Some random questions about the Heresy range

[Burni]

Over the last few years I've really come to like the Space Marine line, particularly the Primaris due to their modern plastic kits and (for the most part imho) excellent posing. So the prospect of a new plastic range focused solely on Marines is very appealing to me. Not sure if I'll ever play a game of HH but I've been mostly a collector/painter for the majority of my 40k life anyway. I will try and build a 'legal' army just in case though.

 

But I have a few random questions I was hoping Fraters could help me out with.

• Is the standard plastic drop pod (which is one of my favourite models ever) useable in HH?
• Is the classic Furibundus pattern dreadnought something that has rules and might get a model?
• Is the game about infantry spam? Or is a mech force based around Astartes in Rhino's something that can work?
• Are there Devastator type squads? Are they mixed weapons or all one type? Really want shoulder heavy weapons galore!
• Will I gimp myself by not having bayonets or chain blades on the models? I've personally never liked how they look, even since I had my RB01 box.

 

I'm also undecided on the Legion to paint them. I have about 10k of UM Primaris and I do enjoy painting that scheme. But it's a good opportunity to branch out. I had a couple of questions on that subject:

• IF: Do they have coloured shoulder pad rims? My unsteady hands make those a pain and with the yellow being so thin, it would be a lot of touching up.
• DA: I'll never be able to do the checkmarks - can you get away with basic black armour and some red simple bits? Also would be a downside to not have the option of using them in 40k
• WB: Of all the traitor legions, this one is one I find the most interesting. But I'd prefer to play loyalist. Is this something the game allows? Do other players see it as 'counts as, ask your opponent' or is it something you really do see often?
• Is there a really good resource which shows all the Legion schemes (preferably multiple units) so I can get a good feel for what's possible?

 

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer!

 

[lansalt]

Answers in bold:

• Is the standard plastic drop pod (which is one of my favourite models ever) useable in HH? Yes.
• Is the classic Furibundus pattern dreadnought something that has rules and might get a model? No, but it could use the Legion Dreadnought generic profile in HH1, which has a ton of options.
• Is the game about infantry spam? Or is a mech force based around Astartes in Rhino's something that can work? Depends on the Legion rules and Rites of War, there's a ton of variation.
• Are there Devastator type squads? Are they mixed weapons or all one type? Really want shoulder heavy weapons galore! Yes and no. There are Legion Heavy Support Squads all armed with the same type, and in HH1 the Iron Warriors are the only ones who can mix types with Havocs
• Will I gimp myself by not having bayonets or chain blades on the models? I've personally never liked how they look, even since I had my RB01 box. If you are talking about tacticals, depends on how you use them. But you can give them chainswords in the back.
• IF: Do they have coloured shoulder pad rims?, My unsteady hands make those a pain and with the yellow being so thin, it would be a lot of touching up. Depends on the unit, usually is in black, gold or steel, but you can get away with yellow (no such thing as company color trim in the HH)
• DA: I'll never be able to do the checkmarks - can you get away with basic black armour and some red simple bits? Also would be a downside to not have the option of using them in 40k Yes, the red checkers are a special mark and DA has different schemes
• WB: Of all the traitor legions, this one is one I find the most interesting. But I'd prefer to play loyalist. Is this something the game allows? Do other players see it as 'counts as, ask your opponent' or is it something you really do see often? Not in HH1, WB were traitors decades before the war began, but curiously the leaked HH2 rules do not forbid it even if almost all their unique units are, so...
• Is there a really good resource which shows all the Legion schemes (preferably multiple units) so I can get a good feel for what's possible? The Legion schemes are dispersed along the Black Books, but you can easily find images in FW's site or with a google image search (plenty of people scanned illustrations from the books)

Edited April 29, 2022 by lansalt

[Petitioner's City]

 

• Is there a really good resource which shows all the Legion schemes (preferably multiple units) so I can get a good feel for what's possible?

 

 

Here is a compilation of only the plates from the heresy black books (not the rules or text). 

[Lord Marshal]

So the Word Bearers do seem to have Loyalist elements now, going by the leaks. It doesn't explicitly state it, but the Iconoclast Warlord Trait says that, "Yet, some of the Word Bearer's still remember the old days of the legion and continue the traditions of the Iconoclast, whether for the simple joy of destruction or the hope of redemption for their Legion." Now whether that's referring to redemption in the sense they want redemption in the eyes of the Emperor, or for denying that gods existed, is probably up for debate. 

 

Units like the Gal Vorbak are Traitor-only though, obviously.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Lord Marshal

[Valkyrion]

The dice don't care whether your Word Bearers are traitors or loyalist, so unless there is a specific rule that you wish to follow that only applies to Loyalists, then your Word Bearers could be loyalists in your fluff, loyalists in your paint scheme, loyalists before the incident at Monarchia, loyalists before they even found Lorgar, but once you put them on the table top they will use the traitor rules. 

 

if it's the daemonic possession aspect you don't like, then you could still run them as traitor with enough scope in the fluff to say that whatever daemonic entity they've made a pact with allows them to stay their true mortal selves and are perhaps warped in the mind rather than the body, or that the daemons possessing them only come out when their mortal shell is on the verge of death, or whatever. 

 

Point is, 30k covers a vast amount of legion forces, planets, warzones - there's nothing to say that your particular blend of Word Bearers even know about the Heresy, but short of painting them blue with a giant U on their armour you have a massive amount of freedom to do as you please. 

[lansalt]

So the Word Bearers do seem to have Loyalist elements now, going by the leaks. It doesn't explicitly state it, but the Iconoclast Warlord Trait says that, "Yet, some of the Word Bearer's still remember the old days of the legion and continue the traditions of the Iconoclast, whether for the simple joy of destruction or the hope of redemption for their Legion." Now whether that's referring to redemption in the sense they want redemption in the eyes of the Emperor, or for denying that gods existed, is probably up for debate. 

 

Units like the Gal Vorbak are Traitor-only though, obviously.

It's telling that the Ashen Circle do not have the Traitor rule

[Petitioner's City]

That makes sense about ACs since they were originally the imperial truth fanatics?

[Elzender]

 

 

So the Word Bearers do seem to have Loyalist elements now, going by the leaks. It doesn't explicitly state it, but the Iconoclast Warlord Trait says that, "Yet, some of the Word Bearer's still remember the old days of the legion and continue the traditions of the Iconoclast, whether for the simple joy of destruction or the hope of redemption for their Legion." Now whether that's referring to redemption in the sense they want redemption in the eyes of the Emperor, or for denying that gods existed, is probably up for debate.

 

Units like the Gal Vorbak are Traitor-only though, obviously.

It's telling that the Ashen Circle do not have the Traitor rule

That makes me a happy Herald!

[Marshal Mittens]

So the Word Bearers do seem to have Loyalist elements now, going by the leaks. It doesn't explicitly state it, but the Iconoclast Warlord Trait says that, "Yet, some of the Word Bearer's still remember the old days of the legion and continue the traditions of the Iconoclast, whether for the simple joy of destruction or the hope of redemption for their Legion." Now whether that's referring to redemption in the sense they want redemption in the eyes of the Emperor, or for denying that gods existed, is probably up for debate.

 

Units like the Gal Vorbak are Traitor-only though, obviously.

Isn't a loyalist Word Bearer who is writing the Imperial Truth.

[Burni]

It's really making me think Loyalist Word Bearers are the one. I like the red & black with silver trim and the idea that they where with a crusade fleet for such a long time that the lodges didn't form (or fell apart as the Chaplain was killed early on). So they cling to the Imperial Truth.

[lansalt]

It's really making me think Loyalist Word Bearers are the one. I like the red & black with silver trim and the idea that they where with a crusade fleet for such a long time that the lodges didn't form (or fell apart as the Chaplain was killed early on). So they cling to the Imperial Truth.

Well, older or loyalist WB should be grey, silver and gold. IIRC the red colour only came out when they became openly traitor just before Issvan/Calth. Fun fact: the CSM decal sheet has pre-betrayal WB shoulder pad icons for some unknow reason.

[Burni]

 

It's really making me think Loyalist Word Bearers are the one. I like the red & black with silver trim and the idea that they where with a crusade fleet for such a long time that the lodges didn't form (or fell apart as the Chaplain was killed early on). So they cling to the Imperial Truth.

Well, older or loyalist WB should be grey, silver and gold. IIRC the red colour only came out when they became openly traitor just before Issvan/Calth. Fun fact: the CSM decal sheet has pre-betrayal WB shoulder pad icons for some unknow reason.

 

Arg! Haha, just when I thought I was settled on something. And it would annoy me that the scheme wasn't the correct one for my proposed background.

 

Am going to look through that amazing PDF Petitioner's City linked and see is anything catches my eye.

 

Thanks all!

[Petitioner's City]

Well you can also go a bit mad, an early chapter in Sigismund tells us of early Imperial Fists heraldry and it was very varied. I'm sure the 17th were the same!

 

All their armour was different to some degree. Some wore amalgamations of older and newer pieces: the plough-fronted helm of the ‘Iron’ Mark III plate; a segmented and studded pauldron that must have come from the proto-designs of pre-unified Terra; a chestplate bolted and layered in a way that conformed to none of the standardised patterns. Others wore suits that looked as though the ir lines had been the basis for the schematics in unit recognition primers, but with colours that Sigismund had never seen amongst the Legion: a pauldron of deep blue scattered with white stars, helms split between red and black, one the grey of gunmetal with a lone pauldron showing the yellow of the Legion.

You do have flexibility to go off-piste - just as some recent red terminators have shockingly suggested to fans of black armour :)

[lansalt]

Unfortunately WB, despite mocking the UM, are themselves also huge believers in conformity and regulations:

 

Efficiency was one of the thirteen virtues, along with self-reliance and ruthlessness. Saqqara glanced at his armour, with its wine-dark hue. There were currently three hundred and forty-seven approved hues for battleplate within the Legion. That number changed, depending on the whims of the Dark Council. Following those whims was considered another virtue.

-Fabius Bile: Clonelord

[Petitioner's City]

That's both post-heresy and very reflective of the jealousies and fundamentalism of figures like Kor Phaeron, Iansalt...

 

More to the point, the heresy setting as written has always been about exploding the "narrow" ideas we've had about the legions and reforming them as something more complicated, variegated and fascinating - nothing is reductively one thing, or defined by a single characteristic. Don't be a no no, because it's clear from the art and text and ideas of heresy (right up to JF mentioning all these weird fists, not exactly a group you'd associate with such variarion post-Dorn) that the heresy isn't about locking things, but opening up your imagination, to subvert, to reconstruct :)

Edited April 29, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[Noserenda]

Being able to legally field Loyalist WB in 2nd edition is a good change frankly.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Being able to legally field Loyalist WB in 2nd edition is a good change frankly.

Makes me want to do a few in their grey scheme. Some of the new MK VI or especially MK II would be cool as can be.

[Claws and Effect]

Well you can also go a bit mad, an early chapter in Sigismund tells us of early Imperial Fists heraldry and it was very varied. I'm sure the 17th were the same!

 

 

All their armour was different to some degree. Some wore amalgamations of older and newer pieces: the plough-fronted helm of the ‘Iron’ Mark III plate; a segmented and studded pauldron that must have come from the proto-designs of pre-unified Terra; a chestplate bolted and layered in a way that conformed to none of the standardised patterns. Others wore suits that looked as though the ir lines had been the basis for the schematics in unit recognition primers, but with colours that Sigismund had never seen amongst the Legion: a pauldron of deep blue scattered with white stars, helms split between red and black, one the grey of gunmetal with a lone pauldron showing the yellow of the Legion.

You do have flexibility to go off-piste - just as some recent red terminators have shockingly suggested to fans of black armour :)

I've been painting Raven Guard for a long time. I can no longer say I'm a fan of black armor....

 

I like to see when people grab ahold of some obscure bit of lore and use it to inform their building and painting choices.

 

Example: With my aforementioned Raven Guard I'm using the fact that the non-corrupted Raptors Corax created with the Primarch DNA were visibly larger than their brethren to explain why the upcoming beakies are taller than my other guys.

[LameBeard]

[*]DA: I'll never be able to do the checkmarks - can you get away with basic black armour and some red simple bits? Also would be a downside to not have the option of using them in 40k

 

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer!

Sure you don’t need checkmarks, but decals can help get an easy stripe (black and white more common I admit, one of the ultramarine decal sheets and goff orks could be a start for checks).

 

It seems a lot of people think about trying to do double-duty for DA 30k and 40k, which is fine, but I feel like you miss the best of either by trying to compromise. Double-duty as successors (Consecrators?) or even Fallen might be a way forward.

 

Loyalist Word Bearers is a cool idea to explore. Narik is the only one I’ve read about - not sure if he wore red or changed back to grey, but doesn’t he only leave the legion after Calth? So maybe a company could do the same.