Warhammer 40K: 3 Armies That Need Things Added To Them

Warhammer 40,000 doesn’t need more armies. There’s plenty of room for new units in existing armies already.

I’ve been noticing a bit of a lull in overall output from Games Workshop since the start of the year. That’s not a bad thing, by the way — I’d rather GW focus on overall quality of releases than a ton of less-than-good output. But that’s another topic.

I know we’ve just gotten new Aeldari and Emperor’s Children in 40k as well as the Gitmob for Age of Sigmar. For me, it’s really just the pacing of the releases compared to previous editions. Anyhow, this got me thinking “well maybe GW needs to create an entirely new army for 40k? That would inject some buzz and urgency into the mix, right?!”

However, after more thinking about it, I believe that’s not the answer. I think that GW needs to continue with that they are doing — they just need to add more to existing armies. Here’s a few examples of what I mean.

Imperial Knights

My first example army is the Imperial Knights. You could also inject the same ideas for Chaos Knights but I’m just going to focus on the Imperials for now. I think this is an army that could use some wise expansion. What do I mean by that? Well, if you check the product page on warhammer.com they’ve got 16 products. One of which is the out of stock Index cards. Another is the Sector Mechancius Forgeshrine. So that’ leaves 14 “units” on the product page. But in reality, a bunch of those units are just different variations on the same core Knight kit.

And hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a single, versatile kit! You could chalk that up to good design. However, that doesn’t really give folks a lot to build. That translates to GW not having a lot stuff to sell to players. From a business standpoint, that doesn’t seem very sustainable.

Armigers were a good addition to this army. They were a new kit that filled a different role. I think GW needs to put the design team to work on doing that again for the Imperial Knights once more. This army could have more stuff added to it and still fit the theme of “big stompy robots.”

Leagues of Votann

Games Workshop has a really bad habit of introducing an army and then not really giving them a ton of support in the short term. The Leagues of Votann are a good example of this. Sure, when they were first introduced they were over the top with their rules. But then they got nerfed into oblivion. They haven’t gotten a ton of love since. Sure, they’ve gotten some Kill Team action. But the 40k army could use a lot more attention.

I think this is an army that ripe for more unit expansion. GW loves to toss in random bits for the various Kill Teams. There’s a Jump Pack unit that’s just waiting to be a thing standing right there as an example. There’s also the Hernkyn options in that army that could be expanded upon.

GW could even take some inspiration from the old school squats and add in more bikes or more lightly armored units. And as for their popularity (or lack there of) it’s really due to the whiplash we saw with their rules. Fix those rules, add some new units, and let them cook!

Drukhari

I know we just got the Aeldari release but that also got me thinking about their evil cousins. The Drukhari have gotten solid updates in their last go around for sure. The new plastics have been great. While I think updating the older kits is needed I also think that adding new units to their range is imperative. Oh, and also refilling stock would be nice…

I checked the warhammer.com section for the army. Currently, there’s 24 items for sale. 16 of them are currently “Temporarily out of stock” on the webstore. Of the 8 items available, one of those is the Index cards. That means if you wanted to order a new Drukhari army, you’d have a whopping 7 items to build from. And two of those are Kill Teams. I guess if you’re a new player GW just wants you to play Drukhari in Combat Patrol.

The odds of seeing a Drukhari codex seem pretty low. That said, I’m kind of glad for that. Hopefully it means that GW is taking some time to update and add to their army. And I don’t mean just one new infantry character added to the mix.

More Stuff For Existing Armies

I think that the Combat Patrol boxes have been a fantastic entry point to 40k. But there’s obviously interest in bigger games with more units beyond the ones in the Combat Patrol boxes. The fix doesn’t seem that complicated either. GW just needs to create more stuff for the existing armies. And I’m not talking about yet another Space Marine lieutenant model.

The three armies I picked as examples were just the first ones that jumped out at me. I know there’s more examples on their website of out of stock kits and armies that are just lacking units in general. I’m not saying that every army range needs to be as massive as the Space Marines (with it’s 202 items for sale). But if we could bring up the floor a bit in terms of unit counts that sure would be nice.

What armies would you like to see get a 2-3 (or even more) units?

Writer, Editor, Texas Native, and now Tex-Pat, Adam covers all things Tabletop Gaming. Which includes Warhammer 40,000, Age of Sigmar, D&D, Board Games and everything else that involves dice, boards, cards and a table.
A hobbyist, player, and collector of miniatures and games, Adam’s current obsession are his Death and Chaos Armies for Age of Sigmar, his Blood Angels and Tyranids for 40k, an expanding collection of Marvel: Crisis Protocol minis, and his ever growing Arkham Horror: The Card Game Collection.

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