State of the Union (Heresy)

[Noserenda]

If true that the game has been repeatedly delayed over the years (Which would explain the mostly inexplicable silent period) they probably have most of the marketing already sorted anyway id expect, they just dont want to start that campaign early as an overlong marketing period kills interest stone dead in a lot of customers. Hell, even without anything official i still see people getting tired of the whole thing somehow!

GW marketing as a whole has long been wildly disjointed, AoS literally just got it first real look forward days ago and even within the Specialist games studio games like AT and BB just appear out of nowhere while Necromunda has had some fairly solid roadmaps.

And yeah, recasters dont help anyone either, all that cash isnt going onto FW's sales figures and encouraging them, i have no idea what percentage of players do it, but a system reliant on resin is super vulnerable to it, i dont imagine knock off plastic models even save much given the downsides?

[WrathOfTheLion]

I think the box set leak can be similarly compared to the Storm Speeder leak, except possibly even on a longer timeframe still if delayed somewhat.

 

GW did not address that in any timeframe, because it was for an edition beyond their current marketing.

[Eternal Despair]

And yeah, recasters dont help anyone either, all that cash isnt going onto FW's sales figures and encouraging them, i have no idea what percentage of players do it, but a system reliant on resin is super vulnerable to it, i dont imagine knock off plastic models even save much given the downsides?

Without getting into specifics,  when compared to the full GW MSRP one of the more popular recasters utilised by the Aus heresy scene, plastic characters are anywhere from 1/4th to 1/6th of the price, plastic marine infantry are about 1/3rd of the price and larger vehicles are about 1/2 to 1/3rd of the price, all of that while retaining the quality of the originals barring the typical clean up you’d have to do on a resin miniature (the occasional mould slip, gates etc), all of which is roughly in line with how they price their FW recasts. Granted that’s one of the better recasters and again not all of them are as cheap or of a similar high quality.

 

 

[Gorgoff]

Isn't it the 10 years anniversity of the start of HH?

Heard it somewhere and I think that could be something.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Isn't it the 10 years anniversity of the start of HH?

 

Betrayal was released autumn 2012, so it's been almost ten years, yes.

 

 

I'm very much exited for new Heresy content, but I can't shake off that distinct feeling, that in the case we get a new ruleset, they might mess it up terribly, GW-style.

Not in the mood for that.

 

Clear up / streamline a few USR and update some older Legions .... but otherwise I'm fine with what we got.

[Gorgoff]

 

 

Isn't it the 10 years anniversity of the start of HH?

Betrayal was released autumn 2012, so it's been almost ten years, yes.

 

 

I'm very much exited for new Heresy content, but I can't shake off that distinct feeling, that in the case we get a new ruleset, they might mess it up terribly, GW-style.

Not in the mood for that.

 

Clear up / streamline a few USR and update some older Legions .... but otherwise I'm fine with what we got.

Exactly my point of view.

If GW takes over HH we get 40k ruleset, DLC updates, dozens of FAQ and erratas and overall a lot less quality and power creep. But more quantity of course.

[lansalt]

If GW takes over HH we get 40k ruleset, DLC updates, dozens of FAQ and erratas and overall a lot less quality and power creep. But more quantity of course.

Honestly, that sounds exactly like the current version of the game evolved since Betrayal.

[Imren]

 

Isn't it the 10 years anniversity of the start of HH?

 

Betrayal was released autumn 2012, so it's been almost ten years, yes.

 

 

I'm very much exited for new Heresy content, but I can't shake off that distinct feeling, that in the case we get a new ruleset, they might mess it up terribly, GW-style.

Not in the mood for that.

 

Clear up / streamline a few USR and update some older Legions .... but otherwise I'm fine with what we got.

 

That is why one should hold on to their BRB and the black books. If 2nd ed 30k turns out to be like 40k 8th/9th then one can go back and play the 1st ed with the books. Especially within gamings groups among friends, if 2nd ed is really bad then even event organisers might stay on the 1st ed. Either way, no edition is balanced and without unclear rules or rule errors, so one ca play the edition they are happy with.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

 

That is why one should hold on to their BRB and the black books. If 2nd ed 30k turns out to be like 40k 8th/9th then one can go back and play the 1st ed with the books. Especially within gamings groups among friends, if 2nd ed is really bad then even event organisers might stay on the 1st ed. Either way, no edition is balanced and without unclear rules or rule errors, so one ca play the edition they are happy with.

 

 

 

Precisely 

[Petitioner's City]

We know it's not GW taking over it, though - it's Andy Hoare's team who are producing it, something we've known since pre-pandemic when it was revealed from the last in-person events (via people like Pendraig on 30K forums) and social media chatter at the time.

 

 

 

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).

 

And we continue to see Andy Hoare mentioned as the HH head honcho since the appearance of the AoD Exemplary Battles, alongside his management also of Adeptus Titanicus, Necromunda, The Old World and Blood Bowl. 

 

 

This campaign series is a great way to explore such conflicts, which may not otherwise have their own dedicated campaign books. Horus Heresy High Lord Andy Hoare had this to say about the scenarios:

 

 

Well, the Horus Heresy team over at Forge World are back with another action-packed Exemplary Battle. Here’s their studio’s resident Praetor Andy Hoare with more on what awaits.

 

 

As with the previous campaign packs, this one comes with background on the battle, new missions to try out, and a new unit – in this case, the Dominator Cohort* for the Iron Warriors. Here’s Andy Hoare from the Horus Heresy team to tell us all about the latest campaign.

 

 

So far, we’ve played through The Siege of Hydra Cordatus, The Battle of Pluto, and The Defence of Sotha. Now you can replay the epic battles from the Black Library novel Betrayer. Along with new missions, there are rules for a new World Eaters unit – the Red Hand Destroyer Assault Squad. Here’s Andy Hoare with the lowdown on the latest exemplary battle pack.

 

 

Last month, we met the deadly Red Hand Destroyer Squad from the World Eaters Legion. Now, we’re diving into the pages of The Lion* where the Dark Angels face off against the Death Guard. We’re introducing two new units – the Inner Circle Knights Cenobium’s Order of the Broken Claws, and the Mortus Poisoner Squad. Here’s Horus Heresy head honcho Andy Hoare with more on the new squads.

 

So that means it's likely his writing team, including Owen Barnes (many of you will know him better from his FFG work with Hoare and Bligh, as well as the lore he writes for Necromunda), Jonathan Taylor-Yorke, Tom Clarke and the new people who have joined their team (presumably Neil Wyllie is still involved too?), as well as his model design team led by Mark Bedford and Sam Egan, who are now doing Heresy.

 

Also Hoare is very good friends with John French, credits French with some of the ideas that went into Necromunda, for example (the Law & Misrule campaign, for example), and of course French, Bligh, Dembski-Bowden, Barnes and Hoare, among others, were a close-knit rpg-producing group, and Hoare, French and Bligh worked together on the Istvaan trilogy, among other texts.

 

Anyway, my point is that the team behind the heresy now isn't the main studio, and rather that exciting cabal of anarchic world-builders in Forge World-Specialist Games. They inhabit a different design philosophy than the main studio (hobby-first, model options unlimited, etc), and their work is worldbuilding-led rather than solid ruleset-led, for better or worse. You can see such amazing world-building in their work, and hopefully this carries on in the heresy too.

 

-

 

Also do follow his Instagram too - lovely Emperor's Children and White Scars.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[Gorgoff]

 

If GW takes over HH we get 40k ruleset, DLC updates, dozens of FAQ and erratas and overall a lot less quality and power creep. But more quantity of course.

Honestly, that sounds exactly like the current version of the game evolved since Betrayal.

Dozens of FAQ?

We have 3 the last three years. :D

[WrathOfTheLion]

Dozens of pages at least ;)

[Noserenda]

I can understand like 2 faqs a year being a bit overwhelming if you dont play very often but FWs current policy of mostly ignoring problems and hoping we houserule it ourselves is surely worse? Id hope they would step up to fixing obvious problems at least, preferably more than once or twice a decade.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I think they're just waiting to relaunch it and letting it be damned until then at this point.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if that decision was made sometime around when Pendraig posted that update.

 

That may not be for the worst, but it's certainly not comforting in the meantime.

 

Looks like two of the red books are completely gone off the US FW webstore though, with a third no longer available (and possibly to be removed, Gederas mentioned that one earlier). So I guess they're not just NLA as a synonym for out of stock.

Edited February 3, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[Marshal Rohr]

Blaming anything on FW or the Heresy team is flat out wrong. They are purposefully being held back from doing anything. There is absolutely no way Andy would be posting him playing Heresy on his IG against people who don’t work for GW and not know the state of the Heresy beyond GW employees. Now if it’s Rona or ERP or power restrictions in Nottingham, who knows, but it’s not the SG/HH team just not doing anything. Someone is preventing them from doing or saying anything. Anuj left a year ago and multiple unreleased projects on his linked in.

[Petitioner's City]

MarshallRohr, it could be whatever Anuj was working on is a bit like Andy's past Cyraxus book - once it was decided to do a new release pattern (ie the box), other black books were put on the backburner until the new edition. Hopefully we'll get Mars or whatever those books were one day

[MegaVolt87]

Regardless of the box leak, people would have still complained about say the Kha'Banda reveal. Instead of the box, they would want new black books, revised red books etc. If anything the box leak probably gave the community a second wind. 

[darkhorse0607]

 

That's definitely due to the radio silence over the years, and whatever bad decisions were taken in terms of communication, but it's also the strength of independent identity in heresy groups too, who have sustained themselves through the silence.

 

 

I think this is an interesting idea, and one I've thought about a few different times. The Heresy is kind of unique amongst GW/FWs systems and communities as I would say it's more community driven than most. Unlike 40k/AOS/Middle Earth, what have you, due to the silence and lack of hype from WHC it's almost all entirely community driven and sustained.

 

Granted the leaks provided a bit of a boost, but I think that has largely dropped off now, especially after LVO where many thought it would finally be the Heresy's time (not knocking Kabandha's model by any means) but I also think that it has now provided more animosity towards FW than we had previously, because unlike previously all of these independent communities know something exists, and it's putting a highlighting effect on the lack of communication that we have had previously from FW (I say the entire company rather than the team because like someone said above, I do think it's coming from higher than Andy).

 

I am most curious to see what happens if everything does get back on track. Is everyone going to forget the years of silence because of a box or a few releases? Or is the animosity still going to be there. It's an interesting topic I think

 

 

 

[jaxom]

What if it's tied to Warhammer: The Old World? A lot of resources going into developing that, and it may be that Heresy's development for a 2.0 was mostly done and the resources came from there. The launch was delayed so that there could be a dual launch; FW as the source of the two "historical" systems for both of GW's main games.

[Joe]

I doubt that the Heresy release is tied in to the Old World. I expect Old World is considerably further out than people think - multiple new model ranges need to be designed from scratch to represent the armies necessary for that system in the era it's taking place in.

 

Remember, the Old World isn't an opportunity to let you use your old armies - it's an opportunity to sell you something entirely new.

[Imren]

When compared to many years ago, GW have turned quite hobby-hostile when looking at how the product line for newer miniatures and games have developed:

• They have designed the new plastic minature kits in such a way that converting and individualising the models is more difficult and also reduced the wargear options for units.
• They have marketed their contrast paint aggressively to make the painting process more straightforward and simple (with paint that cost more and that is applied thickly)
• They have reduced their modelling tools product line alot, gone are knives, saws, drills, green stuff and sculpting tools.
• Game rules getting much more simplified/streamlined and "dumbed-down", i.e. vehicles rules wise in principle treated same as an infantry.

 

The message between the lines from GW in the newer product line seems to be: don't worry and "waste" time on individualising and converting your models or debate about wargear options. Just bulid these kits quickly and paint them quickly and start playing so that you can earlier get tired of them and move on to a new army that in turn also is built and painted quickly.

 

This might work when you cater to the present day youngsters that have a shorter attention span compared to the children of the 80's and 90's (that today many of them still involved in the hobby). But the big difference is that the youngsters of today can't afford the kits from their pocket money and is dependent on their parent's good graces and credit cards.

 

This of course alienated alot of the 30k community and contributed to lot of complaints. No wonder the community is living its own life away from GW with producing its own rules and fluff (Mournival pdfs from the aussies) and military modelling suppliers (AK, Mig, Vallejo etc) for their hobby materials and 3rd party mini producers, recasters and 3D-printing for their models.

 

Beacause it is so (relatively) independent and stepmotherly treated by GW; the 30k community is probably the only one that would survive (compared to AOS and 40k) and continue flourishing without fan-rage if GW ceased to exist overnight.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Imren

[WrathOfTheLion]

For 30k, they've been releasing new units that you have to convert in these new campaign pdfs, so I don't think they're entirely averse to it.

 

Even in 40k, some of the newer models have shown some degree of it as well (9E Dark Angels notably shows those new kits crossed with the old DA upgrade sprue).

 

So I think they're certainly less against some degree of conversion even in studio models as compared to say, two or three years ago.

[lansalt]

stuff

I've read these same takes many times since 2017 and they still seem over the top and out-of-touch to me.

• The new plastic miniature kits have excellent quality and are as easy to convert as anything before (specially metal/finecast), with plenty of examples in social media for everyone to see, The "reduced wargear options" for units were born of endless complains about how useless were mixed units in the game, and how bad was split fire in pre-8th rules. And many of those units are straight 30k to 40k SM ports. Even with this, GW also makes kits with plenty of options, like the new Krieg or Autarch.
• Contrast making it easier to do huge amounts of models is great, and calling it hobby-hostile is very odd when it's perfect for big legionary units.
• I've never heard talking fondly about GW hobby tools. They've always been overpriced noob stuff, and people today learn faster about cheaper/better brands. They still sell the basics anyway.
• The current 8-9th is a much more complex game that pre-8th ever was. There are endless complains in this forum and elsewhere about the cognitive load to pilot some of the most extreme 9th ed. armies, with layers of overlapping rules and gotchas everywhere. The HH ruleset is way more simple in comparison, it just has many USRs scattered in supplements and janky interactions.
• Even with the above, the main GW games are selling better than ever, with even the niche specialist games like Necromunda or Bloodbowl being in all LGS everywhere, which was unheard of decades ago.
• The Mournival and other fan-made content groups are the result of GW not making enough content and kits for the HH for the demand, not abandoning it. Plenty of releases each year even if they're not in the level of 40k. The same thing happened with RT 2nd edition, Epic, BFG and other games, and there are already several 3-7th groups/fan rulesets out there too. Is a normal sign of people which the same interests working together, not of the health of the main games.
• Once GW releases the HH 2.0 most of the players will  join it, along a lot of newbies. Guaranteed.  

tl;dr: GW hasn't really changed at all.

Edited February 3, 2022 by lansalt

[WrathOfTheLion]

Yeah I don't agree on the paint types being 'hobby-hostile'. Might be more expensive in the long run, but if you look back, there were many painters doing similar techniques, there just wasn't a product for it.

 

Many were using inks especially over a zenithal highlight, it's very similar. Even in the 30k, the clear coats over gold for like Thousand Sons is also a similar concept.

 

From my experience, for armies like Chaos Daemons that are very organic, they're going to look better than the inevitably rushed job you do trying to layer it, or you're just going to do a base coat and a wash anyways.

Edited February 3, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[Imren]

 

stuff

I've read these same takes many times since 2017 and they still seem over the top and out-of-touch to me.

• The new plastic miniature kits have excellent quality and are as easy to convert as anything before (specially metal/finecast), with plenty of examples in social media for everyone to see, The "reduced wargear options" for units were born of endless complains about how useless were mixed units in the game, and how bad was split fire in pre-8th rules. And many of those units are straight 30k to 40k SM ports. Even with this, GW also makes kits with plenty of options, like the new Krieg or Autarch.
• Contrast making it easier to do huge amounts of models is great, and calling it hobby-hostile is very odd when it's perfect for big legionary units.
• I've never heard talking fondly about GW hobby tools. They've always been overpriced noob stuff, and people today learn faster about cheaper/better brands. They still sell the basics anyway.
• The current 8-9th is a much more complex game that pre-8th ever was. There are endless complains in this forum and elsewhere about the cognitive load to pilot some of the most extreme 9th ed. armies, with layers of overlapping rules and gotchas everywhere. The HH ruleset is way more simple in comparison, it just has many USRs scattered in supplements and janky interactions.
• Even with the above, the main GW games are selling better than ever, with even the niche specialist games like Necromunda or Bloodbowl being in all LGS everywhere, which was unheard of decades ago.
• The Mournival and other fan-made content groups are the result of GW not making enough content and kits for the HH for the demand, not abandoning it. Plenty of releases each year even if they're not in the level of 40k. The same thing happened with RT 2nd edition, Epic, BFG and other games, and there are already several 3-7th groups/fan rulesets out there too. Is a normal sign of people which the same interests working together, not of the health of the main games.
• Once GW releases the HH 2.0 most of the players will  join it, along a lot of newbies. Guaranteed.  

tl;dr: GW hasn't really changed at all.

 

 

• The new plastic miniatures (especially the space marine kits) have division of parts in the design not along natural body parts, the old kits have torsos, arms, weapons, legs as a standard way of dividing up, but i.e. a intercessor model have the front of left leg and back of torso as one part and then back of left leg and the cape as another, this makes conversions and part swaps more difficult/tedious despite being plastic. it not as much as a problem for someone that was in the hobby in the past (being used to green stuffing and pinning) but it is a great challenge for those that get involved in the hobby the last few years and only used to plastic models.
• My point was not of how as experienced hobbyists what you can do with contrast paint, I speaking of how it is marketed by GW, you can airbrush anything and manipulate any paint in any way, but GW wants you to slap it on with a brush thickly on white primer and thats that.
• Regarding the tools, yes I agree that they where overpriced, but they manage to sell them for years, they could have re-launched them and lower the price to compete. but the opted for getting out of that market, simply because they don't want to promote hobby techniques (like conversions, greenstuff sculpting etc) that require those tools.
• I don't argue that GW sales are bad. I argue that they have changed a course in terms of reduceing the level of freedom and "hobby finesse and craftmanship" level compared to years ago.
• I never argued GW abandonded 30k. I argue that compared to the other main games 30k is treated rather "stepmotherly" and that the 30k community is way more independent of GW compared to the AOS and 40k communities.

I disagree that GW have not changed over the years. I started out '95 with WHFB and 96-97" with 2nd ed 40k when I was in my teens. I remember GW was way different in terms of attitude towards hobbying and customer creativity, customer relations in the stores and the general design philosophy of the miniatures. Even if you account for the effects of globalisation and the emegergence of internet, GW have changed alot.