3.0: failed or not?

[Xenith]

On 8/31/2026 at 1:47 AM, Brofist said:

Personally I find it contemptible that GW attempts to dictate what can be used at home, in stores, clubs, campaigns, or competitive events outside their physical locations.

 

GW did the exact opposite no?  If it's not in a printed codex or army book, 99% of event organisers would not allow that unit, however GW has printed rules for older units and things that didn't make the final cut and said out right that they are 100% legal. 

 

I recall the days of events banning FW units and models as there was nothing saying they were game legal, despite most Fw Units having terrible rules.

[Lathe Biosas]

4 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

GW did the exact opposite no?  If it's not in a printed codex or army book, 99% of event organisers would not allow that unit, however GW has printed rules for older units and things that didn't make the final cut and said out right that they are 100% legal. 

 

I recall the days of events banning FW units and models as there was nothing saying they were game legal, despite most Fw Units having terrible rules.

 

I had my Dreadnought Drop Pod routinely disallowed from tournaments due to its FW background.

[Gorgoff]

9 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

 

I had my Dreadnought Drop Pod routinely disallowed from tournaments due to its FW background.

That's so stupid but I remember that as well. The reason why people wanted to disallow them was always that "not everybody can get the rules". As if most people even cared to read every rule of every codex in the game. 

[Brother Sutek]

I believe it was the land speeder tempest that I was given complaints about. I owned two then and added them to my Ravenwing.  Apparently the overpriced model that was just a slightly better speeder just broke games.

[TheTrans]

I remember that down in Australia and actually sat down and did some maths on it (this is 10-15 years ago mind you).

FW was disallowed due to cost, not being able to read the books, all those crappy asinine excuses.

I sat down and did the math, it was cheaper to get a minimum sized krieg army including one of the Vraks books from Forge World, than it was to purchase the same army in Cadians from a local GW store... that killed that argument of the nay-sayers, so then they just shifted the argument to 'oh but some of it is OP' and then when if you said well known "X" unit's brokenness, oh well that was different as it was in a core book.. or again some crap argument like that. 

People still argued the legitimacy of FW :cuss: when it had like the '40k Approved stamp' and before GW create a pretty cutt throat tournament mindset like they have now. 

@Xenith Depends if we're talking 30k or 40k. 40k :cuss: goes to legends and nominally dies in I want to say 95% of 'public' games (whatever people play at home with their mates is such a like zero-sum argument in regards to this so really doesn't count).

30k if they could make it so Legend's stuff would go and die they would 100% would, but the fact that huge masses of peoples armies wouldn't be able to work without the 30k legends document, they've sorted of painted themselves into a corner by only one will exist if the other does. 

[Pacific81]

On 9/13/2026 at 4:50 AM, Lathe Biosas said:

 

I had my Dreadnought Drop Pod routinely disallowed from tournaments due to its FW background.

 

Was that the one where you could charge the dreadnought into combat on the turn it arrived? (I forget the name. Maybe going back 16-17 years now?)

 

A bit of gossip I heard at the time was that they had a big pile of unsold ones so introduced that rule so the stock would clear..

[Brother Sutek]

2 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

 

Was that the one where you could charge the dreadnought into combat on the turn it arrived? (I forget the name. Maybe going back 16-17 years now?)

 

A bit of gossip I heard at the time was that they had a big pile of unsold ones so introduced that rule so the stock would clear..

I remember when that was a new model, I have two on my shelf. Man I'm feeling old for some reason...

[Ahzek451]

19 hours ago, Brother Sutek said:

I remember when that was a new model, I have two on my shelf. Man I'm feeling old for some reason...

The original resin dread drop pod? Hah! Yeah I remember that model.....FW quality control was not at its best then. Mine arrived with horrendous warped parts and extremely bad mold mis-alignment. 

[Lathe Biosas]

22 hours ago, Brother Sutek said:

I remember when that was a new model, I have two on my shelf. Man I'm feeling old for some reason...

 

Old? Back in my day, drop pods were made from PVC pipe fittings from the hardware store.

[Brother Sutek]

6 hours ago, Ahzek451 said:

The original resin dread drop pod? Hah! Yeah I remember that model.....FW quality control was not at its best then. Mine arrived with horrendous warped parts and extremely bad mold mis-alignment. 

Yeah I only have one of those with the doors unglued to be able to drop open. The rest are glued shut!

4 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

 

Old? Back in my day, drop pods were made from PVC pipe fittings from the hardware store.

Well I'm coming from 2nd edition so I respect those who made them with pipe fittings. I had cardboard as I had access to that from work and pipes cost money. 

[Griefbringer]

Drop pods have been part of the 30K/40K setting since the late 1980's. There were some small metal drop pods made in Epic scale back then, but the first commercial big scale drop pods that I am aware were released by Forge World in 2000 or 2001.

 

However, I still do not see them having a role on regular "meeting engagement" type pick-up/tournament games where two forces advancing on ground meet each other. On the other hand, I see plenty of potential for them in planetary assault scenarios, where the whole attacking force screams down from the orbit with drop pods and thunderhawks (maybe with terminators teleporting). However, in these case the defender should be in the control of the whole battlefield in the beginning, with some of the forces offboard in reserve.

Edited Thursday at 08:28 PM by Griefbringer
Missed a few words.

[Silas7]

On 9/13/2026 at 6:32 AM, Gorgoff said:

That's so stupid but I remember that as well. The reason why people wanted to disallow them was always that "not everybody can get the rules". As if most people even cared to read every rule of every codex in the game. 

To me as long as you had a copy of the rules that you could show the relevant ruling upon request, FW units should have been allowed.

[SlickSamos]

Except maybe things like the Manta and Titans?  But yeah everything that wasn't a Super Heavy or Flyer should've always been allowed in pick up games, then when the main rules caught up with those rules (6th edition?) then everything bar the "my army is basically one model" units should have been immediately acceptable for pick up games.

[Brother Sutek]

Imperial Armour books were my weakness for a while, I've bought more than a few as I have always loved military vehicle books. My group were usually good with whatever you brought as long as it was the actual model or converted to at least look similar. Game stores were definitely hostile to them and things like the valkyrie that I have in resin were considered cool models but unwelcome on the table. Years later the entry into the main IG rulebook and a plastic kit made it OK. Sadly by that point people were now mad at flyers in general! For my own personal view as long as you don't bring titans or super heavy tanks to pickup games without giving the opponent a heads up almost anything goes. Have fun with neat minis and not just the latest op thing that's been released.

[Griefbringer]

In an attempt to get somewhere near to the original topic: does it actually make sense to have separate core ruleset for 30K setting anymore?

 

If I understand correctly, the original HH "black books" were designed to work with the WH40K 7th edition rules. Then when the 40K 8th edition dropped, the Forge World designers did not want to (or have resources) to rewrite the existing material to be compatible with 8th edition rules, so they went the other way and published HH 1.0 rules that were compatible with the existing books. However, HH 2nd edition was not designed for backwards compatibility, and required re-placing all of the existing books. So did HH 3rd edition three years later. So regularly re-working the Liber collection to match the latest rulebook is no longer a resource problem that it might have been a decade ago.

 

On the conceptual level, does it make sense for HH to still have a separate ruleset from the main WH40K ruleset? Is there something inherently different in swatting somebody with a sword 31st millennium, compared to the same act in 41st millennium? If not, perhaps the HH material could eventually again become just a series of supplements for the WH40K series (perhaps with 12th edition expected to hit shelves in 2029), rather than an independent game.

 

On the model side, there does not seem to be particular interest at keeping the two settings separately: apparently the new Custodes models are supposed to be used for both 30K and 40K settings, while the latest journals introduce the existing the Tzeentch and Slaanesh daemons to 30K setting. Meaning that the very same Custodes and Slaaneshi daemon models can smack each other in both settings, but with different rules.

 

I can understand possibly different statlines for both Custodes and Slaaneshi daemons in the two periods (Slaanesh was still newbie at the time of Heresy), but the existence of two parallel rulesets is something of an historical accident.

[SvenIronhand]

1 hour ago, Griefbringer said:

SNIP

This wholly ignores the mechanical differences.

[Griefbringer]

Don't take me wrong, I have little interest in 11th edition WH40K, and absolutely no idea what 12th edition will look like (but I expect it to be released within a few years).

 

Naturally, there are differences in game mechanisms between different rulesets. And having a choice between different styles of rulesets is welcome, especially when they have clear, distinct roles. But sometimes there is the case of trying to be different for the sake of being different, for no other particular reason. Does the HH team have a clear vision as to what the role of the game rules should be (and how it should differ from the 40K rules), or are they just stuck revising it arbitrarily in three year cycles because somebody in management thinks that boosts sales?

 

The drawback of parallel 30K/40K rules for a gamer is that if you want to play parallel in both settings (with latest rules), then there is more mental load in keeping up with the rules, and this might be an issue with accessibility (which in case of HH has been improved with the plastification of the previously resin-dominant range). Admittedly short three year revision cycle is also a major culprit when it comes to mental load. Both of these are things that certainly help to keep the game developers busy, but does it really make the most of the human resources?

[Brother Sutek]

Nothing against people playing current 40k but the move to what it was in 8th was what got me to lose interest in 40k. I've been playing on and off since 2nd edition and didn't care for the new set. I don't know if it's a great use of human resources but the change to how 3rd edition HH went I just know my area died out when it dropped. I haven't played it so can only go by what I've read but I do know we had a thriving community and while I may not be the target audience, keeping sales is something human resources is worth to a company. It's a balance obviously,  change enough to fix problems and add interesting ideas but not enough to alienate your customers.