Heresy 3.0 in Spring/Summer

[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. 

[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 April 30 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 April 30 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]

5 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) evolved 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/rule 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 April 30 by Bouargh
Typos and end comment

[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.

[No Foes Remain]

31 minutes ago, apologist said:

 

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.

I don't think it helps when Praetors aren't much more expensive for better stats either, same with the termie centurions who are only 15pts more than a standard centurion and get an extra wound, power weapon and if you go cataphractii then you get a better save on top for the same cost as a power weapon.

 

In 1.0 centurions were quite cheap, 50pts or something, and I think praetors were more than double that, and the consoul upgrades were a bit cheaper as well. I'd be nice to see costs shifted a bit and prevent stuff like a Tartaros Centurion being only 15pts more than a standard centurion, even the Cataphractii being 20pts more isn't a hard choice either because again it's the same costs as a power weapon and +1 to the invulnerable save and heavy on top.

 

Some Legion options have similar issues, Ultramarine Praetorians being 135pts but Suzerains being 175pts sure it's 40pts but you get a lot for that 40. Legion weapons too, why are some free choices, (SoH axes/tabars) but others you pay on top of a power weapon to get (Night Lords, got ripped off here).

[arnesh88]

At this point, I only want 3rd edition to be a cleanup of 2nd edition. Cleanup of rules or FAQs from the past few years included. Anything else I want can be handled in an expansion book, or rewrite the Legiones Astartes or Heretic Astartes books.

 

I still liked how Inductii were handled using Templates to modify an existing unit, and I think that's something that should be utilized more often. If they want to explore the more "historical" aspects of the game, they can have templates for certain units per legion that are "veterans" of a campaign that either survived or passed along their lessons to the rest of the legion.

 

As for suggestions others have made with how characters changed army composition, I would rather keep that limited to Rites of War. I prefer consistency on army building instead of exceptions. Consuls to work like mini-heralds feels right, while Named Characters become army-wide heralds. What I mean by that is Heralds give the unit they are attached to gain Line (because of Banner). This could either be Legion specific (like Iron Warriors having an Armistos attached to a Heavy Weapon Support Squad gain Line) or generic (Moritats attached to Destroyers gain Line). I think the first version further adds flavor to legions. When it comes to Named Characters, all units of a certain type gain Line, regardless if they're attached to the unit or not.

[Marshal Rohr]

I disagree, that’s too limited. Your HQ/Warlord should shape the entire army composition. If you take an Armistos, your army should reflect a Heavy Support Company. If you take a Siege Breaker, it should reflect a Siege Company. Just buffing a single squad was fine for a skirmish game and maybe they should tie abilities to points levels but the average game is 3500 points which crosses the line into a pseudo apocalypse mass battle. 

[No Foes Remain]

31 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I disagree, that’s too limited. Your HQ/Warlord should shape the entire army composition. If you take an Armistos, your army should reflect a Heavy Support Company. If you take a Siege Breaker, it should reflect a Siege Company. Just buffing a single squad was fine for a skirmish game and maybe they should tie abilities to points levels but the average game is 3500 points which crosses the line into a pseudo apocalypse mass battle. 

I'll agree, seems fun and thematic and helps represent more specalised companies in the legions which were in a far better position to do than than 40k chapters due to their size. Also companies aren't just 100 strong, they could as few as 30 to as many as 300 depending on the legions.

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, arnesh88 said:

 

As for suggestions others have made with how characters changed army composition, I would rather keep that limited to Rites of War. I prefer consistency on army building instead of exceptions. Consuls to work like mini-heralds feels right, while Named Characters become army-wide heralds. What I mean by that is Heralds give the unit they are attached to gain Line (because of Banner). This could either be Legion specific (like Iron Warriors having an Armistos attached to a Heavy Weapon Support Squad gain Line) or generic (Moritats attached to Destroyers gain Line). I think the first version further adds flavor to legions. When it comes to Named Characters, all units of a certain type gain Line, regardless if they're attached to the unit or not.

 

This is a bit of a weird one. I'm fine with consuls further diversifying lists, but supplementing rows and other character driven army changes. The imperial fists can do RoW, Sigismund, Castellan to have a very unique build path. 

 

But only attached unit scoring? Thats frankly super boring, especially in a game where the missions and scoring parameters really don't care about scoring units. Heralds are great in 2nd, but it isn't just from giving the unit Line, and they're more of a tech choice to supplement your build as a result. They're certainly not something i think of as "opening up new army builds". 

 

Idk. More options is more fun. It was a lot of fun in 4th being able to customize the chapters to make zany builds. It was fun in 5th combining a bike captain and a special character to make an unexpected build. It was fun in 1st to always have the option to deep strike my night lord terminators and combine it with characters and rows of my choice, instead of being locked to sevetar only (and even then, that feels like a steal compared to how other characters options disappeared). It's why i really liked the concept of inductii, because they added a lot of new options.

 

 

[Bung]

6 hours ago, No Foes Remain said:

I don't think it helps when Praetors aren't much more expensive for better stats either, same with the termie centurions who are only 15pts more than a standard centurion and get an extra wound, power weapon and if you go cataphractii then you get a better save on top for the same cost as a power weapon.

 

In 1.0 centurions were quite cheap, 50pts or something, and I think praetors were more than double that, and the consoul upgrades were a bit cheaper as well. I'd be nice to see costs shifted a bit and prevent stuff like a Tartaros Centurion being only 15pts more than a standard centurion, even the Cataphractii being 20pts more isn't a hard choice either because again it's the same costs as a power weapon and +1 to the invulnerable save and heavy on top.

 

Some Legion options have similar issues, Ultramarine Praetorians being 135pts but Suzerains being 175pts sure it's 40pts but you get a lot for that 40. Legion weapons too, why are some free choices, (SoH axes/tabars) but others you pay on top of a power weapon to get (Night Lords, got ripped off here).

 

Terminator Centurions have the downside of limited wargear options and Consul Upgrades, which keeps the Balance.

 

[No Foes Remain]

6 minutes ago, Bung said:

 

Terminator Centurions have the downside of limited wargear options and Consul Upgrades, which keeps the Balance.

 

Not that limited though, to borrow the chart from 1d6chan's tactics page:

 

12 out of 19 consoles (generic not legion) can take termie armour, sure they have limited wargear but at the end of the day it will be the same options taken, a combi weapon and either a thunder hammer or power fist.