Horus Heresy Despoiler Upgrades

[Brother Sutek]

I had assumed they were going to release these as resin so that isn't an issue to me, the price for what you get is an issue. I was already in the direction of 3D printed arms and this pushes me there. FW I really want to support you, why won't you let me! At this point even if they did release a despoiler set with the unit being in mark II armour I probably would pass.

[Gothical]

Huh.

 

I fully expected a Despoiler squad unit with a weapons kit for all the melee weapon upgrades, given what we have seen with the Tactical Squad and the support squad weapon kits.

 

Having said that, maybe that is still coming once the Assault Squad gets released, given that would be an opportunity for dynamic poses more suited to a melee unit that the Tactical Squad bodies. Other than the backpack and torso (assuming jump pack harness) there isn't really a difference between Despoilers and Assault Squads, so hopefully that is when we will see the kit(s) most people seem to have been expecting.

 

This upgrade kit brings a few options for Sergeants but I don't really see it being intended as a full Despoiler Squad kit, even though it may be marketed as such, because of the aforementioned static poses of the existing Mk VI Marines, so hopefully it is some combination of stop-gap until the Assault Squad arrives and providing options for Sergeants in various units. It also allows you to convert the Mk VI into Despoilers if you want a mix of some static and some more active poses once the Assault Squad presumably drops without having to buy fill kits just for the weapons.

 

Do we know if the "more Plastic infantry" are all going to be Mk VI, or are we expecting a bit more variety such as Mk IV Assualt Squad, Mk III Breachers etc? I am a bit torn - on the one hand it would be weird to not have consistent marks across units for players that want that, equally it would be weird for specialised units to use a "worse" armour mark for their role (i.e. Mk III stuck around because it was really good for close-range brutal engagements like boarding actions whereas Mk IV offered more mobility) and for legions that prefer one mark or another for various reasons. At the same time I can't quite see a future range that has Mk II, Mk III, Mk IV, (maybe) Mk V Tactical and Assault kits and then Weapon kits for each variant too in addition to the ones we already have for Mk VI Tacticals.

[brother_b]

One of the big reasons I haven’t started my 30k project is the lack of basic assault options. I want to run blood angels and there’s nary an assault pack or assault squad in sight. I’ll continue to hold or, maybe, reconsider running alpha legion.

 

By Sanguinius don’t let me turn!

[Hfran Morkai]

9 hours ago, Gothical said:

Huh.

 

I fully expected a Despoiler squad unit with a weapons kit for all the melee weapon upgrades, given what we have seen with the Tactical Squad and the support squad weapon kits.

 

Having said that, maybe that is still coming once the Assault Squad gets released, given that would be an opportunity for dynamic poses more suited to a melee unit that the Tactical Squad bodies. Other than the backpack and torso (assuming jump pack harness) there isn't really a difference between Despoilers and Assault Squads, so hopefully that is when we will see the kit(s) most people seem to have been expecting.

 

This upgrade kit brings a few options for Sergeants but I don't really see it being intended as a full Despoiler Squad kit, even though it may be marketed as such, because of the aforementioned static poses of the existing Mk VI Marines, so hopefully it is some combination of stop-gap until the Assault Squad arrives and providing options for Sergeants in various units. It also allows you to convert the Mk VI into Despoilers if you want a mix of some static and some more active poses once the Assault Squad presumably drops without having to buy fill kits just for the weapons.

 

Do we know if the "more Plastic infantry" are all going to be Mk VI, or are we expecting a bit more variety such as Mk IV Assualt Squad, Mk III Breachers etc? I am a bit torn - on the one hand it would be weird to not have consistent marks across units for players that want that, equally it would be weird for specialised units to use a "worse" armour mark for their role (i.e. Mk III stuck around because it was really good for close-range brutal engagements like boarding actions whereas Mk IV offered more mobility) and for legions that prefer one mark or another for various reasons. At the same time I can't quite see a future range that has Mk II, Mk III, Mk IV, (maybe) Mk V Tactical and Assault kits and then Weapon kits for each variant too in addition to the ones we already have for Mk VI Tacticals.

 

I mean FW produced Mks II-VI in "Tactical" along with II, IV and V in "Assault" (some Despoiler squads, III and IV maybe? Heavy Support squads as well)  as well as "Power Weapon Sets" for II-IV and a range of heavy and special weapons.

 

And HH  1st Edition was presumably a smaller market. Are mould sizes significantly different between  resin and plastic manufacturing types?

 

Because they also discontinued a bunch of stuff, are downsizing the Contemptors.

 

I'm not a fan of a lot of MkVI so I hope we get other options. Admittedly I have 60+ MkIV and 30 MkIII in plastic as well as 25 resin MkIV Assault Marines and some other stuff which should cover me for most things and I can still get the HW packs (I think).

 

I feel MkII is definitely coming in some way, for them to do Argel Tal and the Tank Commander makes me think it's happening as otherwise they'd surely have picked something else.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Hfran Morkai

[Slave to Darkness]

On 3/2/2023 at 3:31 PM, Old-Four-Arms said:

 

They do exist, but for some reason GW decided to a) give the new MkVI Marines far smaller hands than the older kits and

 

Both have 3mm hands

[Gothical]

6 hours ago, Hfran Morkai said:

 

I mean FW produced Mks II-VI in "Tactical" along with II, IV and V in "Assault" (some Despoiler squads, III and IV maybe? Heavy Support squads as well)  as well as "Power Weapon Sets" for II-IV and a range of heavy and special weapons.

 

And HH  1st Edition was presumably a smaller market. Are mould sizes significantly different between  resin and plastic manufacturing types?

 

Because they also discontinued a bunch of stuff, are downsizing the Contemptors.

 

I'm not a fan of a lot of MkVI so I hope we get other options. Admittedly I have 60+ MkIV and 30 MkIII in plastic as well as 25 resin MkIV Assault Marines and some other stuff which should cover me for most things and I can still get the HW packs (I think).

 

I feel MkII is definitely coming in some way, for them to do Argel Tal and the Tank Commander makes me think it's happening as otherwise they'd surely have picked something else.

 

Yup, the moulding is very different - as a simplified summary the steel moulds for plastic kits are very expensive and then you have to plan time on the plastic injection machines (and loss of production time swapping the moulds over, how it knocks on your other projects) etc whilst resin kits can be made pretty quickly from much cheaper moulds and the process can even be done by hand. This is why more specialist stuff tends to be resin and mass-market stuff plastic.

 

Given there are not currently the range of armies available to Horus Heresy as there are to 40K or Age of Sigmar I suppose there is the possibility of a plastic kit or two for each armour mark, bearing in mind that there will need to be new Mk III and IV kits given the rescaling that went into the Mk VI design, if the company want it to be a "main game" on a par with the other two. However, it also seems that if they are intending to port over things like Solar Auxilia and Mechanicum then that is a lot of shelf space/SKUs that make me think having every armour mark in plastic for the "basic" units is unlikely and could perhaps mean that there has been a general decision that Horus Heresy 2.0 will be a "Mark VI Edition" to ensure that the units are at least available in (compared to old resin) affordable plastic kits.

[beefeb]

16 hours ago, Gothical said:

 

 

Do we know if the "more Plastic infantry" are all going to be Mk VI, or are we expecting a bit more variety such as Mk IV Assualt Squad, Mk III Breachers etc? I am a bit torn - on the one hand it would be weird to not have consistent marks across units for players that want that, equally it would be weird for specialised units to use a "worse" armour mark for their role (i.e. Mk III stuck around because it was really good for close-range brutal engagements like boarding actions whereas Mk IV offered more mobility) and for legions that prefer one mark or another for various reasons. At the same time I can't quite see a future range that has Mk II, Mk III, Mk IV, (maybe) Mk V Tactical and Assault kits and then Weapon kits for each variant too in addition to the ones we already have for Mk VI Tacticals.

 

 

As I understand the current thinking, the first we get will be the mk2's....cant remember if it was a valrak rumour or somewhere else.

[nightlordsfanboi]

Maybe fingers crossed that this is just a placeholder and the Assault kit is a dual kit for the two of them.

[Nephaston]

Nah, the next kit is going to be completely melee, and almost a year later they'll release a matching 5-piece bolter upgrade kit in resin, lmao.

 

GW, if you're reading this, this was a joke do not do this. Do. Not.

[Silas7]

On 3/2/2023 at 7:00 AM, Doobles88 said:

Nice parts, like the axe. But fully expected this to be a plastic upgrade sprue - ala the special and heavy weapons - rather than a resin kit. Means adding probably £50 on top of a 20 man MKVI box to kit them all out which sucks. Really don't understand the decision. 

 

Reason: Money

[Mr Farson]

I do think its interesting that the weapon selection matches the assault squad profile rather than despoilers. Power weapons and heavy chainblades are 1 per 5 in assault squads while any despoiler can take a heavy Chain weapon 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matcap86]

So these are coming out next week but the thing I found most interesting was this: 

 

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/14/sunday-preview-rising-from-the-ashes-of-faith/

Edited May 14, 2023 by matcap86

[Hfran Morkai]

I definitely think it's an error given there's no mention of MkIII

[WrathOfTheLion]

Mk III has an armored vambrace, so it would look weird.

 

Still, it's probably a typo, unless more than MK III is getting updated, which we'll find out in short order if it's supposed to be this summer.

[ShadowCore67]

45 minutes ago, Hfran Morkai said:

I definitely think it's an error given there's no mention of MkIII

 

But there's no plastic MkV either, so that's a huge mistake.

 

You could argue that MkIII is the only mark with drastically different vambraces and that's why they aren't saying MkIII

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

We have some partial plastic sets/ pieces of MK II and V. But as complete models just III, IV and VI (well, and VII ans VIII of course). They forget MK III, true, and we have both miniatures of thw current model and pics from the future release... but as that paragraph is written maybe (MAYBE) are announcing new armor kits.

Maybe...

[Slips]

Resin Mk V is still available, though, so thats probably what they mean with "[...] Mk V [...] Tactical squad"

[WrathOfTheLion]

4 minutes ago, Slips said:

Resin Mk V is still available, though, so thats probably what they mean with "[...] Mk V [...] Tactical squad"

Resin MK II are not though, so that's two incorrect (or correct?) discrepencies.

 

Mk III have also not been pulled yet, so they haven't done that.

Edited May 14, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Marshal Mittens]

Real test is if they take that part down, and soft confirm it.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

1 hour ago, Slips said:

Resin Mk V is still available, though, so thats probably what they mean with "[...] Mk V [...] Tactical squad"

But they specifically said plastic

[dickyelsdon]

19 minutes ago, AGRAMAR said:

But they specifically said plastic

 

Community article typos are so common its not even worth the thought.  Original article (linked on page 1) doesnt make any reference to mk's other than what you can see on the packaging.

[Corswain]

No problem with this release at the time of announcement, but...... now that the roadmap shows plastic melee weapons coming it seems a bit strange. I guess these are a nice stop-gap?

[Xirix]

Article's been updated to say MKIII, IV and VI, was just war com being their usual incompetent writers.

[OttoVonAwesome]

3 hours ago, Corswain said:

No problem with this release at the time of announcement, but...... now that the roadmap shows plastic melee weapons coming it seems a bit strange. I guess these are a nice stop-gap?

It's gonna be just weapons no arms very likely the command squad will include one sprue from the set. This seems to be how they are gonna handle breachers and recon marines, Resin upgrade sets with the same universal arm style the heavy weapon sets have. If you want mark specific arms you will likely have to poach them from the assault marine kits or find a decent stl.

[Noserenda]

Any assault weapon set will have to include arms, the tactical squad ones need a fair bit of cutting to work otherwise.

 

I think the sales of these definitely got torpedoed by an announcement of plastic ones, well, that and a year of people converting or 3d printing alternatives.