Races featured in this post:

1. Astra militarum
2. Greenskins
3. Tyranids
4. Space marines
5. Eldar
6. Necrons
7. Adeptus mechanicus
8. Drukhari
9. Tau

​Sidenotes: 

The administration feature that comes with Pharao is a pretty good way to reduce lategame snowballing. I'd love for administration to increase unit upkeep and extra movement gained from forced march. Allowing armies to traverse over their large empires faster if they are huge and reduce army spamming. I'd personally suggest:

Per settlement a faction owns, they gain:

+1% extra movement during forced march.

+0.5% upkeep for all armies.

+0.1 global recruitment slots.

I also really like the labour mechanic for Pharao, meaning building any building requires growth, it simply adds more thinking to planning city expansion and makes growth more valuable.

I also hope that some idea's from Shogun 2 return, such as making buildings locked behind technologies, thereby making the technology tree not only provide campaign buffs, but also major strategic city development considerations.

I hope that Warhammer 40k has less unit bloat. Pharao total war suffered greatly from this in my opinion because there were too many units doing the same job, reducing unit and army uniqueness. So please keep (shielded), (light armour) and (great weapons) unit variants to an absolute minimum.

A good example is Eldar storm guardians and Eldar Howling Banshees, who have the same weapons and thereby make each feel less unique. Having fewer units per faction is not a mistake, Shogun 2 proved that having few units doesn't make the game bad, while Pharao proved that having too many units hurts the game. 

If a faction has less that 10 units to choose from, that isn't a crime! It might even be more fun, as it makes more factions feel more unique.

Please leave feedback bellow if you have any idea's!

Faction: Astra Militarum

Campaign mechanic: Specialized settlements

The Astra militarum does not have a unique campaign resource, however they have many minor  settlement types that focus on providing powerful specific bonusses in line with their theme.

They are the same system as the chaos dwarf outpost/factory/tower settlement types.

Agricultural-world, provides lots of growth to the province and adjacent provinces.

Paradise-world, provides public order to the province and adjacent provinces.

Hive-world, provides lots of income, but provides negative public order and growth.

Forge-world, provides recruitment buildings of basic and advanced units.

Fortress-world, provides garrison buildings and army buffs within the province.

Major settlements have access to all buildings of these different settlement types.

The idea is that the player constantly has to balance out its settlement design, even though everyone wants income, income buildings provide penalties, meaning the player HAS to build different settlement types in order to keep the empire running well. 

Battle mechanic: The emperor protects.

The Astra Militarum has the same attribute as the Kislev, "By our blood", their units will become unbreakable for a short amount of time when wavering.

This means that the Astra militarum will be significantly more difficult to overrun compared to other factions, which fits perfectly in line with their “the planet broke before the guard did” theme.

They play much like the empire in battle.

Faction: Greenskins

Campaign mechanic: Waagh

Greenskins have no global resource, instead their armies need to be in a fight.

Greenskin armies have a Waagh meter, this increases for every battle they win, and slowly declines with each turn. Greenskins can also assume a stance that provides attrition to the army but increases Waagh per turn. This is very similar to the demons of Khorne Bloodletting mechanic.

A high Waagh meter provides: Upkeep reduction, replenishment increase, increase in XP gain and leadership to all units.

Waagh can also go one level into the negative that provides attrition and low leadership.

The idea is that as a Waagh increases, more greenskins flock to the Waagh and units inside the Waagh get more XP, which is important due to the next mechanic.

Additional campaign mechanic: Unit upgrade system

In the lore Greenskins get bigger and stronger as they fight more battles, this is represented through the Warband system.

Greenskins also come with the Warriors of chaos Warband unit upgrade system.

This means that Greenskin units with a high amount of XP can upgrade into higher grade units.

Waaghs provide a great increase to XP gain, meaning that armies with high Waagh meters can quickly become a mob of extremely powerful units.

However, unlike the Warriors of chaos, Greenskins can still recruit high tier units normally from their settlements.

As you can see, Greenskins have all their mechanics focussed around fighting battles, and each victory feeds the warband to an extreme degree, making everyone bigger 'n arder.

Battle mechanic: 

Waagh (yes, again) is It is very similar to the Dark elf murderous prowess army ability.

When the required amount of Waagh is reached in battle, the Waagh army ability will trigger. When the Waagh army ability expires, the Waagh amount is reset.

Waagh is an army ability that provides melee attack, leadership and speed to all units when triggered.

Waagh is gained by 1 amount per second for every unit taking damage at that time.

If the battle contains a total of 40 units, the required Waagh meter is set to 4000, but if there are only 15 units on both sides, the required Waagh meter is set to 1500. 

A loud Ork will scream Waagh when this ability triggers, unlike in Warhammer 3, you have no control over when this army ability triggers, you’ll just have to accept that your orks now feel like the fight is at its apex and go along with the Waagh.

​This represents the greenskins being completely uncontrollable and becoming even more wild when they the foight getz big.

They play much like the Greenskins in battle.

Faction: tyranids

Campaign mechanic: Cults

Tyranids have access to Cults, these are undercities that provide penalties in the local province and to the settlement. Cults are there to assist tyranid expansion.

Cults are established by Genestealer agents, this has a 10-turn cooldown.

Campaign mechanic: Mutations and Bio-matter

Tyranids have the ability to provide a SINGLE buff to each of their units called mutations, no more than 1, but it can be replaced by a different one. 

Applying mutations costs Bio-matter, a resource acquired through raiding, razing and winning battles.

Bio-matter and mutations are the same mechanic as that of Throt the Unclean.

No refunds are provided for replacing a mutation on a unit.

Additional mutation options can be unlocked through quests such as “defeat race X in battle 10 times.” or “Defeat Lord Y in battle.”

Note that the mutation you unlock by defeating a race specifically counters the race that you are required to defeat to unlock it. For example, beating space marines 10 times in battle grants you an armour piercing mutation. 

However, in the case of defeating lords, it grants a mutation in line with the theme of that lord, so defeating a heavily armoured legendary lord grants an armour boosting mutation.

This means the mutation mechanic is also its own mini questline and resembles their ability to acquire their enemies DNA and merge it with their own, or adapt to counter their opponents.

Additional campaign mechanic: Hive fleets

Tyranids get a moveable city exactly like the dark elf black arc.

Tyranids cannot recruit from their settlements, only from their hive fleets.

Tyranids can build more hive fleets, however they are extremely expensive.

Battle mechanic: Adaptation

Tyranids in battle have 5 army ability options, 5 adaptation options, these are buffs provided to their entire army. 

Only one adaptation can be chosen at a time, Adaptations have a duration of 120 seconds and a cooldown of 120 seconds.

Adaptations improve one of the following: speed, armor piercing, armor, melee attack or morale. 

The idea is that the tyrranid player analyses the battle and chooses the best adaptation for the situation throughout the battle. 

For example, if the enemy has a heavily armored threat, the tyrranid player should choose the armor piercing adaptation. If the enemy has to be engaged in melee, the speed adaptation is chosen, etc.

​This represents the Tyranids in the lore adapting to whatever the opponent fields on the fly using their vast collection of DNA, collected during their expansion.

They play much like the Lizardmen in battle.

Faction: Space marines

Campaign mechanic: Codex astartes

Space marine armies have to follow an army unit cap layout, similar to the one found in custom battles.

This unit cap is different between each space marine chapter.

An army has 20 units, including one general unit. Suppose there are 3 unit types: Melee infantry, Ranged infantry and vehicles.

Then space marine chapter Z has a codex astartes of: 4 vehicles, 10 melee infantry and 5 ranged infantry.

This means this army can ONLY have a maximum of 4 vehicles in each of their armies.

The codex astartes unit cap slots can be switched with one another every 10 turns. Meaning at turn 10, a space marine faction can exchange a ranged infantry slot for a vehicle slot. Allowing them to have: 5 vehicles, 10 melee infantry and 4 ranged infantry in each of their armies.

The starting codex astartes loadout of each space marine chapter is in line with their lore theme.

​This represents the rulebook or codex that each chapter follows.

Additional campaign mechanic: Space marine chapters

Each space marine chapter has their own theme and campaign mechanic.

But NONE of them are hordes, no faction in warhammer 40k is deprived from empire building.

Their game start codex astartes matches their chapter’s theme.

Battle mechanic: Space marine chapters

Each space marine chapter has their own theme and battle mechanic.

However, space marines borrow many non-elite units from the imperial guard.

They play much like the dwarves in battle.

Faction: Eldar

Unique campaign mechanic: Terraforming

Eldar have their own “corruption” which is called Terraforming, this can be increased with a specific building chain and scales from 0 to 100 per province.

At 0 terraforming, Eldar get -50% income from that province. (not -100% otherwise toggling taxes becomes an annoying gimmick)

At 100 terraforming they get -0% income from that province.

It is based on the influence mechanic of Pharao total war.

The Eldar also get +100% campaign line of sight, this resembles their ability to gaze into the future and compensates them for their own mandatory terraforming.

​Terraforming represents the slow expansion of the Eldar and their primary focus on their Craftworlds. The Eldar are a race of immortal beings that were so advanced, they created a chaos god. They terraformed planets into beautiful maiden worlds but now their numbers are few. Eldar in the lore also don’t have many warriors, this is recreated by the terraforming mechanic slowing their economical buildup, making fielding large armies more difficult initially.

I also wanted to explore the idea of the Eldar having growth as a global resource that is required to build units (10 growth required to build a unit), to simulate their dying population struggling to field soldiers.

Additional campaign mechanic: Craftworld

All Eldar factions start with a movable super city called a Craftworld. 

Craftworlds are Dark elf Black arcs that come with standard major settlement buildings.

Craftworlds cannot be built, but can respawn, respawning will reset all its building progression.

Craftworlds are "army" entities, and thus are unaffected by terraforming, meaning investing in them instantly yields 100% of the income generated, making it the highest priority to upgrade in the early game. Only later on in the campaign are provinces sufficiently terraformed to invest in.

Battle mechanic: Wraithbone

Eldar units are fast with few soldiers per unit, however they come with Barriers, separate HP pools that restore after being out of combat for a while.

This encourages eldar players to skirmish frequently with the enemy to maximise the effectiveness of their barriers regenerating.

This represents their hit and run style of warfare in the lore.

They play much like the Wood elves in battle.

Faction: Necrons

Campaign mechanic: Tomb worlds and Unit caps

Necrons have the same system as the Tomb kings, where they don’t have upkeep, instead they have a global unit cap system.

However, unlike the tomb kings, all MAJOR settlements are considered Tomb worlds. 

ONLY on Tomb worlds (major settlements) can recruitment buildings buildings be constructed, and thus the unit caps be expanded.

Tomb worlds (major settlements) cannot build public order, growth or income buildings, only minor settlements can.

This means Necrons still need to build an empire, however they have a much more unique dynamic in relation to their minor settlements.

​This represents the tomb worlds being the only centre from which the Necrons come forth, the rest simply exists only to feed the Necrons.

Battle mechanic: Regeneration

This one is extremely simple, all of your units simply regenerate HP over time.

​This represents the nanobots repairing anything and everything the Necrons have.

This is indirectly thematic, as regeneration is countered by burst damage, and the ancient enemies of the necrons, the orks, counters them, as Waagh does not give necrons enough time to regenerate. And spreading out army damage to optimise regeneration only feeds the Waagh.

They play much like the vampire counts in battle.

Faction: Adeptus mechanicus

Campaign mechanic: Artifact forge and artifacts

Adeptus mechanicus get a unique resource called “artifacts” from winning battles, raiding and razing.

They can spend this artifact currency in the artifact forge, which is the Tomb king Morturary cult mechanic. 

This allows them to craft character items, special agents, unit variants (existing units with an ability or bonusses, basically regiments of renown, but they can craft more of them than one of them).

The artifact forge also has provincial requirements, for example if you control province X, you can craft a unique item. This represents their quest in search of artifacts on specific planets.

Battle mechanic: Overseers

Adeptus mechanicus units have the same Malign authority (specific inspire) and expendable mechanics as the Chaos dwarves and their hobgoblin slaves.

This means low tier Adeptus mechanicus units are expendable and have more morale when a high tier unit is nearby.

​This represents the Skitarii and remote mind control nature of the adeptus mechanicus in the lore.

They play much like the Chaos dwarves in battle.

Faction: Drukhari

Campaign mechanic: Slaves and Thirst

Drukhari have access to the slave system that the Chaos dwarves have.

Drukhari produce gold and Thirst by expending slaves using slave related buildings.

Thirst is similar to Skaven food, it is a meter that when high provides buffs, but when low provides penalties.

Each army and city costs Thirst to maintain each turn.

Slaves can be acquired through raiding, razing and winning battles.

Thirst and slaves represent the need for Drukhari to be diabolical and needs to be maintained at all times. Drukhari campaigns are slower, as they need to develop a sufficient production of thirst before they expand, otherwise they might lose too much thirst.

Additional campaign mechanic: Commorragh

Commorragh is a unique region located off-map, meaning you cannot reach it through direct movement. Instead you need to enter Webway gates, the same things as portals from the warhammer 3 campaign, for example the one belakor gets. 

Webway gates allow you to travel between them, and from the map to Commorragh and back.

You can only travel between portals you have discovered, you automatically discover the Webway gate in Commorragh if you are at war with someone that has one of the settlements in Commorragh.

Commorragh is the home of the Drukhari, it is a small cluster of major settlements, much like Athel loran.

Each Drukhari faction has their capitol in Commorragh and each share a non-aggression pact. 

Playable Drukhari factions start with their starting army at the exit of a webway gate on the main map, but still with their capitol back in Commorragh.

​They wreak havoc on the galaxy and feed their capitol hidden in the Webway.

Battle mechanic: Stalk

Like the Eldar, Drukhari infantry are also very fast with few soldiers per unit, but instead of barriers, they make up for this with the Stalk attribute.

Their main battle tactic is using their fast stealthy units to ambush the enemy. However, they must do this well as their units are vulnerable. Their units are like Skaven Deathrunners.

​This represents Drukhari attacks in the lore, that are sudden without prior warning specifically designed to break morale and take as much prisoners as possible, and then vanish again into the void.

They play much like the demons of Slaanesh in battle.
 

Faction: Tau

Campaign mechanic: Castes

The Tau gain powerful bonusses depending on the harmony and balance of their empire.

Each branch of the empire, armies, diplomacy and industry is a Caste.

All Castes share a balance of power, if one gets more powerful, the others will lose power, if a Caste loses power, its bonusses reduce.

At the start of the game, each Caste has 33% of the total 99% power.

• The military Caste gains power through the recruitment of units and fighting of battles.
• The diplomatic Caste gains power through the establishment and existence of diplomatic treaties.
• The industry Caste gains power through the building of buildings.

If you never build anything, never engage in diplomacy, but fight many battles, the military Caste will have 100% power, and you will gain no bonusses from the Industry or Diplomatic Caste.

Each Caste provides bonusses respective to their respective field of specialization. Meaning the military Caste provides military related bonusses when powerful. However the maximum bonus is achieved at 33% power, so going higher than that provides nothing beneficial and only harms the other Castes.

If a spacenavy becomes part of the game, the spacenavy should also get their own Caste.

The Castes are known as the industry=earth, military=fire, diplomatic=water, spacenavy=air. You lead the faction as the Ethereal caste that manages all others.

Battle mechanic: Focus fire

Each Tau unit provides a -5% missile resistance penalty to the unit that they fire at, this stacks. Meaning if 4 Tau units are firing at the same unit, that unit suffers a -20% missile resistance penalty.

This is meant to represent the coordination of the Tau and their heavy focus on ranged units.

Focus fire is the concept of live-shared battle information, meaning units share what they see to other units, who can see this on their HUD, allowing them to better identify threats that their allies spot.

They play much like the Vampire coast in battle.

A personal sidenote of top 13 mechanics that I hope don't return in warhammer 40k:

1. Hordes

I hate hordes, it is a normal faction, but stripped of empire building, there are no cities to develop, no economy to plan, no borders to protect. It baffles me that the Changeling got his own horde mechanic instead of just being a default Tzeentch faction with additional cult options.

2. Forced campaign quest mechanics, like the realms campaign

This one goes without saying, at the centre of the total war experience is conquering land and building your empire and armies. Being forced to do an RPG like campaign on the side isn’t fun or rewarding, especially as you have to do this quest every time you start a campaign.

3. Very high damage magic

I REALY dislike the fact that magic is so powerful in warhammer 3, that a caster can reliably kill half the enemy army all on its own with vortexes, winds and curses alone. Total war is a strategy game, not a magic bombardment arcade simulator. Such powerful magic also punishes players for using formations. It is much better to have magic centre more around buffing/debuffing/healing etc. units.

4. Climate penalties

I mean, why restrict the creativity of players to expand wherever they choose? Why force them through the same territorial expansion tunnel every time because diversity is punished by the climate penalty system? This just seems needlessly restrictive for a strategy sandbox game. It also doesn’t add any fun planning mechanics, it only restricts.

5. Stalk / Ambush attack

This is another mechanic that dumbs the game down and is extremely frustrating to play against. There is very little a player can do to effectively defend against it, while using this with great success makes every battle a boring auto-win ambush battle. For both the user and defender this mechanic is frustrating. The same is true for hidden cities that the skaven have, perfectly hiding armies within them.

6. So many agent types per faction

I really dislike the fact that there are an uncountable number of different agents for each faction, they aren’t interesting and just bloat the map with pointless agents. Please have every faction only have at most 3 agent types at most. A caster, a race specific agent (like a gene stealer or inquisitor) and maybe a combat agent. 

7. Forced march

Forced march is notoriously abuseable by AI to escape any danger and likewise by the player and just reduces the amount of strategy in the game with a gimmick to run away faster than one can attack. It also doesn’t require any preparation the previous turn, it can be used at any point, even after a battle to get a boost to escape.

8. Regiments of renown

These are just boring, they don't add anything fun to the game and simply bloat the game with useless recolors. Not to mention are often abused as a cheap instant recruitment mechanic. 

9. Rogue armies and demon portals

I don’t think I need to explain this one. Having random armies spawn in the back of your empire that you have to walk the entire way back too isn’t fun. Neither is having demon portals spawn armies in your backyard.

10. Micro variations between units (shielded / light armor)

I’m fine with units that have different weapon types like great weapons, but high elf archers (light armor) and spearmen (shields) is just lame and boring. Please avoid bloating the unit rosters with these types of micro unit variations. But lately that trend does not seem to have returned, as the Chaos dwarf roster was extremely clean.

11. Races locked in regional specific settlements

This one is harder to explain, but factions like the Warriors of chaos and the Wood elves have Magical forests and Dark fortresses. All other settlements are treated like minor settlements with only one tier. Effectively depriving these races of any sense of empire and settlement building. They are almost horde factions, and therefore I hate playing them.

12. Maze-like siege maps

Warhammer 3 siege maps are sometimes a complete nightmare to navigate, with bridges within the settlement, tons of enterances and alleyways. It is a complete nightmare to comprehend where enemies can come from and how units will move around the map.

13. Problematic shooting angles for gun units.

Sieges are especially difficult for gun units, they need a perfect like of sight, and any building or hill will block that. I really hope the maps in 40k will be much flatter so that gun units aren't such a nightmare to position.

I'd also like to add my top 3 features I’d like to see added in the future:

1. Multiplayer map option where there is a ring that closes over time to counter camping.

Total war multiplayer battles can be a lot of fun. However the wargammer 3 capture point game mode simply doesnt work as the game wasnt balanced or designed around it. Taking the default battle option but adding a closing ring like in battle royales that damages units outside of it that very slowly closes over time would fix the camping problem much more effectively.

2. Different map scenario’s.

This one is a little more complex, but the main point is that the factions on the map are redistributed to make the map feel fresh. 

Or optimised for multiplayer, for example, all minor factions are removed, and the major factions (players) can directly start interacting with one another. Plus reduced construction cost and time, increased growth and research to speed up the campaign for multiplayer.

3. More pre-campaign gameplay options.

Pharao had a wonderful list of campaign options, so for example adjusting unit replenishment, upkeep, attrition, AI aggressiveness etc. It would be awesome if that was also added to all future total wars.

I put the Eldar spirit stones mechanic into warhammer 3 growth value terms and clarified some of the Eldar spirit stone mechanics.

Keep in mind that "spirit stones" are simply a seperate currency that replaces growth. So eldar do NOT have normal growth.

Spirit stones are produced by buildings, or aquired from post battle, raiding, sacking razing etc. The only difference is that it is a factionwide currency, and upgrading settlements, occupying settlements or recruiting units costs spirit stones. It heavily mimmicks growth, but acts as a global currency, recruiting units costs a small portion of spirit stones.

Spirit stones are a global resource, meaning if you can effectively transport growth over the entirety of your empire, as they do the same thing, but behave differently.

​I was thinking to myself: “Hmm this Eldar thing where they have a global growth resource is fun and all, but it’s a bit boring, is there anything I could do to make them more interesting?”

And then I had it!

Instead of the Eldar using a global food resource, they need to terraform the planets to their needs!

So, what I’m saying is that they have their own “culture” just like in pharaoh, or as in warhammer 3 corruption.

Meaning they have a separate slider next to each province that says “Terraform progress”.

Which can be increased with buildings and works the same way as corruption in warhammer 3.

This effect scales the resources you gain from each settlement, so at 0% terraforming, you gain 0% income/resources. And at 100% terraforming, you gain 100% income/resources.

Which is a cool other way to simulating the slow expansion of the Eldar, instead of having slow growth, they need to terraform everything!

And adds a unique Eldar city planning resource!

Not to mention it complements a focus on upgrading the Craftworld first, as Craftworlds are coded as "armies" and thus are free of "corruption" effects.

I UPDATED THE TEXT IN THE ORIGIONAL POST WITH THIS NEW CONCEPT.

I removed the old spirit stones/global growth thing, as it was less interesting, as it did not add any cool city-planning mechanics and encouraged very passive gameplay.

Renamed the atra militarum ability to "the emperor protects"

because it is very important that the emperor protects, even in death

I also removed the campaign movement increase when a greenskin army gets a high waagh meter, as otherwise they'd race car accros the map.

I also clarified that the Warband upgrade system for the greenskins is unique to them because in the lore greenskins get bigger and stronger as they fight battles.

​https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-pharaoh/forums/4-%E2%81%82-total-war-franchise-general/threads/5588-top-10-favourite-units-for-each-faction-i-d-love-to-see-in-40k-total-war?page=1#post-68991

Some while ago I posted a list of units I'd love to see in 40k, but I might not have been very clear on what I mean by making units feel unique.

What I mean by this is that I hope units don’t “play” or have the same role in battle. Take for example Storm guardians and Howling banshees who both have pistols and swords. Meaning they overlap one another in battlefield roles.

However Striking scorpions also have pistols and swords. But Striking scorpions are unique in the fact that they go invisible, meaning they fulfil a different role in battle.

Another way of avoiding this problem where units look to much like one another is by changing up the unit tiers. For example, Guardian defenders and Dire avengers do the same thing, Dire avengers are just more elite. Thus, this problem can be solved by putting them a tier apart.

So Guardian defenders are tier 1.

And Dire avengers are tier 3.

Moreover, if a unit is very elite on the tabletop, they can be made artificially of a lower tier by reducing the number of men in the unit.

In this case the tier 2 slot is blank. And while on the tabletop Dire avengers and Banshees are the same tier, if we set the Banshees to only have 40 men per unit, they can still be elite as is on the tabletop, but be of a lower tier ingame.

This thus becomes:

Guardian defenders, tier 1, 60 men per unit.

Howling banshees, tier 2, 40 men per unit.

Dire avengers, tier 3, 60 men per unit.