Necrons, Khorne Daemonkin and Eldar Craftworlds all feature new army structures made of detachments, with smaller bolt-on detachments to construct a force.
While sceptics have said this is to encourage sales of less popular model kits, this is very similar to how you create themed armies around Warcasters in Warmachine and Hordes.
You start with your chosen Warcaster and then have to choose between a small selection of units to form the first part of the army. Often this includes units which MUST be included. But you get a number of stat bonuses, skills or other special rules for building within this restriction.
As you expand the army, you can choose to take other "detachments" for the lack of a better word, giving you access to another small pool of units which grant these units (and sometimes your entire army) more stat bonuses, skills and special rules.
Why did Games Workshop decide to take this approach to army creation? Well, did you know that Warmachine and Hordes are the biggest competitor to Warhammer and Warhammer 40K? So it would make sense that Games Workshop would take every idea it could from the success of Privateer Press.
Privateer Press makes Colossals and Gargantuans, then a few months later, Games Workshop starts making Riptides, Imperial Knights and enormous Greater Daemon miniatures.
But anyway, if this becomes the new standard for army building, then one of two things can happen.
1) More Interesting Armies
I'd like to think that this has potential, because it's encouraging people to build characterful armies around a theme. But it order for it to work, it would need to buff units which would not be considered particularly powerful.
Like Chaos Space Marines Possessed (who are over costed and not very impressive) all getting Fleet and Rending as a perk if you take 3 Squads of them.
Or take a whole force of Space Wolves Grey Hunters and as your 'reward' they all get Infiltrate as their perk.
2) Another Flavour of Cheese
The only risk that themed rewards brings are making the best units even more powerful.
For example: You run a Thunderwolf Cavalry army? Congratulations on your theme. As a perk we'll allow all your units to Scout.
That would be a bit a little harsh. Although with GW focussing on the more ferocious bonuses for the Space Wolves (rather than the tactical ones), they'd probably all get to re-roll their Run and Charge moves or something similar.
But the point I wanted to make is that people will probably pick detachments purely to cheese out their army, rather than creating an interesting force.
But what about people who like to run a little bit of everything?
With no perks for taking X number of units from a specific detachment, it makes many well rounded and tactical armies a lot weaker compared to these new detachments.
Personally, I have a Drop Pod army I've put a lot of time and effort into optimising. It has a good mix of Grey Hunters, Berserker Dreadnoughts, Wolf Guard and a small pack of Blood Claws, along with Ulrik at its head.
However, Games Workshop's idea of a Space Wolves Drop Pod Detachment (with perks) would likely be 3 packs of Grey Hunters, 3 packs of Blood Claws and a Wolf Guard Battle Leader.
Pick a crappy detachment or an army you like without any perks. Now that would be a horrible situation.
Devastating Weapons
Another way Warhammer 40K is becoming more like Warmachine is the strength of the units. Especially the new ones.
Eldar Wraithguard with D-Scythes and the Eldar Wraithknight with D Cannons. So much D!
In Warmachine and Hordes no one really complains about units being broken or overpowered. Because they're ALL broken and overpowered.
Horrible stuff happens in Warmachine and enemies generally hit hard and can combo up attacks in incredible ways. I used to play Warmachine, but it wasn't for casual play - Oh no sir, it really was not!
Notice how we suddenly have all these big, smashy units in Warhammer 40K all of a sudden? This could be why.
Space Marine Codex is Coming
The latest news from the rumour mill is that a new Space Marine Codex is already on the way. Didn't the last one come out, like, a year ago?
Tank Squadrons of 1-3 are being talked about, just like the Eldar being able to field 1-3 Falcons as a single Heavy Support Choice.
However, these formations (if they're formations at all) supposedly come with benefits too. Take 3 Predator Annihilators (those are the ones with all the lascannons) and they all get the Tank Hunter skill, maybe. You get the idea.
So this is very similar to what we are seeing in Codex Necrons, Khorne Daemonkin and Eldar Craftworlds.
Themed forces are kind of the way to go, because you're more likely to get a tasty detachment that gives you further perks.
Thunderwolf Cavalry forces, Eldar Jetbike armies, Necron Warrior hordes - buying lots of the same thing is potentially rewarding.
Hopefully fun to play too.
But the armies of old, with a little bit of everything that resembled real life armies of infantry, tanks and support units may suffer as the games designers favour a Warmachine-like smattering of hot new units.
The only problem is that, unlike Warmachine, Warhammer 40K is no longer a skirmish game due to the number of miniatures required.
I just hope that Games Workshop settles into a standard format for its games. Because change is scary and we've seen a lot of it lately.