Horus Heresy Exemplary Battles of the Age of Darkness - Volume I

[SkimaskMohawk]

6 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

It is £30... I saw some people paying more than that to have the PDFs colour printed and bound in a presentation folder. 

I agree the book is of debatable general value to the player, but it is an optional purchase... I'm not sure where this idea that HH players HAVE to keep up with every single book purchase is coming in from. 

 

Ya, if you were big on binding the PDFs and are a completionist for the documents/books then it's certainly cheaper than high quality binding.

 

And it is good that it's not a necessary buy and we're not subject to constant releases like 40k was or even Titanicus experienced. But I think the rules support for the system has felt disappointing to a lot of people and this feels like a missed opportunity on that front.

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

It’s not “wannabe” Warhammer art collecting.

 

Ya, I probably should have called it "small scale", as opposed to wannabe. 

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I collect all the books.

 

Well, that kind of says it all right? The book existing as something to be added to the bookshelf is the only qualifier to you if you collect the books.

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

There is new art in here, and some people don’t just buy things to win on the table.

 

Ya, I've uhhh, mentioned that a few times. There's new art; that's the big draw if the rules don't interest you (and they shouldn't, because they're freely provided by GW in most cases). But also, dumb conflation with interesting and appealing rules to expand the puddle of options that don't feel bad and "new rules let me win".

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

The lore in there is pretty important if you’re trying to have a collected set of what’s going on in the Heresy and it’s nice to have something Physical when they inevitably go the way of the dodo in ten years. It would be kind weird to just hand someone printed sheets of paper when they ask which books have the lore for this stuff after GW moves on. 

 

Kinda weird to have people come to my collector's library of all forgeworld HH publications and crack open the book for them to peruse instead of sending them the pdf. Especially since if preservation is the worry, you'll need those random sheets of paper with all PDF artwork that didnt make it into the new book anyways.

 

Most people don't buy these books simply to collect them. Their worth isn't in their mere existence, with anything additionally new being a bonus or something to be praised. Shelling out $50 USD for a hardcopy gaming companion book is a hefty decision (though admittedly far less than the cost of models) that might normally demand considerations like "is the content going to give me $50 of enjoyment? Is the content reused, or is it all new? If it's pre-existing, how easy and ethical is it for me to enjoy it currently?".  Normal stuff for non-essential item purchases; if we're debating if a colour inverted map that removes the planet zoom-in cutouts is considered "new" art to collect, and is therefore a positive aspect, then I'm afraid that kinda just underlines the point that the book has very little value proposition for the casual consumer. It's a product targeted towards people who will spend the $50 to simply fill their shelf, and spend it again and again as they re-sell you all 20+ free exemplary battle PDFs with their 5 new colour plates and 33 pages of new rules that you don't even value (because people who value rules as part of the price of a rule book only want to win games).

 

 

[Deakz28]

You should probably worry less about why other people want or don’t want the book my guy. There’s reasons to be dissatisfied, and reasons not to be, there’s also way more to it than you’ve put out there, but as I say why people do or don’t get it shouldn’t really matter this much

[Marshal Rohr]

4 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Ya, if you were big on binding the PDFs and are a completionist for the documents/books then it's certainly cheaper than high quality binding.

 

And it is good that it's not a necessary buy and we're not subject to constant releases like 40k was or even Titanicus experienced. But I think the rules support for the system has felt disappointing to a lot of people and this feels like a missed opportunity on that front.

 

 

Ya, I probably should have called it "small scale", as opposed to wannabe. 

 

 

Well, that kind of says it all right? The book existing as something to be added to the bookshelf is the only qualifier to you if you collect the books.

 

 

Ya, I've uhhh, mentioned that a few times. There's new art; that's the big draw if the rules don't interest you (and they shouldn't, because they're freely provided by GW in most cases). But also, dumb conflation with interesting and appealing rules to expand the puddle of options that don't feel bad and "new rules let me win".

 

 

Kinda weird to have people come to my collector's library of all forgeworld HH publications and crack open the book for them to peruse instead of sending them the pdf. Especially since if preservation is the worry, you'll need those random sheets of paper with all PDF artwork that didnt make it into the new book anyways.

 

Most people don't buy these books simply to collect them. Their worth isn't in their mere existence, with anything additionally new being a bonus or something to be praised. Shelling out $50 USD for a hardcopy gaming companion book is a hefty decision (though admittedly far less than the cost of models) that might normally demand considerations like "is the content going to give me $50 of enjoyment? Is the content reused, or is it all new? If it's pre-existing, how easy and ethical is it for me to enjoy it currently?".  Normal stuff for non-essential item purchases; if we're debating if a colour inverted map that removes the planet zoom-in cutouts is considered "new" art to collect, and is therefore a positive aspect, then I'm afraid that kinda just underlines the point that the book has very little value proposition for the casual consumer. It's a product targeted towards people who will spend the $50 to simply fill their shelf, and spend it again and again as they re-sell you all 20+ free exemplary battle PDFs with their 5 new colour plates and 33 pages of new rules that you don't even value (because people who value rules as part of the price of a rule book only want to win games).

 

 

You’ve consistently been pretty hard on all of the new Heresy books for the simple fact they aren’t “doing enough” in your estimation and you keep sliding over the simple facts people (not you, but others) are perfectly happy and excited by this new edition. The Exemplary Battles getting hardbacks, the eventual new plastic army, the upcoming specialist squads are all signals the Heresy is doing well beyond the issues you and the other tabletop experience focused Heresy gamers here and other parts of the online spaces are clamoring about. 
 

You have a lot of insight about game mechanics and army building and getting the most economical bang for you buck when building an army, but your enjoyment and expertise pretty much stops there. There’s things I’m not happy with, the pdf factions should have a much wider selection of ways to build armies and unit choices but this edition is still enjoyable for Heresy fans not just interested in super technically efficient table top armies and when you constantly harp on about this and Siege of Cthonia and Liber Imperium, etc being a waste of time or worse than first edition someone who is deciding to jump into the game may not, and that’s not right. 
 

The new edition is fun. These books are cool. They are worth it if you like the setting. The game doesn’t just exist for the extremely online small group of hard nose gaming groups that persisted through the dark years. 

[Noserenda]

I mean, that's equally your opinion isn't it? Personally I'm not particularly mechanic focused and I'm still disappointed with the way things are going, and this product in particular is a great example of why.

[Bung]

I am with @Marshal Rohr in this.

 

GW isnt a glass of Nutella, so they cant please everybody and people that are happy dont complaint in online forums.

 

Could stuff be done better? Yes

Is everything only gloom and Doom? No.

 

To be honest for me GW is listening to their customers even if its the speed of tectonic plates for their reaction 

Plastic Tanks, New Epic (LI), etc. are all wishes that were there for years.

 

[Mandragola]

This thread is interesting to read as a reviewer, and highlights why writing reviews is difficult. Inevitably, these things are subjective and we all bring our own biases to them. 

 

The fluff or background sections of books are possibly the hardest bits to review, for me at least. That's partly because I'm personally more game-focused and also because I don't want to give too much away with these stories.

 

But a review does have to come to some kind of value judgement about a product, or it's worthless. It would be a complete cop out to just state that any given item might be nice if it's the kind of thing you like. We need to talk about the quality of it. In this case I don't think that's very good overall but there are good things. The mini campaigns that have been revised for 2.0 are nice things to have in my opinion.

 

As a player I find the growing number of books I have to bring a genuine problem. After one event using Inductii I've decided I won't bother any more, as I don't want to have to bring a hard back book for literally one paragraph about how Raven Guard Inductii aren't even that different to normal tacticals (which is a missed opportunity to do mutants, but whatever). My warhound already has its own book. I wouldn't want to have to bring this too, so I could have rules for a slightly different veteran squad, or whatever. So the fact they didn't even put the existing EC-focused exemplary battle in here, meaning that EC players might have to bring yet another book for their sunkillers in future, is really poor.

 

It certainly isn't all doom and gloom for 30k and I do enjoy playing the game. But let's not pretend that it's perfect either. I now make a point of drastically tuning down my Raven Guard so that games feel fun but even then I've only lost once, against someone who cheated blatantly. The second anyone starts looking at making an effective army (and they basically go for Contemptors and Custodes) the imbalance and the fundamental flaws in the mechanics are exposed. We as players have to do a lot of the work that the game's designers should have done, producing a game that's interesting and fun on the table. That may not matter to you, and that's fine. It does matter to lots of people though and so a reviewer has to give those people an honest impression of the facts as they appear.

 

For me personally the issue is the apparently small amount of effort given to game design and testing compared to the work that goes into the models, art and background. GW have created an incredibly rich setting here but I find gaming in it frustrating. The way the rules are written is just so hard to understand, with paragraphs of text used to explain things like jump packs (over and over again for near-identical things like Fulgrim's wings). Special rules and wargear are scattered all over multiple books. When they do deign to write a FAQ it sometimes makes things worse, as when briefly return fire happened before the active player's shooting (although actually that wasn't what they intended it to do, but that wasn't at all clear). Some of the maddest things right now are that you can summon Ka'Bandha as an overrwatch reaction if somebody charges you (though the rules don't cover what happens if the charge is now blocked) and that Armigers are unaffected by things like krak grenades and battlesmith because they created a new unit type with zero thought on how that would interact (or not) with the game's existing rules. I want the rules writers to do as good a job as the rest of the heresy team and I don't think that's unreasonable.

[TrawlingCleaner]

=][= As these are out in the wild now, I'll close this topic as is normal procedure. The best bet to continue discussion is in the Horus Heresy subforum =][=