General Discussion Secundus

[Doctor Perils]

Could we have forces of Warbringers attack both? Because the entire IX plus renegade XIV should see Azus and his Legion destroyed outright.

I'm thinking Kozja wishes to see Azus dead for ideological reasons (chemical weapons) but he will mostly fail at doing much to the Dune Serpents because they Are so adept at ambushes

[bluntblade]

Nah, they have enemies inside their fleet. Think of it as Kozja's pride making him go along with Icarion's order to divide his forces.

[Doctor Perils]

Still, I think it may be necessary for Kozja’s character ark to have a major failure (apart from the Prosecution), as we have yet to see the Suzerainty have many problems once it gets up and running (apart from the whole war of the false primarch but that's centuries down the line)

 

Also, if I'm to write the Warbringers being manipulated by Tzeentch for the creation of the Genesis Legion, I may need some reason for Kozja to not fall to the God of change outright: after all, many of his goals are driven by a wish for fundamental change in the society of mankind and its very genetic make-up, despite a strong root in tradition.

Any ideas? I could simply say that Kozja is still too linked to some traditions for Tzeentch's needs, meaning that he doesn't actively seek to corrupt the IXth, only bend their creation of the Genesis Legion to his purposes...

[bluntblade]

Major war with the Scions when he tries to claim the heart of the wotsit, ending in his banishment or something?

[simison]

An addendum to my legion growth research rates. I think the numbers work as a baseline and as a solid end-point for legion sizes. However, it does not account for potentially devastating campaigns, even with the 'aggressive tactics' modifier. 

 

So, I think to gain more accurate legion sizes in-between Alpha Induction and size on the DoR, double the growth rate and save those extra marines as 'expendable in severe campaigns'. 

 

For example, from 834 to 838, I originally calculated a larger than normal growth rate of 8,000 legionaries to represent the downtime and training on Balov. I'm going to add another 8,000 legionaries that will pretty much get slaughtered in this upcoming campaign with the Lightning Bearers.

 

So, at the start of the campaign, the Halcyon Wardens will number 40k, then lose 8k to represent the heavy fighting. I could even go further and raise the casualty count higher that has to be take another few years to recover fromm. 

[Beren]

More Unification Wars/Solar Conquests stuff:

 

3rd and the 6th attached together after the 3rd suffer heavy casualties during battle of Oberon, the recklessness and insularity of the 3rd lead to detonating relations soon after the conquest if the Sol system. The third called the 6th Bears as an insult.

 

The 15th scouted landing points on Luna, had already lacked recognition and become insular from the other Legions, and was the only Legion to lack a battle honour upon breaching the Oortius cloud.

 

The Godslayers’ Legion Master ,Prometear Thynis, became criticised for their merciless approach towards their foes.

 

The Stygian Phantoms were perceived as glory hounds.

 

The Blood Wolves and the Storm Riders clashed, originally due to many Albyon born Blood Wolves holding a grudge against the Legion that had conquered their homeland. This was excavated by both factions pride. This was resolved during the Compliance of Reillis, where a rebel counterattack shortly after a duel declaration between the two Legion masters forced the Astartes to cooperate with one-another.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

The Sentinel in the latest Second Son post should bow deeper to someone of Alexandros' status. Meanwhile, a nod by Alexandros would be sufficient.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Probably about a 30° angle would be suitable

[simison]

As its creator has stated, each part of the song represents a different faction with the exception of the intro. After the intro comes the Suzerainty, the Traitors, the Imperium, and finally the alliance between the Suzerainty & Imperium.

 

https://instaud.io/private/9b67530b9967b044e0bc8a7933d13d8374bde6d7

[simison]

Kel says that only a few tribes are with Andezo on the DoR, while the Dune Serpents are typically even more scattered. And we can divide or gather as necessary.

 

Fact 21: With the completion of the Unification Wars, the Legiones Astartes now stood as the Emperor's primary shock force with the forced retirement of the berserk Thunder Warriors. This was in spite of the fact that several Legions had yet to complete the Alpha induction, such as the II, XVII, and others. A little less than 45,000 served the Emperor in Mk I plate. 

 

Fact 22: Although noted for their overwhelming unity compared to the more idiosyncratic Legions under the Primarchs, several rivalries were already beginning to form at this early stage. The Fifth Legion strived to prove itself greater than the First, choosing to specialize in the melee to win quick and great victories in lieu of the more well-rounded First. 

 

[What other rivalries started back in the Unification Wars?]

 

Fact 23: One of the more controversial aspects of the Legiones Astartes were the Soulless Space Marines. Early testing indicated that it was not possible for a gene-seed to be implanted into one of the Untouchables with all test subjects suffering from a 100% fatality rate. An additional obstacle was the rarity of such individuals preventing any practical way of creating a legion.

 

Fact 24: The Emperor discovered a workaround that has yet to be replicated. Instead of implanting a gene-seed into a Pariah, Pariah genetic markers were imbued into a gene-seed. Although capable of creating a Pariah Astartes, what would follow would be a series of experimentation that would affect four of the 20 legions. 

 

Fact 25: The first successful manifestation would be seen in the VIIIth Legion. Although not true Soulless, the battle-psykers demonstrated a new set of powers who's sole purpose was to counter Warpcraft. Eventually labeled as 'Warp Suppressants', they were incapable of using the Warp for any other purpose than destabilization. No matter how often tested, a Warp Suppressant was never able to manifest flame, peer into the future, or empower their bodies. 

[Hesh Kadesh]

According to a discussion in my local groups Whatsapp, there have been some leaked rules. They seem remarkably indepth, so get your salt shovels ready, but this might give us an idea of how they operate.

 

In brief;

- The Daemon profiles available within the Age of Darkness rulebook are pretty much it with a few stat tweaks, but can be changed via "Dominion", which appears to be the fancy name for the dedication which you're going with.

- In addition to this; Daemon Lords (Primarch level Daemons) and Possessed Troops (originally Militia, can be improved to be Marines, intended to be forcefully puppeting a body, rather than the more powerful true soulsharing of the Gal Vorbak), and Behemoths (Gargantuan Daemon Creatures to potentially rival titans)

- Marks of Chaos do not exist; this represents the Imperium not knowing about the gods, and the gods banding together to overthrow the threat presented to them by the Imperium.

- Can represent current Daemons by their upgrades; i.e flame attacks for Horrors, or stronger melee for Bloodletters (but nothing to say you can't have flame throwing Bloodletters if you wanted to kitbash)

- Alternative Mission Rules unique for Daemons; Daemons do not care for holding territory or objectives. Rather than getting VP for table objectives they instead gain VP for achieving special objectives, more akin to the old Tactical Objectives (i.e !Khorne gets 1VP for each unit, friend or foe, killing in melee).

- Deployment - ignore conventional deployment zones. Opponent deploys all their units first, then you deploy 3 Large Blast Templates on the battlefield outside opponents deployment , through which your models arrive later. Then deploy infiltrators. This can be done instead of Deep Striking. Possessed Troops deploy normally.

- Biggest weakness is that they're still can't assault after arriving

- Get S/T bonuses in earlier turns, but weaker as the battle goes on

- These changes are unique to Ruinstorm Daemons; Malefic Summoned Daemons are otherwise similar to their appearance in Age of Darkness, not getting the new benefits from the Dominion etc.

 

This allows us some rather decent leeway with the later armies. From the Drowned's perspective, I was thinking that a Forlorn RoW alongside some sacrificial cultists and daemon allies could fit; this would allow Imperialis Militia allies, while providing a RoW that gave Conjureror's taking Malefic to grant some of the Dominion benefits that would otherwise be missing, and keeping with the Slaanesh theme. The same could apply to the other God influenced guys if they wish? Obviously salty mcsaltsalt.

 

Regarding the rules in Malevolence;

- White Scars full legion isn't just bikes.com, there will be detail on artillery, heavy mechanised forces etc to ensure it's a well rounded legion

- Psykana section introduces new relics, and psychic manipulation - they apparently recognised that providing so many rules to a Psyker heavy legion was neglecting the fact that there was nothing to counter it, which might have been okay from a story perspective. It's unclear if these are going to be available to all, or in what manner these "options" will be available. At least one is currently a WIP as a Psychic Hood.

 

In regards to Titanicus;

- Basic and Grand Master

- Basic = Warlord, Reaver, Questoris Knight Terminals (Damage Cards, basically)

- Grand Master = More of the above, plus 4 building sprues

- Warlord Titan Boxset (1 per), Questoris Knight Terminals (1 per)

- Reaver Titan Boxset (1 per)

- Warhound Boxset (2 per?); Due October

- Maniple Terminals (Bonuses for Taking Titans in certain combinations)

- Additional Box Sets of Buildings, Cerastus Knights, Beta-Garmon Campaign Book, New Titan Variants (including Psi-Titans), Plastic and Resin Upgrades including Ursus Claws, Decal Sheets

 

All Titans are modular, allowing for Chassis, Armour and Weapons to be interchangeable (so, essentially monopose, to allow for a Titan to have Chaosified Armour etc). if it's a success, intention is to expand the "Game of Titans" to become possibly "Epic Mk2 the Second Coming Redux part deux we promise not to kill it because it was so successful at representing mass battles". No plans to actually make that, apart from forward thinking regarding possibilities, and hype marketing Epic again to people who don't otherwise don't care about AT. 

 

Regarding the rules;

- Virtually Unlimited numbers of Titan Legions, unlike the Legions. YOURGUYS.

- First book based on Beta-Garmon Campaign (TL:DR, from the lexi; Ruinstorm is beginning to abate, leaving a path through to Terra, with Beta Garmon as a perfect staging point. Dorn gets scurred the mass use of Titans will destroy Terra so ships them off to create a "Hot Gates" scenario, where they would buy time for the DA and UM to engage the Traitor fleet. As we know, Horus wins, and progresses to Terra, following the largest battle of the Heresy - perfect money spinning bait).

- Games are intended to be fought over 5 Titans and their Attendent "Bannerets"; 1500-2000pts as an idea for points costs.

- Each Titan has a Terminal; Aka Damage Tracker

- It's a dumbed down Battletech game. Rather than Tracking heat expenditure as a resource, you can choose to trigger the reactor to do stuff akin to BFG Special Orders (fire twice, move quicker etc).

- The goal is to strip Void Shields (Regenerates, but easier to strip) until you expose the hull, and then just pummel the expose hull until you get an engine kill. So, similar to BFG.

- Can heal damage over time, becomes more difficult once the Shields are removed.

- Lesser units like Knights are fielded in "squadrons" or "bannerets", which are represented by a single Terminal, but several models. These are your skirmisherbois, who can't solo knights, but assists with dealing chip damage. Apparently intended to be integral to the game, making them either high-priority for pure Titan, or auto-take. They do have the ability to take down isolated and wounded Titans allowing Heavy Titans to refocus their firepower instead of having to hang out and solo an otherwise dead engine.

- Taking a Maniple of Lower Points cost than the opponents grants you additional Stratagems to balance things; using these are done at the start of the turn can be done, issuing more requires an RNG roll; difficulty of stratagem increases dice roll difficulty, although some exist which don't take a Dice Roll.

- Movement is like the old SBG; move p1, move p2, shoot p1, shoot p2 so that it stays active, rather than sit and wait for long periods. There are bonuses and negatives to first or second, so you can either attempt to manipulate it so that you go in a certain order - but risk losing those benefits if the opponent attempts to first instead.

- Movement of the individual titan requires a minimum amount of movement as well; Warlords have a 4" minimum move distance before they can turn (overloading the reactor means it can turn twice for that distance). Moving backwards is allowed at half speed.

- Shooting is based on Weapon Arcs. Certain weapons can shoot in certain arcs (e.g Arms 90 degree angles), while Carapace Weapons have a minimum range and have no traverse (straight forward).

- This gives benefits to certain tactics; for example, a Warlord in a straight up brawl will obviously beat down anything. But if you can split its fire over several angles, and get close enough, you avoid the majority of incoming firepower to at least half of your guys while invalidating its heaviest Carapace Weapons.

- Damage model is very similar to how we know armour to work; usually 1 big hit, or multiple low damage chance hits. Weapons have certain profiles, such as being able to damage shields very well, but do nothing to Heavy Armour (Vulcan Megabolters, vs a Belicosa Volcano Cannon, say).

- Close Combat is an option, but very dangerous to those fighting in there; a Titan going nuclear to kill another in close range, so Murder Balling isn't a fantastic option either as ranged hits can cause a big explosion).

- Maniples exist to provide benefits to the engagement; these represent the tactics of a certain Titan Legio; for example, Legio Mortis might operate based around multiple heavy titans, which is where the fluff comes in, but it's still "your guys". They intend to support this and provide further options as the game progresses to allow for other styles of fighting to take place, but don't want to say "if you want to do X, you must use X legio".

- Battleline Maniple; 1 Warlord, 2 Reaver, 2 Warhound

- Hunting Maniple; 1 Reaver, 4 Warhounds

- Weapon Pack expansions; similar to how the Necromunda Weapon packs let you personalize your gang, these weapon packs are intended to be periodical releases to let your guys work in certain ways, and have their own rules; initially just an expansion to allow the full range of titan weaponry, it may be expanded to provide rules for specific weapon types (such as with Ryza Plasma-heavy Maniples etc).

 

For reference to other FW stuff;

- the removal of stock from the FW site is due to GW dictating what is a good seller or not; paints and Mk2 upgrades rarely were. 

- in all likelihood, the content will be made available at later dates, but on a made to order basis.

- stock space is limited, leading to delays on stuff people actually buy, rather than things of a more niche nature. Storage space is apparently expensive.

- TL;DR; if you like it, buying it keeps the amount of stock low, but flow quicker

- the paints are a point of internal contention due to different teams making decisions; the difficulty of painting the FW Sons of Horus cited as one example suggesting that there may be easier access to the paints through the main Citadel Paint range, but it's only at the "discussion" stage (reading between the lines; FW - "what the :cuss have you done, we want this", Geedubs "No")

 

New Models

- Proteus Land Speeder (all weapon options, designed with Magnetism in mind, although obviously not provided, Mk IV Pilots)

- SA Carnodon Medium Tank; TL Lascannon and Volkite options

 

- Fires of Cyraxus

- Shelved for a Talons of the Emperor Book (8E 40K), don't expect until Autumn/Winter 2019

- Still only 2/3 complete

- Talons of the Emperor Book includes rules for Grey Knights, and all currently available Custodes and Sisters of Silence rules; represents post Heresy the fact that the Custodes retreat to the palace as guards to the Emperor's's physical form

- New Jetbike unit for Sisters of Silence, and allows for full sisters army

- Intended to be an add on to the GW Custodes units

- Sounds as if it's more of an Index, rather than a full Imperial Armour book with lore etc.

[Grifftofer]

Sweet. Thanks for the update. I'd heard some of this from various sources, but some is brand new to me. In any case, it's great to hear.

[bluntblade]

Intriguing

[RikuEru]

As I had promised, a small tribute to the Iron Bears - and the project as a whole, in a sense - I painted a squad of Terminators inspired by the Iron Bears for ETL6.

 

 

The Squad Leader is also a tribute to Brand of Brand's Great Company, a young Space Wolves Fan, who, sadly, lost his very brave fight against cancer earlier this year.

[Chief Captain Redd]

Absolutely love these!

And Brand's name will forever be sung with glory in The Lodge and The Aett for a thousand millennia.

[Kelborn]

Sweet stuff, Riku! :tu:

 

Very well done!

 

I highly approve the inclusion of Brand. His legacy will not be forgotten in the 40K community. It is a great move by BL to implement him as a young aspiring Wolf Lord in the next Space Wolves novel!

[simison]

In canon, it has been repeatedly stated that all Primarchs had been found before two had become Lost. In our timeline, the Lost event happens shortly after Magnus is found as he is the reason behind it. Magnus is found in 966, while the Jade General is found 974. Do we want to mirror canon and have Magnus' doom happen after 974 (which means he is stuck on Prospero for at least 9 years), or have it sooner than that?

[Chief Captain Redd]

After.

[Kelborn]

Hm... Could be interesting.

 

You had 19 brothers.

 

But I only met 17. What happened?

 

We do not speak of them anymore....

 

Could lead to some distrust if Jade was not told of his brothers fate.

[bluntblade]

Do we perhaps want to bring the General's discovery forward a bit?

[simison]

Do we perhaps want to bring the General's discovery forward a bit?

 

I suppose we could since it wouldn't affect much. How far forward?

[bluntblade]

No more than a decade

[simison]

I'd say 6 years at the most. That would put the General at 668. How does that sound?

[bluntblade]

Works for me

[Sigismund229]

I agree with Kel. Could make things more interesting if Jade has things hidden from him from the minute he's found.