Horus Heresy 2nd Ed HH design changes

[Razorblade]

Well then they should have gotten different playtesters.

I've got to sound like a broken record by now, but what the design team thinks or intends is irrelevant if it has no correlation to the factual documents they are releasing. And if they don't realize the disconnect that is a sign of incompetence on their part.

Again these are professionals who are being paid to write rules. If the game they design ends up bad/not as intended there is no one to blame but them.

If what is played is supposed to be dictated by availability in plastic and game balance is completely on the agreements of individual players we don't need official rules in the first place.

[SkimaskMohawk]

10 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I can also make that argument because we see the designers collections including huge numbers of infantry and tanks, and see their armies at events including huge numbers of infantry and tanks.

 

17 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

To be clear when I say a “massed battle game” I am talking specifically about a game that is meant to represent big battles and not Skirmishes - which is what AoS and 40K are, with their weird XCom style unit 12D rock paper scissors design and encouraging players to take multiple small units with different wargear. Even if players spam the same unit over and over because it is more efficient, 40K is designed to get you to take one of a bunch of different types of units and a few core choices. Even if 30K has people taking Dreadnaughts and Lascannons because it’s more efficient, it’s designed for you take larger armies with lots of infantry and tanks.

 

Uhhhh....so was 1st? The game always was meant (and able to) represent large battles. Making a collection over 12 years for a game system that always encouraged size and diverse assets is inevitably leads to a large collection of stuff.

 

Neither of these things are indicative of a redesign for mass battles like you originally claimed. A redesign means something changed from one thing to another btw.

 

22 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

The SGDS plays the game as it’s intended and writes rules with certain intentions in mind. The effectiveness of those rules is secondary to how they intend the game to be played.

 

No it's not, it's actually the complete reverse. Idk how to even answer this one because it's such a failure in logic. If you want to design something to do X, but it does Y really well and X really badly, then you didn't design something to do X successfully. Winter car tires that have no traction in snow or ice, but great traction on summer asphalt don't make them winter tires, regardless if the designer drives with them during the winter. 

 

42 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

They know what people complain about because the extremely online people are so very, very loud about their complaints and have not moved to change anything which means the designers don’t see the need to change things. If they don’t see the need to change anything and they know what the issues are, that means it’s not really an issue they consider to be effecting the success of the game. 

 

But they have been? The psychic power

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

 

through reactions was a super egregious thing on thousand sons and word bearers. It took them a year and a half to change it, but they changed it eventually.

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

When you look at the armies in the events they play at, there isn’t much lascannon and dreadnaught spam

 

Remember how anuj's first event right out the gates of 2nd limited dreadnoughts? And then last year's lvo with no dread limits and they were everywhere?

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

There’s a saying that if you meet a jerk in the morning, you’ve met a jerk but if you meet jerks all day - you are the jerk. So if you consistently find that your games are nothing but Dreadnaughts and lascannons, and the designers aren’t changing the rules, you and your group might be the problem. 

 

Uh ya, not imposing houserules/social stigma to change the inclusion rates of units doesn't mean their rules are balanced. Kinda the opposite in fact. 

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

edit: it’s not like they haven’t released an FAQ since the game dropped. They’ve had several chances to change it and they haven’t. So if those chances came and went and the thing you think is a problem didn’t change, then the people responsible for designing the game do not think it’s a problem and they decide what the problems are and aren’t. 

 

Copy pasted, from an earlier:

 

"The day before the last FAQ you would have made the same claim about psychic powers as reactions, but they FAQd it a year and a half into the game's life. It's one or two underpaid guys that are grinding out campaign books to hit marketing deadlines."

 

Or you know, how they gave reavers jump packs eventually. Or increased the salamander characters stats eventually. Or fixed return fire eventually. Or fixed shrouded eventually. 

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

It’s not like a video game where something is actually broken and the game doesn’t work. 

....the video game industry is filled with examples of devs thinking they know what's best for the game, getting tons of backlash, and changing it. Look at all the diablo 4 campfire/round table/whatever discussions as the most modern example of constantly missing and getting blasted. Or darktide. 

 

Just so many things where the dots don't connect at all. Intent of design means more than actual results of design, and a complete contradiction of the two = design success . Dreads et al. aren't imbalanced when you agree not to take them. Anything not FAQd guarantees intent, despite proof that things are slowly getting addressed over time.

[Marshal Rohr]

13 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

 

Uhhhh....so was 1st? The game always was meant (and able to) represent large battles. Making a collection over 12 years for a game system that always encouraged size and diverse assets is inevitably leads to a large collection of stuff.

 

Neither of these things are indicative of a redesign for mass battles like you originally claimed. A redesign means something changed from one thing to another btw.

 

 

No it's not, it's actually the complete reverse. Idk how to even answer this one because it's such a failure in logic. If you want to design something to do X, but it does Y really well and X really badly, then you didn't design something to do X successfully. Winter car tires that have no traction in snow or ice, but great traction on summer asphalt don't make them winter tires, regardless if the designer drives with them during the winter. 

 

 

But they have been? The psychic power

through reactions was a super egregious thing on thousand sons and word bearers. It took them a year and a half to change it, but they changed it eventually.

 

 

Remember how anuj's first event right out the gates of 2nd limited dreadnoughts? And then last year's lvo with no dread limits and they were everywhere?

 

 

Uh ya, not imposing houserules/social stigma to change the inclusion rates of units doesn't mean their rules are balanced. Kinda the opposite in fact. 

 

 

Copy pasted, from an earlier:

 

"The day before the last FAQ you would have made the same claim about psychic powers as reactions, but they FAQd it a year and a half into the game's life. It's one or two underpaid guys that are grinding out campaign books to hit marketing deadlines."

 

Or you know, how they gave reavers jump packs eventually. Or increased the salamander characters stats eventually. Or fixed return fire eventually. Or fixed shrouded eventually. 

 

....the video game industry is filled with examples of devs thinking they know what's best for the game, getting tons of backlash, and changing it. Look at all the diablo 4 campfire/round table/whatever discussions as the most modern example of constantly missing and getting blasted. Or darktide. 

 

Just so many things where the dots don't connect at all. Intent of design means more than actual results of design, and a complete contradiction of the two = design success . Dreads et al. aren't imbalanced when you agree not to take them. Anything not FAQd guarantees intent, despite proof that things are slowly getting addressed over time.

Well, you’re wrong simply because they updated the Mech FAQ within 48 hours of feedback in December. There’s nothing stoping them from addressing the issues right now. Again, they did redesign the game for mass battles and it’s evidenced through the product cost. You can disagree if you want but you’re wrong. You were complaining about the cost of resin rapiers the other day like they aren’t coming out in plastic.  

Edited February 6 by Marshal Rohr

[Razorblade]

34 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Well, you’re wrong simply because they updated the Mech FAQ within 48 hours of feedback in December. There’s nothing stoping them from addressing the issues right now. Again, they did redesign the game for mass battles and it’s evidenced through the product cost. You can disagree if you want but you’re wrong. You were complaining about the cost of resin rapiers the other day like they aren’t coming out in plastic.  

So by your logic auxilia wasn't a mass army in 1st?

HH1 was intended for fewer models than conventional 40k?

I guess 5th edition 40k, widely remembered as the mechanized edition was secretly a mass infantry game? 

Edited February 6 by Razorblade

[Marshal Rohr]

49 minutes ago, Razorblade said:

So by your logic auxilia wasn't a mass army in 1st?

HH1 was intended for fewer models than conventional 40k?

I guess 5th edition 40k, widely remembered as the mechanized edition was secretly a mass infantry game? 

Dont take my word for it, take it from Andy who specifically said in an interview that resin models need to feel big and tough on the table because people won’t buy that many of them. They redesigned Titanicus after the shift to plastic because they initially assumed people would have only one or two titans in resin. James Hewitt mentions it in interviews as well. 
 HH1 was intended for people to have fewer models, made from resin kits, back when Betrayal came out all those years ago. Why is the Sicaran 1-2 now and it was 1 per slot before. Why are Veletarii 10-20 now and were 10 flat before? Why is the basic box 20 Legionaries instead of 5 with no weapons? Because the design shifted when the game went to plastic. 
 

Solar Auxilia were initially designed so people could have a mortal trooper allied detachment - it’s why the old list fit all of the purchasable units into the Allied Detachment Force Org. You didn’t find it odd Leman Russ were Fast Attack and Elite Veletarii were Troops? It’s so a player could buy a Tactical Command Section, 60 Auxiliaries, 30 Veletarii, Charonites, 3 Leman Russ, and a Malcador or Artillery Tanks. It fits all the products neatly into detachment. It’s why they just stopped developing units for the Solar Aux in spite of Pioneers and Optimates and other things being mentioned in Conquest. That was clear when they were released with Conquest. Whatever rules and design changes occurred and club playstyles happened later after Bligh died and Heresy spent years in stasis is irrelevant to what the Solar Aux were initially created as in the Resin Heresy days. Now that Solar Aux are in affordable plastic, they are meant to be a stand alone army of massed infantry and tanks and some artillery. That’s why every force organization slot is now many more units per slot. Previously you could take 12 Rapiers in a whole army, now you can take 27 if you want. Why wouldn’t they just leave rapiers as 1-3 in elites if they didn’t expect people to buy more? If the designers were not trying to push specific tabletop roles for factions they’d release things like Skitarii and the Imperial Army but they don’t because those armies would step on Solar Auxilia massed 4+ infantry and massed tanks table top playstyle they want for plastic SolAux. Instead we got a militia list that is really meant to represent cultists and traitor rabble hordes and not regular army. 
 

The same philosophy applies to Mechanicum, where your previously super lethal Castellax that cost a fortune in resin are now not so lethal and you’ll be able to buy six for 300 bucks. 

 

Edited February 6 by Marshal Rohr

[Noserenda]

My word Rohr, really letting all your wrong out today arent we? :D Material only has a very, verrrrry loose connection to rules and only to stop people feeling they had to buy a hundred resin guard infantry. Resin units have been consistently sub optimal since they existed apart from memorable screw ups :D 

They stopped making more SA because the sculptor left, literally no other reason.

On rules. and this is only my inference from discussions with some of the designers over faq questions, but i definitely got the impression that the things they want to do with the game are not matching what is being released, either in speed or content. Ultimately things are a lot more complicated than the rules team writing what they think is the best rules and releasing updates as soon as they can to fix problems. 

That, and, as mentioned above they are at least somewhat involved in all the SGS releases (Though they are advertising for a necromunda rules bod specifically right now) and they are right in the middle of releasing two other games right now, at least one agonisingly behind schedule for reasons probably unrelated to them. There is a lot going on as long as the wheels are only shrieking and throwing up the odd spark they are still turning! :P 

[SkimaskMohawk]

3 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Well, you’re wrong simply because they updated the Mech FAQ within 48 hours of feedback in December. There’s nothing stoping them from addressing the issues right now. 

 

But I'm not wrong, because it took them a year and a half to do things like rylanor ws and attacks, nerf to fulmentarus, extra wound to attack bikes and give the armiger interactions with haywire and the rest. According to your logic on December 4th, these units would have been fully intentional in their previous iteration because there'd been FAQ's and they were never touched. 

 

3 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Again, they did redesign the game for mass battles and it’s evidenced through the product cost.

 

Repeating it doesn't add any extra weight to the argument. Having the same end army be more accessible due to price isn't the designers restructuring the game. These things aren't the same.

 

3 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

You were complaining about the cost of resin rapiers the other day like they aren’t coming out in plastic

 

And you completely misunderstood my "complaint" if you're bringing it up here. It being that nullifying a legacy playstyle and asking to spam out as much as possible would cost a collector of dracosans and malcs an extra $720 to transition to Russes, or $2000 for rapiers. And that was using the plastic price for Russes. And this "complaint" was all because you said "the entire point of solar aux is to flood the board with stuff in the new rules". 

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

HH1 was intended for people to have fewer models, made from resin kits, back when Betrayal came out all those years ago.

 

This is complete insanity. It came out at the start of 6th, when the standard game was 1500; betrayal increased the size of games up to another 1000 and decreased the points of stuff like tactical marines. Bligh eventually settled on 1750-3500 for his game size for 1st. It was absolutely meant to have more models than 40k and to represent mass battles.

 

They tried to redesign from a sandbox into a mass infantry game...and completely failed in that attempt.

 

Edited February 6 by SkimaskMohawk

[Marshal Rohr]

Betrayal came out the same year as 6th edition, in 2012. Like three months after 6th edition. It was built and playtested off of Badab Era games. You weren’t here when it was released. You didn’t join until 2015. You weren’t here when all the project logs were ten man tactical squads and five man support squads and one resin tank. When Age of Darkness 1.0 was released the “norm” had shifted from what the first few years were. From 2012 to 2017 they released plastic infantry, the UK and Aus groups had set the tone for ‘massed battles’ gradually increasing in size. Maybe because you weren’t here but whatever idea you have about how this game evolved is wrong. I shouldn’t have to explain that 4-5th edition games (when Betrayal was playtested) were like 30-40 models for marine armies at 2K points. My current 30K Blood Angels list has 60 Legionaries in the first thousand points. So I guess I should be more specific about what massed battles mean and  how much armies grew by AoD1 and now AoD2. 

27 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

They tried to redesign from a sandbox into a mass infantry game...and completely failed in that attempt.

You should continue to comment that on the pictures of people having fun at events. Eventually they might stop having fun. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

13 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Betrayal came out the same year as 6th edition, in 2012. It was built and playtested off of Badab Era games.

That's what I said. It came out in October 2012, right close to the start of 6th a few months earlier. I got it when it came out. It was definitely built off badab war, and I had those books too, because I played marines in 5th so, so much.

 

18 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

You weren’t here when it was released. You didn’t join until 2015. You weren’t here when all the project logs were ten man tactical squads and five man support squads and one resin tank. When Age of Darkness 1.0 was released the “norm” had shifted from what the first few years were. From 2012 to 2017 they released plastic infantry, the UK and Aus groups had set the tone for ‘massed battles’ gradually increasing in size. Maybe because you weren’t here but whatever idea you have about how this game evolved is wrong. I shouldn’t have to explain that 4-5th edition games (when Betrayal was playtested) were like 30-40 models for marine armies at 2K point

 

? I joined this forum in 2015. I've played 40k since 4th though, and heresy since it came out. Don't tell me how people collected armies in my city; people didn't want small tac units, they wanted to space marine blade storm people at first, and do things they weren't able to do with the 5th Ed codex. Two of the staffers at the GW did heresy armies at launch and they had a lot of blobs right out the gates. Early heresy armies were bigger than the 5th edition marine armies they directly succeeded.

 

People stopped taking as many blobs after 7th came out in 2014 and blasts scooped them with ease. The lists and armies were still bigger than what we had in 4th, 5th and mono-codex 6th...

 

55 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

My current 30K Blood Angels list has 60 Legionaries in the first thousand points. So I guess I should be more specific about what massed battles mean and  how much armies grew by AoD1 and now AoD2. 

 

And my lists have all had far less marines than in 1st, simply because the units aren't as useful. There's no reason to take multiple blobs when they just get pin locked and torched off by scorpii and las, and bounce from elites in melee. 

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

You should continue to comment that on the pictures of people having fun at events. Eventually they might stop having fun. 

 

That literally has no correlation with what i said...

 

Like absolutely none.

[Razorblade]

At this point I'm pretty sure @Marshal Rohris just 3 GW "Gamedesigners" in a trench coat, trying to sell their BS. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

13 hours ago, Xenith said:

Don't worry, as a summer tentpole game, HH3.0 is due for relese next year in 2025 in the 40k/aos/30k cycle, and we'll see things swivel back in another direction, like removing contemptors entirely. 

Without me. I will be buying the HH 2.0 source books which could be useful for my hobby and then play HH Oldhammer just like I do with 40K.

[Marshal Rohr]

23 minutes ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Without me. I will be buying the HH 2.0 source books which could be useful for my hobby and then play HH Oldhammer just like I do with 40K.

You are safe, Specialist games don’t have the same three year life cycle as main studio games. Necromunda didn’t a rules update until last year. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

7 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Without me. I will be buying the HH 2.0 source books which could be useful for my hobby and then play HH Oldhammer just like I do with 40K.

I think it was a joke to lighten the mood here a bit :)

 

I don't have any moderative capacity, and Xenith and the rest of the team will anything that actually violates any rules, so this statement is of course my personal opinion as a hobbyist. It'd be nice for folks to remain cordial here. i know I've personally just glossed over a lot of the thread for that reason.

 

To actually address the topic, I don't think we have much information on how long an edition will last for any of the Specialist Games. They could very well do a three year cycle here and develop a new game if they don't understand what the writers beforehand did. But I don't think so. What I think is happening is that the rules writers for HH had to put out Legions Imperialis as well, and all around, SDS has released all their games. So we may see more in-depth updates going forward, but we'll have to see.

Edited February 7 by WrathOfTheLion

[Xenith]

=][= Come on folks, knock off the chainsword measuring and post dissection. Agree to disagree and move on or tone it back, it's crushing other discussion =][=

[OttoVonAwesome]

Does nobody use companion squads or even know they exist? They are really good can fight space marines in melee toe to toe (WS4 2W I 4 Refractor fields) can be equipped with power weapons, charnabal weapons, special weapons, fill any gap you need to fill and you can have 50 of them and still take a legate marshal. High str low ap artillery is alot more effective than people think like I said before force 6 saves kill 2 marines not that you should take basilisks against marines you should take executioners and demolisher cannons and send them to the next dimension.

 

This is oldhammer rules you don't just take one list to take on all comers you tailored them based on your opponents armies. Remember in 6th when you'd buy a new unit to deal with your friends Ork army build that was kicking your ass that you'd never use against your buddies Grey Knights for example. I don't get some of these complaints like oh blobs of tactical marines are no good... Against who other marines of course but Despoilers are and take those tacticals against militia and they'll take more heads than Templar Brethren will. All that artillery people complaining about will absolutely demolish Solar Aux, Militia and blobs of Tech thralls. I garuntee optimized marine killing armies are gonna do very poorly against real stacked Solar Auxilia lists.

 

Balance in older editions really depends on local meta and what people have in thier collections so it's totally fine to throttle your lists if you buddy doesn't own 3 contemptors and a bunch of good anti marine units to take you on with it's up to you to police yourself when playing in a non competitive environment that being said there's a few broken things for sure and we should definitely be pressuring GW to faq them like they did to the Fulmentarus spammers (Custodes cough...). If every unit is all around good against everything you are gonna end with a situation like with 40k where the meta forms around competitive play and all of sudden your lists get boiled down to what is the very best and 70% of the codex is trash and just collects dust forever and what makes 30k great is that thing that's been collecting dust over on the shelf well today I'm fighting Jimbo and he takes 140 militia guardsmen as allies and it's absolutely perfect for the job. Two totally different games. 

 

It is tough though that Marines are so incredibly flexible with so many units and rites to choose from it's incredibly easy to collect and tailor your list to your exact opponent so they will likely continue to be the dominant faction in any meta and it's really easy to look at the other armies and just say oh it's hopeless cuase they just don't have as many tools at hand but it's really not that bad and the beauty of the older systems is well you can take allies whenever you want any list can be supplemented with another and while the other armies need new units to add to thier diversity you don't have to wait for GW to make them. There's no xenos getting left out in the cold every faction in the game is an imperial faction so every single army is essentially an add on to whatever you play and that's how you should really look at the game as a whole at least for now. When you do the balance issues that remain seem alot more trivial. Anyway that's my opinion.

 

On 2/6/2024 at 2:56 PM, Marshal Rohr said:

You are safe, Specialist games don’t have the same three year life cycle as main studio games. Necromunda didn’t a rules update until last year. 

Yeah it takes awhile but they'll get around to some .5 edition redbook release eventually. The rules release model seems to be mirroring Necromunda pretty well. After so many campaign books come out they'll wanna tighten up bloat and do a balance pass at the same time.

[SkimaskMohawk]

3 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

Does nobody use companion squads or even know they exist? They are really good can fight space marines in melee toe to toe (WS4 2W I 4 Refractor fields) can be equipped with power weapons, charnabal weapons, special weapons, fill any gap you need to fill and you can have 50 of them and still take a legate marshal.

 

You know what, I think it's fair to say they are overlooked. They're a pretty good unit, but here's the thing. You can build them as all power weapon bullies for 220, but power weapon marine vets are 255 and are...middling? Fine? Not a power unit. But, you can also build them as a melta/plasma delivery unit for 270/220 compared to the support slots 295/245, with extra wounds, a 5+ invul, stubborn, melta bombs, and a near mandatory reroll 1s/+1 LD from Reborn (add 5 for a vox interlock to get stubborn 11)? With access to a rhino, without cluttering the troops for scoring? Ya, they can be really good. But...*

 

4 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

High str low ap artillery is alot more effective than people think like I said before force 6 saves kill 2 marines not that you should take basilisks against marines you should take executioners and demolisher cannons and send them to the next dimension.

 

Both executioners and demolishers are available to marines to a max of 12 and 9. They are fine against power armour, but bounce from dreads, terminators, and heavier vehicles. They're never seen, and that's on a cheaper hull than what solar aux can take by like 40 and 80 points. A tank that's pushing 200 can't afford to average 30 points of marines a volley.

 

4 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

This is oldhammer rules you don't just take one list to take on all comers you tailored them based on your opponents armies. Remember in 6th when you'd buy a new unit to deal with your friends Ork army build that was kicking your ass that you'd never use against your buddies Grey Knights for example.

 

No...? 5th and 6th were the originators of the TAC list. Pickup games were the norm back then, and explicit tailoring for faction and list was frowned on. The guy who asked you for next game while watching you play and pulls out a ton of perfect tech units for your list. Mad :cuss: would be talked about them. Reading the meta to take a list that's good into multiple factions was a skill back in the day, especially for us who attended tournaments regularly.

 

4 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

I don't get some of these complaints like oh blobs of tactical marines are no good...

 

Because going all in on tactical blobs (like with apothecary support) still gets hammered by contemptors, by las heavy support, by scorpii, and by snipers. The units that are top tier. They also get gobbled by tons of elite melee units because ap3 is prevalent in that category. They're fine, but we figured out they were a trap to go hard into during the play test leaks. 

 

5 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

Against who other marines of course but Despoilers are and take those tacticals against militia and they'll take more heads than Templar Brethren will.

...templars are a trap unit. Theyre only good into power armour, and therefore, not very good in general. 

 

5 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

All that artillery people complaining about will absolutely demolish Solar Aux, Militia and blobs of Tech thralls. I garuntee optimized marine killing armies are gonna do very poorly against real stacked Solar Auxilia lists.

 

Yes, but you won't even need to take the artillery people complain about. Because you can take the good artillery you already took; the Scorpius. It's way cheaper, way more reliable into all marine profiles, pinning, and still ap4. And this is where my * from earlier comes in. The Scorpius still torches the companions and lowers the durability of the 2nd wound.

 

Solar aux have some tools to win, no doubt. But its the narrowness of those tools and the amount of money you need to spend on like, 4 units that's discouraging. It's an uphill battle that feels bad because of how much got taken away from preexisting collectors and how much it asks in money to build back up. 

 

 

[OttoVonAwesome]

On 2/8/2024 at 6:53 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

You know what, I think it's fair to say they are overlooked. They're a pretty good unit, but here's the thing. You can build them as all power weapon bullies for 220, but power weapon marine vets are 255 and are...middling? Fine? Not a power unit. But, you can also build them as a melta/plasma delivery unit for 270/220 compared to the support slots 295/245, with extra wounds, a 5+ invul, stubborn, melta bombs, and a near mandatory reroll 1s/+1 LD from Reborn (add 5 for a vox interlock to get stubborn 11)? With access to a rhino, without cluttering the troops for scoring? Ya, they can be really good. But...*

 

 

Both executioners and demolishers are available to marines to a max of 12 and 9. They are fine against power armour, but bounce from dreads, terminators, and heavier vehicles. They're never seen, and that's on a cheaper hull than what solar aux can take by like 40 and 80 points. A tank that's pushing 200 can't afford to average 30 points of marines a volley.

 

 

No...? 5th and 6th were the originators of the TAC list. Pickup games were the norm back then, and explicit tailoring for faction and list was frowned on. The guy who asked you for next game while watching you play and pulls out a ton of perfect tech units for your list. Mad would be talked about them. Reading the meta to take a list that's good into multiple factions was a skill back in the day, especially for us who attended tournaments regularly.

 

 

Because going all in on tactical blobs (like with apothecary support) still gets hammered by contemptors, by las heavy support, by scorpii, and by snipers. The units that are top tier. They also get gobbled by tons of elite melee units because ap3 is prevalent in that category. They're fine, but we figured out they were a trap to go hard into during the play test leaks. 

 

...templars are a trap unit. Theyre only good into power armour, and therefore, not very good in general. 

 

 

Yes, but you won't even need to take the artillery people complain about. Because you can take the good artillery you already took; the Scorpius. It's way cheaper, way more reliable into all marine profiles, pinning, and still ap4. And this is where my * from earlier comes in. The Scorpius still torches the companions and lowers the durability of the 2nd wound.

 

Solar aux have some tools to win, no doubt. But its the narrowness of those tools and the amount of money you need to spend on like, 4 units that's discouraging. It's an uphill battle that feels bad because of how much got taken away from preexisting collectors and how much it asks in money to build back up. 

 

 

The companions are def overlooked whatever gap you have can be filled by a specialized unit of these guys. Depending how you skew I actually think Penal Legions and Macragge can be alot better than reborn.

 

Marines get everything in every slot they are the swiss army knife of 30k so yeah but those are gonna be your tank killers and marine sweepers against marines. Terminators and dreads you prolly gotta pick em apart you don't have a total counter unit and you shouldn't but you can handle them with what you got anyway it's just gonna cost you.

 

Tourney's were diff pickups are also more casual but playing against friends in grudge matches for fun also got really competitive with people flipping units and changing lists and all of these types of games were great I really miss them.

 

I don't mean tactical blobs so much as using the right ones for the job tacticals are for sitting on objectives otherwise despoilers are always better.

 

Templar's are great. Against 3+ saves. If you want an elite army templar assualt is stupidly fun

 

The scorpius is busted. 120 points. Can't use that. When will it ever have to move?

 

The tools are there just the lack of options will hurt every army because marines just have so many tools so it' so much easier to craft an optimized list. I can collect marines and be confident I can take anyone on easily that alone will make sure they always dominate a meta. I also feel it's gw's fualt for dragging thier heels on adding real guard the second line imperial army and skitarrii to the basic line up of armies. Thier models are there in plastic they only lack rules. The game doesn't need as much diversity as 40k but it could use more. Copping out and making deamons and militia non competitive on purpose didn't help. Still more fun than 40k. As long they only improve on the rules and add units 30k is destined for greatness. Just not marine units they have enough just get thier new models out. lol Special Characters are fine though please add special characters every campaign book gw and actually do the models. Who knows they might be listening.

[SkimaskMohawk]

21 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

The companions are def overlooked whatever gap you have can be filled by a specialized unit of these guys. Depending how you skew I actually think Penal Legions and Macragge can be alot better than reborn.

 

Ultramar, imo, are a worse choice. You go from a 77% chance to hit to a 83% chance, but you have to be base-to-base, lose access to transports, and lose the stubborn 11 trick (across the entire army). The rerolls of 1s also goes nicely when taking plasma.

 

Penal legions....eh? You'll get furious charge for the companions. Fnp on normal guys gets ignored by any guns that wants to scoop. The benefits are much more marginal to the units you can take in a list.

 

I like reborn so much because the stubborn 11 thing plays well into the mass infantry feel the army is forcing, on top of the rerolls of 1. 

 

21 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

Marines get everything in every slot they are the swiss army knife of 30k so yeah but those are gonna be your tank killers and marine sweepers against marines. 

 

Marines get what they got in 1st. Every other army used to have multi-slot efficiency, and now they really don't. They're usually forced into some very specific units to solve specific problems, and 2nd is dominated by specific problems to solve. Mono-option isn't fun.

 

21 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

Terminators and dreads you prolly gotta pick em apart you don't have a total counter unit and you shouldn't but you can handle them with what you got anyway it's just gonna cost you.

 

But the other book factions all have total counter units, so why shouldn't solar aux have them?

 

21 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

Templar's are great. Against 3+ saves. If you want an elite army templar assualt is stupidly fun

 3+ saves are super easy to clear through though. They're basically power weapon vets in artificer, a rather mid-tier choice, but stuck with the worst power weapon. They ain't great. 

 

21 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

The scorpius is busted. 120 points. Can't use that. When will it ever have to move?

 

Yes, thats why it's used so much. 120/225 for the squad and they rain it down on everything. It allows you to interact with a lot of units, from the safety of out of los. 

 

 

[MegaVolt87]

Again, while the devs may very well have envisioned HH/ HH 2.0 as a mass battle game, the community definitely sees that as an option not as the primary way to play. Low infantry MEQ relying on more costly infantry like legion specials and termi's, with select support are just as competitive as a power armoured tide with dreads. I'm glad the sicaran was mentioned as an example. I have come to a new conclusion with 2.0 vehicles as a result.  A 1.0 Sicaran was 165pts with no sponsons, 185 pts with HB sponsons, which would go on to be stock on all vehicles in 2.0. The 2.0 Sicaran is 190 points with the HB sponsons, the second one is 175 points with the same. I find this interesting because if the intent was the spectacle of mass battle combined infantry and armoured units, then keeping the 1.0 pts makes no sense, every sicaran should be 175 points in a squadron regardless.  The pts discount on the subsequent vehicles are not enough to justify their existence in a unit, but at 175pts, while people would still not take x2 sicaran in the one slot, that saved 15pts filters through. I take x2 sicaran's save 30pts, re-equip a sarge now I have 35 points for a rhino I would not otherwise have had for say that plasma tac support squad. Which, funnily enough after looking at my UM 3k list if I use the 2nd tank points, I save 15 a piece from the LR, x2 Arcus thats 45 points for the rhino with HB I wanted for believe it or not- the plasma tac supports. Just because there is a "vision", that dose not mean the HH devs are immune to ineffectively implementing or outright failing to achieve it in reality.  

 

I also find it amusing that Anjui (?) ex HH lead designer house ruled dreads for his event via an artificial homebrew cap when he had the opportunity to properly balance them as the actual game designer. This tells me he knowingly knew of at least one issue and chose to do nothing about it, so its now a plausible conclusion that they knew about the other problems the community picked up on and still did nothing to change or improve them. Then again, with what GW pays its game devs and the toxic internal company culture, maybe I am judging him too harshly, I might not care at that point either to be fair. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Louise said the SGDS was not experiencing the same toxicity issues the other parts of the company were in an interview. Considering the only dev who has left since she moved to WarhammerTV then out on her own is Anuj, the idea the SGDS is toxic is false. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Interesting that old world recieved a pretty solid faq today. It balance changes a bit, explains some tricky mechanical interactions, and closes a lot of argued over interpretation loopholes. 

 

The games been out 3 months and their team has given it as much faq support as heresy's had in almost 2 years (and way more than legions imperialis). They're all from the specialist game team, all operating on legacy rulesets, and all can be claimed to be more narrative than the highly competitive modern 40k. Just seems like the devs on the old world actually have time to spend on their game compared to their 30k counterparts.

[Noserenda]

Reading between the lines, i get the feeling some of the 30k team/leadership at least consider not doing FAQs as a selling point for the system rather than a detriment, which if true is just all kinds of f-ed up frankly.

Though less people send useful messages to the FAQ email than one might expect, so if you find a problem folks, do email.

(But again, im reading between the lines)

Edited April 9 by Noserenda

[Astartes Consul]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Reading between the lines, i get the feeling some of the 30k team/leadership at least consider not doing FAQs as a selling point for the system rather than a detriment, which if true is just all kinds of f-ed up frankly.

Though less people send useful messages to the FAQ email than one might expect, so if you find a problem folks, do email.

(But again, im reading between the lines)

 
I’d thought that too. If it is the case, could someone pop by Nottingham and suggest that some middle ground between ‘No FAQs at all’ and ‘40k FAQ / Balance Changes Every Other Week’ that could be aimed for?

[sarabando]

should have 1 FAQ percycle Year 1 release year 2 FAQ year 3 new edition etcif they stay with 3 year cycles

 

[WolfLogic]

On 2/6/2024 at 9:31 AM, MegaVolt87 said:

Well, that's the thing. GW Devs always have their own ideas for the game which more often than not are not aligned with what players are wanting or expecting. They don't even listen to their playtesters anymore. It took the HH community all of 10 minutes to see-

 

-OP MEQ infantry and walkers

- nerfed arty (good scorp tho)

- Lack of general infantry releases, especially melee.

- bad armoured units rules. 

- strong reactions

- useless flyers

 

The community acted accordingly- 

- x4 elite slots, x2 contemptors a no brainer pick.

- Volkite and lascannon spam to crack termi's and legion special units like UM suzies. 

- x2 scorps only arty to see because it's the only effective one. 

- Lack of plastic infantry, easier on the wallet to get legion special units instead of generics for melee, good value for effectiveness to the dollars spent. 

- Most stuck with a Spartan, endpoint is a death Star to put into it. 

- min/max meta of vehicles to not be at a disadvantage. eg- x2 preads chassis a slot, solo sicaran arcus a slot etc. 

 

That's just the surface stuff, there are still plenty of unclear interactions with the finer details. You can't buff infantry the way they did and completely cut the legs out from arty for example. Feels like the few diamonds in the rough were left in on purposes like the scorp by someone throwing us a bone under the nose of a senior who thinks they know better. 

Do you and your group embrace the WAAC mindset? My local group is around 20 or so people and they all play different armies and styles, and we all communicate what kind of game we want to play and someone who wants something similar agrees to play them. I've played literally 1 game with both of my Scorpius' and 3x contemptors and that was a game where the other guy wanted his opponent to bring the strongest list they could. It's fairly easy IMO to lean away from having these problems if you actually want to