One of the significant differences between most historical Total Wars and the Warhammer games is that the factions aren't comparable with nations. In Total War: Warhammer 40,000, the Space Marines and Astra Militarum, for instance, are effectively two branches of the same military.
So when I was playing Total War 40k at Gamescom as the Ultramarines, I noticed that my settlement garrison was full of just ordinary soldiers—members of the Planetary Defense Force. These units only served to defend the settlement, like a normal Total War garrison, but they weren't the same units that I could recruit as a Space Marine faction.
"The way that the Imperium works together is going to be very important," Dave Petry, battle product owner, told me. "And working as a Space Marine with local planetary forces and governors to be able to get the support that you need in order to be able to be that tip of the spear, we want that to be the case."
How the Imperium works, and your relationship to it, is still a work in progress, but Petry a...
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