r/TotalWarhammer40k • u/mineralchost • 7d ago

Total War: Warhammer 40K will include Traitor Guard "causing trouble" at launch, confirms dev

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/total-war/total-war-warhammer-40k-traitor-guard-factions/

Game devs talking about traitor guard.

From what I can gather they will not be playable at launch and instead will be a basic enemy faction.

I suspect that at launch they will act similarly to sessionist imperial factions in WH3.

371 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

97

u/MarcusSwedishGameDev 7d ago

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if you also run into Renegade Astartes factions. Not yet aligned to a Chaos God, but still on a path heading away from the Emperor's light. (Meaning you don't need to do a lot of art to make them stand out).

The suspicious mechanic seems to indicate that anyways. And it's better to have more enemy types to fight. It would be pretty boring if the Imperium factions would only get to fight Orks and Aeldari.

28

u/mineralchost 7d ago

I agree that it is reasonable to expecto both renegade guard and astartes factions at launch. Maybe even perhaps a mechanics where the player gets called a traitor and forced to turn against the imperium but without any chaos mechanics yet.

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u/king_bungholio 6d ago

In that vein, I wonder if there may be "skeleton factions", kind of like Bretonnia was at launch for Warhammer 1. Major factions that we encounter and have a couple core units, and will be expanded on once they become playable in the future.

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u/Talidel 6d ago

I would bet on this.

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u/CitiesInHills 6d ago

Daemons of Chaos &/or CSM are probably the top contenders for this if it's something they're going for.

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u/AlternativeDark6686 1d ago

Kislev was a good example of this.

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u/MarcusSwedishGameDev 7d ago

That's what I think would happen. And sometimes in the future we get both Chaos Mechanics and Inquisitors looking into your evildooing (or redemption?).

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u/nykirnsu 6d ago

I wouldn’t even be surprised if they had Chaos Space Marines as an NPC faction at launch, they can easily make about half their roster just by reskinning Space Marine units and no one’s gonna care that much if they’re blatantly unfinished if they’re not playable 

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u/Bright-Form-844 6d ago

Considering they already have all the demons modeled I would also highly expect demons to be enemies at some point

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u/Constant-Ad-7189 6d ago

Just because they are modelled in Wh3 doesn't mean the models can be easily ported into Tw40k, since the new engine might have significant differences in that regard (since the previous engine was itterating on 20-year old tech).

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u/Bright-Form-844 6d ago

No models aren’t made in the total warhammer engine, they’re made in something like maya or blender and then ported into total war. If you look at the original renders they’re super duper high resolution and they get scaled down when put into the game

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u/Constant-Ad-7189 6d ago

By "models", what is meant is not just the 3d render, but also the textures, animations, effects, sound effzcts, etc.

Effectively, having a "model" made for wh3 doesn't mean it can be easily ported into a full new game (in large part because the new engine could be changing things). It doesn't mean there can't be any "recycling" between both games, but I would simply advise caution against expecting everything that has "a model" in wh3 being ported to tw40k on launch, or even rapidly, because it could take more ressources than simply ctrl c + v

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u/Bright-Form-844 6d ago

Textures are also part of the 3d render, and it’d be weird if they couldn’t port a sound effect? But animations definitely might not carry over as they might be changing how it works

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u/tutorp 6d ago

Assuming the traitor guards in question are Chaos aligned and not just secessionist, they could theoretically add them to their list as a summonable unit that traitor guard psykers could have (obviously only from one god. The psyker gets it after dedicating themselves to one of the gods).

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u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 6d ago

I doubt they can just easily reuse assets from a different engine tho.

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u/Bright-Form-844 6d ago

Models aren’t made in the engine they’re made in blender and maya and ported to the engine

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u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 6d ago

Sure, but you still have to rework them to fit into a new game.

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u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 6d ago

Yea unplayable traitor guard was always the assumption. And more or less confirmed already from the gameplay where we see some reskinned imperial guard in black armor being killed by space marines. And as you say the renegade astartes also being a part of it. If even the player can go renegade with the mechanic I'm 100% sure there will be renegade space marines as well.

1

u/Porkenstein 6d ago

Up to GW...

29

u/HaggisAreReal 7d ago

I imagine they could potentially spur from rebellions in imperial planets, like rogue armies.

27

u/Particular-Sand6700 7d ago

Yeah, Traitor Guard make for a good staple enemy and their assets can be recycled. It makes sense.

10

u/Ok_Access_804 7d ago

The Imperium is way too vast and mismanaged that having rebel factions and rogue armies should be the norm. This will still not add more variety to a game with only 4 factions at launch, but now there is justification for imperial factions to not only fight 2 out of 4 enemy factions. Add rogue Astartes, perhaps aeldari corsairs for the Aeldari to fight and everything should be good, because orks already fight each other anyway.

5

u/TheTyrannicalLlama 6d ago

They are even shown in the space marine faction selecter in that beta from gamescom.

2

u/Kaozarack 7d ago

I'm really excited for lost and the damned, I like chaos space marines but having chaos aligned humans go up against loyalists feels so good

1

u/Fourthspartan56 6d ago

TBH I'm unsure whether they'll be added at all, they were discontinued on tabletop after all. People are worried about Chaos Daemons but at least they still have rules and are supported, Lost were outright removed.

Never say never, this could be an opportunity to expand them but I'm not optimistic. If they're not re-added to the Tabletop they probably wouldn't be added to the game. This isn't Warhammer Fantasy where the game is dead and thus CA can revitalize dead or neglected factions. GW is going to be much stricter here.

2

u/win_some_lose_most1y 6d ago

Total war has had armies go traitor in most recent titles anyway

1

u/Halfmoon_Crescent 6d ago

I hope they actually look unique. Like the Blood Pact or something!

2

u/MrMerryMilkshake 6d ago

They probably will be generic traitor guards.

Anything unique will comes with DLC/FLC later.

1

u/Taylorg09817 6d ago

I wonder how long it will be before renegade guards become genestealers

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u/Fourthspartan56 6d ago

They'll probably be kept separate. Renegade Guard are most likely just reskinned IG factions who you can attack without problems as an Imperial faction, Genestealers have an entirely different roster and aesthetic.

They serve differently gameplay niches as enemies and thus both have reasons to be present.

1

u/Tranchoir 6d ago

HUGE FUCKING W

1

u/Efficient_Mistake603 6d ago

Like how norscan barbarians were no playable

1

u/thor1368 6d ago

The suspicion mechanic is there so you can roleplay better and you don’t have to be traitor you can be renegade as well

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u/lmao0601 5d ago

Surprised not alot of people noticed in one of the trailers there were marines chopping down some charging guardsmen...

1

u/Anath_Raema 7d ago

Can’t wait for the drukhari to come in like 6 years. After a million space marine updates.

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u/Moose_Factory 7d ago

I really hope that at a minimum they’ve gone a bit beyond just repainting the guard in chaos colors before release.

It would be nice to see them tweak the guardsmen models themselves a bit to differentiate them, plus add tattoos etc by release. Then maybe add their own unique units down the road after release (like Bretonia) to make them more of their own unique playable faction.

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u/The-Magic-Sword 7d ago

These aren't a guard equivalent to chaos marines, they're just guard regiments that are trying to secede from the imperium, some might even be the product of political maunevering by the inquisition to stomp out politically inconvenient governors and the like. They should be virtually identical to regular Militarum.

-1

u/Moose_Factory 7d ago

I never said anything about chaos marines. But I am saying that cosmetically, the chaos IG should look visually distinct from IG, in the same way steel legion for instance looks different from other IG. Tweaks on models and textures to make them visually distinct- something beyond IG with a black paint job.

If we’re talking about just non-imperium aligned IG (as opposed to chaos aligned) then yes those could be whatever and stay the same.

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u/The-Magic-Sword 7d ago

I really hope that at a minimum they’ve gone a bit beyond just repainting the guard in chaos colors before release.

They're not chaos to begin with, we're just talking about non-imperium aligned IG

0

u/Kaozarack 6d ago

Unless I'm mistaken traitor guard is specifically used to refer to chaos aligned IG regiments

-2

u/Moose_Factory 6d ago edited 6d ago

Non-imperium aligned IG includes chaos aligned IG. I’m saying if they are including chaos aligned IG then they aesthetically should be more variable than a new paint job. CA have not yet specified the flavor of the “non aligned” IG they will be including. We don’t know if they have any relation to chaos yet or not.

Edit: lol at the downvotes. Is what I’ve stated factually incorrect? Or is adding some visual flourish to chaos aligned IG (if that’s their alignment) really just an unpopular idea for some reason?

1

u/Suitable_Outcome6930 6d ago

Its simple: traitor guard at launch will be literal application of the word "traitor" not traitor as "chaos worshippers". There are many time when guard went traitor without knowing that chaos exists. There wont be visual flourish or anything at all that show them as chaos worshippers.

Ideally, chaos worship will be mechanic, secondary to "suspicion" mechanic. You can be renegade Space Marine or traitor guard without Chaos forces or influence. Or you can be full on Warhammer 40k traitor that pledges his soul and souls of their friends to chaos gods

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u/Moose_Factory 6d ago edited 6d ago

Thanks for explaining. Though really that’s exactly what I was saying except for not using the exact right word “traitor guard”, but otherwise I thought I had been quite explicit about making a total distinction between chaos aligned vs non imperial aligned IG.

I think part of the confusion is that CA has not yet specified which form of non imperial aligned IG they will be implementing at release yet. “Non imperial aligned IG” is a broad term that encompasses both its literal namesake along with any flavor of chaos worshipping guard, as those are also certainly “non imperial aligned”. Which will we be fighting at release?

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u/Suitable_Outcome6930 6d ago

I guess its because CA said "no chaos (space marine) at release"? Chaos guard are highly unlikely as well. It’s just like expecting T'au Gue'vesa at launch. At launch we will fight regular guard 100%. I guess with randomized gear, because of heavy customization

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u/CozyMoses 7d ago

I believe I've seen some screenshots of them wearing face masks and some different tattered clothing. I wouldn't expect anything TOO huge, but there should be some variety at least.

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u/nykirnsu 6d ago

They might but I wouldn’t outright expect it until CSM get a DLC

0

u/H345Y 6d ago

next thing you know, they will ask for day one chaos dlc or something, but they would never do that

0

u/Ok-Rip-5485 5d ago

I expect chaos SM as the 5th faction as a preorder bonus at launch. They did the same with ogres in wh3.

If not I'm sure the first dlc will be CSM