opinions on HH legends rules in 40k

[MegaVolt87]

36 minutes ago, Helias_Tancred said:

 

By grace of the number of units FW made that could be used in 40k versus the number of regular 40k units made, definitely. It didn't change the fact the FW units were stronger, which was usually the primary reason someone wanted one in their 40k marine army. 

 

Why did someone want to run a Sicarran over a Predator? It was kinda obvious. 

 

People wanted to run sicarans because they wanted more high tech firstborn. The sicaran varients existed lore wise as an evolution of Astartes tanks. Mk IV IH is also lore accurate as they are one of the few chapters that can build and maintain them in 40k. Super soldiers having super gear makes sense. The repulsur executioner in 8th ed 2.0 Dex was better than most FW units at the time, boxnaughts and the redemptor were not worse than FW dreads either. Power gamers use anything that's good, more viable options only make for a more diverse game. 

[Petitioner's City]

6 hours ago, Helias_Tancred said:

 

By grace of the number of units FW made that could be used in 40k versus the number of regular 40k units made, definitely. It didn't change the fact the FW units were stronger, which was usually the primary reason someone wanted one in their 40k marine army. 

 

Why did someone want to run a Sicarran over a Predator? It was kinda obvious. 

 

 

 

It might also be the idea of fielding a real relic of their chapter? A representation of dire need and the history of it in a priceless, irreplaceable armoured vehicle?

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Helias_Tancred said:

 

 

 

Edited March 12 by Petitioner's City

[Helias_Tancred]

9 hours ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

It might also be the idea of fielding a real relic of their chapter? A representation of dire need and the history of it in a priceless, irreplaceable armoured vehicle?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I get what you guys are saying, and I understand the idea, I tend to be rule of cool > rules power too ... but back then when I was generally playing at my local FLGS and my local GW store that just wasn't the norm for the people that fielded a lot of FW units in their army.

 

Maybe it has been since 9th & 10th? But back in the days of 6th and 7th not so much when you were playing mainly in the stores.

 

 

16 hours ago, crimsondave said:

It was also almost double the points.

 

I guess they felt the increased point cost was worth the increased power of the unit?

[crimsondave]

27 minutes ago, Helias_Tancred said:

 

I get what you guys are saying, and I understand the idea, I tend to be rule of cool > rules power too ... but back then when I was generally playing at my local FLGS and my local GW store that just wasn't the norm for the people that fielded a lot of FW units in their army.

 

Maybe it has been since 9th & 10th? But back in the days of 6th and 7th not so much when you were playing mainly in the stores.

 

 

 

I guess they felt the increased point cost was worth the increased power of the unit?

Hey, man, you’re preaching to the choir about playing in stores.  I have no doubt if there was something from FW OP broke it was showing up for pick up games in stores.  I would seriously rather use 2 of my own armies and play by myself than randoms at a store.  That’s a whole different discussion though.

[Helias_Tancred]

8 hours ago, crimsondave said:

Hey, man, you’re preaching to the choir about playing in stores.  I have no doubt if there was something from FW OP broke it was showing up for pick up games in stores.  I would seriously rather use 2 of my own armies and play by myself than randoms at a store.  That’s a whole different discussion though.

 

Those days color my opinion on 30k models used in 40k, thats why I brought it up. I didn't really get into the details, for example theres a handful of 30k units/models I don't think are a big deal using in a 40k army ... contemptors, and others etc .. and I was not happy when GW removed them from 40k. 

Edited March 13 by Helias_Tancred

[ThePenitentOne]

I really want a Spartan or even two to act as a mobile fortress for my Grey Knights.

 

Deathwatch are air cavalry, because the Corvus is my favourite aircraft in the range, so they don't need any 30k gear.

 

I'd considered Solar Auxilia models for Inquisitorial forces... A couple of those new tiny, light sentinels would look nice on either side of Karamazov. SA Infantry might be good Malleus retinues because their archaic appearance somewhat mirrors the more medieval look of GK termies when contrasted with more conventional terminators.

 

The 30k vehicle I most want 40k rules for is the Kharon Pattern Acquisitor- hands down the creepiest vehicle in the range. And yes, scratch built magnetized witch captives that I can strap to the outside of the vehicle every time the SoS take a Psyker out of action. I love it so much, I'd be willing to pay FW prices for a resin model... If only it had rules.

[Waaagh?]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:06 PM, Petitioner's City said:

 

I take it you never really read old Imperial Armour books? IA2 second edition or IA13, or the Badab duology, all of which really show well how 'heresy' things existed in the 41st millennium (and its predecessors). 

 

IA2 (space marines, second edition) - https://warhammer-vault.com/publication/2Sw0Pixx32tpApvzEnAhE6

 

IA13 (chaos) - https://warhammer-vault.com/publication/5RXGlTpYhoG8rHqEP2fCxE

 

Relevant also for malcadors, macharius, baneblades, etc - IA1 (imperial guard, second edition) - https://warhammer-vault.com/publication/5dqjQhY8g6sVaogT5PGszB

 

The statement you are making is blind to the history and origins of many of these models, but also blind to the narrative they each represent as relics in the modern era!

 

 

 

 

I'm not blind or unaware of IA. I didn't mention lore/history in my post because that's not what I'm talking about and not relevant to my opinion on making Heresy feel like it's own thing with it's own models away from 40k. 

 

As I stressed in my post this is just my opinion so perhaps don't make assumptions about people's knowledge or"blindness" without considering your own.

Edited March 14 by Waaagh?

[gideon stargreave]

A bit off topic, but when forge world first came out there weren’t even rules available. I had a manticore, a ‘king RussI’ and a scout tank and had to just proxy them. Then when they did get rules they were garbage for the most part. Hydras before flyers were a thing for example. 
now as for HH models in 40k, I don’t see why not, but they should have their own rules. Perhaps contemptors would have a possibility of going crazy due to their ancient tech being difficult to maintain, or maybe their relic weapons are prone to get hot or something. 
min any case, I like seeing a bit of Horus heresy stuff in an army, and would have no trouble with someone counts asing a socaran as a predator or whatever, or even porting some rules over

[Petitioner's City]

On 3/14/2024 at 6:04 AM, gideon stargreave said:

A bit off topic, but when forge world first came out there weren’t even rules available. I had a manticore, a ‘king RussI’ and a scout tank and had to just proxy them. Then when they did get rules they were garbage for the most part. Hydras before flyers were a thing for example. 
now as for HH models in 40k, I don’t see why not, but they should have their own rules. Perhaps contemptors would have a possibility of going crazy due to their ancient tech being difficult to maintain, or maybe their relic weapons are prone to get hot or something. 
min any case, I like seeing a bit of Horus heresy stuff in an army, and would have no trouble with someone counts asing a socaran as a predator or whatever, or even porting some rules over

 

The russ and salamander did have rules, but in the Citadel Journal, which not everyone probably knew about. But it was so good. 

 

I presume your 'king' Russ was the conqueror, released and with rules in CJ32:

 

 

And here was the salamander from the next month:

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might be right about the manticore which appeared in the 1999 catalogue, but which first had rules in the 2000 Imperial Armour book (rather than the journal; of the guard vehicles in this catalogue, it was the only one which was first featured in Kinrade's book).

 

 

 

That wonderful book provided official rules for play not requiring consent, and used the Vehicle Design Rules. The above were revised and the manticore appeared!

Edited March 16 by Petitioner's City

[Petitioner's City]

9 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

 

 

Just adding the intro and page from the 2000 first Imperial Armour book :) 

 

 

 

 

[TheTrans]

Isn't all 40k pretty much 'counts as' now anyway given wargear hardly matters?

 

Just say the models are X unit, and as long as it's clear and standard across the army, who cares?

 

[Bryan Blaire]

11 hours ago, TheTrans said:

Isn't all 40k pretty much 'counts as' now anyway given wargear hardly matters?

 

Just say the models are X unit, and as long as it's clear and standard across the army, who cares?

I would have thought that was the way it would have trended, but I hung out in the FLGS for about three hours last weekend watching games and talking with the owner and the guy that was operating the till while my kiddo played some games with friends, and I was struck by the number of players of 40K 10th that were still stuck on WYSIWYG.

 

I’m right there with you though, TheTrans, it seems like it should definitely be that way.  At this point, GW could probably make a killing making modifiable unit indicators for the various army unit types with some kind of slot in options to mark what the unit has, and a small indicator to keep by the unit that does a direct reference for you and the opponent, that way no one would ever get confused.

 

I obviously can’t speak personally on playing the current edition with the HH rules, I don’t play either, but it would be hard for me to understand why someone would have an objection to allowing you to play with a larger model, but still use the 40K rules for it as a similar unit.  I could understand not necessarily wanting to play against HH rules in a 40K game, but there has to be a way to get the rules similar to a comparable 40K unit, and give it a whirl.  It would be nice if folks were more open to trying things out before totally shutting things down in 40K any more - I bet something like the Vehicle Design Rules would be totally mind blowing or even a full on anathema to some players nowadays, while they were some of the “coolest thing” in 40K at one point.

[Noserenda]

I think there's is a huge difference between pickup games in a lgs and playing regular opponents/friends wherever with armies you are familiar with when it comes to WYSIWYG 

[Bryan Blaire]

10 hours ago, Noserenda said:

I think there's is a huge difference between pickup games in a lgs and playing regular opponents/friends wherever with armies you are familiar with when it comes to WYSIWYG 

Don’t disagree, Noserenda, but it seems like that was always the way it was?  So in the end, did the change to the rules really matter that much to folks - a lot of people still seem stuck on WYSIWYG?

[Orion]

Is people being "stuck on WYSIWYG" a bad thing?

I've always played my models as what they were, where possible.
I get there are some exceptions where loadouts get broken and you don't want to cut up your nice models. Like a commissar with las pistol.

To me that's different to just min-maxing. You can proxy to min-max if you want, but I just think it's kinda lame.

It's not why I like this hobby.

 

[Bryan Blaire]

26 minutes ago, Orion said:

Is people being "stuck on WYSIWYG" a bad thing?

I've always played my models as what they were, where possible.
I get there are some exceptions where loadouts get broken and you don't want to cut up your nice models. Like a commissar with las pistol.

To me that's different to just min-maxing. You can proxy to min-max if you want, but I just think it's kinda lame.

It's not why I like this hobby.

Don’t believe that we are discussing min-maxing, and my choice of words should make it clear where I stand on the concept of enforcing something that isn’t in the rules when there are easy methods to “identify what’s what”, such as army lists, color coded notes, unit markings, etc.

 

In the end, being stuck on WYSIWYG keeps interesting models off the tabletop, like preventing people from using HH forces to play 40K or even using non-GW models that they find cool and can be explained, etc. - so yes, to me, being stuck on WYSIWYG is a bad thing.

 

Now, the question of using HH rules in 40K - that gets really dicey IMO, and has to be decided by the players.  Personally, I’d give it a shot, but would talk with my opponent throughout the game and after the game if the unit is obviously over or under powered compared to mine.

[Beta galactosidase]

If you use a spartan in particular for a 40k Chapter, then you dont like Space Marines.  Space Marines are air mobile, their tanks get delivered by thunderhawk.  In Epic scale 40k, a pure marine army is a school of minnows against other armies' superheavies, because theyre a paratrooper army and theyre supposed to be undergunned.  If you bring a spartan in 40k, you like mil-fic space knights and not marines.

 

What about Imperial Fists and Iron Hands, and Aurorans?  Imperial Fists are siege paratroopers and they bring their airmobile siege guns, the vindicator and Achilles.  They're all paratroopers, every chapter. These are characters, they can't be blank screens to project any old aesthetic onto.

 

[2PlusEasy]

3 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

If you use a spartan in particular for a 40k Chapter, then you dont like Space Marines.  Space Marines are air mobile, their tanks get delivered by thunderhawk.  In Epic scale 40k, a pure marine army is a school of minnows against other armies' superheavies, because theyre a paratrooper army and theyre supposed to be undergunned.  If you bring a spartan in 40k, you like mil-fic space knights and not marines.

 

What about Imperial Fists and Iron Hands, and Aurorans?  Imperial Fists are siege paratroopers and they bring their airmobile siege guns, the vindicator and Achilles.  They're all paratroopers, every chapter. These are characters, they can't be blank screens to project any old aesthetic onto.

 

 

Despite the respectfully disagrees, there is truth to this in a relative context: space marines were a rapid strike force in older editions of 40k. This theme was also tied into the specialist games of Epic and Battlefleet Gothic. A big drive behind this was low numbers of the chapters and degradation of technology back to widely accessible STC platforms like strike cruisers, thunderhawks and rhinos. [Edit] (and in practical terms, making do with a substantially smaller miniature range then today.)

 

It was only after the Heresy became fleshed out by black library and forge world that this concept really changed. The Legions, being larger and having greater access to warships and lostech, were a self-sufficient combined arms force who could afford to have armoured companies, artillery companies, assault companies, siege companies etc.

 

Somewhere people muddied the two identities, and GW did too.

 

Edited March 16 by 2PlusEasy

[The Spitehorde]

4 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

If you use a spartan in particular for a 40k Chapter, then you dont like Space Marines. 

 

Why not? We're talking about ancient machinery, few in number, and only broken out of SM armouries when the most dire of situations demand it.

 

4 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

Space Marines are air mobile, their tanks get delivered by thunderhawk.  In Epic scale 40k, a pure marine army is a school of minnows against other armies' superheavies, because theyre a paratrooper army and theyre supposed to be undergunned. 

 

They're all air (and void!) mobile when you think about it. Guard, Sororitas, Space Marines, AdMech, and all the rest. You think Titans, Knights, Super heavy tanks etc etc would just teleport from combat on one planet to another? 

 

4 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

 If you bring a spartan in 40k, you like mil-fic space knights and not marines.

 

That comes across as being a tad ignorant of space marine lore. Old kit is kept around not only for the the reason I gave earlier, but because it's a direct link to their past. 

 

4 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

What about Imperial Fists and Iron Hands, and Aurorans?  Imperial Fists are siege paratroopers and they bring their airmobile siege guns, the vindicator and Achilles.  They're all paratroopers, every chapter. These are characters, they can't be blank screens to project any old aesthetic onto.

 

 

If anything a Space Marine chapter would be more akin to a USMC MEF, a self-contained organisation with it's own ground combat, air combat, and service support elements. Hmm. Clue might be in the name there - Marines. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

5 hours ago, Beta galactosidase said:

If you use a spartan in particular for a 40k Chapter, then you dont like Space Marines.  Space Marines are air mobile, their tanks get delivered by thunderhawk.  In Epic scale 40k, a pure marine army is a school of minnows against other armies' superheavies, because theyre a paratrooper army and theyre supposed to be undergunned.  If you bring a spartan in 40k, you like mil-fic space knights and not marines.

 

What about Imperial Fists and Iron Hands, and Aurorans?  Imperial Fists are siege paratroopers and they bring their airmobile siege guns, the vindicator and Achilles.  They're all paratroopers, every chapter. These are characters, they can't be blank screens to project any old aesthetic onto.

 

We've just ended a 20+ year Era where that was not entirely correct.

 

Whilst I love the idea of SM being solely a Rapid Assault Formation, until very recently that's really not the case.

Many Chapters still hold and use big guns such as Fellblades and Falchions, and they use many styles of warfare. Fluff wise, Battle Barges etc. are huge, they can handle it, and deliver their big cargo.

Mk VI Dreads, Contemptors, Leviathans, Deredeos, Sicarans, and all the Rhino and Landraider Chassis HH vehicles are small enough to be delivered by Thunderhawk, so there is a huge flaw in the logic that they are somehow not rapid insertion enough for 41k Space Marines.

 

There are so many books and datasheets which say how those big guns get used occasionally in the 41k Era. The fact that they are still Legends proves that they 'can' be used.

The extremely recent move of all those things to 40k Legends and Legends of the HH doesn't change that they could be used in the 41st m. Era.

 

Saying we don't like SM just because we also like their larger tanks is a bit reductive and frankly insulting.

We even have a couple of Primarchs now, HH and 40k are too heavily related for that dismissive approach. 

 

Now, as to whether they can be played, that entirely depends on the two humans standing opposite each other at the table. Their are rules for their use, the limitations on that use must be discussed by those humans.

[Evil Eye]

I personally find the decision to intentionally kneecap sales of HH models by restricting them from 40K utterly baffling. I heard something about infighting between GW's different departments (hence them trying to discourage TOW players from using AOS models) and I could well believe it. Speaking as someone with little interest in 30K but who likes the idea of long-forgotten relics of an age of legends and nightmares still fighting on into the present day, being able to take a Contemptor alongside a Space Marine force, or a corrupted Spartan carrying a host of dread Chaos Terminators into battle would be awesome.

 

Unfortunately, like everything else GW has been doing with 10th, their treatment of these units has been a complete disaster. Yes, I could play Legends units with a sensible gaming circle...but any such circle is better off just playing older editions, frankly. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that, with homebrews, backporting and the official supplements (chapter Approved etc) on hand, 3.5/4E is capable of doing everything 10th can do and more, and far better.

 

Now personally I think there should be some restrictions on HH units in 40K to highlight their sheer rarity in the 41st millennium, but that can be (and indeed has been) done fairly easily. Just add a rule like this....

 

Relic Unit

This war machine is frightfully rare, and only used in extreme circumstances due to its value.

You may take a maximum of 2 Relic units per 1000 points in an army.

 

Of course, like the force organization chart, combi-weapons and wargear costing points, that was judged too complicated for us feeble-minded customers.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, it's an 8th-10th thing. 

On the bright side, almost my whole group has walked away from that train wreck. 

[Noserenda]

Yeah saying the Spartan isn't a marine tank just shows how ignorant someone is of the army, it's a design older than 90% of the marine range, hell the very first space marine vehicle was the land raider... They have literally always been more flexible than that since their very first appearance in rogue trader.

 

And that's before you get on to one of the key themes of 40k of tech decay meaning it's completely in character to have a marine armoury having a bunch of relics  from the Legions era, barely understood and treated like demi god's by the techmarines and assorted flunkies and rolled out for special occasions :D

[Magos Takatus]

I guess I have a horse in this race...

 

 

My Space Marine force was intended to be a mix of modern marines and Horus Heresy relics, often using older armour marks. The Resin tanks and Contemptor were bought in 2012 at Games Day when the Horus Heresy was in it's infancy as a gaming setting (I don't remember if the rules had even released by Games Day, but I'd assume they were out since Games Day was pretty late in the year). This was intended as an army where the limited roster of relic units would be traded in and out of the army list for flavour, but the bulk of it would be standard space marines. The arrival of Primaris marines was even better for me, since they resembled MkIV armour and Tartaros pattern armour more than the more modern counterparts. Sadly my attention has drifted off to other projects but I also added a plastic Leviathan to the list of relic equipment (and my pile of shame). 

 

I feel GW don't take their customers seriously when they add mainline 40k rules to the game and then yank away that support shortly after. I purchased these models when they were resin kits that were a pain in the backside to assemble and sometimes took multiple baths to get them to accept paint. Perhaps the minority such as myself were not seen as a problem, but when widespread plastic releases flooded the market the perception of these niche units changed? I think it's a shame. A great deal of space marine chapters came from early foundings and would have inherited wargear as the legions were broken up so this stuff would be rare but available. It's a bit sad to see such half-hearted support for these lovely models whether they are resin or plastic.

 

GW only have themselves to blame for their datasheet bloat when in 9th we would have separate Datasheets for "Captain with plasma pistol" "Captain with power sword" and "Captain standing on one leg with a finger in his ear". I haven't seen the new Codex for the space marines but I imagine with all the wargear for models being rolled in together a lot of those Datasheets hopefully got consolidated into fewer entries. If they hadn't insisted on making these asinine distinctions between units perhaps they wouldn't feel they have to shove all the relic units into a small box and hope everyone forgets about them.

 

Finally, I think the main reason they are no longer releasing 40k rules for 30k models is because at some point they will have to release plastic Mechanicum models and they are that petty about the whole Fires of Cyraxus thing that they would even screw over the space marine player base just to spite us Adeptus Mechanicus players for daring to dream of getting some cool new toys to play with. 

[spiros14]

Want to throw in here for another reason to take HH tanks in a 40k army: Apocalypse games! 

While you can play apocalypse games with your entire collection of regular marines (and previous editions of the game whole-heartedly supported this with company rules) one of the reasons to play apocalypse was to use the big forgeworld tanks. For space marines, this was originally just the thunderhawk gunship, before the Horus Heresy expanded the roster to include much more heavier tanks, including the Fellblade and Falchion. We then received our first (and so far, only) primaris super-heavy in the form of the Astraeus, 

Now IMHO Games Workshop have been pulling the brakes on Apocalypse games. Our last main apocalypse book for 40k was in 7th edition, and then GW tried to make it its own game mode near the end of 8th edition with special detachment rules, dice, and movement trays, but that lasted like a week and it hasn't been updated or supported since. The cool Heresy-era tanks being put in the legends box is another action in that category. 

Thankfully, Apocalypse games are the opposite of tournament standard, so we can at least still use these powerful tanks in our big games with friends.