Great Crusade vs HH

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Was just thinking about it and tbh I think a GC game would have been much better than a straight up HH game.

 

there could have been an HH expansion for demon primarchs, more chaosy marines,  but I think focusing on the crusade itself would have been better as it would have allowed for human non-imperial factions, and all new xenos factions, and marine vs marine games would have still made total sense as during the heresy, especially once that expansion was released.

 

am I the only one who would prefer a great crusade game?

[Griefbringer]

I have nothing against the concept of Great Crusade gaming.

 

However, for real world historical perspective, you might want to consider what was happening in the Forge World bunker back in 2012 when they put out the first Horus Heresy book. It was not a new game, it was simply an expansion for the WH40K rules (6th edition at the time). As were the other Horus Heresy books that came out in 2013-2016 timeline: they were all simply expansions to go with the 6th/7th edition WH40K rules.

 

Horus Heresy only became an independent game after WH40K 7th edition was discontinued 2017, and the fresh 8th edition was not backwards compatible with the Horus Heresy expansion books. At that time Forge World had to make a choice: either revamp all the expansion books (a fair bit of work) or simply publish a separate ruleset that would be compatible with those existing books (relatively straightforward, as it would be based on WH40K 7th edition rules). They decided to go the simple way, and publish their own rules (it might be that some of the authors involved also preferred the 7th edition rules over 8th edition, but I have no info on this). So in late 2017, five years after the publication of the first Horus Heresy expansion book, Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness was released as a rulebook for a game that was now independent of WH40K. And this was primarily forced by circumstances outside the Forge World studio.

 

What the Forge World folks really liked to do was resin models of all sorts - but especially Imperial ones. And they had limited resources to crank out new stuff. Having a Horus Heresy range meant that the basic models sculpted could be used for both loyalists and traitors, thus allowing for efficient use of the resources in the start. If they had wanted to start a Great Crusade range in 2012, they would have needed to release quickly both the basic Imperial range and some opposing ranges (xenos and/or independent humans), as there was not much in the 40K range that could have been used straight as opponents (other than the orks). Furthermore, Horus Heresy benefited from the interest created by the Black Library novel series, which had been going on since 2006, and would provide plenty of material to inspire the Forge World personnel.

 

Finally, there was always the option for Forge World to start a new series of Great Crusade expansions and models once the Horus Heresy would be "complete" - at which point they would have an extensive range for the Imperial forces and could have focused on the opposition they faced during the Great Crusade. Unfortunately, real world events interfered and the output of Horus Heresy material by Forge World started to suffer. Year 2017 saw not just the discontinuation of WH40K 7th edition, but also the tragic loss of Alan Bligh, who is considered to have been the main author for the Horus Heresy series. At some point also the output of new resin models started to suffer. 

 

The great re-start of 2022, with the release of the 2.0 edition for Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness did not really move things forward. On the model front, the focus was now on turning existing resin sets into plastic kits (work that is still incomplete), rather than on making new models for topics not previously covered. And the existing books were discontinued, and a new line released from the scratch. This was then followed by another book discontinuation and re-launch in 2025 (Horus Heresy 3.0), and might get repeated in 2028.

 

So the studio seems to be stuck in a limbo, where they keep re-starting the HH every three years from scratch, rather than getting it "completed" which would allow them to progress into working on expansions and models for the Great Crusade and Scouring.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

The 3 year cycle must be obeyed lest the wrath of shareholders rains down on us all. 

[Griefbringer]

Digging into the release schedules for the original HH expansion books, it seems that during a 4.5 year period stretching from October 2012 to March 2017, the release schedule included seven campaign supplements ("black books") and six army list supplements ("red books"). This is quite a decent output for a couple of authors. How would things have turned out if they had been able to continue at such rate for 3-4 more years?

 

Additionally during that time there were released two Horus Heresy board games (Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero), which provided a welcome source of plastic figures to the otherwise resin-dominated model range. I have not yet looked for info as to how many resin models were released in that period (if somebody knows a handy reference, a link would be appreciated).

 

As for possible idea of having started instead with Great Crusade expansions in 2012, I have to admit that it could have had the possibility of showing how the crusading forces and their equipment changed during the two centuries. Start with rules and models for the early Crusade forces, and then keep on releasing additional rules and models gradually for the mid and late Crusade forces. If you start working backwards from the Horus Heresy setting, you can already have everything that a late Crusade force would need model-wise - though as mentioned, this would free up resources for coming up with the opponents.

 

Edit: as regards model release histories, I found at least a section on Lexicanum for the Forge World ones. Will need to go through it later to understand how the resin release rate was in the 2012-2017 period.

 

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Horus_Heresy_(Game)#Miniatures

Edited Friday at 02:42 PM by Griefbringer