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 ImAGeek wrote:
I just don't see how AoS is any better a system than any other system for balancing basically identical armies. Should it not be just as easy in any?

You're quite right. What I mean is, there have been a lot of complaints about hypothetical balance issues with AoS. This is often cited as a major disadvantage of AoS even by folks who concede AoS has some advantages, including its relative accessibility. My point is, this balance argument just doesn't really apply to Legion v Legion fighting. So you get all the advantages of AoS without its supposed worst disadvantage.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Well, I can get why people wouldn't want a 40k ruleset like AoS, but not from a purely balance point of view because 40k can't get much worse there.

Agreed.

So you are talking (ignoring the background for a sec) about a self-contained game in the box, largely independent of the current 40K game (including variant FW lists)? Except you'd prefer it to come without a cardboard board to be played on and use tape measures and hobby terrain instead?

Seems largely the same thing (outside of rumours that it allegedly does include Space Hulk/EF like cardboard). Nothing there that would make a game with cardboard intrinsically worse or better than one without, no?

AoS-debates aside, generally I would assume (but I am no game designer) that the more rigid format of a cardboard board with defined squares and distances would be easier to write than a "good" game accounting for all the vagaries of a player-made tables and terrain.

Fair enough then, I get where you're coming from now

I'm not sure I'd like an AoS type game for my 30k stuff but it won't matter as long as FW keep on with their stuff, and i don't see any reason not to try the AoS style version if that's what they do go with. With how slow I am with building and painting my stuff I'm not sure I'll even get to the gaming stage with my 30k stuff anyway!

I don't want a board game at all, not from GW, no thanks. I want a miniatures game.

What I would like to see is something like the AoS box but with SM sprues (just like the ones in OP) and at minimum enough transfers to make up units from Loyalist and Traitor legions that fought at Isstvan V. And it should come with a AoS-style streamlined 4-page ruleset and a book with HH "warscrolls." Then, again like AoS, I would like to see GW support this with further plastic kits for the Legions.

This doesn't need to have anything to do with 40k and it wouldn't replace what FW is doing for the HH. The models would however be totally compatible with both.

I see.

But wouldn't that split the "Heresy-crowd" (even if it grows it a bit) between two systems, rather than funnel new customers into the FW hobby via a board-game "kickstart"?


[edit]
And FW's Heresy army lists are still tied to 40K. If GW would ever decide (or already decided) to AoS-ify 40K, as many fear and some highly questionable rumours claim, it would apply to any and all FW-lists for alternative "historical" periods of the 40K-game anyhow.

Wonderwolf wrote:
But wouldn't that split the "Heresy-crowd" (even if it grows it a bit) between two systems, rather than funnel new customers into the FW hobby via a board-game "kickstart"?

I don't think so. To me, this just gives the customer more options. Do you want to play a relatively simple game with plastic miniatures? Okay, check. Do you want to play a more complicated game with plastic miniatures but also some expensive resin ones as well. Again, check. Or maybe you want to buy all of it and mix it up both ways. Check again! Check check check. And make your checks payable to GW.

Wonderwolf wrote:
If GW would ever decide (or already decided) to AoS-ify 40K

The internet has a special way of enticing hysteria. I really doubt 40k is going anywhere (even though AoS seems inspired to some degree by how 40k has been developed since 5E).

Perhaps.

I just feel like GW doesn't like to have too many games around. Ultimately, they (allegedly) killed off (not-strictly limited) specialist games, because they felt/feared these "cannibalized" their main-games.

They certainly didn't go down with the "options-route" for Fantasy, offering both WFB and (!) Age of Sigmar to cater to different tastes/more variety in gaming (though AoS's "base-neutral" design would, in theory, allow it, notwithstanding the new marketing of everything on round bases).

It seems more in line with GW's general behaviour to throw out a (admittedly likely uninspired) board game with cool dual-use minis for a limited time and think about anything else next quarter, as well as to go all-out, burn-all-bridges if (a very big if!!) they'd decide to go AoS on 40K, than return to a larger portfolio of games.

Of course, GW's past is only always a very unreliable indicator of the future.

How would "Age of Horus" cannibalize 40k?

 Manchu wrote:
How would "Age of Horus" cannibalize 40k?

I dunno. How would WFB have been hurt, if they'd kept it around along with AoS? How did Necromunda or Gorka Morka hurt 40K? How was it bad to have Apoc (Formations, Superheavies, CtA-allies) separate and optional, instead of bringing everything "into one game"?

Also, if this was truly a "full" third game for GW, and not just the same "slot" as Space Hulk last year, wouldn't it be coming out next summer instead? Not to mention a bigger "End Times-style" build-up to market/prepare for a full third game?

2015 - Age of Sigmar 1st
2016 - Age of Horus 1st
2017 - 40K 8th

Cycle through Editions every three years.

There is one huge distinction between a prospective Age of Horus game and all previous specialist games: Space Marine sales. Add to that, from the mass market fiction perspective, HH sales. How did Specialist Games hurt 40k? By creating costs unjustified by profits for a company that can't afford many costs. This would not likely be an issue for a line of plastic Legionaries (marketed with super accessible rules) that could also be used with 40k or FW 30k.

Hve to agree, a Horus game in an AOS style would have no effect on 40K itself, they are different enough gameplay wise, other than perhaps selling 30K style marines to 40K players, which makes no difference to GW, a 10 man squad sale is a 10 man squad sale whatever you do with it.

It could also benefit Forgeworld 30K by provding a cheaper way to the bare bones of a 30K army. Forgeworld may sell less resin marines, but I have a feeling that as a business, that may not be so bad.
Having more production time for the larger profit stuff rather than churning out base space marine bodies is probably the other aim of this move from a management perspective.

NoggintheNog wrote:
Hve to agree, a Horus game in an AOS style would have no effect on 40K itself, they are different enough gameplay wise, other than perhaps selling 30K style marines to 40K players, which makes no difference to GW, a 10 man squad sale is a 10 man squad sale whatever you do with it.

It could also benefit Forgeworld 30K by provding a cheaper way to the bare bones of a 30K army. Forgeworld may sell less resin marines, but I have a feeling that as a business, that may not be so bad.
Having more production time for the larger profit stuff rather than churning out base space marine bodies is probably the other aim of this move from a management perspective.

All of these benefits apply equally to a Heresy board game with the rumoured contents.

Plus the fact that the Harry/Hastings rumours said it is a board game, rumours broke along with the EF-rumours, the Space Hulk release slot, the intentional cave/space corridor theme, the way GW choose to replace WFB, instead of adding AoS as option, the probable lack of sales data from AoS at the time this box was conceived, etc.. all seem to point towards a board game.

I am not saying the AoS-variant absolutely is impossible.

Just less likely and not corroborated by any of the half-way reliable rumours and much more "preference-biased" than the board game rumours (which nobody is "keen" on (not least because recent GW board games are gak and few people seemingly want to pay extra for cardboard they may not use) in the way Manchu seems personally hoping for an AoS-Heresy, but seem to be rumoured nonetheless, which makes them less likely to be a case of wish-listing gone rogue).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Can we please get back on topic in here?

Thanks!

I don't see how discussing the potential rules for an HH game and how that impacts FW's HH product line is 'off topic'.

Because I deleted the Off Topic posts and the people who posted them will know who they are?

Thanks!

If it turns out to be basicly '30k-spacehulk' then i'm happy.

Cheap MK4 marines and a pseudo zone-mortalis 'boarding action' game on the side will be 'win' for me, but AoS-ing 40k via a heresy themed box-set would suck balls, just 'cause that changes 30k by default as it uses the 40k rulebook.

Having whinged that, i would just carry on using the 6th edition rulebook like i am now.

Maybe the cardboard terrain will be something like 1 foot by 1 foot square sections that can be set up several ways like the Zone Mortalis stuff from FW? Along the board to be set up several ways with various walled off corridors and such. This would make sense along with force organization from Zone Mortalis where attacker has 1 HQ & 1 Elite while defender has 1 HQ & 1 Troop. Based upon the rumors of the minis in the box, the equal load out of marines and termies with HQ would allow both legions to be able to play both the role of attacker and defender but still keep it asymmetrical for game play.

spect_spidey wrote:
Maybe the cardboard terrain will be something like 1 foot by 1 foot square sections that can be set up several ways like the Zone Mortalis stuff from FW? Along the board to be set up several ways with various walled off corridors and such. This would make sense along with force organization from Zone Mortalis where attacker has 1 HQ & 1 Elite while defender has 1 HQ & 1 Troop. Based upon the rumors of the minis in the box, the equal load out of marines and termies with HQ would allow both legions to be able to play both the role of attacker and defender but still keep it asymmetrical for game play.

This sounds very 'right'.

Fingers crossed!

I would love to see an HH board game - maybe a boarding assault based scenario.

Also FW is GW so if GW change 40K to AoS, FW will too.

 bubber wrote:
I would love to see an HH board game - maybe a boarding assault based scenario.

Also FW is GW so if GW change 40K to AoS, FW will too.

Forgeworld has released their own game before (Aeronautica), so it is within the realm of possibility they might publish their own rules for "advanced 30K". Not likely, to be sure, but still possible.

Anyway, the sad part about all of these new plastics is that I largely won't need then. Already have my pre-heresy Emperor's Children kitted out in mostly Mk3 armor. Not sure if I would try a different legion using these plastics.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
GW didn't replace WFB with AoS because Kirby had an indigestion.

No they replaced it with AoS because they were apparently incapable of exploiting their own well-known IP competently so had to blow everything up and start over in an attempt to generate "buzz".

If it sells, you make more of it. If it doesn't sell, you scrap it. Even GW can follow that kind of logic.

And yet you cannot follow mine, it seems. Why something sells is as important to making decisions about the future as the fact it sold in the first place. Maybe I'm expressing myself poorly; I'll lay out a scenario to illustrate what I mean(and yes, it is essentially a "worst case" scenario - I am not making any predictions, this is purely to try and make my point clearer):

AoS is released, GW note that the starter box sells well. In the following months, sales of the newer kits are not quite as high as they expected, but large amounts of existing WHFB model stock is selling at much higher volumes than in recent years and with the prices on the new kits they are still nice & profitable. This goes on for several months.

"Age of Heresy" is released, GW note that the boxed set sells extremely well. They follow up the boxed set a couple of months later with individual boxes of Heresy-era plastic troops, which also sell extremely well.

Now, at that point, according to "if it sells, make more" logic, from GW's perspective the rational thing to conclude would be that AoS-style products are wildly popular, so they should make more of them, no? So, transitioning FW's Heresy series(if it's allowed to continue) to using the new rules as a basis seems like a solid idea, and if GW act as they usually do when a new "style" takes hold at the GW moat-surrounded bunker complex 40K would likely not be far behind.

And they could be completely right in that series of decisions, who knows. But that's the point; who knows? Not them, because they're not interested in why any of the things described above happened. So lets skip ahead; we're two years out from the release of AoS, a year & a half since "AoH", they've been moving FW's Heresy stuff over to the new "AoH" rules for the past couple of months, and stand ready to triumphantly release 8th Ed 40K, or "Age of Apocalypse".

Then AoS sales begin to slow down. Following the "AoH"-ification of FW30K, they also begin to slow. AoS sales begin to tank, drastically, footfall & sales figures for stores drop substantially. FW sales of resin Heresy start to decline. The new "Age of Apocalypse" style 40K release doesn't sell anything like what GW expect. GW look to the sky and, to the laughter of the uncaring gods, demand to know how? How could this have happened?

Because other factors are at play than simply whether or not a thing sells well. In the scenario, AoS was not nearly so popular as GW assumed from the initial sales, which were inflated by people finishing or enhancing existing collections without embracing AoS as a game & on finishing they drifted away, and by people buying the starter and a couple of boxes, sticking them on a shelf, and forgetting about them as so many Newshiny customers do, which is great for the bottom line right now but bloody terrible if your product is partly dependent on a social experience and thus network effects, ie to succeed long-term your ideal customer is someone who both buys and uses your product. "Age of Heresy" sales were similarly inflated by existing Heresy fans either completing/enhancing existing projects or starting their first Heresy army thanks to the relative affordability of starter-box plastics, with the actual "AoH" rules being incidental and irrelevant to the sales in most cases.

They could end up better of, or worse off, or roughly equivalent to where they stand today, but I hope the example serves to illustrate how it's entirely possible when making decisions based on incomplete information to do things which seem entirely correct from your frame of reference at the time but which are in fact totally counter-productive, how in fact it is not utterly implausible that GW, a company not known for restraint or consistency of approach and who proudly avow they do no market research, could draw false conclusions from the initial sales of specific products(ie early AoS kits & the "AoH" boxed set) that would lead them to make decisions that people currently see as wildly implausible - which was how this whole blood thing started in the first place, with perfectly legitimate concerns about the future of a product people enjoy being dismissed as mindless scaremongering.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 bubber wrote:
I would love to see an HH board game - maybe a boarding assault based scenario.

Also FW is GW so if GW change 40K to AoS, FW will too.

Forgeworld has released their own game before (Aeronautica), so it is within the realm of possibility they might publish their own rules for "advanced 30K". Not likely, to be sure, but still possible.

Anyway, the sad part about all of these new plastics is that I largely won't need then. Already have my pre-heresy Emperor's Children kitted out in mostly Mk3 armor. Not sure if I would try a different legion using these plastics.

I've already got the bulk of my preheresy Salamanders via FW. These, however, will be perfect for also doing Alpha Legion.

hmmm, anyone know release date rumour for these? cant seem to find it in the thread.


Hoping that these come out around the same time as FW 30k space wolves so I can pick up both

Nothing solid as far as I know (at least from reliable sources),

I think the current rough guess is after the AoS wind down there's meant to be 1 or 2 real 40K releases (maybe Tau? + ?)

then possibly this ? (October maybe?)

Interestingly, there have been new rumor posts from Lords of War Gaming on their FB account - including this post commenting on the upcoming HH release from GW

Lords of War Gaming:

November or December. No rule details, but it's GW's version of HH.

LoWG are very reliable (see Pretre's rumor tracker) and it's good that they are back posting some info here and there.

Hmm....a modern Space Crusade, maybe?

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Hmm....a modern Space Crusade, maybe?

One can only hope.

Can it also come with a weird commercial?

A date would be nice, i am worried about the price, Assassinorum: Execution Force had not much content but was already 150$ so how expensive will this be?

I told my flgs owner that if the box set was £100 i wanted two - he said to keep £120 aside each just to be sure.

Wintermute (Warseer Admin) posted tonight about the HH game

Originally Posted by RTB01

is there any other info you can give us at this time

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Yes there is.

According to my sources: the rules are not 8th Ed and they haven't been Sigmared/simplified. The major difference is that the 'read this first' sections and the reference cards have simple to follow tables. For example the BS rule instead of being the traditional 'BS3 =4+' style in fact has the BS as '4+'. All other rules are as per 7th edition which will also be in the box.

No information about the minis in the box though.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?412928-Horus-Heresy-Plastics-in-late-2015-Mk-II&p=7526089&viewfull=1#post7526089

He also posted the game will be called 'Batlle for Ultramar' and

It is Ultramarines vs Word Barers.

I think the Battle of Phall seems more likely. If they were Wobbies there'd be a gak load of scripture-y bits on the models.