Horus Heresy New Edition, or Just Horus Hearsay?

[jaxom]

4 hours ago, Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf said:

Army organisation looks now less intuitive and a bit more complicated that in the previous edition, isn't it?

 

3 hours ago, Mandragola said:

It’s certainly not straightforward. Hopefully I’ve made things clearer. 
 

Objectively I don’t know if I’d say one system is more or less complicated. Rites of war and the various legion and character exceptions to the rules in 2.0 were also somewhat complicated, but we were used to that and understood it. 
 

A big difference with these rules is that there are very few restrictions. You can have pretty much whatever you want if you’ll pay a character tax. There’s no equivalent of, for example, limiting the allies you can have if you take pride of the legion. But those limits of rites of war arguably added character as much as their benefits, so that’s not entirely positive of course you’re still able to self-restrict if you want to fit to a particular theme. 

 

3 hours ago, Jings said:

 

See in principle I really like it, but in practice it seems half-baked and clunky. There should have been more Prime or whatever the new Primary detachments are to reflect the various old Rites of War options (Recon, Armoured etc.) that confer Line to certain units. The lack of mandatory requirements is standout to me. 

 

The thing is there are a lot of things I really like. The use of Centurions to bring more Detachments is a stroke of genius. Yeah, it's a tax, but it's a fluffy one that offsets the imbalance in allowing more E/FA/HS options. 

 

The problem is the aforementioned lack of mandatory units or at least bonuses for the detachments beyond the Prime unit bonuses. Whole things like War Engines are fine as they are and operate as inhibitors, if the aim of these Auxiliary detachments is to build a fluffy force, the lack of benefits for filling out at least a token percentage of slots seems daft to me. 

 

There are also issues with certain slots being a premium considering the units involved, such as Tactical Support, but that's a bit by the by and lesser to the overall issues. 

 

Cool in theory. Standard CAD in practice. 

At some point I really need to sit down and write up the article I have planned about how the new army building is straight out of Nigel Stillman’s old White Dwarf articles. It’s a terrible thing to happen to veteran collections, but a massive improvement to the overall *hobby* of Horus Heresy.

[Irate Khornate]

Welcome to 3rd edition. We swear we aren't crazy, the evidence board is just us army building with the new edition. 

 

I legit think that a crime evidence board might be this edition's best tool to use for army building with how convoluted it is.

[Marshal Rohr]

54 minutes ago, apologist said:

 

Ah; have I got things wrong?

 

I thought it worked like:

• Crusade Primary Detachment
  • Centurion – opens up two potential Auxiliary Detachments 
    • Unlocks my Praetorians (Elite) through Logistical Benefit
    • Auxiliary Detachment 1 – e.g. Dreadnought
  • Chaplain – opens up one potential Auxiliary Detachment
    • Auxiliary Detachment 2 – e.g. Land Raider
  • Master of Signals – opens up one potential Auxiliary Detachment
    • Auxiliary Detachment 3 – e.g. Heavy Support Squad

 

Is that not right? If it is, then that covers everything I'd typically have in a game.

Yeh, you’ve got it right, but you intentionally engineered your army to be something like a general line company/spread of legion armies. You’ve also got less vehicles than you’d see in late 1/2 editions. (These aren’t judgements, of course, you’re the best). But something like an Armored Company, Rite of War, or armies for larger games have to do weird nickel and diming with centurions to get multiples of things that used to be one choice. Even something like the Apothecarion detachment that used to be one single slot is now a whole detachment that requires a centurion. So you end up in a situation where Captain Bob is the captain of 80 legionaries or 6 apothecaries. It flubs the narrative aspect. Or my personal pet peeve right now, if you run an armored company you have to take 3 centurions and they either need a whole detachment to ride in a rhino or they just hang out at the back of the board like the old Emperor’s champion did in Templar Drop Pod lists

Edited Wednesday at 01:27 PM by Marshal Rohr

[Ripper.McGuirl]

13 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Yeh, you’ve got it right, but you intentionally engineered your army to be something like a general line company/spread of legion armies. You’ve also got less vehicles than you’d see in late 1/2 editions. (These aren’t judgements, of course, you’re the best). But something like an Armored Company, Rite of War, or armies for larger games have to do weird nickel and diming with centurions to get multiples of things that used to be one choice. Even something like the Apothecarion detachment that used to be one single slot is now a whole detachment that requires a centurion. So you end up in a situation where Captain Bob is the captain of 80 legionaries or 6 apothecaries. It flubs the narrative aspect. Or my personal pet peeve right now, if you run an armored company you have to take 3 centurions and they either need a whole detachment to ride in a rhino or they just hang out at the back of the board like the old Emperor’s champion did in Templar Drop Pod lists

How many tanks are typically in an armored fist army? With just a single centurion you can unlock 8 tanks on top of the 4 rhinos full of tactical marines that the primary detachment allows. From there, a praetor gives you access to a bunch of terminators/whatever legion units if you like, and if you want them to roll in spartans or raiders you can add a single funsies consul like a champion or whoever and add the heavy transports. That’s a huge amount of armor and a fairly large army without having to dip into logistical benefits at all.  It’s also the same number of characters previously allowed in 2.0

I do think it’s tempting to brain-wise say “ok my chaplain is unlocking the heavy transport detachment which means he’s leading them” but that’s not really the case. Once things are in the army, they’re just a part of your army, not assigned to that particular guy.

So the “he leads 80 marines or 6 apothecaries” isnt really true. It’s more like “do I want to allocate resources to specialists or line troops”. 
Also: apothecaries take the cake for me for least favorite rule writing this edition so far.

[skylerboodie]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/p0y6yx4s/legacies-of-the-age-of-darkness-what-you-need-to-know/

 

We’ve also noticed that some of you are concerned that certain units in your existing armies might not be usable in the new edition, especially if they don’t feature in the Liber book for that faction.

 

Hopefully this article will reassure you that those Tartaros Terminators with power fists, Destroyers with jump packs and lovingly converted White Scars Champions on bikes won’t be resigned to a life on the shelf.

 

...

 

The upcoming Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF is a huge document which will allow you to continue to use the vast majority of miniatures you’ve amassed over the last decade of collecting.

 

...

 

we fully intend for players with existing armies to use these Legacy units in their games, including in competitive play. These are no less official than those units with rules in the Liber books.

 

...

 

Article then includes a list of the units that will have playable rules and unit datasheets in the upcoming Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF.

 

Good to know - should've probably been announced a while ago, but still positive news. 

Edited Wednesday at 02:02 PM by skylerboodie

[PerfectChocolateMadeleine]

at least it's a free pdf and these units won't be in the journals, thank god

[Astartes Consul]

2 minutes ago, skylerboodie said:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/p0y6yx4s/legacies-of-the-age-of-darkness-what-you-need-to-know/

 

We’ve also noticed that some of you are concerned that certain units in your existing armies might not be usable in the new edition, especially if they don’t feature in the Liber book for that faction.

 

Hopefully this article will reassure you that those Tartaros Terminators with power fists, Destroyers with jump packs and lovingly converted White Scars Champions on bikes won’t be resigned to a life on the shelf.

 

 

The upcoming Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF is a huge document which will allow you to continue to use the vast majority of miniatures you’ve amassed over the last decade of collecting.

Would LOVE to know if this was always planned as such or if there has been some very rapidly designed rules porting

[apologist]

Whether planned or not, this is good to hear. It's nice to see a clear rundown on what's in, what's not, and perhaps most critically, an explanation of why certain decisions were made.

 

It looks like a thorough list, so fair play to them for addressing things properly, rather than more vague statements that further inflame things.

 

(and on a related note, I'll happily retract my prediction that Tartaros Terminators' loss of Power Fists suggested that they were being rethought as a unit, since that's an example explicitly called out.)

 

+++Edit+++

Although now I read a bit more closely... is the implication actually that it is intentional that Tartaros won't have power fists except through this PDF?

Edited Wednesday at 02:54 PM by apologist

[Lord Marshal]

10 minutes ago, Astartes Consul said:

Would LOVE to know if this was always planned as such or if there has been some very rapidly designed rules porting

 

A Legacy document dropping at launch was on the PDF roadmap they showed the other week.

 

The presence of Veteran Heavy Support Squads make me think it was always the plan, since iirc HSS didn't lose any options and it's a completely new unit (whereas Siege Termies and Veteran Breachers are probably where the old loadouts went), plus the Legacy doc for 2.0 dropped pretty quickly as well (for better or worse).

 

I do think THIS article in particular was a panic push through however.

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:11 PM by Lord Marshal

[Marshal Rohr]

15 minutes ago, Ripper.McGuirl said:

How many tanks are typically in an armored fist army? With just a single centurion you can unlock 8 tanks on top of the 4 rhinos full of tactical marines that the primary detachment allows. From there, a praetor gives you access to a bunch of terminators/whatever legion units if you like, and if you want them to roll in spartans or raiders you can add a single funsies consul like a champion or whoever and add the heavy transports. That’s a huge amount of armor and a fairly large army without having to dip into logistical benefits at all.  It’s also the same number of characters previously allowed in 2.0

I do think it’s tempting to brain-wise say “ok my chaplain is unlocking the heavy transport detachment which means he’s leading them” but that’s not really the case. Once things are in the army, they’re just a part of your army, not assigned to that particular guy.

So the “he leads 80 marines or 6 apothecaries” isnt really true. It’s more like “do I want to allocate resources to specialists or line troops”. 
Also: apothecaries take the cake for me for least favorite rule writing this edition so far.

This mental math ends up with three captains of the same tier leading the same group of 40 guys, and there’s no gymnastics around how that makes sense in either black book or black library lore. There’s a clear design break where they intended for centurions to unlock something similar to the old allied FOC (remnants of this exist in the Ultramarine special auxiliary detachment, but that was deemed to restrictive and now you have to hunt for officer of the line spam. Andy loves Epic Space Marine where taking a marine commander gave you an automatic transport pool, each “company” gave you four detachment slots, etc. This has that design language with the clear break where someone said new players won’t understand so they made it a spammy special rule. 

[de Selby]

Ok, that is big news. 115 legacy units including big omissions like desrroyers and my tartaros terminators with power fists are confirmed for the pdf.

 

Clearly some damage control going on here, but this is the first good news about HH for a week or so.

[PerfectChocolateMadeleine]

I think this genuinely saved 3rd edition for me, i'm now much more hopeful about being able to make a cool, kitbashed army that I can actually play!! My Praevian can probably get more than a measly bolt pistol! of course it still isn't perfect but I am feeling genuine relief

[Mogger351]

GW baffle me, why voluntarily piss people off for a week?

[Irate Khornate]

With as long as they went radio silent on stuff I'm pretty sure this wasn't planned from the beginning. I could be wrong, but this absolutely feels like an emergency support beam before the mines collapsed.

 

I definitely believe they had planned on releasing stuff in the PDF, but I have a feeling it's gotten a lot bigger than what was planned for release 

Edited Wednesday at 02:14 PM by Irate Khornate

[Valkyrion]

As far as I can tell, generic astartes RIP's are;

Primus Nullificator

Nullificator Squad

'Imperial Guard' flyers x 5

'Imperial Guard' super heavies x 12

Legion Whirlwind (though I think this has come back to life by combining the tarantula kit?)

 

So the cull, such as it is, only really extends to 2 or 3 units depending on the status of the Whirlwind.

 

I find it funny that the Thunderhawk Transporter is still available for the one person in the world who has one, but I bet half a dozen people on this site alone have lost nullificators. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:15 PM by Valkyrion

[StrangerOrders]

I am happy to see that it looks like the Exemplary Battle units got merged in, will be neater to look them up than having two pdfs.

 

Interesting that the model-less named characters died, especially with the language used, folks think a few of them are already in the works for a release or two per Legion journal? GW does like a tie-in model with a given release these days.

[Dezron]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

Legion Whirlwind (though I think this has come back to life by combining the tarantula kit?)

That would be Whirlwind Hyperios, the AA version Whirlwind.

 

 

[Dried]

They already said a few weeks ago, they intended to publish a "legacy" pdf and that it'll be tournament legal. I think it was the plan all along.
But it's really poor communication.

[Astartes Consul]

Loving this bit…

 

 

However much of the whole list was planned, we’ll never know. But you can’t convince me that this was part of the plan

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

21 minutes ago, Astartes Consul said:

Would LOVE to know if this was always planned as such or if there has been some very rapidly designed rules porting

I think is the second  option.

 

So...we can lit torches, grab clubs, sharp knives and rise guillotines or not?

Edited Wednesday at 02:22 PM by Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf

[Robbienw]

So essentially much of the histrionics following the PDF leak was all over nothing, and all current and historical units with models will still have rules.

[DemonGSides]

12 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

GW baffle me, why voluntarily piss people off for a week?

 

They didn't.  People leaked the books that should never have been seen before this Legends document.

It's not like GW said "here take a look at these books".  Some dude got really angry and started uploading them.

[01RTB01]

4 minutes ago, Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf said:

I think is the second  option.

 

So...we can lit torches, grab clubs, sharp knives and rise guillotines or not?

It had been mentioned before so would believe it was planned all along. They should have pushed this out last week though.

[Cerbero666]

I get the thing people say about GW being a miniature company foremost as an explanation for them not putting units rules on rulebooks if those units don't have their proper miniatures, but I personally find it lame. On the one hand, with those rules you motivate people to make their own conversions, yeah I guess third party companies are gonna take advantage of that and release a version of those units, but still you got a lot of people doing their own conversions with YOUR miniatures. Besides, that was a big part of the hobby back in the day, and they even motivated it on their Exemplary Battles pdfs not so long ago (Atramentar, Huscarls, Karaoghlanlar, etc). On the other hand, if you are worried about third party companies doing a version of your units, DO IT YOURSELF. I supposed a lot of us would want an offical version of units like the Atramentar, the Huscarls, the Excindio (Men of Iron!!!!!), the Morlocks or characters like Rylanor, Cassian Dracos, Autek Mor, Kyr Vhalen... Do it so no other company would take that money from you. But they choose the worst way on any given situation, always. 

[crimsondave]

Just now, Mogger351 said:

GW baffle me, why voluntarily piss people off for a week?

I was about to post the exact same thing.  Makes no sense unless they decided to do this after the meltdown.  I bet it was planned from the start though.  It’s a very corporate of them.