Future Faction Speculation

[Indy Techwisp]

So the game has launched with Legions and Auxilla as our first factions and we seemingly know of quite a few future releases for those factions.

 

There's been hints on WarCom that the next factions we'll get for LI will be the more "esoteric" factions from the HH.

Some obvious guesses would be Mechanicum and Custodes since both were big players in the HH, but the presence of the Word Bearer's "Ignore Dread Aura" pretty obviously brings in Daemons, right?
 

Other than those 3 plus some kind of "Cults/Militia" list (which would heavily step on Solar Auxilla's toes assuming they wouldn't just be rolled in with them) I can't think of any other Horus Heresy factions who could be brought into LI.

 

What's your thoughts on these possible factions, and are there any other potential factions I've missed?

[Noserenda]

Actual Imperial army line troops would be a nice change, better than cults/militia even at this scale.

Looks like a long ass wait for a new faction at this point though.

[Black Cohort]

Mechanicum seems the most likely 3rd faction.  Lots of cool different things you can do with them especially if you push a few dark mechanicum units out.  If they are smart the core Mechancium infantry box has Castallax and/or Thallax that can be fielded by Marines and Solar Auxillia in limited numbers.

 

I think differentiating Imperial army or even militia from Solar Auxillia at this scale is hard unless you want to introduce a bunch of new vehicles that only the Imperial Army uses.

 

Custodes and Sisters I could seem them doing as like 3 kits: infantry, Custodes vehicle kit with 5 APCs and 2/3 Grav tanks, sisters transports.  I don't think either they or Daemons will get a ton of releases since they are both locked to only loyalists or traitors and GW will want kits they can sell to everyone.

 

One 1 infantry sprue the marines got:

1 command stand

4 tactical stands

1 plasma stand

1 missile stand

1 assault stand

1 terminator stand

2 dreadnoughts

with a handful of spare bodies.  Therefore I see no reason why you couldn't do something like:

1 Custodes Command stand

3 Custodian Guard stands

1 sentinel guard stand (2 piece like the missile launchers for the shields)

1 Custodes terminators

1 sisters with melee weapons stand (extra model to do a command stand version)

2 sisters with bolters stands

2 Custodes dreadnoughts

 

double that in a box plus the two vehicle boxes and you could have a force that easily works as the allied 30% of an army, and technically could be fielded as a full army.  Maybe do a flyer as well for a 4th kit.

 

Still I can see daemons getting a few boxes mainly act as an allied contingent or even release rules where you can mix a few daemon units in with your traitor forces.

 

They kind of limited their options for further factions by locking LI into the HH.  Most of the 40k factions would have been interesting to do at this scale, even if they had said Great Crusade + HH they could have gotten Orks and Eldar plus you leave the door open for new factions that don't exist in 40k (probably because the great crusade killed them off).

[DuskRaider]

Mechanicum / Dark Mechanicum is an obvious choice. I’m actually wondering if they’ll make Knights an army proper, especially considering they can technically capture Objectives (Titans cannot) and the first expansion is rumored to be Titandeath. 
 

Talons of the Emperor are a pretty easy guess, as are Daemons. I think Militia would make a lot of sense and I’d love to see how far into that they would go. Would we see Beastmen? I remember Cults / Militia having some pretty interesting stuff in HHv1 and I’d love to see some of that translated to Imperialis. 

[Noserenda]

Id be interested to see if they do daemons as the SG team seem committed to nebulous ruinstorm daemons, perhaps a support box that is mostly brutes and a command stand/big daemon? I suspect they might look at how prevalent third party models are before statting lesser daemons that they probably cant cover all the bases for? 

Talons i would hope would be two separate (If vestigial) armies as they have split them in 32mm, Sisters in particular fit pretty well onto a company frame i think, run a couple of stands of the various cadres, A centura and a judge you can alternate into squads to make a command unit and then a couple of jetbike bases in the place of dreads/ogryns/sentinels. Then you just do an acquisitor box to support them. 

Custodes are even easier as they mirror marines fairly straightforwardly for the infantry/dreadnought box and then a couple of vehicle boxes to support them, possibly splitting the infantry/dreadnoughts/light skimmers onto two sprues? 

I suspect Knights will get some extra traits and stuff when we see the mechanicum release, just from running my eye over things i cant see why they wouldnt work as a full army, albeit a skew list obviously. You could fix this by forcing more Armigers like 32mm again, alongside a plastic kit hopefully! 

Speaking of mechanicum, if love to see a core box with thallax and various priests and robots and then a secutarii box to back up the Titans, my girls need their squishy ablative infantry! And of course, more tanks :D 

[Burni]

Dark Mechanicum would be great as the small scale means they can really go to town on large creations. I'd definitely buy Mechanicum / Dark Mechanicum armies.

[Captain Idaho]

Good thread!

 

Hmm. Did anyone see the Thunderhawk rules has heavy bolters with skyfire, despite all flyers being vehicles and thus immune to "light"?

 

This implies something is coming. Things that fly but aren't vehicles and thus require skyfire to hit them easily. 

 

That leads me to feel it's Daemons, perhaps in a joint boxed set for Adeptus Custodes? Jetbikes also could have a rule we haven't forseen that requires skyfire, which means Astartes but they're not a full army so don't count!

[Valkyrion]

I'm sure this is at the very distant most point of GW's Epic thoughts right now, but 30k epic daemons also paves the way for a ready made epic scale WFB or AoS faction, should a future need arise.

[Pacific81]

Warmaster do you mean Valkyrion? Think a lot of people would love to see that one :)

 

I think as said the Mechanicum and Custodes are no-brainers. I reckon we'll get some sort of 'servants of the Emperor' boxset with Custodes, sisters of silence, things like that on a plastic sprue. Then some little golden hover-rhinos would be awesome :)

 

I hope anyone waiting for genuine Xenos is not holding their breath, as I think you will have an extremely long wait. Best we can hope is this game is such a massive, unbridled success that maybe they try and do a Great Crusade expansion or similar? I think that's slightly more likely than dragging the whole game and setting into 40k, and the dozens of additional SKUs and production design/capacity that would entail (which is my way of saying please check out the Rules for Xenos thread in this forum )

Edited December 12, 2023 by Pacific81

[Marshal Rohr]

I kinda wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped after Mechanicum and their line focuses mostly on robots instead of weirder stuff. 

[Sparika]

Custodes already have a kit in the form of their flyer for Aeronautica Imperialis, would be great to be able to use it. 

 

Mirroring other discussions Mechanicum Tagmatah (Thallax & Co.) and Skitarii are like two different branches of the Mechanicum. So I wonder if it would make more sense to have both in one sprue or in two different sprue. A titan guard box would be awesome! Thallax, Vorax & Co. too obviously.

[Noserenda]

We know some form of Talons is coming based on them keeping the flyer in production, i really hope they dont do mixed faction sprues though, that would probably put me off collecting the official ones entirely. Like, not getting the exact mix of units i want is alright, but the extra step of having to sell a bunch of minis i have no use at all for is more than i can be bothered with.

[Pacific81]

Mixed faction sprues do have a precedent in Epic unfortunately! Thinking of the Stomper sprue which from memory had Terminators, Chaos Androids, Ork Stompers,.Wraithguars (and some other stuff!) on it. You basically just had to trade with friends each time

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

I hope it´s going to be Daemons for the following reasons:

 

1) I have a fully painted Nurgle Daemon army ready being the antagonists for my Iron Hands in 30K. Being released for LI would bring great potential for crossover battles between the systems.

2) Daemons would play radically different. No tanks, flyers or transports. Just hellgates opening up all over the battlefield bringing chaos and mayhem.

3) I have still my Daemon Primarch and GUO from the 90s acting right now as a Daemon Herald in 30K/40K. Once the rules for LI hit the stores those two can be separated again and used for LI:

 

Mortarion with little GUO:

https://ibb.co/album/7QDBBD

 

[Wolf Lord Loki]

On 12/12/2023 at 1:57 PM, Sparika said:

Custodes already have a kit in the form of their flyer for Aeronautica Imperialis, would be great to be able to use it. 

 

Mirroring other discussions Mechanicum Tagmatah (Thallax & Co.) and Skitarii are like two different branches of the Mechanicum. So I wonder if it would make more sense to have both in one sprue or in two different sprue. A titan guard box would be awesome! Thallax, Vorax & Co. too obviously.

 

Obviously mechanicus would be the next faction to add as it can be used by either side in the heresy

 

But an infantry box for talons of the emperor  or deamon brutes would be an easy addon for either side that would markedly change the dynamics of things

 

[Pacific81]

Chaos/demons were a really fun faction to use in SM2/Titan Legions. I would say probably the most interesting to use along with Orks in terms of flavour and random chaos stuff happening (chaos legionnaires growing long mutant legs and rushing forward to grab an objective was always a favourite!) I really hope they bring across some of the character across when they introduce them.

[Matcap86]

On 12/12/2023 at 11:55 AM, Captain Idaho said:

Good thread!

 

Hmm. Did anyone see the Thunderhawk rules has heavy bolters with skyfire, despite all flyers being vehicles and thus immune to "light"?

 

This implies something is coming. Things that fly but aren't vehicles and thus require skyfire to hit them easily. 

 

That leads me to feel it's Daemons, perhaps in a joint boxed set for Adeptus Custodes? Jetbikes also could have a rule we haven't forseen that requires skyfire, which means Astartes but they're not a full army so don't count!

 

I'm also just happy they're already making sure current rules will work with future releases. Instead of lets just shove it in and see how it works. 

[malika666]

Whilst all this speculation is a lot of fun, I won’t expect anything more than perhaps the Mechanicum. 

[Pacific81]

2 hours ago, malika666 said:

Whilst all this speculation is a lot of fun, I won’t expect anything more than perhaps the Mechanicum. 

You are probably right, but I would love a 'creatures or the warp' infantry set, with little epic scale daemons of the main types all on a sprue. Maybe multi-part new greater Daemons? You will get people recreating the battle at the Eternity Gate and things like that..

 

It's one of the few things that isn't particularly well represented by proxy or print minis I have found. I would get them just to use in NetEpic, even if I didn't play them in Legions!

[Captain Idaho]

I can see Daemons and Custodes as a boxed set. Just a few vehicles and monsters, then infantry sprues. It's essentially an upgrade to current armies under the premise of Loyalists and Traitors. Like allies.

[apologist]

I think it’s a fair assumption that the next faction won’t be something completely new – although since we’re still waiting for the ‘mystery’ AoD-scale faction, perhaps we’ll see a simultaneous release across both scales. In that case, all bets are off.

 

However, if it is an existing faction, the options are:

• Daemons of the Ruinstorm

• Talons of the Emperor

• Mechanicum

 

Are there any others? If those are the only options, I guess it’s a case of working out what boxes/kits would actually constitute the release.

 

Mechanicum seem the most likely to me – an established range that includes a variety of infantry and armour, plus a wide array of specialist or superheavy equipment.

 

The others seem more like allies than main factions – but then, perhaps that plays in their favour because they can be released as small ‘packages’ or alongside the waiting stuff we already know is coming.

[Black Cohort]

I still think Talons of the Emperor and Daemons of some variety will come if LI hits GW sales targets.  Both factions can be done with only 3-4 boxes mainly designed as allies, so the risk would be low.

 

The rules seem future proofed for Mechanicum so it seems nearly certain that they would be the 3rd main faction, and who doesn't want mechancium at the scale where you can actually field Titans, knights and ordinatus in multiples along with tech guard, automata and all the other toys.

[malika666]

Whilst I would love to see a full Daemon army, we dont even have that in 32mm yet. I just dont see it happening. Talons of the Emperor and Mechanicum seem more likely though.

[LameBeard]

On 12/22/2023 at 6:36 PM, malika666 said:

Whilst I would love to see a full Daemon army, we dont even have that in 32mm yet. I just dont see it happening. Talons of the Emperor and Mechanicum seem more likely though.

I think you’re right.

 

I think the designers want to let you see your usual models at a dinky size. To get the appeal they also need a dreadnought-sized model: which Mechanicum and Custodes have.

 

Daemons it’s not so obvious- I guess they could do greater daemons again. And the introduction of the sentinels suggests they don’t follow the above rigidly, so brutes are a possibility. I actually think a 8mm scale Kabanda from Forgeworld in a pack with Sanguinius could be done: surely sell like hot cakes?

[tinpact]

22 hours ago, LameBeard said:

I actually think a 8mm scale Kabanda from Forgeworld in a pack with Sanguinius could be done: surely sell like hot cakes?

For the first time ever: you can feasibly lose your primarch down a drain, or inconveniently placed heating vent!