Rebuilding Tallarn for current 40K looking for feedback from people who actually know Tallarn 🏜
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I've been getting pretty deep into Astra Militarum lately, and Tallarn in particular has grabbed me.
The more I started reading through older Guard rules, Imperial Armour stuff, Horus Heresy material, etc., the more I got the feeling that Tallarn has had a lot of its identity spread across different editions rather than being one consistent rules package.
So I've been trying something a little different.
I'm not trying to make Tallarn "stronger," and I'm not trying to make a competitive homebrew army. I'm trying to figure out:
What did Tallarn actually do, repeatedly, across its history — and how could those behaviors be represented using the current 40K rules?
My basic process has been:
Lore → historical battlefield role → old rules → recurring patterns → current rules translation → stress test
And one thing I've really tried to avoid is taking every cool old Tallarn rule and just giving it back to the entire army.
For example, Tallarn had rules over the years involving outflanking, mobile infantry, armored maneuver warfare, ambushes, repositioning, etc. But that doesn't necessarily mean "Tallarn gets +X movement" or "every Tallarn unit gets stealth."
The idea I've ended up with is that Tallarn isn't really a fast army.
They're more of a geometry-control army.
Basically:
move → expose yourself → strike → reposition → force the enemy to react → exploit the new position.
The goal is for movement to matter because of where the engagement happens, not because Tallarn simply has better movement stats.
I've put together a small prototype detachment around that idea.
The Flowing Line
Each time a TALLARN unit from your army is selected to shoot, if that unit made a Normal Move or Advanced this turn, after it has resolved its attacks, it can make a Normal Move of up to 3".
A unit cannot make this move if it is within Engagement Range of one or more enemy units, and this move cannot end within Engagement Range of one or more enemy units.
The idea is basically shoot-and-reposition rather than just "move faster."
The Desert Fox — Enhancement
Once per battle round, in your opponent's Movement phase, when an enemy unit ends a Normal Move, Advance, or Fall Back within 9" of the bearer's unit, the bearer's unit can make a Normal Move of up to D6".
The important part here is that the enemy can still charge afterward. It's supposed to be a positional choice, not an "oops, you can't interact with me anymore" button.
If you're being approached from multiple directions, you may actually have nowhere particularly good to go.
Get Around Behind Them! — 1 CP
After a TALLARN SQUADRON model resolves its attacks, if it is eligible to use The Flowing Line, it can make a Normal Move of up to 6" instead of 3".
It also has to end farther from the closest enemy model than where it started.
This is specifically meant for Tallarn armor.
I don't want Tallarn tanks to just have better shooting. I want their mobility to actually be part of how they fight.
Silt Storm Evasion — 1 CP
Opponent's Shooting phase, after an enemy unit selects a Tallarn unit as a target but before Hit rolls:
The Tallarn unit makes a Normal Move of up to D3", provided it ends wholly within a terrain feature.
If that movement causes the unit to no longer be visible or in range, those attacks aren't made and the opponent can select new legal targets for those unresolved attacks.
This one is probably the rule I'm most interested in getting criticism on.
I specifically didn't want "subtract 1 from Hit rolls" or another generic defensive buff.
The idea is that Tallarn survives by getting somewhere else, not by magically becoming harder to hit.
Vanish Into the Wastes — 2 CP
End of opponent's Fight phase.
One TALLARN INFANTRY or TALLARN MOUNTED unit that isn't in Engagement Range can be removed from the battlefield and placed into Strategic Reserves.
The downside is obvious: you're giving up your position.
So if you're sitting on an objective, you're probably not doing this.
If you've got a battered squad deep in enemy territory that is about to get wiped out, maybe you do.
Again, I'm trying to make the decision about position and timing, rather than raw combat efficiency.
Pathfinders of the Wastes — 1 CP
Before a TALLARN SCOUTS or TALLARN SENTINEL unit moves:
Until the end of the phase, that unit can move through terrain features as though they weren't there.
It still can't move through enemy models and can't finish inside wall geometry/on top of models.
Basically this is supposed to represent recon elements navigating terrain rather than getting completely screwed by the physical geometry of a ruin.
One rule I'm still holding back
I also have an Outrider Commander enhancement that lets an Officer leading a unit receive Orders from Officers outside normal Command Range.
I'm deliberately leaving that one experimental because I want to make sure it actually interacts correctly with the current Order system before I lock it in.
I've done a bunch of hypothetical stress tests with these.
I've specifically tried to break them with:
melee pincer attacks
overlapping gunlines
open desert with very little terrain
screening units
board edges
multiple charge threats
CP starvation
damaged units trying to escape
Sentinel/recon movement through ruins
The results so far have actually been pretty interesting.
The rules generally don't let Tallarn simply escape whenever they want. Terrain, screens, board edges, multiple threats and CP costs can all make the "correct" Tallarn movement either impossible or undesirable.
The biggest thing I've noticed is that the army starts asking a different question.
Instead of:
"Can I kill that unit?"
I'm finding myself thinking:
"If I shoot that unit from here, where can I actually go afterward?"
And the opponent's question becomes:
"Where do I need to stand to make their escape route bad?"
That's the part that makes me think I'm getting somewhere.
But I've only done this through theorycrafting/scenario testing so far. I haven't managed to get an actual opponent to sit down and play a game with it yet.
So that's where I'm looking for help from people here.
I'm much more interested in "that's not actually Tallarn because X" than compliments.
A few things I'd especially like to know:
Does this actually sound like Tallarn to people who have played/read the older material?
Am I taking something that historically belonged to a specific Tallarn formation/unit and accidentally making it an army-wide identity?
Is there an important Tallarn behavior I'm completely missing?
Are there any of these rules that feel completely wrong for Tallarn even if they technically work?
If you played Tallarn in older editions, does this remind you of how they actually played?
I'm not trying to recreate one particular edition.
I'm trying to figure out what survived across editions, what was lost, and what the best way to translate that into the current game would be.
And if anyone is interested enough to actually help me try these in a game, I'd obviously be very interested in that too.
Thanks. I used ai to help me explain this properly vs just posting my current notes and research top to bottom