclave was called a "Uriah bomb". I once used one to wipe out a large squad of Space Marine Honor Guard in one round of melee without them getting any attacks. And since then my Battle Conclaves have done nothing because the level of slaughter they inflicted in their first tabletop appearance was frightening enough that every time I field one, every single ranged weapon my opponent has is unloaded onto them until every last member of the squad is dead. Seriously, sometimes I have to convince her that continuing to fire on the unit is a waste of firepower because it's turn one and it's already down to just a single Death-Cult Assassin which is not particularly dangerous against any of her units. Sorry, I'll go edit that part out.
Let's not let locational or objective lore get in the way of having a cool faction. So to list off the main factions we have wh40k that could potentially be a faction in EC: Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle Inquisition Mechanicus Dark Mechanicus Necrons Tau Dark Eldar Chaos Daemons Tyranids Now keep in mind the Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, Mechanicus, Space Marines, and Inquisition may get squished into the faction "Forces of the Imperium", whilst Chaos Space Marines, Dark Mechanicus, and Chaos Daemons may get squished into "Forces of Chaos". Now honestly, I think the easiest faction to introduce would be Tyranids. Although I know that bE has no plans to do so, they already have models, gui, and assets for the Tyranids. The next big choice would be "Forces of the Imperium" since the devs talked about it a lot on stream, saying they have a few assets and even a guardsman model.
TBH, there's really about 5 factions I could see being included relatively soon due to ease of fitting into the metagame of Eternal Crusade, once polish and expansion's been done for several of the other factions: The Tau Empire - Tau would be the biggest potential due to popularity and yet also one of the hardest to balance due to power level. Tau would probably wind up being ABSURD glass cannons for the basic infantry, with slightly tankier battlesuits and berserker-style Kroot and Vespid auxiliaries. In addition, another race that'd feature gender choice, though perhaps not quite as impacting to outward cosmetics as others due to Tau uniformity. Also some similarity with the Eldar, due to uniform armaments for much of the castes. Imperial Guard/Astra Millitarium - Oft requested, at any rate, and there's been all sorts of suggestions for the Guard's role and stuff in the game already. With that said, biggest decision to make would be how the Imperial Guard would get it's orders, and if they would be opposing the Space Marines (or have been tricked about the Space Marine's purpose, after all, there is Chaos Marines here as well). No matter how we balance them, they'll no doubt wind up glass-cannon infantry and some of the most dangerous vehicle options in the game. Sisters of Battle/Adeptus Soritas - Bit more of a personal want on my end. I would LOVE to see more Sorita exposure, in a vain attempt for them to get resurrected back properly into a codex. Though the fact they are now the oldest race to not get an update on tabletop also means they have a very, VERY small unit roster for both units and heros, which considering the scope of what other factions could carry, could make Sisters an early add but a hard to keep relevant one as the others keep getting new toys and the Soritas are left behind. Still, slightly-lighter Space Marines and some good ol' Faith powers and girl power could help expand the audience of the game, despite the religious zealotry probably easily putting them against the Imperium forces. Dark Eldar - Another one that could be easy to add due to similarities with other factions, the Dark Eldar and the Eldar probably wouldn't be too different balanced wise, but would probably emphasize speed and close combat a bit more. Due to the last major update they got, there's a lot more toys and variation to some degrees with them as well. The only real downside would be Arkhona itself, as a planet with nothing but resource gains and a good fight against the other races would probably not be as big a draw to them. Unless the Eldar's reason for being here to stop the younger races was greatly important and worthwhile to them, they'd probably pass for a bit. Necrons - Surprise! Arkhona's secretly a Tomb World, or a nearby planet in the system is and the Necrons are beginning to advance and regain territory, starting here! Necrons could be possible, but would require very hard balance to make them entirely viable as a player faction. No doubt would be a case to break out Slow and Purposeful, and the We'll Be Back! rule would be a bit tricky to work with, but could be done. Factions that would probably be a bit more of a longshot but possible are: AdMech - Skiirati's kinda a hot topic right now, now they're a army, so could be possible for them to show up, though with how few options there are for AdMech at the moment I doubt it. Playable Tyranids - BE in the past stated that wasn't planned, due to wanting them as a mix-up for the map conquest mode and that player-nids would act really unimmersvely, but as the design has changed somewhat since then, we may never know. Plus, not sure how well cosmetics would work here as anything cosmetic for Nids is basically a biomorph. Chaos Daemons - While it's more likely we'll see them included for Chaos Space Marines as AI companions or special elite units, directly controlling Lesser and Greater Daemons could help sell up the chaos incursion, and wouldn't need a massive reason to fight against Chaos Space Marines for their own amusement. This faction would probably not use the subfaction system however. Though like player-Nids, immersion shattering could be a fear. Inquisition - I get the feeling the Inquisition would be better suited and split up as heroes for various Imperial factions. I will not be surprised if we see Grey Knight and Deathwatch involved with Space Marines for example. Renegades of Chaos - Despite being the faction I'm making my own army for, Renegades are nowhere near a supported army, being a Forge World exclusive. Still, these guys could work if they were introduced as the 'Anti-Imperial Guard', and there could be some flimsy arguments to be made about them rejecting Chaos Marine support. Would certainly be an excuse to see some examples of stuff from Codex: Lost and the Damned again as well, like 40k beastmen or Stalk Tanks.
Dark Eldar, I know its unlikely as they were never popular but they could use Eldar animations for the most part so maybe they'd be financially viable.... I can dream dammit!
Honestly, even if you had Arkhona being very, very far away from Tau territory, having Tau show up wouldn't be impossible. You could actually justify it with real life physics and science, actually. Sounds crazy? Well, frankly, relativity and Tau's lack of Warp travel is the answer. Tau interstellar travel is unable to use the Warp due to their general lack of a psychic signature, so instead they use advanced FTL drives that actually propel their ships faster than light. Though this is currently considered impossible in real life, there are some recent thoughts that suggest that FTL travel may in fact be possible using something called negative mass, if we ever figure out how to use it for that purpose. Regardless, however the Tau accomplished it, they are traveling at FTL speeds when they do an interstellar voyage. Relativity indicates that once you reach light speed, no matter how far you travel, to you, the trip will be as though it were teleportation, as the passage of time within the ship reaches 0. As such, any ship capable of going lightspeed will have to rely on a device outside the ship to slow it down once it reaches its destination, as even the fastest computers possible are not capable of operating in literally 0 time to determine when you've reached your destination. You also would not ever want to travel at these speeds directly to the destination planet, as the gravitational effects would likely end all life on the planet and potentially knock moons out of orbit. This means that Tau ships are relying on a device somewhere at the edge of their destination solar system to slow them down enough to stop on their own. Tau technology, while advanced, is neither infallible nor indestructible. That device may have malfunctioned, or an enemy may have destroyed it. Regardless of the circumstances that resulted in the device no longer stopping a Tau ship, it is now incapable of determining it has missed its destination, and will continue on at its speed until it impacts something or is slowed down enough by various gravity fields it encounters to be capable of registering the outside world, at which point, out of convenience to the plot, it is near Arkhona, and in true Tau fashion, decide to go make friends with the locals. And then gak gets out of hand as it always does, and the Tau start fighting. That's not the end of it though. Tau ships don't travel AT c, they travel FASTER than c. The relativistic effects of traveling faster than c mean that this fleet would actually have to be from the future, as traveling faster than c means that time outside the ship would be going backward. Side note: Yes, this does mean that humans have actually figured out a way to travel back in time in real life, and it's not really a new discovery. It's just that we completely lack the technology to do so, even though we understand the science that would result in traveling back in time. Also traveling AT c is currently considered impossible as it would require more energy than the entire universe has in it. The amount of energy needed to travel at c is actually infinity.
Yeah, he was the source of the only real deathstar that Sisters could field. I still prefer St. Celestine, though. She's just a beatstick, but her fluff is too good to pass up. And sometimes she does cool shit like take out an entire mob of boyz on her own.
Makes sense to flesh out the existing Factions and fill in the gaps. -Missing skins(Chapter, Clan, Craftworld iconography on all vehicles with multiple options for customization) -Missing units -Missing capabilities for squad leaders(Drop Pods, Aircraft dropping off troops, Teleportation Chambers) -Useful Squad UI window that shows squad status(Health, ammo status, weapon type, squad Rhino HP status) -Chapter, Clan, Craftworld appropriate special sets of armor(Relic and Artificer Armor that are Chapter appropriate) -Missing Weapons(2 handed weapons, combi weapons, Missile Launcher, exotic weapons) -Pistols for Havocs, Devastator.. all heavies. -Hero and Elite system(Librarians, Sorcerers, Autarchs, Inquisitor, Sister Hero, Khorn Berserker, Gal Vorbak) -Warlords and retinue -Various types of Warlords to choose from for each EXISTING faction as seen in DOW2. -Tools for Warlord, Various assets for the Warlord to choose from during a match, map tools. Artillery, Gas attacks, summon fog, summon daemons, orbital strikes, Ork Diggas, Thunderhawk close air support, Blessings, summon Living Saint, Terminator Drop Pod, Dreadnaught Drop Pod, etc...etc...etc. -Land Raiders -Dreadnoughts, Big Meks, Killa Kanz, Wraithguard -Proper executions that look good -DLC voice overs -DLC executions -DLC taunt animations I think we've got plenty of content to sort out prior to considering or discussing any additional factions.
