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Forge World is working with Games Workshop directly to release their Horus Heresy models in plastic. So far we have Betrayal at Calth and The Burning of Prospero as games featuring models previously released in resin by Forge World.

My question, and the point of this thread, is to do some theory crafting about what is likely next in the pipeline.

We need to identify a point in the Horus Heresy that easily features a single loyalist army matched up against a single traitor army. Army specific items will almost certainly be two principal characters and decal sheets. Units like the Raven Guard's Dark Fury Assault Squad likely won't be done as GW/FW seems to want generic models that can be used for any army. It also allows Forge World to push their upgrade kits.

So, I guess I should start.

I imagine that a boxed game based on the Battle of the Kalium Gate (White Scars versus Emperor's Children) is a logic choice for an upcoming release. It features two legions not done yet and the sides can be done easily enough to fit the what has previous been released.

The White Scars character will likely be a Stormseer to counter the Kakaphony but it could easily be Qin Xa.
I don't know if they'll do Eidolon in plastic or opt for some generic Kakaphony commander.
I think they'll do a unit of five Kakaphony for this because they're fairly central to the battle.
There will be thirty Marines, possibly in Mark V armor.
There will almost certainly be a bike unit in any White Scars based game and a Mark IV Outrider Squadron is more likely than Scimitars.
Finally, it is quite possible that they include a unit of faux Phoenix Terminators (Legion icons removed).

So, is BotKG likely or not? What future sets to you think are most likely to happen and what do you think the contents would be? It would be nice to steer clear of blatant wish-listing and see if we can put some thought into what GW/FW is most likely to do. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

Caliban, duh.

Battle of Phall.

Istvaan III set? That gets you possible units from Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children and World Eaters - Corrupted and Loyalist versions?

Squad boxed sets, Devistators/ heavy weapons

Vehicles

New 30K boxed set ( 9th Edition,)

infinite_array wrote:
Istvaan III set? That gets you possible units from Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children and World Eaters - Corrupted and Loyalist versions?

They seem to be doing sets based on one loyalist legion versus one traitor legion at the moment. Then there is the amount of models in the box to consider. With only thirty Space Marine infantry, how would you represent all those legions in any meaningful way?

 Ratius wrote:
Battle of Phall.

Wasn't that a space ship battle? I suppose a game with breacher/boarding squads could be done. What units would be included?

The crimson fist is a short story about Phall. Lots of boarding actions, so breacher squads are a good assumption. Also, some teleporting terminators, so MORE TERMINATORS. They haven't been doing transports, so I guess a boarding vehicle is out.

It was also against Perturabo and his elite body guards, so bad-ass terminators, maybe. Hopefully Legion-neutral.

Mk II armour up next I reckon. Dark Angels v Night Lords. I reckon the box sets will be tied into the 40k marine poster boys. To wit: Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Space Wolves.

 zedmeister wrote:
Mk II armour up next I reckon. Dark Angels v Night Lords. I reckon the box sets will be tied into the 40k marine poster boys. To wit: Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Space Wolves.

Dear lord, my wallet would be dead.

Was Mark 2 even used during the Horus Heresy? I thought it had all been replaced by then.

I suppose Marine on Marine action isn't the only thing FW/GW could do. FW makes a line of robots that the Mechanicus uses so we could possibly see Usrarax cohorts and Imperial Fists versus the Dark Mechanicum. That'd be pretty cool. Sadly, I don't think we'll see anything like that until the Forge World Horus Heresy series advances that far.

 Breotan wrote:
Was Mark 2 even used during the Horus Heresy? I thought it had all been replaced by then.

I suppose Marine on Marine action isn't the only thing FW/GW could do. FW makes a line of robots that the Mechanicus uses so we could possibly see Usrarax cohorts and Imperial Fists versus the Dark Mechanicum. That'd be pretty cool. Sadly, I don't think we'll see anything like that until the Forge World Horus Heresy series advances that far.

If GW keeps the pattern of 30 Power armored marines, 5 terminators, and then one “other” slot, which looks like a dread or 2x5 man units I could see some robots taking that last slot.

One question is if they are going to stick with this pattern. If these are being used as a vehicle to get HH stuff in plastic, how many more do they need to do? I agree that Mk. II might be a little niche, even for the heresy. But Mk. V and VI are both solid contenders. How many more marks of terminators are there to do? Because once all of them are done, that box space could be used for something else.

And when they run out of basic stuff, they can move into heresy-era assault marines, breachers, etc.

Well, they have two types of Heresy era jump packs so Assault Marines look likely for some future set. They have the bikes, recon squads, and breacher squads. They've done a Contemptor before so they may release another one or go with something else. I doubt they'll release any vehicles though. This current set shows they're willing to do previously unreleased stuff, too so we shouldn't rule out anything.

 Breotan wrote:
Well, they have two types of Heresy era jump packs so Assault Marines look likely for some future set. They have the bikes, recon squads, breacher squads, and Rapiers. They've done a Contemptor before so they may release another one or go with something else. I doubt they'll release any vehicles though. This current set shows they're willing to do previously unreleased stuff, too so we shouldn't rule out anything.

I am good with all of these. A Rhino in a board game sounds odd, but bikes, jump packs, jet bikes, etc are all fair game at this point.

Even imperial armies, Mechanicum, or divergent humans...

The storming of Horus's flagship by Emprah and friends.

Cmon GW do it...

I could see Phall, but who knows. It depends on where the game and models are at the time, plus specialist games. Adep Titanicus, BFGothic perhaps? who knows.

I would put money on them reusing the Tactical Squads in the next box. I really doubt we will get even more Tactical Squad kits. A Battle of Phall box with more Mk III but some Breacher upgrades is a possibility. But Phall would almost need to have Alexis Polux in it, and I really don't see them doing that.

 Breotan wrote:
Was Mark 2 even used during the Horus Heresy? I thought it had all been replaced by then.

Yeah, white scars and dark Angels especially. There's plenty of illustrations in the black books that show Legionaires in Mk II

The outcast dead escape from earth with all the iconic characters!

And i hope it will lead to a board-game about the iconic fight between the emperor and Horus!

Plastic Mk.V.

I love that as a concept!

I wonder if they'll drop a Rapier in a box instead of the Dread? I'd drop some money for that.

Assault Marines would be dandy. Even more so if these also include the option to turn them into Destroyers.

Battle of Phall. You do Mk2 armor, breachers and close combat cataphractii terminators. Your vehicle sized weapons are rapier tracked platforms which accompanied the boarding assaults. Rules are based on the zone mortalis rules.

Instead of Alexis Pollux for the Fists you do Fafnir Rann to be the Imperial Fist's character since he was the head of the breachers and later 1st chapter master of the Executioners.

Add an Iron Warrior character and boom, you are set. Sell the box with 30 Mk2 armor marines, 5 terminators, 1-2 rapiers and the 2 characters and boom. Instant battle for Phall box set.

Bringg in the Mechanicum for the next box set or some Imperial Army, Assassins, etc same as the SOS and Custodes this time.

Plastic Mechanicus is always to be welcomed and easily ported into 40k,

Plastic Thallax with weapon options would be neat.

Love the idea of Dark Angels vs Night Lords, two legions that aren't really getting any love right now.

I've been on a freeze of buying Games Workshop stuff after the "End Times" but what brought me back was the Genestealer Cults stuff..
And if they did a Mark 5 armor with all the little studs... Or a nice updated version of Mark 6 marine units that would break me...
And I do love the box sets can be made into one army.. verses having to cut off a bunch of icons..

I like the marines in the latest HH box set but don't have a use for the heroes or the special units.. May wait and just pick them up in a secondary market.

To quote myself from the Burning of Prospero thread:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Upon thinking about it though the last 2 boxes have tied into FWs books. Betrayal at Calth came out about 6 months after Horus Heresy Book 5: Tempest (which detailed the events of the Battle for Calth) and now the Burning of Prospero coming out 3-4 months before Book 7: Inferno. No doubt the next box will continue this trend, which would probably rule out a Dark Angels vs Night Lords box as iirc Alan Bligh has said they aren't going to be doing a book based on the Thramas Crusade directly after Inferno.

After spending a bit of time searching the internet... back in 2015 FW said that for Book 8 they were thinking of doing Signus, Thramas or the Mars Schism. Given the more recent comments about Thramas not being next and confusion as to why people want Signus when there are more interesting events that could be done that would seem to indicate that Book 8 might be based on the Schism of Mars.

And then earlier this year they said that Book 8 probably won't be Signus but instead be more Calth (probably indicating Shadow Crusade).


Assuming they continue the trend of the boxsets being related to recent book releases, that would mean it would be a IF/AdMech vs DarkMech or WB/WE vs UM.
And I doubt either of those will be the case...


So in the end I'm just going to guess that the next box will be based on the Thramas Crusade. It seems more likely than Phall and it's possible that Book 9 will be based on it anyway or that FW will change their mind once again and make it Book 8.

Why isn't the Battle of Signus Prime interesting?

I mean, it'd give us the full Blood Angel rules, give us a really big Legion v Daemon battle, and we may even end up with a min for the Red Angel.

I have no idea, all I know is that at one of the previous events it was mentioned as such in a conversation.

I'd assume it's because compared to other events it's relatively small in terms of the variety of forces involved as a whole? Compared to Calth, for example, where there was the majority of two Astartes Legions, a knight house, scores of Solar Auxilia and Mechanicum forces, a few Titan Legions, Warp Cults, Miltia and Daemons.

The FW designers seems to jump around a bit though when it comes to deciding about what the book will be about and contain. Daemons were apparently meant to be in Book 5 but there just wasn't enough room, so they had thoughts about doing that in a Signus book instead. Now only a few months ago there's talk about putting them in a sequel book to Calth (which aside from my bias as a Word Bearer player doesn't sound very interesting... there isn't really many rules I could see them adding besides a Daemons army list and maybe some new WE/UM/WB units/characters). They'll probably change their minds again at some point.

I mean hell, at one point Inferno was meant to be Book 4.

I think folk are getting a tad wishlisty, the objective of these boxes seems to be to get core kits out there, I doubt we'll be getting specific sub-types of squad like Breachers nor Legion-specific units, not in the near future at any rate.

They've already done MKIII and Cataphractii so I doubt we'll see Phall. I also doubt they'll keep doing Terminators now both basic kits are done, unless they go totally mad and give us the old MK1 beetleback Terminators(which I am all for, incidentally), and they've shown they're willing to vary the contents from one box to the next by dropping the Contemptor for SoS/Custodes.

I'd lay odds the next box, assuming there is one, will feature MKVI meaning something involving Raven Guard and/or Alpha Legion would be logical. Given they seem to be trying to establish plastic base kits that FW can easily expand with resin accessories, I'd also bet on a Deimos hull showing up at some stage. Beyond that it's a bit of a crapshoot - I mean even when Sad Panda stated it categorically a lot of folk still didn't expect GW would actually do plastic SoS/Custodes, so who knows what they might throw in in future, providing it follows that core "rule" for these boxes of providing a core, expandable unit of some form.