3.0: failed or not?

[Razorblade]

9 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Interesting discussion from all parties.

 

Here's a catchan devil amongst the guardsmen - I read on Reddit (soz) that Legions Imperialis is considered a failure and is potentially being left to obscurity through natural selection over time rather than cancelled.

 

I can't help but see parallels here with Heresy 3.0. The support of Legions Imperialis has decreased in recent months but had a reasonable lot of stuff "completing" the range mostly (breachers and Destroyers notably absent, as are Legion specific troops or even Primarchs)... so we transfer that to Heresy 3.0 which has a more recent release schedule but notably NOT Legions specific releases and lots of things that should have been released were flushed down the Legacies toilet.

 

Could GW being potentially deciding to throw less "good money after bad" with regards to these games and even leaving them to just quietly go away?

 

Horus Heresy is a little stuck being a faction mirroring game despite many recent releases that might suggest otherwise. The Legions will be what people lean towards. GW is a business and unfortunately, like our society economically speaking, only believes in growth.

 

Is there growth? I'm not so sure beyond FOMO and whales sales, particularly in the HH universe. What happens when it dries up, do we get what happened with Fantasy?

 

Lots of questions because I don't have definitive answers and it certainly shouldn't be read as my forthright opinion. I just don't know for sure what they're gonna do.

 

I CAN see Games Workshop dropping Heresy for next edition ready for a rewrite of a new game, for those big excited sales. Possibly an "old school" 40K with Scouring or Crusade or both that can include the Heresy miniatures but allow to wash them away and start again. Like AoS.

 

I don't think it's definitely true of course, but I can see it. Most likely is all ahead full and damn the torpedoes and release a 4.0. However, without the Heresy novels to tie in, the draw to the game I suspect will be much reduced in the next couple years. So maybes we will see a washing away and AoS relaunch. We have precedent with an even bigger game in Fantasy. 

I think the writing was always on the wall for legions, given that the small scale games it absorbed fizzled out as well. The question is if they will continue selling it without or with very sporadic releases. 

I don't think Heresy is in danger of being cancelled/unsupported they have made it the third main system so it would look terrible and they just sunk a lot of money into the plastic range. 

I also don't think it's in any danger of being replaced by the scouring or some other setting as those, as you said, don't have the appeal of the Heresy. 

What I think could very much happen is a complete uncuppling of heresy from the legacy 40k rules, but at this point I guess that might be a good thing, or at least better than the incoherent patchwork of legacy 6e, rogue trader nostalgia bait and "innovative" mechanics that haven't seen proper testing.

Edited Thursday at 09:05 AM by Razorblade

[Captain Idaho]

Thing is, Warhammer Fantasy was the flagship of the company, their 2nd main game out of only two and Games Workshop killed it off. I don't believe anything is safe, including Space Marines which were replaced with new aesthetics and new scaled models with Primaris.

 

Contrary to that, because I'm my own worst enemy, it does appear Games Workshop are operating a strategy of releasing games to be relevant under IP so potential rival releases can't get a foothold. Legions Imperialis and The Old World were examples of that, with the latter selling well and receiving "Battle March" to extend the player base.

 

Contrary to that contrary view, what does Horus Heresy bring to the Games Workshop portfolio, from an economic, investor's perspective that isn't covered by 40K? That is its biggest risk I feel.

 

Personally, I'd be happier to see an extension of Horus Heresy into a "historical 40K" setting, with Scouring and even Crusade factions being released. It can breath life into the game and allow for completely unique models and factions that might not exist in 40K.

 

Hell, I'd take that extension from Legions Imperialis too. Scouring Orks, some unique dark night crusade AI factions, all sorts.

 

I think that solves Legions Imperialis problems and would allow both games to utilise their existing models freely too.

[Brother Sutek]

While GW was releasing cost efficient models for the HH I was able to transform my old 40k models to 30k and then buy more. Heck I bought an entire army and was able to add to my other armies. Cost and lack of availability slowed me down but then losing options and the rules change killed off our group. If GW doesn't revitalize interest with something like campaign rules, The Scouring or Orks I don't see how they won't keep bleeding customers. 

[Ahzek451]

Not to deviate too much, but for the life of me...I just don't get the decision to lock LI(or EPIC) behind he Heresy. I don't.

Super missed opportunity to bring back EPIC 40k and fill the void of APOC on a smaller scale with new models for super-heavies we either lost(discontinued), or to be gained(new and re-imagined). With a plethora of new options via all the races. Heresy is niche is the best way, I do not think you could spread it across multiple systems solo. That being said, I WOULD think it possible for GW to bring back EPIC 40k in the manner mentioned above AND Battlefleet for 40k but then....say later into the lifespan of these games they could make a small expansion for heresy. Or not. Either way....I consider myself amongst the ranks of Big time Heresy fans. I have a substantially large thousand sons army. But I can't justify purchasing the same stuff for 2 different systems. I would rather keep collecting 28mm scale and play a large game down the road. I tried even. I have the LI books and a small handful of models but I can't keep up with everything and LI was the lowest on the chopping block to get cut. 

Edited Thursday at 01:39 PM by Ahzek451

[Pacific81]

I remember when Legions came out and apart from an initial battle report in WD there was almost no mention in the magazine or almost anything on social media. You had to scroll through the website to find the product itself, it was almost like GW were embarrassed about it. Couple this with an inaccessible, stodgy (I will say flawed) ruleset, long play time & initial stock issues and all the pieces were in place for it to fail. This despite Epic being so beloved by the oldhammer community and a great miniature range - most of the people I know (myself included) tried the game and moved on elsewhere.

I did know of a few people who played HH but couldn't play LI as the demands of Heresy (time & money) were such that they couldn't commit to both, so there is a possibility that each game cannibalised sales from the same customer base there.

 

How does this fit with HH? The game is a little more obvious on the website, I think with the odd WD mention or article and it gets some attention on GW's social media.

The question is now whether the bodged 3rd edition release, sundering of communities (a recent survey on Reddit suggested about 1/3 of players are still playing 1st or 2nd edition) and a game that is again not very accessible will drop sales enough that GW decide to squat the system.

As Captain Idaho has said, the fact Fantasy was nuked means nothing is off the table.

 

Edited Thursday at 02:16 PM by Pacific81

[Lathe Biosas]

The question for me is: with the Horus Heresy novels largely finished, and with so much of the major lore, campaigns, battles, and factions already established, how much room is there for genuinely new material without eventually running into the limits of the setting?

 

That's one of the fundamental differences I see between HH and 40K.

 

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."

 

That's the same sort of trap I've run into repeatedly when I've tried to get into BattleTech. I'll buy into a faction, start learning the game, and then discover that the game we're actually playing is set in a particular era/theater/scenario where the stuff I've bought couldn't be used at all.

 

Obviously you can always play outside strict historical scenarios. But once a game places a lot of emphasis on historical accuracy and recreating specific conflicts, that accuracy can become a barrier to entry, especially for new players.

 

And that's what makes me wonder about the long-term direction of HH. The more completely GW fills in the history, the more the setting risks becoming stagnant  rather than an expanding universe.

 

And the HH game, I think will either thrive or continue down the path to obscurity, only played by 2 or 3 hardcore players who haunt the back table of the store. I'd hate to see HH end up like Adeptus Titanicus or WarCry or Battlefleet Gothic or Manowar or...

 

 

 

 

[Ahzek451]

I'm not really going to disagree with the above. All I can say is that I think Heresy just naturally has a larger "older generation" following than 40k that consists of more isolated groups than not and that the health of the game might really only last as long as the old guys do. Unless interest dries up and it becomes retro and cool again later on. Short of any GW flubs, I don't expect heresy to go anywhere anytime soon, but perhaps one day it might.

In either case, at least in the group I was in, it never bothered us to be limited by established lore events and a finite timeline. 40k moves forward, 30k can move sideways....by a fair amount if done right. And even then, my group liked to do the following: We would often play out the famous known battles but in order to breath in some life we would do the "What if" game and created alternative scenarios or a "multiverse" if you will. What if the Thousand sons stayed loyal and the battle of Prospero never happened? That sort of thing. And recruitment mainly existed because we played in our local hobby shop and occasionally a college kid, middle aged guy, or teenager would see it and get interested. Sometimes pulling a 40k player over. Obviously not in mass numbers, but it happened. The one thing heresy has going for it that attracts moths to a flame for the uninitiated is that dang ol' power armor. Folk get interested in 40k and as we know...most find a home amongst the space marines. Then they look at heresy and see even more muhreenz! Gotta get me some of that. 

[Brofist]

I don't see them abandoning heresy because its one of their pillar games. In the current climate, anything that isn't a smash hit is a failure, and I do agree its hard to argue that 3.0's rough launch and lukewarm reception hit that sort of high. This said, at least in my part of the games businesses, the trend is to double down on pillars rather than leave them out to dry. LI was a side game so its not a surprise they would just cut their loss and move on. Typically that money and effort gets reinvested into the pillars.

 

What I see more likely is less content and an earlier launch of 4.0 with a big rewrite- the knee jerk, so to speak. That has the potential to torpedo this community even harder should they miscalculate the product and market like they did with 3.0.

 

The major headwinds I see are not tied to the editions or systems. More broadly, its inflation in the west, which is already contracting the consumer market and its going to get much worse. K shaped economy and all that. As a 'premium product' that'll be increasingly out of reach for even more people, they've priced themselves into a corner. 

 

How depression proof are unaffordable tabletop wargames? Well, we're gonna find out.

  

13 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Contrary to that contrary view, what does Horus Heresy bring to the Games Workshop portfolio, from an economic, investor's perspective that isn't covered by 40K? That is its biggest risk I feel.

 

Heresy does have a very specific niche: even more premium, even more crunchy, midhammer, with a slower release schedule. This synergized with more detailed, more expensive kits in the way perfect grade gundams are a market for gunpla hobbyists. This ecosystem has all been eroded, unfortunately, which I feel is a clear signal that the business doesn't actually understand what it offered as it applied a contradictory strategy. If they continue to homogenize 30k with 40k there is, indeed, not enough distinction to matter for players, who will spend less, play less, and the game will die.

[TheTrans]

14 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

The question is now whether the bodged 3rd edition release, sundering of communities (a recent survey on Reddit suggested about 1/3 of players are still playing 1st or 2nd edition) and a game that is again not very accessible will drop sales enough that GW decide to squat the system.

We'll ignore the whole 'its reddit' level of validity of the survey, but I had a look at it, I think a better would be something like what version are you playing, what version did you start with. I feel that'd be a much better 'vibe' of where its at. If all the 3.0 players are original 1.0 gorgnards, damn thats some good uptake.. If only 3 of the 3.0 are 1.0 grognards..well.. it kind of says what many of us think. 

[Razorblade]

21 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Thing is, Warhammer Fantasy was the flagship of the company, their 2nd main game out of only two and Games Workshop killed it off. I don't believe anything is safe, including Space Marines which were replaced with new aesthetics and new scaled models with Primaris.

They didn't though. They axed two factions that hadn't had any kind of support in over a decade anyway, made a completely new ruleset for the rest amd gave it a different name but most of the miniature range just stayed the same. I cannot see them axing a game that they have invested in so heavily in such a short time. 

21 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

Contrary to that contrary view, what does Horus Heresy bring to the Games Workshop portfolio, from an economic, investor's perspective that isn't covered by 40K? That is its biggest risk I feel.

 

Personally, I'd be happier to see an extension of Horus Heresy into a "historical 40K" setting, with Scouring and even Crusade factions being released. It can breath life into the game and allow for completely unique models and factions that might not exist in 40K.

 

Hell, I'd take that extension from Legions Imperialis too. Scouring Orks, some unique dark night crusade AI factions, all sorts.

 

I think that solves Legions Imperialis problems and would allow both games to utilise their existing models freely too.

 

I'm sorry but that makes absolutely no sense to me. "Heresy is too much like 40k so let's add Xenos to make it even more like 40k". And nothing solves Legions Imperialis "Problem". The problem is that there is a very limited amount of people is willing to put up with that scale. I think people have gotten very unrealistic with their expectations regarding the release schedule for a specialist game. There is some new stuff every couple of months and it even got that big mars expansion with Minis completely exclusive to the game less than two years ago. That is a lot more than any specialist game got back in the day. 

Going back to Xenos, they had them at this scale for aeronautical and nobody played that. Meanwhile Mono-faction Titanicus seems to have done fine-ish at least because getting to play a warlord Titan is the only thing that made warhammer players play at that scale in the first place.

8 hours ago, Brofist said:

Heresy does have a very specific niche: even more premium, even more crunchy, midhammer, with a slower release schedule. This synergized with more detailed, more expensive kits in the way perfect grade gundams are a market for gunpla hobbyists. This ecosystem has all been eroded, unfortunately, which I feel is a clear signal that the business doesn't actually understand what it offered as it applied a contradictory strategy. If they continue to homogenize 30k with 40k there is, indeed, not enough distinction to matter for players, who will spend less, play less, and the game will die.

I think this is a half-truth because whilst this may have applied to the original 1.0 player base, GW have put in an effort to make large units of space marine infantry and giant tanks somewhat affordable. Generally speaking Heresy kits are significantly cheaper than a comparable kit for 40k, amd I think "apocalypse light" is now its natural niche. 

 

2 hours ago, TheTrans said:

If only 3 of the 3.0 are 1.0 grognards..well.. it kind of says what many of us think. 

Interestingly I think some of the biggest 1E Grognards where far more willing to accept 3E and gaslight everyone that called out what it was because they were still mad at 2E for replacing their sacred original. 

[Griefbringer]

17 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

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."

 

Good point, though maybe not the greatest example considering that Ultramarines were one of the main actors present at Calth.

 

It might be particularly an issue with the loyalist legions in the early Heresy actions, as many of the loyalist forces were acting on their own in the more distant corners of the galaxy, where Horus was hoping they would be less able to interfere with his designs. Of course there is the legendary concentration of legions in Isstvan V.

 

That said, once you look forces outside the legions, things might be a bit more forgiving. A generic themed Solar Auxilia cohort might be able to fight in great many campaigns, on either loyalist or traitor side depending on day - or even as an independent faction, trying to establish their own little autonomous planetary system. Granted, a generic Solar Auxilia force is probably a lot less exciting to many players than a named Legion. One could perhaps personalise them a bit by having a selection of spare standard bearers (with a choice of Imperial or Horusian flags) from which to choose based on the allegiance of the day.

 

Also a somewhat generic Adeptus Mechanicus force could fight itself at home in the defense of any forge world (and many of these were important objectives during Heresy), variously so in campaigns outside the Mechanicus home worlds. Admittedly, the followers of the mighty Omnissiah have a rather peculiar style, which might not be to everyones liking.

[Captain Idaho]

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

They didn't though. They axed two factions that hadn't had any kind of support in over a decade anyway, made a completely new ruleset for the rest amd gave it a different name but most of the miniature range just stayed the same. I cannot see them axing a game that they have invested in so heavily in such a short time. 

 

Sorry but I suspect you may have been gaslit by GW on this one. 

 

Jokes aside, there's just about no one, maybe 3 people, who is a fan of Warhammer fantasy that thinks the game wasn't destroyed and removed because AoS existed.

 

Warhammer fantasy was very much axed and it had much more investment than Heresy ever had as a mainline game.

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

I'm sorry but that makes absolutely no sense to me. "Heresy is too much like 40k so let's add Xenos to make it even more like 40k". And nothing solves Legions Imperialis "Problem". The problem is that there is a very limited amount of people is willing to put up with that scale. I think people have gotten very unrealistic with their expectations regarding the release schedule for a specialist game. There is some new stuff every couple of months and it even got that big mars expansion with Minis completely exclusive to the game less than two years ago. That is a lot more than any specialist game got back in the day. 

Going back to Xenos, they had them at this scale for aeronautical and nobody played that. Meanwhile Mono-faction Titanicus seems to have done fine-ish at least because getting to play a warlord Titan is the only thing that made warhammer players play at that scale in the first place.

 

I'll be more specific to what I said as I suspect it was missed:

 

Games Workshop see numbers and what niche does Heresy bring in that isn't covered by 40K? Both operate at similar scale with squads and vehicles and attached characters. Both are heavily focused on Space Marines. Both are even using similar scaled miniatures too. 

 

Ergo if you're a bean counter, Heresy needs to bring in more than just fill the same niche. 

 

Frater here above have pointed out that this "concern" is very much possible but they also see the game as the more "mature hobby veteran" outlet which is definitely a credible niche. I won't speak for everyone but their posts do point out this an other things above for a discussion on it if you'd like to as they made the point and made it better than I.

 

As for Aeronatica, no one really played that before Xenos. Bringing in Xenos was just an attempt to address the balance in hope.

 

The Adeptus Titanicus reference you made supports my concerns, points out the niche for the game aspect that keeps a game existing despite little mainline support. I hope this transfers to Legions Imperialis and indeed Horus Heresy 3.0, though Horus Heresy 3.0 is perhaps special because it was being treated as a mainline gaming system but is struggling so might be looked at differently.

 

You've referenced the problem with Legions Imperialis is the scale issue, which could be a problem. However, player base is relevant. 

 

If the number of people willing to engage with the scale of Legions Imperialis is say 10% and you only have 2 main factions and all human (the titans and knights being extensions of the 2 main factions in essence anyway) then you're reducing the pool of players.

 

If you added Xenos, you could infact bring in that 10% from a wider, deeper pool of players.

 

Anecdotally, my gaming group have said they'd try Legions Imperialis if they had Necrons, Tyranids and Orks respectively. (I have fan made rules for the latter 2 and Eldar actually)

 

Tying that into Heresy 3.0, the draw to it used to be assisted by the Heresy novels as a promotion aspect. Since the Heresy novels have finished and are moving into Scouring but without the fanfare there was, we have a reduced promotional draw.

 

Extending Heresy, including all variants, with Scouring or Crusade forces provides a solution that can offset just copying 40K. Factions can be unique to the setting due to the extended timeline.

 

(Legions Imperialis does need to consider Tyranids mind. They were a cool concept for Epic back in the day and would be solely missed but that's neither here or there)

[Pacific81]

I've always thought scale was the main selling point of Epic (indeed, "God's own scale" as it has been known ;) )

Although titans, super heavies and the like have been pulled into 28mm scale as the plastic production tech has advanced, I don't think they will ever fit as well as they do at 6/8mm. Or at least, mass battles featuring lots of those things are achievable by casual collectors.

 

Definitely think the limited scope (mostly marine on marine) will not have helped, although if you think that is how Epic started and it did well enough that 2nd edition Epic Space Marine was one of the 'big three' and its blister packs & boxes covered a whole wall, for those of us that can remember back that far. So as a concept I think its a great one. Warlord's new 'Epic' range of historical games have been selling extremely well from all accounts, for example.

 

I've already mentioned in a previous post the botched launch, stock issues, lack of marketing/sidelining of the product, poor playtesting and overall game experience will all have contributed to its downfall. Its an open question how many of these factors will also affect Heresy AoD similarly, and what the long term consequences will be.

[Griefbringer]

5 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

I've always thought scale was the main selling point of Epic

Although titans, super heavies and the like have been pulled into 28mm scale as the plastic production tech has advanced, I don't think they will ever fit as well as they do at 6/8mm. Or at least, mass battles featuring lots of those things are achievable by casual collectors.

 

On personal retrospective, I have lately come to the opinion that 28 mm (or thereabout) gaming might be better concentrating on infantry and relatively light vehicles (especially walkers like dreadnoughts, which are primarily designed for infantry support). Battle tanks (and bigger) in this size can be a joy to model and paint, but they take a lot of space in storage, transport and tabletop, and can end up dominating a game due to their heavy armour and firepower (or if they are present in small numbers, blowing all up in the first turns due to couple of shots from enemy heavy weapons).

 

Not that I am going to get rid off any of my large scale vehicles that I already have, but I would prefer not to get any more of those in the future (except for dreadnoughts, other walkers and such light infantry support vehicles). If I get an itch to get models representing bigger vehicles, then I will try to do that with smaller scale models. Admittedly, I have been itching a bit lately to get involved with the Adeptus Titanicus models.

 

That said, as regards Horus Heresy product line, it is quite well catered with tanks and other big vehicles in the 28 mm compatible sizes. This is not exactly surprising, considering the long association between original Horus Heresy game and Forge World. As is quite well-known, tanks have been a major part of their product line since the early days (when they also put out the Imperial Armour books to accompany them). The recent plastification of many of the earlier resin designs is a major investment, and even more so cements the role of the vehicles in the game. And gamers being gamers will want to keep on placing impracticably large centrepiece models on tabletop - which may make for impressive visual sight, but may also end up dominating the gameplay excessively.

 

I might be straying a bit far from the original topic here, though (not that I have much to factually comment on the actual HH 3.0 rules or their perceived success).

[SlickSamos]

Let's not start the model scale vs unit scale vs ground scale discussion 

[Lathe Biosas]

11 hours ago, SlickSamos said:

Let's not start the model scale vs unit scale vs ground scale discussion 

 

What if we only talk about the old Inquisitor Scale models... which I assume will be the size of the Emperor, if they ever make one. 

[Gorgoff]

I've read through the discussion and all of the sudden a realisation hit me me.

I wouldn't care if HH got cancelled. 

In fact I don't care about the game anymore at all. The last ten years there wasn't a single day where I didn't thought about the game the fluff, projects and all that at least a little bit but that is completely gone apparently. 

I didn't literally almost nothing on my legions since 3ed dropped and the project of Militia which kept me interested is also mute for a couple of months now. 

 

That's news to me but it is true.

[Captain Idaho]

You know what, I'd actually be happier if it was. Because the current edition of any game becomes the default in people's eyes, regardless of the small number of people who might delve into precious editions of anything.

 

So if the game becomes officially unsupported, there is space in the mind's eye of the community to adopt and take forward the mantle of the game, likely leading with 2.0 and progressing from there.

 

It's what happened with Blood Bowl, Epic, Mordheim and BFG in fact and the consensus there exists pretty readily.

 

[Brother Sutek]

4 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

I've read through the discussion and all of the sudden a realisation hit me me.

I wouldn't care if HH got cancelled. 

In fact I don't care about the game anymore at all. The last ten years there wasn't a single day where I didn't thought about the game the fluff, projects and all that at least a little bit but that is completely gone apparently. 

I didn't literally almost nothing on my legions since 3ed dropped and the project of Militia which kept me interested is also mute for a couple of months now. 

 

That's news to me but it is true.

I sadly agree. I had a Solar Auxilia project I was working on and it went to the later pile when 2nd made their rules rubbish. Now with 3rd edition killing the game in my area all projects are shelved. I have a lot of other projects I'm working on but no warhammer other than my Wood Elves and my Orcs for older editions. 

[Lathe Biosas]

I had Imperial Knights for the original HH game, until 2.0 came out and made the game unplayable for me.

 

I literally could not afford to have 2 Armiger models for every Knight, and the one game I did get in thanks to other players loaning me models, I got swarmed and killed by a horde of OP'd dreadnoughts.

 

I've read the rules for 3.0, but as I've said before, there is zero local support for the game. The Warhammer store employees suggest you travel to another unaffiliated game store (in another town) to play it.

 

(I've never seen them run demos or anything for any game that wasn't strictly 40k.)

[SlickSamos]

5 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

So if the game becomes officially unsupported, there is space in the mind's eye of the community to adopt and take forward the mantle of the game

 

I think that there are 2 alternatives to the Old World game still active (Warhammer Armies Project and the Ninth Age) but I don't know how much they get played.  Likewise I don't know how much One Page Rules actually get played either?

[Hfran Morkai]

I'd care from a model support point given I don't have a printer and we're still waiting for stuff to finish off the Legions.

 

But I likely won't be gaming any time soon anyway. Maybe I'll finally be ready for fourth, where hopefully they go back to something like the FOC and Rites of War.

[TheTrans]

Look, if 3.0 killed heresy, it would allow a community edition to have some room to breathe. Don't get me wrong there would be a bit of frictions as everyone would throw their two-cents in and want 'their' version to take the win... but at the end of the Day 1.0 would win... I may be biased.. but is what it is. 

The issue we currently have is that Heresy is still 'supported' and with a current edition, new blood will just play that. The other issue is 1.0 is only four years dead (pour one out for our homie) which doesn't seperate it enough from 3.0 to be retro or whatever. 

I think when either 4.0 drops and moves heresy even further away from 1.0 and into a 40k aligned rules system, or is allowed to die... thats when you'll see a resurgence and by god will I be ready for it! 
 

[TheTrans]

8 hours ago, Brother Sutek said:

I sadly agree. I had a Solar Auxilia project I was working on and it went to the later pile when 2nd made their rules rubbish. Now with 3rd edition killing the game in my area all projects are shelved. I have a lot of other projects I'm working on but no warhammer other than my Wood Elves and my Orcs for older editions. 

Apologies couldn't add the quote into the edited thing.

I'm in exactly the same boat, bought a heap of the awesome Mortian walkers to use as legged dracosans, and smaller ones for russes for a full mechanised, mountain assault force sort of thing... 2.0 dropped and just murdered any thoughts of that for a while.

 eventually reached a point and found a fun. gimmick list using said dracosans/vanquisher russes with a command russ (for night vision) and allying them with terror assault for 2.0, started modeling up a night lord recon element, including one like hopped up on the command russ-walker talking to the commander and pointing at a hololith thing, wanted to sort of show the night lords also being competent soliders etc.....got the first 2 tanks built and the first recon squad..aaaaaand 3.0 dropped... 

[Brother Sutek]

9 hours ago, TheTrans said:

Apologies couldn't add the quote into the edited thing.

I'm in exactly the same boat, bought a heap of the awesome Mortian walkers to use as legged dracosans, and smaller ones for russes for a full mechanised, mountain assault force sort of thing... 2.0 dropped and just murdered any thoughts of that for a while.

 eventually reached a point and found a fun. gimmick list using said dracosans/vanquisher russes with a command russ (for night vision) and allying them with terror assault for 2.0, started modeling up a night lord recon element, including one like hopped up on the command russ-walker talking to the commander and pointing at a hololith thing, wanted to sort of show the night lords also being competent soliders etc.....got the first 2 tanks built and the first recon squad..aaaaaand 3.0 dropped... 

That was my take as well, finally bite the bullet and start to move forward and the edition changed. I get that SA are not their first priority but as a costly army that they should want to get their investment money back...make decent rules so people buy the pretty models. I had just invested in my fourth dracosan when they dropped the new edition and three of them still sit on my shelf of shame. I had started convert my IG tanks to be 30k correct but that's not a thing. I'm so grateful I showed rare self control and hadn't invested in a mechanicus army. I don't have the hobby money I once had as real life is a thing.

 

15 hours ago, SlickSamos said:

 

I think that there are 2 alternatives to the Old World game still active (Warhammer Armies Project and the Ninth Age) but I don't know how much they get played.  Likewise I don't know how much One Page Rules actually get played either?

My area has a few playing One Page rules and have been for a while. I have too many other ruleset to jump on board but they seem to like it. As for WAP up until the last cease and desist from GW we allowed those rules as they tended to be more balanced than GW. My beloved Dogs of War hadn't received a new book in decades and their rules were solid in WAP.