Heresy 3.0 in Spring/Summer

[Stitch5000]

45 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Weird that multiple people, content creators and organizers, that know the design and heavy metal team will publicly and directly contradict what you, an anonymous account on the internet with no connection to Nottingham, are saying.

It is weird... In fact It's not at all true. Which of the individuals listed has ever said "oh yeah you can just walk in to GW offices and see whatever you like"?

I don't want to have some tit-for-tat beef with you and you'll just have to trust me when I say I know a bunch of people at GW that get scrutinised every time there is a leak. It isn't cool and they don't like it.

(I have lived in central Nottingham for nearly a decade BTW)

 

[Marshal Rohr]

5 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

There aren't and they don't all sit on one giant open-plan room.

Sir, the goal posts are over here. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, Joe said:

I vaguely recall Neil (or it might have been Alan?) mentioning at one of the old Heresy Open Days they wanted to avoid character bloat where possible, as it led to oddly top-heavy lists and took away from the "build your own hero" vibe the setting has going - I suspect this is also why Heresy 2E de-coupled certain benefits from the named characters.

 

The issue with that is how much depth a lot of those characters added to list building; being able to functionally combine two rites of war was super cool and added a lot of interest into collecting a legion (at least, for me). 

 

Now it seems like they tried to port some of the list building aspects over to legion specific consuls, like the IF castellan. But it was done really inconsistently; some legion consuls unlock options, while most characters lose a lot of their functionality, with most that keep it locked behind being the warlord. But there's still some characters that add list building options just by being included (like polux and Sigismund). And a lot of others are just generic best sticks with a slightly different weapon.

 

Hopefully they reconfigure stuff to make special characters interesting, not auto take, but still have the deep army building options from 1st.

 

 

[HeinzD]

8 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

The issue with that is how much depth a lot of those characters added to list building; being able to functionally combine two rites of war was super cool and added a lot of interest into collecting a legion (at least, for me). 

 

Now it seems like they tried to port some of the list building aspects over to legion specific consuls, like the IF castellan. But it was done really inconsistently; some legion consuls unlock options, while most characters lose a lot of their functionality, with most that keep it locked behind being the warlord. But there's still some characters that add list building options just by being included (like polux and Sigismund). And a lot of others are just generic best sticks with a slightly different weapon.

 

Hopefully they reconfigure stuff to make special characters interesting, not auto take, but still have the deep army building options from 1st.

 

 

This!

 

1st Edition Characters like Alpha Legions Dynat, who changed how you would build your entire list is something i absolutely loved and dearly miss in this edition. 

There are definitly still some synergies and interesting build-arounds, but i hope we return to some more, when 3rd comes around. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Considering 2nd was basically a set of rules and army lists written over a very long time with multiple changes in direction and shifting targets leading to crazy things like Mech not having Brutal and Solar Aux losing high AP artillery and weirdly moving units around the force Org to whole factions getting pdf’d 3rd will without a doubt be our first glimpse into what they actually want Heresy to be and HOPEFULLY it’s more cohesive with a clearly design language. 

[Stitch5000]

 

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Sir, the goal posts are over here. 

I'm not following you. What do you mean?
 

[Marshal Rohr]

19 minutes ago, Stitch5000 said:

 

I'm not following you. What do you mean?
 

I said there were a like hundred painters and you responded that they don’t allow people to tour the factory. They heavy metal team is much larger than it used to be because the volume of work has increased exponentially 

[Bung]

12 hours ago, HeinzD said:

This!

 

1st Edition Characters like Alpha Legions Dynat, who changed how you would build your entire list is something i absolutely loved and dearly miss in this edition. 

There are definitly still some synergies and interesting build-arounds, but i hope we return to some more, when 3rd comes around. 

 

Changing Army composition with characters was stupid.

The option of playing something Like Templar Assault with my dudes rather than forced to pay the Sigismund Tax was one of the best decisions for narrative play.

[TheTrans]

But couldn't you just read 'Sigismund' as "Heroic Templar Captain John Johnson" ? Thats what I did whenever anything was locked behind a special character. Just make them your own and use their mechanics? 

[Marshal Rohr]

Sigismund is a bad example because he’s the best non-Primarch in the game lol

[Petitioner's City]

3 hours ago, Bung said:

 

Changing Army composition with characters was stupid.

The option of playing something Like Templar Assault with my dudes rather than forced to pay the Sigismund Tax was one of the best decisions for narrative play.

 

That's a very good point.

 

However I really think heresy needs a bigger shake up of the FOC and the HQ characters - I wish there was a much greater focus on lower echelons of command, and giving centurions and optae (and force commanders, solar aux officers and so on) the focus.

 

In 40k we have rarely if ever played with Generals and Field Marshalls for imperial guard, but do so in 30k. I find that as narratively unsatisfying as using unique special characters - these are unique individuals, rarer than gold dust, yet they are everywhere.

 

I also hope there is a bigger move to historical approaches - theatre selectors, guidance on what would be around at a given where and when in the conflict, and so on. I still feel heresy essentially is a matched play game, even at ostensibly "narrative" events when it could be something much more about the journey through these seven years of hell (or longer for some legions!) For example, I also hope they really develop the sense of decline and decay - it's bizarre that in 014.m31 (eg Cthonia) we use still the late great crusade army lists. That doesn't feel right, given it's seven years though he'll. 

 

I also really hope we away from characters as beatsticks - that there is more ability to focus on command, and not be the best warrior; or focus on melee but at the expense of something else; or be a great ranged fighter, over other things. Of course Warhammer fans seem to love melee as the fulcrum of battles.

 

Finally my other hope is table size. Heresy was introduced in 2012 as a 1,500 to 3,000 point game, but in the same era when playing bigger games you were encouraged to use a bigger table than the confines of 6*4. Somehow game sizes settled at 3,000 (or even now 3,500) without ever considering that our tables got more and more cramped, leading to the unrealistic situation where unharmed armies end up 200 or 300 yards apart or so - even knights and titans. That is something I keep struggling with, as the tables feel too small for the conflicts depicted.

 

Also fatality (sorry this is long!). The game is too fatal. How did these praetors and consuls and veterans ever get to be veterans when the average game sees them all die, continuously? An issue across Warhammer but it adds to the timeless matched play feel of things - there should be a narrative or game aspect to ensuring your war assets are lost pointlessly - you are part of a much wider war, and your elite army shouldn't die pointlessly when it should be continuing to function. The inverse could be true of militia - rewards for grinding up a legion machine; or similar unique objectives for different factions.

 

Overall I just wish the game was much more narrative and historical than the figleaf of "narrative" optimisation that it is currently.

Edited 8 hours ago by Petitioner's City

[Doobles57]

4 hours ago, TheTrans said:

But couldn't you just read 'Sigismund' as "Heroic Templar Captain John Johnson" ? Thats what I did whenever anything was locked behind a special character. Just make them your own and use their mechanics? 

Sure you could do that, but what if I wanted My Dude to have a thunderhammer? Or a jump pack? Or any other option that Sigismund doesn't have.

 

For me, the whole point of using My Dude is that he's mine. Using a named character datasheet doesn't feel the same.

 

I am aware though this is very much a vibes thing so other people may have the complete opposite view. But for me, I'd rather run a named character as he is and use him narratively, or build my own from scratch and create his own narrative. Tangentially, this is one of the big issues I have with modern 40K but that's another topic.

[apologist]

Agreed. I'd love it if all but the most unusual special characters were a set of upgrades to standard characters – so a Praetor equipped with a certain specific loadout of unique equipment also grants their special rules. 

[Bung]

4 hours ago, TheTrans said:

But couldn't you just read 'Sigismund' as "Heroic Templar Captain John Johnson" ? Thats what I did whenever anything was locked behind a special character. Just make them your own and use their mechanics? 

 

I could, but its not a solution i like.

Its still Sigismund in the End.

Having Sigismund or any other named Charakter at any skirmish you play gets boring really fast.

We had that in an Edition of 40k and it was stupid and boring back then.

I prefer the way how RoWs change the Theme of an Army and doing your own Campaign / narrative stuff with your own charakters is more motivating for me.

[Varyn]

I think it would be interesting to have the generic consuls add some list altering mechanics to allow players to tweak their army in a certain direction, it would also make some of the consuls more appealing. For example, if you take a vigilator it allows you to give Line to one unit of scouts or a mortitat allows one unit of destroyers to be taken as troops. I agree that some of the characters from 1st edition altered army composition far too much (Maloghurst was excellent!).

They did this with the Castellan in 2.0, but of course they only gave it to one legion Many of the current legions rules/units feel like an after thought.

Edited 5 hours ago by Varyn

[Captain Idaho]

The argument that a special character could represent your custom character is the same as your custom character representing any special character therefore we don't need any special characters. 

 

Special characters shouldn't be fundamental to army design. It's a problem 40K had and it wasn't fun to play thoughout the editions. "Oh a Grey Knights army, there's Draigo" and "oh look, Guilliman in another Ultramarines army. How fun."

 

They should bring character flair limited to their own use, otherwise an army rule should be an army rule.

[Bouargh]

3 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

They should bring character flair limited to their own use, otherwise an army rule should be an army rule.

 

Can't agree more. I remember a time when the design team was telling that Special Characters were here to catch and transcript the spirit and the flavour of the army, mainly in terms of character and background. It was a long long long time ago and it led to characters such as Durfast for SW or Nuadhu firehearth for Eldars. Interesting ones but not that useful neither.

Then the game (40k)  to hero hammer and the characters were used as a compulsory choice or at least considered as such by many as their brought a critical competitive benefit. It used to be like that in some past Ed. Yet I feel like rule set and codices nowadays are not necesarily leading to special character over presence anymore. Although it might sometimes look like it is still the case because of the distortion brought by the excessive coverage of the Tournament scene (though it tends to become less and less true...).

I am therefore convinced it is more of the result of a perception distortion rather than a current rule set and codex design flaw. Nowadays, only Ynnari are stuck to the special character tax, but most of over factions can be played without any one and quite succesfully. Perhaps WE are also an exception? But it is maybe more a fashion effect... Or ar least I hope so. 
 

edit: I do a parallel between special characters used in 40 and 30k. In HH the inner balance between all SM armies make the need for special characters even lower IMHO

Edited 53 minutes ago by Bouargh

[SkimaskMohawk]

It depends. It might have been exhausting seeing the same special character constantly in 40k/30k, especially if you came from 3rd or earlier where they were usually banned. I totally get that. And I also agree that special characters don't need to hold the keys of army builds.

 

But i definitely liked the editions where army build options were more present more than the ones where they weren't. I'd take special characters with army options over the state 2nd is in, or pre-detachment 7th, or pre-bloat 6th. Nothing gets more boring to me than running out of things to try in your chosen faction.

 

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I just hope we see some of the rites opened up to being led by specific consuls: vigilators leading the recon rite, for instance.

[Marshal Rohr]

6 minutes ago, Ripper.McGuirl said:

I just hope we see some of the rites opened up to being led by specific consuls: vigilators leading the recon rite, for instance.

This. It would be kinda messy/book heavy but Opening Rites to all Praetors or specific consuls would be rad and provide a little relief on the pressure to always take a Praetor. For instance, taking a Moritat Warlord giving Destroyers Line or moving them to Troops, etc. I’d still like to a real Rite of War that boosts a generic Line Company. 

[No Foes Remain]

39 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

This. It would be kinda messy/book heavy but Opening Rites to all Praetors or specific consuls would be rad and provide a little relief on the pressure to always take a Praetor. For instance, taking a Moritat Warlord giving Destroyers Line or moving them to Troops, etc. I’d still like to a real Rite of War that boosts a generic Line Company. 

The Armoured Rite already kinda does this, so wouldn't be too much to change that around. Though where would the Delegatus fall in all this? Still like a mini-praetor or would he only be able to take the Legion specific RoW rather than the generic ones?

[apologist]

48 minutes ago, No Foes Remain said:

The Armoured Rite already kinda does this, so wouldn't be too much to change that around. Though where would the Delegatus fall in all this? Still like a mini-praetor or would he only be able to take the Legion specific RoW rather than the generic ones?

 

The fact the Delegatus event exists is kinda telling – if Centurions/Consuls were the default, the existence of a Delegatus would be unnecessary. 

 

To translate things into the 40k Terminology, a Praetor is a Chapter Master equivalent, while Centurions (Line Captains) are Captain equivalents. The complexity comes in through the Centurion only having the same stats as Chaplains, Librarians etc. in Age of Darkness. Understandably, a lot of players want their 'avatar' to be a character that can mix it up in the game, so opt for the Praetor choice rather than the Centurion. 

+++

 

To give an example, I used the figures pictured here as my HQ choices in 1st edition Age of Darkness. The central one is the young up-and-coming leader of the 190th Company mustering on Calth; and he's supported by reliable veteran officers.

 

 

I didn't want to take a Praetor, to future-proof things in case I wanted to make (say) Eikos Lamiad or Eben Frain for one-off narrative games.

 

Since I didn't want my (lore) Captain to be a (rules) Praetor, he ended up getting beaten up by every other army's leader in short order. Shield or not, 2W doesn't go very far!

 

+++

 

What's my point? Well, it's only because Praetors have become the default HQ choice, with key army-building effects, that things like the Delegatus exist ... and to be honest, I think this is very much a semantics/terminology issue. Were the Centurion to be upgraded with (say) another W and A, and Praetor stats be reserved for exceptional figures like First Captains, Tetrarchs etc. – I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

[Stitch5000]

21 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I said there were a like hundred painters and you responded that they don’t allow people to tour the factory. They heavy metal team is much larger than it used to be because the volume of work has increased exponentially 

I asked a few questions... There are apparently approximately 50 painters in GW overall, split over numerous departments including 40k, AOS, SDS (formerly Forgeworld) and the Warhammer Exhibition diorama/terrain team. They don't share projects and they don't have access to what each department is doing.