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So we all saw this when 10'th was released:




Has there been any signs, rumours or hints as to what the Redacted faction will be?

Personally my money's on Emperor's Children, but I've also heard rumours of an all-Kroot faction (plausible I admit), Zoats and other minor races.

I'm betting emperor's children won't release until the end of 10th, similar to how World Eaters were at the end of 8th and Votann were at the end of 9th. They seem to reserve brand new factions until the very end of an edition.

The "redacted" could be imperial agents or whatever the Inquisitor faction was called, that would fit as well.

Also didn't they already break from that image? We have Dark Angels and now Tau, but no sign of Orks/Custodes/CSM

Wayniac wrote:
Also didn't they already break from that image? We have Dark Angels and now Tau, but no sign of Orks/Custodes/CSM

We're only in February - there's a lot of Spring left to go.

And we've had at least one Custodes model shown off - shadowed melta spear guy? Means we're probably looking at them after Tau.

Something long the lines of "Agents of the Imperium" seems plausible, though I'd've liked to see the Guard earlier in the list.

I can't see Agents being an entire faction on their own.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I can't see Agents being an entire faction on their own.

They had a book in 6th?

Basically a collection of odds and ends units that didn’t fit into other codexs that you could ally in. Great place these days for all the KT stuff, plus inqusition, assassins, and other similar things.

More then enough units to fill a book, but would look very patchwork as an army.

Which is kind of on-brand for RTs and inquisitors…

 Valkyrie wrote:
I can't see Agents being an entire faction on their own.

They already are, it's basically index: imperial allies though.

Should have fleshed it out a bit; I mean I can't see them being an entire faction due to the overall mismash of units just chucked together. You have your Inquisitors, Assassins, Rogue Traders, Arbites, and other random individual figures chucked in from various boardgames they've released over the years. If they were to be a full faction IMO, there'll have to be quite a few new models to allow for a bit of consistency, such as a whole army of Arbites, or a unit of UR-025s, etc.

It's placeholder art.

Worth mentioning either way that we haven't actually gotten Dark Angels released. Just the army set.

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's placeholder art.

Worth mentioning either way that we haven't actually gotten Dark Angels released. Just the army set.

This is all true, in fact the release pace has slowed to glacial.

Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

 Valkyrie wrote:
I can't see Agents being an entire faction on their own.

Faction - as in functional single army - I'd agree on.

Codex, on the other hand, to get all the rules under one roof for all the little bits and pieces? Sure, that I can see.

Renegade Guard maybe?

Brickfix wrote:
Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

As Feb is smack in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, where they're based, you'd think so....

ccs wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

As Feb is smack in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, where they're based, you'd think so....

Well, end of winter. Spring starts in March, so they're running out of time on that front.

During the Necromunda Tauros drop, many speculated that the redacted dex was guard, and it was redacted because the cover gave away new model releases for guard- specifically, plastic Elysian that incorporate the plastic Tauros. I still believe that's possible.

However, I'm happy to see people suggest Agents. I've said several times that Agents are really easy to make more playable than they currently are. They're always going to be a -1 faction, but they could be made more functional with very little effort. The biggest issue with Agents right now is that the game design prevents them from having their own detachment rules, which means they can't use strats or enhancements, and the thing that they have as a detachment rule isn't a buff like all other detachment rules- it merely is the rule that allows them to be included in other armies.

If they added an Inquisition detachment (though I'd prefer one for each major Ordo), a Navy Detachment, an Arbites detachment and a Rogue Trader detachment, that goes a long way. All factions would need vehicles added to their lists, but that could be achieved with mostly existing vehicles.Malleus riding Land Raiders is iconic, but right now, that can only be done if the Inquisitor joins Marines, because there is no Inquisition list that includes land raiders.

Valkyries and Forgeworld aircraft can be added to both Navy and RT lists. Arbites and Navy need HQ units.

And then you need rules allowing these Agent detachments to ally with other detachments. And it wouldn't be any/ all. I see Hereticus detachments allying to Sister, Malleus to GK and Xenos to Deathwatch. I see Navy, RT and Arbites working with guard. Also, Inquisition detachments should be able to include any Agent... Meaning you could put RT's and Breachers into a Hereticus detachment if you wanted to, and that detachment could still ally with a Sister detachment.

They don't need a lot more models to be more useful- they just need rules that do more than allow them to exist as more than red-headed step children added to other armies as an afterthought. Both 8th and 9th allowed Inquisition detachments. The addition of Navy and Arbites went further by providing an viable troops choice for Inquisition, but GW effed up the key words.

In 10th, they fixed the keywords, but took away their ability to be detachments.

I never want to see Arbites as a playable faction. Ever.

You want to play RT? Arbites? Go play Necromunda or Kill Team. They're not an army and should not have ever been given rules for 40k proper. Their inclusion was nothing but yet more dilution of roles for the Guard to have. The same thing goes with the Navy Breachers.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I never want to see Arbites as a playable faction. Ever.

You want to play RT? Arbites? Go play Necromunda or Kill Team. They're not an army and should not have ever been given rules for 40k proper. Their inclusion was nothing but yet more dilution of roles for the Guard to have. The same thing goes with the Navy Breachers.

I still find this a bizarre take, given both the Imperial Navy armsmen and Arbites have fought as (40k-sized) forces in the lore since at least 3rd edition. Given the size of the Imperium, more Arbites are probably involved in frontline combat at a given time than Space Marines. Arbites had a 40k army list before Tau...

I accept the "anti-bloat" argument, but that doesn't preclude models per se, only bespoke rules. There was the option to "counts as" Arbites as Guard veterans or Witchunters Stormtroopers with shotguns for a long time.

 Haighus wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I never want to see Arbites as a playable faction. Ever.

You want to play RT? Arbites? Go play Necromunda or Kill Team. They're not an army and should not have ever been given rules for 40k proper. Their inclusion was nothing but yet more dilution of roles for the Guard to have. The same thing goes with the Navy Breachers.

I still find this a bizarre take, given both the Imperial Navy armsmen and Arbites have fought as (40k-sized) forces in the lore since at least 3rd edition. Given the size of the Imperium, more Arbites are probably involved in frontline combat at a given time than Space Marines. Arbites had a 40k army list before Tau...

I accept the "anti-bloat" argument, but that doesn't preclude models per se, only bespoke rules. There was the option to "counts as" Arbites as Guard veterans or Witchunters Stormtroopers with shotguns for a long time.

Pretty much, it feels more likely that the Imperial navy and arbites might even team up sometimes to apprehend military trouble causers, investigate matters in the star port, or just be commandeered by a high up officer or inquisitor etc.

Most Cults, be it chaos or Gene in flavour are found by local authorities first and foremost and given the size of a game of 40k, is it possible a hive of billions of lives have an armed force of 40+ mounted police? Absolutely.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I never want to see Arbites as a playable faction. Ever.

You want to play RT? Arbites? Go play Necromunda or Kill Team. They're not an army and should not have ever been given rules for 40k proper. Their inclusion was nothing but yet more dilution of roles for the Guard to have. The same thing goes with the Navy Breachers.

Spoken like a person who still believes WH40k is always only 2k battles.

500 and 1k have always been more my style. They were more encouraged in 9th than they are in 10th because the Combat Patrol game mode is GW's replacement for the 500 point battle in 40k core rules. But it always was the small battles, and allied detachment system that made Agents work the best. Anytime I've ever played a 2k+ army, it's always been built as two smaller armies that have joined for a big fight, and 9th did that better than other edition.

People who make statements about what they think the game should be, based on only one narrowly focused way of playing it have no idea what GW is trying to do, and would collapse GW's market share in a year if anyone else took them seriously. It's a good thing no one does.

I wish everyone who posted a rules suggestion would just think for a second before they hit post:

"Okay, I've come up with a rule that works for the way I choose to play the game. Before I post it, how would it affect Crusade? How would it affect Combat Partol? How would it afffect 1k, 1500, 2k and 3k games? How can it support and be supported by other games that take place in its timeline."

Because while it's clear that very few people who post on Dakka ever do think about those things, it's equally clear that GW thought really hard about them in 8th/9th... And they're even continuing to think about those things in 10th. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons their market dominance has INCREASED since 8th.

Myopic suggestions don't work for games that value versatility.

PenitentJake wrote:


Spoken like a person who still believes WH40k is always only 2k battles.

500 and 1k have always been more my style.

I don't actually disagree with this. I'm very fond of 1k and feel like 1500 gets a little too big for its britches, though the scenarios get more interesting.

That said, I think its important that factions make sense at 2000 because otherwise you end up with armies that don't get love for years until GW finds a way to remove them. I adore Harlequins, but they were kept alive almost purely due to being OP long enough to make spamming their limited model pool a viable option. Years of nothing put them further and futher on the backburner until they finally got absorbed back into Eldar as a weird psuedo sub faction.

There's been quite a few of these. Stormtroopers tried striking out away from the guard and we'll see if Deathwatch meets the same fate as their Death Masque companions soon. A faction needs a model line that supports 2000 point games even if its fine to play smaller. One cool unique and a couple characters do not survive long.

I like that you mentioned thinking about 3k points games. Weren't it for time constraints, that would be the lowest points I'd consider most of the times.

But I am also proud owner of 3 Voidsmen and 2 Arbites squads, and smaller points games can be fun, too.

I really hope the mystery release is Dark Mech with demonic sentient robots. The Negavolt cultists from Blackstone fortress were nice, too

Brickfix wrote:
I like that you mentioned thinking about 3k points games. Weren't it for time constraints, that would be the lowest points I'd consider most of the times.

But I am also proud owner of 3 Voidsmen and 2 Arbites squads, and smaller points games can be fun, too.

I really hope the mystery release is Dark Mech with demonic sentient robots. The Negavolt cultists from Blackstone fortress were nice, too

Me too. Me too, man.

Yeah, Dark Mech would rock.

Dudeface wrote:

ccs wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

As Feb is smack in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, where they're based, you'd think so....

Well, end of winter. Spring starts in March, so they're running out of time on that front.

Winter is measured from the December Solstice (Dec 21/22) through the March Equinox (about March 20th) here in the Northern hemisphere. So no, Feb is not at the end of winter.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I never want to see Arbites as a playable faction. Ever.

You want to play RT? Arbites? Go play Necromunda or Kill Team. They're not an army and should not have ever been given rules for 40k proper. Their inclusion was nothing but yet more dilution of roles for the Guard to have. The same thing goes with the Navy Breachers.

Spoken like a person who still believes WH40k is always only 2k battles.

No, spoken like a person who still believes that WH40k is always about battles. By the time any of these games would come to pass, the agents are pulled out or dead.

500 and 1k have always been more my style. They were more encouraged in 9th than they are in 10th because the Combat Patrol game mode is GW's replacement for the 500 point battle in 40k core rules. But it always was the small battles, and allied detachment system that made Agents work the best. Anytime I've ever played a 2k+ army, it's always been built as two smaller armies that have joined for a big fight, and 9th did that better than other edition.

And that's because you're taking a more narrative bend, built around agents and your own headcanon. That's great. Really, it is.

But that doesn't require these units to have codices. If I can't have Secutarii in mainline 40k, why should you get Arbites? Throw that gak in Legends and be done with it.

People who make statements about what they think the game should be, based on only one narrowly focused way of playing it have no idea what GW is trying to do, and would collapse GW's market share in a year if anyone else took them seriously. It's a good thing no one does.

My dude, you could not be more wrong about how I play. But that's fine.

I wish everyone who posted a rules suggestion would just think for a second before they hit post:

"Okay, I've come up with a rule that works for the way I choose to play the game. Before I post it, how would it affect Crusade? How would it affect Combat Patrol? How would it afffect 1k, 1500, 2k and 3k games? How can it support and be supported by other games that take place in its timeline."

Because while it's clear that very few people who post on Dakka ever do think about those things, it's equally clear that GW thought really hard about them in 8th/9th... And they're even continuing to think about those things in 10th.

They really haven't. There's a ton of things that should have been fixed and immediately adjusted, yet still not a damn thing comes to pass. FFS, the easiest of things to errata still hasn't been done in four editions. Scions and Guard are the literal proof that NMNR isn't applied evenly across the game, and that they don't have a clue of what each team is doing separately.

And that, my friends, is one of the reasons their market dominance has INCREASED since 8th.

You sure about that? You sure it's not them being a highly visible option?

Myopic suggestions don't work for games that value versatility.

Games valuing versatility are great, games valuing reality are even better.

I hope that the secret army is indeed Emperor's Children. The way they are currently handled, a unit and character in the index, is kind of jank. Also They are my second favorite CSM legion after TS, so I would actually consider starting them, especially if the models are awesome.

ccs wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

ccs wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

As Feb is smack in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, where they're based, you'd think so....

Well, end of winter. Spring starts in March, so they're running out of time on that front.

Winter is measured from the December Solstice (Dec 21/22) through the March Equinox (about March 20th) here in the Northern hemisphere. So no, Feb is not at the end of winter.

That may be technically the case but in the UK at least we commonly think winter as December, January, February.

I don’t think it will be kroots, they could have left the releases we have had for the full release.

I think EC is too soon after WE and as others have said EC more likely at the end of the edition. Most of the recent EC lore has been related to Bile and he doesn’t want to be part of the legion.

As it’s redacted I don’t think it’s one of the existing factions

So my money is on something related to vashtorr as he’s been a main protagonist in the recent lore. Maybe dark mechanicum or more cultists or a revamped demons army combining Knights, demons and demon engines

 Kanluwen wrote:


No, spoken like a person who still believes that WH40k is always about battles. By the time any of these games would come to pass, the agents are pulled out or dead.

Right. Except in 3rd when there were Hunter dexes (which continued to be used in 4th), 6th when there was an Agents dex, 8th and 9th when Inquisition detachments did exist. It seems like GW disagrees with you.

 Kanluwen wrote:

And that's because you're taking a more narrative bend, built around agents and your own headcanon. That's great. Really, it is.

Oh, so is this you denying that there were explicit rules for 500 point games and multi-detachment allied armies in 9th? Because I can get you the page numbers.

Combat Patrol Battles 500 points/ 25 PL, one detachment, 30" x 44" board.
Incursion Battles 1k points / 50PL, up to two detachments, 30" x 44" board.
Strike Force 2k points/ 100PL, up to 3 detachments, 60" x 44" board.
Onslaught 3k points/ 150 PL, up to 4 detachments, 90" x 44" board.

Now if I didn't write those rules, how can using them be my head cannon? Read the rules for allied forces in the Hunter dexes, because I didn't make them up either.

 Kanluwen wrote:

But that doesn't require these units to have codices. If I can't have Secutarii in mainline 40k, why should you get Arbites? Throw that gak in Legends and be done with it.

The way to fix that problem is by giving you rules that allow you to play Secutarii in 40k, not leaving Arbites (which already do exist in 40k) in a weird limbo. feth, you act like there's only one way to solve problem.

 Kanluwen wrote:

My dude, you could not be more wrong about how I play.

Well if you do play 500 point games, start posting like it. The only rationale for "Small armies should only exist as add-ons to other more established armies" that I can think of is the difficulty of fielding 2k points without the army feeling samey.

 Kanluwen wrote:

They really haven't. There's a ton of things that should have been fixed and immediately adjusted, yet still not a damn thing comes to pass. FFS, the easiest of things to errata still hasn't been done in four editions. Scions and Guard are the literal proof that NMNR isn't applied evenly across the game, and that they don't have a clue of what each team is doing separately.

Considering that this is supposed to be a response to my point about GW thinking carefully about a) a narrative gaming mode b) games of different sizes and c) interactions between 40k, KT and BSF, you don't really seem to be talking a lot about those things in the response. The closest you come is talking about how dev teams don't have a clue what each team is doing separately.

And I guess you're right about that, because

Kill Team Eldar Corsairs clearly didn't become two units in 40k.
Chaos Legionnaires, Fellgors and Traitor Guard clearly weren't added to 40k
Farstalker Kinbrands never became a 40k unit either.
Neither did those pesky SoB Novitiates.
And we certainly haven't seen BSF characters incorporated into 40k via modified equipment lists for existing units which would better allow them to be represented by BSF models, or the creation of new datacards for those BSF units.

Now look, you can isolate individual cases to suggest that GW could have taken this approach even further than they did. But that doesn't diminish the mountain of evidence that GW is trying to accommodate narrative gaming, cross-over between games and varying 40k game sizes.

 Kanluwen wrote:

You sure about that? You sure it's not them being a highly visible option?

You saw in the part you quoted where I said "ONE OF THE REASONS," right?

I mean, people thinking that any company does anything for JUST ONE reason is exactly the kind of myopic thinking that you demonstrated in the first post and continue demonstrate here. In real life, gak is always almost more complicated than it is on a forum.

OF COURSE high visibility is a factor. So were the quarantine measures. So is IP licensing for video games. So is BL. And yes, so are game crossovers, multiple game modes and multiple game sizes (ie. versatility). They are all factors.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Games valuing versatility are great, games valuing reality are even better.

Well, since what I'm looking for from the game explicitly existed in 3rd/4rth, 6th, 8th 9th, it certainly isn't at odds with reality.

ccs wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

ccs wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Isn't GW considering any release in February to be in winter still?

As Feb is smack in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere, where they're based, you'd think so....

Well, end of winter. Spring starts in March, so they're running out of time on that front.

Winter is measured from the December Solstice (Dec 21/22) through the March Equinox (about March 20th) here in the Northern hemisphere. So no, Feb is not at the end of winter.

For those that are interested, in the UK, spring is generally reckoned to run 1st March - 31st May, this is also known as meteorological spring, (and each of the 4 seasons is similarly referred to as 3 month periods starting on the 1st of the month) despite the difference from the astronomical seasons of around 3 weeks.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/spring/when-does-spring-start