State of the Union (Heresy)

[Gorgoff]

On Split Fire I’d love to see it as universal...but at a cost. Full BS* if the whole unit targets the same target, but can target multiples at -1 or -2 To Hit or something with particular units able to ignore that penalty for obvious fluff/crunch reasons. But from a design perspective, I’m a huge advocates of everything having pros/cons and weighing the risks/rewards.

 

I am with @Hungry Nostraman Lizard with the Initiative thing. Feels much more dynamic and interesting. That being said, the current state of the game is too binary I’m the sense that you either tool up on defense and go for an Unwieldy doubling-them-out weapon.....or you are special and you get AP2 at ridiculously high Initiative, with very little of anything in between. So essentially the very Initiative stat is wasted in reality. I want to see more things like Reaping Blow, and/or Death Guard’s -1I scythes; Space Wolves’ -1I great frost blades and such.

I just built three Huscarls with great frost blades. Don't know what you mean, really

[Blood-worm's Master]

I think this is a bit unfair to Fil Dunn and Neil Roberts, i don't think you could call them junior sculptors   I know Fil Dunn for example was doing his own company and freelance 3D modelling since he first left gw!

 

The Dark Angels units that he did are far more than just copying and pasting and adding stuff digitally.  The Companions, Interemptors, and Inner Circle Knights have far more pose variation, armour detailing, updated scaling ans unique parts to say that.  They are fanatastic models, easily as good as the early heresy units.

 

Alexandre Dumilliard is a fanatastic sculptor, its just a shame he left for the main studio.

 

Added to your above talk about sculptors, don't forget that veterans like Will Hayes and Darren Parwood are still at Forgeworld.  Plus you have some specialist games resin designers who have done HH stuff as well and SG stuff.  Like Nicholas Nguyen, and Blake Spence who has returned to GW recently.

 

Forgot about Fil's company - you're right, 'junior' is too strong a word ;) Still I think they're the sculptors with the shortest work experience in Specialist Design Studio (not sure about people in main studio).

 

Agree to disagree about DA units - for me they're fine but not great, far cry from the models from the "hand sculpting era" of Betrayal and Massacre (some of which too were made by people just recently hired to sculpt space marines, Israel Gonzalez and Alfonso Giraldes and I consider them better, more creative sculpts). I think DA rely too much on basic CAD files (compare for example Cenobiums' torsos to the ones of Crimson Paladins which, are completely different to ordinary Cataphractii) and are too ornate (40k-like - especially in case of Companions, who, on the other hand, for me have the greatest number of cool, creative details out of all 3).

 

Yes, Alexandre Dumillard is a genius and I very much regret him not working on AoD anymore. And of course my critque of DA doesn't extend to his Praetors and Dreadnoughts (last works he did for AoD I think), which are brilliant.

 

From his portfolio looks like Nguyen left permanently for Specialist Games and I think Hayes and Parwood haven't done anything for AoD in a long time - but I would love them to return (as a co-creator of Mechanicum range, Hayes would probably be my favourite choice to work on Dark Mech). Spence's return is great news though I think he mostly specializes in terrain (but of course did legion artillery and Mastodon)?

[Prim]

As relates to the rules, one of the things that bugs me about 8th/9th is the lack of risk-reward based decision making. Take Deepstrike for example. The scatter roll and mishap table meant that you had to weigh up the risks of dropping close to your target, or farther away in a clear spot on the table. Wargear and characters could mitigate the risk somewhat, but you had to plan for it. Now you just pick the optimum spot and place your minis there. No risk, all reward. 8th/9th seems to work along those lines for nearly everything, which I guess is what appeals to a lot of people and is attractive to new players. Losing your entire super-elite unit due to a bad dice roll isn't 'fun', so the rules were changed to eliminate that. GW seem to have a policy of No 'not fun' things. Did your best unit just miss its target? Reroll. Do your units keep breaking and running away? Just take off a couple of minis instead. Did your melee unit charge into combat, but got wiped out before they could attack? No initiative. Did you bring an army of Grots and your opponent has a Titan? You can still hurt it.

 

Weighing the risks and making plans is IMHO the core of a good wargame. Sure, it sucks to have a run of bad luck, but really the parts of the game GW decided are 'not fun', are part of the appeal of the system. When your plan works and you won because you took a chance, it is far more rewarding than winning because you could simply reroll every miss.

 

If there are any changes to the AoD ruleset, I personally hope that they are just tidying it up and streamlining things, and that the current style is retained. If I could ask for anything, I'd like them to push things further and introduce alternating activations in some fashion, but I think that may be a step too far for GW. If I could ask for two things it would be a rebalancing of Monstrous Creatures compared to Vehicles.

 

One of the downsides for the AoD-9th split is that it arbitrarily decides which games people can play based on their rules preference. 9th players get 40K, AoD players get 30K. If you like the other rules, then you have to houserule everything for yourself, which is an unfortunate situation for the community when it comes to running events and attracting new players. If 30K is due for a big push, I'd like to see (eventually) Orks and Eldar being introduced in some fashion. While they are far from the main focus of the story, it would appeal to those who currently see 30K as being to Marine-centric and open up Great Crusade era gaming a lot more. Allowing some 30K minis into 40K as Relic vehicles helps balance things the other way.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the rules, some people will probably disagree and that's cool too. This hobby is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The best we can all hope for is that GW can make games and models that appeal to everyone.

[LameBeard]

There is so much wisdom in @Prim’s post.

 

A couple quick observations:

 

1) GW have been explicit in White Dwarf articles about re-rolls being there for “that time your power fist fails to wound”. In my view re-rolls kill the fun. The time your puny marine survives his opponent’s power fist attack is when you cheer - and what keeps you engaged even though you are not rolling. We house-rule ‘Kill Team’ to limit re-rolls. Re-rolls also slow the game.

 

2) Alternating actions. I recently played an admittedly v small points match of AoD just after Kill Team. Whilst I admire the Kill Team ‘unified turn’ as something with interesting choices, what surprised me was that AoD played so fast. I-go-you-go is fine because some choices make themselves, and you don’t have to ‘wake up’ your opponent. Also easier to keep track of which units moved/shot. Kill Team has all those counters for a reason - again slows down the game adding and clearing them.

 

3) AP system may not be realistic but does have some advantage - it’s more of a scissors/paper/stone thing than “this gun is just better”.

[Mogsam]

Agreed with that. The time your praetor charges in to a tactical squad, fluffs his attacks in the challenge and gets murdered by a power fist is fun. Characters are a force multiplier, they shouldn't be an army in themselves.

 

There are a few things that I think could do with a tweak:

 

Terrain slowing units down. My group doesn't tend to treat much terrain as dangerous but I've seen others treat half the board as it. It just means some units get stuck for turns and it's boring.

 

Generally weaker guns and weapons. There's a lot of AP3/2 out there and it makes units that are supposed to be tanky weak.

 

Monstrous creatures. I've been battered by mechancium everytime I've played them. If you're putting out a non tailored list you just can't hurt them quick enough.

 

Some general improvements to "useless" units. Looking at you phoenix terminators, the bodyguard that can't hurt a dreadnought, or terminators if they get charged etc.

[Robbienw]

 

I think this is a bit unfair to Fil Dunn and Neil Roberts, i don't think you could call them junior sculptors   I know Fil Dunn for example was doing his own company and freelance 3D modelling since he first left gw!

 

The Dark Angels units that he did are far more than just copying and pasting and adding stuff digitally.  The Companions, Interemptors, and Inner Circle Knights have far more pose variation, armour detailing, updated scaling ans unique parts to say that.  They are fanatastic models, easily as good as the early heresy units.

 

Alexandre Dumilliard is a fanatastic sculptor, its just a shame he left for the main studio.

 

Added to your above talk about sculptors, don't forget that veterans like Will Hayes and Darren Parwood are still at Forgeworld.  Plus you have some specialist games resin designers who have done HH stuff as well and SG stuff.  Like Nicholas Nguyen, and Blake Spence who has returned to GW recently.

 

Forgot about Fil's company - you're right, 'junior' is too strong a word Still I think they're the sculptors with the shortest work experience in Specialist Design Studio (not sure about people in main studio).

 

Agree to disagree about DA units - for me they're fine but not great, far cry from the models from the "hand sculpting era" of Betrayal and Massacre (some of which too were made by people just recently hired to sculpt space marines, Israel Gonzalez and Alfonso Giraldes and I consider them better, more creative sculpts). I think DA rely too much on basic CAD files (compare for example Cenobiums' torsos to the ones of Crimson Paladins which, are completely different to ordinary Cataphractii) and are too ornate (40k-like - especially in case of Companions, who, on the other hand, for me have the greatest number of cool, creative details out of all 3).

 

Yes, Alexandre Dumillard is a genius and I very much regret him not working on AoD anymore. And of course my critque of DA doesn't extend to his Praetors and Dreadnoughts (last works he did for AoD I think), which are brilliant.

 

From his portfolio looks like Nguyen left permanently for Specialist Games and I think Hayes and Parwood haven't done anything for AoD in a long time - but I would love them to return (as a co-creator of Mechanicum range, Hayes would probably be my favourite choice to work on Dark Mech). Spence's return is great news though I think he mostly specializes in terrain (but of course did legion artillery and Mastodon)?

 

 

 

I think Will Hayes's last release was the Volcano cannon on the Warbringer.  Both he and Darren Parrwood are straight line designers, and both often do the big projects like titans/knigts/superheavies, so its possible not to see releases from them for some time whilst they are producing big stuff.  They are both still working at Forgeworld, they havent left GW or gone to the 40k studio.  If the Heresy 2.0 rumours are true, its possible they have been working on upcoming plastic vehicles

 

Blake Spence is terrain and vehicles.  He did the legion vehicles you mention, and the Custodes grav tanks, as well as loads of terrain.  From his instagram at the moment he seems to be doing mainly resin AI and AT stuff.

 

My point with Nicholas Ngyuen was not that he has done a load of HH stuff, but rather you also get the sculptors who do other SG/FW stuff popping in and doing some 30k bits.  Like he did the ruinstorm daemons, Chris Drew doing the Sabre, Owen Patten doing the Deredo Volkites, etc.  They don't all just stick to one system all the time.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Robbienw

[Hfran Morkai]

I was going to make a joke about the Heresy stuff being stuck on the ship in the Suez or held up by it.

 

Then remembered pretty much all the models are made in the UK barring terrain(?).

 

I can't remember where Crusade was printed though and I'm currently away from it.

[Eternal Despair]

Crusade was printed in china

[Gederas]

Crusade was printed in china

Out of all the books I have from GW/FW, I think the only one I have that says "Printed in the UK" is the 9E Space Marines codex. Even later books (Dark Angels supplement) say "Printed In China" oddly enough.

[Indefragable]

I'm sure this is an unpopular take here in the year 30,000, but I actually like 8th/9th's more granular AP system better than the All Or Nothing style of 7th/HH. 

 

I always found the scale weird, with how a sword that cuts through power armor like butter does not so much as knick the paint on Artificer Armor. Artificer/Terminator armor should be much better, but like 16%-50% better, not 99 to the 9th power better. 

 

I think 8th especially really abused the granular system, however, between combat doctrines and various buffs to it and so forth, but the core concept I appreciate and like. 8th's system of cover also was dumb for that reason: hiding behind sandbags designed to stop ballistic munitions just gives your Guardsman an extra t-shirt to wear rather than a legit 4+ Save or such. 

This is wishlist territory, but personally I'd like to see the Cover system be more like the granular 8th Ed AP system as well, with some weapons being essentially designated anti-cover weapons <Cough> flamers <cough>. There are a few abilities in HH (Iron Havocs come to mind) that grant -1 to enemy cover saves, but in general it's All Or Nothing with the enemy getting a full Cover save or nothing (Typhon) and very little in between.

 

...combine that with what others here have said about Dangerous Terrain being, well, dangerous and suddenly you have a gameplay dynamic that really emphasizes positioning and maneuvering and having to use your brain on how and where to attack your enemy. Something like that and keeping Side/Rear armor arcs on vehicles and we start having the semblance of a war game. 

[Marshal Rohr]

I don’t think we have to worry too much about a wholesale port of 8th or 9th at this point. I think they’ll take the things that work and refine it for interacting with what people expect. Cover will probably stay a save distinct from armor and invulnerable saves, but the AP system may have modifiers. There used to be a rule against chainaxes that all saves against them were never better the 4+. We might see something similar. Edited March 26, 2021 by Marshal Rohr

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

I don’t think we have to worry too much about a wholesale port of 8th or 9th at this point. I think they’ll take the things that work and refine it for interacting with what people expect. Cover will probably stay a save distinct from armor and invulnerable saves, but the AP system may have modifiers. There used to be a rule against chainaxes that all saves against them were never better the 4+. We might see something similar.

Didn't Andy Hoare (the new lead on HH) basically say he'd rather let HH die than transition it to ninth? I've had a few people quote that at me... 

[Zuvassin]

If they're going to significantly change the rules in any direction, it should be to replace them with Rogue Trader or 2nd ed 40k.

 

Not only would that thematically fit the 'retro' style of HH, but it would encourage smaller games once people realize how every CC in the early days was individual combat. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

The AP system of 8th is one of the driving factors of the game just being kill hammer. The heavy bolter increased in effectiveness by 50% against marines and 100% against terminators, while dropping in effectiveness against its traditional targets of t3 with some save. Even without the compounding nature of the to-wound system being changed, it's a very big shift in how weapons interact with units. Marines and custodes would get weaker, while mechanicum, daemons and the various army lists would get stronger. Guess which faction is the weakest? Marines. The strongest? Daemons and then mechanicum.

 

And the current system exists because armour works in a certain way; either it works and protects you from injury/death or it doesn't at all. Look at plate armour and the effects of missile melee weapons that could pierce it compared to those that couldn't.

[LameBeard]

I think a lot of the problems could be solved by just removing artificer armour as a sergeant option. All editions have struggled with mixed armour/toughness units in different ways. And I don’t remember any mention in the novels of sergeants having better armour. If anything they emphasise the “uniform” nature of the legion. Even Loken in the books appears to have pretty standard kit.

[Cris R]

I’ve asked this elsewhere, but are there other GW systems HH 2.0 could pull from? It seems like the discussion for new ideas is always come from variations of 40k, but other GW systems like the latest version of Apocalypse or Kill Team could always offer small ideas as well.

Also, we’ve been talking about units in the next version of HH but I wonder whether GW or FW would take the leap and introduce “Relic” Saturnine armor as a new unit. I know it’s largely out of use during the Heresy but could have the same status as Contemptors in 40k.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Cris R

[WrathOfTheLion]

There's a bunch of kits down, including normal tactical marines and some Primaris kits, so I don't think it means anything.

[Brofist]

Honestly there are tons of great systems out there, and most of them aren't made by GW. That said, its a GW product so I only really expect incremental changes. And I'm 100% cool with that tbh

[TheNineteenth]

 

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.”

So, where is this from?

[Elzender]

Regarding the AP system,maybe we could see some modifications using universal rules which modify the saving throw of the wounded model? As in, some weapons give a -1 to saving throws (maybe only against specific targets). The to-wound roll could also be altered in a similar way, maybe altering fleshbane from a flat 2+ to wound to a variable bonus, but then extending it to more weapons.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I think a lot of the problems could be solved by just removing artificer armour as a sergeant option. All editions have struggled with mixed armour/toughness units in different ways. And I don’t remember any mention in the novels of sergeants having better armour. If anything they emphasise the “uniform” nature of the legion. Even Loken in the books appears to have pretty standard kit.

It's more like up until 6th, wound allocation and power weapons worked very differently. The homogeneous nature of units in 30k would have had 5ths wound allocation rules play very well until it ran into some less common cases. Funny how that keeps on happening.

[LameBeard]

I never played 5th but a little 4th, was it the same? I think wound allocation/casualty removal was receiving player could choose from (some eligibility rule) models. The rationale being if Mr Missile Launcher died someone else would pick up the missile launcher - so it’s ok to pick him last. Generally I like this level of abstraction. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for any big change which will invalidate my red books.

 

And @Elzender, I like ‘Banestrike’ as a rule which gives a little more bite to armour piercing without going crazy. I’d be happy to see a little more of that (but not too much).

Edited March 26, 2021 by LameBeard

[SkimaskMohawk]

5ths was receiving player allocated, but needed each model to have a wound allocated before taking another round of the wound pool. There was clauses for wound spill over for duplicate models, so distinct wargear was used to partition all the really deadly wounds onto one particular model and all the whatever ones onto the rest.

[Indefragable]

And @Elzender, I like ‘Banestrike’ as a rule which gives a little more bite to armour piercing without going crazy. I’d be happy to see a little more of that (but not too much).

 

Yea that's my thing about more scale, more granularity, in general. Less All Or Nothing. 

[Ghorgul]

 

Plastic is significantly more intensive than resin. Requiring three years of prep time from concept to shelf. Anuj is on the Total War team, and was part of the group that just released Rakarth.

 

I can't say I know for a fact, but this thing you say might have been true going back 3-5 years or more. Nowadays I'm pretty sure it's technically possible to go from ready 3D digital model to shelf in maybe 3 months if everything is rushed. Same developments that enable normal people 3D printed high quality stuff at home enables industrial producers (like GW) to prepare and refine master models and molds in very quick pace after principal digital 3D model has been done. Then with functional mold it's very simple to just doing production runs. Previously without extremely high quality 3D printing the master model and mold preparation was far slower and far more tedious process.

 

Plastic casting is very simple if working mold exists in factories with proper equipment and skilled operators.