New Edition, or Just Horus Hearsay?

[Marshal Rohr]

I’d like to think I have built a reputation for being a lore purist brick by brick over 18 years but even I sincerely do not care how Saturnine is introduced. 
 

Here is what is happening and will continue to happen. Every single piece of space marine art, lore, and sculpted asset prior to the Primaris will now be the purview of Specialist Games. Every odd Rogue Trader reference, every boxnaught design, ever weird gun or robot in collected visions. If you are going through something from second edition and you see, say the perfected spherical drop pod or thunderbolt star destro… sorry Thunderbolt Dropship, SGDS is more that aware of it and it may come back. 
 

When they finally do get around to updating Cataphractii because they realize people will buy it, everyone is going to need to keep their [redacted] together when they’ve got big old plumes and massive axes like collected visions. The old Furibundus with big boots and massive hands? Guess what. Probably get that too. And it will sell. 
 

Hate what you want, love what you want, but for the love of nine pound six ounce baby Sanguinius stop talking about if it fits or is a retcon or doesn’t make sense or looks like trash. They will Make it. There’s nothing you can do but accept it or pretend it doesn’t exist.

[SkimaskMohawk]

7 hours ago, Matcap86 said:

Just the "ZOMG worst game of all time" seems a bit much

 

But that's not what I said, is it? I said it was the worst GW game they made that uses points. Maybe I should have specified it as a "continuously model supported GW game".

 

It's basically only balanced around how they package the models for sale and how ruinous it is to collect a lot of something specific direct from GW. Once you take that out of the equation and start looking at how a list that's primarily all infantry translates to the game, it gets rather obvious. The detachment system doesn't actually limit anything, the points costs on infantry in a 3000 point recommended game might as well not exist, and the lethality from both range and melee that you can output renders it into a game of units either scoop something or be scooped in return.

 

Past that, we can see their efforts to tinker with SM2s rules to modernize them and see the results. The original rules suggested 1500 points with units encompassing a pretty substantial baseline amount of stands; a unit of "eldar guardians" was 3 transports and 6 stands of infantry for 300 points and one activation, or three support platforms for 300 and one activation. Activation count was relatively low, but impactful; an environment alternate activation thrives in. Now the suggested points is 3000 and the units look like this: 4 stands of infantry for 35 points and one activation, 1 rhino for 10 points and one activation, 2 rapiers for 40 points and one activation, 3 scimitars for 35 points and one activation (you can make an infuriating 85 activation army). You get these enormous activation counts that bog down turns and ruin the point of alternate activations. You know what else ruins the entire point of them? Interrupt mechanics. They added in the ability to interrupt any move with a shooting attack, slowing down the turn further. But far worse than that, to make overwatch work, they had to break first fire and remove it's functionality to shoot the unit that charged them. The order basically serves no purpose in LI, as you discard it when activated while engaged in melee; advance can move, overwatch and even still shoot if their melee attacks killed the base contact models. Oh, and they also swapped out the sudden death tug of war for progressive scoring that starts from turn 1 (and access to infinite infiltrate to really make that fun).

 

They made a rules sandbox that's effectively 6mm apocalypse, where the best weapons completely overshadow the others and turn the game into a glass cannon off, infantry disproportionately steam roll everything, but the game still takes forever because of the activation count and book keeping with detachment break points.

 

So bringing this back to my original comment: what, exactly, would be the benefit of having the LI rules mashed up into heresy's? The team couldn't handle adding stuff to SM2. If anything, they should mash up the rules of SM2 and cut reactions; first fire order to lock movement and allow the unit to shoot first and shoot their charging unit.

Edited 12 hours ago by SkimaskMohawk

[DuskRaider]

4 hours ago, Matcap86 said:

The Mk6 was also retconned from: 'in testing in small units in early heresy, prevalent in late heresy' to: 'Everyone gets Mk6 all the time cause that's what we're selling right now!'. Curious to see if that gets ret-retconned now MK2 is in the spotlight and we're going back to Isstvan.

 

That retcon didn't sit well with me. I know lore was always subservient to the business side of things but that was so blatantly linked to facilitate the relaunch that banked hard on beakie nostalgia. 

At the end of the day they’re just trying to sell overpriced plastic models to an increasing audience, the lore is most certainly not sacred to them. Or at least not how it used to be or should be. 
 

I absolutely despise the proliferation of Mk. VI armor, especially when one of the major subplots during the Martian Civil War (and even referenced in the LI book) was the Alpha Legion infiltrating not only Mars but the Raven Guard to get their hands on it… and ruining the XIX geneseed / fast travel to Astarteshood. 
 

Back to LI… one of the biggest issues is that the factions themselves aren’t even close to internally balanced with the exception of perhaps Mechanicum / Dark Mechanicum. There are units that are such no-brainers in both the Auxilia and Astartes factions that they are (or should be) considered auto-includes. Coupled with  the stupid points system where some (or most) weapons options don’t actually have a point value, even when some are so absolute trash when compared to others that take the same exact slot, it makes for very cookie cutter games unless you’re playing against someone who is very hell bent on playing for the lore. 
 

There’s also the issue with their “inclusion” of both Knight Households and Titan Legios as their own specific factions while doing literally nothing to make them function as such. They were vastly overcosted and underpowered when they debuted, they could have fixed these issues and given points values to their weaponry, but instead of doing literally anything they just copy and pasted their poor and unbalanced stats into their own factions. It’s so lazy and unimaginative that it borders on incompetence. 

Edited 12 hours ago by DuskRaider

[Marshal Loss]

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

When they finally do get around to updating Cataphractii because they realize people will buy it, everyone is going to need to keep their [redacted] together when they’ve got big old plumes and massive axes like collected visions.

 

This never occurred to me and now I am chomping at the bit for a Cataphractii refresh. Hope they go that route.

 

[Marshal Rohr]

1 hour ago, Marshal Loss said:

 

This never occurred to me and now I am chomping at the bit for a Cataphractii refresh. Hope they go that route.

 

 

 

It will be glorious, but I can already see the Crusade and Heresy posts in my mind. 

[MoriyaSchism]

5 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

I’d like to think I have built a reputation for being a lore purist brick by brick over 18 years but even I sincerely do not care how Saturnine is introduced. 
 

Here is what is happening and will continue to happen. Every single piece of space marine art, lore, and sculpted asset prior to the Primaris will now be the purview of Specialist Games. Every odd Rogue Trader reference, every boxnaught design, ever weird gun or robot in collected visions. If you are going through something from second edition and you see, say the perfected spherical drop pod or thunderbolt star destro… sorry Thunderbolt Dropship, SGDS is more that aware of it and it may come back. 
 

When they finally do get around to updating Cataphractii because they realize people will buy it, everyone is going to need to keep their [redacted] together when they’ve got big old plumes and massive axes like collected visions. The old Furibundus with big boots and massive hands? Guess what. Probably get that too. And it will sell. 

Didn't the Heresy from before already do this but with a much better aesthetic? Granted some of the early Heresy stuff came from Imperial Armour releases made for the Badab War. I wouldn't have any issue with stuff looking like Collected Visions, I just find it difficult to find anything in my copy of Collected Visions that looks exactly like some of the recent Heresy releases I don't like (new plastic Mark III, the new Phobos pattern bolter, some of the consuls and now the Saturnine pattern portion of this box). For example a lot of the helmet upgrades that replaced the old sets feel a lot softer and cartoony than what was established before, the updated plastic Mk VI and Mark III helmets don't seem to have the same sort of "mean" look to them as past iterations with only the Mark II helmet retaining the same style as before. Some of the recent releases look exactly like the old stuff (Contemptor dreadnought, most of the vehicles, the Mark IV and Mark V characters), but others I mentioned just have this strange soft look to them and the detailing on them doesn't match the image of the Heresy time period built by the Black Books, collected visions and returning Rogue Trader units. I just find it strange that my personal taste is being characterized as "toxic rivet counting" by some or I see people like Leaky Cheese make generalized statements by calling anyone who dislikes the new Mark IIIs "stupid".

[Marshal Rohr]

1 hour ago, MoriyaSchism said:

Didn't the Heresy from before already do this but with a much better aesthetic? Granted some of the early Heresy stuff came from Imperial Armour releases made for the Badab War. I wouldn't have any issue with stuff looking like Collected Visions, I just find it difficult to find anything in my copy of Collected Visions that looks exactly like some of the recent Heresy releases I don't like (new plastic Mark III, the new Phobos pattern bolter, some of the consuls and now the Saturnine pattern portion of this box). For example a lot of the helmet upgrades that replaced the old sets feel a lot softer and cartoony than what was established before, the updated plastic Mk VI and Mark III helmets don't seem to have the same sort of "mean" look to them as past iterations with only the Mark II helmet retaining the same style as before. Some of the recent releases look exactly like the old stuff (Contemptor dreadnought, most of the vehicles, the Mark IV and Mark V characters), but others I mentioned just have this strange soft look to them and the detailing on them doesn't match the image of the Heresy time period built by the Black Books, collected visions and returning Rogue Trader units. I just find it strange that my personal taste is being characterized as "toxic rivet counting" by some or I see people like Leaky Cheese make generalized statements by calling anyone who dislikes the new Mark IIIs "stupid".

Preferring the sharper detail possible in resin isn’t toxic, but that’s not what most people are doing is it? It’s the peter pullers on Facebook and Reddit commenting “trash neu plastics”. It’s the rando accounts with no posts on IG sending people DMs telling the poster to kill themselves. Like what you like, don’t like what you don’t like, but this constant culture war bull seeping into every aspect of the hobby - where design choices are moral failures, where playing a game means you’re on a side, where preferring some lore over something else makes you evil - is toxic. If you hate the saturnine and mark 3, fine. I’ll buy them from you on eBay. If I don’t someone else will and you can buy what you do like. What you can’t and won’t get to do is change what forge world makes now that it’s plastic. The patterns people are going to bat for now were not so well received when they came out. People crapped on the bell bottom mark 3 so hard they rebooted the leg sprue a year in. People were so outraged by plastic cataphractii not being as beefy or having the rivet on the shoulder straps it caused threads to get locked. In ten years people are going to be insulting mothers and cursing fathers for forge world making a new mark 3 with pointy toes instead of flat toes.  
 

Edit: and to be clear, I also like the older look. I loved it when it came out and I love it now. But they aren’t making it anymore, and this is what I have, so this is what I am using. There’s no unrolling the toothpaste. If it’s not to your taste, that is totally valid, but it’s not going back just like the you-know-who marines in 40K. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Marshal Rohr

[Matcap86]

6 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

But that's not what I said, is it? I said it was the worst GW game they made that uses points. Maybe I should have specified it as a "continuously model supported GW game".

 

It's basically only balanced around how they package the models for sale and how ruinous it is to collect a lot of something specific direct from GW. Once you take that out of the equation and start looking at how a list that's primarily all infantry translates to the game, it gets rather obvious. The detachment system doesn't actually limit anything, the points costs on infantry in a 3000 point recommended game might as well not exist, and the lethality from both range and melee that you can output renders it into a game of units either scoop something or be scooped in return.

 

Past that, we can see their efforts to tinker with SM2s rules to modernize them and see the results. The original rules suggested 1500 points with units encompassing a pretty substantial baseline amount of stands; a unit of "eldar guardians" was 3 transports and 6 stands of infantry for 300 points and one activation, or three support platforms for 300 and one activation. Activation count was relatively low, but impactful; an environment alternate activation thrives in. Now the suggested points is 3000 and the units look like this: 4 stands of infantry for 35 points and one activation, 1 rhino for 10 points and one activation, 2 rapiers for 40 points and one activation, 3 scimitars for 35 points and one activation (you can make an infuriating 85 activation army). You get these enormous activation counts that bog down turns and ruin the point of alternate activations. You know what else ruins the entire point of them? Interrupt mechanics. They added in the ability to interrupt any move with a shooting attack, slowing down the turn further. But far worse than that, to make overwatch work, they had to break first fire and remove it's functionality to shoot the unit that charged them. The order basically serves no purpose in LI, as you discard it when activated while engaged in melee; advance can move, overwatch and even still shoot if their melee attacks killed the base contact models. Oh, and they also swapped out the sudden death tug of war for progressive scoring that starts from turn 1 (and access to infinite infiltrate to really make that fun).

 

They made a rules sandbox that's effectively 6mm apocalypse, where the best weapons completely overshadow the others and turn the game into a glass cannon off, infantry disproportionately steam roll everything, but the game still takes forever because of the activation count and book keeping with detachment break points.

 

So bringing this back to my original comment: what, exactly, would be the benefit of having the LI rules mashed up into heresy's? The team couldn't handle adding stuff to SM2. If anything, they should mash up the rules of SM2 and cut reactions; first fire order to lock movement and allow the unit to shoot first and shoot their charging unit.

 

That's a whole lot of text to argue against a point no one but yourself made.

 

Seems like you just really don't like LI, which is fine, but there's absolutely 0 indication any of the rules will transfer to HH. The tokens were almost immediately identified as markers for reactions which already exist in HH 2.0.

 

 Not sure why that warrants a soapbox of several posts on why you dislike LI.

 

[Unknown Legionnaire]

 

How 'bout we talk more about the models once we get better pictures and more about the rules once they're revealed.

 

And other than that, every person can love or dislike whatever they want, and play whatever version of the game they want.

 

 

[Gorgoff]

12 hours ago, Mandragola said:

Having Saturnine terminators boxed with mk2s, along with fluff referencing Istvaan V, contradicts the previous fluff, which has them appearing during the heresy (though barely previously mentioned). 

Funny enough until the 2ed rulebook showed this:

I always thought that Eggnators where the prototyoes for all terminators who followed because they looked so industrial to me.

Like some suit to walk clumsily inside of a plasma reactor to do things there which got re assigned to battlefields. 

"Put some guns on the suit und off you go, soldier." That sort of thing.

I like the new models although they look to sophisticated to me. They lack the brutal industrial look I like from the heresy. 

I guess I will be able to make them look more nitty gritty though because I don't paint my models like playmobil which will help for sure. Not to mention the real kick ass artists on Instagram I look forward to painting them as well.

Edited 5 hours ago by Gorgoff

[Joe]

A lot of the issues here could have been cleaned up by using the timeline to make a clearer distinction between;

• Field Testing
• General Issue

By moving certain details into the former (see Mark VI and Saturnine) you can easily resolve the "oh, but it wasn't around then so you shouldn't use it / it shouldn't exist" argument; technically, it was, as it was being tested at a limited scale by various forces across the Imperium. This is largely how real world militaries (and those in fiction, such as the UNSC in Halo) do it, and it largely resolves any further additions to the setting.

 

Admittedly this is how I would have done it if I worked at the studio - mayhaps the long inactive B&C member that does work over there these days sees this post and notes it down for the future. 

[Cyrox]

Getting back to the big box - do you think they are going to stick to the 399 hours countdown to planetfall from the other day and drip feed funny teases on the Hearsay website, or will be getting a Heresy Thursday today?

 

[Astartes Consul]

2 minutes ago, Cyrox said:

Getting back to the big box - do you think they are going to stick to the 399 hours countdown to planetfall from the other day and drip feed funny teases on the Hearsay website, or will be getting a Heresy Thursday today?

 

I suspect the former? The countdown went live after the box leak. Unless they have something even bigger to reveal than a new starter box, I doubt they would bring the box reveal forward…

 

Unless the countdown is for preorder, not the reveal date? 

[Matcap86]

8 minutes ago, Astartes Consul said:

I suspect the former? The countdown went live after the box leak. Unless they have something even bigger to reveal than a new starter box, I doubt they would bring the box reveal forward…

 

Unless the countdown is for preorder, not the reveal date? 

 

Countdown goes to  a Thursday iirc so seems more like towards a full reveal.

[Nephaston]

Seeing as the initial countdown article is a lore snippet out of the perspective of a scout ship of the raven guard it would not surprise me if we see more snippets like that for the next thursdays until the 29th hits

[Mandragola]

2 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

Funny enough until the 2ed rulebook showed this:

I always thought that Eggnators where the prototyoes for all terminators who followed because they looked so industrial to me.

Like some suit to walk clumsily inside of a plasma reactor to do things there which got re assigned to battlefields. 

"Put some guns on the suit und off you go, soldier." That sort of thing.

I like the new models although they look to sophisticated to me. They lack the brutal industrial look I like from the heresy. 

I guess I will be able to make them look more nitty gritty though because I don't paint my models like playmobil which will help for sure. Not to mention the real kick ass artists on Instagram I look forward to painting them as well.

Yeah that is what I based my comment off. The point other fraters made about field testing is kind of fine if that’s what they say it is. It especially works for salamanders, if Vulcan invented it. 
 

On the different armour marks for different legions, I do agree it felt weird for there to be mk6 everywhere suddenly. I went with Raven Guard partly because of this, as it felt more right to me for them to have it than most other legions.
 

This mk2 works for everyone though - indeed I might even make a veteran squad of them for my RGs. That army is mostly done though so I might use most of the bodies for something else - either new SoH or perhaps reviving my 1.0 Fists. 

 

Maybe it would have been better if they did mk2 in the AoD box with the cataphracti and mk6 in saturnine, theming them about early and late heresy. Not a huge deal though. 

[Marshal Loss]

Two new images:

 

The combi-weapon looks like it is from the Mark II Centurion.

[The boater]

Looks like guns for the commanders, but would be cool if the combi was for veterans. I really like the combimelta.

[Doobles57]

12 minutes ago, Marshal Loss said:

Two new images:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

The combi-weapon looks like it is from the Mark II Centurion.

Ah you're right. Got briefly excited for a veteran upgrade kit. Though I don't expect them to be teasing anything that's not in the big box so that's on me.

 

EDIT - I wonder if the plasma is a nipple weapon option for the dread?

Edited 1 hour ago by Doobles57
Avoiding double post

[Nephaston]

18 minutes ago, Marshal Loss said:

The combi-weapon looks like it is from the Mark II Centurion.

The centurion seems to have a pistol.

The box does have one of the MkII marines listed as a veteran, so either this is part of an extra sprue that isn't listed, part of the disintegrator sprue for some reason, or, they're starting to show off things beyond the box, as presumably a new edition will have more than just the starter box.

Edited 1 hour ago by Nephaston

[Spazmolytic]

I've chosen the Mechanicum as my army but this box has me wanting to finish my Ghost legion. The original starter box is around $320.00 CDN now from hobby shops so if this one is in that ballpark I may just wait till the individual releases unless this is the new starter box and sticks around for a few years.  I'm digging the designs I see here!

[Corswain]

2 hours ago, Cyrox said:

Getting back to the big box - do you think they are going to stick to the 399 hours countdown to planetfall from the other day and drip feed funny teases on the Hearsay website, or will be getting a Heresy Thursday today?

 

I'm hoping for a reveal but not expecting it. GW remained silent for about a year on the 2nd edition leak so I can't see them bringing it forward this time.

The Horus Hearsay thing is a whole new ballgame though so who knows.

 

11 minutes ago, Marshal Loss said:

Two new images:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

The combi-weapon looks like it is from the Mark II Centurion.

 

In-focus leaks!?!? I never thought I would live to see the day...

[Jings]

9 minutes ago, The boater said:

Looks like guns for the commanders, but would be cool if the combi was for veterans. I really like the combimelta.

 

 

I wonder if the big adjustment to Combi weapons might be a removal of One Shot. Can't speak for everyone but for all the sins of 40K 8th/9th, making Combi-weapons bonus special weapons wound up being a fantastic way to tool out a unit. 

 

There's precedent. The Minoris weapons work like that presently. I think I'd be quite happy if the Majoris got it, perhaps with a caveat preventing them from firing both halves of the gun? 

 

Power and combi Terminator pseudo-special weapon squads would be very sick. 

[Doobles57]

Looking again, the part numbers have me wondering if these are for the characters or not. 

 

The combi-melta sprue goes up to at least 24 parts which feels like a lot for a centurion. Not out of the realm of possibility, but on the high side. That said, the bit of basing on the part below it does indicate character.

 

The plasma going up to at least 70 parts rules that out as anything to do with the Saturnine Praetor to me. Wrist mounted option for the termi unit? Nipple option for the dread?

[INKS]

36 minutes ago, Spazmolytic said:

I've chosen the Mechanicum as my army but this box has me wanting to finish my Ghost legion. The original starter box is around $320.00 CDN now from hobby shops so if this one is in that ballpark I may just wait till the individual releases unless this is the new starter box and sticks around for a few years.  I'm digging the designs I see here!

wow i didn't know it was so expensive. i guess that makes sense for the number of models but this prices me out