HH to remain using 7th ed rules

[Marshal Loss]

For all of FW's faults with FAQ's and the like, in my ~15 years or whatever (insert arbitrary number) of gaming, I've never met a company so consistently brilliant in terms of lore, rules and models. They deserve a chance, and I'm more than willing to be patient and see what happens. I have faith this will work out well, and we'll get the 8th transition eventually anyway.

[Marshal Rohr]

It is better to stay in 7th now, than make a rushed transition.

 

First, this will drive out the power gaming, meta list players like St. Patrick and the snakes. You can already see certain posters who've said the inability to play across systems has killed their interest in the Heresy, and then you see them in the 8th rules threads talking about the most efficient ways to game the system and abuse the new edition's rules, so losing them is no loss at all and we wont be subjected to their incessant race to the bottom in thread topics. Maybe we will actually see a return of fluff threads instead of a constant parade of rules and meta abusive posts in the sub-forum. 

 

Second, 8th with eventually come to the Horus Heresy. AFTER every legion has rules released. Forge World will make 8th Edition Army Lists for each faction, and continue to support 7th Edition 'Advanced Rules' through the Battles in the Age of Darkness rule set. What they are not going to do is introduce Dark Angels, Blood Angels, White Scars, Imperial Army, Dark Mechanicum, Skitarii, etc with no 7th edition rules. 7th Edition is the baseline to which 8th Edition can be incrementally introduced. It is just power gamer fantasy that the remaining legions just come in at 8th with no 7th backwards compatibility. 

 

Third, dividing the Heresy from 40k entirely has needed to happen for a long time. The Heresy was immensely popular and profitable when it was just resin models and run entirely by Forge World. It will remain profitable and lucrative if it goes into it own rules as WLK pointed out. The AoD forum started its downward, rules focused spiral when Betrayal at Calth brought the meta gamers into the fold and we couldn't go three days without a 'Predators are crap, buy a Sicaran' or 'Don't take destroyers'. The gamer diaspora will allow the Heresy to refocus on what made it so much fun in the first place.

 

Tl;dr: Forge World will have its own system of rules, and after every Heresy faction is released they will produce 8th edition army lists for heresy armies. If they dont, all heresy models will get 8th edition rules to use in 40k anyway. They just wont have legion rules. 

[Baluc]

I'm honestly baffled by the faith in the fw team. This is the same team that published Rights of War.

 

And, yes Destroyers are bad. Funny enough however keeping their Rules exactly the same but switching to 8th would have made them a fun, and viable unit.

 

8th edition ironically solved all of the mechanics issues causing certain units to provide little or no entertainment value. Closed the disporportionate toughness and unfluffy resilance of autamata. Turned Dreadnoughts into capable and reliable weapon platforms and made them fun in a way they have never been.

 

I'm uncertain what the "good" elements of 7th people are clinging onto other than validating past purchases they have already made.

 

A missed opportunity to improve parity between the variety of legion playstyles.

 

A chance to bring KQ fully back into the fold and allow them to game against a normal list.

 

A missed chance to solve the Primarch dance on center stage cause its a great experience to fight anyone but Curze for 5 turns and have your lovely Faction leader reduced to a babysitter.

 

I am curious to see these new detachments that have been promised. Perhaps they can solve not being able to take a Primarch and a fellblade in a 6000 point game. To be honest I'm not certain FW even see the lingering issues in their game.

 

This decision makes the choice to not publish faqs even more jarring and disappointing.

 

I'm not certain what they could do with D that would make it less offensive and yet still worth taking since the HH version is actually a far worse offender than the 40k version.

[Marshal Rohr]

Again, just because Forge World is building their rules off of 7th Edition doesn't mean it's 7th Edition. So your complaining is pointless. They may, or may not, alter the 7th edition rules to fix the problems you have with with it without throwing everything out. If anything FW BitAoD rules may be what 8th should've been instead of the 8th we got, since FW can now change core rules that need changing.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Also 8th ed. isn't even out yet, nor has it been tested extensively by the playerbase. 

 

So where are those premature  '8th solves all the problems'  judgments coming from anyways ?

 

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that could be improved upon in a revised 7th / AoD ruleset, no doubt.

 

But proclaiming 8th is the holy grail of wargaming without it even being released and thoroughly tested sounds rather one-sided.

 

And to end the argument, sure, Horus Heresy will transition to 8th eventually anyways. Then everybody can simply choose which set of rules they'd like to play with. There we go.

[Baluc]

Again, just because Forge World is building their rules off of 7th Edition doesn't mean it's 7th Edition. So your complaining is pointless. They may, or may not, alter the 7th edition rules to fix the problems you have with with it without throwing everything out. If anything FW BitAoD rules may be what 8th should've been instead of the 8th we got, since FW can now change core rules that need changing.

 

And, Again you are living in a world of pure faith​ even with Alan, they were struggling with the size of the task. I fully expect their AoD rules to be an ok representation of 7th edition, but changing the core mechanics is the way forward. Or some bastardization which would make not switching over just as plainly unintelligent.

 

They have stated to a crowd of people it is 7th edition, that is pretty clear, and damningly so.

 

Edit* Charlo has just confirmed FW themselves have said if you have a 7th edition BRB you won't need their AoD book at all.

[Baluc]

Also 8th ed. isn't even out yet, nor has it been tested extensively by the playerbase. 

 

So where are those premature  '8th solves all the problems'  judgments coming from anyways ?

 

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that could be improved upon in a revised 7th / AoD ruleset, no doubt.

 

But proclaiming 8th is the holy grail of wargaming without it even being released and thoroughly tested sounds rather one-sided.

 

And to end the argument, sure, Horus Heresy will transition to 8th eventually anyways. Then everybody can simply choose which set of rules they'd like to play with. There we go.

 

 

I've spoken in depth with people I trust who have played the new edition with a few armies. All of them describe the quality of the experience in several different manners, when asked similar questions in different forms. Also it doesn't have to be a panacea to all war gaming woes, it just needs to be better, and so far all the information I've gathered says its better.  

 

Again it would be one thing if they we're releasing a pdf of sorts as 7th edition primer so people can continue to play in the universe. But they aren't they are releasing their product based on a zombie edition. And, I understand that many of you loved the 3rd edition patch system you are used to. I'm representing the opposite view, that progress in this regard is better for everyone.

[Phatsquirre1]

For all of FW's faults with FAQ's and the like, in my ~15 years or whatever (insert arbitrary number) of gaming, I've never met a company so consistently brilliant in terms of lore, rules and models. They deserve a chance, and I'm more than willing to be patient and see what happens. I have faith this will work out well, and we'll get the 8th transition eventually anyway.

 

This^. FW and the heresy truly pulled me back into the hobby after I had fallen out of it, and has done justice to the lore, setting, and miniatures in a way GW never has (imo). I am more than willing to place faith in them that this will work out, and see where this goes. For all their mistakes, they've never really let me down yet.

[Marshal Rohr]

If you look back at Marshal Loss' post and my own, you will see we both said that Forge World will probably roll out army lists to use for 8th Edition down the road. Eventually you will be able to play 'Rules for Battles in the Age of Darkness' or 8th Edition with Heresy Army Lists. You just aren't going to get that right now, and nor should you, because it makes more sense to segregate the systems and watch out for overlooked games design problems in 8th to be corrected later, while they are already aware of the games design issues of 7th and can correct them on their own now.

[heshman]

Lots of wildly optimistic speculation going on here.  Given resource constraints I'll be very surprised if the remaining legions ever get 7e rules.  They can barely support lists for one edition right now.

[Marshal Rohr]

You're right. Forge World is probably just going to give up and close its doors because Heshman on the BnC doesn't think they do thing the right way.

[Noserenda]

Yeah im not seeing any advantage to going back to being a niche inside a niche and Fw have otright stated they arent changing the rules...

 

8th eds core rules have leaked and its obviously a much cleaner game to play with, cutting away an awful lot of the dross and awkwardness of 7th let alone the really awful stuff like psychics and knight based issues.

[Ranwulf]

Yeah im not seeing any advantage to going back to being a niche inside a niche and Fw have otright stated they arent changing the rules...

 

8th eds core rules have leaked and its obviously a much cleaner game to play with, cutting away an awful lot of the dross and awkwardness of 7th let alone the really awful stuff like psychics and knight based issues.

So how many games have you played? 

 

Ran

[Cryptix]

 

 

Yeah im not seeing any advantage to going back to being a niche inside a niche and Fw have otright stated they arent changing the rules...

 

8th eds core rules have leaked and its obviously a much cleaner game to play with, cutting away an awful lot of the dross and awkwardness of 7th let alone the really awful stuff like psychics and knight based issues.

So how many games have you played?

 

Ran

3. Nice thing about leaked rules that is.

[Phatsquirre1]

But the heresy has always been a niche within a niche.

All I can say for sure is that in my experience (as limited as it is) the 7th Ed rules never gave me any trouble when gaming, and without the goofier parts of it, i.e. detachments, DfTS, etc. left me feeling content at the end of the day.

Do I think HH should stay that way forever? Absolutely not. It's a game, it needs to change. But if that change is from 7th to 8th or 7th to 7.5, and takes 6 months or a year in order to better hammer out a product that can promote both rules and fluff, then so be it. I know FW is a company, just like GW, but I have faith in them, and one way or another, rules to play with. That's all I need.

In regards to 8th being more streamlined, sure, it certainly seems that way (in fact, I'm looking forward to starting a new 40k army for the first time in years) but looks can be deceiving, and the rules we see now could easily not account for some big flaw that hasn't been discovered yet. Better to hold on to a ruleset that, while certainly not perfect, provides a solid experience than rush to publish a half-thought out mess of a index that ruins the heresy. After all, it took two years for GW to adapt to 8th- FW is much slower than they are usually, and we've seen what happens when they try to rush a job (I'm looking at you, Inferno rules... ).

[Ranwulf]

 

 

Yeah im not seeing any advantage to going back to being a niche inside a niche and Fw have otright stated they arent changing the rules...

 

8th eds core rules have leaked and its obviously a much cleaner game to play with, cutting away an awful lot of the dross and awkwardness of 7th let alone the really awful stuff like psychics and knight based issues.

So how many games have you played?

 

Ran

3. Nice thing about leaked rules that is.

 

So you have the entire space marine army scrolls? Have you tried every single unit, every special rule to say adamantly that the game is truly better? Because 7th edition was pretty solid until they started releasing OP codices and army rules. Which is also something so many people seem to be complaining is that there are units that dont really work (because apparently the only thing that matters is how much point-per-point something is in comparison to anything else), so without the full army releases I am surprised so many are already praising an edition that barely had any playtest by the community as whole. 

 

Ran

[Galron]

Heres a problem maybe the "Glad 40k is splitting from 30k" people havent considered. If they split, how many people are going to keep buying HH stuff when the game doesnt support them? I would venture to say, the majority of HH army players play vs 40k armies almost exclusively, you really are lucky to live in an area that has HH groups. If they release electronic copies of the data sheets for the crossover to 40k vehicles and dreads, yeah I will buy those, but as for buying new HH books and updates or any of this 7.5 crap when they are just about to release 8th, I am going to buy the same game my gaming groups are playing. You are going to see a massive loss spike in FW profits after the first month. Even more if they fail to release PDFs as people tired of buying books over and over instead simple download the books for free. When they announced this split, the days of the HH golden egg of profits ceased. I would expect that HH will not remain in a dead system for very long after their profits from that system tank.  Until they switch over to make the armies playable in normal groups, HH is effectively dead. Note I am not a BaC bandwagon player, I played HH since the first book of the series came out and have steadily added since, always vs 40k players.

[Ranwulf]

Heres a problem maybe the "Glad 40k is splitting from 30k" people havent considered. If they split, how many people are going to keep buying HH stuff when the game doesnt support them? I would venture to say, the majority of HH army players play vs 40k armies almost exclusively, you really are lucky to live in an area that has HH groups. If they release electronic copies of the data sheets for the crossover to 40k vehicles and dreads, yeah I will buy those, but as for buying new HH books and updates or any of this 7.5 crap when they are just about to release 8th, I am going to buy the same game my gaming groups are playing. You are going to see a massive loss spike in FW profits after the first month. Even more if they fail to release PDFs as people tired of buying books over and over instead simple download the books for free. When they announced this split, the days of the HH golden egg of profits ceased. I would expect that HH will not remain in a dead system for very long after their profits from that system tank.  Until they switch over to make the armies playable in normal groups, HH is effectively dead. Note I am not a BaC bandwagon player, I played HH since the first book of the series came out and have steadily added since, always vs 40k players.

People already commented on that - the HH was already profitable before GW got into it. In fact, the reason people LIKED 30K was due to being separated from 40K. The few reasons were:

 

->It was balanced. At least in comparison to 40k, the game never felt like it swinged only one way. And if I am honest, without the whole armylists of the armies in 8th edition, this still could be true.

->It was about the setting. What people liked about 30K was playing the setting the all love, the one that come with the Horus Heresy era. It was Space Marines against Space marines, it was the duel between primarchs.

->There were few power players. In a combination with the above, there were not that many players in the community that wanted to go out of their way to completely break the system, because it is so hard. Hell, whenever someone would post "WHICH LEGION IS STRONGEST?!" most of the responses was that they were all very balanced and you should probably not play because of this.

 

And seriously, I get why you are playing against Non Age of Darkness armies, but still, can you really call it a Horus Heresy game if only one person is following its rules?

 

Ran

[Marshal Rohr]

Heres a problem maybe the "Glad 40k is splitting from 30k" people havent considered. If they split, how many people are going to keep buying HH stuff when the game doesnt support them? I would venture to say, the majority of HH army players play vs 40k armies almost exclusively, you really are lucky to live in an area that has HH groups. If they release electronic copies of the data sheets for the crossover to 40k vehicles and dreads, yeah I will buy those, but as for buying new HH books and updates or any of this 7.5 crap when they are just about to release 8th, I am going to buy the same game my gaming groups are playing. You are going to see a massive loss spike in FW profits after the first month. Even more if they fail to release PDFs as people tired of buying books over and over instead simple download the books for free. When they announced this split, the days of the HH golden egg of profits ceased. I would expect that HH will not remain in a dead system for very long after their profits from that system tank.  Until they switch over to make the armies playable in normal groups, HH is effectively dead. Note I am not a BaC bandwagon player, I played HH since the first book of the series came out and have steadily added since, always vs 40k players.

 

I'll break it down like this:

 

"HH Groups are rare, my group is all 40k and if Heresy isn't using 40K rules, I can't play"

 

This is a fair argument, but is entirely specific to each poster. If you are active in online forums, statistically you will have less in person social options for your chosen hobby. If you are in a band, you go to forums to talk to other people about band stuff when the band scene in your town is small/non-existent. Same for car aficionados or model train guys. That's the reality of 'small town' life or 'scene bare' urban centers. Atlanta is a massive city, with limited TT wargaming options easily accessible because of traffic. Honolulu has a great TT wargaming scene, even with bad traffic. DC has a MASSIVE wargaming scene spread across two states and DC itself, but if a gaming group is in NOVA, I have to plan a full day of travelling to get there, game, and go home. I went to college in a tiny town in Appalachia, but because it was a college town, it has a decent sized gaming group and no Heresy players, yet hilariously, I somehow managed to keep on trucking with my armies without ever playing in college. Weird how that works out. Fayetteville, NC, where I lived when I first got into the hobby has a big wargaming scene that goes from Bragg up into the Research Triangle. Fayetteville seems like it wouldn't, but Bragg floods the town with new wargamers every PCS season. IE, you think HH groups are rare because the people with lots of group options post less. 

 

"How will 30K survive without 40K players?"

 

The same way it survived when book one came out. A small, tireless minority fired up about the game posting conversions that caused 40K players to say, 'screw it, I'm gonna get some of this stuff even if I can't use it'. On top of that, FW has already ensured its profits wont tank and will probably go up by releasing all its models as options for games of 8th Edition. You are acting like a 40K Ultramarine player needed book 5 to use his Sicaran. He doesn't, he needed a 40k specific book. The effect you're talking about only hurts players who built 30k armies to play 40k armies, like you. I see why you'd be mad. I'm used to GW screwing me, too. In fairness, you built an army for a different game system. If I built 'Ullanor Orks' or Squats using 30K rules that now can't be used in 40K games, that would be on me. 

 

 

"I wouldn't expect 30K to stay in a dead system"

 

That's not how death works. See, if FW takes 7th Edition and continues to print it, support it, make models for it, and update it, it isnt dead. It's not even a 'legacy' system like BFG and Epic was for so long. It's a full blown system. Again, we've also said 8th Edition will come out for the Heresy, just not anytime soon. Its like Xbox and Playstation. You can have Fallout 4 on Xbox One and PS4. Functionally, they are entirely different, even if they look the same. FW will be one console, 8th with be another. 

[Baluc]

You have 2 product lines. 1 is massively popular and has huge demand for your product. The other tiny market , low demand and the head of is not reachable.

 

You have massive product volume short falls as is, and a new results driven CEO observing all of your business choices.

 

Which product do you support, how long do you have to wait for the pencil pushers to get off your neck? This is not FW of 2007, that company is gone. They don't get to be seperate artists in the same building working on passion projects.

[Ranwulf]

You have 2 product lines. 1 is massively popular and has huge demand for your product. The other tiny market , low demand and the head of is not reachable.

 

You have massive product volume short falls as is, and a new results driven CEO observing all of your business choices.

 

Which product do you support, how long do you have to wait for the pencil pushers to get off your neck? This is not FW of 2007, that company is gone. They don't get to be seperate artists in the same building working on passion projects.

This is literally just guess work.

 

Ran

[Marshal Rohr]

You have 2 product lines. 1 is massively popular and has huge demand for your product. The other tiny market , low demand and the head of is not reachable.

 

You have massive product volume short falls as is, and a new results driven CEO observing all of your business choices.

 

Which product do you support, how long do you have to wait for the pencil pushers to get off your neck? This is not FW of 2007, that company is gone. They don't get to be seperate artists in the same building working on passion projects.

 

You have no idea what forge world is like, their revenue, their value to the company. Anything you can make that analysis on. It sounds like you just hate the heresy. If you don't like it, that's your prerogative. But you can't just will the Heresy to be failing because you don't like it. 

[Lord Blackwood]

I mean , ill keep playing 7th ,  Crushing people in multiple systems will be fun.  Then when the transition happens I will already be pre prepped to crush people. 

The games not changing right now so all the stuff I own will still work. 

When  the game changes ill have practice with how its going to change. 

I  had sorta wished certain units would get a once over / revitalization to make them more appealing but right now I own the stuff that works , so its whatever.

  

[Brother Tyler]

(Replying only to the original post - hopefully there isn't official news (not fan speculation) that provides more information in between that post and this one.)

I would guess that FW is working on updating the rules for the Horus Heresy setting to 8th edition. They're not ready "right now" but will be eventually. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the next Horus Heresy book we'll see will be the 8th edition rules, bringing all of the previously released rules up to date. After that is done, they'll jump back in the cycle of providing new content. If I ran the zoo, the Horus Heresy "8th edition" book would be rules only - strictly bringing all of the rules into the new edition. There might be an argument for some new lore, depending on how much space the updated rules would need. Keep in mind that the updated rules would have to include all of the factions/characters/units, Zone Mortalis, Vengeance is Victory, and the various battles/campaigns, not to mention the basic Age of Darkness rules (including allies, etc.). So there might not be enough room for new content.

I don't see any good reason for FW to continue releasing 7th edition rules when that set will no longer be supported by mainstream GW. Such a move wouldn't appear to match the business model they've historically followed and is more likely fan-based wishful thinking.

On the good news front, the Horus Heresy and the Scouring give all of us a good place to use our Mk 6 and Mk 7 Adeptus Astartes once GW quits supporting them and tells us that everyone is now a Primaris Marine. That's fine by me because I've been planning my Scouring era army for some time.

[Corsovitt]

Already posted this comment in the similar News and Rumours HH 7th Edition thread, but it fits here too;

 

As a fairly neutral bystander in the argument (dont plan on getting rid of my 7th edition books collection and do plan on getting into 8th edition) here are my two cents. 

 

Unless they plan to complete the 18 legions in the next two books so those who wish to remain with 7th edition can and then make a transition to 8th edition for the rest. If they are able to get Angelus and 'Insert Name Here' White Scars book produced by this time next year it would please both the keep it 7th and jump to 8th camps. 

 

The White Scars book could include legion lists for chaos altered traitor legions and juiced chaos primarchs.

 

FW are a little damned if they do, damned if they don't. Make the change to 8th immediately and upset those in the HH community who spent major money on black and red books, stay with 7th permanently and upset those who play with/against 40k armies or the third option of hold off and see how the land lies before making the transition. The third option requires a little patience but in the short term there is no reason legion forces couldn't be fielded using space marine index (possibly splitting support and heavy support squads between tactical squads to field legal units) otherwise bikes/land speeders and other vehicles will have rules in the indexes. More specialist FW vehicles will be in the FW index. Tartaros, Cataphract and Contemptors all have models made by GW therefore should have 40k 8th edition datasheets for them. 

 

Impulsive or snap decisions are normal but if we can KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON CRUSADING and buy ourselves some time we can see where HH is heading. Id rather any potential transition to 8th edition was handled by FW correctly rather than rushed and spoiled.