Does the game have room for non-imperial humans?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I mean standard humans not Kin ab-humans.

 

What should their theme and inspirations be?

 

I think a small empire on the edge of the galaxy that was never reached by the great crusade or abandoned by the crusade when the heresy started, and then forgot about.

 

 

10,000 years later they now have warp travel or some other form of ftl travel and that’s why they’re just now showing up on the galactic scene.

[Commander Dawnstar]

It's not something I'm keen for myself, but I've seen a fair bit of interest in T'au getting Gue'vesa (alongside other alien auxiliaries).

Edited May 16, 2022 by Commander Dawnstar

[RWJP]

Prior to the Leagues of Votaan being introduced... Maybe.

After the Leagues of Votaan have been introduced... No, not at all.

LoV fill the niche already. Small empire on the edge of the galaxy mostly separated from the Imperium with advanced technology. The only difference between LoV and your theoretical faction is how tall they are and how long their facial hair is!

[JeffJedi]

If they did exist they would need full non imperial tech.

 

So I agree that LoV would be the closest thing.

[Petitioner's City]

Not "the" game, ie 40k, since I don't think that game currently supports regular humans very well and I'm not sure an extra-imperial force makes sense at the scale of the game either - but the wider IP for sure supports non-imperial settings, and you can make versions of extra-imperial settlements and campaigns for necromunda, inquisitor, 1dt edition 40k, etc, which would all work very well. Heck, you can adapt and play the Rogue Trader RPG to do that too, or combine it with non-ip RPGs (to do some serious world-building lifting) too.

[Scribe]

Not really, in a way that actually respects the setting.

 

Humans were being farmed, harvested, or using tech that is now forbidden.

 

They then got united forcibly, or wiped out in the Crusade era before the Heresy.

 

Fast forward another 10K years? There is no independent human faction.

 

Hiding in the margins, is about the most I would expect, but still on Imperial world's.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Scribe

[Noserenda]

I like Arbitor Ian's idea of an independent human faction that shows up just how pointless a lot of the Imperium's excesses are, i suspect the Votans will cover that off to some degree though.

[Halandaar]

Agreed with the majority here, once Leagues of Votann are in they will fill that gap. Between them, Genestealer Cults and the big expansion to Chaos through new Cultists and Traitor Guard, the game will have non-Imperial human(oid) factions pretty well covered.

[tychobi]

Generally 40k non imperial humans are heretic and kinda lumped in with chaos even if they don't actually worship demons.  There are lots of humans who don't understand or follow imperial decree but they don't last much past first contact with the imperium very often. Assimilated or destroyed.  

[XeonDragon]

I mean standard humans not Kin ab-humans.

 

What should their theme and inspirations be?

 

I think a small empire on the edge of the galaxy that was never reached by the great crusade or abandoned by the crusade when the heresy started, and then forgot about.

 

 

10,000 years later they now have warp travel or some other form of ftl travel and that’s why they’re just now showing up on the galactic scene.

 

I'd say yes. TL;DR: a human faction under the rule of the Emperor's older, wiser sister. 

 

I'd always liked the idea of the Emperor having siblings, and his older, wiser (but not as psychically powerful) sister having created an empire in a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way, either at the beginning of the dark age of technology, or as a break-away empire that was founded due to a mistrust of AI, before the war with the men of iron. Either way, they were isolated for millennia (due in part to her mistrust of the Emperor), was smashed by tyrranid invasions way, way before the galaxy first encounter them and is now both rebuilding and seeking to reunify mankind under her rule :)

 

So, yes - advanced humans (not DAOT advanced, but more advanced than the Imperium, LOV and T'au) who hate AI, survived wars against AI and bugs of death, who live in a liberal-ish semi-democratic or 'guided' democracy under the 'guidance' of the Empress of Humanity (still Xenophobic, but in a segregation rather than genocidal way) who are looking to reunify humanity under her rule (because she thinks her younger brother is douche, will die soon and someone from the family has to be ready to guide humanity until he re-emerges).

[LameBeard]

I like the idea that the Imperium is so vast that worlds fall out of it all the time - remember it can take years for even a message to get through the warp, let alone a fleet to reconquer. So planets are rebelling all the time or even being forgotten about because their tithe value is so poor, and start to diverge from ‘Imperial’. Similarly the great crusade didn’t ever finish - there are many more stars in the Milky Way than all the fleets could possibly have visited. A few still hide human populations, some feral, some living subjugated under Xenos, but some civilised, and these are occasionally discovered.

 

But I agree this is more fertile territory for RPGs or skirmish games, and not really a good fit for a big human “Empire” across many systems.

[Domhnall]

It would be difficult to find a place for them within the rules as they are I'd say. 
 

1. Technolgically advanced and super buff? Space Marines, Sisters, or Eldar (probably LoV)

2. Technologically advanced, but not buff? Tau, or AdMech. 

3. Pretty standard humans? Guard.

4. Less advanced? Orks (but weaker), Cults?

5. Completely feral: Tyranids. 

6. Entirely pacifist? 'Difficult terrain'.

 

There may be a very small niche they could fit into, but not worth the trouble. 
 

A home made campaign on the other hand, could be very interesting. Based on the Imperium finding a new world/small empire and the fight to 'integrate' them into the Imperial truth or not. Use another race as a template (or pick and choose what you need from the others). 

[Beta galactosidase]

It would be difficult to find a place for them within the rules as they are I'd say.

 

Totally could. Brainstorming just on reading your post, I come up with shooty custodes-type bodies with BS 4+. That would be similar to the Olamic Quietude humans from Prospero Burns.

 

Potentially that’s represented by the FW Thallax cohorts, possibly tau suits, armigers, or sentinels. Which is normal.

[Rik Lightstar]

From an on table perspective they'd need to add something that can't be done effectively by any other faction and that seems to be a continually narrowing window.

 

There is a pretty short list of overall themes that a faction has to have its general "feel" drawn from:

• Horde/Elite
• Fast/Slow
• Tough/Fragile
• Good/Bad "Armour"
• Long/Short Range Shooting
• Strong/Weak Shooting
• Strong/Weak Melee

Each of these is more of a "spectrum" than a simple binary choice. There may well be a couple of other options to add but you get the idea.

 

 

From an in universe perspective there's only really room for any individual "non-Imperial" human faction to be a single system in size at the largest although there could be plenty of those.

 

As far as the Imperium is concerned there are only three types of human groups Imperial, Rebel or Heretic.

 

If you're a currently independent human civilisation that gets found by the Imperium then the best you can hope for is to be identified as a group that needs to be reminded that you're Imperial, please welcome your newly assigned Governor and we look forward to receiving your Imperial Tithes the levels of which have been increased to account for Decades/Centuries/Millenia of non-payment.  The only other option is to get "flagged for deletion" by the next passing military force of a suitable size, that might be next week or in 1000 years time, but eventually it will happen.

 

Rik

[jarms48]

I’d love GW to bring back Renegades & Heretics. Except split it into 2 list types:

- non-Chaos renegade humans, who simply broke away from the Imperium.

- Chaos aligned heretics, traitor guard, underground cults, mutants, etc.

[Rik Lightstar]

I’d love GW to bring back Renegades & Heretics. Except split it into 2 list types:

- non-Chaos renegade humans, who simply broke away from the Imperium.

- Chaos aligned heretics, traitor guard, underground cults, mutants, etc.

 

Non-Chaos break away Renegades are basically Imperial Guard with no Commissars and Scions, probably no Super Heavies. They'd have all the same gear if they used to be Imperial.

 

Genestealer Cults would give a reasonable start for doing any form of Chaos Cult with varying degrees of Mutants (run as the assorted Hybrids) and the option for a Magus leading.

 

Rik

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

So here’s a crazy theory.

The expunged primarchs broke off and built their own human empire, and were successful in fending off the emperor.

To prevent anyone else from getting any bright ideas they were completely removed from the imperial histories. Where as the traitors of the heresy who were defeated were left in the histories to remind people what happens to those who rebel against the emperor.

 

How’s that for room in lore at least for an independent human empire?

Edited May 19, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[XeonDragon]

So here’s a crazy theory.

The expunged primarchs broke off and built their own human empire, and were successful in fending off the emperor.

To prevent anyone else from getting any bright ideas they were completely removed from the imperial histories. Where as the traitors of the heresy who were defeated were left in the histories to remind people what happens to those who rebel against the emperor.

 

How’s that for room in lore at least for an independent human empire?

 

I like this. I like it a lot. Has a similar vibe to the Emperor's older sister having an empire vibe :) It could be even more radical to make those Primarchs female ;)

[Brother Tyler]

That would be a huge retcon. The Horus Heresy stories have made it clear that the IInd and XIth Legions and their Primarchs were deliberately exterminated.

 

Practically speaking, non-Imperial humans non-Chaos humans already exist in the setting, but they don't play a significant part in the wars that make up the Warhammer 40,000 factions.

 

The more important question that is really posed is whether or not the game setting can support more factions. Would a new non-Imperial non-Chaos human faction be distinct enough from existing factions to warrant a separate line? Would GW's resources be able to handle such an addition without adversely affecting the existing factions (time between codices and products will be extended)? Would this hypothetical faction be distinct compared to other missing factions? In short, do we need such a faction when there is so much that GW can do to expand the available factions?

[Plague _Lord]

Gameplaywise I'd say no - I'd rather had a really alien, so non-humanoid, xenos faction than more humans. If we were to implement any "new" human factions into the game then it should be actually making the inquisition and rogue traders playable with their own unique regiments/units.

 

You actually have a few nice rulesets for non imperial humans - imperial guard for generic human military, GSC for guerilla warfare renegades and soon the new votann for high-tech humans.

 

But honestly though we need a non-chaos xenos faction that is abstract monster heavy. Let the Ghoul Stars open and give me some cthulu monsters to purge.

[Bryan Blaire]

There’s nothing stopping you from running a Tau rules/human visuals army either (except other players complaining about models) - it’s definitely an “alternate empire” sort of set up that humans could set up as well.

 

Edit: Although with today’s Leagues of Votann reveal, it definitely seems like you are going to be choosing them over Tau if you really want high-tech, but either set of rules could probably be adapted to some interesting fluff.  You could even do robo-centaurs in place of the Votann hover bikes if you wanted.

[Lautrec the Embraced]

Normally two armies that would came to my mind would be Renegades and Heretics for 40k (but last time I played against them was back in 7th ed, think they got nuked by Legends) and Cults & Militia for 30k Horus Heresy, meant to represent all sorts of non-compliant humans, rebels, heretics or just regular auxiliary troops. You had some real fun customization there. If you're looking for themes you can check their rules even if just for a bit of inspiration.

[Warhead01]

I think this concept would be really cool. 

If they did exist they would need full non imperial tech.

So I agree that LoV would be the closest thing.

Agreed. Steam punk weirdness or some high tech and completely unexplainable weapons. Or because of that one time travel like arch from that one dark angels book maybe time traveling Humans from the golden age of humanity lost in the 41's millennium. Which is a little weird of an idea given the scale of 40K but maybe. 

Or just human axillaries for other races tau, and Orks, this one requires a bit of solid fluff to support it but could lead to a larger faction build, some kind of human mercenary guild or coalition that's just clever enough to stay mostly off the imperial radar. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Warhead01

[jarms48]

 

I’d love GW to bring back Renegades & Heretics. Except split it into 2 list types:

- non-Chaos renegade humans, who simply broke away from the Imperium.

- Chaos aligned heretics, traitor guard, underground cults, mutants, etc.

 

Non-Chaos break away Renegades are basically Imperial Guard with no Commissars and Scions, probably no Super Heavies. They'd have all the same gear if they used to be Imperial.

 

It opens the pathway for local patterns of vehicles. Improvised civilian vehicles like the Goliath. Alliances with aliens. Different force organisations to Guard. Etc. There's wiggle room for something different.

[Schurge]

 

 

I mean standard humans not Kin ab-humans.

 

What should their theme and inspirations be?

 

I think a small empire on the edge of the galaxy that was never reached by the great crusade or abandoned by the crusade when the heresy started, and then forgot about.

 

 

10,000 years later they now have warp travel or some other form of ftl travel and that’s why they’re just now showing up on the galactic scene.

I'd say yes. TL;DR: a human faction under the rule of the Emperor's older, wiser sister.

 

I'd always liked the idea of the Emperor having siblings, and his older, wiser (but not as psychically powerful) sister having created an empire in a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way, either at the beginning of the dark age of technology, or as a break-away empire that was founded due to a mistrust of AI, before the war with the men of iron. Either way, they were isolated for millennia (due in part to her mistrust of the Emperor), was smashed by tyrranid invasions way, way before the galaxy first encounter them and is now both rebuilding and seeking to reunify mankind under her rule :)

 

So, yes - advanced humans (not DAOT advanced, but more advanced than the Imperium, LOV and T'au) who hate AI, survived wars against AI and bugs of death, who live in a liberal-ish semi-democratic or 'guided' democracy under the 'guidance' of the Empress of Humanity (still Xenophobic, but in a segregation rather than genocidal way) who are looking to reunify humanity under her rule (because she thinks her younger brother is douche, will die soon and someone from the family has to be ready to guide humanity until he re-emerges).

That wouldn't go over well.