Today I want to talk a little about the tapestry that the armies of the 40K universe comprise.
Each army out there(if it's well designed) can be fielded in a myriad of effective ways, but at its heart has a core set of characteristics. While its possible to play against them, its often an uphill struggle (horde foot eldar, or scout-based marines for example).
If you put them all together we see there is a broad range of "big picture" choices to allow a new player to find something that really suits their playstyle... or is there?
Here is my quick and dirty rundown of the core traits:
Marines (all variants) (Elite Infantry, mobility, assault, survivable, firepower)
Chaos Marines (Elite infantry, assault, survivable, firepower)
Eldar (Elite Infantry, mobility)
Imperial Guard (Firepower, armor, mobility (shocking, I know), horde)
Tyranids (Firepower (maybe), mobility, assault, horde)
Necrons (Firepower, survivability)
Tau (Firepower, mobility)
Orks (Assault, horde, mobility)
Chaos Daemons (Mobility, assault)
Dark Eldar (Mobility, assault, firepower)
Daemonhunters (Elite Infantry, mobility, survivable)
Witchhunters (Firepower, survivable, horde(ish))
Now lets take out the armies that are somewhat rare leaving us with:
Marines (all variants) (Elite Infantry, mobility, assault, survivable, firepower)
Chaos Marines (Elite infantry, assault, survivable, firepower)
Eldar (Elite Infantry, mobility)
Imperial Guard (Firepower, armor, mobility (shocking, I know), horde)
Tyranids (Firepower (maybe), mobility, assault, horde)
Orks (Assault, horde, mobility)
And the game quickly breaks down into some fairly predictable camps:
-There is a LOT of 3+ save powered armor out there
-Most of these armies can put out the firepower
-If they can't dish out the firepower, they have the bodies to take it and make assault
-Leaving the Eldar aside as the the group's oddball, you have the SM/CSM generalist camp vs the IG/Tyranids/Ork camp who has more lower quality models but goes for either shooting (IG/Nids) or assault (Nids/Orks)
My questions is what does the game NEED right now. Look at the armies on the chopping block who we know are coming in the future: (ignoring nids, as they almost upon us)
Dark Eldar
Witch Hunters
Daemon Hunters
Necrons
Loyalist Marine Variants
~How would you as a designer push and massage these armies to fill out the holes in the game to provide a more varied set of entertaining play conditions. What would you emphasize in each of them to make the game more exciting than just mechanized 3+ armor vs mechanized 3+ armor. Finally how would you order their releases from highest priority to lowest to address the things you feel the game is most lacking. The Floor is yours.
