Should Xenos ever be added to HH 2.0?

[Doghouse]

So just a subject I've been pondering of late because I'm uncertain.

 

Back in the origins of HH Orks and Eldar were mentioned in Space Marine first edition as present during the time of the Heresy. 

 

Now I can see reasons for including them with the Eldar wanting to alter the course of history to suit their own agenda be it supporting Loyalist or Traitor alike and Orks...well it's a massive fight so enough said there.

 

But  do you think it should be kept as a purist civil war exclusive to the Imperium or is there room for these two Xenos armies? Would their addition make it feel less like the Heresy even though the war is being fought in the galaxy at large?

 

 

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's not like I'm going to be too bothered if they're added, but I'm of the opinion that they're irrelevant to the setting, unless the setting is expanded to include the Great Crusade proper at some indeterminate time in the future.

 

The Eldar and Orks have both been significantly bloodied during the Great Crusade, and essentially aren't in much of a position to handle any substantial conflict with either the Loyalist or Traitor forces. As far as military forces, neither affects anything during the conflict that I'm aware of, so they're just there if they're added, they don't add anything to the setting.

[Brofist]

Yeah I'm with you. I wouldn't be mad, but they're irrelevant to the setting. I'd rather they focus on expanding the forces of the Imperium tearing itself apart. The story is about humankind against itself first and foremost.

[m0nolith]

No.

The setting is about the Imperial civil war.

This subject has been discussed to death. 

[Doghouse]

I think it could make for some interesting scenario missions and I do feel that there is room for something like this just as long as they stuck to just a couple of races maybe as an optional army list. I think at some point Heresy paints itself into a corner and maybe in a few years it could refresh the game once again but I'd rather they focused on forces like dark mechanicus. For me it'd boil down to balance so I'd be a firm maybe.

[No Foes Remain]

I agree with Wrath and Brofist. Yes, techically some xenos took advantage of the Civil War and raided human worlds but there was no great big battles or focus on combatting the xenos while the traitors were rampaging towards Terra. Also it was considered by the Imperium that the orks were mostly shattered after Ullanor and the Eldar tried to avoid butting heads with the Imperium as they were still recovering from Slaanesh.

 

Should it stay as a civil war? I think so. Would I care if they added minor xenos stuff in? Not really. Could prove a thematic element, loyalist and traitors rush to complete an objective or steal some tech before orks come charging in and wreaking the place.

[Trixie]

Nah they don't need or deserve official support as the Heresy is about the Imperium. If folk want to use Xenos then there is a wealth of 7th ed material out there that could be tweaked at home to work in 30k v2.

[Cris R]

This was already covered pretty extensively in this thread: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/373538-the-hypothetical-inclusion-of-xenos-in-the-hh-game/.

[Marshal Mittens]

I think it would be neat. If they do the Great Crusade, to introduce various Xenos from that era, for playing in that era. Horus Heresy feels like it should be Imperium vrs Imperium!

[Noserenda]

I dont think theyd hurt honestly and could provide some interesting lists. Despite what some snide lists claim they were plenty up and about during the Heresy to some degree or another, Eldar in particular are extremely well suited to 30/40k scale actions in the period trying to change history at critical points.

Something like the Militia or Ruinstorm lists with lots of flexibility and minimal model support would be fun, even the familiar aliens of the era are in very unfamiliar forms with the Orks just starting their decline and the Eldar still very recently post fall; let alone Necron outliers or lost Tyranids and the myriad other aliens out there.

What i would probably do first is formalise periods for the system though, Crusade, Early Heresy and Late Heresy.

[MARK0SIAN]

I generally agree with those saying they don’t really belong in it and wouldn’t really add anything to it. The focus should definitely be on the civil war.

 

The other thing to consider is the time and focus it would take from the designers. They already seem like they’re stretched pretty thin and adding xenos factions would only make that worse.

[MegaVolt87]

Hard disagree, HH can have eras. Great crusade, HH, late HH. Demons, Orks, eldar and dark eldar should be represented. Also re-vamped rules for human troops to represent wayward human empires not yet in the Imperial fold. Maybe they also have xenos and chaos/ warp tech options too. Of course, we need plastic mk II, expanded art for pre-primarch legions, named legion masters etc as well for that. 

[Cris R]

Rangdan Xenocides is the campaign setting I want to explore. The question there is how much about the lost Legions the designers want to share. I like the mystery of not really knowing the full story and wouldn’t want that to change, so that’s one challenge to fleshing out the setting for that era.

[OttoVonAwesome]

Hard disagree, HH can have eras. Great crusade, HH, late HH. Demons, Orks, eldar and dark eldar should be represented. Also re-vamped rules for human troops to represent wayward human empires not yet in the Imperial fold. Maybe they also have xenos and chaos/ warp tech options too. Of course, we need plastic mk II, expanded art for pre-primarch legions, named legion masters etc as well for that. 

Supposedly the plan is to move forward into the Scouring and other historical era's over time like the apostasy, Badab etc as a way to keep the setting fresh although those major events pre-dating m40 are also times of civil strife. lol

[TheTrans]

Xenos, definitely should be rattling around in. 

 

Our armies are only 50-100 dudes strong, so platoon/company level engagements...so absolutely nothing..less than nothing in the scope of a galaxy spanning civil war. Given how small our engagements are there is no doubt xenos forces of similar sizes could easily be rattling around in the heresy and it's not particularly hard to plot-hook them in there. 

I find marines terribly boring and dull if there isn't the lense of a base line human or xenos to look at them through.

When its only marines vs marines, it may as well be normal humans vs normal humans as they all have the same stats. Marines look more impressive when there is something to compare them to. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Hard disagree, HH can have eras. Great crusade, HH, late HH. Demons, Orks, eldar and dark eldar should be represented. Also re-vamped rules for human troops to represent wayward human empires not yet in the Imperial fold. Maybe they also have xenos and chaos/ warp tech options too. Of course, we need plastic mk II, expanded art for pre-primarch legions, named legion masters etc as well for that.

Sure the heresy can have eras. The crusade isn't one of them.

 

The 205 year event isn't an era of the 9 year event with completely different themes.

[WrathOfTheLion]

As I stated before, it's a different thing if they do a Great Crusade setting. But right now, it's the Horus Heresy, where it's stretching it for them to be relevant really in any way for the decade or so it lasts.

 

That said, if they do expand eventually to Great Crusade, it'd certainly be more interesting to see things like Rangda or Khrave than Orks or Eldar, which we already just have in 40k.

[Claws and Effect]

I think it would be a neat addition down the line, but it absolutely shouldn't be a priority for the designers.

 

There's enough homebrewed rules out there already it wouldn't be much of a stretch to rework them to work with 2.0 if you really want xenos races right now.

[tinpact]

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I think it would be nice to have represented in some capacity at least. Just off the top of my head there was the Eldar intervention at Stygies VIII, so that might be material to draw from.

[Canadian_F_H]

During the era of HH1 I have played quite a few games using 7th edition Orks. It was doable and fun. We sort of treated it as a way to play great crusade and we know those xenos were around despite not being particularly important at the time.

 

The fact that they weren't in the rules but 7th and HH1 we're still mostly compatible was good to me. It meant it was clearly a game that was playable, but not at all official. I certainly wouldn't have tried to argue it's legitimacy at a tournament, but amongst friends it was fun.

 

I dont know how they could officially make an unofficial way to play xenos against heresy armies. I want the option, but I don't want it to be something that makes the game overly complicated for balance, tournaments and official releases. Amongst my local group, we will probably just do up a quick and dirty homebrew for it if and when we get the madcapped desire to throw HH2 legions to the mercy of the Orks of Ullanor.

 

If you've got the 7th edition books you are already fairly close. And if you have a narrative friendly group it's doable. But I have zero expectation that GW will do something like this any time soon. They have a lot of irons in the fire before they need to even consider doing the great crusade or something.

[Felix Antipodes]

While there is room for home brew battles between Imperial forces defending their region(s) from xenos raiders, I don’t see a real need to add these battles to the official rules and/or canon.  At least not at this point.

 

If they expand backwards into the Great Crusade or forwards into the Scouring I can see it becoming a thing.  In fact it would be essential for a Great Crusade game.  I would love seeing models for some of the exotic xenos races mentioned in the lore if they went that way.

 

The Scouring wasn’t just kicking the traitors into the Eye of Terror.  They also re-established the boundaries of the Imperium, which would have involved kicking the xenos out of the systems they took while attention was focused on Terra.

 

TLDR: No need for xenos in HH 2.0.  Bring on Great Crusade and Scouring expansions!

[Pacific81]

I kind of hope they leave the GC alone, at the moment its a nice grey area for hobbyists to practice some imagination and make it their own. And there isnt much of that left these days, everything has been written down and described to the nth degree, buy this FW miniature for this and that to make it canon etc.
 

Rangdan Xenocides is the campaign setting I want to explore. The question there is how much about the lost Legions the designers want to share. I like the mystery of not really knowing the full story and wouldn’t want that to change, so that’s one challenge to fleshing out the setting for that era.

I think it has been stated a few times the lost legions wont appear? Although Squats have returned and those were absolutus hereticus for many years, so who knows!
I would love to do the Rangdan in epic scale but have had trouble fiding any decent descriptions of them (without them being too Tyranid-like)

Edited May 29, 2022 by Pacific81

[Chaeron]

During the era of HH1 I have played quite a few games using 7th edition Orks. It was doable and fun. We sort of treated it as a way to play great crusade and we know those xenos were around despite not being particularly important at the time.

 

I never had the chance to do that, but I'd heard of others who had - and I thought it was a cool option!

I feel like it'd help add to the setting (albeit, mainly pre-Heresy!) - but I think what these armies would be wouldn't be a direct port. I'd quite like to see them reimagined (including with a model range) that fitted the era, as opposed to just models with compatibility in the main. With that in mind, it's probably more ambitious than anything - I think there's enough flavour within the Legions that it doesn't need a Xenos expansion by any means.

[Canadian_F_H]

Hilariously, several of our games were my Orks allied with Alpha Legion... We joked that the Orks thought the AL were also Orks And we kept calling their leader Ork-pharius Orkmagon. Hahaha.

 

From the AL perspective it was just expedient to divert an Ork Waaagh into their enemies... Wait... We were fighting Death Guard and Night Lords. CrissCross. Damned Alpha Legion. Hahah.

 

But yeah. Ultimately. I don't want to see them muddy the waters or get side tracked with xenos factions in Horus heresy any time soon. They have a lot of other stuff to do first.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Canadian_F_H