The Horus Heresy Horus Heresy: The Battle for Beta-Garmon

[01RTB01]

Without Rick Priestley and to an extent Andy Chambers we wouldn't have had WFB/ 40k... 

 

In the same vein, Priestly was the chap who put minis, scenery and rules in core boxes. Both named are legends and it'd be fascinating to see what they'd do with 40k now if they were allowed a totally clean slate.

 

[Noserenda]

7 hours ago, Halandaar said:

 

It's nothing to do with opacity; the worst it got was when Matt Ward was essentially hounded out of the company with abuse from the fanbase so pervasive it reputedly included death threats. Robin Cruddace was often on the receiving end too, although not to the same extent. These guys had their names on the books, it was way more transparent than it is today and yet the vitriol level for specific designers was way higher.

 

 

Who actually has a strong reputation from their time designing for GW games though? I reckon it's literally Alessio Cavatore, Tuomas Pirinen, Alan Bligh and Warwick Kinrade. Actually maybe Jeremy Vetock as well, I can't say I remember seeing much negative about his work.

 

Everybody else is somewhere on the scale; they can come out with good stuff but just as likely to be panned by the community for whatever their latest book is.

 

Yes thats exactly the period i was talking about, where we had names but essentially no clue about their reasoning or design choices, as mentioned they were consistent with themselves if not the rest of the game so there was clearly a plan afoot but we were never included or informed, so you get exactly the vitriol we have now, but names to aim at.
 

40 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

Err, Rick Priestley? Andy Chambers? 

And from that later era after these two? Graham McNeill? Nevermind Jervis too!

 

Now if you really want to delve, have a look at the specialist games writers of the 00s - either when it was fanatic, or specialist arms - oft forgotten but brilliant creators, the group from which Bligh and French came! 

 

5 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

Without Rick Priestley and to an extent Andy Chambers we wouldn't have had WFB/ 40k... 

 

In the same vein, Priestly was the chap who put minis, scenery and rules in core boxes. Both named are legends and it'd be fascinating to see what they'd do with 40k now if they were allowed a totally clean slate.

 

And exactly all these names plus loads of others, and the only person who was really vilified was Ward, though there is always someone having a moan at literally anything ever written i think its very telling that all these people leveraged that positive reputation into the rest of their careers. 

But most of them did "bad" things as well, they killed epic or tried to streamline codex rules for two examples but as personalities whose reasoning we have seen (and formed parasocial relationships with) they get a lot more empathy and understanding from the community.
 
Like Rick, Jervis, Andy and Gav are all still very active in wargames writing and ive read recent interviews with them about their current work, a lot of which i suspect shows precisely what they would have done with 40k if it didnt have a mountain of inertia :D 

[Bung]

If you want an Example, Andy Chambers was one of the main writers of the BFG Rules and later worked in Dropfleet Commander.

You clearly see where His skills as Game Designer evolved or he had more freedom.

 

[Matcap86]

What I find weird (having now finished the book) is the amount of art they used of older style models. The painting examples is all the new plastic stuff, but all the black and white faded art pieces in the background are all Resin mk2, old resin Solar Auxilia, 1st edition mk3 and mk4 plastics. 

Feels as if they didn't have the time to redo some of those shots and just recycled old pictures/ones that didn't make the cut previously. 

Edited April 20 by Matcap86

[lansalt]

I noticed that too. Most of the b&w background dioramas are taken from the old Black Books with a few exceptions. For example, almost all with WS are from Malevolence.

There's a ton of recycling and filler.

[Valkyrion]

Wait until the Thousand Sons or Space Wolves campaign book comes out and see if you can spot the modern era tourists that are pictured in Inferno. Then you'll know if anyone is paying attention. 

p44, if you've not seen it before.  Dude casually watching on as the space wolves tear Tizca apart. 

[lansalt]

There's at least a couple of images in this book that I though were taken from Inferno, so I tried to look for the hidden tourists!

[Gamiel]

Reuse of old art is nothing news, GW have always used some existing art when printing new books to established stuff. And from a creator's perspective I can see why since it takes time and money to creat new art and if the old art works just as well you don't need to spend that time (toward the deadline) and money (that would need to increase the finished product's price) on it.

[Valkyrion]

I don't think folk are concerned about the reusing of old art, more surprised that they use old art of old minis when there is an abundance of newness to support. 

It's very much GW's MO that once something has gone, you don't tend to see it again in later publications. It's not a complaint, rather an observation.  

[Matcap86]

 

4 minutes ago, Gamiel said:

Reuse of old art is nothing news, GW have always used some existing art when printing new books to established stuff. And from a creator's perspective I can see why since it takes time and money to creat new art and if the old art works just as well you don't need to spend that time (toward the deadline) and money (that would need to increase the finished product's price) on it.

 

Yeah reusing stuff makes sense, but it gets a bit weird when you use kits and models that are no longer available.

[Petitioner's City]

The bas-de-page aren't to sell models, they are to evoke the story, they are essentially digital dioramas :)

 

But like many here, I am very disappointed with the story in the book.

Edited April 21 by Petitioner's City

[Taliesin]

On 4/20/2024 at 1:22 PM, Gamiel said:

Reuse of old art is nothing news, GW have always used some existing art when printing new books to established stuff. 

 

Well what is quite new is that its being done in the Specialist Games campaign books. I know GW proper does that, mix old art with new in many books, but with forgeworld Black Books you did get new art. I dont know if Siege of Chtonia used quite a bit of older art, I actually dont think it did ( the complaint there was that there wasnt enough art, but not the re-use of older stuff). Still, this Beta Garmon book also does have a lot of new art so that is pleasing.

 

14 hours ago, Petitioner's City said:

The bas-de-page aren't to sell models, they are to evoke the story, they are essentially digital dioramas :)

 

But like many here, I am very disappointed with the story in the book.

 

Thats not a good sign for my enjoyment of the book PC, as I have seen your opinions on campaign books often match mine. Maybe they should have picked a different conflict to focus on after already doing AT: Titandeath and Great Slaughter supplements?

[Xenith]

On 4/18/2024 at 3:42 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

Ward caught a ton of flack for the quality of the lore in his codexes and the huge differential in power they tended to have compared to older books.

 

Key word there being older: Older 4th ed books that he didn't write, and were from an edition that deliberately toned down the power levels before GW about-shipped and made things fun again. The man was unfairly crucified. 

 

As I recall, Ward's books (of which I tink he only did the marines and Necrons) were all fun and powerful, and reasonably balanced internally. It was Robin Cruddace (nids and guard) that made books with terrible external balance, and were 0 and 10 on the power level respectively, yet one is hounded from the company due to bad fluff. The Ward Dexes were great, fun, thematic and strong books that offered a good fight between them, while 5th ed guard 'leafblower' lists were the bane of tournaments due to how strong they were, and nids were nowhere to be seen. Cruddace caught some flack also for writing bad books, however it was much more severe for Ward whose name was on the books with SoB sacrifice and New Necrons. He'd have been much safer writing codexes with bad internal balance, iffy rules, and bland fluff, and probably would have got promoted. 

 

 

[Petitioner's City]

8 hours ago, Taliesin said:

Thats not a good sign for my enjoyment of the book PC, as I have seen your opinions on campaign books often match mine. Maybe they should have picked a different conflict to focus on after already doing AT: Titandeath and Great Slaughter supplements?

 

That's kind of you to say, Taliesin. Yes, I think this is a very over-occupied space, but the writers chose a very narrow focus within the conflict, which I feel was a mistake, as it isn't very interesting in and of itself - and I really agree it doesn't mesh well with the wider corpus of heresy literature, or characterisation in better works. Nor does the text in BG match the tone or breadth of interest of "AK" (beyond the sections adapted from or expanding upon Retribution). 

[SkimaskMohawk]

13 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

Key word there being older: Older 4th ed books that he didn't write, and were from an edition that deliberately toned down the power levels before GW about-shipped and made things fun again. The man was unfairly crucified. 

 

As I recall, Ward's books (of which I tink he only did the marines and Necrons) were all fun and powerful, and reasonably balanced internally. It was Robin Cruddace (nids and guard) that made books with terrible external balance, and were 0 and 10 on the power level respectively, yet one is hounded from the company due to bad fluff. The Ward Dexes were great, fun, thematic and strong books that offered a good fight between them, while 5th ed guard 'leafblower' lists were the bane of tournaments due to how strong they were, and nids were nowhere to be seen. Cruddace caught some flack also for writing bad books, however it was much more severe for Ward whose name was on the books with SoB sacrifice and New Necrons. He'd have been much safer writing codexes with bad internal balance, iffy rules, and bland fluff, and probably would have got promoted. 

 

 

 

 

Ward did the marines, ba, gk, and necrons for 40k 5th and daemons for fantasy 7th.

 

I'm always very confused when I see some of the retrospective tier lists because nids>crons (at least after they nerfed the scarab farm). But regardless, 5th edition books were just all strong. 

 

The most valid of wards criticism is the fluff. It's really bad. And unfortunately these days we don't get it offset by exciting rules most of the time in 30k. Just botched fluff and a mandate to keep solar aux boring as all sin.

[Taliesin]

https://spruesandbrews.com/2024/03/23/the-battle-for-beta-garmon-review-and-solar-auxilia-wave-2-unboxing-warhammer-the-horus-heresy/

 

 

[Noserenda]

If its a Sprues and Brews review im gonna go ahead and assume its glowing, even the bad bits, no especially the bad bits :D 

[crimsondave]

On 4/22/2024 at 6:44 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

 

Ward did the marines, ba, gk, and necrons for 40k 5th and daemons for fantasy 7th.

 

I'm always very confused when I see some of the retrospective tier lists because nids>crons (at least after they nerfed the scarab farm). But regardless, 5th edition books were just all strong. 

 

The most valid of wards criticism is the fluff. It's really bad. And unfortunately these days we don't get it offset by exciting rules most of the time in 30k. Just botched fluff and a mandate to keep solar aux boring as all sin.

I don’t care about Ward’s rules.  His fluff was absolute fan boy trash.  His Draigo/Ultramarines fetish caused me to lose interest in 40K for the better part of 3 editions.  Thankfully the Black Library guys have done a good job of making the smurfs interesting.  I can’t imagine Ward’s fluff if Guilliman was around.  
 

So the consensus is this book is a pass for the fluff?  I was considering buying it but just for the lore.

Edited April 25 by crimsondave

[TheTrans]

3 hours ago, crimsondave said:

I don’t care about Ward’s rules.  His fluff was absolute fan boy trash.  His Draigo/Ultramarines fetish caused me to lose interest in 40K for the better part of 3 editions.  Thankfully the Black Library guys have done a good job of making the smurfs interesting.  I can’t imagine Ward’s fluff if Guilliman was around.  
 

So the consensus is this book is a pass for the fluff?  I was considering buying it but just for the lore.

 

My mate who is very forgiving of 2.0 and is generally a super positive dude who loves the lore... said it was hotgarbage and he liked Siege of Cthonia... so I have not read it, but from that I can take away that it is terrible and a pass.

[Marshal Rohr]

8 hours ago, crimsondave said:

I don’t care about Ward’s rules.  His fluff was absolute fan boy trash.  His Draigo/Ultramarines fetish caused me to lose interest in 40K for the better part of 3 editions.  Thankfully the Black Library guys have done a good job of making the smurfs interesting.  I can’t imagine Ward’s fluff if Guilliman was around.  
 

So the consensus is this book is a pass for the fluff?  I was considering buying it but just for the lore.

It’s got a very weird narration that is out of sync with the black books, Titanicus, Legiones, AND Siege of Cthonia/Exemplary Battles. It’s the only one written this way. 

Edited April 26 by Marshal Rohr

[The Scorpion]

On 4/20/2024 at 5:27 AM, Matcap86 said:

 

 

Yeah reusing stuff makes sense, but it gets a bit weird when you use kits and models that are no longer available.

This has been nothing new. The Black Books blueballed us for years with photos and artwork of Mk2 armor long after it was discontinued.

[beefeb]

On 4/18/2024 at 6:03 PM, 01RTB01 said:

Without Rick Priestley and to an extent Andy Chambers we wouldn't have had WFB/ 40k... 

 

In the same vein, Priestly was the chap who put minis, scenery and rules in core boxes. Both named are legends and it'd be fascinating to see what they'd do with 40k now if they were allowed a totally clean slate.

 

 

 

Have a look at Bolt Action by Warlord Games.  I imagine this is what 40K would look like if Calvatore and Priestley were still involved.  Its an excellent game and uses things like random activations and such to keep the game dynamic, rather than the drudge the current 40K game is.  Theres also a version 3 of Bolt Action coming in september i believe.  Its an excellent game/ruleset.

[Sete]

I'm thinking on buying a copy for the Blackshield stuff, but you guys are killing my vibe. 

[01RTB01]

12 minutes ago, Sete said:

I'm thinking on buying a copy for the Blackshield stuff, but you guys are killing my vibe. 

Grab it anyways. Generally the most vocal are the most damning. If it works for you, go for it.

[No Foes Remain]

14 minutes ago, Sete said:

I'm thinking on buying a copy for the Blackshield stuff, but you guys are killing my vibe. 

The Beta Garmon fluff isn't great but the rest is cool, load more splat art than Cthonia and some nice expanded sections around the Shattered Legions and Black Shields.

 

I am currently in the process of making up a rough concept for a Black Shields force once GW release Mk2 and Mk5 as well as plastic bikers.