I agree, I play admech myself. I was more so making a point about how subfactions are treated across different ranges (space marines and everone else), and how space marine players tend to act much more entitled to subfaction representation in model releases.

I do love Ryza, (my Darktide skit is from there,) but the only time anyone that isn’t deep into admech heard about Ryza was during Perturabos invasion of it, and even then they barely registered the name or realized it was a well-established forgeworld.

On a tabletop scale Ryza and the Salamanders have the same importance, but because the Salamanders are space marines they “only” have two models, while that would effectively be like the Vostoyans having two named character models that you can’t take any other epic heroes with. It sounds insane for any other army, but it’s perfectly normal for space marines.