Horus Heresy New Edition, or Just Horus Hearsay?

[TheTrans]

14 hours ago, No Foes Remain said:

 

I had the same issue trying to port forward my 2.0 2k list into 3.0, I had 1d6chan main page and the legion tactics page open so I could figure out what unit is in what detachment and even then I had to drop my laser vindicator because I need to buy two more HQs so I could have my army.

 

I'm starting to think each detachment should have had their own HQ and in certain detachments they could only have certain Consouls as HQs in that detachment, so to get the armour detachment you'd have to by a 'master of armour' HQ ala the Armoured RoW in 1.0 and 2.0. It would seem more like the main detachment has attached support companies, though I guess that's sort of what GW has tried to do with the extra HQs but still seems messy.

See this I could get around, if there was a cool, thematic and specific HQ for each of those detachments, that was actually compulsory, one could probably police the 'tax' of those detachments based on the HQ the opens them up. As it stands a what, 60 point centurion being able to open up just about any 2 slots its nuts and not that much a tax at 3k points.

 

3 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

Another issue with the list building system for me is that it feels like armies end up with an absurd number of HQs given the size of the force. You’ve got a Legion where a Sergeant is perfectly capable of leading 20 Marines yet a force with generally 60-80 marines (in my experience) somehow needs a Praetor, Multiple Centurions and some specialised HQs. 
 

It just feels very top heavy like the worst kind of corporate culture with too many managers. 
 

In real life it’d be like a regimental commander, multiple company commanders and executive officers all turning up to fight involving a couple of platoons. Sure, that can happen, but it’s not the norm. 

Good point, Praetors always were a 'too big a fish' but now you need tthem unlock a whole heap of stuff that was pretty standard in earlier versions of the game. 

Yeah non-thematic, basic centurion picks to water it down a bit.. whats a foot centruion doing unlocking an armoured demi-company, where is the master of armour unlocking that etc?

 

5 hours ago, jaxom said:

This me being very generous to the designers, but if I had to supply a reasonable point of discussion it would be [written in the all positive form of a WarCom interview]:

 

The new system allows you to fulfill one of two army narratives. We [the designers] really wanted to lean into what we read in the books. Players can efficiently recreate the legions by filling each slot in the Primary Crusade Detachment (and auxillary detachments) and have more units per character. Alternatively, players can recreate cadre of heroes and their hand-picked retinues by taking more character per units forces.  For example Abadddon, Falkus Khibre, and Ekron Fal accompanied by a mass of Terminators; or Erebus surrounded by his favored acolytes and Gal Vorbak. We think the latter provides a flavorful way to build an army containing only what you want. 

 

Outside of all positive, the high character count of "build whatever you want" is a tentative balance. No more single Centurion-Delegatus or whatever leading as many Insert-Legion-Specific-Awesome-Unit-Buffed-By-Their-Matched-RoW as one can fit into the points limit. It also avoids the 40k issue of just taking the most efficient units and only the most efficient units - though I assume no 30k player would be driven by such a motivationswhen building their army.

Does it though, like Three centurions using a single prime slot is what, 7 extra detachments. Thats 180 points over 2500-3000 not a huge tax. 

That unlocks, nominally what could amount to, in old terms 7-14 Elite Slots. Or 14-28ish nominally Heavy Support Units. 

So like, that 'tax' doesn't really limit ROW-type unit shenanganry much worse than what could have occured back in the day. 

Now yes units are 'balanced' by Line/Vanguard point costs etc, which means they are reliant upon those more than the 'limitations' of the new Detachments,...which nominally are none!

[jaxom]

2 hours ago, TheTrans said:

Does it though, like Three centurions using a single prime slot is what, 7 extra detachments. Thats 180 points over 2500-3000 not a huge tax. 

That’s a good point. Assuming 2 slots used per detachment plus one from logistics that’d be about 217 points per unit to do 3000 points. That seems doable. So yeah, not a mechanical balance.

 

I still assume the designers where thinking in terms of characters and their retinues for hyper-themed armies.