The Panoptica Team: Unofficial FAQs and Expansions for the Age of Darkness

[codewalrus]

Hey all!

Really should have posted this a while back when we first got around to releasing the last major updates to the Liber Panoptica and more, but oh well - we're here now!

As you're probably already aware if you're reading this - the Liber Panoptica was a project made by the community and released on HH2.0's launch day to ensure all models which didn't have official representation in the rules were usable, as well as providing a full FAQ  / Errata / Balance update to the game.

 

This original release is now many moons behind us, and we've moved to another platform (itch.io), added a whole heap more content, and have some big plans to share with you all!

 

We've made some pretty big quality of life improvements for this release, first among which is the splitting of the FAQ, Errata, and Balance Changes into their own book, apart from the unit additions. Our second one is to add colour coding to all FAQs, Erratas, and Balance Changes, to make them easily distinguishable at a glance.

 

The two new supplements will carry different names for ease of distinction; Liber Panoptica will continue to be the FAQs and so on, whilst Liber Centura will be all the new units for the Legiones Astartes.

 

That's not all though - as we've been busy reaching out across the community to other groups, and we're excited to reveal that these supplements are not just from the Panoptica Team; we've taken the drastic step of unifying our work with that of prominent community ruleswriters from other teams to ensure all future content from us bears their ideas, concepts, testing, and approval. This, married with our rigourous playtesting and proofreading, will help to ensure all community rules are of the highest possible standard. It's the Panoptica Team's aim to make it so that instead of the normal question asked, "Are we using X or Y's changes?", instead, you will only have to ask, "Are we using the Community FAQ and Rules?" instead.

Our collaborators are as follows - and I personally, as well as the rest of the team, want to stress how grateful we are they agreed to come on board to start this journey with us!
- The Mournival Events Team
- The Veterans of Terra Team
- AUS30K Events
- King Fluff Events

 

Now we've got the Liber Panoptica & Centura in general release, our aim will be for the Liber Ingenium to see the light of day in the near future. Hot on its heels will be two Xenos races many have wanted to see brought to HH2.0 - and so, the Eldar and the Orks will take to the field soon enough...

 

The supplements are linked below - I hope you all enjoy these, and have a lot of fun trying them out across the battlefields of the 31st millenium! 

 

https://hh-ageofdarkness.itch.io/liberpanoptica
https://hh-ageofdarkness.itch.io/libercentura

 

 

[Hfran Morkai]

Just been reading the bits that interest me and glad to see Veteran Assault Squads and Tartaros Varagyr.

 

I remember in 1st Ed there being a Veteran Recon Squad who could take Scout armour which would be cool again to have options such as Heavy Bolters, Plasma Guns and Melta Guns (so I can use my metal Scouts including the Wolf ones). I loved each picked a specialty but appreciate that's probably more bookkeeping than necessary.

 

Good stuff!

[Orange Knight]

Some really good stuff there, and some very inventive units!

 

I'll definitely be making use of this!

[SlickSamos]

Looks really well thought out!

 

I think there are still a few missing generic units, some already mentioned above (namely veteran scouts, veteran recon, veteran bikers and veteran jetbikers). But am really happy to see the additional units that are there (especially Veterans with Jump Packs and Sanguinary Guard)

 

Two pieces of feedback w.r.t. the rules

 

I would really appreciate it if all the new special rules were put at either the front or the back of the pdfs for ease of reference.

 

Minor typo: I think the Hussar squad has a typo on the cost of Plasma Pistol (One in five may ... Plasma Pistol ... +5pts, vs the sergeant may ... Plasma Pistol ... +10pts) and inversely for power weapons in the squad vs on the sergeant. (Though less confident that the second is an error looking at the sky-seeker rules).

 

Again it looks great and I'm sure that as you guys get more games in you'll be refining it further! 

[Joe]

Any further updates to share? ;)

[Petitioner's City]

Just wanted to share - although I'm sure everyone knows - that last week the latest iteration of the Panoptica documents was released. This was Walrus's post for the release:

 

Quote

Hey @everyone !

 

It's been a long time, but the Panoptica Team is ready to share with you all some projects we've been working incredibly hard on for quite a while - about 6 months, in fact...

 

First up; **Liber Panoptica** now has its 4th version! This is a massive overhaul of LP, and includes some massive changes. In no particular order, these are:

> - Mission Packs for Standard missions, Apocalypse missions, and Zone Mortalis (which are fully compatible with the new ZM rules in Siege of Cthonia)!

> - Full updates to the Decurion and Centurion Game Modes, including a plethora of new content for missions, reactions, and more!

> - A fully-fledged Crusade System, built from the ground up (and inspired by both the Narrative Play Features from earlier editions of 40k, and 9th Edition's Crusade)

> - A complete revamp of the LP FAQs, Erratas, and Balance Changes

> - A reworked Allies Matrix, to allow future expansions to the game to function properly!

> - A Panoptica Weapons Section - no more fishing through 2 documents to figure out how our changes to a weapon interact!

> - Extrinsica Melee Weapons are now available to everyone!

 

This has taken the ***Liber Panoptica to a staggering 158 pages***. Yes, we know. ***Wow***.

 

As a result, we've taken an effort to make the LP even easier to use; for the first time, we've made some cut-down versions of the LP which are faction-specific, meaning you can simply grab the right one for the faction you play and go. These have an average length of 25 pages (including covers), and give you everything you'll need to play using the Panoptica.

 

These versions are as follows:

> - **Astartes / LA** - Contains Allies Matrix, Core Rules, Siege of Cthonia, Liber Astartes & Hereticus Common Changes, Liber Astartes, Legacies, Exemplary Battles, and Special Rules, Weapons, and Extrinsica.

> - **Hereticus / LH** - Contains Allies Matrix, Core Rules, Siege of Cthonia, Liber Astartes & Hereticus Common Changes, Liber Hereticus, Ka'bandha, Legacies, Exemplary Battles, and Special Rules, Weapons, and Extrinsica.

> - **Mechanicum / LM** - Contains Allies Matrix, Core Rules, Siege of Cthonia, Liber Mechanicum, Legacies: Mech, and Special Rules, Weapons, and Extrinsica.

> - **Imperium / LI** - Contains Allies Matrix, Core Rules, Siege of Cthonia, Liber Imperium, Legacies: Solar Auxilia, Legacies: Militia, and Special Rules, Weapons, and Extrinsica.

 

This new, improved version of the **Liber Panoptica** also has a few hints as to the shape our Eldar project - which I can reveal will be called **Liber Antiquia** - will be taking - and this is due to release soon. 

 

Finally, both the **Liber Centura** and **Liber Ingenium** have seen a rework, taking onboard all the feedback from the community we have receieved in the last few months. These changes are not ground-breaking, but there are plenty of small tweaks made, to refine our work. Both books will also be getting full-feature updates later in the year!

 

I also need to make an apology from the team; due to the scale of these updates (and a blunder on my part), we don't have full patch notes for this release (I forgot to save, oops) - so we recommend re-reading any content you're interested in to ensure you can see the changes. Be assured - there will be some that affect you!

 

We also need to clarify that at present, we have not yet added promotion trees for any faction other than Astartes to our Crusade system, nor have we added any Imperium Centurion content; these are coming in a future update, and for now we recommend making "sporting agreements" with people when you play. Let us know what you try, too - it'll all help!

 

Finally, I'd like to say a massive ***THANK YOU!*** to all of the Panoptica Team who poured their hearts and their efforts into writing this content - as well as our amazing playtester team, without whom this would not have been possible.

 

If you want to download the updated books, they are available below:

 

https://hh-ageofdarkness.itch.io/liberpanoptica

 

https://hh-ageofdarkness.itch.io/libercentura

 

https://hh-ageofdarkness.itch.io/liberingenium   

 

I really hope you all enjoy this new and improved set of content from the team - and that you're all excited for what comes next!

 

@everyone

 

Overall a fantastic effort by Walrus and their colleagues, and well worth giving feedback to/trying out. 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Petitioner's City