State of the Union (Heresy)

[WrathOfTheLion]

A plastic starter and a rules revamp is a good idea, even if you stay in the 3rd-7th ed framework, 7th was its weakest version, either drop back to some solid previous mechanics or develop some new iteration if you must stay rooted in the past  

 

AoD is not going to be up with the big boys as a core game though, thats just people repeatedly confusing the Horus Heresy IP as a whole with the one part of it, (Possibly not even the biggest part, though i have absolutely no idea about book sales or anything Black Library tbh) its two wargames, a successful novel series, merch and a number of computer games at this point and liable to keep growing broader. 

Though losing black books would be a shame, im not sure if the current team has the leeway to produce to the standard of the older ones

It's not just rooted in the past, if they drop the current infrastructure and have to redo all the rules, it'll never get done. It took them ~10 years to get rules out for all the legions, in practicality with the scale of what the game is, following the trends of 40k is just not feasible for them to do. So staying on some framework where their previous books aren't invalidated would be wise.

 

Feeds into your second point about it not being with the big boys, that's true, which is why they should keep what they're doing sticking with the 3-7th style. Also why I think they should go for the specialist games style. Core plastic kits for things like tactical squads, deimos rhinos, assault squads, etc., keep resin for characters, legion kits and other stuff.

 

I don't see a point in dropping the black books. I think they're a bit expensive, but a lot of people really like that they're like little tomes. They're quite reasonably priced even as compared to 40k. A black book is only 2x the cost of the recent 40k campaign book, I think each one is well more than twice as good. The little collection thing is appealing to a lot of people I think, they're just cool.

[SkimaskMohawk]

On the point of 7th, I feel like they could drop to 6th with keeping the better part of 7ths and even some of 5ths rules in there. I've mentioned this a few times over the years, but the majority of the legion (both army list and individual legions) rules weren't designed for 7th. Both sons of horus and emperor's children still have broken rites that were designed off of 5th and never updated.

 

Ruins were actual defensive structures, where blasts could only target one level and would be wasted if missed. Barrage only hit the floor under the hole and couldn't be shot from under a floor. A typhon wasn't nearly as strong when it could only kill 3 guys at a time, but it just hits literally everyone now and whacks them.

 

Blind used to force tests per hit, instead of one at the end of the phase.

 

Pinning used to apply to barrage and snipers instead of being nearly non-existent.

 

Infiltrate and Scout used to allow charges if going second.

 

Psychic powers. Personally also preferred 5ths style of not having a dedicated phase and just rolling against your leadership. 6ths was fine as it pulled from fantasy's concept of magic levels. 7th tried to have that premise but make it more fair in concept. Except it still wasn't; it was either too unreliable with 1 caster or too dominating. And it didn't feel like the old iteration of 4th-5th at all with the rework to perils. With the navigator still has an outdated rule referencing.

 

Night fight. It was an incredibly good mechanic that either prevented alpha strike or stopped artillery from sniping objective holders in the end game and forced more interaction. The loss of this and ruins defensive rules completely broke artillery.

 

Dangerous terrain. Make it dangerous again! It's something like a 1/24 or 1/36 respectively to kill a power armoured guy or 2+ save guy. That's not very dangerous. Make it cut through armour again and force people to make decisions. Would tie even better with cataphractii being a hazard suit originally you know?

 

Sniper rifles; in 4th they hit on 2s and wounded 4s and were generally very useful against monsters as a result. In 5th they used normal BS, but still wounded on 4s and had rending; the concept that they could hit weak points in vehicles and armour. Now they just wound on 4s and have ap 2 on the 6. Oh and they lost pinning as I mentioned earlier. Revert them to one of their earlier forms. You might think the 4th ed version is a bit of a stretch to include, but artificer for seargents and combat shield mechanics are right from 4th edition, as is the auspex in the form of the augury scanner.

 

To reference the sons of horus and emperor's children problem, you could charge from non-deepstrike reserves in 5th and if you examine maru skara and black reaving under that context it all starts to make sense.

 

Now some 7thisms I prefer to 6th or 5th;

 

Wound allocation. 5ths meta game involved making the most granular squad to abuse the wound allocation; if you hate veterans now, wait you should have seen how little mixed weapon shooting could kill back then. Tanking with seargents is very tame comparatively.

 

Challenges. You could tie up squads forever with challenges in 6th, I like how 7th axed that.

 

Vehicle damage chart. It's a lot better in 7th than 6th where vehicles were made of paper. But I still prefer 5ths over either, when a single missile launcher was a flexible weapon. Now a marine trying to punch a speeder to death has a more likely chance of killing it than shooting it with an anti tank missile. Weird. My caveat to this is that ramming is completely pointless in most cases in 7th, while in 6th your big ass tank could explode whatever got in your way if you needed it to.

 

Non-troops denying objectives. This was a part of 30k from the get go, but it's still really important. The worst part of 6th was finally pushing to your enemies objective with a dread or something...And it not mattering. Or your opponent rolling Scorelord as their warlord trait and having to fight ghaz or swarmlord or tooled up praetor off an objective.

 

 

 

Use the good stuff from all the editions, but especially for what they designed the game and units around in the first place. Why be shackled to some one else's decision for an unanticipated rule change that did nothing for game balance?

[WrathOfTheLion]

Oh, dropping back an edition or two and iterating on that would be perfectly fine, in fact a great idea. I don't think anyone has any particular attachment to 7th in particular. Just that if they actually throw everything away for an incompatible system, we'll see the heat death of the universe before they get back to where we are now at the rate FW works, which is the main and obvious criticism of any such proposal.

[Gederas]

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

Get rid of the :cuss THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified. Melee can still go off of the "whoever has better WS". Also the AP system in 8E and 9E is better because of the same reason.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

 

Get rid of the THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified. Melee can still go off of the "whoever has better WS". Also the AP system in 8E and 9E is better because of the same reason.

The point there though is that they need to keep datasheets consistent. If they invalidate the existing rules, the sun is going to implode and die before they get anywhere when they try to backfill it again.

[Cris R]

Hmmm, interesting. There’s been a rumour circulating our HH gaming group, dropped last month. Never really posted a rumour before, but seeing Anuj’s comment reminded me of it:

 

“This has been leaked from a separate source. ‘He’ has been part of the play test team. Others here may be tuned into aspects of this as we all ‘know’ people. But this is the run down.

 

1.Heresy 2.0 this year

2.Plastic starter set to be released with it or after it.

3. A lot of plastic kits are coming/already been made

4. No more black books

5. Rules still old 7th Ed just cleaned up and someone new things added.

6. Dreads have wounds.

7. Big focus on heresy again to be inline with AoS/40k

 

That’s all that’s been passed.”

 

I can’t verify the source, so take it with a hefty dose of salt. But IMHO it fits with where I see things, I’ll summarise my thoughts in a few points.

 

1. No future releases previewed: either GW are cutting HH, or there is something big coming. Perhaps delayed (as suggested by Anuj) by Covid and Brexit, either because those events have slowed production, or, they are waiting for an opportune moment to announce it.

2. The financial reports list the HH system alongside 40k and AoS in terms of importance. It sure doesn’t feel like that’s the case at the moment, but a big plastic based release would definitely put it further up the priority list.

3. Financial reports suggest that GW has invested a lot of money into their production and distribution capacity. The long awaited factory upgrade, (which I think someone mentioned may have been completed?), perhaps that has had an impact on the planning of a future release?

 

Anyway, I personally believe the rumour, and I hope it’s not just someone wish listing!

 

Cadmus

 

Original post incorrectly stated that only the 2018-2019 Annual Report noted that the Heresy was one of GW’s main lines. Other reports, including the 2019-2020 include this as well. Thanks to Omega-soul for the correction. Edited March 25, 2021 by Cris R

[Gederas]

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

 

Get rid of the THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified. Melee can still go off of the "whoever has better WS". Also the AP system in 8E and 9E is better because of the same reason.

The point there though is that they need to keep datasheets consistent. If they invalidate the existing rules, the sun is going to implode and die before they get anywhere when they try to backfill it again.

New Rule book, new red books? Easy enough :lol:

[WrathOfTheLion]

 

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

 

Get rid of the THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified. Melee can still go off of the "whoever has better WS". Also the AP system in 8E and 9E is better because of the same reason.

The point there though is that they need to keep datasheets consistent. If they invalidate the existing rules, the sun is going to implode and die before they get anywhere when they try to backfill it again.

New Rule book, new red books? Easy enough

 

I agree, they can do whatever they want as long as they have some reasoning to it, and they don't throw away what they have. Within those parameters, they can go and do whatever they want.

 

I meant invalidating the base rule engine. If they keep that, then any rules iteration is fine.

Edited March 24, 2021 by WrathOfTheLion

[Marshal Rohr]

-3+ to hit or whatever is fine. Way more intuitive. Cant think of any game breaking death stars that benefit from the Re-rolls anyway

-Dreads having wounds is just Hull Points 2.0

-Introducing movement values will be a great way to add granularity to Terminators. Beefy Deathstars in Cat armor already ride most of the time anyway but will matter in ZM

-We would’ve seen new plastic kits or packaging by now if it was coming this year

-No Black Books sucks. I love the Titanicus and Necromunda books. They are amazing. Pure awesome from start to finish. It’ll just be weird to have the Black Books end at 9 and then... whatever the format the Titanicus and Necromunda books come in is called. 37 bucks an expansion will be nice though, and you can skip the ones you aren’t interested in, which we can all agree is something the Black Books don’t handle well.

 

No FAQ for two years and no one on the Warcom team deigning to mention the DA FAQ kinda makes me think there’s a kernel of truth to this. Regardless, if there are plastic kits coming I expect some backlash if they are rescaled to new chaos height and backlash if they are left the same. 40K players won’t be lining up to replace oldmarines in older marks and dynamic Necromunda poses if they aren’t rescaled, but that might be a risk they are willing to take. The way they do Necromunda sprues is perfect for generic troops and terminators and leaving the special units in resin is fine.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I see no backlash if they're rescaled, the most recent DA kits are already between MK III and the CSM kits, and nobody cared then, so if they rescale to that nobody will give a damn.

[Marshal Rohr]

I see no backlash if they're rescaled, the most recent DA kits are already between MK III and the CSM kits, and nobody cared then, so if they rescale to that nobody will give a damn.

Never doubt the ability of Facebook thread commenters :D

[Gorgoff]

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

 

Get rid of the :cuss THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified.

That's easily one of the worst changes they made with 8th edition.

A marine has the same chance of hitting a primarch as he has of hitting a :cussing levy? Give me a break. 8th/9th edition hast by far the worst cc system of all edition, followed by their :cussty morale system where models just die because they get scared. What a dumb game that is. It doesn't even feel if the models fight each other. And this very limiting range of 2+ to 6+ makes the variety of different models smaller. I am full on modifiers in shooting instead of cover saves though. Feels just more realistic and cases less dicing.

Armor modifications instead of AP is just different. Not necessarily better. I've played 2end and liked it but in AoD Marines are just tougher because of the AP system which to me feels better.

I'm full on board when it comes to individual movement values because it would solve very smoothly problems how to show that a primarch runs faster than a human. Skimashkwaok made some very good points about bringing back rules from 4th-6th editions.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I'm going to have to agree that I prefer the current WS/BS system to the flat roll to hit. In 8th in particular it felt like there was no interaction between models or even players until it was time to roll a lot of dice for saves you couldn't hope to pass.

 

And WS isn't even hard to calculate; if its higher you hit on 3s, if it's lower it's on 4s. In extremely rare cases it's on 5s. Not like the BS system where there's an odd edition to derive the dice roll required. And if I'm being honest, I'd like the weapon skill system to get more granular. Make it go up to needing 6s against double +1 and the inverse be on 2s and have 5s be for a less rare scenario. It's always been weird that a marine finds it as easy to punch another marine as it is to punch the warmaster.

[sarabando]

If the release new plastics there is only 1 thing i care about in all honestly and that is that they are the style of the current heresy plastics Ie torso,legs,arms, head. Not the primaris "we sliced this guys ribcage in half and for some reason 2/3ds of his hand is also on this part.

[Marshal Rohr]

Disregard Edited March 24, 2021 by Marshal Rohr

[Gederas]

Another thing I'd do if we're redoing rules for "Heresy 2.0" ruleset:

 

Get rid of the THAC0 system it's running on and just go with the simpler way 40k 8th/9th does. WS and BS are 2+ to 6+, that's what's needed to hit for shooting unless modified.

That's easily one of the worst changes they made with 8th edition.

A marine has the same chance of hitting a primarch as he has of hitting a :cussing levy? Give me a break. 8th/9th edition hast by far the worst cc system of all edition, followed by their :cussty morale system where models just die because they get scared. What a dumb game that is. It doesn't even feel if the models fight each other. And this very limiting range of 2+ to 6+ makes the variety of different models smaller. I am full on modifiers in shooting instead of cover saves though. Feels just more realistic and cases less dicing.

Armor modifications instead of AP is just different. Not necessarily better. I've played 2end and liked it but in AoD Marines are just tougher because of the AP system which to me feels better.

I'm full on board when it comes to individual movement values because it would solve very smoothly problems how to show that a primarch runs faster than a human. Skimashkwaok made some very good points about bringing back rules from 4th-6th editions.

No, no. I meant "pull out a chart to reference to figure out what you dudes hit on versus this".

 

All the other stuff should stay the same, but WS and BS should just say what you need to roll instead of "Here's what it is, now reference a chart". I never like that because most people I know won't be able to quickly remember what general Marines hit on in 30k (hell, I might not be able to remember it, and I'm the one who's trying to get people into 30k :lol:)

[WrathOfTheLion]

You have to do that for wounding in 8/9E with strength/toughness, so the cat is already out of the bag. Not a hill I would die on. Edited March 24, 2021 by WrathOfTheLion

[Taliesin]

Obviously we have no idea on the reliability of the rumor as anyone could make something up but " no more Black Books"  sounds extremely unlikely to me.

Mainly because it literally goes against everything they have said about it the last few years, which includes saying they want to do 15-20 Black Books and multiple ones on the Siege of Terra. It also goes against what Anuj was sayig in his Voxcast last year, which was that he had really been loving working on the Dark Mechanicum, which he was talking about at a time when Crusade had been handed in already to the printers. We also know from WH Open Day November 2019 that Book 10 was " deep into production"  even then.

 

Aside from that the Black Books alongside the models are the heart and soul of the Heresy game for a lot of people. I dont play myself, but love the Black Books very much. Is it possible that Book 10 would be the last one, or never even see the light of day? Its possible if they decided to turn things around completely since we havent heard anything for so long, but killing the Black Books would clearly go against every thing they have said the last few years. 

[Taliesin]

Reposting the last known report I am aware of from Pendraiig at the Heresy forum, November 2019.

 

Book 10

 

Book 10 is currently deep into production. Due to size restraints, the Dark Mechanicum army list that was originally planned for Book 9 is now going to be in Book 10. Alongside this will be rules for additional allies for both the loyalists and traitors - this will be along the lines of the Agents of the Emperor / Warmaster concepts from a few years ago. No further details as yet.

 

 

Current developments

 

The GW offices at Warhammer World are currently having a massive extension added. As well as new production facilities and warehouse space there is also more room for the various design studios. The plan is once this is constructed, each of the design studios (main GW, Specialist Games, Age of Darkness and Old World) will have more space for the various teams.

 

This also means that each team will be expanding considerably over the next two years. This will include new rules writers (2 more for Age of Darkness for example) and miniature designers. As part of the re-structuring, Andy Hoare (ex-Heresy rules writer and head of Specialist Games) is now manager of the Specialist Games Studio and the Age of Darkness studio. This role is extremely new so Andy has lots of ideas but nothing has been put into action yet. From personal experience, Andy is a great bloke who has a lot of experience within the hobby; a clear vision of where the company and the game systems can go and also communicates clearly about what is happening (within the usual limits of GW policy).

 

Future hopes and plans

 

After a long chat with the Forge World team it’s clear that the new re-structuring is still in early days and we aren’t likely to see much change as customers for the foreseeable future.

 

However, the team is aware of the main community concerns and hopes. The two key ones they mentioned are:

 

A cheap introduction for new players into the 30k games set

More plastic kits

 

Neither of these are confirmed as in production or development but the fact that the team are having conversations about these is positive. The team also discussed that by expanding the number of writers, it would be hoped that they could release more than one Heresy-related book a year. Once again, this is future developments so only Book 10 is in current development due to the current size of the team.

[Ghorgul]

 

No, no. I meant "pull out a chart to reference to figure out what you dudes hit on versus this".

 

All the other stuff should stay the same, but WS and BS should just say what you need to roll instead of "Here's what it is, now reference a chart". I never like that because most people I know won't be able to quickly remember what general Marines hit on in 30k (hell, I might not be able to remember it, and I'm the one who's trying to get people into 30k )

 

It's mostly just 3+ and 4+, sometimes 5+. In most cases it's pretty simple to figure out the values from memory, with Special Characters and Primarchs mostly being the exception where you might need to consult the reference chart.

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Ghorgul

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'd personally be sad to see them drop black books for some other way of releasing campaign books, but now that I think about it, that could be believable.

 

A new edition launch would be consistent with what I've been observing, I've been tracking model release rate and its drop for over a year now. GW likes to do flashier things like Road to Thramas or Psychic Awakening to screen while they prepare for larger launches. If they were to do a big HH drop, then it would make sense for them to get all the Specialist Games stuff through the pipe first, as we can see with all the Necromunda, Middle Earth, etc. releases right now.

[Brofist]

Obviously I'd love to see an AoD 2nd edition. It wouldn't take many tweaks to make it fresh and personally would help move the conversation away from "oh its X edition with changes"

 

They already kinda dropped black books- they do a main run and when those run out they get reprinted in softback. I suspect it'll be that way.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Brofist

[Brofist]

Nice work getting on natfka, fellow heresy nerds

[Hfran Morkai]

Nice work getting on natfka, fellow heresy nerds

How long until BoLS reports Heresy 2.0 as confirmed? Edited March 24, 2021 by Hfran Morkai

[LameBeard]

The ‘things have slowed down because lots of stuff is coming in a 2.0 big bang’ is a plausible story. But we haven’t had even any fake leaks like we did with Calth.

 

I’m actually a minority opinion here. One of the things I *like* about Heresy is its slower pace. I just can’t keep up with 40k and getting new codices every year. I love the fact things have more staying power in 30k. I know it can be tough for you competitive gamers trying to play some of the older legions, but it does still work and is still legal.

 

I realise I’m not the core Heresy customer, because I don’t spend that much on it. I’ve yet to buy any big resin tanks, or any Black Books, although I look enviously upon them. Even though they are expensive I can see the value. I think there is a clue here: they look like a labour of love, and maybe they are. Maybe the margin on them is not that good. Maybe moving things more to a 40k pattern is what will bring in more money.

 

The key for GW is how much does Heresy add to what they’ve got, and how much does it cannibalise spending that would go to 40k or other Specialist Games? Could Titanicus even be the vehicle for further investment? They could bring the legions and the lore there and bring us ‘full circle” - games set in M31 would be played on a different scale.

 

<obviously I’m +1 on all the FAQ incredulity though. What are they even thinking?>