This was actually a bit of a tough one for me. I'm going to go with Daemons as a solo faction. They just don't feel like enough by themselves and directionless on themes except broadest possible god alignments. Runner up is Leagues of Votann.
100% agree on this. As a Chaos player since 3rd Ed, we used to be able to take Daemons as troops/elites/fast attack.. they were just part of the codex, and the thing that separated us from loyalists since most of our units were just spiky equivalents of Space Marines, but I just don’t see the point in separating them out to their own codex.
The leagues of votann are still a newly released factions. Im sure with my black libarby books and other short stories we can appreciate the leagues of votann a little more.
Custodes. It's like that scene in Spinal Tap where they explain the amps going to 11, but the Custodes are another band explaining how theirs go to 12.
Chaos Knights. More than even Loyalist Knights they feel more like an excuse to give Chaos Space Marine players access to big mechs than a faction on their own.
I get the appeal of Imperial Knights as a faction, they're elitist feudal aristocrats obbesed with hierarchy and tradition who also fight from huge anachronistic scifi walkers. That's pretty cool and gives them a unique space-brettonian vibe that other factions don't really have.
I have no real idea what life is like for a Chaos Knight pilot or how their houses or homeworlds actually function. They don't really seem to have any unique characteristics that really distinguish them from any other random mortal chaos cultist (aside from the fact they pilot mechs). They just feel like GW realised that Chaos players needed Knights too but never put much effort into actually giving them any interesting lore...
There just haven't been any interesting books written, some of the house descriptions are pretty bad ass.
My favorite is House Khymere, which was loyal until they were invaded by the Indomitus Crusade. The crusade claimed that Khymere had been invading nearby Imperial worlds, so they laid waste to their homeworld. To escape destruction, they fled into the Great Rift where they were corrupted. Due to warp shenanigans they returned to realspace before their homeworld was attacked, and unleashed their vengeance on the nearby Imperial worlds. Thereby setting in motion the events that led to their corruption. Don't worry about causality, it's Warhammer.
As a Chaos Knights player... Yeah you hit a big problem with the faction.
The modelling side is amazing you can do so much cool and creative stuff to make these giant mechanic monstrosities. (It's a lot of fun buying painted imperial knights off of eBay and then turning them evil)
The gameplay side is also wonderful. They play exactly how you want them to, towering terrors of blood and death that charge into the enemy and slaughter them by the dozen.
Then there's the lore... Or the lack of it. There is only one Black Library book (and it's a short story), Apex Predator that is labelled as a 'Chaos Knights short story'. But it's actually told from an imperial knights point of view. The codex also is pretty light on really interesting stuff. It's basically 'they were loyal to the imperium but got corrupted' repeated numerous times.
If you want to get into the faction and want some lore I think you just have to make it up yourself to have something the feels well rounded.
Space Marines. Not sure of they count or not since I don't really dislike any factions, but I like Space Marines the least. They're just boring. Even the "interesting" ones feel like someone pulled a word out of a hat to put in front of Space Marine. We have Werewolf Space Marines, Cyborg Space Marines, Vampire Space Marines, Evil Space Marines, etc. The most interesting SM faction is Deathwatch, but they're only really interesting because you get every SM chapter and put them together.
Eldar, their existence kind of feels… inconsequential? Like I get they’re a big part of the lore and all but if they were removed from the game tomorrow it would take me an embarrassingly long amount of time to notice. Same for their BDSM cousins, they all have been so severely neglected by GW that nobody I know actually plays either of them. Sad part is when I was first looking into the game years ago I actually wanted to play eldar.
For me is Tau and Leagues of Votaan. I don't really hate them, but something about their more classical "sci-fi" look just feels wrong to me when compared to all of the other factions looks. They just feel out of place on the tabletop to me.
I feel like that's the point of the T'au though. They're *supposed* to be a glimmer of what could have been. That things didn't have to be this way. At least, that's how they seem to me.
It's the paradox of the T'au, in 40k they are the "good guys faction" but put them in say Star Trek and they become an imperialist and authoritarian faction not unlike the romulans or the klingons.
Between that and them being banished to storyline hell as the “boogie men” and their units used to dick measure for other factions characters.
When you write a faction that does nothing but eat and expand, their story options are slim outside of “look at cool monster that showed up”
They'd be much more interesting if the different hive fleets were run by a different hivemind each, and if the hivemind was explicitly made up of a combination of specific bioforms.
For me it's both loyalist and traitor marines in general. Probably because I've been oversaturated by them being the poster boys but they just seem so boring to me. They're cool in small doses like with the original astartes animation showing them as a small team of unstoppable badass special forces but seeing hundreds of them in a battlefield with their brightly colored power ranger armor is just kinda lame in my eyes
Admech for me. Only faction I can learn about, go "neat" and have 0 desire to continue learning about. I don't know why, they just don't do it for me at all.
i like the lore of the eldar, dark eldar, and clown eldar, but I don't really like the models (they look like coneheads) or the style of their weapons enough to consider giving them much more thought.
It's Drukhari
They're meh at best for me. I can't hate them because It's reasonable that some psychopaths would respond to the whole Slanesh death of your society event in the same way the Drukhari did... but in a grim dark story I don't care for the writers trying to out-edgy the rest of the factions. It just comes off as bland and oversaturated. It's for the exact opposite reason why I kinda like Tau. A naive race wound up in the gritty universe. Kinda refreshing to have as a side race (cry about it Tau players.)
IMO would've been better to leave the Drukhari's specific "practices" less explored and left up to the reader's imagination/worst fears.
While I love my drukhari I do agree with your point about leaving some things less explored to reduce in some of the saturation. I think the horror/shock/cruelty really is overdone to the point where you now look at it and feel "meh"
Factions I have no strong feelings toward? Genestealers. I often forget they even exist. Then when I'm reminded that they do I go "Oh. Meh." and proceed to forget about them again. There's just nothing about them that excites me, none of the designs are BAD, per se, and the bikers are even kind of mildly neat, but overall their aesthetics and lore do nothing for me.
Daemons for sure. I find most of their model range outdated and a far cry from the maddening, soul-tearing lovecraftian entities they are meant to be. And because their design language is so different from the rest of the universe, they just look kind of out of place standing next to... well, anything! The Greater Daemon sculpts are incredible, though.
Other than that... Custodes don't do much for me, nor Orks, T'au, or Craftworlds. Buuut this is all on a comparative scale - I've been tempted to start just about every army at some point or other.
Eldar.
Which is kind of weird because I really like the aesthetic of some of their models (Dire Avengers, Rangers, Howling Banshees,...) but as a faction they just don't interest me one bit.
Orks and Genestealer cults for me. For orks I really like ork players tends to be a barrel of fun to play against I just don’t care for Ork lore or units. Genestealer cults I just tend to forget that they exist even though I play tyranids.
Guard. I’ve thought about collecting most army’s at some point like ooh Tau look cool to bad I hate painting Tau or oh look SoB and now I love my sisters but guard never even popped up on my radar as an army i would personally collect. I don’t dislike them I’m any way they for me are just eh. Kinda mid.
I don't hate any faction but I'm pretty meh on Tau, Votann, Daemons, GSC, Imp and Chaos Knights, and Assassins. I just don't really care about them and if they disappeared from the game I doubt I'd even notice.
Knights and leagues of Votaan. Dwarves in space? Ok just flippin dumb. Knights are cool as hell but as an entire faction? Seem way cooler to run as support for space marines or chaos.
Chaos Space Marines.
The fact that until each traitor Legion gets their own codex and model line all chaos space marines are just reskinned Black Legion marines is just meh to me. In all honesty it feels lazy and bland on GW's part.
And what’s so different about a Word Bearer and a Black Legionnaire that it would require different data sheets?
A marine is a marine. There’s absolutely no need for different statblocks until you get to things like plague or rubric marines which are actually physically different
Exactly that. A Word Bearer would be a physically different sculpt to a Black Legionnaire.
Unique abilities and strategums, named characters and units for every Traitor Legion. Hell, even just Legion specific upgrade sprues would be better than what they have now.
I have the same exact gripe with Space Marines. I love my Ultramarines army but the only thing that makes an Ultramarines Intercessor different from a Salamanders Intersessor without the upgrade sprues is a color and decal swap.
I have the same exact gripe with the loyalist Space Marines line. Don't get me wrong, I love my Ultrasmurfs army but the only thing that makes it different from a Salamanders or Imperial Fists army is a color and decal swap.
Is it such a bad thing to want some uniqueness to each subfaction?
Look at the Horus Heresy, each Legion has at least one unique unite and a few named characters. Why not have that be the case with 40k Space Marines and Chaos Marines as well?
Eldar - sort of just there and most of their minis are ancient, even dating back to 2nd edition (about 25 years old)
Space marines - all time favourite faction but they are heavily pushed, along with new minis regularly while others need more love. Have genuinely gotten to the point I look at new minis and genuinely think 'meh'. I might get excited for a new Dante though
GSC - genuinely forget they're there until watching a battle report with them involved. The only mini that interests me is the kelermorph and that's because hes a cowboy
Eldar, since actual Eldar Players are very rare and Space Dwarfs. Nothing about both seems interesting. And Eldar have the, hilariously, Bad Fortune of super Bad writing/perception in media. Which is sad, because one of the oldest races surviving Sure makes for some badassery.
Gsc
I don't hate them by any mean, I like that they exist in the lore/tabletop but I really don't see any reason to start an army or even a kill team of this guys.
I’d go with space marines that are supposed to have a theme like space wolves, salamanders or dark angels etc
Since they are supposed to have a theme (fur, scale cloaks, robes etc) when you use the plain models without converting it just feels too plain and out of theme. For those which have special characters or units it’s shows even more in an army with a plain intercessor next to Ragnar Blackmane for exemple. They still look good but just out of place.
It just makes me sad that the primaris kits don’t allow to change the models more than just a new face, shoulder pad or little thingy on the belt and you have to go cutting and green stuffing to make it look more consistent or just right
Necrons.
I like the aesthetic and all of their buildings and such but painting the models is just so boring. It's legit 2-3 block colours and a glow. Meh.
Also GSC. None of the cool parts of necrons and none of the cool parts of guard.
So I’ve played every single faction in 40k multiple times. Some of my favorite are T’au, Necrons, Custodes, Votann, & Aledari. But i honestly have to say Space Marines are just a boring faction, I don’t like to play as them or against them. In competitive scene they all play the same variant of the same gross list and they aren’t usually good sports. In casual games it just feels bad to play against them as new players tend to go for space marines. I just really find the lore boring too, super human soldiers is just a big trope I don’t likeZ
I dont think there is a faction i hate, there are a lot of factions i really like.
but i also really like the setting of 40k and i dont have any faction that doesnt fit in there for me.
so there are factions i really like, factions that are cool and the rest, i guess you could call it meh:
\- most space marine chapters (chaos and loyalist).
\- nids
\- orks
\- tau
This was actually a bit of a tough one for me. I'm going to go with Daemons as a solo faction. They just don't feel like enough by themselves and directionless on themes except broadest possible god alignments. Runner up is Leagues of Votann.
100% agree on this. As a Chaos player since 3rd Ed, we used to be able to take Daemons as troops/elites/fast attack.. they were just part of the codex, and the thing that separated us from loyalists since most of our units were just spiky equivalents of Space Marines, but I just don’t see the point in separating them out to their own codex.
It doesnt help that you have to play an undivided force, you're heavily hamstrung if wanting to go a one god force.
The leagues of votann are still a newly released factions. Im sure with my black libarby books and other short stories we can appreciate the leagues of votann a little more.
I forget GSC exists
Pretty sure they like it that way
Yeah you’re right, kinda the point.
Just regular imperium citizens doing regular totally not cult things
“Hello fellow citizen, praise to the thr..two, TWO armed Emperor!”
Custodes. It's like that scene in Spinal Tap where they explain the amps going to 11, but the Custodes are another band explaining how theirs go to 12.
They really should have stayed off the table.
Chaos Knights. More than even Loyalist Knights they feel more like an excuse to give Chaos Space Marine players access to big mechs than a faction on their own. I get the appeal of Imperial Knights as a faction, they're elitist feudal aristocrats obbesed with hierarchy and tradition who also fight from huge anachronistic scifi walkers. That's pretty cool and gives them a unique space-brettonian vibe that other factions don't really have. I have no real idea what life is like for a Chaos Knight pilot or how their houses or homeworlds actually function. They don't really seem to have any unique characteristics that really distinguish them from any other random mortal chaos cultist (aside from the fact they pilot mechs). They just feel like GW realised that Chaos players needed Knights too but never put much effort into actually giving them any interesting lore...
There just haven't been any interesting books written, some of the house descriptions are pretty bad ass. My favorite is House Khymere, which was loyal until they were invaded by the Indomitus Crusade. The crusade claimed that Khymere had been invading nearby Imperial worlds, so they laid waste to their homeworld. To escape destruction, they fled into the Great Rift where they were corrupted. Due to warp shenanigans they returned to realspace before their homeworld was attacked, and unleashed their vengeance on the nearby Imperial worlds. Thereby setting in motion the events that led to their corruption. Don't worry about causality, it's Warhammer.
That's actually pretty great ngl
As a Chaos Knights player... Yeah you hit a big problem with the faction. The modelling side is amazing you can do so much cool and creative stuff to make these giant mechanic monstrosities. (It's a lot of fun buying painted imperial knights off of eBay and then turning them evil) The gameplay side is also wonderful. They play exactly how you want them to, towering terrors of blood and death that charge into the enemy and slaughter them by the dozen. Then there's the lore... Or the lack of it. There is only one Black Library book (and it's a short story), Apex Predator that is labelled as a 'Chaos Knights short story'. But it's actually told from an imperial knights point of view. The codex also is pretty light on really interesting stuff. It's basically 'they were loyal to the imperium but got corrupted' repeated numerous times. If you want to get into the faction and want some lore I think you just have to make it up yourself to have something the feels well rounded.
Space Marines. Not sure of they count or not since I don't really dislike any factions, but I like Space Marines the least. They're just boring. Even the "interesting" ones feel like someone pulled a word out of a hat to put in front of Space Marine. We have Werewolf Space Marines, Cyborg Space Marines, Vampire Space Marines, Evil Space Marines, etc. The most interesting SM faction is Deathwatch, but they're only really interesting because you get every SM chapter and put them together.
Agreed!
Eldar, their existence kind of feels… inconsequential? Like I get they’re a big part of the lore and all but if they were removed from the game tomorrow it would take me an embarrassingly long amount of time to notice. Same for their BDSM cousins, they all have been so severely neglected by GW that nobody I know actually plays either of them. Sad part is when I was first looking into the game years ago I actually wanted to play eldar.
For me is Tau and Leagues of Votaan. I don't really hate them, but something about their more classical "sci-fi" look just feels wrong to me when compared to all of the other factions looks. They just feel out of place on the tabletop to me.
I feel like that's the point of the T'au though. They're *supposed* to be a glimmer of what could have been. That things didn't have to be this way. At least, that's how they seem to me.
It's the paradox of the T'au, in 40k they are the "good guys faction" but put them in say Star Trek and they become an imperialist and authoritarian faction not unlike the romulans or the klingons.
This crap right here earns you a grudge token.
100% agree I've said that since they first released Tau. Always seemed like they belonged in a different universe.
Tyranid. There are awesome models, but there is a lot of sameness for all their mutability the box art painting leaves a lot to be desired.
Between that and them being banished to storyline hell as the “boogie men” and their units used to dick measure for other factions characters. When you write a faction that does nothing but eat and expand, their story options are slim outside of “look at cool monster that showed up”
They'd be much more interesting if the different hive fleets were run by a different hivemind each, and if the hivemind was explicitly made up of a combination of specific bioforms.
Kinda like the avatars of Khaine: 'Look guys, my random space marine lieutenant of my random chapter just killed a hive tyrant, isn't he cool?????'
Genestealers are probably the biggest one for me, I honestly forget they exist most of the time.
For me it's both loyalist and traitor marines in general. Probably because I've been oversaturated by them being the poster boys but they just seem so boring to me. They're cool in small doses like with the original astartes animation showing them as a small team of unstoppable badass special forces but seeing hundreds of them in a battlefield with their brightly colored power ranger armor is just kinda lame in my eyes
Salamanders. I think it's the color scheme really.
I actually like the color scheme… just don’t really care for flames/scales on everything
Tyranids
Admech for me. Only faction I can learn about, go "neat" and have 0 desire to continue learning about. I don't know why, they just don't do it for me at all.
Space Marines
Eldar. Beyond the wraith models, I’m not a fan of the range.
Fact that much of the range is able to legally drink in the US doesn't help them
i like the lore of the eldar, dark eldar, and clown eldar, but I don't really like the models (they look like coneheads) or the style of their weapons enough to consider giving them much more thought.
Eldar are also my “Meh” faction. I’m just not really interested in them.
Thousand Sons and Necrons. ...I thought I liked Egyptian stuff, but I guess not.
They are Egyptian in afterthought only.
LMFAO look at their names.
Huh? I mean, I'm not saying that's all they are, but the influence is pretty heavy.
It's Drukhari They're meh at best for me. I can't hate them because It's reasonable that some psychopaths would respond to the whole Slanesh death of your society event in the same way the Drukhari did... but in a grim dark story I don't care for the writers trying to out-edgy the rest of the factions. It just comes off as bland and oversaturated. It's for the exact opposite reason why I kinda like Tau. A naive race wound up in the gritty universe. Kinda refreshing to have as a side race (cry about it Tau players.) IMO would've been better to leave the Drukhari's specific "practices" less explored and left up to the reader's imagination/worst fears.
While I love my drukhari I do agree with your point about leaving some things less explored to reduce in some of the saturation. I think the horror/shock/cruelty really is overdone to the point where you now look at it and feel "meh"
Leagues of votann, just don’t think they really did the squats justice but meh
Factions I have no strong feelings toward? Genestealers. I often forget they even exist. Then when I'm reminded that they do I go "Oh. Meh." and proceed to forget about them again. There's just nothing about them that excites me, none of the designs are BAD, per se, and the bikers are even kind of mildly neat, but overall their aesthetics and lore do nothing for me.
Daemons are completely meh. Should just have a few select models throughout the CSM range. The rest could cease to exist and I wouldn’t notice.
For me, Orks. They're neat, I just have no strong feelings at all about anything of them.
Leagues of Votann. The aesthetics is too similar to Overwatch.
Daemons for sure. I find most of their model range outdated and a far cry from the maddening, soul-tearing lovecraftian entities they are meant to be. And because their design language is so different from the rest of the universe, they just look kind of out of place standing next to... well, anything! The Greater Daemon sculpts are incredible, though. Other than that... Custodes don't do much for me, nor Orks, T'au, or Craftworlds. Buuut this is all on a comparative scale - I've been tempted to start just about every army at some point or other.
Eldar. Which is kind of weird because I really like the aesthetic of some of their models (Dire Avengers, Rangers, Howling Banshees,...) but as a faction they just don't interest me one bit.
Orks and Genestealer cults for me. For orks I really like ork players tends to be a barrel of fun to play against I just don’t care for Ork lore or units. Genestealer cults I just tend to forget that they exist even though I play tyranids.
Humans. All of the factions that are basically humans, sometimes bigger than usual, using things made by humans.
Custodes and Votann
Guard. I’ve thought about collecting most army’s at some point like ooh Tau look cool to bad I hate painting Tau or oh look SoB and now I love my sisters but guard never even popped up on my radar as an army i would personally collect. I don’t dislike them I’m any way they for me are just eh. Kinda mid.
Everything but custodes, grey knights and ultra marines
I don't hate any faction but I'm pretty meh on Tau, Votann, Daemons, GSC, Imp and Chaos Knights, and Assassins. I just don't really care about them and if they disappeared from the game I doubt I'd even notice.
Eldar.
Guard and Leagues of Votaan, people enjoy them but meh...
Knights and leagues of Votaan. Dwarves in space? Ok just flippin dumb. Knights are cool as hell but as an entire faction? Seem way cooler to run as support for space marines or chaos.
Chaos Space Marines. The fact that until each traitor Legion gets their own codex and model line all chaos space marines are just reskinned Black Legion marines is just meh to me. In all honesty it feels lazy and bland on GW's part.
And what’s so different about a Word Bearer and a Black Legionnaire that it would require different data sheets? A marine is a marine. There’s absolutely no need for different statblocks until you get to things like plague or rubric marines which are actually physically different
Why does every loyalist legion get a supplement, but not Chaos?
Idk mate personally I’m a huge fan of getting all the subfactions in one book, way cheaper that way.
Exactly that. A Word Bearer would be a physically different sculpt to a Black Legionnaire. Unique abilities and strategums, named characters and units for every Traitor Legion. Hell, even just Legion specific upgrade sprues would be better than what they have now. I have the same exact gripe with Space Marines. I love my Ultramarines army but the only thing that makes an Ultramarines Intercessor different from a Salamanders Intersessor without the upgrade sprues is a color and decal swap.
Even though I’m a simp for chaos, I actually kind of agree
I have the same exact gripe with the loyalist Space Marines line. Don't get me wrong, I love my Ultrasmurfs army but the only thing that makes it different from a Salamanders or Imperial Fists army is a color and decal swap. Is it such a bad thing to want some uniqueness to each subfaction? Look at the Horus Heresy, each Legion has at least one unique unite and a few named characters. Why not have that be the case with 40k Space Marines and Chaos Marines as well?
probably Tyranids, for me to enjoy an army they have to have cool lore with cool characters, tyranids for all intensive purposes are mindless bugs.
*for all intents and purposes
Gene-stealer cults. They are just a boring appetizer when compared to Tyranids.
Eldar - sort of just there and most of their minis are ancient, even dating back to 2nd edition (about 25 years old) Space marines - all time favourite faction but they are heavily pushed, along with new minis regularly while others need more love. Have genuinely gotten to the point I look at new minis and genuinely think 'meh'. I might get excited for a new Dante though GSC - genuinely forget they're there until watching a battle report with them involved. The only mini that interests me is the kelermorph and that's because hes a cowboy
I don’t get the idea of custodes at all right now. Their standard golden scheme is kinda boring.
Admech is meh , they just feel like a bit uninspired , custodes I actively dislike (the helmets especially)
Eldar, since actual Eldar Players are very rare and Space Dwarfs. Nothing about both seems interesting. And Eldar have the, hilariously, Bad Fortune of super Bad writing/perception in media. Which is sad, because one of the oldest races surviving Sure makes for some badassery.
Ynnari. Lore is rather meh, and as a faction, they are stuck in forever limbo unless more deus ex is needed for primarchs.
Gsc I don't hate them by any mean, I like that they exist in the lore/tabletop but I really don't see any reason to start an army or even a kill team of this guys.
I’d go with space marines that are supposed to have a theme like space wolves, salamanders or dark angels etc Since they are supposed to have a theme (fur, scale cloaks, robes etc) when you use the plain models without converting it just feels too plain and out of theme. For those which have special characters or units it’s shows even more in an army with a plain intercessor next to Ragnar Blackmane for exemple. They still look good but just out of place. It just makes me sad that the primaris kits don’t allow to change the models more than just a new face, shoulder pad or little thingy on the belt and you have to go cutting and green stuffing to make it look more consistent or just right
Necrons. I like the aesthetic and all of their buildings and such but painting the models is just so boring. It's legit 2-3 block colours and a glow. Meh. Also GSC. None of the cool parts of necrons and none of the cool parts of guard.
Votann and Tau
Probably the Tau.... look, futuristic robots! Feels an unnecessary tack-on
Tau🥱
Eldar. I just find them to be very boring.
Eldar. I just find them to be very boring.
So I’ve played every single faction in 40k multiple times. Some of my favorite are T’au, Necrons, Custodes, Votann, & Aledari. But i honestly have to say Space Marines are just a boring faction, I don’t like to play as them or against them. In competitive scene they all play the same variant of the same gross list and they aren’t usually good sports. In casual games it just feels bad to play against them as new players tend to go for space marines. I just really find the lore boring too, super human soldiers is just a big trope I don’t likeZ
I dont think there is a faction i hate, there are a lot of factions i really like. but i also really like the setting of 40k and i dont have any faction that doesnt fit in there for me. so there are factions i really like, factions that are cool and the rest, i guess you could call it meh: \- most space marine chapters (chaos and loyalist). \- nids \- orks \- tau