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Some lore thoughts...

Astropaths are not Navis, they are Adeptus Astra Telepathica and can be attached to any Imperial formation or organisation.

Arbites and the Inquisition absolutely can field large-scale forces beyond what is seen in a 2000pts game... Both have their own warships even. Obviously Deathwatch and Grey Knights too, and I think Sisters of Battle.

The idea that the Imperial Navy especially doesn't field frontline combatants in large numbers is especially odd, they are one of the two chief frontline combat arms of the Imperium alongside the Imperial Guard. They require infantry combatants to defend their ships, space stations, and airfields from attack and to protect landing parties and conduct boarding assaults of their own. We see a full scale landing party assault devastate a private army defending a large manor in Eisenhorn book 1. There are probably more Naval infantry in a well-developed sector than there are Space Marines in the same Segmentum...

There isn't any lore against any of these (except astropaths) having full armies on the tabletop scale. Only the imagination and interest of GW and its designers limits their rules and models.

I don't know, I feel things like the navy could be represented pretty easily using imperial guard rules and conversions.

It'd be nice to have but ultimately other factions need their basics fleshing out before we get into such indulgences. Just my opinion of course.

Dai wrote:
I don't know, I feel things like the navy could be represented pretty easily using imperial guard rules and conversions.

It'd be nice to have but ultimately other factions need their basics fleshing out before we get into such indulgences. Just my opinion of course.

From a range perspective, sure. My point was that the lore justifications for them not being represented don't hold up. Logistical and business reasons do.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
Spec issue ammo are now strats, but because people combined the Desolators with Hellfire rounds to give them Anti-infantry 2+ and Anti-Monster 4+ (and before you get excited, it explicitly bans dev-wound weapons). Now it's restricted to a list of vaguely boltgun weapons, however some are missing like Heavy Bolt Rifles.

FYI, the app lists Heavy Bolt Rifles. GW just doesn't like updating their PDFs with corrections for whatever reason.

Though on the whole I agree with you. DW started a little strong, but GW just kept swinging the nerf bat long after the horse was dead and they're pretty gutted now.

Overall though, I actually feel like GW has the right idea. I have specific issues with the implementation, but I also feel like this is the closest GW has gotten to a version of the faction that feels like DW but works in the context of 2000 point games. Blackstars finally work. The Indomitor KT is mostly great. Maxing the extras to 2 works in the flat cost format and creates the mixmatch unit look in a way that never quite functioned before. Most importantly the faction is finally tied to Space Marines in a way that doesn't randomly cripple it unless GW specifically decides to put an arrow in its knee.

There are, however, clear problems with it. Proteus allowing 4x of Terminators makes it have to be costed around 4x Terminators (and GW overreacted to their cost). Spectrus taking a bunch of units whose main purpose is special rules and removing their special rules clearly doesn't work. Fortis remains a mess of leftovers waiting for GW to Primaris the vet kit. I keep hoping that they'll pull Hellblasters into Proteus and make Fortis a dedicated melee KT with a core of Assault Intercessors and Jump Packs, Outriders and Bladeguard as the rest.

I wouldn't say I'm happy with 10th, but I can't say GW ever nailed it in the past either. 7th was a mess of extremely limited and overcosted options that didn't make a working army. 8th had the weird Primaris cooties that made it seem like GW had no plan for the army just a year after release. 9th finally kind of started to figure it out, but 9th was kind of a mess in a lot of ways. In all cases, I feel like the issue with DW has always been that GW has an idea of what DW looks like and then just bins the faction when the rules they write don't result in players putting that vision on the table.

 Haighus wrote:

Dai wrote:
I don't know, I feel things like the navy could be represented pretty easily using imperial guard rules and conversions.

It'd be nice to have but ultimately other factions need their basics fleshing out before we get into such indulgences. Just my opinion of course.

From a range perspective, sure. My point was that the lore justifications for them not being represented don't hold up. Logistical and business reasons do.

I don't know. With no disrespect meant to the navy and their fans, aren't they kind of just worse guardsmen with more limited equipment? They make perfect sense to me in a Kill Team or Zone Mortalis situation where they can leverage specialized anti-boarding tactics in tight hallways. They'd make sense in something like Imperial Legions or BFG where their ships can come into play. But every BL novel scene I can think of that involves the navy makes me think they're basically just waves of shotguns, lasguns, and the occasional heavy weapon implacement. Which is fine. If they had the same variety of equipment the IG do, then there wouldn't be much point in having the IG.

For a similar concept, Rogue Traders might work a bit better. They have their own private armies, and it's not unusual for said armies to go on the offensive planet-side. Plus they can have whatever other units their money can buy including alien allies, death cultists, etc.

GW used to produce lists for less important or developed factions if I remember well, that would be obviously not high tier and grant fewer options to the army, but helped flesh them out a little and let people play them. Thinking about squats and necrons for example. Nothing would stop them from putting out a Navy Armsmen Garrison list to allow you to play them.

However, this would be a focus on lore rather than competitive play which seems not to be the aim of 10th edition.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Dai wrote:
I don't know, I feel things like the navy could be represented pretty easily using imperial guard rules and conversions.

It'd be nice to have but ultimately other factions need their basics fleshing out before we get into such indulgences. Just my opinion of course.

From a range perspective, sure. My point was that the lore justifications for them not being represented don't hold up. Logistical and business reasons do.

I don't know. With no disrespect meant to the navy and their fans, aren't they kind of just worse guardsmen with more limited equipment? They make perfect sense to me in a Kill Team or Zone Mortalis situation where they can leverage specialized anti-boarding tactics in tight hallways. They'd make sense in something like Imperial Legions or BFG where their ships can come into play. But every BL novel scene I can think of that involves the navy makes me think they're basically just waves of shotguns, lasguns, and the occasional heavy weapon implacement. Which is fine. If they had the same variety of equipment the IG do, then there wouldn't be much point in having the IG.

For a similar concept, Rogue Traders might work a bit better. They have their own private armies, and it's not unusual for said armies to go on the offensive planet-side. Plus they can have whatever other units their money can buy including alien allies, death cultists, etc.

I wouldn't say worse (armsmen are typically well trained and equipped) but definitely limited in role and specialised to Zones Mortalis as you say. My point was that you will see them fighting at 40k scale routinely in warzones across the Imperium, so saying that them not fighting as discrete forces is a poor argument not based in lore.

As pointed out above, plenty of reasons not to create a full armsmen list from logistical and sale perspectives, and the Guard list used to cover them nicely before it dropped carapace infantry, especially carapace shotgun veterans. But lore is not one of those reasons IMO.

Wayniac wrote:
Waiting for Karol to write a doctoral thesis-level reply to this...

I still need 4 years to get my masters. And no one needs a long thesis. The faction fantasy is about holy knights/shamans/mages/etc doing stuff in melee and doing "magical" stuff. Well now they can't do damage, have a very annoying core mechanic, which is just annoying to play against and not very fun to play with. The index was writen by someone who had to do it fast, as others said ton of "once per game" rules etc. But it is hardly a GK specific thing. SW for example. They have their sagas. As themathic for them as teleporting is for GK. Great, if it wasn't for the fact that the person who wrote the rules, clearly played 5000pts games with 8 turns played minimum. And it isn't even the worse thing. Just like GK get to see necron do their thing AND have powerful offensive rules (That GK didn't get, because combining movment with powerful offensive would be too OP), SW players get to see BT get their sagas as automatic rules the BT player just gets. No need to interact with the opponent and turning in to a human pretzel trying to achive them. Imp Knights probably feel similar looking at Chaos Knight rules etc.

In the end, some people can deal with playing bad rules, as long as the faction is fun. Orks are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. But more often then not they are fun to play. Some armies in w40k just aren't fun to play. I have no idea what goes through the mind of a Ad Mecha player in 10th. But I don't think those are happy thoughts.