They just did the same as the 'nids, in that. Genestealers were something that just showed up in hulks, and cults were a weird oddity. Then all the sudden tomb worlds started waking up en masse, same as the hive fleets invading, and there was a huge galactic emergency. It really held the faction back to do it that way, especially as the stealers and stealer cults were heavily foreshadowed as more than they were whereas the necrons weren't.Eh, I didn't mind them in 2nd ed, where they were just weird unknown raiders. The 3rd ed fluff, apart from totally rewriting the entire setting and making every other faction irrelevant wouldn't have been bad if it wasn't suddenly crowbarred in as something lots of people always knew about, but just didn't mention until now.
The "niche" issue was far bigger, in my opinion. But, I concede that's subjective being I loved the "slow and implacable" niche, and subsequently Iyanden, Thousand Sons, and Death Guard were my favorite sub-armies. I really didn't like that, instead of fixing the glaring balance issues with those armies, they just introduced a new faction that filled the same niche, but were horrendously power crept to sell models. Giving them the equivalent to a 2+ BS, with S6, AP2, Assault 2, weapons with 24" range was laughable -- hell, Space Marines were only 3+ BS, and boltguns were only S4, AP3, RF2 (IIRC).
I see it through the lens the British military remained aristocratic well into the 20th Century, being it was one of the last (if not the last) major Western power to abolish purchased and inherited commissions. The 40k Guard and Navy reflect that, and it's all but outright stated that's the root cause of most problems those militaries face.Ah, ok, I see what you mean. Though I'm seeing more nepotism and incompetence than anything else, I guess cause those are generic and easy, not having a go at any institution in particular.
Commissars being immune to psychology was just for them. Not that it helped, any psychology effect that meant anything superseded immunity to psychology.Erm, it's not in the Imperial Guard codex for 2nded under commissars, they are just immune to psychology (p 20).
And the Codex Catachans (which said it could be used for other jungle-ish deathworlds) just had commissars having a 1 in 6 chance of not turning up to the battle. As an aside, Gav Thorpe's Annihilation Squad novel also mention Armageddon Ork Hunters (who are also jungle fighters) doing the same.
Check later in the book, in the army list proper; it should be a sidebar, since that was where GW used to put the variant and army-specific rules. The rule back then was if the unit failed a Fear or cohesion test, the player could sacrifice the Guard model closest to the Commissar to treat the Leadership test as if it had succeeded. It was either that, or the player could bypass the Fear or cohesion test by sacrificing the Guard model closest to the Commissar.
I remember that specifically, because it was problematic to use in-game. You either had to put the squad in jeopardy of an immediate second test because the sacrificed model would throw the unit out of cohesion, or put the whole squad at risk to template weapons and assault for the sake of preserving cohesion.
With the Catachans, I think you're probably right. The rule where the player could sacrifice the Commissar instead, I think, came out of 3rd.
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