Horus Heresy Mechanicum Battle Group & Plastification

[The Scorpion]

On 5/18/2024 at 11:20 PM, Xirix said:

Annoyingly, as the rumour goes, the book was complete and ready for 7th edition. Shame nobody leaked it, assuming that its completeness was true.

This is what makes it the Holy Grail of 40k lore for me. It's out there, assuming it hasn't been deleted. And it's one of the old IA books, which means the lore was written by Kinrade or maybe even Bligh, and is therefore peak.

Slim as they are though, there are more chances now than ever of retrieving part of the lore, given the recent Mechanicum release. If by some stroke of fortune, GW were to decide to give the 30k plastics some 40k rules, we might see an echo of what could've been.

Edited May 20 by The Scorpion

[Bouargh]

I imagine the mago is resin? Seen the options listed in the liber mechsnicum, will we see a version with jet pack?

 

I am also crossing fingers for an Arcuitor.

 

On the other side I find the thralls are a deception. But I was already sad to see the mitralock away in the book...

 

Should the book stay cannon, I also cross fingers for the secutarii to move into the units that may be released with a plastic kit. And eventually remain into 40k, even if staying into legends...

[lansalt]

1 hour ago, The Scorpion said:

, which means the lore was written by Kinrade or maybe even Bligh

Allegedly the first draft was written by Andy Hoare and later Bligh took over ultil his illness. Hoare became the head of FW/specialist games, and between being too busy and the huge changes going on with 8th ed. and the company, he couldn't find a way to finish and release it. That was also when FW stopped releasing new kits for 40k so there was certaintly a change of policy.

 

1 hour ago, The Scorpion said:

If by some stroke of fortune, GW were to decide to give the 30k plastics some 40k rules, we might see an echo of what could've been.

Yep, that's the only way we could see any of that content released.

[Fire Golem]

1 hour ago, Bouargh said:

I imagine the mago is resin? Seen the options listed in the liber mechsnicum, will we see a version with jet pack?

The Archmagos in the article? It’s plastic. 

[jaxom]

4 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I think ultimately, no matter what the tournament focused studio thinks, people just want to collect cool models. I don’t think Ad Mech players want the Thanatar because it’s powerful, it doesn’t have 40K rules to want, I think Ad Mech players enjoy collecting the robots and want to use them in the games they play. 

 

I will happily homebrew up rules for Mechanicus players. I really wish there was a more active narrative event scene to help popularize and spread homebrew rules, kind of like how ATC and ITC formats carried tournament rules and FAQs when GW was not doing anything in that area.

 

4 hours ago, lansalt said:

 the AdMech wasn't neutered by a reformation like the Space Marine Chapters.

 

By reformation, no. By the Heresy, yes. Massive data-wars broke out between Forge Worlds and collectively wiped out huge amounts of schematics. 

 

4 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

What makes the Kastelan robot okay to use and any other Legio Cybernetica stuff "heretical". There is nothing that suggest it that the Castellax robot is forbidden technology, just that they lost a lot of them during the Heresy. In fact the Kastelan robot is described as being older than the Imperium while the Castellax robot fluff states if I remember right that it was developed from older designs meaning that it was an invention by the Mechanicum based on old STC tech. Both are robots attended to by a Techpriest who issues commands to them, so why is one normal to use and the other is "worst technoheresy"?

 

They got tagged as too prone to corruption because of their aggressiveness (a tech-priest could point them at the enemy and just let them at it) and were moth-balled. The Kastelan required more direct supervision, making it safer.

Edited May 20 by jaxom

[Noserenda]

The things exist in the fluff and its very plausible for any Mechanicus to field mechanicum units, especially when a chunk of them are as basic as a different Cybernetica chassis or a grunt combat servitor. 

Thats why there is dissonance, because the reasons they dont have rules are entirely IRL reasons, anything in universe is just a lampshade, and not a nice one :D 

Fires of Cyraxus was apparently completely finished and about to go to printers when GW dropped 8th ed on FWs head about the same time they did us, which is why their indexes were such a mess and they did the initially stopgap move of keeping 30k in 7th ed to save on the insane short term workload, especially as their most productive writer (Bligh) also died suddenly at the same time. It was a :cuss:show not of their making and Fires was the main casualty of it as by the time they could come back to it after re writing all of their 40k rules and a new 30k rulebook they were obviously in no mood to write 8th ed rules for it. Then the studio took over all 40k rules and it was dead in the water. 

Would be an amazing draw to release the completed fluff sections in the vault, but of course then people would have a solid reason to ask for rules they dont want to write soooo.... (Well, that and the vault clearly being dead now) 

[The Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Fires of Cyraxus was apparently completely finished and about to go to printers when GW dropped 8th ed on FWs head about the same time they did us, which is why their indexes were such a mess and they did the initially stopgap move of keeping 30k in 7th ed to save on the insane short term workload, especially as their most productive writer (Bligh) also died suddenly at the same time. It was a :cuss:show not of their making and Fires was the main casualty of it as by the time they could come back to it after re writing all of their 40k rules and a new 30k rulebook they were obviously in no mood to write 8th ed rules for it. Then the studio took over all 40k rules and it was dead in the water. 

Would be an amazing draw to release the completed fluff sections in the vault, but of course then people would have a solid reason to ask for rules they dont want to write soooo.... (Well, that and the vault clearly being dead now) 

If they released that stuff in the vault, I would subscribe to WH+ for as long as it took.
But yeah, unlikely to get released without rules for the new plastics, especially since GW is keeping things separate AND Forge World seems to be done for. Only pressure from people could get it released, and defo not in the 'traditional' IA format.

My only hope is that the lore files for that weren't completely deleted when the shift to 8th ed happened. Deep down, everyone who isn't a GeeDubs exec agrees that some 30k Mechanicum into 40k Mechanicus would be awesome.

Edited May 20 by The Scorpion

[Noserenda]

Folks have said GW is at least really good at archiving stuff, at least in this century, far too much casually tossed in skips in the old days so there is a chance we might see it someday. They reconfigure the creatives every few years so its not impossible theyll bring all the teams back together one day, which might open up the gates to stuff they are currently sitting on like cross game rules.

[01RTB01]

2 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Fires of Cyraxus was apparently completely finished and about to go to printers when GW dropped 8th ed on FWs head about the same time they did us, 

 

This drives me loopy and is hideously indicative of the segregation that GW has/ had of different departments. How did one group not know that a new edition was about to drop and would totally invalidate the work they had done?

[The Scorpion]

1 hour ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

This drives me loopy and is hideously indicative of the segregation that GW has/ had of different departments. How did one group not know that a new edition was about to drop and would totally invalidate the work they had done?

Worst thing is, if this no-30k-in-40k means anything, is that said mindset isn't likely to change anytime soon.

[Matcap86]

13 hours ago, Fire Golem said:

The Archmagos in the article? It’s plastic. 

Are you sure about that? I can't find a source for it anywhere and most character models have been resin so far.

[MARK0SIAN]

8 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

Worst thing is, if this no-30k-in-40k means anything, is that said mindset isn't likely to change anytime soon.

To be fair, a policy of no 30k in 40k might actually prevent something like fires of Cyraxus happening again. If each studio is confined purely to their own game/system/era then it doesn’t really matter what’s happening in the other ones as it’s unlikely to affect them other than in the broader sense of how well the company is doing. Fires happened precisely because they were trying to port units from one system into another, if that’s now against official policy then the chance of a disaster like fires again is eliminated. 
 

To be clear, I’m not saying this policy is a good thing but I must admit I do like that they seem set on making 30k its own distinct product with distinct units rather than just have it be a quirky version of 40k with different rules. 

[Cleon]

I have to admit, if the magos plastic, I'm surprised it;'s not in the battleforce to give them a HQ.

[Xirix]

33 minutes ago, Matcap86 said:

Are you sure about that? I can't find a source for it anywhere and most character models have been resin so far.

Everything they showed at the reveal show was plastic, that model is plastic.

[Magos Takatus]

18 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

As a lore appreciator, I agree with you completely but I think ultimately, no matter what the tournament focused studio thinks, people just want to collect cool models. I don’t think Ad Mech players want the Thanatar because it’s powerful, it doesn’t have 40K rules to want, I think Ad Mech players enjoy collecting the robots and want to use them in the games they play. Totally understandable. Until the follow the leader zeitgeist at GW changes (Duncan talks about it in his Jordan Sorcery interview) we are stuck with this asinine one model per system rule. 

I agree entirely. I would love to use my Triaros as a large transport, I don't even particularly care what I'd put in there, just that I'd have something notably bigger than my plastic Dunerider transports to move around some models. I might even buy more Electro Priests to put in them. I don't want to crush people with an overpowered tank, I would just like to use my plus-sized Rhino in games and start an interesting conversation with the people I meet in games about unusual models. I mentioned my Mega Dread in a prior post for this reason. It's probably worse than a Morkanaut in-game right now but it is different, and it would distinguish my army (and therefore myself as a player and collector) from whatever the flavour-of-the-week meta Ork list is. 

 

I loved old Forge World. They shone a light on the less seen but essential parts of 40k. Who were loading the artillery the Astra Militarum were always pounding their enemy flat with? The Sentinel power loader variant and the Trojan were both answers to that question. Were they powerful in-game? Probably not, they were not frontline units, but they were vehicles that almost all guardsmen would be extremely familiar with. GW studio have certain blindspots when they are trying to create the newest, coolest tank but they leave out the interesting peripheral units that made that tank's operation possible. Those models opened up possibilities for new scenarios. What if an Ork Kommando formation managed to attack an isolated supply dump that needed to be protected by an improvised defence? Instead of narrative games like that GW studio makes the game about standing on six circular counters for five turns. Sure, it can be fun, but I feel it's missing something.

 

 

[Doobles57]

1 hour ago, Cleon said:

I have to admit, if the magos plastic, I'm surprised it;'s not in the battleforce to give them a HQ.

The battleforce is equivalent to the MKIII box which has no HQs and the SA one which was advertised as not having an HQ despite the fact that the Command Squad can build a Legate Marshall. So it tracks with those.

[Petitioner's City]

15 hours ago, Noserenda said:

 

Fires of Cyraxus was apparently completely finished and about to go to printers when GW dropped 8th ed on FWs head about the same time they did us, which is why their indexes were such a mess and they did the initially stopgap move of keeping 30k in 7th ed to save on the insane short term workload, especially as their most productive writer (Bligh) also died suddenly at the same time. It was a :cuss:show not of their making and Fires was the main casualty of it as by the time they could come back to it after re writing all of their 40k rules and a new 30k rulebook they were obviously in no mood to write 8th ed rules for it. Then the studio took over all 40k rules and it was dead in the water. 

 

 

That's not exactly true, and presents things more hyperbolically than happened, if according to a 2017 dakka post this is what AH said:

 

Quote

Yesterday I visited Warhammer World as a treat for myself as it was my 32nd Birthday. Late in the evening a group of guys (who I am guessing were mostly Games Workshop staff) started playing an old game that GW used to make (I believe it was called Wastelander and used a mixture of rules). I started chatting to one of the guys and at the time I didn't realise I was talking to Andy Hoare himself. At some point in the evening I mentioned the ongoing theories behind why Cyraxus has been delayed and after hearing them he laughed and told me the actual reason.

 

It is all Andy Hoare's fault.

 

He was given the task of writing the first draft of the book and after he finished it (or around the time) he became the Manager for Specialist Games. Due to this the second draft was passed onto Alan Bligh who at the time was busy writing Inferno and as you can imagine there would naturally be delays in the second draft being completed. Add to this the fact that Alan Bligh has been ill for some time (I was told this by a member of Forge World Customer Service, something which Andy Hoare said shouldn't have happened). Then about a year ago they heard about 8th and so the delays for it to be completed kept piling on.

 

He agreed with me that it would not be surprising if Fire of Cyraxus became the first 8th edition IA book which most likely would delay it even further.

 

While also talking to Andy Hoare he told me (in not too great a detail) of how the Red Scorpions Lord Commander got himself interred in a Leviathan Dreadnought. Apparently when explaining to fellow staff members at Forge World he would say that he wasn't so much as placed into the Leviathan, more like being poured from a big bucket. Also the twin-linked Assault Cannon he is armed with is a Relic with some fancy rules.

 

So, we finally ave the answer.

 

Notably this post from April 2017 is from before Alan died in May 2017. 

 

Also always nice to go back to its 2016 introduction:

 

Quote

A new Imperial Armour book is underway “The Fires of Cyraxus”. Tony confirmed that they’ve dropped the numbers associated with the IA books because they couldn’t agree with if they were on 14 or 15, plus nobody really cared anyway. Cyraxus is a Tau vs Imperium campaign, focused on the almost forgotten Forge World of Cyraxus. The Tau wish to expand into the system as it is mineral rich, the Imperium is seeking to bring the Forge World back into the fold and a number of Space Marine chapters looking to resupply after various long running campaigns (see previous Imperial Armour books). The Red Scorpions see a return in this book, but leaderless since Culln was turned into soup by the Tyranids. They’re being led by Captain Casan Sabius, but Culln does make a return in a Leviathan Contemptor Dreadnought. Most importantly this book brings a number of Mechanicum units into the 40k universe. Alan confirmed that there are risks with using technology this old however.

 

I do miss the Red Scorpion plot :( 

 

Of course I wonder what the "risks" were too - could imagine rather bizarre random tables (some wonderfully anti competitive narrative rules!)

Edited May 21 by Petitioner's City

[01RTB01]

2 hours ago, Cleon said:

I have to admit, if the magos plastic, I'm surprised it;'s not in the battleforce to give them a HQ.

Watch the interview, it's plastic. That is a fact. Please stop questioning it.

 

As others have said it follows with everything else and means you can buy duplicate battleforces without losing any value for duplicate characters. It's brilliant really, you can buy multiple of the boxes and top up with a magos and you're good to go. One of the issues with 40k CP boxes was having characters in them. For army building you end up losing out if there's an expensive character in there.

 

For the record if you bothered to watch the video or read the article "That’s not everything coming to the Mechanicum range – shortly after the Battle Group is released, two more units will also make their plastic debut. "

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/18/warhammer-preview-the-mechanicum-turns-its-love-of-metal-to-plastic/#:~:text=That’s not everything coming to the Mechanicum range – shortly after the Battle Group is released%2C two more units will also make their plastic debut.

 

It then talks thanatar and magos, ergo plastic. 

Edited May 21 by 01RTB01

[Matcap86]

2 hours ago, Xirix said:

Everything they showed at the reveal show was plastic, that model is plastic.

 

35 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

Watch the interview, it's plastic. That is a fact. Please stop questioning it.

 

It then talks thanatar and magos, ergo plastic. 

 

Not sure why this sparks such a hefty response. I've watched the interview, (cheers for implying I didn't bother to...) and yeah it's not illogical to infer it's plastic. I'd also prefer it to be in plastic, but aside from the AOD praetors which other new single character minis have been plastic for HH2.0?

That would buck a 2 year trend, hence why I feel that it might be resin. It's also been directly asked on several of the social media channels, with no response thusfar.

[Fire Golem]

4 minutes ago, Matcap86 said:

 

 

Not sure why this sparks such a hefty response. I've watched the interview, (cheers for implying I didn't bother to...) and yeah it's not illogical to infer it's plastic. I'd also prefer it to be in plastic, but aside from the AOD praetors which other new single character minis have been plastic for HH2.0?

That would buck a 2 year trend, hence why I feel that it might be resin. It's also been directly asked on several of the social media channels, with no response thusfar.

It says plastic in the article. 
 

Quote

That’s not everything coming to the Mechanicum range – shortly after the Battle Group is released, two more units will also make their plastic debut. 

it then talks about the Thanatar and the Magos. 

[Doobles57]

4 minutes ago, Matcap86 said:

 

 

Not sure why this sparks such a hefty response. I've watched the interview, (cheers for implying I didn't bother to...) and yeah it's not illogical to infer it's plastic. I'd also prefer it to be in plastic, but aside from the AOD praetors which other new single character minis have been plastic for HH2.0?

That would buck a 2 year trend, hence why I feel that it might be resin. It's also been directly asked on several of the social media channels, with no response thusfar.

As mentioned above it literally states it in the article:

That’s not everything coming to the Mechanicum range – shortly after the Battle Group is released, two more units will also make their plastic debut. 

 

It's plastic. Might be a surprise, but it is a fact.

[Matcap86]

Just now, Fire Golem said:

It says plastic in the article. 
 

it then talks about the Thanatar and the Magos. 

 

Yup, just reread that part and that does make it seem that the Magos will be plastic, against all release trends so far, so cheers for pointing that out. 

 

Still don't appreciate the tone that's being thrown out at fellow fraters at times for just asking a question or stating an opinion. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

I remember lugging my mechanicum army around with 3 triaros, 3 krios, a 2 thanatars, it was about the heaviest army I've ever owned lol, and was a big contributing factor deciding to sell it.

 

Those in plastic alone makes me want to to get back in. Same with the adsecularis since I had ~60, though they still look like an absolute pain to paint.

[Doobles57]

1 hour ago, Matcap86 said:

 

Yup, just reread that part and that does make it seem that the Magos will be plastic, against all release trends so far, so cheers for pointing that out. 

 

Still don't appreciate the tone that's being thrown out at fellow fraters at times for just asking a question or stating an opinion. 

The tone probably isn't warranted. But it's possibly down to frustration borne out of stuff like a definitive answer with source being provided and the reply being "that does make it seem that the Magos will be plastic" as if it's still in doubt...

[Matcap86]

33 minutes ago, Doobles57 said:

The tone probably isn't warranted. But it's possibly down to frustration borne out of stuff like a definitive answer with source being provided and the reply being "that does make it seem that the Magos will be plastic" as if it's still in doubt...

 

Meh, language barriers are a thing, that sentence makes sense in my own language as "that settles the matter".