Pages from the Black Books (unreleased Black Book lore Page 5)

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, 01RTB01 said:

I think this speaks volumes about how third has been received. It was more popular within my circles when it was all resin and considerably more expensive. 

 

My group dumped silly amounts on HH1, the Legion expansion, Primarch, all the new tanks, the lore, man it was do great.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

Main problem round my ‘hood is that we all spent a decade fully entrenched in Heresy and amassed huge armies and played tons of games and ran big events. Now, we still have all those armies so there isn’t a huge reason to do more. The current ZM is AWESOME and I’d love to play it more but…people have largely moved on.

[Marshal Rohr]

I think most people would like most of the core rules, but it’s crazy how hard taking away wargear and streamlining missions hit most people. 

[Marshal Loss]

I've been a little time poor since this dropped and had neglected my hype posting duties, but what an absolute treat this was. It's bittersweet to know that we could have had an EC & Dark Mechanicum book but I'm really chuffed we got to read this at all. Obviously I'm more than a little biased on matters concerning the Third but this felt a lot more like black book writing before the quality took a bit of a turn for the worse, even the 'Lion comes to Chemos' section didn't read like the Dark Angels glazing that has popped up a lot in recent years. Lots of little lore nuggets, brings together the OG 'EC high command were corrupted because they got high at a party' lore with the more modern takes on Fulgrim's fall into a cohesive narrative, and provides a ton of inspiration for different flavours of corrupted EC. In hindsight this having been on the cards makes a lot of sense with the dripfeed of EC content, models and artwork we've received over the last 4 years since HH 2.0 dropped. 

 

Colour plates are wonderful too, love the Deredeo in particular. The purple & black without a huge amount of gold is the look I adore on EC.

 

That being said, I've been asking for many years and will continue to for years to come (until my demands are met), but I really want to see the EC's genetic abominations hit the tabletop. The current spate of augments don't really sell the idea and I'd love to see these 'apothecary-genetors' and their chimaeric abominations receive rules.

[01RTB01]

1 hour ago, Marshal Loss said:

I've been a little time poor since this dropped and had neglected my hype posting duties, but what an absolute treat this was. It's bittersweet to know that we could have had an EC & Dark Mechanicum book but I'm really chuffed we got to read this at all. Obviously I'm more than a little biased on matters concerning the Third but this felt a lot more like black book writing before the quality took a bit of a turn for the worse, even the 'Lion comes to Chemos' section didn't read like the Dark Angels glazing that has popped up a lot in recent years. Lots of little lore nuggets, brings together the OG 'EC high command were corrupted because they got high at a party' lore with the more modern takes on Fulgrim's fall into a cohesive narrative, and provides a ton of inspiration for different flavours of corrupted EC. In hindsight this having been on the cards makes a lot of sense with the dripfeed of EC content, models and artwork we've received over the last 4 years since HH 2.0 dropped. 

 

Colour plates are wonderful too, love the Deredeo in particular. The purple & black without a huge amount of gold is the look I adore on EC.

 

That being said, I've been asking for many years and will continue to for years to come (until my demands are met), but I really want to see the EC's genetic abominations hit the tabletop. The current spate of augments don't really sell the idea and I'd love to see these 'apothecary-genetors' and their chimaeric abominations receive rules.

 

Terata would be great to see. 

[LSM]

2 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

Terata would be great to see. 

 

Things to make me swoon:

• Siege-Era model/rules for Eidolon, incorporating his beheading and embrace of the mutations of the Sonic Cult, as well as being armoured in the blessings of Horvia.
• Chief Apothecary Fabius model/rules.
• 'Enhanced Warriors' kit.  

[Jings]

On 9/27/2026 at 3:58 PM, Marshal Rohr said:

I think most people would like most of the core rules, but it’s crazy how hard taking away wargear and streamlining missions hit most people. 

 

While I can't speak for everyone, I treat Heresy is particularly "high effort" and my army building progress takes a long, long time because I want them to be right. We're talking comprehensive paint schemes, heraldry, freehand and extensive conversion work in order for my army to fit a cohesive theme. They are intensive labours of love. 

 

So when options are changed or removed, or little gameplay quirks are used to make modelling for fun a disadvantage (looking at you in particular, removal of extra attack for Sergeants), it devastates motivation to go through that process. 

 

Combine that with an accelerated update schedule for the rules (and, lets face it, the further removal of wargear options that will entail) and you get the current state of affairs. Sure, might not have gotten that many games in, but now the baseline structure ("the list") has been removed and with it the underlying reason to build it in the first place. 

 

Worst part is the core rules for 3rd Edition are really cool. While the army composition thing is annoying and I can't say I love the removal of Rites of War, the use of status and emphasis of line officers and infantry makes it feel a lot more simulationist. The new kits are amazing too, and I love their upgrade system (although the lack of Legion upgrade sets is sticking out like a sore thumb). I just can't bring myself to commit myself to finishing a 3K mega project that runs a real risk of becoming invalidated when the next edition comes along and I think this is quite a universal sentiment. 

[BadgersinHills]

On 9/25/2026 at 3:57 AM, LSM said:

I love this.

 

One thing that... perturbed me about the modern Emperor's Children fandom was how much the pre-Heresy Legion seemed to have become the touchstone for people, over the actual 40k Emperor's Children. And I really love the portrayal in the early Heresy books, but what I often saw was folks wanting the post-Heresy Legion to be rewritten to be more like their pre-Heresy selves. The change, the fall - that story of highly disciplined, authoritarian, tightly wound perfectionists, snapping and becoming anarchic, hedonistic, gleeful addicts - I love that. And to want to turn it back struck me like someone wanting Darth Vader to be more like Anakin Skywalker. (Well... imagine that prequel Anakin was a good character...)

 

So to have a HH entry focussed on highlighting how they shifted... Big love from me.

 

 

I agree with all of this. I imagine some of how people view the EC pre- vs post-Heresy is to do with the lack of an EC model range for a long time, though I'm sure some of it has to do with meme depictions of Slaanesh and the Emperor's Children. It's great to see a look at how the traitor Emperor's Children evolved.