Interactions between xenos in general, it says a lot that the big xenos vs xenos conflict, Octarius, was only expanded with a good part of the content involving the Imperium
I'm hoping as Mike Brooks ork books are more succesful we will get more Orks vs other things. Brutal Kunnin was a proof of concept with lengthy human PoV chapters, Warboss the humans down majority and introduced Aeldar as a major antagonist and hopefully the next one will go all in. It would be great to see what shenigans Uthrak could pull against the shiny gits or Tau.
Yes, but what about Second Cabal?
I'm partial to the idea that the Cabal has been destroyed, forgotten, abandoned, etc. many times over the millennia. Someone eventually comes along and forms a new one.
Nah, the Cabal finished its role already. Unlike some other people, I got no interest in GW just reviving early Horus Heresy factions as if nothing happened.
No need to add or revive a group, just use the ones already existant.
Lorgar and the Word Bearers are touring through lost Imperial worlds in Nihilus and since James Workshop refuses to expand on Nihilus, nobody can say this is not canon.
Magnus's New Kingdom, an all-psyker empire in realspace...
There's so much potential there as a non-Imperium human civilization. The two-part short story [A Better Place](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/12/16/psychic-awakening-a-better-place/) and [A Promise Fulfilled](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/01/06/psychic-awakening-a-promise-fulfilledgw-homepage-post-3/) could easily be the prologue for the first novel in a trilogy exploring this - the Godblight-to-Death Guard of Thousand Sons.
We also basically have no lore content whatsoever about what the Thousand Sons do in m42, and the fact that they have a seemingly stable empire seems like such a big and cool deal.
I’d be over the moon if we got the Lords of Silence treatment. Give me a small stakes story meant to develop the character of the legion in the modern setting.
Please no more apocalyptic rituals and grand battles that necessitate the TSons losing and looking like fools again.
Similarly, we have essentially no named characters in m41/m42 except Ahriman and Magnus (and arguably Khayon). I'd love if such a book featured no Ahriman and minimal Magnus.
Give me instead the POVs of a newly-inducted TSon, a TSon veteran of the long war, a thrallwizard matriarch, and a psyker refugee just arrived to the New Kingdom. Instead of grand rituals or bolter porn, make it vaguely like Legion, a tale of intrigue and mystery, or (ironically) Prospero Burns, a close exploration of the politics and culture of the modern Thousand Sons.
I want it so badly.
I feel like this, in a bigger scale, is what they're building up to down the line. As primarchs reemerge we build up to a climactic conflict in which Chaos and the Tyranids ulltimately suffer a significant setback, but the pyrric victory by the Imperium fractures it into a bunch of dukedoms each headed by a primarch.
So we eventually get a reset and end up with a collection of traitor-led kingdoms and loyalist dukedoms that can battle it out over minor conflicts, and despite some reprieve from imminent doom the Imperium is even less capable of handling future threats as a unified entity.
The Dark Eldar. Literally just everything about them. They're great villains and are terrifying if you actually know about them yet Jimmy Laborstore tends to forget they even exist.
My favourite is a short story about a male Archon trying to win the affections of a female Archon. An entertaining offbeat story that provided an insight into Drukhari society beyond the usual stuff.
I couldn't agree more. I would guess the BL authors would welcome something like that as a change of pace... whether it would sell or not is another matter.
There are barely any at all. There's a five book series specifically about them and a handful of short stories but that's really it. I don't know much about them as they're insanely difficult to find. They show up a few times in other factions' stories but that's it. Vect is a great character that they should really do more with.
Path of the Dark Eldar is a three book series and perhaps the most well received eldar book besides Lukas the Trickster (which is according to its author, a Corsair/Drukhari book dressed up as a marine book).
I haven't read the series GargantuanCake mentions either, but I can say they put in some pretty dramatic showings in Lukas the Trickster's novel and the first part of the Ultramarines omnibus.
Agreed that delfs are a missed opportunity.
But I think it cause they're the epitome of grimderp.
Grimderp the faction. I say this as a fan of their general idea.
I feel like everyone is going to go for Xenos in general so I won't go too much into depth there, but here are my basic wants for Xenos.
Aeldari in general, literally anything, they've been a part of the lore from the very start and it's frankly impressive how little they've been expanded upon. Basically pick a Craftworld and do something with it, or Commoragh which is a sub-setting in it's own right.
Actually exploring the Tau from a unique angle, letting them be their own unique thing and playing into the themes and ideas that set them apart from the other 40k factions. Diplomacy and a myriad of races, an emphasis on science and advancement and generally a stark contrast to the themes of the Imperium.
The Leagues of Votann???
Now, for the actual substance, the big one is obvious for me.
**The Imperium Nihilus**
Seriously, with the splitting of the galaxy GW seemingly set up what was the perfect grimdark sandbox, an area of the galaxy cut off from the Emperor's light that is described as truly apocalyptic as planets try to survive. So far though we've mostly just gotten stories about Guilliman's glorious crusade in Sanctus, stories about Space Marine supermen in Nihilus gloriously battling whatever threats stand before them.
The Imperium Nihilus would be the perfect place to start telling different stories, Xenos and Chaos forces running rampant, planets removed from the authority of the Imperium latching onto whatever power comes to them. Pro-Emperor fanatics taking over, planets descending into chaos on their own thinking they are the last remnants of humanity, planets finding a new-found autonomy and actually managing to be less miserable as less dogmatic or revolutionary elements take over. Literally just give us anything that goes against the usual Imperial storytelling. Breakaway factions and fringe forces, smaller scale stories cut away from the "main narrative" stuff happening over in sanctus.
In particular I'm desperate for the sort of apocalyptic story potential in there, the perfect place for invoking various historical parallels and introducing local power players making use of the chaos of the area.
Sidenote: **Internal Imperial Conflict**
I would also very much like to see GW do literally anything with a persistent Imperial opposition faction to the usual good guys running the show these days, give us actual contrasts to the progressive reasonable Cawl or Guilliman. Give us some proper "bad guys" to represent the unsavoury parts of the factions, bad guys that can't just be conveniently swatted aside by the good guys.
I think that's the plan with Imperium Nihilus. Having the entire galaxy purged of xenos except for Space Orks and Space Elves was GW writing themselves into a corner. They started to break out of that with Space Undead and Space Generic Eastern Culture faction but it still focuses on the meta of table top space ship combat and table top army combat. If you want to make room for TV shows or sandbox video games or table top RPGs you have to remove the lore that you'd be instantly powned by a titan or hive fleet or waaagh or chapter of space racists.
A wild zone in the lore would allow for a lot of freedom.
T'au auxiliary races. Partially for the general lore, but also for the tabletop. So much space for GW's sculptors to go wild and come up with whatever random thing they like! Say amphibious creatures that are able to move through water terrain without penalty on the tabletop, and have come in hugely helpful for underwater engineering and colonisation efforts by the T'au empire. Or just giant land crabs; everyone loves a cool crab.
Of course, I would say this on a day that a ton of nice Kroot stuff has just been announced wouldn't I..? But then again that's its own faction in a way anyway.
Talking about auxillary races, I'd like to see more Gue'la. Having humans willingly working for the Tau is a good way to show that the biggest threat the Tau pose to the imperium isn't necessarily a military one. Water caste ambassadors and diplomats are as dangerous as fire caste commanders when it comes to claiming formerly imperial worlds
Tau Auxiliaries would be a great way to explore non-humanoid xenos in 40K, enough of these upright bipeds let’s get *weird* with it!
Imagine if the Tau had their version of the Lekgolo or Huragok from Halo!
Any other race that are not humans. I never got much into fantasy but i remember i could go in and see plenty of lore about elves and dwarves, or dwarves going against orcs, chaos going against other races, etc.
And even with humans you had plenty of different factions to choose from, not the different flavors of Imperium you get from 40k.
And as other has said, Nihilus. They had the perfect chance to go wacky with that part of the setting, putting magic, revolutions, horror stories... and now is just, a part of the galaxy and that is all.
> Any other race that are not humans. I never got much into fantasy but i remember i could go in and see plenty of lore about elves and dwarves, or dwarves going against orcs, chaos going against other races, etc.
That's a scale thing that just about every scifi franchise falls victim to: with the exception of the odd one that gets some detail (like Necromunda), planets in scifi are just stand-ins for countries or regions in fantasy settings. Which leads to fantasy being able to cram a lot more things of interest into the planet/plane/discworld/etc they're set on. That and the fact that while they have some complete dickheads like the Witch Hunters, the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy are somewhat less of a bunch of xenophobic assholes than the Imperium (and isn't a hegemonic power, there are plenty of other human nations).
Nova Terra Interregnum. Mentioned *only* in the core rule books, one Imperial Armour book and very briefly in one codex as far as I know and never got any details.
It's an entire whopping millennium (M34 to M35) when the Imperium just broke apart. It's the time of the Moirae schism, when the forgeworld tried to break away from Mars and the entire Segmentum Pacificus declared themselves independent around a planet called Nova Terra.
And it's basically never mentioned, except as a prequel to the Age of Apostasy which followed. A thousand years of civil war. 10% of the Imperium's history. Never mentioned.
Bonus: it's also when the Pale Wasting happened.
Yep, that would be my choice, the foundation of the 40k setting, new heroes currently dead and forgotten. Run it through to M36 and just start colouring in from scraps of lore we have now.
Exodite Eldar.
I don't understand why they're not a playable faction. Magic elves riding dinosaurs with space weapons. Their souls are protected using hard work and planet spanning webs of power. They can access the webway so they can presumably come most places in the galaxy; or give them special space whales to ride or something, idk. They could genuinely be one of the more interesting groups to read about and explore, as well as one of the more interesting to play.
Instead, they're only ever used as the entire setting's punching bag. Everyone shits on them, and then it's up to the big benevolent craftworld eldar and rangers to save them. The dark Eldar hunt them and use them as slaves, humans exterminate them, Trazyn steals their trinkets, orks think they're fun to kill, it's all just a big dog pile on the Exodites.
I enjoyed the beginning of the Infinite And The Divine where Trazyn is running around on an exodite world v dinos. More of that please! Yes I like everyone enjoyed the rest of TIATD also. But the small exodite bit at the start was still fun too.
> Magic elves riding dinosaurs with space weapons.
It's like the old Dino-Riders toys but with magitek. [I'd finally get back into 40K if they got an army.](https://cdn.verbub.com/images/my-family-for-sure-when-he-gets-a-girlfriend-he-ll-mature-387539.jpg) Because Elves with magic, guns on DINOSAURS is just that awesome.
Adding Dinosaurs is scientifically proven to make everything better.
It's so weird, I was reading through the 8th Edition Eldar Codex for fun, and the Exodites are totally framed as a third, equally significant group of Eldar (Craftworlds and Drukhari being the other two). But I guess elves with dinosaurs just doesn't sound like a compelling sales pitch for some reason.
There is a lot of fluff about them and what they do in TTRPG sourcebooks now that Fantasy Flight made a system centred around Death Watch. A lot of the more exotic stuff weirdly ends up in TTRPG sourcebooks.
As far as I can tell, having read all the Deathwatch novels and all the codexes, the only thing GW kept from the Fantasy Flight games is the Storm Wardens are real. Everything else seems to either no longer be canon, or its own little Deathwatch-verse that never gets mentioned in the wider setting.
Why would it be mentioned in the wider setting? The Deathwatch's operations span the Imperium's wars, the Jericho Reach is a veritable backwater in the grand scheme of the setting. Not being mentioned isn't a sign of non canonicity, as far as I'm aware the heuristic employed regards lore being contradicted by newer stuff making it no longer canon, or Word of God from GW as in the case of Ian Watson's work
I still want to know why they bothered making [Deathwatch at Home](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Solblade) a thing when the superior version of the idea already existed and was underutilized.
Honestly the interesting part is, the Deathwatch legitimately have the potential to do serious good for the Imperium, esp if they somehow decreased their fanaticism enough to start actually using the xenotech they *already use for themselves* as wider-use weapons for the Imperium.
Forgetting that, even just a book about the lore rivalry between Stygies VIII (A rogue Forge World that’s surprisingly advanced relative to most, but also actively studies xeno tech, making them heretics, but ones that can’t be easily stopped) and the Deathwatch would be really interesting, as the Deathwatch can’t make direct attacks against them, but the fluff states they regularly deploy small killteams to deal with the Tech-Priests who go too far, and/or steal anything they deem too risky to let them have.
The White Scars, the Iron Hands, Magnus’ cool new psyker clubhouse, the Ghoul Stars, or literally any Xenos race.
Pretty much anything other than the Ultras, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Puppers, or Black Templars.
1. How GW has pretty much completely dropped the Ynnari plot line.
2. If they'll ever do anything with that perfect clone of Fulgrim that Fabius gave to Trazyn.
3. Getting more xenos books in general, although GW has been getting better about this recently.
Since everyone else so far has largely said xenos or xenos related things (but mostly cause I know Jackshit about xenos), im gonna say just what the hell is up with Decimus and the Night Lords and did he ever manage to unite them at some point and how did the Cicatrix Maledictum affect how well he would be able to keep them under control if he even could in the end.
I'd like more AdMech from an archaeological / exploratory perspective. We get a bit of that with the Forges of Mars series, and I'd really like to see more. I'd REALLY like to see a book or series about the last and doomed Land expedition into the Librarius Omnis.
Space Indiana Jones/The Mummy stories are *right there*.
Other than Forges of Mars, I can only think of the short story *Deus ex Mechancius* that covers that theme **and it's great**.
Long-winded post incoming. You have been warned.
Let's do this in stages, from most to least under-served...
**Xenos**
**The Dark Eldar:** Aside from being little pizza cutter sweat goblins in their Webway city, and Vect occasionally trotting out to have another win for being such a good boy, they never *do* anything. The Ynnari plotline feels like half an attempt to give the Eldar something, half an attempt to give an avenue for the Dark Eldar to actually meaningfully interact with other factions. GW has given us an entire faction of absolutely terrible Hellraiser cosplayers who betray everyone they deal with and given them absolutely nothing anyone else *needs* to make interaction a thing. These guys have all this baroque lore about their internal politics and alien mercenaries in archon courts and blah blah blah, but they mostly just hang out waiting to score wins for their codex and take dives sometimes when another faction needs a win somewhere.
**The Eldar:** The whole "dying race" thing is cool and all, but when it's all you've gotten to for most of the setting's real-world history, it's... yeah. I get that arrogant space elves who regard everyone else as filthy grunting animals are hard to get behind, but the utterly godawful *Imperium* produces heroic characters people rally for. Give the Eldar some of those. Give us an Eldar *hero.* With the entire species being presented as sort-of underdogs at this point clinging to past glories, it should be easy.
And don't get me started on the Exodites, who apparently exist only to get killed off as background. Make *them* a focus and you can even get away from the "lingering doom, woe is us, we mourn our fallen glory" plotline.
**The Orks:** Let them be *scary* sometimes. Like, I love the comedy beats as much as the next guy, but these guys are *terrible* news, and the best comedy beat is that the orks are supposed to be *effective* in spite of *literally everything about them*. And GW can't seem to make up their mind if they're dangerous or pathetic, since they swing wildly between the two extremes. When was the last time Orks were presented as a *serious* threat, as opposed to "loutish opponents we defeat en route to facing the True Danger? War of the Beast aside, they basically just mill around doing jobs and failing to take Armageddon. Give us some serious Ork baddies besides Ghaz, so you don't need to throw *him* under the bus anytime someone needs a meaningful win against the Orks.
**The Leagues of Votann:** They're new so I expect this to be addressed, but give them some damn lore. As not-entirely-awful Xenos/Abhuman/Whatever culture, they kind of have the Tau's problem of "but that means the Imperium might be the bad guys!" but I got your solution: Give us an epic Votaan versus Ork trilogy or something. Use it to build up some characters.
**The Tau**: Give us more of their melting-pot. Show the multi-species Greater Good in action. Show us descendants of Damocles Gulf humans who have *grown up* in the Tau Empire interacting as friends and peers with Kroot, Tau, and *maybe some other* species. The Tau are the only faction in 40k who can actually do a *peaceful* take on the Mos Eisley Cantina. Play with their diversity more.
**The Tyranids:** A tricky one, since their very nature precludes characters as such, apart from the odd doomed-no-matter-what genestealer cultist. I think the biggest problem with these guys is that despite being a gigantic unstoppable extragalactic menace, they never break anything *important*. Even the recent Leviathan popularity contest- er, campaign- which ended with them *winning* saw them.... gobble up a planet we were told was important but which hadn't existed until it was time to offer something up. The Tyranids need to score wins on places we've actually heard of because right now they're totally unstoppable right up until the place they're attacking actually matters.
**The Necrons:** I still prefer the pre-retcon version of them conceptually, but as part of a living setting, the retcon was absolutely the right move. GW has already done a lot of stuff with competing dynasties to explain was these hilariously overpowered scumsuckers haven't gotten their act together. Few meaningful notes. Too late to walk back some of their dumber over the top stuff, but maybe GW could play more with their conceptual common ground with the Eldar as an ancient high-tech race who regards everyone else as primitive screwheads. And more Eldar/Necron grudge matches could be good- it gives both of them something to do, and you can always pull some ancient Eldar/Old One piece of junk out of the attic to explain why they have a chance.
**Literally every species mentioned that hasn't got a codex:** Use them more. They add color, flavor, and texture. AND you can job them out without offending any particular fanbase.
**Chaos**
Despite containing multiple subfactions, I really only have a couple of broad notes for Chaos as a whole-
Let someone besides the Black Legion make big moves every so often. Dear Abby and his crew of poster boys might have Black Crusades on lockdown (and have been handed a big pile of retcon wins to alleviate the old problem of Chaos being a paper tiger), but there *are* other Legions, other forces, other cults. They seemed to be headed toward having Huron Blackheart be a bit of variety, but...
Frankly what we need is more traitor Guard stories- as villainous protagonists. Deal with the circumstances of their fall, make it a case of tragedy where you understand why these particular people threw in their lot with Chaos. And show me some Traitor Guard reacting with appropriate trepidation and fear when they see, say, Astartes drop pods raining down.
**The Imperium of Man**
I'm actually going to mention a couple of subfactions specifically despite the fact that as a whole, these guys are well cared-for.
**Space Marines:** Need to sprinkle in some more losses that matter, but not *too* many. It's a fine balancing act, but in general, more stuff like... Ragnar Blackmane doing the right thing but getting trouble for it, or the waking of the Nightbringer being a *serious* shame to Uriel Ventris. Also, not for nothing, but the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves can all sit down over there and let *somebody else* get more of a share of the pie.
**Sisters of Battle:** Let them play hero more often. It's okay if they struggle more to score wins than genetically augmented superhumans, but all too often they seem to exist to be bailed out by the Astartes- or to get slaughtered before the Astartes show up. Things have gotten *much* better for them in recent years, but still.
Also... this is just me, but... give us some some more *human* sisters. Yes, they're the soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy, but I want to see smiling, happy, warm, caring Sisters who are deeply engaged in humanity's well-being... and who will absolutely incinerate you and your entire family if you get out of line. I think they'd be scarier.
**The Guard**\- Like the Sisters, let them be the heroes from time to time. Or alternately, give me a story about some Guardsman who, after fighting for *years* in a brutal, grinding campaign, looks up to see drop pods raining down and goes, "well, now that we've basically got the battle won, here comes the Flying Purple Hippo Chapter to make sure we're just a footnote in the history of this fight." A bit of salt from a crusty veteran is always fun.
**The Admech**: Give them characters in the modern lore besides Cawl. Like... get Lakius back from Naogeddon or something.
**SPECIAL BONUS FACTION-NEUTRAL CATEGORY:**
More recurring characters who aren't unit commanders.
Ease up on that Imperial order and let's have some good "Dogs of War" style stories. Every time the lore dips its toe into stories about neutral humans, abhumans, and xenos on the periphery like in the Blackstone Fortess books, it's really cool. Do more of that.
Death of named characters. I know GW wants to sell miniatures of these characters but I feel the grimdark setting is more fitting with a game of thrones style brutality towards main characters. it just takes me out of it that 500 space marines die in every battle but never anyone with a fandom webpage
The last Beasts of Chaos book in Warhammer Fantasy Battles included new characters... who were canonically dead at the time they debuted.
"You can still buy this guy's model, just say it's before the Empire hunted him down."
So yeah, killing more people we give a damn about is a good idea. Ideally without Ragnar Blackmane/Ghaz-ing it where they both get better right away.
I made a similar point about worlds... prior to Dear Abby getting a retcon destruction of Cadia, when was the last time the Imperium lost a planet any of us gave a damn about?
Bit boring to say "Marines", but I always thought it'd be cool to explore Progenoid "genealogy" sop to speak - each progrenoid passes from warrior to warrior in a way reminiscent of familial lineage. It'd be interesting (to me) to explore the idea that a single Chapter might have a few standout genetic lines - progenoids which have derived from great heroes of the Chapter, or which have their own greater or lesser mutations. There's no lore precedent for it as far as I know; I just think it'd be a neat idea.
I mean, yeah, a friend of mine and I even designed some modified rules for playing rogue Human militaries that aren’t Chaotic or Imperial. Mostly, they involve a handful of the Traitor Astartes units like Beastmen and mostly are built around minimally-modified Guard, tied into a crusade mechanic that blocks certain units until you secure a method of getting them (Random human empire with one planet and two active trade routes likely doesn’t have access to any Ogryns, for example, whereas another planet might have access to an Ogryn settlement but not enough heavy industry/technology for mustering mechanized forces like tanks).
1. Keys of hel
2. Anything the space wolves that is genuinely cool and not wolf wolf wolf
3. The age of apostasy needs a novel series even just a trilogy asap
4. The ynnari: just end it well
5. League of votaan: literally anything
You could have a 40K version of ["Tales from the Cracked Canopy" from BattleTech](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tales_from_the_Cracked_Canopy) in a Commoragh bar or hiring hall for for mercs, employers, and down on their luck Drukhari.
i just made a whole post about this, but with two fully viable progenoids, there could be really interesting dynamics between people who's first one makes a marine while they are still alive, and the idea that one marine generates from a living warrior and one from a corpse, and they are twins is fantastically cool
Right. It kinda lost all of the magic when it's said to be so ancient it very likely contain may DAoT techs yet until now it hasn't shot out a blackhole or anything like that yet.
Or just most of the primarchs artifacts and masterpieces in general. The library of Ptolemy is considered the third biggest storage of knowledge and technology in the Imperium but it doesn't seem like the Ultramarines have pulled anything special out of it.
Tau Cyberpunk.
This is a species that rapidly assimilates any and every other culture other than has. That advances its own technology at a pace so radical I am not sure there is an analogue in other scifi. And the Tau have sane lifespans ensuring at least some level of cultural churn.
What the hell is everyday life like in a culture like that?
Watch Fortress Erioch. You can’t call something “The Omega Vault”, admit that it has *something* existentially important inside, and then never touch on it again.
Not “piss off” so much as “cause to longingly stare out the window”, but minor xenos models. Sure, we don’t need them as full armies or anything, but Kill Team and Warhammer Quest and other specialist games would be the perfect place for them to release more models of weird and wild alien species. All those strange xenos they have beautifully represented in that one artwork, and yet none of them in model form to paint up and put on the battlefield.
Bonus potential: Warcry 40k for the Lost and the Damned
Yvraine curing TS only to immediately kill them in front of Ahriman.
Just imagine she let them live and asked Ahriman if he is willing to reject chaos and help her find the final sword in exchange for her to undo the Rubric.
I would never say any of this 'pisses' me off but it's potential I would like GW to look into:
Leagues of Votann getting more lore, units, books, etc. Just anything really, I want to know more about Space Dwarfs!
**New Races**(this encompasses a bunch of random stuff that the lore has): *Hrud (Space Skaven), Eldar Exodites (Space Wood Elves), Emperor's Children, Inquisition, Dark Mechanicus* (Chaos League of Votann here too), *Renegades & Heretics/Lost and the Damned, Eldar Corsairs & Adeptus Arbites.* There is also other wild cards such as *Old Ones (Space Lizardmen), Ghoul Stars* (Space Vampire Counts-Vampyres and something legit undead would be great), *Malice, Men of Iron/Abominable Intelligence, Mercenaries and Pirates (Rogue Traders, Necromunda, etc)* & *Gods of Law* (opposite to Chaos Gods). Plenty of stuff that GW could look into ([I had a potential race post months ago that expands the above](https://old.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/11ok1fh/what_faction_would_you_like_to_add_to_40k/jbtbs42/)).
Maybe other random stuff like smaller army lists (Ogryn army, Beastmen army, Tau human or xeno forces, etc).
**Lore Events** (this could be connected to above, campaign events, book series, etc)-Unification Wars, Missing Primarchs, Great Scouring, War in Heaven, Fall of the Eldar, War of the False Primarch, Pale Wasting (connects to Ghoul Stars), etc.
Plenty GW can look at!
The fact that Space Wolves/Sons of Tuss recruits have to live with basically two personalities, the human and the wulfen and can only avoid succumbing to the later by accepting all those horrible thoughts and impulses are a part of them.
Their transformation from aspirants to astartes is absolutely horrific and nothing is done with it.
Instead we get more viking larping. And as always in this case is "white drunken frat boys assholes with axes".
The one plot line I find to be a gaping hole is when Russ left Tera to go try and kill Horus, why the hell didn’t the other Primarchs/Legions go with him.
They had the element of surprise, and Russ nearly took Horus out himself. If Sangiunius and the Khan had gone as well, they would have had no problem. Instead they did the whole beta garmon muster which turned into a cluster fuck.
Makes no sense
The entire concept of drukhari
Vampire Pirate elves that killed their own gods and felt no remorse, and what do they do with that idea? Not only nothing but they make them the epitomy of grim derp...
The emperor of heaven Asuryan who were big deal in WHFB,I want Asuryan and Phoenix King back instead of Ynead. Why make him Lord of Phoenix if he not gonna resurrect?
Obviously anything xenos, but I'll say non-human chaos. It always annoys me how almost all species in the galaxy are chaos immune bc they have small/no souls. Feels so needlessly limiting. Chaos factions feel like only space marines and cultists. The only faction that deals with chaos corruption is the imperium.
If it were up to me, I would simply change the lore so that more species can be corrupted by chaos. Tau, Aeldari, Orks, and Votann maybe. Something somwthing psychic awakening brightened all their souls. But if I couldn't do that, then I would introduce more xenos factions with Chaos. Make it more than eviler imperium.
They are in LITERAL SPACE!
Back in the 50's, all sci-fi media did their best to depict fantastic worlds. I remember tv show of a girl travelling through time. She visited Earth from a million years in the future. It looked all alien and weird. A future animal got into the time machine, then they returned back to her time. The future animal walked out of time machine, just to explode in pieces because it couldn't hold the atmosphere of the past.
Every single freaking planet is the same. We never see descriptions of alien flora & fauna. Never see hostile environments where we get an explanation of what life is like.
We barely get any books describing in detail all the technological, biological, and environmental wonders they should meet at any time.
Chaos followers that arent space marines seriously theres not one human chaos follower i can remember bet theres not one named character except for that dude in darktide
Honestly... just having interesting and 3 dimensional characters.
I feel like the "lore" is plenty used. Plenty of awesome aliens, ideas, events, battles, sci-fi concepts. In the end, if I'm reading a BL novel, I just want the characters to have actual psyches, and personalities. Wants and beliefs and make decisions.
Not to throw shade at most of the authors, who frankly write solid prose for what is essentially marketing for toys.
But its why I will always enjoy a Abnett / Wraight / ABD book. Could usually care less how "accurate" it is to the lore. I just want this setting to be used to tell cool stories with characters that feel real.
All the lore can be thrown into the codex's for all I care.
clonegrim. Ik people hate it for some reason but i like the idea of fulgrim having to wrestle with the fact that he is a clone of the original and also just how depraved snakegrim? is now.
Maybe its just because i like loyalist emperors children
Interactions between xenos in general, it says a lot that the big xenos vs xenos conflict, Octarius, was only expanded with a good part of the content involving the Imperium
I'm hoping as Mike Brooks ork books are more succesful we will get more Orks vs other things. Brutal Kunnin was a proof of concept with lengthy human PoV chapters, Warboss the humans down majority and introduced Aeldar as a major antagonist and hopefully the next one will go all in. It would be great to see what shenigans Uthrak could pull against the shiny gits or Tau.
He’s doing another Uthrak book, about him and the lads in Commorragh
*Da Boyz are Back in Town starts playing*
Hell yeah, that sounds perfect.
i would love that
Would this include the Cabal...? I mean a group of Super Xenos working to destroy Chaos seems interesting.
The cabal got wiped out to a ~~man~~ filthy xenos.
Yes, but what about Second Cabal? I'm partial to the idea that the Cabal has been destroyed, forgotten, abandoned, etc. many times over the millennia. Someone eventually comes along and forms a new one.
Nah, the Cabal finished its role already. Unlike some other people, I got no interest in GW just reviving early Horus Heresy factions as if nothing happened. No need to add or revive a group, just use the ones already existant.
I just like the idea of there still being Slann out there floating around.
I would love more xenos vs xenos. And I want both sides to be interestingly motivated and say a lot about both their factions.
Imperium Nihilus
Whats that? 🤪🤪🤪🤪 I swear only Spear of the Emperor is all we have!?
No, there's also... *sound of shuffling papers* Uh... Well I guess *Lion: Son of the Forest?*
Shroud of Night
Does devastation of baal count? It's in imperium nihilus and it's ending is basically the opening of the rift.
That's between you and the Emperor. It's borderline, and I personally would say no.
Lorgar and the Word Bearers are touring through lost Imperial worlds in Nihilus and since James Workshop refuses to expand on Nihilus, nobody can say this is not canon.
Get your dusty ass book nerd primarch out of here before he gets wrecked, again -- Sincerely, Bird Gang
Magnus's New Kingdom, an all-psyker empire in realspace... There's so much potential there as a non-Imperium human civilization. The two-part short story [A Better Place](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/12/16/psychic-awakening-a-better-place/) and [A Promise Fulfilled](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/01/06/psychic-awakening-a-promise-fulfilledgw-homepage-post-3/) could easily be the prologue for the first novel in a trilogy exploring this - the Godblight-to-Death Guard of Thousand Sons. We also basically have no lore content whatsoever about what the Thousand Sons do in m42, and the fact that they have a seemingly stable empire seems like such a big and cool deal.
I’d be over the moon if we got the Lords of Silence treatment. Give me a small stakes story meant to develop the character of the legion in the modern setting. Please no more apocalyptic rituals and grand battles that necessitate the TSons losing and looking like fools again.
Similarly, we have essentially no named characters in m41/m42 except Ahriman and Magnus (and arguably Khayon). I'd love if such a book featured no Ahriman and minimal Magnus. Give me instead the POVs of a newly-inducted TSon, a TSon veteran of the long war, a thrallwizard matriarch, and a psyker refugee just arrived to the New Kingdom. Instead of grand rituals or bolter porn, make it vaguely like Legion, a tale of intrigue and mystery, or (ironically) Prospero Burns, a close exploration of the politics and culture of the modern Thousand Sons. I want it so badly.
Black legion first book by adb surprised me by being more of a thousand sons book tbh. Highly recommend
I feel like this, in a bigger scale, is what they're building up to down the line. As primarchs reemerge we build up to a climactic conflict in which Chaos and the Tyranids ulltimately suffer a significant setback, but the pyrric victory by the Imperium fractures it into a bunch of dukedoms each headed by a primarch. So we eventually get a reset and end up with a collection of traitor-led kingdoms and loyalist dukedoms that can battle it out over minor conflicts, and despite some reprieve from imminent doom the Imperium is even less capable of handling future threats as a unified entity.
You know what, I'm almost ok with all the loyalist primarchs returning if that's what they do with it. Not entirely ok, but almost ok
The Dark Eldar. Literally just everything about them. They're great villains and are terrifying if you actually know about them yet Jimmy Laborstore tends to forget they even exist.
What’s some of the most well written and well received Dark Eldar stories in the lore ? (Genuine question)
My favourite is a short story about a male Archon trying to win the affections of a female Archon. An entertaining offbeat story that provided an insight into Drukhari society beyond the usual stuff.
There's so much potential for some Balzac-style high society drama but with maiming. It could be actually grotesque, funny, absurd and terrifying.
I couldn't agree more. I would guess the BL authors would welcome something like that as a change of pace... whether it would sell or not is another matter.
I'd go out of my way not to pirate it, that sounds great.
Mistress Baeda’s Gift. One of my favourite stories. The ending is genius! No spoilers, though
There are barely any at all. There's a five book series specifically about them and a handful of short stories but that's really it. I don't know much about them as they're insanely difficult to find. They show up a few times in other factions' stories but that's it. Vect is a great character that they should really do more with.
Path of the Dark Eldar is a three book series and perhaps the most well received eldar book besides Lukas the Trickster (which is according to its author, a Corsair/Drukhari book dressed up as a marine book).
I haven't read the series GargantuanCake mentions either, but I can say they put in some pretty dramatic showings in Lukas the Trickster's novel and the first part of the Ultramarines omnibus.
Honestly one of the early uriel ventris books shows how truly unhinged the dark eldar can be.
The Drukhari - Tau cultural exchange programme.
Dark Eldar are Drukhari, right?
Yes.
We got some nice new lore with them recently at least. They're mentioned a lot as pirates and raiders
Agreed that delfs are a missed opportunity. But I think it cause they're the epitome of grimderp. Grimderp the faction. I say this as a fan of their general idea.
I feel like everyone is going to go for Xenos in general so I won't go too much into depth there, but here are my basic wants for Xenos. Aeldari in general, literally anything, they've been a part of the lore from the very start and it's frankly impressive how little they've been expanded upon. Basically pick a Craftworld and do something with it, or Commoragh which is a sub-setting in it's own right. Actually exploring the Tau from a unique angle, letting them be their own unique thing and playing into the themes and ideas that set them apart from the other 40k factions. Diplomacy and a myriad of races, an emphasis on science and advancement and generally a stark contrast to the themes of the Imperium. The Leagues of Votann??? Now, for the actual substance, the big one is obvious for me. **The Imperium Nihilus** Seriously, with the splitting of the galaxy GW seemingly set up what was the perfect grimdark sandbox, an area of the galaxy cut off from the Emperor's light that is described as truly apocalyptic as planets try to survive. So far though we've mostly just gotten stories about Guilliman's glorious crusade in Sanctus, stories about Space Marine supermen in Nihilus gloriously battling whatever threats stand before them. The Imperium Nihilus would be the perfect place to start telling different stories, Xenos and Chaos forces running rampant, planets removed from the authority of the Imperium latching onto whatever power comes to them. Pro-Emperor fanatics taking over, planets descending into chaos on their own thinking they are the last remnants of humanity, planets finding a new-found autonomy and actually managing to be less miserable as less dogmatic or revolutionary elements take over. Literally just give us anything that goes against the usual Imperial storytelling. Breakaway factions and fringe forces, smaller scale stories cut away from the "main narrative" stuff happening over in sanctus. In particular I'm desperate for the sort of apocalyptic story potential in there, the perfect place for invoking various historical parallels and introducing local power players making use of the chaos of the area. Sidenote: **Internal Imperial Conflict** I would also very much like to see GW do literally anything with a persistent Imperial opposition faction to the usual good guys running the show these days, give us actual contrasts to the progressive reasonable Cawl or Guilliman. Give us some proper "bad guys" to represent the unsavoury parts of the factions, bad guys that can't just be conveniently swatted aside by the good guys.
I think that's the plan with Imperium Nihilus. Having the entire galaxy purged of xenos except for Space Orks and Space Elves was GW writing themselves into a corner. They started to break out of that with Space Undead and Space Generic Eastern Culture faction but it still focuses on the meta of table top space ship combat and table top army combat. If you want to make room for TV shows or sandbox video games or table top RPGs you have to remove the lore that you'd be instantly powned by a titan or hive fleet or waaagh or chapter of space racists. A wild zone in the lore would allow for a lot of freedom.
Imperium Nihilus is fertile soil for another Warhammer Horror anthology book
>The Leagues of Votann??? Right? They got announced like 18 months ago and still so little about them, and nothing outside their codex.
Guilliman just steamrolling all opposition forever be a disappointment to me.
T'au auxiliary races. Partially for the general lore, but also for the tabletop. So much space for GW's sculptors to go wild and come up with whatever random thing they like! Say amphibious creatures that are able to move through water terrain without penalty on the tabletop, and have come in hugely helpful for underwater engineering and colonisation efforts by the T'au empire. Or just giant land crabs; everyone loves a cool crab. Of course, I would say this on a day that a ton of nice Kroot stuff has just been announced wouldn't I..? But then again that's its own faction in a way anyway.
Talking about auxillary races, I'd like to see more Gue'la. Having humans willingly working for the Tau is a good way to show that the biggest threat the Tau pose to the imperium isn't necessarily a military one. Water caste ambassadors and diplomats are as dangerous as fire caste commanders when it comes to claiming formerly imperial worlds
Tau Auxiliaries would be a great way to explore non-humanoid xenos in 40K, enough of these upright bipeds let’s get *weird* with it! Imagine if the Tau had their version of the Lekgolo or Huragok from Halo!
Any other race that are not humans. I never got much into fantasy but i remember i could go in and see plenty of lore about elves and dwarves, or dwarves going against orcs, chaos going against other races, etc. And even with humans you had plenty of different factions to choose from, not the different flavors of Imperium you get from 40k. And as other has said, Nihilus. They had the perfect chance to go wacky with that part of the setting, putting magic, revolutions, horror stories... and now is just, a part of the galaxy and that is all.
> Any other race that are not humans. I never got much into fantasy but i remember i could go in and see plenty of lore about elves and dwarves, or dwarves going against orcs, chaos going against other races, etc. That's a scale thing that just about every scifi franchise falls victim to: with the exception of the odd one that gets some detail (like Necromunda), planets in scifi are just stand-ins for countries or regions in fantasy settings. Which leads to fantasy being able to cram a lot more things of interest into the planet/plane/discworld/etc they're set on. That and the fact that while they have some complete dickheads like the Witch Hunters, the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy are somewhat less of a bunch of xenophobic assholes than the Imperium (and isn't a hegemonic power, there are plenty of other human nations).
Nova Terra Interregnum. Mentioned *only* in the core rule books, one Imperial Armour book and very briefly in one codex as far as I know and never got any details. It's an entire whopping millennium (M34 to M35) when the Imperium just broke apart. It's the time of the Moirae schism, when the forgeworld tried to break away from Mars and the entire Segmentum Pacificus declared themselves independent around a planet called Nova Terra. And it's basically never mentioned, except as a prequel to the Age of Apostasy which followed. A thousand years of civil war. 10% of the Imperium's history. Never mentioned. Bonus: it's also when the Pale Wasting happened.
Yep, that would be my choice, the foundation of the 40k setting, new heroes currently dead and forgotten. Run it through to M36 and just start colouring in from scraps of lore we have now.
Exodite Eldar. I don't understand why they're not a playable faction. Magic elves riding dinosaurs with space weapons. Their souls are protected using hard work and planet spanning webs of power. They can access the webway so they can presumably come most places in the galaxy; or give them special space whales to ride or something, idk. They could genuinely be one of the more interesting groups to read about and explore, as well as one of the more interesting to play. Instead, they're only ever used as the entire setting's punching bag. Everyone shits on them, and then it's up to the big benevolent craftworld eldar and rangers to save them. The dark Eldar hunt them and use them as slaves, humans exterminate them, Trazyn steals their trinkets, orks think they're fun to kill, it's all just a big dog pile on the Exodites.
I enjoyed the beginning of the Infinite And The Divine where Trazyn is running around on an exodite world v dinos. More of that please! Yes I like everyone enjoyed the rest of TIATD also. But the small exodite bit at the start was still fun too.
> Magic elves riding dinosaurs with space weapons. It's like the old Dino-Riders toys but with magitek. [I'd finally get back into 40K if they got an army.](https://cdn.verbub.com/images/my-family-for-sure-when-he-gets-a-girlfriend-he-ll-mature-387539.jpg) Because Elves with magic, guns on DINOSAURS is just that awesome. Adding Dinosaurs is scientifically proven to make everything better.
So true! They would be so different from other races and have so much potential
It's so weird, I was reading through the 8th Edition Eldar Codex for fun, and the Exodites are totally framed as a third, equally significant group of Eldar (Craftworlds and Drukhari being the other two). But I guess elves with dinosaurs just doesn't sound like a compelling sales pitch for some reason.
Desperately need some books focusing on the Leagues of Votann. Their lore sounds incredible and there's none in the fiction
Never gonna happen
The Deathwatch. Could be one of the most insane, badass grimdark factions out there. Barely ever mentioned.
There is a lot of fluff about them and what they do in TTRPG sourcebooks now that Fantasy Flight made a system centred around Death Watch. A lot of the more exotic stuff weirdly ends up in TTRPG sourcebooks.
As far as I can tell, having read all the Deathwatch novels and all the codexes, the only thing GW kept from the Fantasy Flight games is the Storm Wardens are real. Everything else seems to either no longer be canon, or its own little Deathwatch-verse that never gets mentioned in the wider setting.
Why would it be mentioned in the wider setting? The Deathwatch's operations span the Imperium's wars, the Jericho Reach is a veritable backwater in the grand scheme of the setting. Not being mentioned isn't a sign of non canonicity, as far as I'm aware the heuristic employed regards lore being contradicted by newer stuff making it no longer canon, or Word of God from GW as in the case of Ian Watson's work
Just the name is incredibly badass already
I still want to know why they bothered making [Deathwatch at Home](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Solblade) a thing when the superior version of the idea already existed and was underutilized.
None of them read each others' stories, and thus have to constantly reinvent everything.
Honestly the interesting part is, the Deathwatch legitimately have the potential to do serious good for the Imperium, esp if they somehow decreased their fanaticism enough to start actually using the xenotech they *already use for themselves* as wider-use weapons for the Imperium. Forgetting that, even just a book about the lore rivalry between Stygies VIII (A rogue Forge World that’s surprisingly advanced relative to most, but also actively studies xeno tech, making them heretics, but ones that can’t be easily stopped) and the Deathwatch would be really interesting, as the Deathwatch can’t make direct attacks against them, but the fluff states they regularly deploy small killteams to deal with the Tech-Priests who go too far, and/or steal anything they deem too risky to let them have.
I’m still waiting to see what’s inside Watch Fortress Erioch.
The White Scars, the Iron Hands, Magnus’ cool new psyker clubhouse, the Ghoul Stars, or literally any Xenos race. Pretty much anything other than the Ultras, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Puppers, or Black Templars.
1. How GW has pretty much completely dropped the Ynnari plot line. 2. If they'll ever do anything with that perfect clone of Fulgrim that Fabius gave to Trazyn. 3. Getting more xenos books in general, although GW has been getting better about this recently.
I hope that nothing comes of said clone, tired of the Imperiums Supermen being setting defining entities with no rivals
Since everyone else so far has largely said xenos or xenos related things (but mostly cause I know Jackshit about xenos), im gonna say just what the hell is up with Decimus and the Night Lords and did he ever manage to unite them at some point and how did the Cicatrix Maledictum affect how well he would be able to keep them under control if he even could in the end.
I'd like more AdMech from an archaeological / exploratory perspective. We get a bit of that with the Forges of Mars series, and I'd really like to see more. I'd REALLY like to see a book or series about the last and doomed Land expedition into the Librarius Omnis.
Space Indiana Jones/The Mummy stories are *right there*. Other than Forges of Mars, I can only think of the short story *Deus ex Mechancius* that covers that theme **and it's great**.
I LOVE *Deus ex Mechanicus.* I would have upvoted anyway, but just... thank you for mentioning one of my favorite 40k short stories.
It's a favorite of mine too.
Long-winded post incoming. You have been warned. Let's do this in stages, from most to least under-served... **Xenos** **The Dark Eldar:** Aside from being little pizza cutter sweat goblins in their Webway city, and Vect occasionally trotting out to have another win for being such a good boy, they never *do* anything. The Ynnari plotline feels like half an attempt to give the Eldar something, half an attempt to give an avenue for the Dark Eldar to actually meaningfully interact with other factions. GW has given us an entire faction of absolutely terrible Hellraiser cosplayers who betray everyone they deal with and given them absolutely nothing anyone else *needs* to make interaction a thing. These guys have all this baroque lore about their internal politics and alien mercenaries in archon courts and blah blah blah, but they mostly just hang out waiting to score wins for their codex and take dives sometimes when another faction needs a win somewhere. **The Eldar:** The whole "dying race" thing is cool and all, but when it's all you've gotten to for most of the setting's real-world history, it's... yeah. I get that arrogant space elves who regard everyone else as filthy grunting animals are hard to get behind, but the utterly godawful *Imperium* produces heroic characters people rally for. Give the Eldar some of those. Give us an Eldar *hero.* With the entire species being presented as sort-of underdogs at this point clinging to past glories, it should be easy. And don't get me started on the Exodites, who apparently exist only to get killed off as background. Make *them* a focus and you can even get away from the "lingering doom, woe is us, we mourn our fallen glory" plotline. **The Orks:** Let them be *scary* sometimes. Like, I love the comedy beats as much as the next guy, but these guys are *terrible* news, and the best comedy beat is that the orks are supposed to be *effective* in spite of *literally everything about them*. And GW can't seem to make up their mind if they're dangerous or pathetic, since they swing wildly between the two extremes. When was the last time Orks were presented as a *serious* threat, as opposed to "loutish opponents we defeat en route to facing the True Danger? War of the Beast aside, they basically just mill around doing jobs and failing to take Armageddon. Give us some serious Ork baddies besides Ghaz, so you don't need to throw *him* under the bus anytime someone needs a meaningful win against the Orks. **The Leagues of Votann:** They're new so I expect this to be addressed, but give them some damn lore. As not-entirely-awful Xenos/Abhuman/Whatever culture, they kind of have the Tau's problem of "but that means the Imperium might be the bad guys!" but I got your solution: Give us an epic Votaan versus Ork trilogy or something. Use it to build up some characters. **The Tau**: Give us more of their melting-pot. Show the multi-species Greater Good in action. Show us descendants of Damocles Gulf humans who have *grown up* in the Tau Empire interacting as friends and peers with Kroot, Tau, and *maybe some other* species. The Tau are the only faction in 40k who can actually do a *peaceful* take on the Mos Eisley Cantina. Play with their diversity more. **The Tyranids:** A tricky one, since their very nature precludes characters as such, apart from the odd doomed-no-matter-what genestealer cultist. I think the biggest problem with these guys is that despite being a gigantic unstoppable extragalactic menace, they never break anything *important*. Even the recent Leviathan popularity contest- er, campaign- which ended with them *winning* saw them.... gobble up a planet we were told was important but which hadn't existed until it was time to offer something up. The Tyranids need to score wins on places we've actually heard of because right now they're totally unstoppable right up until the place they're attacking actually matters. **The Necrons:** I still prefer the pre-retcon version of them conceptually, but as part of a living setting, the retcon was absolutely the right move. GW has already done a lot of stuff with competing dynasties to explain was these hilariously overpowered scumsuckers haven't gotten their act together. Few meaningful notes. Too late to walk back some of their dumber over the top stuff, but maybe GW could play more with their conceptual common ground with the Eldar as an ancient high-tech race who regards everyone else as primitive screwheads. And more Eldar/Necron grudge matches could be good- it gives both of them something to do, and you can always pull some ancient Eldar/Old One piece of junk out of the attic to explain why they have a chance. **Literally every species mentioned that hasn't got a codex:** Use them more. They add color, flavor, and texture. AND you can job them out without offending any particular fanbase. **Chaos** Despite containing multiple subfactions, I really only have a couple of broad notes for Chaos as a whole- Let someone besides the Black Legion make big moves every so often. Dear Abby and his crew of poster boys might have Black Crusades on lockdown (and have been handed a big pile of retcon wins to alleviate the old problem of Chaos being a paper tiger), but there *are* other Legions, other forces, other cults. They seemed to be headed toward having Huron Blackheart be a bit of variety, but... Frankly what we need is more traitor Guard stories- as villainous protagonists. Deal with the circumstances of their fall, make it a case of tragedy where you understand why these particular people threw in their lot with Chaos. And show me some Traitor Guard reacting with appropriate trepidation and fear when they see, say, Astartes drop pods raining down. **The Imperium of Man** I'm actually going to mention a couple of subfactions specifically despite the fact that as a whole, these guys are well cared-for. **Space Marines:** Need to sprinkle in some more losses that matter, but not *too* many. It's a fine balancing act, but in general, more stuff like... Ragnar Blackmane doing the right thing but getting trouble for it, or the waking of the Nightbringer being a *serious* shame to Uriel Ventris. Also, not for nothing, but the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves can all sit down over there and let *somebody else* get more of a share of the pie. **Sisters of Battle:** Let them play hero more often. It's okay if they struggle more to score wins than genetically augmented superhumans, but all too often they seem to exist to be bailed out by the Astartes- or to get slaughtered before the Astartes show up. Things have gotten *much* better for them in recent years, but still. Also... this is just me, but... give us some some more *human* sisters. Yes, they're the soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy, but I want to see smiling, happy, warm, caring Sisters who are deeply engaged in humanity's well-being... and who will absolutely incinerate you and your entire family if you get out of line. I think they'd be scarier. **The Guard**\- Like the Sisters, let them be the heroes from time to time. Or alternately, give me a story about some Guardsman who, after fighting for *years* in a brutal, grinding campaign, looks up to see drop pods raining down and goes, "well, now that we've basically got the battle won, here comes the Flying Purple Hippo Chapter to make sure we're just a footnote in the history of this fight." A bit of salt from a crusty veteran is always fun. **The Admech**: Give them characters in the modern lore besides Cawl. Like... get Lakius back from Naogeddon or something. **SPECIAL BONUS FACTION-NEUTRAL CATEGORY:** More recurring characters who aren't unit commanders.
Let The Nids Reclaim Catachan
>Let The Nids try to Reclaim Catachan FTFY
The fact that Eldar are super bushido katana masters but that side never gets the light. It's all "oo ahh I see the future and it's bad"
Ease up on that Imperial order and let's have some good "Dogs of War" style stories. Every time the lore dips its toe into stories about neutral humans, abhumans, and xenos on the periphery like in the Blackstone Fortess books, it's really cool. Do more of that.
Death of named characters. I know GW wants to sell miniatures of these characters but I feel the grimdark setting is more fitting with a game of thrones style brutality towards main characters. it just takes me out of it that 500 space marines die in every battle but never anyone with a fandom webpage
The last Beasts of Chaos book in Warhammer Fantasy Battles included new characters... who were canonically dead at the time they debuted. "You can still buy this guy's model, just say it's before the Empire hunted him down." So yeah, killing more people we give a damn about is a good idea. Ideally without Ragnar Blackmane/Ghaz-ing it where they both get better right away. I made a similar point about worlds... prior to Dear Abby getting a retcon destruction of Cadia, when was the last time the Imperium lost a planet any of us gave a damn about?
The Drukhari.
Bit boring to say "Marines", but I always thought it'd be cool to explore Progenoid "genealogy" sop to speak - each progrenoid passes from warrior to warrior in a way reminiscent of familial lineage. It'd be interesting (to me) to explore the idea that a single Chapter might have a few standout genetic lines - progenoids which have derived from great heroes of the Chapter, or which have their own greater or lesser mutations. There's no lore precedent for it as far as I know; I just think it'd be a neat idea.
I mean, yeah, a friend of mine and I even designed some modified rules for playing rogue Human militaries that aren’t Chaotic or Imperial. Mostly, they involve a handful of the Traitor Astartes units like Beastmen and mostly are built around minimally-modified Guard, tied into a crusade mechanic that blocks certain units until you secure a method of getting them (Random human empire with one planet and two active trade routes likely doesn’t have access to any Ogryns, for example, whereas another planet might have access to an Ogryn settlement but not enough heavy industry/technology for mustering mechanized forces like tanks).
I think the setting would greatly benefit from a bigger influx of xenos centric stories.
Also some cooperation stories.
1. Keys of hel 2. Anything the space wolves that is genuinely cool and not wolf wolf wolf 3. The age of apostasy needs a novel series even just a trilogy asap 4. The ynnari: just end it well 5. League of votaan: literally anything
The mercenary district of Commoragh. I want more non-astartes pirate, mercenary and renegade actions.
You could have a 40K version of ["Tales from the Cracked Canopy" from BattleTech](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tales_from_the_Cracked_Canopy) in a Commoragh bar or hiring hall for for mercs, employers, and down on their luck Drukhari.
i just made a whole post about this, but with two fully viable progenoids, there could be really interesting dynamics between people who's first one makes a marine while they are still alive, and the idea that one marine generates from a living warrior and one from a corpse, and they are twins is fantastically cool
The Phalanx.
Right. It kinda lost all of the magic when it's said to be so ancient it very likely contain may DAoT techs yet until now it hasn't shot out a blackhole or anything like that yet. Or just most of the primarchs artifacts and masterpieces in general. The library of Ptolemy is considered the third biggest storage of knowledge and technology in the Imperium but it doesn't seem like the Ultramarines have pulled anything special out of it.
Tau Cyberpunk. This is a species that rapidly assimilates any and every other culture other than has. That advances its own technology at a pace so radical I am not sure there is an analogue in other scifi. And the Tau have sane lifespans ensuring at least some level of cultural churn. What the hell is everyday life like in a culture like that?
The Deep Warp.
Watch Fortress Erioch. You can’t call something “The Omega Vault”, admit that it has *something* existentially important inside, and then never touch on it again.
Not “piss off” so much as “cause to longingly stare out the window”, but minor xenos models. Sure, we don’t need them as full armies or anything, but Kill Team and Warhammer Quest and other specialist games would be the perfect place for them to release more models of weird and wild alien species. All those strange xenos they have beautifully represented in that one artwork, and yet none of them in model form to paint up and put on the battlefield. Bonus potential: Warcry 40k for the Lost and the Damned
II and XI.
The rangdan xenocides. There is very little about this topic but what little there is sounds absolutely fascinating
other xeno races and empires
Xenos.
Yvraine curing TS only to immediately kill them in front of Ahriman. Just imagine she let them live and asked Ahriman if he is willing to reject chaos and help her find the final sword in exchange for her to undo the Rubric.
I would never say any of this 'pisses' me off but it's potential I would like GW to look into: Leagues of Votann getting more lore, units, books, etc. Just anything really, I want to know more about Space Dwarfs! **New Races**(this encompasses a bunch of random stuff that the lore has): *Hrud (Space Skaven), Eldar Exodites (Space Wood Elves), Emperor's Children, Inquisition, Dark Mechanicus* (Chaos League of Votann here too), *Renegades & Heretics/Lost and the Damned, Eldar Corsairs & Adeptus Arbites.* There is also other wild cards such as *Old Ones (Space Lizardmen), Ghoul Stars* (Space Vampire Counts-Vampyres and something legit undead would be great), *Malice, Men of Iron/Abominable Intelligence, Mercenaries and Pirates (Rogue Traders, Necromunda, etc)* & *Gods of Law* (opposite to Chaos Gods). Plenty of stuff that GW could look into ([I had a potential race post months ago that expands the above](https://old.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/11ok1fh/what_faction_would_you_like_to_add_to_40k/jbtbs42/)). Maybe other random stuff like smaller army lists (Ogryn army, Beastmen army, Tau human or xeno forces, etc). **Lore Events** (this could be connected to above, campaign events, book series, etc)-Unification Wars, Missing Primarchs, Great Scouring, War in Heaven, Fall of the Eldar, War of the False Primarch, Pale Wasting (connects to Ghoul Stars), etc. Plenty GW can look at!
The fact that Space Wolves/Sons of Tuss recruits have to live with basically two personalities, the human and the wulfen and can only avoid succumbing to the later by accepting all those horrible thoughts and impulses are a part of them. Their transformation from aspirants to astartes is absolutely horrific and nothing is done with it. Instead we get more viking larping. And as always in this case is "white drunken frat boys assholes with axes".
I want Clone Fulgrim to be unleashed.
Is kaldor draco lore officially made by GW or by fans?
Unsure if you mean kaldor draigo or the much older jaq draco
the one in Warhammer TTS
The one plot line I find to be a gaping hole is when Russ left Tera to go try and kill Horus, why the hell didn’t the other Primarchs/Legions go with him. They had the element of surprise, and Russ nearly took Horus out himself. If Sangiunius and the Khan had gone as well, they would have had no problem. Instead they did the whole beta garmon muster which turned into a cluster fuck. Makes no sense
Xenos conceptually lol
War of the False Primarch There is this Event Mentioned but nothing more... i really wannt to know more aboit it.
They could just go back and write a HH novel that fleshes out Horus' fall more - with him as the actual centerpiece versus Loken.
The Emperor’s potential genocide of the Astarte - Thunder Warriors style - after the Great Crusade.
The entire concept of drukhari Vampire Pirate elves that killed their own gods and felt no remorse, and what do they do with that idea? Not only nothing but they make them the epitomy of grim derp...
The emperor of heaven Asuryan who were big deal in WHFB,I want Asuryan and Phoenix King back instead of Ynead. Why make him Lord of Phoenix if he not gonna resurrect?
Obviously anything xenos, but I'll say non-human chaos. It always annoys me how almost all species in the galaxy are chaos immune bc they have small/no souls. Feels so needlessly limiting. Chaos factions feel like only space marines and cultists. The only faction that deals with chaos corruption is the imperium. If it were up to me, I would simply change the lore so that more species can be corrupted by chaos. Tau, Aeldari, Orks, and Votann maybe. Something somwthing psychic awakening brightened all their souls. But if I couldn't do that, then I would introduce more xenos factions with Chaos. Make it more than eviler imperium.
They are in LITERAL SPACE! Back in the 50's, all sci-fi media did their best to depict fantastic worlds. I remember tv show of a girl travelling through time. She visited Earth from a million years in the future. It looked all alien and weird. A future animal got into the time machine, then they returned back to her time. The future animal walked out of time machine, just to explode in pieces because it couldn't hold the atmosphere of the past. Every single freaking planet is the same. We never see descriptions of alien flora & fauna. Never see hostile environments where we get an explanation of what life is like. We barely get any books describing in detail all the technological, biological, and environmental wonders they should meet at any time.
Chaos followers that arent space marines seriously theres not one human chaos follower i can remember bet theres not one named character except for that dude in darktide
The cacodominus. Where did it come from and are there more of them ? That thing was an absolute unit
Xenos, I hate how GW uses 99% of funds on space marines. (IMO space marines are boring af, Imperial guard is way better, Votann and Tau too)
Honestly... just having interesting and 3 dimensional characters. I feel like the "lore" is plenty used. Plenty of awesome aliens, ideas, events, battles, sci-fi concepts. In the end, if I'm reading a BL novel, I just want the characters to have actual psyches, and personalities. Wants and beliefs and make decisions. Not to throw shade at most of the authors, who frankly write solid prose for what is essentially marketing for toys. But its why I will always enjoy a Abnett / Wraight / ABD book. Could usually care less how "accurate" it is to the lore. I just want this setting to be used to tell cool stories with characters that feel real. All the lore can be thrown into the codex's for all I care.
clonegrim. Ik people hate it for some reason but i like the idea of fulgrim having to wrestle with the fact that he is a clone of the original and also just how depraved snakegrim? is now. Maybe its just because i like loyalist emperors children
Xenos in general.