Horus Heresy New Edition, or Just Horus Hearsay?

[Nephaston]

Blessed be the holy word, the pantheon rewards!

[01RTB01]

Guess that means this is 100% confirmed as new cataphractii then and presumably will be shown off a week today for the preview?

[Matcap86]

If they combine the MK2 release with Cataphracti, makes sense we get MK4 with Tartaros next year.

[Doghouse]

17 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

What the :cuss were they thinking? Mono-loadout consuls? This is un:cussing believable. It’s trash. It has no redeeming value. This isn’t for “modern audiences” or 2nd Edition/RT nostalgia. It’s disgusting. There is nothing in this bland, video game designed slop worth commenting on positively. This is only paralleled by the one true mobile game on the table, 40K, in its brutal assault on player choice, theme, and customization and no amount of quirky “hey remember crayon whirlwind” callbacks in the arcane journals will ever bring back something as simple as giving your veterans flamers and combi-grandes to make trench raiders or taking meltaguns on Breachers to fight Contemptor in a boarding action. This isn’t an edition for competitive players or narrative players. It’s not for anyone. 
 

 

edit: you know who this is for? It’s for the troglodyte GW finance and product people who see these smooth brained zoomer AI-using illiterates constantly commenting “how do I get into the Horus heresy” and think the problem is a little math to add a special weapon and pistol in an army list. We are one coke fueled genius idea by an MBA trying to meet a sales goal from combined weapon profiles and 3+ to hit then save. 
 

 

@TheTrans I take back everything I said, you were right. @SkimaskMohawk you were right too. :cuss this. 

 

Don't ask questions, just consume product then get excited for next product.

[Astartes Consul]

1 hour ago, Joe said:

Well, we now know Cataphractii are being shown off next week - the new unit comes stock with volkite chargers (matching the teaser), but also goes up to twelve models in a squad (starting at five). The Command Squad variant starts at three models, and can also be upgraded to twelve models.

 

So presumably a box of six, with combi-weapons included. Potentially a cloak and such for converting a Praetor / Centurion.

Are we confirmed a Heresy preview next week then?

[Nephaston]

3 minutes ago, Astartes Consul said:

Are we confirmed a Heresy preview next week then?

 

[Aarik]

I'm both shocked and completely unsurprised that GW is taking this direction with the game.  It really feels that the community is being punished for 2.0 (apparently) being far more successful than anticipated by GW porting in the post-8th ed. 40k design ethos/"core game" anti-customer practices rather than letting it live under the radar as its own niche game.  The overriding question I have when reading the vast majority of the rules changes is, "Who wanted this??"  I don't even play this fething game, but I've still got about 4,000-5,000 of models for it mostly painted across a few different armies. But reading about all these changes has really taken the wind out of my hobbying sails.  And before my rant, let the record reflect that I am not normally a doom-and-gloom new edition complainer.  This is the only time I've felt nearly this strongly.

 

A few thoughts I've been kicking around that I need to get off my chest:

• If you have to drastically re-write your core rules system every three years, that means that you've done a Bad Job with each prior re-write.  Each iteration should be moving closer towards (and in increasingly smaller increments) the Platonic ideal of your rules system.  If you are not narrowing in with each successive iteration, you lack a coherent direction.
• Even setting aside any judgment about the quality of the rules/changes themselves, GW should be absolutely mortified about the lack of quality control and proofreading in their books.  If I were a writer or editor who was responsible for letting these mistakes slip through, I would genuinely be very worried about getting fired.  This only strengthens my conviction to Never Pay for Rulebooks.
• Building off of that, the removal of unit options is apparently arbitrary.  Why did Varagyr lose them, but Lerneans actually gained options?  It seems like YET ANOTHER instance of there being no consistent design philosophy, writers not talking to each other, and/or no effort to harmonize the work of multiple people. 
• We now are forced to take way more HQ units in order to take a varied/non-spam army, but they took away all the wargear options and most special rules for consuls. So now the superfluous characters I'm forced to take don't do nearly as much.
• GW does not seem to really have a cohesive design direction for the rules.  They stripped out a ton of units and options ostensibly to "streamline" the game and lower the barrier for entry, but they added a bunch of new stats, a whole new challenge minigame, and a convoluted army building process, which just raises the barrier of entry.  And, Emperor help me, let me tell you that I cannot stand this new detachment system.  Listen, I'm by most measures an intelligent guy.  I'm successful in an intellectually difficult profession.  I've been in the wargaming hobby for 20+ years.  But trying to build army lists with this new system, particularly varied ones that use a variety of different units, broke my brain in a way that no GW rules have before.  (I have a post a while back in this thread detailing my frustrations.)  It reminded my of trying to read and understand Heidegger in undergrad philosophy.  I'm sure there are plenty of you who do get it (and even like it), but to me it is way too unnecessarily complicated.  And importantly, that complication hurts my hobbying (and ultimately my purchasing of GW products) because it makes it way harder for me to theory craft lists or make a playable list out of the units I have and want.
• Does anyone actually have any first hand (or even second hand) experience of new/prospective players being put off from the game by the fact that models have wargear options that don't come in the base kits?  I've never heard of it.  Complaints from established players that they'd like the kits to have more options?  Sure.  But never any complaints from new players or reports that it was a turnoff from trying the game.  Newer players will just build the kits as they come in the box.  On the other hand, I can't imagine trying to teach a new player how to get started building an army with the new detachment system.  What's easier, that or saying "3 HQ slots, 4 elites, 6 troops, 3 fast attack, 3 heavy support; start with an HQ and two Troops and have at it"?  Similarly, I've never heard of any new player ever expressing any frustration over having to do some grade school-level addition and multiplication to add up points values when models and wargear had their own costs and unit sizes weren't fixed.  But I sure have heard people complain about (and been annoyed myself by) my list being 5-10 points over and having to swap out whole units because there's no granular points to play around with in the margins.  It feels like GW's decisions are being driven by a boardroom-level, theoretical view of where pain points are, rather than by actual experience playing the game or onboarding newcomers.
• With respect to GW targeting new customers at the expense of existing ones with 3.0, I believe that is the case. But I think it is likely to backfire with 30k in a way that it hasn't with 40k because 30k is a much more niche game where the existence of a community to actually play the game depends largely on the continued support of existing heresy gamers.  Without an existing scene, new players either won't pick up the game at all, or will quickly drop out after an initial purchase because there is no one else to play it with. 
• The Legacy pdf/FAQS (if they ever come) won't save us.  They're not going to miraculously be any higher quality than the Libers, and judging by the past, will likely be worse.  They certainly will not add any missing/removed options for Liber units.  And based on the quality of the forthcoming Libers and 2.0's PDFs for the other armies (militia, talons, daemons, etc.), abandon all hope that the 3.0 PDFs will be better than they were in 2.0.  I suspect that it will be a minor miracle if they are only just as bad as 2.0, rather than markedly worse.
• One possible silver lining about GW apparently moving to one list of points for all wargear is that makes it much easier for the community to agree that characters/units can just take the wargear options they had in 2.0.
• These changes really bum me out on the whole because I have felt that Heresy traditionally promoted and rewarded the hobby side.  Having or aspiring to a higher standard for painting and modeling was part of "the point" of the game, at least much more so than 40k.  The rules side served the hobby side, and that was part of the appeal.  But now GW has flipped that and is hurting the core appeal of the game.

 

All that being said, and I hate myself for this, I'm still struggling not to get the Saturnine box   For all my complaints, GW does make great models for the most part.  Even the Saturnine stuff, which I didn't like at all upon reveal, is growing on me. If I didn't have to pay for (or later sell) that Araknae turret that I will never use and will take up way too much cabinet space, the box would probably be a sure purchase   

[jaxom]

4 minutes ago, Aarik said:

Does anyone actually have any first hand (or even second hand) experience of new/prospective players being put off from the game by the fact that models have wargear options that don't come in the base kits? 

Yes. They settled on Infinity because it was WYSIWYG from product picture to building the model to playing with it in the game.

[Allart01]

On the subject of attracting new players even at the risk of losing older ones:

We are all familiar with the concept of the "hobby trumpet" by now, but soft-resetting your gaming communities every three years doesn't really look that sustainable to me...

[Sky Potato]

2 minutes ago, Aarik said:

 

• If you have to drastically re-write your core rules system every three years, that means that you've done a Bad Job with each prior re-write.  Each iteration should be moving closer towards (and in increasingly smaller increments) the Platonic ideal of your rules system.  If you are not narrowing in with each successive iteration, you lack a coherent direction.
• Even setting aside any judgment about the quality of the rules/changes themselves, GW should be absolutely mortified about the lack of quality control and proofreading in their books.  If I were a writer or editor who was responsible for letting these mistakes slip through, I would genuinely be very worried about getting fired.  This only strengthens my conviction to Never Pay for Rulebooks.
• GW does not seem to really have a cohesive design direction for the rules.  They stripped out a ton of units and options ostensibly to "streamline" the game and lower the barrier for entry, but they added a bunch of new stats, a whole new challenge minigame, and a convoluted army building process, which just raises the barrier of entry.  And, Emperor help me, let me tell you that I cannot stand this new detachment system.  Listen, I'm by most measures an intelligent guy.  I'm successful in an intellectually difficult profession.  I've been in the wargaming hobby for 20+ years.  But trying to build army lists with this new system, particularly varied ones that use a variety of different units, broke my brain in a way that no GW rules have before.  (I have a post a while back in this thread detailing my frustrations.)  It reminded my of trying to read and understand Heidegger in undergrad philosophy.  I'm sure there are plenty of you who do get it (and even like it), but to me it is way too unnecessarily complicated.  And importantly, that complication hurts my hobbying (and ultimately my purchasing of GW products) because it makes it way harder for me to theory craft lists or make a playable list out of the units I have and want.

 

 

I’ve selected three of your points as the most eloquent way of expressing how I feel about this new edition. I’d like to add the following couple of points to your excellent post.

 

- The 2.0 rules needed a strong FAQ after 3 years in the wild. A true 2.1 edition, rather than this entirely new edition. Why it was ever called 2.0 rather than 2nd Ed is beyond me, given that we had maybe 1 FAQ, which would have given us 2.0.1 Ed?

- The “Day 1 FAQ” mindset is why we are this point where companies aren’t bothered about releasing sub-par products that can be fixed later. GW are not the worst offenders of this, but once the mindset of a Day 1 FAQ is settled, it’s very difficult to get back to doing things fully correct before releasing them.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Tech Marines looking really anemic compared to 1sts glorious conversion beamer, thunder hammer, augury scanner dude with 4 servitors rocking missile launchers.

 

The thing is...all will be forgiven if they re-rename the Spartan away from the "Land Raider Spartan". I'll fully forgive every sin they've made in the past two editions if they fix that dumb name.

[Xenith]

On 7/11/2025 at 7:57 PM, Aarik said:

Building off of that, the removal of unit options is apparently arbitrary.  Why did Varagyr lose them, but Lerneans actually gained options? 

 

Because Lerneans will be getting a plastic release obviously, as an upgrade kit to the new Cataphractii so the Lerneans will get all the options from the main kit 

 

On 7/11/2025 at 2:35 PM, dicebod said:

I mean, it’s almost a sure bet that both Destroyers and Sanguinary Guard will be in the legacies PDF.

 

And the destroyers will come to the main range later in a journal, tied to their plastic release.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

2 hours ago, BitsHammer said:

Honestly that fits with the whole "hobby funnel" approach to product design the company has too. New players are a broader market than older players and they always want to aim wider for products.

Remember this: GW is not a GAMES company, is a MINIATURES company. They are focused in selling miniatures, and the thing that can make you buy more and more miniatures. Veteran players as you,me and many others in this forum for example, are really bad costumers,we aren't the company's target anymore.

And as miniature company, they don't really care if the rules or supplements are even well written. "Mistakes",low quality materials, programed obsolescence,...maybe they fixed something with FAQs, but even that is a tool to make you change your army list and force you to buy more miniatures. 

 

And they don't hide it at all. They say it openly.

 

My point is that we need to recall this more often, and act in consequence, not for trying to make GW change their company's policies. Just for our own good and enjoyment. In my personal case, this hobby makes me feel more relaxed and part of a community, more integrated...but also I need to put some limits. Strict limits. If GW makes such changes, I'm not going drink the kool aid.

7 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

Because Lerneans will be getting a plastic release obviously, as an upgrade kit to the new Cataphractii so the Lerneans will get all the options from the main kit 

Most probably,yep

[Mardi]

This feels very familiar from 2022. A massive kneejerk before there’s even a clear picture of everything.

 

It could have been a lot worse. Destroyers are very old and expensive models I’ve very rarely seen in the wild in tournaments. They will almost certainly have legacies rules until they get new plastic models, perhaps already with the Mk.2 assault squad, maybe later, and released in a journal tactica.  
  
Some units lost weapon options, but those were mainly thunder hammers for some specific units that became too strong if you equipped every model with them. I have kinda hard time feeling pity for those who have 10 varagyr/suzerain/cenobium with hammers. I do feel bad for others tho. Tartaros without a fist is almost certainly a mistake.

 

The only very egregious thing affecting a lot of people I think is removing consul weapon options. I don’t get it, especially with the new weapon kits.

 

Rules streamlining and tone down I think was much needed. I feel 2.0 was too convoluted and swingy to ever balance without heavy houseruling. Could be just me though.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Edit: weird double post. 

 

Quote

This feels very familiar from 2022. A massive kneejerk before there’s even a clear picture of everything

 

I mean, in 2022, we'd seen almost everything via the leaks lol. They had slightly toned down horus' reaction once per game thing, and maybe kneecapped a few blasts that were still ap2, but that was it. The busted ass reaction economy was still fully on place, and it lead to terrible experiences like predicted. "Wait and see the full thing" did nothing but vindicate the people who read all the leaks 

Edited Friday at 07:58 PM by SkimaskMohawk

[MARK0SIAN]

I think some of the predictions regarding a timeline for legion specific plastics in this thread are somewhat on the optimistic side to put it mildly. I honestly don’t think that can be the reason for some of the kits keeping their options and others losing them. Learneans and Justaerin should both be getting a plastic kit in the near future based on that logic which seems unlikely considering all the non-legion stuff that still needs to transition to plastic. 
 

I’ll agree it’s probably the reason generic stuff like destroyers disappeared as it’ll get a plastic release soon (relatively speaking) but I really can’t see such an influx of plastic legion specific stuff any time soon. 

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

2 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

I think some of the predictions regarding a timeline for legion specific plastics in this thread are somewhat on the optimistic side to put it mildly. I honestly don’t think that can be the reason for some of the kits keeping their options and others losing them. Learneans and Justaerin should both be getting a plastic kit in the near future based on that logic which seems unlikely considering all the non-legion stuff that still needs to transition to plastic. 
 

I’ll agree it’s probably the reason generic stuff like destroyers disappeared as it’ll get a plastic release soon (relatively speaking) but I really can’t see such an influx of plastic legion specific stuff any time soon. 

 It depends. If they think the sales will be great, they can give them priority. There are lot of examples. Some legion still don't have their own praetors for example.

[Aarik]

4 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

I think some of the predictions regarding a timeline for legion specific plastics in this thread are somewhat on the optimistic side to put it mildly. I honestly don’t think that can be the reason for some of the kits keeping their options and others losing them. Learneans and Justaerin should both be getting a plastic kit in the near future based on that logic which seems unlikely considering all the non-legion stuff that still needs to transition to plastic. 
 

I’ll agree it’s probably the reason generic stuff like destroyers disappeared as it’ll get a plastic release soon (relatively speaking) but I really can’t see such an influx of plastic legion specific stuff any time soon. 

 

Agreed on the legion specific plastics.  I will eat my hat if we get any legion specific units in plastic this edition.  Plastic destroyers I could see coming out this edition, but my speculation is that they'll be in either Mk. IV or V so I don't think we'll see them any time soon.

[Sigismund's Ghost]

Just add a couple Centurions. It’s still the game you know and love.

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 08:15 PM by Sigismund's Ghost

[01RTB01]

34 minutes ago, Mardi said:

This feels very familiar from 2022. A massive kneejerk before there’s even a clear picture of everything.

 

It could have been a lot worse. Destroyers are very old and expensive models I’ve very rarely seen in the wild in tournaments. 

 

1. There's more than enough been seen to make judgements.

 

2. Tournaments shouldn't dictate anything. They were a huge reason that 40k nosedived. Heresy was supposed to be sanctuary away from tournamentification of the games. You may have therefore encountered people taking "best" but there's plenty of us that enjoyed the freedom for modelling and narrative purposes. My dual charnabal sabres centurion with boarding shield wasn't causing anyone problems. He was there to lead some breachers on Isstvan III to keep the traitors at bay as long as possible. 

 

But it's ok though as I've not got a clear picture of everything...

[MARK0SIAN]

50 minutes ago, Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf said:

 It depends. If they think the sales will be great, they can give them priority. There are lot of examples. Some legion still don't have their own praetors for example.

They could but it’s probably stretching it to think that a squad of something like learneans would outsell the remaining sicaran variants for example, or the sabre tanks, javelins and superheavies. And that’s before we even touch on the aircraft. 
 

Other than the terminator one from the Calth set, I think all the generic praetors have been resin too and I think that’ll continue.

 

The lead times on plastic kits are quite big too, just think how long it took for the melee weapons set to become available and that was a priority job. For Legion specific units in plastic they’d have needed to set the ball in motion at least a year or two ago, maybe even three for us to see them any time ‘soon’. All whilst they were still sorting the Saturnine and mk2 stuff.

 

I’m not saying it’s impossible, just unlikely and overly optimistic to expect them any time soon.

Edited Friday at 08:50 PM by MARK0SIAN

[Indy Techwisp]

1 hour ago, Allart01 said:

On the subject of attracting new players even at the risk of losing older ones:

We are all familiar with the concept of the "hobby trumpet" by now, but soft-resetting your gaming communities every three years doesn't really look that sustainable to me...

 

It's not really sustainable for GW specifically since the turn over is so fast topics from old editons still show up in searches as relevant because they're comparatively new meaning a New Player looking for advice could get screwed over by following "highly rated" advice that's an edition out of date.

Also, it tends to leave behind crowds of annoyed former players in the places new players are directed to by the community at large. Someone coming into a post about the new edition is likely to be put off jumping in if long term users are ripping it to shreds wherever they look.

[Urauloth]

I love Centurions and Consuls and I'd be very happy to add a ton of them. My options for that aren't actually very good, though. Most of them are resin direct-only models which I can't get from my preferred stores and set me back almost as much as a whole box of plastics, and now their wargear is locked which restricts me when it comes to personalising them or kitbashing my own.

 

Actually, what does a generic Centurion look like? Some of the old FW guys were mostly distinguished from the ranks by fancy hats and pauldrons, while the Mk.II Centurion in Saturnine looks more like the Praetors from the previous launch box in terms of bling. I guess it's up to you when you model them and varies by legion, but you see what I mean? If I sit down and say "I'm going to kitbash myself a plastic Centurion" am I starting with the command squad box or taking a saw to a Praetor?

 

I guess I wish we had some kind of Centurion kit like the old 40k Captain box people got so much mileage out of back in the day: an officer in artificer armour with a few options who'd make an "out of the box" Centurion for any legion or a blank slate for conversions. This is off topic now, though, my bad!

[01RTB01]

23 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

 

Other than the terminator one from the Calth set, I think all the generic praetors have been resin too and I think that’ll continue.

 

 

 

There was also 2 praetors in the Age of Darkness box. Both plastic. Now we have the Saturnine Praetor in plastic. 

23 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

 

Other than the terminator one from the Calth set, I think all the generic praetors have been resin too and I think that’ll continue.

 

 

 

There was also 2 praetors in the Age of Darkness box. Both plastic. Now we have the Saturnine Praetor in plastic. 

[Nephaston]

12 minutes ago, Urauloth said:

I love Centurions and Consuls and I'd be very happy to add a ton of them. My options for that aren't actually very good, though. Most of them are resin direct-only models which I can't get from my preferred stores and set me back almost as much as a whole box of plastics, and now their wargear is locked which restricts me when it comes to personalising them or kitbashing my own.

 

Actually, what does a generic Centurion look like? Some of the old FW guys were mostly distinguished from the ranks by fancy hats and pauldrons, while the Mk.II Centurion in Saturnine looks more like the Praetors from the previous launch box in terms of bling. I guess it's up to you when you model them and varies by legion, but you see what I mean? If I sit down and say "I'm going to kitbash myself a plastic Centurion" am I starting with the command squad box or taking a saw to a Praetor?

 

I guess I wish we had some kind of Centurion kit like the old 40k Captain box people got so much mileage out of back in the day: an officer in artificer armour with a few options who'd make an "out of the box" Centurion for any legion or a blank slate for conversions. This is off topic now, though, my bad!

 

This guy is imo the default centurion of sorts, more bling, but not overly so.