Angelus no more... Malevolence is Now!

[Charlo]

Partially sad now, was looking forward to DA.

 

Happy for the Scars players though, maybe I'll grab some if they take my fancy.

 

Meanwhile... *builds more custodes*

[Fire Golem]

Ah...well,

Yesugei and Qin Xa die fairly early

Torghun as well...

I'm fairlu sure Jubal is present at the Siege

Well, those characters die 5 years into the heresy. PoH is set a long time after Scars.

[b1soul]

@ Forward Assist

 

Yeah...I can sympathise.

 

But I just know that FW will deliver the Ist Legion in a big way to make up for it. The DA are a really popular legion, and it's clear that FW will make them unique as the earliest Space Marines (Terran and Sol campaigns, Rangda). I guess what I'm saying is...the First are last (fittingly ironic), but FW are likely saving the best for last.

[Ficinus]

Someone had to be last, unfortunately. As a Dark Angel player, it was a bit of a blow to see the change, but all of the Scars have to be celebrating — it would have been far worse if we were booted and the Scars kept back.

 

Just hope the Hexagrammaton gets full rules (and with the delay, Luther better show up too).

[Master Sheol]

I am happy that BA and WS get their rules finally

But i am totally upset for another delay for the first legion

I am following HH since the start

I bought upgraded for DA and tanks too

I bought 2 Red books for the Astartes rules

I even supported this project buying a Black book Just for 2 pages of rules for the DA

I bought the ugly written DA books by Thorpe (the worst writer ever) too

I swallowed that HH stays in the worst edition ever of 40K

I swallowed a lot of delays in a row for the DA/BA book and now this

Why FW/BL hates so much the DA?

 

If they are true to themselves they should delay the DA book more After all is done so they Can make a book including the Fall of Caliban too

But the ugly true is guess that FW will never release a campaign book about the biggest event in First legion history

 

I am really sad about all this situation and now i am Just waiting the Lion Just to have the miniature for my collection

 

HH is dead for me but i am happy other people are Happy about their legions that FW loves and cares about

[m_r_parker]

It’s amazing that no matter what FW end up doing, there’s this response from the Community. I remember just a couple of years ago the tirades from Space Wolf players that Prospero / Inferno was delayed again, and that FW must absolutely hate the Wolves (and again last year due to lack of SW models). It’s a constant thread of people feeling slighted because the Legion / Army that they play has either been pushed back or others have been brought to the front.

 

I could if I wanted to go through each of you points Master Sheol, but ultimately I’m not going to change your mind on this. I look forward to seeing what the FW guys do for Malevolance, speaking as someone who was brought into the hobby through the Dark Angels and the Deathwing, and eagerly anticipate what book 9 will bring them. Each to their own I suppose.

[b1soul]

FW is saving some of their best efforts for last. The DA are a popular legion...the delay will be worth it.

[Ficinus]

A plus side to the change: I'll now have plenty of time to finish both my Ironwing and Ravenwing before the book comes out, at which point I can do the other four.

[Master Sheol]

FW is saving some of their best efforts for last. The DA are a popular legion...the delay will be worth it.

I would believe It if they had enough Manpower

But we know most of the guys are working for Specialist games now

And you Can see in new tanks accessoria.

DA had 1 design each for Rhino/LR upgrades while other legions are getting 2

And RG is a less popular legion than DA

FW better serve diamonds in a Golden players cause 40K DA has some of the best 40K kits ever and for 30K i want nothing less than perfection

[b1soul]

You can judge FW's current quality based on Book 8 when it is released.

 

If Book 8 is good, Book 9 will unlikely be worse. I don't see why FW would want to displease the sizeable DA fanbase. There's money to be made.

[Master Sheol]

You can judge FW's current quality based on Book 8 when it is released.

 

If Book 8 is good, Book 9 will unlikely be worse. I don't see why FW would want to displease the sizeable DA fanbase. There's money to be made.

I don't have all this Hope due to the bad record of delays DA suffered

I guess FW had few ideas for the DA from the start and then they inflated the wings thing up to six and i think they now don't have any clue how to put all the Wings together model and rules wise

This is why they keep delaying the First legion IMHO

I Hope they Can put together some good ideas from here to end of 2019 (i don't think we Will see the DA book before 1 year and half from now)

[rendingon1+]

Well, that was to be expected but ok, I can wait. The only thing I DEMAND right now are DA transfer sheets. Give me my damn decals!

[Charlo]

Well, that was to be expected but ok, I can wait. The only thing I DEMAND right now are DA transfer sheets. Give me my damn decals!

 

Haha, yeah man! They will be awesome I'm sure.

 

As for the DA delay, I've made no secret of me being dissapointed by it, but in reality it's probably a blessing in disguise.

 

Because of the wings, extra tech and so much uniqueness, the DA probably need the extra time and love put into them and to become the main focus of a book to be done right.

[m_r_parker]

 

I guess FW had few ideas for the DA from the start and then they inflated the wings thing up to six and i think they now don't have any clue how to put all the Wings together model and rules wise

This is why they keep delaying the First legion IMHO

 

I don't want to say that people's opinions are wrong, these are people's opinions regardless on whether you agree with them or not, but having spent a couple of Weekenders and Forge World Open Days speaking to Alan Bligh you better believe that they have great ideas for the First Legion. From the origins of the Space Marines during the early Great Crusade, where the Emperor was more lenient on the use of Dark Age technology and weapons and the pacts with Mars were still in their early days, through to the finding of the Lion on Caliban and integrating the knightly aspects of the Order into the Legion as a whole, there's a lot of areas that they'll draw upon when finalising how the different areas of the Legion work together from a mechanics perspective not just the background lore. 

 

The reason why books are delayed, or deemed to be lower in people's priorities is multi-faceted and complex. If we were still going by the original schedule discussed at the first Weekender I'd have my Martian civil war Black Book with Dark Mechanicum by now, and I think that's entirely dropped off the schedule now.  But one of the important things that Alan wanted to do throughout this series of books was not for it just to be "This is book 7, and here are your rules for the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons. Book 8 will have rules for the Dark Angels and Blood Angels", but instead for each of the books to have some sort of campaign and battle narrative through it, which the 'New' Legions would be spearheading. This was self-explanatory for the first three books, that was Istvvan, but got a bit murky towards the end of the schedule. We knew that certain conflicts would get their own books, such as Prospero, Signus and Calth, but some of the Legions hadn't really been fleshed out in background until the Siege of Terra (which is a bit late for them to be getting rules) and needed something for them to pitted against. Up until recently the events of the Dark Angels in the Heresy has been: turn up late to Terra, and afterwards Caliban get's destroyed. Now that the Black Library books have gone through 40 odd novels into the series we can see other campaigns that the other Legions have been involved in, such as Thramas for the Dark Angels or Chondax for the White Scars, and the writers can get into campaigns where they can introduce a new Legions ruleset without it appearing to be just a dump of rules with no context.

This is without saying that Alan Bligh was just a machine when it came to writing books and bringing the background of the Legions to life, to the point where the rest of Forge World couldn't keep up with him. This was why we got books 4 and 6, an opportunity to keep putting something out that keeps gamers happy that doesn't have implications for the Design Studio to come up with more models, characters and upgrade sets and add to the backlog. How the models eventually come in realisation from a design perspective is another discussion, but put simply they're taken up by a designer who has a vision for them rather than just being assigned to people. Book 7 hurt for Space Wolves players as besides their Primarch and generic Legion upgrades they had no other characters / praetors / units at the point of release until now (a year later) and the vocal outcry about it was overwhelming - but equally they managed to do a good job with getting Thousand Sons models out in the same period. They don't want to fall into that trap again, and they don't want to be leaving masses of models in the backlog of 'things from previous books we haven't got round to yet' and would rather get that minimised. 

 

Now we get into discussion about what's seen as having too much in a book to do it justice, versus cramming things in. There is a cap of what can go into a book, there is a physical page cap in what the printers allow in a book. And judging by last years Angelus seminar it was already pretty busy. There was Blood Angels (new Legion) vs Daemons (having to be included as a complete army as there is no 7th Edition Chaos Daemons codex in production, so a new Army in effect and with more specialised rules like the Custodes or Sisters of Silence), Dark Angels (new Legion) vs Night Lords (update) and Dark Mechanicum (another new Army, leveraging some existing Mechanicum unit and rules but with a whole host of new things). If this gets too large, and it sounds like it did, then something has to be trimmed - and you're going to jump in here and say 'Well cut the Dark Mechanicum and keep it as Thramas', but then how do you introduce the Dark Mechanicum into the system and who are you going to pitt them against? You may not be concerned with the question or the answer, but the designers have to put that into place. So when it came down to it it was either going to be dropping one of the two Legions listed and replacing them with the White Scars and a more straightforward 'Legion vs Legion' conflict with an existing force. At that point you may as well toss a coin to make the decision....

 

Ultimately everything I've just said above might not matter to you, and you would rather just want a thin book with some Legion rules and no background in it and can't see why it would take so long to do. If they started doing that I would be really concerned about the state of 30k and Forge World as such a lot of it is more than just the game mechanics, it's everything that Forge World do along with it. Then I would know that they no longer care about it, and just want to get things 'done' so they can take our money and move onto the next thing. 

 

Seeing the Dark Angels getting less Rhino and Land Raider upgrade kits in the new batch of vehicle accessories isn't an indication of whether or not they're popular. Some of the 40k chapters such as the Dark Angels and Space Wolves already had these accessories before HH started, whereas other lesser chapters (such as the Raven Guard, or the Salamanders) haven't had any. If you were to look across the range holistically I would bet that most Legions / Chapters end up with the same amount of upgrade kits - just that some had existing kits, and others started with none at all. Heck, we've only just been previewed Salamanders and Alpha Legion door upgrades at the Weekender, at least the Dark Angels got theirs earlier! You never know, seeing as they're still previewing designs there may be some more to come out.

[Huggtand]

Excellent post m_r_parker

 

I would much rather wait for a book with quality than a rushed one. 

[Master Sheol]

m_r_parker you have good points there but why the DA are the only legion always delayed to the point that it will be pour probably after my retirement? :P

 

And i hope FW will not work on the latest novel by Thorpe cause he wrote the worst peicea of fluff on the DA ever (both for 40K and 30K)

 

However i have lost all interest in HH by now (rules based on 7th are old and ugly and coninuos delays to the only legion i want are hard to swallow) so i wait the DA book only for the models

 

In fact the Alan Blight death had the worst impact possible on HH series IMHO

[Kilofix]

Dare I ask - when?

[Fire Golem]

m_r_parker you have good points there but why the DA are the only legion always delayed to the point that it will be pour probably after my retirement? :P

Someone has to be last? And it’s hardly gonna be that long (unless you’re a couple of years off retirement).

[bluntblade]

 

Ah...well,

Yesugei and Qin Xa die fairly early

Torghun as well...

I'm fairlu sure Jubal is present at the Siege

Well, those characters die 5 years into the heresy. PoH is set a long time after Scars.

I'm wondering if Hibou Khan might feature. It'd give the Scars their own Retribution-type character to go alongside the likes of the Reaver and Meduson.

[Master Sheol]

 

m_r_parker you have good points there but why the DA are the only legion always delayed to the point that it will be pour probably after my retirement?

Someone has to be last? And it’s hardly gonna be that long (unless you’re a couple of years off retirement).

 

i am about 15 years to retirment... and i was joking ofc...

i know that someone has to be the last but what really hurts that the infamous BA/DA book was planned as the first one after itvaan trilogy, then they delayed it after prospero, then 2 more books about Ultras and their campaigns appeared in between... two more delays

Then the generic book that for 70 bucks gives to a DA player 2 meh rules and another delay to prospero and angelus

Then again delays to prospero that pushed back angelus again

then the announcement that angelus was delayed one more year

finally they announced the book with BA but DA was out from that book and this was another delay

 

it's so alienating for a poor DA player

[b1soul]

@bluntblade

 

Good call...

 

Based on Scars and Grey Talon, I can't figure out whether Hibou is Terran or Chogorian

[Fire Golem]

 

 

m_r_parker you have good points there but why the DA are the only legion always delayed to the point that it will be pour probably after my retirement? :P

 

Someone has to be last? And it’s hardly gonna be that long (unless you’re a couple of years off retirement).

i am about 15 years to retirment... and i was joking ofc...

i know that someone has to be the last but what really hurts that the infamous BA/DA book was planned as the first one after itvaan trilogy, then they delayed it after prospero, then 2 more books about Ultras and their campaigns appeared in between... two more delays

Then the generic book that for 70 bucks gives to a DA player 2 meh rules and another delay to prospero and angelus

Then again delays to prospero that pushed back angelus again

then the announcement that angelus was delayed one more year

finally they announced the book with BA but DA was out from that book and this was another delay

 

it's so alienating for a poor DA player

Actually, Inferno was meant to be the first one after Istvaan, and that was delayed by 3 different books. There’s only one book with the Ultramarines in (Tempest). It’s nothing about the Dark Angels specifically, the release order has constantly been shifting around as the series has gone on.

[Master Sheol]

 

 

 

m_r_parker you have good points there but why the DA are the only legion always delayed to the point that it will be pour probably after my retirement? :P

 

Someone has to be last? And it’s hardly gonna be that long (unless you’re a couple of years off retirement).

i am about 15 years to retirment... and i was joking ofc...

i know that someone has to be the last but what really hurts that the infamous BA/DA book was planned as the first one after itvaan trilogy, then they delayed it after prospero, then 2 more books about Ultras and their campaigns appeared in between... two more delays

Then the generic book that for 70 bucks gives to a DA player 2 meh rules and another delay to prospero and angelus

Then again delays to prospero that pushed back angelus again

then the announcement that angelus was delayed one more year

finally they announced the book with BA but DA was out from that book and this was another delay

 

it's so alienating for a poor DA player

Actually, Inferno was meant to be the first one after Istvaan, and that was delayed by 3 different books. There’s only one book with the Ultramarines in (Tempest). It’s nothing about the Dark Angels specifically, the release order has constantly been shifting around as the series has gone on.

Yes but unfortunately the DA book was always delayed ad the last book

I feel sorry for BA players that had their fate linked to DA and were delayed for so long time

 

I Hope that in 2 years from now i can buy the Lion and paint him

[StruManChu]

I have spent some time composing this rant, and can happily inform you that it's not directed at anyone in this thread.

 

I was at the weekender, and aside from being the first person to buy Dorn ever! (outside of GW staff), I got the opportunity to speak with Anuj Malhotra (one of the writers on Malevolence) as well as Simon Egan, who's been responsible for all the Primarchs since Edgar left, for a decent amount of time towards the end of the weekend. Needless to say, these two guys have copped a load of vitriol over the weekend for their efforts. Simon's Dorn has been almost universally praised, except when he hasn't been, and Anuj was one of the guys answering questions at the Rules seminar, and had to deal with a pack of mostly really frustrating questions, as well as announcing that the Dark Angels were going to be pushed back.

 

I'd not been to any GW weekender event before, and I had thought that a lot of the whining and pettiness was limited to forums and Facebook, hidden behind the shield that online anonymity affords. It's not though. It's really not, and I was really surprised and profoundly disheartened by the attitude and entitlement of some of the people there. Ignoring the fact that this is a game of toy soldiers which we all choose to play (because I find that a bad argument!), I think there's been a bit of a culture shift over the last 18 months to two years in the Heresy Community, and I don't like it. It probably started when in the time between the release of Retribution and the delayed release of Inferno, and I've noticed elements of the wider online community, even this subforum which was once pretty much salt-free, getting saltier and saltier.

 

Now, I'm not a guy who plays a single Legion. I don't think the Ultramarines or the Imperial Fists are the be all and end all. I have a bad case of Hobby ADD, and I don't mind waiting for a long time for one legion because I know I'll just pick up another one. That said, I do sympathise with the Dark Angel players who are desperately wanting some love from the FW mothership. I get that it's disappointing. I'd probably rather see the DA than either the White Scars or the other Angels, but we, as a community, need to get better at taking these hits.

 

All that said because I want to say this - 

 

These guys are not villains. They're both exceptionally nice people, as was every other designer or painter or whoever I spoke to. Anuj and I chatted about their development process for fleshing out the Blood Angels for a good 15 minutes, and he is really engaged in the process of writing this book well. They know they have big boots to fill with Alan's passing, but they're committed to it being excellent, which is why we have to wait for it. Similarly, Simon seemed genuinely appreciative of the feedback I gave him for Dorn, which is a sculpt I just adore. He mentioned that now the Primarch backlog is done, he's really looking forward to having some flexibility and time to work on the remaining three without the pressure of playing catch up.

 

They know they need to do FAQs. They know they need to that there's units that need models. They're very much aware of units like Destroyers that don't really get used because they're a bit naff, and they're working to fix all of this stuff, but it just takes time, and the focus right now is on the next book.

 

As well as this, because my store manager has been with GW for years and years and knows everyone, I got to go for dinner on Sunday with a bunch of guys from the Eavy Metal team. Conversation through the evening turned to the renovation work GW are doing to the Head Office and Factory area to be able to produce more plastic kits because demand has way outstripped their ability to supply. I didn't know this, but they're basically tearing the Head Office apart, and the Forgeworld team are stuck, for the time being at least, in a space that is way, way too small for everything they're trying to achieve. Apparently everything should be done by the summer but for the time being, and for a good while now, the space just isn't great. Couple all that with things like Alan Bligh's untimely passing and the massive rewrite of everything that 8th Edition brought with it, and the subsequent Heresy Rulebook that followed, as well as the huge amount of work that's gone into Necromunda, as well as re-tooling all of the Adeptus Titanicus boxset for plastic, and you get more of a picture of what they're dealing with. 

 

All the stuff they've said is coming is coming, but 30k doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's a lot going on, and there's not enough staff and there's not really any room to put extra people even if you find someone amazing to hire. The people who are there, though, seem to me to be the best possible people to be doing the job. These are the guys who building the universe we love and give time, money and energy to experience, and at no point in the weekend did they give the impression that they're doing anything other than working as hard as they can to make the Heresy the best setting it can be. 

 

/rant

[Noserenda]

I dont think anyone is calling FW villains but it would be foolish to ignore the reasons people are getting salty, things have gone wrong over the last year or so in the Heresy and not all of it is being addressed by an apparently distant FW which now stands in stark contrast to main GW when before the reverse was very definitely true. Things seem to be getting better but like with everything GW/FW moves much slower than folks often expect and i think its always exacerbated by ardent defenders and trolls alike which is whats causing these godawful flame/salt wars online.

That and exposing toxicity which was always there slumbering, kept at bay by the Heresy being consistent and excellent but with Inferno's flaws, the change to the release schedules and the Edition Schism all this started to escalate and then Mr Bligh, the genius arguably responsible for nearly everything good about the Heresy tragically died and then suddenly there wasnt really a hand on the wheel, which didnt help!

But yeah, things are getting better. Id definitely say ive gone from Massively down on the Heresy to a little more excited because of the weekender but when we are looking at likely a year for the next book and the rules team still seems undermanned, it seems things will be slow.

If that makes sense lol :D