3.0: failed or not?

[Captain Idaho]

Here's another catachan amongst the tau... with the death of Firstborn in 40K, could this be a definitive draw factor for Heresy now?

[Brother Sutek]

4 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Here's another catachan amongst the tau... with the death of Firstborn in 40K, could this be a definitive draw factor for Heresy now?

If they went fully into this idea then yes I think they could pull some players in. I know I converted my 40k marines to 30k. Many people will be pissed they can't use their toys and will look for a way to use them. Either that or they will sell them 

[Griefbringer]

21 hours ago, TheTrans said:

You do know people where kind of joking right?

 

I got the joke, but maybe I failed in my attempt to carry with it and demonstrate that actually inheriting merely half a billion would already be enough to have an influence in the company. Though seriously speaking, being in the board of directors sounds like a lot of boring work - if I would inherit half a billion I would perhaps rather follow Lathe Biosas' idea and spend it on playing Adeptus Titanicus with Forge World models (should be enough for a couple of legios, plus a proper gaming space, terrain and painting services).

 

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As for the more topical issue of discontinued 40K firstborn time travelling to 30K setting, wouldn't they find themselves slightly dwarfed by the more modern (2022 onwards?) 30K power armour figures? Would some players find that problematic? Then again, players having collections from HH1 era have also faced the issue with the up-scaling of the models.

 

Then there is the issue of chapters that were not around at the time of the Heresy - though you could work around that by playing in the early post-heresy era, once the legions had been split into chapters.

[Ahzek451]

11 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Here's another catachan amongst the tau... with the death of Firstborn in 40K, could this be a definitive draw factor for Heresy now?

I like this question, but it is difficult to answer. Speaking for myself. In another universe where GW didn't burn bridges with me on the Primaris roll-out, I would be more enthusiastic about 40k space marines. I have an Iron Hands army in 40k and consider this my main "space marine" force. but...I do not feel as enthusiastic about collecting and building new models as I do the other factions, mostly because of that burned bridge. To elaborate, the burning I am referring to is the half-assed lore roll-out, weird retcons, the helter-skelter release of new units and how some of those units are already pulled out(suppressors, hammerfall, etc.). And now we are in this weird transition of Primaris seemingly being rolled back. It's just....overall so damn sloppy and it does not inspire confidence. 

But as it stands, maybe a bit of a draw to 30k for some, but with the current state of 3.0 I can't see it inspiring a lot of confidence for many. GW would really need to get there act together with the game. But furthermore, some non-heresy marine players may not shift over because they enjoy playing marines in the 40k universe where they can face against xenos and chaos. 30k may fit better for a space marine army for them, however maybe they don't want to play in a universe where its mostly marine vs. marine. 

But what do I know. Been surprised before. 

[MoriyaSchism]

51 minutes ago, Griefbringer said:

As for the more topical issue of discontinued 40K firstborn time travelling to 30K setting, wouldn't they find themselves slightly dwarfed by the more modern (2022 onwards?) 30K power armour figures? Would some players find that problematic? Then again, players having collections from HH1 era have also faced the issue with the up-scaling of the models.

 

Then there is the issue of chapters that were not around at the time of the Heresy - though you could work around that by playing in the early post-heresy era, once the legions had been split into chapters.

People overestimate the size of the new Heresy Marines. They are not that big. Smaller heads, longer thighs, smaller hands, bigger feet and a slight extension of the waist. I would argue that the new Heresy scale is a worse version of Space Marine Heroes Series 1 scale. Classic Marines are still significantly shorter, but the scale of the Heresy is all over the place even with the new miniatures with some plastic characters dwarfing modern day Chaos Marines. 

[MARK0SIAN]

In regards to 40k firstborn players transferring to 30k, it’s worth remembering that even when they both basically shared the 7th edition ruleset and Primaris didn’t exist there were still some big differences between 30k and 40k marines. It didn’t exactly make them incompatible but the armies definitely weren’t transferable between games without some tweaks. Units like centurions, which are being moved to legends, didn’t/don’t exist in 30k. Except in a rare few units, mixed loadouts in squads wasn’t a thing in 30k unlike a devastator squad in 40k. No special weapons in tactical squads was also a big difference as well as the incentive to field much bigger squads in 30k rather than the MSU approach of 40K. Even now, characters like legion praetors and Primarchs are still resin models which a 40k player wouldn’t have had to deal with. 
 

I’m not saying there won’t be any draw for firstborn fans to 30k but it won’t be as simple as just switching to 30k and using their old firstborn army. People would need to either convert or make new armies which would put a lot of people off. 
 

Sadly, I think it more likely that the firstborn fans in 40k will more likely either just grudgingly change to the new normal for 40k or give up entirely.

[Corswain]

2 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

Sadly, I think it more likely that the firstborn fans in 40k will more likely either just grudgingly change to the new normal for 40k or give up entirely.

Agreed. I think anyone who would has already made the jump.

Edited Friday at 12:16 AM by Corswain

[Razorblade]

I think the important part isn't the firstborn themselves but their vehicles. Honestly you can pretty much rebase anything firstborn and run it as the primaris equivalent (minus some special weapons etc.)

Predators and Vindicators though have no equivalent to use at all and as opposed to the firstborn infantry they have been extremely prevalent in Space Marine Armies throughout 10E, so getting some continued usage out of them might actually draw some extra people to heresy (or we get a cheap market for second hand tanks)

[Griefbringer]

As regards the Rhino-based vehicles, Predators, Whirlwind and Vindicator are pretty much a straight fit to 30K.

 

Razorback less so, but if you remove the turret (which hopefully nobody has glued to the hull) then it is possible to use it either as a Rhino or Whirlwind by building either a hatch with a pintle-mount, or a huge box-launcher turret. There might be also third-party manufacturers selling some suitable bits to stick there instead of the turret.

[MoriyaSchism]

There are images of late Heresy Mars Pattern vehicles in the Black Books. I remember there being an Iron Warriors Mars pattern Rhino. I'd probably swap the Aquila tracks on those if I was playing Triators. Or the other way around, I bought some extra Mars Pattern Rhino tracks for my Deimos Vindicator. 

[Brother Sutek]

18 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

People overestimate the size of the new Heresy Marines. They are not that big. Smaller heads, longer thighs, smaller hands, bigger feet and a slight extension of the waist. I would argue that the new Heresy scale is a worse version of Space Marine Heroes Series 1 scale. Classic Marines are still significantly shorter, but the scale of the Heresy is all over the place even with the new miniatures with some plastic characters dwarfing modern day Chaos Marines. 

My old school Dark Angels and 3.5 era Plague Marines/Death Guard look like midgets next to the later releases.  It's a bit depressing when I line them up on display but it's OK when on the table. Yes my 2nd edition models are shorter but few people have any issues with it as they are properly based.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’ve found with the scale that if you keep the different generations in different squads the difference in size isn’t a big deal on the table. If you mix them in the same squads they do stand out much more readily. 
 

I don’t have any as old as Brother Sutek’s to compare though.

 

In my experience there’s only one model that’s really stood out in terms of scale and that was the comically oversized Imperial Fist Terminator Praetor that they ended up redoing. 

[Shard of Magnus]

My dice roll better when my new tall marines are fighting old short marines. The boost from dominating the height meta game clearly makes a difference.

 

I suspect there won’t be much cross over to HH due to the squatting of non-primaris. There was a surge of new people locally with the changes for 8th were introduced because HH kept the 6th edition foundation. There could be some who try HH out because of the model changes but it is a different rule base and there’s the noticeable disgruntlement online that may dissuade people. Hopefully interested people won’t get complaints about using armor marks that don’t align with the heresy period.

[Xenith]

On 8/18/2026 at 11:15 PM, Pacific81 said:

people would ask questions if Shermans were written out of WW2 and replaced with Prime Shermans or similar

That's literally tank development though  what about a Pershing-maris?

[Xenith]

On 8/20/2026 at 4:41 PM, Lathe Biosas said:

With 40K, you can keep expanding the setting indefinitely. New wars, new characters, new planets, new factions, new technology, etc. And because the setting covers such an enormous span of time and space, you can pretty easily come up with a reason for almost any army to be fighting almost anywhere.

 

The Heresy is different because it's ultimately a historical event with a defined beginning, end, and increasingly well-documented sequence of events. The more detail GW adds, the more specific it becomes about who fought where, when they fought, and roughly what forces were involved.

 

And that creates an interesting problem for the tabletop game.

 

Eventually you can get into situations where someone wants to run a campaign set at a particular battle and the response becomes, "Well, the Ultramarines weren't at Calth, so you can't really use your Ultramarines for this."

 

Disagree there. The scale of the heresy is so much greater than 40k, with much larger numbers and territory involved. The heresy started with 2 million marines, and another 2 million+ marines and inductii created in the 7 years, and wars in multiple places fit for campaign books - every legion can literally and legitimately be anywhere in the galaxy within that timeframe, and losses don't matter due to rapid, uncheck recruitment. 

 

Compare that to 40k where you have 1 million marines max, and from 950M41 to 200M42 we only seem to see fighting on Armageddon, cadia system, nachmund, Baal, ultramar system, and the loss of 100 - 500 marines is an unimaginable tragedy. Chapters canot be everywhere, we know every single named captain from multiple chapters and many of their fates. 

Edited yesterday at 12:23 PM by Xenith

[Captain Idaho]

Also, to back up Xenith's point here, 40K is actually stuck needing to include EVERY faction in it's campaigns to the point of absurdity. Vigilus had just about every faction and Chapter of Space Marines on it and it was just silly.

 

There's also the issue that the sandbox of 40K is limited to Primaris era only. No historical gaming there, unless you're one of the 3 people who play together without a Space Marine playing friend or two. 

[SlickSamos]

I think it's easier to turn a 40k Firstborn army into a Chaos / Renegade one than a 30k one.  

 

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

There's also the issue that the sandbox of 40K is limited to Primaris era only.

 

I don't think that they are banning Firstborn from the tabletop, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the article (s). Just the Firstborn are now using the tactical doctrines of the Primaris, so a Marine with a Bolter is a Intercessor etc...

 

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

40K is actually stuck needing to include EVERY faction in it's campaigns to the point of absurdity.

 

And how many times are Eldar there popping out of the Webway baiting Orcs to do their fighting for them!  

 

Edit:  I should actually read things again before replying.

 

From WarCom

Quote

As with Legends rules, Legendary Proxies can be used at home, in stores, clubs, and campaigns, but if attending a competitive Warhammer event, these units should only be used with the permission of the event organiser.

 

This is really silly, they've just made up a term!  Why ever ban them?  And how are they giving you an advantage in the MDF L shapes game?

Edited yesterday at 09:20 AM by SlickSamos

[Griefbringer]

4 minutes ago, SlickSamos said:

And how many times are Eldar there popping out of the Webway baiting Orcs to do their fighting for them!  

 

Well, sometimes they are also baiting the Orks to go some other way, instead of attacking the Eldar. Didn't the Second Armageddon War happen because some farseer foresaw that the Ghazhkull and friend would end up attacking Eldar eventually, unless they were diverted to some juicy target where they would find enough fighting?

[TheTrans]

I find Eldar and Orks are like the easiest narratively (using the ole bait orks = save eldar trope) to tie into either 40k or 30k. Just because most xenos where 'strategically' curb stomped in 30k, doesn't mean thay there weren't warbands/perfidious eldar plots rattling around which is easily repsented on the table top! 

[SlickSamos]

20 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

There are images of late Heresy Mars Pattern vehicles in the Black Books.

 

Just to add to this from https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rhino

 

Quote

 

The modern Mars Pattern Rhino(MkIIc) also saw use during the Great Crusade, thought not at the levels seen with the Deimos pattern. The Mars Pattern Rhino was more easily reproduced, but had inferior environmental and secondary systems.[7]

 

[7] The Horus Heresy Book Three - Extermination, pg. 127

 

[Griefbringer]

5 hours ago, TheTrans said:

I find Eldar and Orks are like the easiest narratively (using the ole bait orks = save eldar trope) to tie into either 40k or 30k. Just because most xenos where 'strategically' curb stomped in 30k, doesn't mean thay there weren't warbands/perfidious eldar plots rattling around which is easily repsented on the table top! 

 

Considering that the perfidious Eldar had almost committed a racial self-xenocide (the Fall) a few centuries previously, they were not exactly at their peak at the time of Horus Heresy, but they were certainly around. And with the mobile craftworlds and webway, they have means to get around the galaxy.

 

"Make no mistake, Human. We do not fight for your Emperor. We fight against Horus."

 

As for the orks, they have also means to get mysteriously get into all sorts of interesting places by hitch-hiking on space hulks etc. And once they get someplace, it is a pain to get rid of them due to the spore-based reproduction. And the more you whack them, the more excited and determined they get to whack you back and enjoy a good scrap.

[N1SB]

14 hours ago, TheTrans said:

I find Eldar and Orks are like the easiest narratively (using the ole bait orks = save eldar trope) to tie into either 40k or 30k. Just because most xenos where 'strategically' curb stomped in 30k, doesn't mean thay there weren't warbands/perfidious eldar plots rattling around which is easily repsented on the table top! 

 

Great idea for a future Horus Heresy Journal, you know what I mean?

[MARK0SIAN]

If they were going to use Xenos in 30K then some like the Orks are definitely easier but I’d much rather they used it as an opportunity to explore some of the Xenos from the Great Crusade rather than existing 40k factions.

 

Obviously that’s something of a pipe dream as they wouldn’t do it in any meaningful way without model support but it would be cool. 

[DarkMark]

For the sales office at GW nothing is off the table. If they think rolling xenos into 4th will generate extra sales then so be it. The soft launch of Tzeencth in the latest journal may well be a test. 

[Cleon]

38 minutes ago, DarkMark said:

For the sales office at GW nothing is off the table. If they think rolling xenos into 4th will generate extra sales then so be it. The soft launch of Tzeencth in the latest journal may well be a test. 

I don't want to sound overly negative, but the way GW have behaved in edition changes recently, I'd certainly think twice about buying models for a journal force unless I had most of them already or another use for them as there's a decent chance they won't be a thing in V4...