Conquest

[Leif Bearclaw]

On a related note (only just twigged it was mentioned earlier in this thread), are we really getting 2 Ultramarine books before any of the other 5 unloved Legions get any spotlight time? Come on FW, would it kill you to cover everyone before getting too deep into the Heresy?

[Balthamal]

I think the second book (Vol VI) will cover a more wide ranging narrative than just Calth so you're looking at the rest of the Shadow Crusade. So Daemonic Word Bearers etc and likely rules for Daemon Angron.

 

Can they drop it all and bang books out with rules covering the 18 Legions? Probably. Will they? No. The line from FW has never changed since they kicked off this project: everything will be covered in it's own time, and it's going to follow the narrative of the Heresy itself. It sucks for those Legions that have to wait but this isn't just "bang a codex out every month and have the money rolling in" like we've seen elsewhere for the last year or so.

 

Bottom line, there's no right or wrong way to do. Only alternative I think of is to do a separate Legion whilst waiting for "the one"

[Atia]

We may see the white scars in a Molech/2nd Battle for Prospero book like conquest, or at least during the battle for Tallarn ;)

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Although I totally sympathise with players of those Legions that are yet to get coverage in the FW HH books (especially for the Scars), I really appreciate the fact that FW are issuing the books thematically - it allows for gradual reveals of new concepts / units / entire areas of fluff, and lets the lore continually develop as the book series does. Shoehorning in a Legion based on events that would happen years down the line from the chronology they've being pursuing would totally ruin the atmosphere the books are creating, and allowing the concepts for later Legions develop as the series expands means that when they are covered, their content will be appropriate to how already covered Legions have developed.

 

Plus, don't loose hope they'll be covered in books a bit sooner than you'd think. Originally, Massacre & Extermination were supposed to divide the Isstvan V Massacre equally, but it ended up covering Phall, which allowed the Fists to get their day in the sun.

 

Also, boy will Tallarn be awesome. Tanks, Titans, a Death World and the two most heavily mechanised Legions facing off will be epic on so many levels.

[b1soul]

. . . 

 

In fairness Extermination had Phall because they wanted to get four Legions in and the fact that the Iron Warriors were on Istvaan V and at Phall made it convenient to get the Imperial Fists in as well.

 

If the Prospero book has SW, TSons, WS, and DG…that would only be three new legions. It would be a really convenient way to work in the Vth and it would totally make fluff sense.

 

Although having Paramar in there certainly took the narrative off the beaten track as it were so I'll concede that one.

 

I feel like there’s a much stronger connection between the WS-DG confrontation and Prospero than there is between Paramar and Istvaan V

 

But in all seriousness, putting out a volume that includes: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Custodians, Sisters of Silence, Prosperine Spire Guard, any Knights/Titan Legions/Mechanicum Forces and then additionally a full Legion in the White Scars plus extra bits about the Death Guard? That's an enormous book by any standards.

 

Really? Custodes and Sisters are essentially SW auxiliaries. Spire Guard are TSon auxiliaries. They won’t get nowhere near as much attention as a new legion. Mechanicum forces have been in every book.

 

We’d have 3 new legions, 1 old legion (a few new tidbits), legion auxiliaries for Wolves and Sons, Mechanicum/Knights...

            

I don’t think such a Prospero book would necessarily have more material than Massacre or Extermination.   

 

Now that a little short has been posted about the Death Guard pretty much massacring the systems around Prospero after being given a lesson by the Khan

 

Maybe a Prospero 2 book would be a good way of handling it. Second half of the battle, introduction of WS-DG confrontation (Khan vs. Mortarion, Keshig vs. Deathshroud), perhaps a few skirmishes between the WS fleet and the DG fleet.  

[Balthamal]

Yeah it's a fair point. I mean the Alpha Legion and Iron Warriors were on Istvaan V but since the whole battle was laid out in Massacre they couldn't just repeat it with the other Legions copied and pasted in so they made something original and it was a success. I'd be all for them taking the initiative in the future with that in mind. If there's enough narrative there to make it worthwhile, for example the remaining regiments of Spire Guard stationed on the other worlds surrounding Prospero that feel the wrath of the DG, then I'm down with that. What has to be kept in mind is, the narrative sections of each book are fairly long. They take up a good chunk and when all is said and done those are the key elements to each book. No narrative about any given force and no fluff/rules/models etc.

 

My only concern with that is the relative lack of activity of the Scars in that area. If you think back to Scars half the book is them involved with the Alpha Legion/Wolves then they get to Prospero and only the Khan actually does anything whilst the rest of them argue amongst themselves. However, if after Prospero they actually hang around and harry the DG whilst the DG are getting their murder on, then jackpot, narrative nailed.

 

The Custodes/Sisters of Silence/Spire Guard are definitely not going to be treated as auxiliaries, that's come from the mouths of the writers themselves. They're going to be given the full treatment, much the same as the Legions, like the Solar Auxillia are with Conquest. So the book is definitely going to be a weighty tome with all the content packed in. 

 

If they take the approach above, then it could seriously work. I feel, rules wise at least, that the Scars are one of the easier Legions to get on the table and the modelling is in safe hands given what has come before. 

 

One I do want to point out though, is that I'm not arguing against it happening because I don't want to see it - I do, I'm greedy just like everyone else, I want to see all 18 Legions in their glory along with the Mechanicum/Imperial Army/Custodes etc etc as fast as possible. I'm just trying to look at it from the practical point of view based on the stuff that's been doing previously and what has come from FW on the subject

[m_r_parker]

 

 

But in all seriousness, putting out a volume that includes: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Custodians, Sisters of Silence, Prosperine Spire Guard, any Knights/Titan Legions/Mechanicum Forces and then additionally a full Legion in the White Scars plus extra bits about the Death Guard? That's an enormous book by any standards.

 

Really? Custodes and Sisters are essentially SW auxiliaries. Spire Guard are TSon auxiliaries. They won’t get nowhere near as much attention as a new legion. Mechanicum forces have been in every book.

 

We’d have 3 new legions, 1 old legion (a few new tidbits), legion auxiliaries for Wolves and Sons, Mechanicum/Knights...

            

I don’t think such a Prospero book would necessarily have more material than Massacre or Extermination.   

 

 

I have to agree with Balthamal here, and I feel you may be underestimating the Custodes and Sisters elements within this book.

 

Both of these elements only really exist in background within the 40k universe, and have no actual ruleset and models (correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen anything come out officially from GW). The Prospero conflict is the first instance of these elements being deployed en-masse during the Heresy timelines (some might say it's just before the Heresy that the razing of Prospero occurred - I'll sit behind Alan Bligh's "The Warp did it!" excuse for when timelines don't match up), and there is more than enough interest from collectors/gamers/entusiasts to see how these forces would be represented on a table-top format.

I'd liken it to the Mechanicum - there's always been interest in Mechanicum forces in a 40k setting, and prior to their releases in the Heresy series there were plenty of discussions around getting mechanicum codices, people creating their own units and conversions, and how they could proxy them using existing rulesets. 30K/HH has been the platform to get an official GW Mechanicum set of rules and models to support this base, and I see the same being used to develop both the Custodians and Sisters of Silence.

 

I can very easily see both the Custodians and Sisters getting the same level of page count, rules and models as any one of the named legions in one of the three current books. Breaking this down:

• ~20 pages of background information, noteable battles, artwork, etc. Given the limited amount of information existing on these elements, this isn't unreasonable and would be very welcome.
• Generic army rules, ~3 special units, ~3 special characters (including Primarch). Given that both forces are completely different from everything else currently released (i.e. can't piggyback on units provided by the generic Astartes army list that all Legions have access to), this would represent the forces adequately for the purposes of creating an allied attachment.

And as I have said before in different threads, the model development process is going to be lengthy as there is no base for the designers to work up from. At least with a new Legion there is the Power Armour marks to use as a base template and elaborate on, but for these two forces there is literally nothing akin to them that's pre-existing.

 

My estimate would be that with Wolves, TSons, Custodes and Sisters - we're at the same size book as any of the current books (~4 new legions), and that's before you touch on any auxilia forces (Mechanicum, Knights) or the Prospero Spireguard. In all honesty, I have no idea how they'll treat the Spireguard, but it could be equivalent to the Solar Auxilia background in the new book.

If you're looking to include another new Legion, and some supplemental material for a second Legion, then there's a lot of additional work to be completed. Let's not forget that FW are already having a hard time to come up with balanced rulesets for these forces (especially the Thousand Sons), and this has already affected their timeline. Putting more work into that book will only delay it further, or conversely lead to a very rushed and sparse entry for the Scars which is something I'm sure nobody wants for their Legion.

[Atia]

Or they split Prospero like Istvaan V, and add the second battle for Prospero to it, so you would have:

 

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)

Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard 

[Leif Bearclaw]

Or they split Prospero like Istvaan V, and add the second battle for Prospero to it, so you would have:

 

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)

Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard 

If only....

 

That would remove the whole 'have to wait for Custodes/SoS' excuse delaying my precious VI Legion fluff, organisation and iconography. The models can wait, it's the lack of organisational breakdowns and pictures to base my guys off of that's killing me.

 

Edit: Of course, that really would give the DG much more coverage than most (if not all) the other Legions. Betrayal, Massacre, Conquest and the hypothetical Inferno II. And that's before you get top the whole 'Nurgle corruption' thing, which I have to assume FW will cover too.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I'm going to go set up a savings account and alter my direct deposit to start adding some money in there every paycheck for a Custodes army.

[caladancid]

Ha. That is how I feel about the Thousand Sons.

 

The wait for the Vth Legion might be long, but will be totally worth it when FW releases the voidbikes mentioned in Scars.  

[Slips]

..Yeah BCK, that might be a very good idea since for me, everything but the Wolves in the Prospero Book are on the Chopping Block :x

 

Can't wait to see how disruptive a Sisters of Silence force will fare versus 40k Psyker Heavy Armies like Daemons, Eldar and GK. Sure they're not meant for it but, an army of, essentially, Culexus Assassins Lite's would be quite hilarious indeed.

 

But, yeah, about Conquest...

 

Finally Having all the Recently Released Knight Rules in one book + having them be balanced accordingly (since the PFDs are experimental rules, right?) will be nice since I'm participating in a 3v3 Heresy Campaign and one of our Opponents is playing Mechanicum and has a 4-Knight List.

 

Solar Auxilia will hopefully draw in any IG/AM players that were hesitant to hop on the Heresy Train and thus increase the playerbase and bring in some more variety of play since, at its core, HH has been Spehs Mareens vs Naughty Spehs Mareens with some Robo Love thrown in there somewhere.

 

Shattered Legion rules will be nice to explore with in smaller scale game modes such as Zone Mortalis and have more narrative options available in general.

 

Maybe we'll see the introduction of the two new Space Marine Flyers that were talked about during Warhammer Fest, same with that Bigger-than-a-Contemptor-but-Smaller-Than-A-Knight Dreadnought Chassis, though I don't expect it.

[b1soul]

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)

Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard 

 

Infernum II has no SW, no TSons?

[Slips]

It would be set after the Burning of Prospero (I think) and both would have left the area by then, no?

[Kol Saresk]

 

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)

Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard

 

Infernum II has no SW, no TSons?

 

 

 

It would be set after the Burning of Prospero (I think) and both would have left the area by then, no?

Well, since the general idea for Infernum II is that it would be taking place parallel to and immediately after Scars, yes there would be no Wolves or Sons as the Wolves would be fighting the AL in another part of the galaxy and the Sons would mostly be in the Eye of Terror.

 

@Slip; I'm reinforcing your post.

[Atia]

 

 

Well, since the general idea for Infernum II is that it would be taking place parallel to and immediately after Scars, yes there would be no Wolves or Sons as the Wolves would be fighting the AL in another part of the galaxy and the Sons would mostly be in the Eye of Terror.

Yeah, you could add the last stand of the TS (after Magnus spine is broken) to part 2 as first chapter, but the idea is to represent rules for the white scars, and make room for sisters/custodes/spireguard/kaerls (otherwise you would have thousand sons / space wolves / mechanicum / custodes / sisters / prospero spireguard / fenris kaerls / titans in one big book)

[b1soul]

 

 

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard

 Infernum II has no SW, no TSons?

  

It would be set after the Burning of Prospero (I think) and both would have left the area by then, no?

Well, since the general idea for Infernum II is that it would be taking place parallel to and immediately after Scars, yes there would be no Wolves or Sons as the Wolves would be fighting the AL in another part of the galaxy and the Sons would mostly be in the Eye of Terror.@Slip; I'm reinforcing your post.

Perhaps Infernum II covers the Secret War caused by Magnus' message delivery

 

Why else would it have Sisters and Custodes?

[Adra'Melek]

Didn't we make up Infernum II? Based on the idea Calth is supposed to be two?

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

 

Infernum: Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospero Spireguard, Kaerls (Note, both Spireguard and Kaerls could be easily done with CAD 3D)Infernum part II: Custodes, SoS, White Scars, Death Guard

 Infernum II has no SW, no TSons?

 

  

It would be set after the Burning of Prospero (I think) and both would have left the area by then, no?

Well, since the general idea for Infernum II is that it would be taking place parallel to and immediately after Scars, yes there would be no Wolves or Sons as the Wolves would be fighting the AL in another part of the galaxy and the Sons would mostly be in the Eye of Terror.@Slip; I'm reinforcing your post.

 

Perhaps Infernum II covers the Secret War caused by Magnus' message delivery

 

Why else would it have Sisters and Custodes?

 

The Secret War wouldn't have the Sons or the Wolves either.

 

@Thunor: Yes. For some reason this topic is about speculating how the Prospero books will play out vs talking about Conquest.

[b1soul]

I'm trying to justify why a Prospero 2 book wouldn't have SW and TS. Secret Wars would be a good reason.

[Kol Saresk]

Exceot the Secret Wars are the Knight Errant missions IIRC. Which are inter-Legion in nature. So it wouldn't be just the Wolves and Sons and it wouldn't concern them in large enough numbers to warrant additional units. Or at least not units that would be solely KSons and Wolves.

 

Honestly, I just don't see a pressing need to include them in an event they would be largely absent from. The World Eaters and Word Bearers were featured in the hunt for the Raven Guard on Istvaan V but they didn't exactly get anything iut of it.

 

That said, if I had to do it, I wouldn't use the Secret Wars as justification. Instea I would use the Prosperine "Empire". Those worlds are garrison worlds. Some of them will most likely have Astartes contingents. W know from A Thousand Sons that the entire Sons' fleet was dispersed away from Prospero. Those fleets are still out there somewhere. We know from Battle for the Abyss that there Sons still taking an active part in the Crusade, even if its just a small portion.

 

If both Legions have to be in a Prospero Part II, then show Space Wolf hunter-fleets going after those garrisons and fleets.

[b1soul]

If both Legions have to be in a Prospero Part II, then show Space Wolf hunter-fleets going after those garrisons and fleets.

 

This is all wishful speculation but fun nonetheless...

 

We have these options for Infernum II (The End and The Aftermath if you will)

 

1. Last stand of the TSons after Magnus falls (only because Tzeentch guides Russ' blade to Magnus' eye of course)

2. The Secret War (directly caused by Magnus' action), involves Sisters and Custodes. Infernum I has Sisters and Custodes. This would allow for additional expansion of these two factions...and the Secret War is not irrelevant to Prospero. There's a strong enough link IMO.

3. The Khan vs. Mortarion / Keshig vs. Death Shroud / Perhaps elements of the WS fleet stays in the Prospero area to harass the DG?  

4. Mortarion takes out his anger on the worlds of the Prosperine Empire

5. Space Wolf elements hunt down remaining TSons

6. Space Wolves and Death Guard run into each other? Though it seems unlikely as the Space Wolves seem to have left the area altogether before Mortarion's arrival 

[Kol Saresk]

Okay, you mean the Webway War. Gotcha. Possible, as it would expand the Custodes and Sisters. But I'm not sure how it would involve the Sons and Wolves as they did not participate? Yes, it was caused by Magnus but after that it just goes off on a tangent. I don't think even the defenders on Terra are aware of the Webway War, much less involved.

[b1soul]

Okay, you mean the Webway War. Gotcha. Possible, as it would expand the Custodes and Sisters. But I'm not sure how it would involve the Sons and Wolves as they did not participate? Yes, it was caused by Magnus but after that it just goes off on a tangent. I don't think even the defenders on Terra are aware of the Webway War, much less involved.

 

I think it works. Extermination has Paramar. Infernum II could have Webway War, Khan vs. Mortarion, SW hunter fleets vs. TS defence fleets. I think that's a pretty good coverage. I think WS vs. DG wouldn't be out of place here. 

[Daemon2027]

So I rang up Forge World today to use my first free delivery voucher and order myself som Solar Auxiliary. The guy I spoke to was very helpful, and interested in what I was workng on (side note, one thing you can't fault gw on, the staff always do take an interest, even when you basically tell them that you cut up their models to make your own versions). He then said to me that Conquest was their best book yet, with around 100 more pages then Extermination, and there will be a special edition coming first. In fact he said I should get my SA late next week, with another voucher, just in time to ring up to order the Special Edition. Now, that doesn't mean it will be out next week, as he was hardly going to give me an exact date, especially as there is no way he would no when my order would get to me. but it's got to be soon.

 

Exciting.