I'm a bit late to the proverbial party on this one. But on the Warhammer community website, it has been announced that the Horus Heresy will be getting their own rules set. This is not new, of course, as we have known about it for a while.
What strikes me is the replies on the Games Workshop Facebook group. When asked whether the psychic phase was going to be revised or not, there were a lot of non committal answers given. Why would this be so? Have Forge World or GW not agreed upon the rules yet? Are things in such a state of flux that straight forward questions like this cannot be answered? Or perhaps are we saving ourselves up for spoilers that will be revealed later.
From what was stated though, it is clear that the Horus Heresy rules are going to be an updated version of 7th with all of the needless stuff eliminated from the set. So entries like "And They Shall Know No Fear" will likely be removed from this rule book and other rules (perhaps a full explainer of "Primarch" rules) will be inserted?
In all of this, I'm somewhat torn. I do like the effort they have made to keep things in 7th at some level. But at another level, its really disheartening that the community has been split like this. I'd still like to play against Eldar using whatever set of rules we can. But should that be 7th or 8th edition? I no longer know. No one does. Until there is a 30k Eldar book released, I guess we will do what we can. Which will probably mean I write a space marine army list for my Alpha Legion. It will lack all the character that I have grown accustomed to though. Equally, this is a fate shared by 40k armies like the Raven Guard (or basically anything that isn't vanilla marines). Hopefully the newer 40k codex releases will give some flavour back to these armies and I can write some kind of army list for 8th that would be an Alpha Legion analogue (perhaps based on the Raven Guard -- hence my mentioning them in particular).
8 comments:
7th ed eldar, Ork or whatever work just fine for most people vs. 30k Marine armies. Not sure where the confusion is coming form...
8th just sucks. Boring bland and with all the tactics replaced by gameyness.
I am hoping FW don't bugger this up, so that these rules will be a real alrernative to 8th.
8th just sucks. Boring bland and with all the tactics replaced by gameyness.
I am hoping FW don't bugger this up, so that these rules will be a real alrernative to 8th.
I know in our area HH staying with 7th has really kicked a lot of people in the teeth.
I can't see it being the long term decision given how much smarter 8th is generally (tanks not dying from a single meltagun, modifiers to shooting, armour save modifiers).
And while I get that all the marine stuff is pretty basic at the moment and doesnt have the flavour everyone wanted, at least no one in 8th Ed is using a 6th Ed codex.
The global reset is outstanding for moving forward, now we just need to hope that the flavour of the Marine chapters will be brought back in the next few months.
Not sure I agree with KoIR about gameyness, 7th edition was certainly about gameyness, formations and buffs upon buffs and insertstar here there and everywhere.
8th looks like its going to give us all some interesting learning experiences, which only makes me hope that FW will be able to release an updated Age of Darkness rule set based on 8th with any issues we see smoothed out.
All the problems (including any gameyness with USR swapping etc) with 7th were with the army books and supplements, not the core rules. There are elements in the core rules that could benefit from changes, notably the M characteristic is a big improvement and there is no reason vehicles needed a different system. However the over simplification is bad, damage charts, armour facings, initiative, blasts, deep strike scatter, WS vs WS, casualty removal from firer, all these added depth and tactics and work fine between friends.
I agree with Knight of Infinite, 8th is too oversimplified for my tastes
Add for casualty removal, I never liked the seventh system. I liked the reasoning GW had given back when you used to get to choose. If a melta gunner was killed, someone picked up their gun, if the sergeant died, next man up was now in charge of the squad grabbing the sergeants kit and leading the way.
Closest model always seemed like a penalty to new players who didn't really think it through that much and only added time to deployment and movement to avoid that stuff. Same thing with the templates, just added time to the game as players tried to stretch every model out 2"
I agree KoIR that army books and supplements add this issue in, but psychic powers were core rules and some of the psychic powers were the biggest problems (carried over from 6th).
Vehicles are much more fun now as taking them was always a risk that they would be alpha striked off the table (They now can be but it requires more focus, and therefore more tactics imo). - unless as I am writing this you meant you liked the 8th changes to vehicles in which case ignore this bit lol!
Initative isnt tactics, its in your army list, and given that nearly all the HH armies will be identitical initative I dont really think that it adds any tactical depth to the game.
Now in 8th you can't just park you I5 guys next to I4 guys knowing even if they charge you, you are going first, you have to think about that in 7th you didnt.
Casualty removal... ok so I can get onboard with that as a view point, but to be fair its the easiest thing in the word to house rule into 8th in friendly games.
Deep strike scatter I am a little disappointed that it went away, but its not really tactics when things scatter and when lots of things have drop pods pretty much making that a no risk event anyway.
Templates is probably pretty personnal, me I hated them, I hated remembering the damn things, I hated scatter (yay so your blind barrage weapon is as likely to score a direct hit as my frag rocket I am aiming at you?!?!)
WS vs WS had its issues andneeded a change, was the 8th one right? Maybe, maybe not, but then again why can't any primarch (unless i missed a rule somewhere) be almost garunteed to hit a space marine? I mean the current rules set means they have a 1/3 of missing, and that the marine is generally hitting on a 1/2....
Overall 8th feels smarter, slicker and better than the clunk that was 7th, and HH could have massively benefitted from doing an index release (even if it kept 7th!) for the legions and models not in their FW books (afterall its easy enough to say that the Legions get to ingore the Relic part of the FW index).
Then you could easily support both systems, and get the maximum bang for your buck, without invalidating the big tomes we all love (well I do!).
Mainly for HH its about the special rules as lets be honest we already have the stats for:
Marines
Assault Marines
Terminators (all types)
Weapons - nearly all types of weapon
Vehicles - most if not all
What we are missing are the Legion specific rules (which in fair probably translate over pretty well) and the characters that make them up.
We aren't even talking several books, just one, although if they want to play test it I get that needs a little work, but we are mainly looking at several characters that need playtesting not all of the damn game!
Sorry, turned long again - enjoying the discussions so if bear in mind if anything in here comes across too strong or insulting (which I hope none of it does) it was not meant that way!
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