I am trying to summarize all my current wishes and perspectives on how I think a total war 40k could be exceptional. And that’s it. I’m happy if anyone bothers to read this, it takes quite a bit of thinking and writing. If you happen to have read my previous posts, this has a bunch of new content in it.  

I envision total war 40k as a galactic map, where the settlements are the primary planet of their system. So the Earth settlement is the planet Earth, and represents our solar system, but you can't zoom in to see the moon, sun or other barren planets in our solar system. With land armies also acting as navies. When armies fight, they fight on the local planet. This means if two armies fight in the region of a tomb world, they fight on a tomb world map.

Feature wishlist

1.    No more horde (beastmen) or pseudo-hordelike (wood elves) factions. Every faction should be able to build an empire anywhere that they can build up and must protect. 

2.    I envision the campaign map to be a galactic map with the important planets as settlements. Space anomalies like black holes, warp rifts or rock belts can act as mountains, rivers or forests, slowing or blocking movement paths. With roughly 1.5x army movement distance between settlements.

3.    Can’t say I really want spaceship battles for the first game as that aspect about 40k is not something the lore or the tabletop gives much attention to.

4.    No maze-like settlement battles. In fact, as little settlement battles as possible for they restrict movement and thereby creativity and fun in addition to making some unit classes very strong and others near useless.

5.    Technology trees should unlock units, characters and buildings instead of providing only buffs. Shogun 2 was great because the technology tree was designed this way.

6.    Magic shouldn’t be so powerful that the game becomes a magic bombardment simulator. Magic should support but not obliterate entire armies.

7.    No more climate effects, they limit empire expansion creativity and reduce the sand-box aspect of a total war campaign.

8.    All unit recruitment has to be 1 turn, otherwise the late game gets very boring. Waiting for things to resolve is very boring.

9.    Global recruitment has to become the only type of recruitment. As waiting for units to be recruited is very boring. So is walking from province to province to recruit locally.

10.   Unit roster designs have to be made in such a way that at every stage of the campaign armies still feel the same. For example, the late game shouldn’t be dragon-only armies, as they are the most expensive. There should be an expensive tier 5 infantry unit for every faction as well.

11.   Garrison buildings have to be removed, and recruitment buildings should provide garrison units. This is to increase usefulness of recruitment buildings in the late game.

12.   No more narrative or RPG-like mechanics in total war, total war is about building empires in a sandbox, not following a forced questline or fighting quest battles.

13.   All areas of the map must have a diverse set of enemy types, no more Cathay with only Cathayans to fight. All races are spread over the map equally to ensure every campaign start has a diverse set of enemies.

14.   Fatigue has to be more oppressive and has to recover more swiftly when a unit is not moving. You shouldn't be able to ignore it anymore. It should be an impactful mechanic.

15.   Remove the population surplus system and simply make upgrading main settlements cost growth directly.

16.   The AI has to pull up with the player, if the player has 30 settlements, every major faction gains a boost to their auto-resolve power against other AI factions until they have the same number of settlements as the player.

17.   Nobody is allowed to be at peace, if a faction is at peace for 5 turns, a random neighbour has to attack it. This is also true for the player. This is to ensure the late-game doesn't become boringly peaceful, the player constantly has to be put in a situation of crisis to keep them engaged in the campaign.

18.   I hope there will be a custom campaign setup menu like with pharaoh total war. Through which we can choose our own starting location, in case we have a favourite lord and want to play a completely strange, challenging new start location. Or we want all start locations of all factions to be shuffled around for a completely new map setup.

19.   I hope there will be a new feature that allows an AI to generate a map. So basically, not just reshuffle the factions, but also the map. This is very easy with a galactic map, as there is a lot of void between settlements. This was one of the core pillars that makes the civilization games so addicting, there’s always a completely new, unique map to explore.

20.   Keep abilities or gameplay effects simple, don’t fall in the same trap as paradox where a single trait can provide 5 different buffs. Try to stay at 1 to 2 buffs per ability. For example in twwh3 murderous prowess gives 5 different buffs. This is bad, try to keep things simple. Having 1000 different abilities isn’t a problem, it’s a problem when an ability gives a ton of different buffs. It increases confusion and difficultly understanding what the purpose is of the mechanic, it can also make other abilities feel less interesting, as they can buff the same stats.

21.   Make the battle map zones circles instead of squares, so players can't corner camp.

22.   Make one big battle map per world or faction, and have the battle zones be placed within it, in a random direction, creating a new fresh map every single battle.

23.   Significantly simplified unit stats. Simplify charge, armour and armour piercing. Remove melee attack/defence due to its redundancy. See more details below.

24.   Less spell resistance or magical resistance, keep things simple. The magic damage and physical dynamic was fun, until it got overcomplicated due to the abundance of magical resistance. Fire resistance suffered from the same issue tragically. Stop giving so many units missile, fire or magical resistance please.

25.   Simplify charge calculations, units should deal big hit of charge damage when at full speed, and half charge damage at half speed. Cycle charging should work, instead of the strange 15-second damage and attack buff it currently provides.

26.   Add the unit supply system that punishes the player for building more units, armies and agents than its farms can support. And encourage building elite armies as opposed to spamming cheap ones.

27.   Add the recruitment availability mechanic that forces the player to build armies with more unit variety if he wants to build large armies fast.

28.   Due to farms providing unit supply points, barracks should provide replenishment instead. Meaning barracks have more uses as they provide units to recruit, garrison units and replenishment.

29.   No more recruitment from main settlement chains, you must have a barracks if you want to build units. This makes barracks a lot more important, instead of factions only efficiently fielding large armies of their lowest tier main settlement unit, with their entire economy devoted to income and growth.

30.   Only allow (global) recruitment in settlements. This prevents armies from building up on the border and prevent armies from building up while on the move.

31.   No more missions or quests to unlock legendary agents. Instead, make legendary agents unlockable through the technology tree.

32.   No more sacking or things that cause buildings to be damaged or ruined. As this effect often causes crashes and issues with modding. It is also a very rare feature that doesn't add a lot to the game.

​33.   Give each race a custom campaign and battle HUD to fully immerse the player into the specific race they are playing as.

34.   Add a 60 second timer when the battle is concluded, after the timer runs out, the battle ends. Half of the surviving enemy troops are killed. This is to reduce the tedious running down of enemy units at the end of a battle that can take a lot of time. This means when the battle is concluded you get a notification saying "Victory! Battle ends in (timer that counts down from 60 seconds)".

35.   Remove any kind of player bias by the AI. You should be able to play into the politics of the different factions, instead of always being at the top of the chopping block for every faction.

36.   Remove the post-battle prisoner options which allows the army to gain replenishment, money or a buff. It's just tedious and adds extra clicks while removing any need to strategize around replenishing armies.

37.   Less or no items for lords and agents, they're tedious, boring and generally feel like they exist to add more clicks to the game and waste the player's time.

38.   Less technology options and character skill tree options, but more powerful effects. Less clicks on pointless weak effects and instead more powerful effects that take longer to achieve.

Faction campaign designs

1.      Space marines

The space marines are the genetically enhanced special forces of the imperium. After the Horus heresy, a strict mandate was enforced to ensure space marine chapters would be limited by tight rules to ensure they pose a lesser threat if they would fall to chaos. 

All space marine chapters have the codex astartes mechanic:

They have a special campaign tab that determines the unit class loadout in their armies. They can for example only have 1 lord, 9 ranged infantry and 10 melee infantry in each army.

Every 10 turns they can swap out a unit class slot with another unit class.

There are 3 unit classes:

-Infantry

-Large units

-Single entities

Infantry are units with smaller models with unit sizes ranging from 60 to 160 men per unit.

Large units are units with large models with unit sizes ranging from 4 to 40 men per unit. Units such as bikes, monsters, chaos spawn, terminators, wraithguards, battlesuits, etc.

Single entities are units with a single huge model with only 1 man per unit. Units such as lords, agents, titans, tanks etc.

Each space marine chapter also has a unique chapter-specific campaign mechanic.

​In conclusion, space marine factions are inflexible as they need to adhere to the codex astartes. However, with time, some rules can be changed a bit to enable more flexibility.

2.      Chaos

​Chaos is divided into 5 different alignments, Undivided, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle and Khorne.

All alignments have their own corruption and get access a building that spreads their type of corruption to its province and adjacent provinces.

All chaos factions are participants in "the great game". Which means all different chaos corruption types are summed up in a pool, whichever type of chaos corruption has the most out of all of them gets a boost in public order and growth.

This means each chaos alignment is a sort of team that seeks to spread their corruption over the galaxy, while limiting the spread of their rival’s corruption.

This means if Tzeentch has more chaos corruption spread over the map than all other alignments, all Tzeentch factions gain a boost to public order and growth.

2.1     Undivided

Chaos undivided is the branch of chaos that is less focussed on appeasing their specific god. For they see all gods as equal, and thereby simply focus on expanding chaos as a whole. This means they are more concerned about their own victories and therefore often form the main strike force of chaos, being generally more disciplined.

Chaos undivided has access to mechanical demons, cultists and chaos marine units.

Chaos undivided corruption provides +10 army armour (+2 per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to chaos undivided factions. 

Chaos undivided corruption provides -10 army armour (-2 per 20 corruption) and -5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to non-Undivided factions.

Chaos undivided gains favour resource from winning battles. Can spend favour to give each unit a blessing of one of the four gods. You cannot give one god an unequal amount of blessings. If you have made blessings to 3 of the 4 gods, you HAVE TO spend your next blessing on the last 4th god. Research enables the unlock of different blessings. Blessings work the same as treant blessings as the wood elves in wh3, they can be replaced or removed at any time.

In conclusion, undivided is the more elite branch of chaos, being more flexible in their unit designs and of higher quality in battle. At the same time they still need to appease all gods equally.

2.2     Tzeentch

​Tzeentch is a chaos god that loves trickery. Betrayal, deceit and misguidance are his signature tools. Tzeentch therefore loves causing rebellions and can see the fates, knowing what will happen in the future and scheme around it.

Tzeentch has access to Tzeentch demons, cultists and chaos marine units. 

Tzeentch corruption provides +50% army and settlement campaign vision (+10% per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to Tzeentch factions. 

Tzeentch corruption provides -50% army and settlement campaign vision (-10% per 20 corruption) and -5 public order (-1 per 20 corruption) to non-Tzeentch factions. 

Tzeentch gets access to a special building that reduces the public order of all other factions within the province and in adjacent provinces.

In conclusion, Tzeentch doesn’t fight wars directly, he loves to have proxies fight his enemies through rebellions. In addition, in battle, he plays a game of Stratego with his opponent, hiding the identity of his forces.

2.3     Khorne

Khorne sees the world as one big arena filled with creatures battling one another. Khorne primarily loves melee, it is personal, honourable and brutal. He also loves collecting skulls as prized assets. 

Khorne has access to Khorne demons, cultists and Khorne chaos marine units.

Khorne corruption provides +10% army melee damage (+2% per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to Khorne factions. 

Khorne corruption provides -10% army ranged damage (-2% per 20 corruption) and -5 public order (-1 per 20 corruption) to non-Khorne factions. 

Khorne gains the skulls resource from battles. Skull can be spent to apply blessings to units. Blessings increase is potency when the unit has higher XP. This is because the more “skulls” (XP) a unit has collected in battle, the greater the boon. Blessings work the same as treant blessings as the wood elves in wh3, they can be replaced or removed at any time. 

In conclusion, Khorne loves battles, and especially loves it when there’s a lot of bloodshed. His armies only care for melee, and the more skulls a unit has collected in battle, the more Khorne favours them.

2.4     Nurlgle

Nurgle is the god of decay, and plagues. He constantly develops new plagues to spread around the galaxy. His followers are in constant decay due to the many plagues that they carry.

Nurgle has access to Nurgle demons, cultists and Nurgle chaos marine units.

Nurgle corruption provides +5% replenishment to armies (+1% per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to Nurgle factions. 

Nurgle corruption provides -5% replenishment to armies (-1% per 20 corruption) and -5 public order (-1 per 20 corruption) to non-Nurgle factions. 

This means the garrisons of non-Nurgle factions replenish just fine.

Nurgle has access to a special building that spawns 1 plague in a random adjacent settlement or in its own settlement, if it already has a plague, it extends its duration. Plagues initially last for only one turn, and increases in duration by a turn with each building tier. The plague effects can be changed and upgraded through technology to be more beneficial to your settlements or harmful to settlements of others. Nurgle may choose two different benefits and penalties for his plague.

In conclusion, Nurgle spends the majority of the game improving his plague, and ensuring everyone around him is constantly harassed by a plague. However, Nurgle also improves his own realm with his plagues.

2.5     Slaanesh

Slaanesh is a god that craves the most extreme emotions. Terror, pleasure, greed, pain, excitement are all things Slaanesh prioritises. Strange avant-garde artistry is also part of Slaanesh. 

Slaanesh has access to Slaanesh demons, cultists and Slaanesh chaos marine units.

Slaanesh corruption provides +10 army leadership (+2 per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to Slaanesh factions. 

Slaanesh corruption provides -10 army leadership (-2 per 20 corruption) and -5 public order (-1 per 20 corruption) to non-Slaanesh factions. 

Slaanesh buildings provide increased effects when the settlement is at 100 public order. 

In conclusion, Slaanesh craves strong emotions, everyone doesn’t just have to be satisfied, no they have to be ecstatic. Slaanesh therefore prioritises extremely high public order and greatly enjoys terrifying its enemies.

3.      Astra militarum

The astra militarum resembles humanity in 40k, they the largest race in 40k and dedicate worlds to specific branches of industry in order to keep their empire running. It is also an extremely overextended empire that has extremely hazardous living conditions for its people.

Astra militarum factions have to choose a world specialization for their minor settlements. They can choose between Agriculture, Hive, Paradise and Fortress. Each world type enables the construction of a specific set of buildings and disables those of other world types. Worlds can be converted at any time, but the buildings in them will be destroyed.

-Agriculture worlds provide only growth buildings which also increase supply points.

-Hive worlds provide only income buildings which also reduce public order.

-Paradise worlds provide only public order buildings.

-Fortress worlds provide only recruitment(garrison) buildings.

-Major settlements can build anything, making them flexible.

More details at: https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-warhammer/forums/4-%E2%81%82-total-war-franchise-general/threads/9131-40k-total-war-wishlist-complete-summary?page=3#post-146310

Astra militarum hive income buildings provide increasing penalties to public order with each tier. This represents the squalor and awful empire management of the imperium. You MUST build a diverse empire and cannot only spam Hive cities for income.

​In conclusion, astra militarum factions play in a big picture sense, they aren’t managing individual regions or provinces but manage on the multi province scale. They constantly need to plan their world specializations around making sure everything runs smoothly.

4.      Orks

​Orks are a race of savage beasts that need war to survive. The more they fight, the bigger they grow. As soon as their leader dies, they will start infighting and they are extremely undisciplined. Orks reproduce through spores, meaning they grow out of the ground and are extremely difficult to eradicate.

Ork armies have a Waagh! bar. This bar fills up when they fought battles and diminishes over time. The higher this bar, the greater XP gain and leadership the units get in battle. It is instantly set to zero when the general of the army dies. When low it provides attrition and reduces leadership of the army.

Ork units can be upgraded when they have reached the maximum level of XP. This means if Ork units stay alive for a long time and kill a lot, they can quickly be upgraded to high tier units. Similar to the warriors of chaos in twwh3.

Orks generate a corruption called “Ork infestation” which significantly reduces public order for other factions. If a rebellion triggers, the army spawned will be an Ork rebel army if they have the greatest corruption in the province. It provides nothing to Orks however. (-1 public order per 20 corruption)

​In conclusion, Ork factions crave battles, they gain significant benefits from winning battles, and their armies become stronger as they win battles. War is their way of life. If they take a world, other factions have difficulty getting rid of the Ork spores.

5.      Eldar

Eldar are a race of ancient immortal elves that is haunted by Slaanesh. This means they struggle to build up their population numbers. Furthermore, they terraform worlds into “maiden worlds”, a sort of garden paradises. They live mostly on planet sized ships called craftworlds.

Eldar get less money from their buildings. But they make up for this by generating a corruption called “Maiden world” this increases income from local settlements in the province. At 100 it provides +50% income to all eldar buildings. (+10% income per 20 corruption)

Instead of growth, Eldar get a special global growth resource called “spirit stones”. It is produced in exactly the same way as growth and in the same quantities. But instead of it being added to the provincial pool, it is added to a global pool.

Eldar require spirit stones (growth) to build units and build buildings. Similar to labour cost in pharaoh total war or wood elf kindred in warhammer 3. Non-main settlement buildings cost half the amount of spirit stones (growth) it would cost to build a main settlement building of the same tier.

Spirit stones (growth) are produced from “farms” in quantities of +2/3/4/5/6 for tier 1/2/3/4/5 just like normal growth.

Main settlement buildings cost 0/30/60/120/240 spirit stones (growth) for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Non-main settlement buildings cost half of that, so 0/15/30/60/120 spirit stones (growth) for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Units cost spirit stones (growth) equal to their tier, so 1/2/3/4/5 spirit stones (growth) for tier 1/2/3/4/5 units.

Each Eldar faction starts with one special moveable city called a “Craftworld”. These are mega-cities that can slowly be moved around, provide lots of resources and can support nearby armies. They are similar to black arks in twwh3. For more details read below about moveable cities.

In conclusion, all Eldar effectively start with a moveable mega-city, however their development is extremely slowed by their added growth costs on buildings and units, in addition to requiring their corruption to make settlements equally profitable as other factions.

More details about factions and leaders at: https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-warhammer/forums/4-%E2%81%82-total-war-franchise-general/threads/9131-40k-total-war-wishlist-complete-summary?page=4#post-148292

6.      Tyranids

Tyranids are a mysterious horde of highly aggressive space-faring creatures able to change their biology to counter their opponents. They require organic material to survive and roam the galaxy to consume all life. Their primary base of operation is their hive fleet, a collection of extremely large space faring creatures that serve as the industrial and leadership centre of their forces.

Tyranids are the ONLY horde faction in 40k. They gain “Biomass” from battles and razing. They can use this to build more “Hive fleets”, unlock “adaptation” technologies and apply "adaptations" to their units. After a Tyranid army has razed a settlement, it applies a “Barren” effect to the ruin for 10 turns, which means it cannot be colonised for 10 turns.

Tyranids can give each unit an “adaptation”, which is a special buff, this costs “biomass”, the Tyranid special resource. Their research tree enables the unlocking of different and better adaptations. Some technologies cost biomass. Each unit can only have 1 adaptation applied to them at a time and can be replaced at any time. This works the same as Treant blessings from the wood elves in twwh3.

Each Tyranid faction starts with one special moveable city called a “Hive-fleet". These are mega-cities that can slowly be moved around, provide lots of resources and can support nearby armies. They are similar to black arks in twwh3. For more details read below about moveable cities

Tyranids can spend their biomass in the technology tree to reduce the upkeep on specific units, resulting in them being able to field more armies. The more biomass Tyranids acquire, the larger and stronger their armies become.

In conclusion, Tyranids wander the galaxy consuming everything in their path. As they acquire more organic material, their armies become strong and more numerous. Their hive-fleet serving as their industrial centres.

7.      Necrons

Necrons are a race of ancient robots that fought and won a war against gods. After this war things did not go well for them however, and they went into hiding, sleeping the time away. The worlds on which they sleep are called Tomb worlds. They posses highly advanced technology and are able to repair anything with their nano-bots.

Necron major settlements are considered tomb worlds. This means these are the only settlements in which recruitment buildings can be constructed. In addition, necron major settlements can build a pylon that massively reduces corruption.

Necrons pay no upkeep for their units, instead they have a unit cap system. To increase the unit cap on a unit, they have to research the “awakening” of that unit. Note that Necrons also need to research the number of armies they can field. Growth buildings do not provide supply points, instead they provide research rate.

It works much the same as the Beastmen, with a special menu in which the player can select which unit needs a cap increase. The cost of increasing a cap is FIXED, if you want to only spam necron warriors, you will not have to pay more and more for each unlock. As this increasing cap increase cost was frustrating with the Beastmen and Chaos dwarves, as it reduced the player freedom and sandbox experience.

In conclusion, Necrons play for time, the longer the game lasts, the more Necrons can be awakened and the more powerful they become. Time is their weapon, other races are nothing more than vermin to a race of robots who fought and won against gods.

8.      Tau

The Tau are a race of beings that have genetically specialized their race into different branches of industry, these are the castes. These are fire (army), water (diplomacy), earth (industry) and ethereal (governance).

Tau gain a specific alignment for each building type.

-Recruitment(garrison) buildings provide a Firecaste token.

-Growth buildings provide a Earthcaste token.

-Public order buildings provide a Watercaste token.

These tokens are summarized together in a pool. If any of these tokens is lower than the one that has the most, a specific penalty is applied faction-wide.

-A lack of Firecaste tokens reduces leadership empire-wide. (+10/0/-10/-20 etc.)

-A lack of Earthcaste tokens reduces growth empire-wide. (+1/0/-1/-2 etc.)

-A lack of Watercaste tokens reduces public order empire-wide. (+1/0/-1/-2 etc.)

The greater the lack of the specific token, the greater the penalty. If all are in balance, they each provide an empire-wide buff in their respective category. This is similar to Ying/Yang balance from twwh3 Cathay.

There is some room for flexibility. Having all tokens in balance provides a buff to all castes, having a shortage of only one means that one provides no buffs. While the other two do.

Say I have 3 earthcaste and 3 watercaste tokens, but only 2 firecaste tokens. I then get buffs from the watercaste and earthcaste, but no buffs from the firecaste.

If have 3 earthcaste and 3 watercaste tokens, but only 1 firecaste tokens. I recieve a penalty from the firecaste, as they are two tokens behind the caste with the greatest number of tokens.

​In conclusion, Tau factions must ensure that all castes are equally represented, if they side-line or leave one caste to irrelevance, that causes empire-wide problems.

9.      Drukhari

The Drukhari are the original Eldar before the fall, they are a race of torturing space pirates that crave the suffering of all living things. They need to appease slaanesh by torturing others or they will be consumed.

Drukhari have a slave resource that is gained from battles, raiding and razing. It is used and expended to produce income and “thirst”. Slaves are similar to dark elf slaves in twwh3.

Thirst is a bar that when low significantly reduces faction wide growth and public order, when high it increases those values. Thirst is consumed by each settlement and army. Thirst is similar to skaven food in twwh3.

The galaxy has webway gates, portals which enable armies to teleport between them. Drukhari have a province called “Commorragh” located off-map with a webway gate in it. Which means it is only reachable by teleporting through a webway gate. Webway gates are similar to chaos portals in twwh3.

In conclusion, Drukhari factions raid, raze and attack anything they can in order to supply their slave empire. If they fail in this task, they face catastrophic consequences. Each settlement and army costs thirst to maintain, so they can only expand their empire if they have a sufficient supply of slaves being tortured. They are absolutely deplorable.

10.     Adepta Sororitas

The Adepta Sororitas are a human faction that is obsessed with the god emperor and willingly fall on their swords if the emperor even suggested it. They are fanatical zealots that always seek to achieve a higher grade of holiness.

Adepta Sororitas generate a corruption called “Faithful” which provides +20 army leadership (+4 per 20 corruption) and +5 public order (+1 per 20 corruption) to Adepta Sororitas factions. 

Furthermore, their non-main settlement buildings are only allowed to be built when a certain level of their corruption is present in the province: Tier 1/2/3/4/5 requires 0/25/50/75/100 Faithful corruption to be present in the province in order to be built. If that wasn’t enough, their buildings provide bonusses if the province is at 100 Faithful corruption.

And to really hammer home the fact that this faction is one of zealous fanatics, I hope the OST has a lot of choirs. Such as: https://youtu.be/q13YSc2Z_Ag?t=40

To be honest I'm a HUGE fan of dramatic choirs, so more choirs in a total war 40k game for any faction is even better.

In conclusion, the Adepta Sororitas seek to spread their faith, more than any other faction, it is their lifeblood. Expect them to fanatically fight for complete control of a province to enforce their radical faith.

11.     Adeptus mechanicus

​The adeptus mechanicus get a resource called “relics”. Relics are generated by a building and gained from trading, winning battles and razing settlements. Each adeptus mechanicus technology costs relics to progress. 

The building that generates relics “excavates” the planet. Which means it also generates negative public order. When a rebellion triggers in the province, it will spawn a Necron army.

In conclusion, Adeptus mechanicus are technologically stagnant without the constant supply of relics. They will aggressively fight battles, excavate on planets all so they can rediscover past glories. They are also more interested in trade than other factions.

12.     Genestealer cult

​Genestealer cults are a type of Tyrannid infiltration that secretly infects populations with a corrupted strain of DNA that gradually turns the local population into zealous puppets that rise up to overthrow the existing government.

Genestealer cult factions generate a corruption called “Genestealer infiltration” which provides -5 public order (-1 per 20 corruption) to non-Genestealer factions. 

The genestealers can establish cults inside enemy settlements using agents. These are hidden settlements within them that apply buffs to genestealer armies within the region, house garrison units, generate corruption or unrest depending on what buildings you build within the cult. Cults can be discovered if the cult grows too large, allowing the owner of the region to destroy the cult. Attempting to destroy the cult causes the garrison of the cult to attack the settlement. They are similar to skaven undercities in twwh3. Genestealer cults are not destroyed when rebels take the settlement.

In conclusion, Genestealer cult factions build cults inside enemy settlements and spread a corruption that massively reduces public order. If someone attempts to destroy a cult, the cult army within can be too powerful which means the settlement falls to the Genestealer cults. 

13.     Votann

The Leagues of Votann are a collection of humans that settled the centre of the galaxy during the dark age of technology and were forgotten by the rest of humanity. They are governed by a supercomputer AI that stores the memories of all uploaded Votann. Votann are cloned by the AI that handpicks DNA that is most useful.

The Votann use a resource called "Rare minerals" which can be spent in a special menu to give permanent upgrades to their unit types factionwide. This represents them improving their cloning DNA. It is similar to the chaos dwarf unit upgrade forge from twwh3. But it doesn't cost upkeep, you just permanently buy an upgrade for that unit type forever. You can only upgrade the unit of the next tier if all upgrades of the previous tier have been purchased. It acts as a sort of research tree that you have to pay for.

The Votann get access to a building that generates “Rare minerals” which also provides significant negative public order. It resembles the Votann drilling a bit too deep to a point that the planet becomes unstable, which the people living there do not appreciate.

In conclusion, Votann crave rare minerals, but all good things come at a price. Which means Votann can be very greedy and constantly deal with public order problems. Despite that, their units become stronger as the game progresses.

Faction battle designs

1.      Space marines

Space marine chapters are known to have their own specific way of doing things and fighting battles.

Each space marine chapter has unit ability.

-Ultra marines: units gain a damage increase when near a different friendly unit type. Ultra marines pride themselves on their flexible armies.

-Imperial fists: units gain increased armour when not having moved for a while. Imperial fists are all about digging in and fortifying.

-Space wolves: units gain increased melee damage when NOT near a friendly unit. Space wolves are all about personal glory and melee.

-Grey knights: units have vanguard deployment and lots of units have magical melee attack. Grey knights are a secret order of anti-chaos agents.

-Adeptus custodes: units can switch between battle stances. Similar to the wood elf war dancers in twwh3. Adeptus custodes are the palace guard of the emperor.

2.      Chaos

Each chaos faction has their own unit ability.

2.1     Undivided

Chaos undivided units gain significantly increased leadership when near a friendly unit. Chaos undivided is a more resilient and disciplined force.

2.2     Khorne

Khorne units restore stamina in melee. Khorne units think melee combat is absolutely refreshing.

2.3     Nurgle

Nurgle units apply a damage over time effect to enemies nearby. Nurgle units carry all kinds of plagues on them.

2.4     Slaanesh

Slaanesh units regenerate health when damaging routing units. Slaanesh savours intense emotions such as terror and the fun of inflicting horror upon the helpless enemy.

2.5     Tzeentch

Tzeentch units gain the "Veiled" ability. Veil means the unit has stealth, but also has a stormy warp cloud on top of it that makes laughing crows sounds and is visible to the enemy. The cloud vanishes while the unit is revealed. This means the enemy knows where Tzeentch's units are, it just can't tell what they are. Tzeentch effectively plays Stratego against the enemy. He can also shuffle his units around to hide the location of this stronger units, such as putting them on the flanks like Hannibal at Cannae with the crescent formation.

3.      Astra militarum

Astra militarum units get "The empror protects", which means that when the unit is on low on morale, it gains unbreakable for a short duration. Similar to By our blood from Kislev in twwh3. This has a very long cooldown.

4.      Orks

Have an army wide bar called “waagh!” that increases when any enemy or friendly unit takes damage. When full all units gain a temporary increase to melee damage and recover stamina.

Ork units get "We lost da boss!" which applies -20 leadership when the general has died. Ork generals are generally extremely powerful, but in 40k, killing the local warboss usually sends his band into anarchy.

5.      Eldar

Eldar units are fragile but have barrier, a secondary health bar that recovers when the unit has not suffered damage for a short while. Works the same as Tzeentch barriers, but larger and recovers more quickly. Eldar are notorious for doing hit & run attacks.

6.      Tyrannids

Can select an army wide buff every minute called a “hyper adaptation”. They have a selection of 6, but only one can be active at a time. They can choose between increased melee damage, ranged damage, speed, leadership, armour or armour piercing.

7.      Necrons

Necron units have Regeneration, restoring unit HP over time. There is no cap, the longer the battle lasts, the more oppressive the Necrons become. When all models have been fully healed, new models are revived. There is no confusing invisible model specific healing cap in 40k.

8.      Tau

Tau units have “Markerlight” meaning all non-Kroot ranged units apply a -5% ranged damage resistance penalty to enemies they shoot at. This stacks.

Kroot get “Feast”, restoring HP while in melee.

9.      Drukhari

Drukhari units are fragile but have “stealth” enabling them to hide in any terrain. They also get an army wide ability bar called “pain”, this bar fills up with each damage enemy units suffer. When full, all Drukhari units gain a temporary damage increase. Similar to Murderous prowess in twwh3.

10.     Adepta Sororitas

Adepta Sororitas units have “Miracle” meaning when the unit is at 25% HP and hasn't routed, it gains unbreakable and restores a significant amount of HP for a short duration. God rays spawn above the unit as well as a particle effect. This has a very long cooldown.

11.     Adeptus mechanicus

Mechanicus units have “Data-tether” which makes units near a leader unit gain an increase in damage and leadership.

12.     Genestealer cult

Genestealer cult units have Vanguard deployment. They "rise up" in a surprise lighting attack and are already upon the enemy before the enemy realises they are under attack.

13.     Votann

Votann units have “Judgement”, meaning Votann units gain an increase in damage as their HP gets lower. They take revenge for the damage the enemy has caused them.

Faction unit roster designs

I prefer to avoid a situation where early game armies only consist of infantry, and late game armies only consist of vehicles. Or where the vast majority of units sit in one tier. To avoid this, units and unit classes need to be spread out among the tiers. Below I give an example of an Eldar unit roster where this problem is avoided. I also sorted these units on points per model according to the tabletop rules.

Note that "has a variant" in the roster means that unit has another unit that looks much the same, but has a different weapon. Unit variants are recruitable if you have unlocked them with research. However, you first also need to have researched and built the building of the primary unit. Say for example I want to build Wraithblades (Ghost swords), then I need to have researched and built the Wraith factory tier 2, in addition to the specific research required for Wraithblades (Ghost swords).

More details for Eldar unit variants at: https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-warhammer/forums/4-%E2%81%82-total-war-franchise-general/threads/9131-40k-total-war-wishlist-complete-summary?page=4#post-148729

In addition to the Exarchs as unit variants: https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-warhammer/forums/4-%E2%81%82-total-war-franchise-general/threads/9131-40k-total-war-wishlist-complete-summary?page=4#post-152784

Unit recruitment mechanics

Unit supply system:

Every faction may only field units/lords/agents equal to their unit supply points. For every unit/lord/agent above their unit supply points, they gain an increase in upkeep on all unit/lords/agents by +1%. This means if you have 10 unit supply points, but an army of 18 units, you thus pay +8% upkeep on all of them. (18 units – 10 supply points = 8 unsupplied units).

Every faction should have a “background supply points” of 10, this allows them to field their lords, some units and agents. Farms, or buildings that have the main job of providing growth should provide supply points. At a scale of +2/3/4/5/6 supply points for tier 1/2/3/4/5. This delays the game from too quickly devolving into spamming of 20-unit armies of cheap units that reinforce one another, and the player only clicking auto resolve on every battle.

Unit availability system:

Barracks should no longer provide an infinite number of each unit type recruit. Instead, barracks should provide a limited availability that is restocked each turn. Note here that this system works best if global recruitment is the only method of recruitment, meaning barracks add their recruitable units to a global pool that is reset each turn. In addition, recruitment should only take 1 turn to reduce wait times.

Unlike in medieval 2, each barrack only stocks up to a maximum supply of 1 unit. This means if you have two tier 1 barracks, and you haven’t recruited anything for 10 turns. Then you will only be able to recruit two tier 1 units for that turn. Next turn they will be restocked, allowing you to recruit another two tier 1 units. You cannot recruit entire armies out of the ground because you haven’t recruited anything the last 10 turns and you’ve stocked up.

Below you can see an infantry recruitment building chain that has an infantry unit for every tier. In addition to demonstrating that the higher the building tier, the quicker you can build armies. Unit stock is only 1 per unit type, meaning army unit variety will be partially enforced even into the late game.

Here is some more context if the text above wasn't sufficiently clear. This system also ensures there's a form of unit quality creep. What I mean is that if everyone only recruits the maximum possible units per turn. With each higher tier barracks built, a handful of better units get added to the pool, but as barracks are upgraded, these get more plentiful, and the next tier of units gets added in a handful portion. This results in armies often consisting of a handful of a faction's best units, and a larger portion of lesser units, and a horde of the lowest tier units. As the game progresses, armies will generally field more and more higher and higher tier units.

Settlement designs

Rebellions

When a rebellion triggers, it spawns an army aligned to the highest corruption in the province.

Growth rework

The population surplus system should be removed, and instead main settlement buildings should just cost growth directly.

Furthermore, growth cost and production on all things in the game should be divided by 10 to make things easier to comprehend and read.

Farms should produce +2/3/4/5/6 growth for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Main settlement buildings should cost 0/30/60/120/240 growth for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Main settlement and other building's gold-cost should also scale exponentially, doubling with each tier, so x1/2/4/8/16 for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

This means a building should cost for example 500/1000/2000/4000/8000 gold for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Public order

​Public order should only provide 2 effects:

Public order between -100 and -50 provides: -2 growth and +2 public order per turn.

Public order between -50 and 0 provides: -1 growth and +1 public order per turn.

Public order between 0 and 50 provides: +1 growth and -1 public order per turn.

Public order between 50 and 100 provides: +2 growth and -2 public order per turn.

Building design

Barracks should provide:

Garrison units to the defend the local, regional settlement.

Units to recruit which are added to the global recruitment pool.

Replenishment to armies in province +2/3/4/5/6% for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Farms should provide:

Growth to province +2/3/4/5/6 for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Supply points to faction +2/3/4/5/6 for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

Public order buildings should provide:

Public order +2/3/4/5/6 for tier 1/2/3/4/5.

One might ask “why is he making all resources so low?”. This is for a very simple reason. Low numbers are easier to read and comprehend. You only want high value numbers if you have small percentage scalers. For example, gold or upkeep, should always be in the hundreds, as for example army supply can increase upkeep by 1%. This is not noticeable if gold were in the tens, but in the hundreds you can notice this effect.

And as public order, growth and supply points very unlikely have single digit percentage scalers applied to them, there is no need to make them range in the hundreds.

I hope this makes sense dear reader.

Small numbers = easier to understand.

Large numbers = work better with percentage scalers.

Moveable cities

​​Moveable cities are NOT horde armies.

​​Moveable cities like Hive-fleets or Craftworlds are settlements that can move half the distance an army can move each turn. All moveable cities are always mega-cities, meaning they have the maximum number of potential building slots.

Moveable cities are almost exactly like settlements, they have recruitment buildings, growth, income, have their own background garrison units and allow armies embarked within them to recruit units. They do not however have public order and corruption.

Moveable cities are disabled from generating money if another friendly moveable city moves within a circle around the moveable city with the radius of 2x army movement distance. This forces them to be spread out which makes them more vulnerable like a traditional empire. Otherwise people would blob them together to make them too easy to defend.

Moveable cities have a support zone, which is a circle that has the radius of the distance an army can move in a turn. Moveable cities come with special buildings that gives bonusses to armies within that support zone. Support from the support zone is also applied to the garrison of the moveable city.

When a moveable city is defeated by a different type of race than the owner of the moveable city, that victorious race can only raze the moveable city. Which leaves the moveable city as a stationary ruin. Which can later be colonized by a race to which that moveable city type belongs. For example, Eldar can only raze Hive-fleets, but can colonize, annex and confederate craftworlds.

Note also, that settlement garrisons should no longer reinforce armies outside of it (but they can attack armies that siege them ). As this is often abused by the player to lure out the settlement garrison into open terrain where it can be destroyed easily (by attacking an army next to the settlement). Not only this, but you wouldn't want moveable cities to use their garrison to reinforce armies. Otherwise, you'd be able to use the garrison of a moveable city as a free super-army.

Unit stat designs

I think it is important to make a unit stat translator that translates the tabletop stats to total war. As the tabletop serves as the official warhammer unit design baseline. It ensures different games follow the same sort of guidelines, ensuring units and factions don't feel totally different from the lore or different games. For example, if Warp spiders were unable to teleport, or Fire dragons had no Armour piercing, Eldar fans would be in outrage and call total war 40k, warhammer-heresy, seeing it as a disgrace to the warhammer franchise. And trust me when I say warhammer fans can be fanatical, they will pay for anything, but if it violates the understanding of 40k they will react quite fiercely.

Very rough stat translator

Unit stat system

This is my suggested new total war unit stat design, to simplify unit stats so they are easier to understand.

​

Translating unit stats into total war values.

What does this mean when we try to translate all this into total war values?

Armour is reworked into a simple percentage damage reduction.

Armour piercing is reworked into a simple percentage of the damage not being reduced by armour.

This means if I have a unit with 75 (%) armour that is attacked by a unit that deals 100 damage which has 20 (%) armour piercing. 

20% of that 100 damage ignores armour which amounts to 20 damage. 

The remaining 80 damage is reduced by the 75 (%) armour which amounts to 20 damage. 

This results in that 100-damage attack only dealing 20 + 20 = 40 health damage.

AP% * damage + (damage - AP% * damage) * (1 - armour%) = Damage inflicted

AP damage = AP% * damage

Damage left over = (damage - AP% * damage)

Armour reduction = (1 - armour%)

Damage inflicted = AP damage + Damage left over * Armour reduction

( 7 - Tabletop armour (SV) ) * 0.15 = % of non-AP damage blocked in total war

​Tabletop armour piercing (AP) * -0.2 = % of attack damage that ignores armour in total war

Now that I have explained how the new armour system works. I will mathematically translate the unit stats into total war values. In this first part focussing on the entities, not the weapons yet.

I have set up a formula to calculate a total war speed value that most accurately resembles total war warhammer speeds. Dwarves for example often have around 27 movement, while humans have 36 and elves sometimes reach around 45.

(Tabletop movement (M) * 10 - 20) * 0.9 = Total war speed

DISCLAIMER! Single entity monster and vehicles like tanks have a special tabletop rule that they need to "pivot" to change direction, which costs 2 movement. This means if you see a tank with 10 movement, you need to reduce it to 8 before translating it into total war values. Otherwise you get tanks that move at the speed of jet bikes.

​In order to translate Toughness, we need to apply the wounding system. In this case we will assume all units will be shot with a weapon that has Strength 3. As we need some kind of baseline to work with.

​In order to find what kind of health each unit has, we need the following mathematic equation to understand how much Toughness influences a unit's health:

Toughness * Wounds = Total health

T * W = Total health

Toughness is a mechanic used to estimate if a unit is wounded by a weapon's attack. Assume attacker weapon strength (S) = 3.

( 8 - Tabletop leadership (LD) ) * 20 + 40 = Total war morale

( 7 - Tabletop invulnerability save ) * 0.1 = % Total war physical resistance

Let's take a few tabletop units and translate their stats into total war values.

What this allows us to do is to get an estimation of how a unit in total war would perform on the battlefield. For example, as you can see, space marines are incredibly tanky, with high health and great armour. While a harlequin troupe has barely any armour but has great morale and Physical resistance. While Gretchin have no armour, very low morale and terribly low health.

Translating weapon stats into total war values.

The ranges are scaled to be a bit short, as shorter ranges means you can see the units fighting eachother better. I used pistols as a baseline and scaled it so the more extreme ranges are a bit less extreme.

Tabletop range * 5 + 30 = Total war range

DISCLAIMER! I realise that most ranged weapons will be direct fire, which means they need direct line of sight. Very long range weapons would be increasingly frustrating to use if you can't find a line of sight with the target because some kind of obstacle along the path is blocking the line of fire. So shortening the ranges a bit would not only reduce frustration, but also make the combat more visible. It isn't exactly fun to see a unit fire at another from so far away that you can't see the target and firing unit well at the same time.

In order to find what kind of damage each unit does, we need the following mathematic equation to understand how much damage a unit’s primary weapon will do:

Attack * Skill * Strength * Damage = Total damage

A * (BS or WS) * S * D = Total damage

BS or WS are the odds of successfully rolling the dice to land a hit.

For the strength calculations I’m setting the average target enemy toughness to 3, as that is the guardsmen toughness. This is relevant to a weapon’s strength stat, as we need some kind of baseline to work with.

S is a mechanic to roll if your weapon will successfully wound the target. Assume target toughness (T) = 3.

Let’s take a few Eldar units as an example and calculate the Total damage they do with their primary weapons and compare them with one another. 

In addition to calculating the Firepower of the entire unit by doing: Total damage * Men in the unit = Firepower of the entire unit.

Also note: D6 values are translated to 4, and D3 values are translated to 2. Which is the average outcome, rounded up.

This is useful to get a rough idea of how much damage a 40k total war unit should deal, for example you can see that Rangers do less damage and have less men per unit than guardians but have significantly more range. 

Likewise, the Storm guardians are melee (with pistols) but have increased armour piercing compared to Guardian defenders. 

The fire dragons also have significantly more armour piercing than Warp spiders, but the Warp spiders do more damage.

​Flavour design

​Menu design

​I think it is very important to have the main menu feature as much content as possible that the game has to offer, in addition to a menu that is extremely easy to navigate, almost through the use of clicking icons alone. Furthermore, adding an epic exciting soundtrack when the player enters the menu makes the player very excited to get back into the game and forget their daily life. Having players enjoy sitting in the menu also motivates them to click on all the different factions and lords the game has to offer. 

The goal is to show the player content so that they become interested and want to try it out. Perhaps they don’t know anything about 40k yet, but if you show them one specific faction that perfectly captures their dream faction, you’ve got another happy player, or customer in the case of a trailer showcasing the game’s content.

Here's an example of how I would design the menu to be as interesting as possible:

As for examples of epic uplifting soundtracks that are meant to make the player excited to get back into the game here are a few:

CK2: https://youtu.be/WG5ejbouXBc?si=8WnqCha2blzyhuwN

CK3: https://youtu.be/yjoCOKO_uHc?si=H8izm_GAcOvdIVW1

Helldivers main theme: https://youtu.be/R5hCkh2AH58

Helldivers extraction: https://youtu.be/M0_Zvp59TaA

​Xmenfirstclass: https://youtu.be/q0xi0XIsBBY

Xmenfuturepast: https://youtu.be/hFFdFaLbhYc

Baldursgate3: https://youtu.be/Vofkw9-O18c

AvengersAssemble: https://youtu.be/FOabQZHT4qY

AvengersEndgame: https://youtu.be/F_mhWxOjxp4

Witcher3: https://youtu.be/fOn1xdGkyHY

You can even see someone say "The continue button was arguably the hardest boss in the game".

That's exactly what you're looking for. You could say that the main theme of total war 40k should convey a message of "This is the final grandest showdown to win all of 40k and conquer the galaxy, and you get to choose how and as who you want to do it."

Trailer design

I like trailers, but I think the trailer and marketing for this game is going to be extra important, as total war likely wants to grab the entire 40k community, which is vast and has a diverse range of interests. 

What I mean is that the trailer needs to focus on what makes total war, total war. I suggest doing that by just showcasing what the developers have made:

1.      The huge campaign map (show off the scale of the map).

2.      The tons of different units and unit types (show off fan favourites of every faction like space marines).

3.      The total war political setting, everyone is at war with everyone (its total war, not total peace).

4.      The huge scale battles (tons of units, spectacular maps and special effects).

5.      The legendary characters and their voices (show off the fan favourite characters).

6.      The massive playable empires (make clear it’s a strategy game of epic proportions).

7.      The many building options, technology trees, unit abilities (plannable strategy game with lots of playstyles and builds).

8.      The sandbox experience, the player controls the storyline (no narrative campaign, “can the player win Warhammer 40000 and conquer the galaxy?”).

9.      Many dune references, like the Fremen charge from the sands in dune 2 in the final battle could be a cool way to depict striking scorpions.

10.    An epic uplifting soundtrack to match, players must get excited watching it. Take Wargame Red dragon launch trailer as an example.

11.    Be careful when depicting factions getting beat up (except for the guard because that's actually why people love the guard), primarily focus on factions just doing cool stuff like shooting, charging and fighting in formation.

12.    Feature little or no gore, the trailer is meant to draw in fantasy fans from everywhere. People can have a strong unsettling reaction to gore and blood.

I will most likely expand this post if I get any more ideas. I will post a comment below what I’ve changed. This will pump this post and the comment will indicate what I’ve changed or added. I’m glad someone is willing to read my posts. To clarify, I want total war warhammer 40k to be the best game ever. To be even better than the legendary success of Rome 1 total war.

​SerPus#7395 

Tyranid as a horde.

I can somewhat agree with this perspective, it is very hard to make the Tyranids a non-horde faction. However, it has to be the ONLY horde faction in the entire game, existing only to allow a unique style of campaign gameplay, even if it is a lesser version of the total war experience.

I will update the Tyranid campaign mechanic tab with this new insight.

Systems being settlements.

I need to clarify this, I mean the settlements are system sized. But the settlement is the system's primary planet. So our solar system would be represented by earth. I mean to say that you don’t have a star and all the other useless gas or barren planets represented ingame. You can’t zoom in to see the earth solar system, but the earth solar system is represented by simply earth on a galactic map.

Climate effects.

I can live with the idea of climates providing both penalties and benefits. But I don’t like how in twwh they restricted expansion creativity. They only existed to punish settling somewhere. However if for example each planet type gives a unique tradeable resource, that would be fun.

Lush: Herbs

Frozen: Gems

Arid: Gold

Swamp: Potions

Jungle: Exotic animals

davedave1124#4773 

Warhammer 3 total war had a horrible launch, this is because of the narrative campaign, forcing players to endure the same forced storyline over and over. Warhammer 2 also had this, where there was a ritual that had to constantly be completed.

I’m not entirely opposed to a storyline, as long as it is optional and doesn’t provide a significant gameplay-advantage when completing it.

Bad narrative designs are: Quest battles that grant powerful items and Forced questlines that are key to surviving or winning the campaign.

​

​SerPus#7395

Hordes

I ONLY consider something a horde faction if they absolutely cannot or have no lore-reason to occupy a planet. The Tyranids are the only faction that specifically does not build bases on planets. Every space marine chapter can build some kind of base on any planet, and building empires is key to the total war experience in my opinion. 

If we had tons of horde factions, we would have tons of invisible empires that exist only as armies, ramping through the galaxy, destroying everything in their path to maintain their economy. Or they would never build up past a single army, which is also lame and boring.

Systems as settlements

I can only see an issue with the Mars settlement in this case. But in such cases the Mars settlement could just be put right next to Terra, with 0.5x army movement range between them. I simply think the traditional total war map & settlements system worked perfectly. And I hope that success can be repeated. 

A system style design like with Endless space 2 could work absolutely fine, but then that would add all kinds of complexities when different armies move into a system. Or worse, if factions own different planets within the same system. It might be better to keep things very simple in a style that has already proven very effective and easy to understand.

Also, a system often contains many uninhabitable planets. Endless space 2 was unique for you could colonise every single one of them with special technologies. 40k is not as advanced as Endless space 2, they don’t have the technology to settle everywhere. This results in most relevant systems only containing a single habitable planet. Which makes the entire purpose of making each planet a settlement, pointless.

davedave1124#4773

I totally agree with this perspective, I’m all for a “take it or leave it” style story content. I just hate the twwh2 forced rituals and twwh3 forced chaos realms mission.

​If story content means the player has to complete a string of missions that trigger a comic-like cinematic, that would be absolutely fine.

Orks would definitely be a seudo hord faction.

Also the star systems could easily handle multiple planets + important moons ala Endless space.

I see factions coming in a little different for instance insteasd of space marines/sisters fo battle/imperial guard etc individual factions it would be the imperium of man as a whole with every minor faction included, the variety would be that you pick a sector or a sub sector to be your "faction"

The variety would be that you have themed units and specific skills depending on what faction you choose further added by being able to recuit nomadic factions like the black templars as almost mercenaries.

Edit:Spelling/grammer

I expanded on explaining the different unit types, this is important to the codex mechanic, and even more so for the ultra marines, as they need mixed armies in order to enjoy their special bonus.

Every faction roster thus has these 6 unit types, along with general units and agent unit

1.      Space marines

All space marine chapters have the codex astartes mechanic:

They have a special campaign tab that determines the unit type loadout in their armies. They can for example only have 1 lord, 9 ranged infantry and 10 melee infantry in each army.

Every 10 turns they can swap out a unit slot with another unit type.

There are 6 unit types:

-Ranged infantry

-Melee infantry

-Ranged large units

-Melee large units

-Ranged single entities 

-Melee single entities

Infantry are units with smaller models with unit sizes ranging from 60 to 160 men per unit.

Large units are units with large models with unit sizes ranging from 12 to 32 men per unit. Units such as bikes, monsters, chaos spawn, terminators, wraithguards, etc.

Single entities are units with a single huge model with only 1 man per unit. Units such as lords, agents, titans, etc.

Each space marine chapter also has a unique chapter-specific campaign mechanic.

​I wanted to add a more simplified unit stat interface concept. This one:

OUTDATED IMAGE REMOVED

It is now added to the original post. The goal is to mimic the tabletop warhammer stats, while also reducing the number of stats to reduce player confusion. Total war Warhammer 3 can be confusing and overwhelming to new players, and some stats might not be as relevant in a 40k game.

​It simplifies armour as a fixed percentage that simply blocks damage, instead of the confusing “¾* armour = percentage of base damage blocked” formula that haunts Total war Warhammer 3.

​It removes melee defence, as it is another stat that I don't think plays a big role in a primarily ranged combat centred game.

It simplifies armour piercing as a percentage instead of having to examine each unit’s specific weapon damage profiles.

It greatly simplifies charge damage calculation. It only applies when ramming a unit, the faster the unit moves, the greater the ramming damage. This should re-introduce the fun cycle-charge mechanic that make past total wars fun.

It does away with the poor accuracy mechanic, as nobody wants units to miss shots. And have to micromanage them to get within acceptable accuracy distances. Instead, the less accurate a unit’s ranged attack is, the less range it will have. Ork’s won’t be wasting their time trying to hit things from maximum range, instead simply have shorter range, but have accuracy equal to everyone else.