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

[SkimaskMohawk]

51 minutes ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Sure and the devs admitted that the rules are complex. In the past I have been a Dungeon Master (RPG) for ten years. Keeping track of multiple players and monsters´ stats and current spell effects with individual durations had been daily routine. So such an experience would lend itself as good training to be able to figure out what is going with the ebb and flow of battle. 

 

 

I think a lot of the issue has to come down to hopes, expectations, and comparative implementation.

 

Shattered legions were opponents permission locked in 1st, presumably to avoid cynical unit choices. I think there was some hope that they'd be a normal faction that followed the same list building ideas. That's kinda what happened, but they upped the ante on the mixed legion stuff to where they still kinda locked the army out of some game modes. But then you can flip through the same book and find a bunch of zanny list building stuff for blackshields, and they're not discouraged from being used. So the thoughts are probably if they dialed back some of the mutable tactics then maybe they wouldn't need the restriction.

 

I'm glad the narrative crowd enjoys the book keeping that results out of the new shattered legions rules, and that it harkens back to rpg mechanics. But, if the question you asked was basically "will it really impact tournament play if you used the rules" the answer would be yes, simply for the decision points on movement and allocation in preparation for the next phase you'd need to have traits take effect for. Ideally the remembering of each units active traits/flaws wouldn't be a big issue with proper gaming aids like tokens, especially in a tournament.

 

 

[Captain Idaho]

=][= Heads up for everyone - chill. No reason to be snide in responses; I've had to remove such posts =][=

[Etruscan]

18 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

Those are mostly Orlock weapons from Necromunda.

Interesting. Does this imply Black Shields have limited access to the traditional Astartes armoury?

[tinpact]

36 minutes ago, Etruscan said:

Does this imply Black Shields have limited access to the traditional Astartes armoury?

Sort of; it's one of the possible traits you can pick for a Blackshield detachment, to represent a force with depleted resources.

 

I don't know that dual autoguns is a good loadout by any means (although depending on shots it might compare favorably to bolters), but it does look cool. In terms of actual gameplay, I think shotguns will probably be the go-to choice.

Edited March 24 by tinpact

[Marshal Rohr]

Dual wielding shotguns will definitely be the coolest choice. 

[Piousservant]

Add my vote to the very disappointed with what the shattered legions are sounding like.  They're such a cool concept, so its a real shame the rules look so off-putting - though you almost have to laugh about GW putting a health warning in the book that their rules are a poorly written mess. I'll wait till I actually have the book in hand, but it seems like it might be better to have a shattered legion fluff list but use the blackshield rules.

 

On the more positive side,  the Legiones Auxilia rules look cool - would be great to get some actual similar variations for the 'main' Solar regiments too.

 

[Stitch5000]

On 3/23/2024 at 7:35 PM, Marshal Rohr said:

They should’ve made each squads rules for Shattered Legions dependent on the Sergeant, and if he gets killed then the majority and minority thing kicks in. That way you could do something like stick a salamander sergeant in a heavy weapons squad and they get whatever the buff is until he gets killed. 

That's a great idea except isn't that exactly what everyone hates about Thousand Sons?

[Marshal Rohr]

2 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

That's a great idea except isn't that exactly what everyone hates about Thousand Sons?

I have no idea, I have looked at the Thousand Sons rules exactly one time. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

4 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

That's a great idea except isn't that exactly what everyone hates about Thousand Sons?

 

The thousand sons I've played against leverage way more success from their psychic ICs and the mini force on plasma than the individual cult arcanas on generic squads. 

 

 

 

 

[ruralguardhipcat]

Would love to see the Salamander Legions Auxilia rules if anyone has seen them

[Mandragola]

Having written the review on goonhammer I thought I’d explain why I think the shattered legion rules are such a problem. 
 

It’s emphatically nothing to do with tournaments. I don’t think 30k tournaments exist and I’d never go to one. The game is not remotely suitable for tournament play. Even if some mad person did run a 30k tournament the Shattered legion rules explicitly say they aren’t suitable for those events. Let’s all stop talking about tournaments. 
 

These rules are not suitable for narrative events or club nights because they will take too long. Counting takes time, though maybe not much. But *choosing* does take time and there are many choices to make. Which casualties do you take off, where do you position models, what does your opponent snipe and what rules do you choose to use. 
 

Because you will very often get to decide what rules you use and that has some weird effects. But basically it means you will often get the benefits of multiple legions and none of the flaws. 
 

Any unit that has an equal number of models in either the majority or minority gets to pick whose rules to use, every phase. A 5-model unit will always have either 2, 2 and 1 models or 3, 1 and 1, so they’ll get to pick who has the majority or the minority throughout the game. A 3-model unit like a bike squad will have complete freedom of choice for majority and minority. 
 

Most of the traits are only relevant some of the time so they can easily be ignored in phases where they don’t apply. Don’t like your blood angels flaw that makes you have to charge something you don’t want to? Swap to the iron hands one that says you can’t run - which is irrelevant in the assault phase. 
 

Or if you prefer, have two (or three) equal majorities. Get a bonus to your shooting in the shooting phase and to melee in the assault phase. 
 

The traits themselves are characterful, but that’s the easy bit. Any of us could have given Fists a bonus of some sort with their bolters and so on, to tick those boxes. That part is easy. The hard bit is taking the thematic stuff and writing fun, practical rules that work on gaming tables. They haven’t done that, in my opinion. 
 

There are other issues, like having given no thought to what happens if these traits are applied to single-model units like dreadnoughts and vehicles. The result is nonsense like night lords dreadnoughts that are never allowed to declare a charge. 
 

Personally, I don’t find the idea of constantly changing traits thematic for shattered legions. A unit could have a mixture of benefits and flaws based on how well the legionaries get on but I don’t think they’d keep holding votes on how they should behave. That said, opinions can reasonably vary on this point. Maybe if all of the members of a particular legion are gone their bonuses should go.
 

I think players deserve better than this in a book we’re being asked to pay for. The rest of the book is a lot better than this section. This is a mess. 

[jaxom]

50 minutes ago, Mandragola said:

Personally, I don’t find the idea of constantly changing traits thematic for shattered legions. A unit could have a mixture of benefits and flaws based on how well the legionaries get on but I don’t think they’d keep holding votes on how they should behave.

 

Here's how I'd approach what it seems like they were going for:

1. You must have at least one HQ per legion your using (with up to three legions, maximum); one HQ of each chosen legion.
2. Each HQ choice has the Major Trait for their legion.
3. You must have at least one non-HQ, non-dedicated transport unit per legion you are using.
4. Non-legion specific squads (e.g. Tactical, Assault, Support) must contain as even a mix of legionaries as possible. The sergeant's legion determines which legion the squad counts as for the purpose of number 3.
5. You can take 1 legion specific squad (e.g. Mor Deythan, Pyroclasts, Immortals, Inner Circle Cenobites, Justaerin) per 1000 points. 
6. Each unit gains the Minor Trait and Flaw for each legionary's legion  (e.g. a unit containing models representing two legions would have two Minor Traits and two Flaws). Minor Traits and Minor Flaws are always active.
7. At the beginning of the turn, if a unit is within 6" of an HQ, the unit gains the Major Trait if they share the same legion with the HQ or ignores the Flaw of the HQ's legion if the unit is of a different legion. This lasts until the beginning of your next turn.

It represents the charisma and influence of officer-types holding these forces together, the strengths and weaknesses of different gene-lines trying to operate in a single squad, does most of the heavy lifting during the list building process, and still has some play on the battlefield to change how units are working.

[Lord Marshal]

Last two Legiones Auxilia traits:

 

Salamanders: Auxilia increase their Cover Save against Shooting Attacks to 4+ if an intervening unit is composed entirely of Salamanders models.

 

Alpha Legion: If a Shooting Attack is declared against a unit composed entirely of Alpha Legion and there's a unit of Auxilia with at least one model within 12" the shooter can draw line of sight to, the shooting unit has to pass a Leadership Test or else has to target the Auxilia unit instead. 

 

Edited March 26 by Lord Marshal

[Doobles57]

3 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

Last two Legiones Auxilia traits:

 

Salamanders: Auxilia increase their Cover Save against Shooting Attacks to 4+ if an intervening unit is composed entirely of Salamanders models.

 

Alpha Legion: If an Shooting Attack is declared against a unit composed entirely of Alpha Legion and there's a unit of Auxilia with at least one model within 12" the shooter can draw line of sight to, the unit has to pass a Leadership Test or else have to target the Auxilia unit,. 

I like both of those. They feel very characterful.

[Spagunk]

Can't see that image/download for some reason. 

[Marshal Rohr]

9 minutes ago, Spagunk said:

Can't see that image/download for some reason. 

Night Lords Contemptors can only charge units they outnumber, dreadnaughts don’t count as one model. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Image doesn't work for me either, so does this mean they added in a bulky component to dreadnoughts or the few outnumbering rules to take dreads into account?

 

Because going by the other books/FAQs so far, dreadnoughts only count as a single model. It's been a peeve of a lot of night lords players for the past two years, and only made worse with each sentinel unit that's like bulky 4 or 5.

[Marshal Rohr]

Quick search in the only book I have on hand has Dreads as 10 models in the transport bay rules. I’ll look deeper after work. 

[The Unseen]

But that's a rule for the transport bay, not the dreadnought itself. Which should obviously have like Bulky 5 at least. 

Currently unless you use a community FAQ, dreads count as one model, to Night Lord players chagrin and everyone else's "well that's weird".

[lansalt]

The Shattered legions rules have been leaked: https://imgur.com/a/LgsdWVH

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Image doesn't work for me either, so does this mean they added in a bulky component to dreadnoughts or the few outnumbering rules to take dreads into account?

 

Because going by the other books/FAQs so far, dreadnoughts only count as a single model. It's been a peeve of a lot of night lords players for the past two years, and only made worse with each sentinel unit that's like bulky 4 or 5.

I will be using rules from 4th 40K to cover this discrepancy:

 

- Monstrous (e.g. greater daemons) models count as ten models.

- Vehicles (including dreadnoughts) with a WS score and an armour value of 12 or more (this would be a dreadnought) count as ten models.

- Vehicles with a WS score and an armour value of 11 or less (this would be a sentinel) count as five models.

- Other models with more than 1 wound count as much as their wound profile states.

[Noserenda]

Yeah bulky and the like are a classic 3rd gen dancing around the obvious answer, as soon as they started using "size" as a mechanic it should have just become a stat so it could be applied consistently.

[jaxom]

Wait, the Imperial Fist flaw requires the unit to use an available reaction. How does that work if multiple units have the flaw?

[Doobles57]

3 hours ago, jaxom said:

Wait, the Imperial Fist flaw requires the unit to use an available reaction. How does that work if multiple units have the flaw?

It's says you're required to react if you have reactions available. So the first unit it's triggered on will have to react. Assuming you only have 1 reaction available in that phase the rest can't/won't be forced to react. 

[Petitioner's City]

The rules look great, and I do feel goonhammer misrepresented the nature of the caution!

 

 

Honestly they look fun :) just requiring good communication between players, and maybe yes, markers!

Edited March 28 by Petitioner's City