Heresy Weekender News and Discussion

[Sothalor]

I honestly did wonder if that was why it took so long for the official model to come out, because it was just normal Cats with launchers.

 

 

That could be the case; I remember reading more than one post here from people claiming that the FW sculptors tend to work on things that catch their fancy at the moment, and that there's relatively little direction from above dictating they do this or that project most of the time.

 

If the stuff coming out of this Weekender is any indication, I'd bet a lot of their sculptors have been rocking out on the Talons of the Emperor train. And I can understand why: doing the umpteenth variation on a Legion unit probably loses its luster after a while. It's not hard to see them going after non-Astartes stuff as a sort of internal break.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

The Tyrants look ok. I dont like the body that has the bionic leg though.

 

Justaerin are still the best looking termies imo, only thing that could challenge them for mine will be the Custodes ones (assuming they will be like Collected Visions termies)..

Saw somewhere else that the designer dicussed the custode terminators and that they were in the design stage and that were based around early cataphractii ar.our with more bulk that custodes could handle so should result in a similar look to the art.

[Learn2Eel]

I've got a 6000+ point Iron Warriors army, I already did conversions for Siege Tyrants (they are fairly lazy though, I cheaped out lol) so I'm probably not going to add the official ones as they aren't that dissimilar looking to normal Cataphractii Terminators. *HOWEVER* that's a good thing and exactly what I was hoping for. Iron Warriors are the last legion I think of if someone says the word "bling", the Siege Tyrants are simply Terminators armed with Cyclone Missile Launchers. The skull helmets are all I need to be satisfied I love the models, I might get some in a year or two when I'm not bogged down by Thousand Sons and Tzeentch stuff in general. The Siege Tyrants get an A+ from me, now I just want to see a small Iron Havoc upgrade kit and models for the characters.

[foamy248]

Ugh, talking about legion-specific termies - the Varagyr sound like they're gonna look AMAZING. Flowing pelts, leaping/charging poses, unique weapons...

[1ncarnadine]

 

That could be the case; I remember reading more than one post here from people claiming that the FW sculptors tend to work on things that catch their fancy at the moment, and that there's relatively little direction from above dictating they do this or that project most of the time.

 

If the stuff coming out of this Weekender is any indication, I'd bet a lot of their sculptors have been rocking out on the Talons of the Emperor train. And I can understand why: doing the umpteenth variation on a Legion unit probably loses its luster after a while. It's not hard to see them going after non-Astartes stuff as a sort of internal break.

 

 

 

That may have been true in the past. But let me say this now and let it resound through the forums for eternity. THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE. They lost several designers and sculptors, had to have some transfer in, and the overall release scheduling and design is significantly more regimented than before. Forge World no longer just does "whatever." Maybe Mark Bedford has a little more free reign than others due to his history with the studio, and to some extent Darren Parrwood, but not so much now. Also note the staff transfers from restarting Specialist Games causing more pressure and need for this organization than before.

 

They wanted the Talons of the Emperor models out ASAP, at least in a form that can be built into a full list so that people could play the army, and then moved to Thousand Sons, and now the push is to finish Talons & get the Wolves out. Again, this is much more organized than before.

 

As for the Tyrants, they've been designed and scrapped before actually, and so what you see now is a redesign. That's why it took so long, and why we had heard "models are nearly done" as long as 2 years ago.

 

 

 

Saw somewhere else that the designer dicussed the custode terminators and that they were in the design stage and that were based around early cataphractii ar.our with more bulk that custodes could handle so should result in a similar look to the art.

 

So the Custodes terminator armour is actually OLDER than Cataphractii pattern. It's the prototype, and due to the nature of the Custodes they had no further need to expand on it. They're larger, need less power supply, and have more resources devoted to it so they can move more freely in it than Astartes can in their version. However, they also said that because of this the Custodes have no further developments; there's no equivalent Tartaros Custodes armour because they have no need for an armour that allows them to move faster with heavy protection. So in some ways, it's actually less advanced than what the Astartes start to use. That was a very interesting comment from the Talons of the Emperor presentation.

[m_r_parker]

Hmm, I was writing this in the News and Rumours thread, and between the time I started and the time I finished the thread was locked. Luckily I did do a quick Copy and Paste so I can put it here instead.

 

 

 

Now that I'm home and had a good nights sleep, and chance to fully think back on a lot of things, I think a more detailed write-up of the Weekend is in order:

 

 

Black Library Seminars (Road to Terra / The Primarchs):

Honestly, I think these seminars were a bit ... I'm struggling not to say disappointing as it's not the right word for it. Ultimately both of these seminars turned very quickly into a Q&A session, and anybody who's expecting some great revelations about the future of Black Library and the novel series is going to be disappointed. Road to Terra showed us some of the cover art for upcoming novels (which I've shown earlier), with the authors vaguely hinting at there being many plot points that they're trying to work towards the siege. The Primarchs was a little different as for the first 10 minutes or so we had Guy Haley reading part of the Perturabo Primarch novel he's written, which was good (just I always prefer to read the content for myself rather than have voice actors read for me). Again there wasn't really much after that and it quickly became a Q&A without revealing too much. The only real takeaway I had for future products from The Primarchs seminar was that both the Perturabo and Lorgar novels have a base theme of them being origin stories and the Primarchs dealing with their various 'daddy issues'  with their adopted fathers. 

I'm not sure how much the departure of Laurie Goulding had on the content of these seminars, as there wasn't a de-facto Black Library 'guy in charge' figure at the Weekender, and to be honest John French sort of assumed that role due to the number of seminars he was in (The first four, including Prospero and the Talons seminars). I made the comment to LetsYouDown between seminars that it felt like Black library had to come up with a couple of seminar titles but didn't have too much content when they did. Obviously there are upcoming works that they are not allowed to speak about, but it all fell a little flat at times - especially when having to deal with the random nature of audience questions, some of which were either very specific and could be answered without too much interpretation, and others were very 'out there' such as the question asking the panel which Primarchs they would have liked to have swapped sides in the Heresy.

 

 

Art of the Heresy:

Did not attend this seminar - it was literally the only seminar I didn't attend. Even I have to go around and see the cabinets and speak to designers...

 

 

Adeptus Titanicus:

A really cool seminar going over the background of the Titanicus games (and the background of the Horus Heresy setting as well), looking at some of the older models and some of the promo shots and White Dwarf articles for the older iterations of the game (fun fact: back in the day the only way to get smoke effects into their shots was to use cigar smoke. Good to see Health & Safety wasn't always so overpowering...). We got a little insight into the new game, some of the background for it, what they're potentially including, and some insight into the modelling process for the new kits. Apparently someones been working on making the 40k scale Warlord into a AT scale and it's taken them around 2 to 3 months to complete. It's scaled so well that they've taken shots of the resultant models and without any reference for scale there's no way to determine which model is which. Apparently they're trying to do the same for the Reaver, but with it not being an existing CAD they're having to do things manually, which is a longer process. 

The game itself seems like a lot of fun, and seems to scale incredibly well. Apparently it can go from a single Warlord on each side all the way to around 10 or so Titans on each side and the only real impact is the time required to play it. Plus it's not following the traditional Fantasy / 40k system of 'My turn, then Your turn' but each phase is a one action followed by the other players action, and so on until the turn is finished. This keeps the game flowing without you having nothing to do for about 10 minutes whilst your opponent has his turn. I think this will be a really good system to get into when it comes out - which is still not finalised. Because it's going out in GW stores it has to fight it's way into the main GW schedule, and apparently there's already a lot lined up for the next two years which is making Titanicus problematic to schedule.

 

 

New Models and Angelus:

I think I've covered these off already in the previous parts of this thread, so there's no real need to cover this again.

 

 

Model Pre-Releases:

Again, we sort-of had very little pre-release for this Weekender, in that we had the Inferno book, Ixious Hale (Custode Event Mini), the IF Storm Shields and Assault Cannon packs, and this weeks website releases. We also had the event exclusive items like the Rogue Trader rule book and the various T-shirts and mugs. On the Black Library side I think the only pre-release item was the Garro anthology, but they did have some of the more limited items (Ahirman trilogy, Primogenator, etc). It would have been nice if there was something more that they could have offered us in terms of new models and surprises, but I think I'm going to have to chalk this up to there being so many events happening during the year. With the FW Open Day, Warhammer Fest, and lots of these newer events coming into the schedule I'm guessing there's demand for something to be available at all of these days, so they have to keep items to spread across them. As such I haven't actually spent nearly as much as I have done in previous years, something my wallet is thankful for, but equally something that feels a bit weird as I was really struggling at one point because I was looking at models to buy purely because I'm use to buying things at these events, and the models I were eyeing I didn't really want to use - I hope that makes sense.

Inferno - boy that's an interesting topic. Sold out during the Saturday, apparently they shifted somewhere in the region of 250 copies and didn't have opportunity to sell it unrestricted (i.e. relaxing the '1 per customer' rule), but I seriously doubt that and some people may have just been sneaky and purchased a few more. It would appear that they paid extra to expedite these copies from the printers to be available at the Weekender, and the general stock are still somewhere at sea on a transport ship, with general release around 5 weeks time. Lots of people have had their say about this, and I'm not going to add anything more here right now. 

The registration and sales on Friday was ultimately a good idea, but was yet again poorly executed. Considering this is the 5th time the Weekender has been in the Belfry with virtually the same layout, it's disappointing that they still can't get this right at all. There's nothing more frustrating that to have queued for an hour away from the sales tables, to be drip-fed into the sales area 4 at a time at random intervals. At WHW events there's normally a few staff who work their way down the queue to get in before opening time ensuring that people have lanyards and packs (and seminar tickets sometimes) so that when the doors open people can head straight in without any admin, but this wasn't done and felt like a missed opportunity. At least flicking through the event brochure would have killed a little time during the wait, and bought just a little goodwill. And perhaps most frustratingly was that on the Friday there were three till points to process what appeared to be the majority of the attendees, and no Black Library presence at all, yet on Saturday morning the Black Library fellows had turned up with an additional three till points. Having those tills on the Friday would have made things run so much quicker, as this was ultimately the root cause of the slow progress. 

 

I might have a listen to some of the audio recordings of the seminar a little bit later today to see if there were any more interesting points, and I will probably address something that really soured my Weekender experience as well, but that will be later too.

[Sandlemad]

Ugh, talking about legion-specific termies - the Varagyr sound like they're gonna look AMAZING. Flowing pelts, leaping/charging poses, unique weapons...

 

There's a thought, what do we currently have in the way of charging/running models in terminator armour? Only ones I can think of are that one BA space hulk termie and the WE Red Butchers.

[1ncarnadine]

I think the only thing I could add at to m_r_parker's great summary at this point would be on Adeptus Titanicus? Apparently it also does very well as a multiplayer game, where you could have each person controlling one Titan, or maybe 2 players a side running 2-3 each, or however you want to run it. That's very cool. I love inclusive boardgames like this, kind of like Captain Sonar or Space Alert where you're desperately trying to survive while your team mates are blowing themselves up.

[Dagoth Ur]

Have to echo the people that feel underwhelmed by the Tyrant Siege Terminators. Ah well, I can still buy the Grave Warden Terminators, swap out the gun and put a cyclone launcher on them :) Glad that some people like them though!

[Parweke]

I havent found a answer for this yet

 

So, what are the FOC slots for the new mechanicum units?

Secutarii

New tank

Big Bad Blight Drone

[1ncarnadine]

I havent found a answer for this yet

 

So, what are the FOC slots for the new mechanicum units?

Secutarii

New tank

Big Bad Blight Drone

 

IIRC, it's:

Troops

Heavy Support

Fast Attack

 

and there's a Secutarii HQ who's kind of equivalent to the 40k Skitarii Prime as well

[Parweke]

Thanks.

 

I remembered that i received pdf about titan guard and it showed that peltast are troops, axiarch is hq. But hoplites are also troops?

[1ncarnadine]

Thanks.

 

I remembered that i received pdf about titan guard and it showed that peltast are troops, axiarch is hq. But hoplites are also troops?

 

Uhhhh. Let me check the book. Yes. Yes they are. Troops with Haywire.

 

 

Oh hey, and an utterly random thing I just remembered that I might as well post before I can forget it again. When I was talking with Darren Parrwood about Knights, I brought up Mechanicum Knights and asked about the pilots and where a hatch might be. He wasn't totally sure, but in his own head there is a pilot wired in and they are very difficult to remove. Kind of part of their machine more than other Knight pilots. Just a cool tidbit, I guess.

[Brother Aiwass]

I love the pre-Fenrisian space wolves look. It makes for a great, generic-space marine army (Blackshields, wink wink) paint scheme.

[Xin Ceithan]

I just noticed how the details around the glowy senor on the TS castellax just not quite form the rune of Tzeentch...

[Sandlemad]

I just noticed how the details around the glowy senor on the TS castellax just not quite form the rune of Tzeentch...

 

They're halfway there with the tilting guards too. Truly there is something about Tzeentch that compels sculptors to sneak it into places.

[1ncarnadine]

Yes, it's almost like the Thousand Sons Legion symbol itself, that Magnus branded his sons with, may contain the mark of Tzeentch if you stare at it right

edit:

hmmmmmm

http://i.imgur.com/f8leIJ6.jpg

Did they ever have a chance?

So let me float this out there as well. This is a bit from the very end of the campaign section of Inferno, and I'll spoiler tag it because it's a little... mind-bending and weird, and some of you may want to wait for the book to read through all of that first.

So when everything is said and done, the Imperial chronicler goes over a section speculating on the fate of the Thousand Sons and the Pyramid of Photep in light of the conclusion of the Siege of Terra. By all accounts, even with the crazy time/space crap that happens towards the end of the Burning of Prospero, there should have been some 3,000 Thousand Sons, 10,000 civilians, and some other few thousand Spireguard in the pyramid when it vanishes.

However, Ahriman and co show up to the Siege of Terra with 10,000 Legionaries. Some of whom are recorded as having died in Prospero, even in the early stages. How does that add up?

But here's the kicker. They had teams checking out the Pyramid for years after Prospero and they know how many souls it takes to sacrifice for certain effects, thanks to data from things like the Ordo Sinister and the Golden Throne itself, stuff powered by the souls of psykers. Assuming all the energy from the death and horror of the whole doom of Prospero were expended, and even including the power of Magnus, and even if the civilians in the pyramid were consumed by Tzeentch as more fuel, it's implied that it still wouldn't be near enough to transport 3000 Space Marines very far.

In fact, even if the souls of 3000 powerful psychic space marines were burned up, it would only be enough to transport ONE person a very great distance.

But, 10,000 space marines. Where did the 7000 come from? So the implication is that only one person survived Prospero. One important mortal soul important to a certain Ruinous Power. And that the rest of the 9,999 are echos created by Tzeentch, without true self-determination. Pawns, leading this one person on a winding, twisting path of damnation in "a vast, Machiavellian scheme."

I wonder who that might be. Well, it might be nothing. Just speculation from an Imperial historian

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Can somebody break that spoiler down Barney style for me?

[IronDrake28]

Wow, thanks for sharing that LetsYouDown, that's pretty crazy

[1ncarnadine]

Can somebody break that spoiler down Barney style for me?

 

 

It's a distinct possibility that all of the Thousand Sons are dead save Ahriman, and the rest are incredibly convincing facsimiles created by Tzeentch to lead him on his merry way to further and further damnation. They may be so convincing that they think they're real, too.

 

Not necessarily to be taken too seriously but it's a fun thought experiment they threw into the book. A possibility.

 

[Scribe]

Eh, not sure I like that, neat idea though.

[1ncarnadine]

Well, if a Chaos power like Tzeentch has a grip on your soul, at what point does your self-determination end and does Tzeentch's plan for you begin anyway? Even if it were true it wouldn't necessarily matter at all.

[Marshal Rohr]

Has anybody broken down the Legion lore sections yet? Or are we just not gonna that anymore?

[1ncarnadine]

Has anybody broken down the Legion lore sections yet? Or are we just not gonna that anymore?

 

I'm not sure anyone's had time to read it, yet. I've only finished the campaign section and have just gotten about 2/3rds of the way through the VIth Legion section, and I'm only that far because I've been trapped in an airport for 12 hours.

 

It's incredibly dense, even for a black book. There are times where there are a few pages straight of just text, no pictures whatsoever.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

 

Can somebody break that spoiler down Barney style for me?

 

It's a distinct possibility that all of the Thousand Sons are dead save Ahriman, and the rest are incredibly convincing facsimiles created by Tzeentch to lead him on his merry way to further and further damnation. They may be so convincing that they think they're real, too.

 

Not necessarily to be taken too seriously but it's a fun thought experiment they threw into the book. A possibility.

Oh, that is fantastic and grim-dark

 

I love it