So, I never really got into 30k. While I really like the Horus Heresy series, I've got plenty of Marines and Chaos now and am totally fine playing them in 40k. It got me to thinking though, what would it take to get me into investing into a 30k army? I settled on two big things that would really draw me in that 40k doesn't have, more Xenos or a change in general aesthetic to feel very much like its own thing (outside of the rules).

1) The Great Crusade:
All the models are around for loyalist legions with the exception of a few chaos corrupted ones, it wouldn't be hard to have them play as their loyalist versions pre-heresy. Having some other races to play like the Interex, Rangda, Eldar, Orks, Lear? Megarachnids? Hrud?, okay that might be stretching it a bit, but the Eldar and Orks are already around so given them 30k version wouldn't be that hard. Doing a Great Crusade style campaign where you helm an expeditionary fleet (or oppose one) would certainly draw me in.

2) The Unification Wars:
There's enough broad strokes information about this that you could build upon it for some Technobarbarian armies and Thunder Warriors, though the Astartes from 30k proper were present here as well. I feel like the armies would have kind of a Fallout Sytle astatic to them that would be pretty cool and it would be a fun era to play in. There are a lot of interesting crazy factions that are touched on in the lore that I think would look really cool on the tabletop and could play in some interesting ways.

I figure that both of these are terribly unlikely given that 30k is already far less popular than 40k, but I had the thought so I wanted to see if this was something that anyone else would be interested in.

I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.

 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.

For the unification wars, off the top of my head:
- Genehanced mutants.
- Thinking Machines.
- Techno Barbarians.
- Psyker Demagogues.

I know there are more, that's all I can think of at the moment though. Not saying the lines would be super expansive, but even a handful units could be fun.

Fair point about not playing 40k in 30k. I was thinking more along the lines of giving them much more creativity with the Xenos, but having an easier transition with existing lines (could be an excuse to finally refresh the Eldar. XD). There aren't many that could stand as "factions" in 40k, but in 30k, there were Xenos empires all over the place. They could get a lot more creative there than in 40k, but then again, 30k itself would have to be WAY more popular to justify something like that.

There were lots of minor Xenos empires, but that would be the issue. They were minor. The vast majority of conflicts during the Great Crusade were against Orks and Humans, with Aeldari factions mixed in sometimes. The Hrud and then Rangadan were of course major conflicts but not compared to Orks and Humans.
Honestly, the best way to do either one is to port the 7th Ed Xenos books and utilise the Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, and Solar Auxilia lists from 30k proper. The rules become a base from which you can make custom models from.

 Gert wrote:
There were lots of minor Xenos empires, but that would be the issue. They were minor. The vast majority of conflicts during the Great Crusade were against Orks and Humans, with Aeldari factions mixed in sometimes. The Hrud and then Rangadan were of course major conflicts but not compared to Orks and Humans.
Honestly, the best way to do either one is to port the 7th Ed Xenos books and utilise the Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, and Solar Auxilia lists from 30k proper. The rules become a base from which you can make custom models from.

To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them. There's enough xenos mentioned that I think the idea would work and be awesome as there's nothing wrong with minor factions, but it would require a new cast of xenos factions, and frankly I don't think GW would take the risk.

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.

R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The Xenocides are left very vague and blank to allow for mystery surrounding both the events and the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion. I did say that the Hrud and Rangdan were major conflicts but my point was that the vast majority of the Crusade was spent fighting non-Imperial Humans or Orks. Yes, those minor powers were there but they were annihilated so quickly that they didn't actually contribute much, unlike the Orks who are one of the most widespread races, and Humans who the Crusade was designed to reintegrate.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.

Just use the Cults/Militia list that already exists, the variety of options work well in simulating Xenos species, all you need to do is model them.
As for Xenos conflict during the Heresy itself, in theory, yes but in reality no. The period just before the Heresy was the peak of Humanity at the time and any real threats had been beaten into submission, indeed it was one of the reasons that there was discontent within the Legions. Many of the major threats had been dealt with and Legion forces were now being tasked with suppression and garrisons on many worlds instead of conquering them. The Muster at Calth was believed to be for exterminating an Ork threat but Guilliman himself had already determined the Ork target was nowhere near a danger to the Imperium. The Imperium was still a super-power after the Heresy and into the Scouring and Xenos only became a threat again just prior to the War of the Beast when the Primarchs had disappeared and the Imperium became very insular and inward-looking.
Finally, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Xenos don't belong in the Heresy. FW was asked quite a lot about this in the past and the position was always based around the game being about a specific event. Their advice was the same as mine, just use the 7th Ed rules if you want but don't expect any official releases.

 Gert wrote:

R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?

Well... how cool do the minis look?

 Gert wrote:

R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The Xenocides are left very vague and blank to allow for mystery surrounding both the events and the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion. I did say that the Hrud and Rangdan were major conflicts but my point was that the vast majority of the Crusade was spent fighting non-Imperial Humans or Orks. Yes, those minor powers were there but they were annihilated so quickly that they didn't actually contribute much, unlike the Orks who are one of the most widespread races, and Humans who the Crusade was designed to reintegrate.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.

Just use the Cults/Militia list that already exists, the variety of options work well in simulating Xenos species, all you need to do is model them.
As for Xenos conflict during the Heresy itself, in theory, yes but in reality no. The period just before the Heresy was the peak of Humanity at the time and any real threats had been beaten into submission, indeed it was one of the reasons that there was discontent within the Legions. Many of the major threats had been dealt with and Legion forces were now being tasked with suppression and garrisons on many worlds instead of conquering them. The Muster at Calth was believed to be for exterminating an Ork threat but Guilliman himself had already determined the Ork target was nowhere near a danger to the Imperium. The Imperium was still a super-power after the Heresy and into the Scouring and Xenos only became a threat again just prior to the War of the Beast when the Primarchs had disappeared and the Imperium became very insular and inward-looking.
Finally, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Xenos don't belong in the Heresy. FW was asked quite a lot about this in the past and the position was always based around the game being about a specific event. Their advice was the same as mine, just use the 7th Ed rules if you want but don't expect any official releases.

You have a point that I concede to, but at the same time how many historical wargames exist and have factions that lost, such as the Gauls and Carthage? I'd like to think just because a faction lost and was wiped out shouldn't mean they ever get represented on the tabletop or expanded upon. A black book works just fine for representing a moment in the crusade or the heresy, regardless of the future. Now I know it probably won't happen, but I think a compelling enough faction is possible.

And while it is most likely true that most of the crusade was spent fighting against orks and humans, I'll first say it is most likely true but not able to be proven. We have no idea of the ratios, if they are 10%-90%, 40-60, or even if time spent fighting xenos as a collective was equal to or higher than humans and orks. Without more details I don't think this argument can really be used without a huge asterisk next to it. And ofcourse things like the Nephilim complicate things, as Xenos-Human combos would be hard to separate. And even if they were minor, does that really matter? From a historical point of gaming those battles did occur, regardless of their threat to the imperium they were obstacles.

While I agree that using the cult and militia list does cover a good chunk of potential xenos, others it does not that clearly would benefit from a list tailored to representing various xenos. For example the Hrud, it'd be very difficult to remake the Hrud in cults/militia list in a way that is believable. I can think of some ways to use the rules to represent them (such as something along the lines of rad auras for the Hruds time aura) but can't get them in the cults/militia.

At the end I think we just have to agree that we disagree. I think some form of broad xenos "codex" like cults and militia does belong in the Horus Heresy. The crusade beat the threat into submission but it didn't eliminate it (Saharduin and the Dog soldiers are two I know where mentioned in 30k lore that are still around in 40k). The Xenos populations of the Heresy era did exist no matter how small, and denying their existence in the rules of the heresy not only is a disservice to the lore and history of the 40k universe, but also creativity and the expansion of the 30k setting. One of the things I found so baffling (and frankly kinda stupid), is not one xenos faction has thought to do anything during the heresy. No Fra'al have decided to raid shipping of a complete mess of an empire (a perfect time to), no dog soldiers have decided to act on their supposed grudge against humanity destroying their homeworlds by destorying vulnerable worlds in a time the Imperium is busy ripping itself apart. Even if those powers were too weak like you said to do anything, what about the Dark Eldar? They haven't thought to raid planets and take millions of prisoners when the Imperium is distracted? We know they exist as per the Vulkan books, but they just sat there and thought they'd take prisoners after this golden opportunity? No exodites thought they'd try and reclaim lost Eldar worlds to the crusade? I agree the focus of the Horus Heresy should be the "Horus" in Horus Heresy, but I feel like we are missing out on a very different dimension of the lore by simply pretending xenos don't exist in the setting and just focusing on Traitor vs. Loyalist.

Personally adding Xenos to HH would be like adding Japanese or Ottoman forces into the American Civil War. They don't belong there and honestly, it reduces the nature of the background and the game to a complete mirror of 40k. Like I said earlier, people didn't want to play their Xenos armies against HH armies because they could already do that in 40k. Once you've added Xenos, are you playing HH or are you just playing 7th Ed 40k?
Obviously, you do you but it's kind of the point of the setting and game that its Humanity fighting itself, unlike 40k where there are lots of Human factions just because Space Marines are a popular product.

 Gert wrote:
Personally adding Xenos to HH would be like adding Japanese or Ottoman forces into the American Civil War. They don't belong there and honestly, it reduces the nature of the background and the game to a complete mirror of 40k. Like I said earlier, people didn't want to play their Xenos armies against HH armies because they could already do that in 40k. Once you've added Xenos, are you playing HH or are you just playing 7th Ed 40k?
Obviously, you do you but it's kind of the point of the setting and game that its Humanity fighting itself, unlike 40k where there are lots of Human factions just because Space Marines are a popular product.

I get your point about comparison to 40k proper, I haven't played 30k myself so I don't know how well the rules from 7thed would actually port over, so I'll trust you on that.

You're analogy doesn't make any sense though. If the American civil war has stretched across the entire planet, then yeah, I'm sure the Japanese and Ottoman forces would have gotten involved. The Horus Hersey spanned basically the entire galaxy, you know, the place where all these alien races lived. Why wouldn't they be (at least peripherally) involved. The Cabal sure were.

It would be more about new factions too, just random small stuff that we could have fun with. Yeah you can house rule / build your own, but it's not the same as having an official line, even if it's a small one. There's very little space in 40k for new alien empires. Not so in 30k, especially pre-heresy.

 Tawnis wrote:
I get your point about comparison to 40k proper, I haven't played 30k myself so I don't know how well the rules from 7thed would actually port over, so I'll trust you on that.

It's not perfect but it is fine as a placeholder, the limit on LoW helps but even so the general imbalance with the 7th Ed Codexes and the difference in special rules (i.e. the distinct lack of Fearless units in 30k) means that problems can and will crop up. There are community-made Xenos lists but I've never tried them.

You're analogy doesn't make any sense though. If the American civil war has stretched across the entire planet, then yeah, I'm sure the Japanese and Ottoman forces would have gotten involved. The Horus Hersey spanned basically the entire galaxy, you know, the place where all these alien races lived. Why wouldn't they be (at least peripherally) involved. The Cabal sure were.

Scale doesn't matter when the focus of the conflict isn't on the scale but rather on who is partaking in said conflict.
As for specific involvement of races, the Orks had just been beaten to the absolute outskirts of the Galaxy at this point i.e. Wild Space (yeehaw). They were no longer a threat to the Imperium at large and the only use of the remaining enclaves was as bait for Loyalists, planned by Horus to either deal a devastating blow (Calth) or to distract a potential threat (Chondax). The Craftworlds weren't actually in any shape to be fighting anyone as the Fall had occurred only 200ish years prior. The Cabal also barely got involved and mostly relied on Human Perpetual agents to do their dirty work and never engaged in actual battle. Generally, I would think that the Xenos would be looking at the Heresy not as an opportunity to retake territory but as a chance to escape nearby Imperial space. Your biggest threat has just started fighting itself but whichever side wins is still going to come after you when they're done.

It would be more about new factions too, just random small stuff that we could have fun with. Yeah you can house rule / build your own, but it's not the same as having an official line, even if it's a small one. There's very little space in 40k for new alien empires. Not so in 30k, especially pre-heresy.

The one thing HH doesn't need is more factions. There are 20 ways to play the Legions, plus Knights, Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, Solar Auxilia, and Daemons.
It really doesn't matter that there could be space for Xenos in HH, because they are fundamentally not part of the conflict. Just because you could do something doesn't mean you should.

TLDR: HH doesn't need Xenos and adding them diminishes the setting rather than enhancing it.

What would be amazing, but will never happen as it involves too many fringe imperium factions that wouldn't be worth developing would be the age of apostasy.

I would like some more "historical" 40k games like Horus Heresy. Great Crusade could be cool, if we have things like the Ullanor Orks or fringe Xenos empires.

I personally hope, that the expand the Heresy post the Siege of Terra, so we may see the breaking of the Imperial Fist againt the Iron Cage.

The Unification Wars would be amazing. There are so many extremly cool factions there and we could even have some battles between Custodes and Thunder Warriors.

I would also love to see the Age of Apostasy as a civil war on the human level with barely any Marine involvement. The models from here could also double for some cool Ecclesiarchy delegations for Sisters of Battle armies.

 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.

Inevitably lose? Why. If game is designed well both sides have equal chance barring skill.

You are basically saying GW is incompetent crap company that can't help but make broken game. Well might not be off

tneva82 wrote:
Inevitably lose? Why. If game is designed well both sides have equal chance barring skill.

You are basically saying GW is incompetent crap company that can't help but make broken game. Well might not be off

That's not what I'm saying at all. The core of this discussion is centered on narrative and story telling within the HH game system. The narrative and story of the many minor Xenos empires that were around during the GC was that they were eradicated and their planets resettled by the Imperium. There's no victory at any point for these races like there is for the Xenos in 40k which is entirely the point. The Crusade was the Imperium's highest point of power where it was sending Legions of Space Marines led by the demi-God Primarchs and the Emperor Himself across the stars to carve out mankind's empire. If you're anything but an equal power to the Crusade Era Imperium, then you are dead.
So at best a GC game would be a copy of HH but with certain units removed while also using Orks, the Aeldari, some form of Hrud, and possibly the Rangdan because no other species lasted long enough to make an impact on the Crusade. The Laer? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade. The Diasporex? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade? The Megarachnids? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade. Neither GW or FW is going to make ranges for Xenos that die and never show up again.

Not likely but would love to GW go all the way, all the way back to pre-Men of Metal Rebellion and then start forward. Men of Metal Rebellion, Unification War, and Great Crusade - IMHO. Thats were to start and they could make a killing because it would give everybody a chance to start new small armies to play during each of the different time periods. And we all know small armies never stay small for long before they become large armies. I fear the day, if GW ever does Men of Metal because I will need a ton of robots.

I think tbh there's probably a decent chance. There are enough people making Thunder Warrior conversions, just like a big part of the community were making big marines before Big Marines became a real thing. I could see it maybe being a smaller thing, like a boxed game, but I'm sure there are more decent legs to it than some people in here think.

 Tawnis wrote:
So, I never really got into 30k. While I really like the Horus Heresy series, I've got plenty of Marines and Chaos now and am totally fine playing them in 40k. It got me to thinking though, what would it take to get me into investing into a 30k army? I settled on two big things that would really draw me in that 40k doesn't have, more Xenos or a change in general aesthetic to feel very much like its own thing (outside of the rules).

1) The Great Crusade:
All the models are around for loyalist legions with the exception of a few chaos corrupted ones, it wouldn't be hard to have them play as their loyalist versions pre-heresy. Having some other races to play like the Interex, Rangda, Eldar, Orks, Lear? Megarachnids? Hrud?, okay that might be stretching it a bit, but the Eldar and Orks are already around so given them 30k version wouldn't be that hard. Doing a Great Crusade style campaign where you helm an expeditionary fleet (or oppose one) would certainly draw me in.

2) The Unification Wars:
There's enough broad strokes information about this that you could build upon it for some Technobarbarian armies and Thunder Warriors, though the Astartes from 30k proper were present here as well. I feel like the armies would have kind of a Fallout Sytle astatic to them that would be pretty cool and it would be a fun era to play in. There are a lot of interesting crazy factions that are touched on in the lore that I think would look really cool on the tabletop and could play in some interesting ways.

I figure that both of these are terribly unlikely given that 30k is already far less popular than 40k, but I had the thought so I wanted to see if this was something that anyone else would be interested in.

It depends. 30k is driven by Space Marines. They love the Legions and everything that goes with them. If you did the Unification Wars, you can do some cool very Grimdark stuff. But apart from making Thunder Warriors an army it won’t tap into that demand. So I think it’s less likely. Although the writers absolutely love the Unification Wars. I feel we know more about that than the Great Crusade.

Great Crusade is kind of already covered under the Black Books lore wise. Also you would only go there to add the Xenos factions and Space Marines are what sells. A new Xenos faction limited to just 30k is pretty limited. If you wanted to do new Ork and Eldar stuff why limit it to that setting specifically?

That doesn’t rule out army rules, campaigns and scenarios to allow these sort of armies. But model support I think would be out of the question unless they really need a new setting.

The Scouring is the most likely story they’ll follow. Still a ton of Legion stuff but moving into classic Mark 8 armour and scope for Xenos factions.

As an aside, I think it’s possible they could look at the Age of Apostasy. Sisters sold pretty well, the story is very Grimdark and ripe to be fleshed out. Plus you could go crazy adding all the Saints and Goge Vandire. As well as the chapters and Mechanicus that get involved later. Maybe even tie in the Plague of Inbelief with the Space Wolves.

Non-existent.

Thunder Warriors, and the unification wars by proxy would be a no brainer. So many many many people would purchase a box with thunder warriors in just to have the models. Many would purchase them to kit bash with etc.

It would be easy money. The other added benefit is, any human faction made (and keeping in mind this was the techno-barbarian period) could easily be double up to be a techno-fuedal/inquisitorial henchmen faction for 40k.

It really doesn't need to be expanded further than a box set, it would work as a standalone game.

I'm going to purchase some third party 3D printed thunder warriors as it is, like many are doing.

a 10 man squad and a character thunder model would satisfy most peoples needs, not many at all want to do a full force so there's no need to expand past that.

It's completely out of the question now for one simple reason: No models, no rules.

Does GW or Forge World have any reasonable way of producing enough models for a half dozen minor human or xeno factions? No. But GW's current policy is that units have to either have models sold by GW/FW or that can be produced by simple conversion from models sold by GW/FW.

So the Great Crusade is either ten years too late (when you could have a unit without a model), or five to ten years too early (when you might be able to buy GW 3D printing. )

For HH that's not true and hasn't been for a very long time. HH rules have a huge lead time on model releases and often models never get released at all for certain units.

The Unification Wars might make a neat little boxed game of Thunder Warriors vs Techno-barbarians. However, there's not nearly enough to sustain an entire wargame. Even if you succeeded, you'd have stripped that part of the lore of all of its mystery.

Tbh, I just don't see what a Great Crusade game could meaningfully offer a gamer that they can't get from 40k. The Heresy is unique because of its focus and small scale (relative term here). Opening it up to a more sandbox setting wouldn't be interesting.

Back in the very early days of Horus Heresy (after the TCG and art books), but before Forge World made it 'official' there was a small but dedicated group of hobbyists that were into the Crusade-era and pre-Heresy events. There was even a forum 'The Great Crusade' - myself and a bunch of other guys (probably no more than a couple of dozen) used to modify existing kits and do greenstuffing - literally no official miniatures then so it was all converting chaos armour, drilling holes and scraping away aquillas to make mkV armour etc. There was some really inventive stuff going on.

We ran narrative events based during the Crusade; we were very fortunate that the guy that ran the forum had links to BL, and even managed to get a short story penned by Graham McNeil for one event: The focus was an invasion by several legions on a human world that had to be brought into compliance (they were using naughty cloning tech!). While some of this was quite inventive and fun I always regret that we didn't do more with some of the more interesting (perhaps later exterminated!) alien races, as there was so much scope there for imagination and some cool ideas that aren't found in the narrow window of 40k.

Eventually the FW stuff came along which dragged people's attention forward to the Heresy, rather than looking back at the Crusade, and a lot of the interesting modelling and imaginative side of things died when the details were being prescribed for them (this was probably when I lost most of my interest TBH).

But I agree the crusade is a really evocative setting, and it actually benefits (at the moment) from not being heavily detailed by either GW or BL; there is still a massive unwritten area for hobbyists to employee their imagination, and also do it in a sandbox that is the opposite of the 40k setting, with humanity still with hope and expanding towards the horizons - also the 'naughty' legions still fighting on the good guys' side!
I actually have an Epic 6mm project on the go at the moment and am building a Crusade-era World Eaters force. So far just Orks to go against them, but I have an eye on abhumans and other alien races (there are quite a few 6mm ranges) for the marines to fight against. And with the scale it's a lot easier (and cheaper) to replicate this than in 28mm.

A link to my blog for anyone interested: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/355088-world-eaters-of-the-great-crusade-an-epic-blog/

I agree with you Pacific, so much so that in my headcanon version of the 40k universe the great crusade is still ongoing. I think it makes the universe much more interesting and makes space for other human, xenos and particularly mixed factions struggling against assimilation. I've got the Word Bearers as the splinter chaos faction off running around the outskirts doing their thing. Depower the emperor and the primarchs down to something more reasonable and you've got a great setting.

The Unification Wars might make a neat little boxed game of Thunder Warriors vs Techno-barbarians. However, there's not nearly enough to sustain an entire wargame

Are you kidding me? There's 20 different Thunder Warrior legions and god knows how many techno-barbarian armies with all sorts of different soldiers, cyborgs, warmachines, sorcerers and so on.

Not only do I see this becoming a reality one day, but a BL series on Unification wars is bound to happen one day. It's a whole new period of history to explore and there's a ton to discover.

I am also confident we will get Unification Wars in one way or another. I would like to see a skirmish system that might be expanded to a full wargame if its popular enough.

As Rick Priestly said, I somewhat believe that 40k’s mythical past should be left to the imagination. IMO the HH and GC have already been fleshed out far too much. If you delve into the unification wars and golden age of humanity I fear everything that is unknown will become known. Would be somewhat boring

30k is fundamentally about selling you another Space Marine army, so I'm going to say... no.

Yazima wrote:
As Rick Priestly said, I somewhat believe that 40k’s mythical past should be left to the imagination. IMO the HH and GC have already been fleshed out far too much. If you delve into the unification wars and golden age of humanity I fear everything that is unknown will become known. Would be somewhat boring

Finding myself agreeing with this.
There's a lot more appeal in fleshing out the alien races like the Hrud - there's that one picture in one of the HH BBB that has a bunch of the 'unknown' races humanity had to steamroll in the great crusade and i would be hyped for a book covering their civilizations and unique threats compared to the "well that's kinda cool" response i'm feeling for 'unification wars'.

I could possibly see them doing a bit past the HH. Like I would be totally ok with war of the beast using HH rules.
Like eldar and Ork in HH officially? Yes please!

Why would the War of the Beast use HH rules? The Legions were long dead by that time and the rest of the Imperium had been reformed into the institutions we see today.

Because we still had some primarchs running around at that point and by then we could get Ork and eldar official rules.

It was just Vulcan and he didn't actually do much. He only showed up about halfway through then died like a few weeks later. The HH rules just don't make sense for an event that happened about 1k years after the Heresy ended.

Eh fair enough, I would be ok with some progression past the siege of terra, something to include Ork and eldar.

I would really just like to see HH preserved as like an official "old hammer" kinda setting if that makes sense

Why not just play an older edition though?
Why does it need to be the "official" Oldhammer game when it isn't that now beyond using the 7th Ed rules as a basis for the AoD ruleset?

Because we all know that "official rules" draws a larger audience and crowd. It's harder to get someone to play a set of rules that are unsupported

Why do you need to use old rules to play historical events post-Heresy? Do you just not like the 8th Ed rules style?

Nah, 8th was ok, imo because I saw it as a transition edition, but with 9th I just hate the rules, don't find 9th fun in any capacity, hell imo it's the worst the rules have been but that's neither nere no there.

More or less I'm just looking for an officially support HH rules expanded to orks and eldar. Which honestly could stay in the realm of HH since you know that happened to

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I could possibly see them doing a bit past the HH. Like I would be totally ok with war of the beast using HH rules.
Like eldar and Ork in HH officially? Yes please!

If you're just looking for things to do in games yourself, I haven't tried it, and don't have much knowledge of the rules of that era, but I have read that the HH ruleset is close enough to 7th edition that you can just use the Xenos codexes from that edition. I'm not sure how close they would be balance wise.

Yeah they are, there are fan made xeno and and Ork rules out there and nids iirc, that I heard are decent would jaut be nice to have it in a official capacity is all

 Backspacehacker wrote:
More or less I'm just looking for an officially support HH rules expanded to orks and eldar. Which honestly could stay in the realm of HH since you know that happened to

Yet as I have said previously in this thread, no Xenos were involved in battles during the Heresy, and as soon as you add a full list for a Xenos race into the AoD ruleset, it's not HH anymore. You've removed the core premise of the game and setting.
As far as official sources go, just use the 7th Ed rules for any Xenos factions you want to play.

Xeno battles still happened during the HH.
I think at that point you would need to distinguish the difference between 30k era and the HH event.

So yeah I would agree to keep the HH event to imperium forces, but I still would enjoy seeing 30k era orks and eldar, and nids as well.
If anything just for the ruleset, can't help that 30k has better rules and would enjoy seeing those better rules expanded to other armies.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Xeno battles still happened during the HH.
I think at that point you would need to distinguish the difference between 30k era and the HH event.

So yeah I would agree to keep the HH event to imperium forces, but I still would enjoy seeing 30k era orks and eldar, and nids as well.

Except that isn't the case outside of people headcannoning "If the Imperium was in a Civil War then surely some Xenos took back territory". As I stated earlier, the Orks were beaten, it was why the White Scars were bored with Chondax because the Orks didn't present a real challenge and why Guilliuman believed the Calth Muster was primarily a political move to get him and Lorgar to put their enmity behind them during a joint campaign since the supposed Ork "empire" presented no threat to the Imperium, and the Craftworlds had no intention of interfering while their biggest threat beat itself bloody. At best you might get a Drukhari raid on an outlying colony with no form of military defence, which doesn't make for any sort of game.
The Tyranids, Necrons, and T'au don't show up until M.41 so they literally cannot be in the HH setting.

If anything just for the ruleset, can't help that 30k has better rules and would enjoy seeing those better rules expanded to other armies.

So you want HH to become 40k. You're not going to find a whole lot of people who are going to agree with you on that.
Ultimately this is a discussion about one thing, setting. It doesn't matter if you don't like 9th and prefer older editions, as soon as you add non-Human army lists into HH it's not HH anymore, it's 40k and the setting is lost. I feel like a lot of this comes from the flanderisation of HH into 30k, where people see the number and think that because the game is set in M.31 there should be Xenos in the game. The reality is, HH has always only been about one specific event, the Horus Heresy. Not the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, or the Horus Heresy and the Scouring. Just the Heresy.

The HH rules could (aside from some of the Chaos stuff) be used for something pre-heresy. If you had Ork rules, you could do something like an Ulanor campaign. That would be pretty cool. In that respect, you could have rules for Custodes too, since they actually played a pivotal role at the end there unlike most of the crusade/heresy.

 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.

What about GW/Black Library going back and doing the beginning of the Great Crusade, finding the Primarchs, and then up to the first book in the Heresy in a new novel series? Also doing a series that picks up right at the end of the Siege of Terra and spanning up through the entire scouring time period ending at the start of the 40th millennium?

I don't play the tabletop so I don't know anything about that or how this would work there, but would you or the fanbase like to see those two time periods shown and explained indepth? Do you think GW/Black Library could actually pull those two off and make them right, expand on the Primarchs and their Legions before the Heresy then after the Siege of Terra? Give us a more indepth look at who each one really is and expand upon them in a deeper way that we haven't seen before?

Need orks and craft worlds for sure. And I would be all in on orks would hope they wold really get into the sheer size and horror of the orks.

@OP:

I hope not. The Horus Heresy is a story with a beginning and an end. Lets leave it like this. People who yearn for xenos already have a game: It´s called 40K.

pretty near nihl.


as for adding xenos into HH I sure hope not. part of what, IMHO makes the HH game work is due to the absence of the number of xenos factions, the game is a little more balanced because generally speaking there's far less exotic weapons. start addin in xenos and many f the issues 40k has historicly had move into HH.

I do think that xenos species like Orks and Eldar should get rules, but as a pdf instead of a full book.

 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.

"Just humans fighting humans is not worth making rules about."

And:

 Gert wrote:
Personally adding Xenos to HH would be like adding Japanese or Ottoman forces into the American Civil War. They don't belong there and honestly, it reduces the nature of the background and the game to a complete mirror of 40k. Like I said earlier, people didn't want to play their Xenos armies against HH armies because they could already do that in 40k. Once you've added Xenos, are you playing HH or are you just playing 7th Ed 40k?
Obviously, you do you but it's kind of the point of the setting and game that its Humanity fighting itself, unlike 40k where there are lots of Human factions just because Space Marines are a popular product.

"Keep HH as just humans fighting humans."

That comes off a little wierd.

Thats because you've twisted what I've said to suit your opinion. Humans and Humanity are two different things.
The Unification Wars were mostly fought by thr Emperor's baseline human forces fighting the various techno barbarians and city states of Old Earth. The Custodes and Thunder Warriors were present but (apart from one very specific incident) they didn't fight each other. There are very specific parameters to each side of the conflict. One side is very much stuck with using the Militia list (or a copy of it) and the other gets all the bells and whistles. The Astartes show up at the end but with no distinction between the various Legions and lacking a vast majority of the units in the army list.
The Heresy is Humanity as a whole fighting itself. Astartes, Custodes, the Mechanicum, Knight houses, various mortal forces and then the Daemons of the Ruinstorm as a bonus. There's justification for nearly every army fighting itself and every other army at any time due to the nature of the conflict.

That all still sounds like humans fighting humans.

So if the Unification Wars are all on old earth, why couldn't that be expanded upon? Why do you say that'd so homogenous? That's sorta the "one world one culture" sci-fi trope. Earth today isnt homogenous. GW has already done a non-homogenous single-world game in the form of Necromunda too. Like, obviously it's possible.

In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

I think it would be closer to a grand-scale necromunda. These are *techno-barbarians* and they had all sorts of wild technologies, and we know that many of them had various technologies similar or even better than the burgeoning imperium. The Yndonesian bloc for example were the only ones with Thunderbirds. Albia had proto dreadnoughts, while Akkad had the Udug Hul, gene-altered supersoldiers, and around 200,000 of them fought the First legion. The Maulland Sen Confederacy in Scandinavia had Demons and gene edited warriors, and the Ethnarcy had vast swaths of Dark age tech and gene-altered warriors as well. Beyond these, i'm sure someone creative at forge-world could come up with more. There's a reason the Emperor made the Thunder warriors so much stronger and more brutal than the Astartes, he needed them for the harshest battleground he would face, Terra herself.


Obviously, most of this infromation si from the Emperor himself or the custodes, so it could all be a fabrication, but I still think there's a lot of variety possible there.

 Gert wrote:
In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

I didn't assume you were wrong. I observed what appears to be a double standard.

The Horus Heresy is about humans fighting humans. Some of the human factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are humans nonetheless. The Unification Wars are humans fighting humans. Some of the factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are also humans nonetheless.

Your issue here appears to be that there is a greater number of "mortal" humans. Which. . . why is that a problem? Are enhanced humans required to make a wargame? (obviously not, since we have Necromunda, not to mention numerous historical wargames.)

You mention Titans, Knights, Mechanicum etc. Is your issue the lack of factions taking part in the Unification Wars? There are Custodes, Thunder Warriors, Space Marines, regular human Imperial troops, plus whatever opposition factions one can come up with for the techno-barbarian states, of which there were many. Btw, it's quite possible that there were Titans wandering about, since the Warlord Titan dates all the way back to the Age of Strife. The point is the Unification Wars haven't been expanded upon much, which also means it's rife with possibility for interesting stuff, including non-Emperor "enhanced" humans if you really wanted them.

Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

In short I see no issues expanding HH backward in time and coming up with Great Crusade or Unification Wars material. Alien or human factions defending themselves from the onslaught of the Emperors war machine (which also did involve many, many "mortal" humans), or exploring the possibilities of the warlord states of Terra during the Unification Wars.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

Once again you are massively oversimplifying and resorting to whataboutism.
HH is a very specific story and setting whereas 40k is not. 40k rulebooks and Codexes always used to include timelines with events marked out retracing the thousands of years over which the setting takes place. The Codexes would mention the Heresy and many other campaigns or battles from the Scouring all the way to 999.M41. Now I know the 9th Ed Codexes have removed the timelines (not sure about the rulebook) which IMO is a loss for people wanting to recreate events from the 40k timeline but as I am so often told, 40k is a sandbox for people to tell their own stories or recreate famous ones. There is no set time frame for battles to occur (generally speaking) so time is not a concern.
HH is not the same. It's not a sandbox setting where you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You couldn't have Necrons fighting T'au in HH because neither faction was there. You as an individual can do games using fanmade rules or older Codexes in HH 1 but the setting for HH is a specific story and is akin to a Historical wargame with set factions and armies. I've already made the point before about introducing something like Teutonic Knights or Samurai into the American Civil War period as something similar to putting non-HH factions into HH.
If you want to do an alternate Heresy with the sides swapped (i.e. Dornian Heresy or some other popular retelling) then that works within the setting because the change is then down to paint schemes and allegiances while the rules remain (largely) the same.
I get it, people love their official rules and junk. But here's the thing, if you're so desperate for it then find a way. There are fanmade Xenos books out there for HH 1 and possibly 2. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of people making a Unification Wars style Necromunda game as well. Go find your own thing and leave HH as it is.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

I didn't assume you were wrong. I observed what appears to be a double standard.

The Horus Heresy is about humans fighting humans. Some of the human factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are humans nonetheless. The Unification Wars are humans fighting humans. Some of the factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are also humans nonetheless.

Your issue here appears to be that there is a greater number of "mortal" humans. Which. . . why is that a problem? Are enhanced humans required to make a wargame? (obviously not, since we have Necromunda, not to mention numerous historical wargames.)

You mention Titans, Knights, Mechanicum etc. Is your issue the lack of factions taking part in the Unification Wars? There are Custodes, Thunder Warriors, Space Marines, regular human Imperial troops, plus whatever opposition factions one can come up with for the techno-barbarian states, of which there were many. Btw, it's quite possible that there were Titans wandering about, since the Warlord Titan dates all the way back to the Age of Strife. The point is the Unification Wars haven't been expanded upon much, which also means it's rife with possibility for interesting stuff, including non-Emperor "enhanced" humans if you really wanted them.

Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

In short I see no issues expanding HH backward in time and coming up with Great Crusade or Unification Wars material. Alien or human factions defending themselves from the onslaught of the Emperors war machine (which also did involve many, many "mortal" humans), or exploring the possibilities of the warlord states of Terra during the Unification Wars.

the probem with doing the unification wars is, the Horus Heresy is effectively "The Orgin of..." all the factions are ones that have a modern incarnation in 40k. so there's some built in emotional connection and world building there that doesn't otherwise exist.

the only other comparable war would be "the war in Heaven" and I'm sure if GW felt there was a big eneugh market for a war of proto-necrons, proto-eldar and proto-Orks we'd see that

 Gert wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

Once again you are massively oversimplifying and resorting to whataboutism.

Relevant examples for argument aren't whataboutism.

HH is a very specific story and setting whereas 40k is not. 40k rulebooks and Codexes always used to include timelines with events marked out retracing the thousands of years over which the setting takes place. The Codexes would mention the Heresy and many other campaigns or battles from the Scouring all the way to 999.M41. Now I know the 9th Ed Codexes have removed the timelines (not sure about the rulebook) which IMO is a loss for people wanting to recreate events from the 40k timeline but as I am so often told, 40k is a sandbox for people to tell their own stories or recreate famous ones. There is no set time frame for battles to occur (generally speaking) so time is not a concern.
HH is not the same. It's not a sandbox setting where you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You couldn't have Necrons fighting T'au in HH because neither faction was there. You as an individual can do games using fanmade rules or older Codexes in HH 1 but the setting for HH is a specific story and is akin to a Historical wargame with set factions and armies. I've already made the point before about introducing something like Teutonic Knights or Samurai into the American Civil War period as something similar to putting non-HH factions into HH.
If you want to do an alternate Heresy with the sides swapped (i.e. Dornian Heresy or some other popular retelling) then that works within the setting because the change is then down to paint schemes and allegiances while the rules remain (largely) the same.

I'm no expert in historical wargames, but I'm fairly certain rulesets are built and expansions created which allow players to do exactly what you claim is not possible. That is, having different forces from different time periods that never would have met in history, but meet on the tabletop simply because players wanted to do it. So can it be a thing? Totally yes.

Also, I'd like to see some reason why you'd be so certain that HH is not simply a different sandbox. If GW is building HH into a third "tentpole" product to sit beside 40k and AoS, why would they constrain themselves by sticking to this very specific subset of possibilities, when there's clearly space for possible expansion.

I get it, people love their official rules and junk. But here's the thing, if you're so desperate for it then find a way. There are fanmade Xenos books out there for HH 1 and possibly 2. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of people making a Unification Wars style Necromunda game as well.

Let's turn that argument back around for a moment. Why push for official GW female Space Marines when fans can just swap heads and paint models however they want?

Or as a different response, why can't you as a "HH purist" simply not use any faction/expansion you don't like? I use the Space Marine book in 40k, and just skip over any Primaris entry, myself.

Go find your own thing and leave HH as it is.

LOL. Oh Gert, we'll make a grognard of you yet!

Keeo Tau out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Necrons out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Primaris out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Unification Wars/Great Crusade out of HH, they don't belong!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

the probem with doing the unification wars is, the Horus Heresy is effectively "The Orgin of..." all the factions are ones that have a modern incarnation in 40k. so there's some built in emotional connection and world building there that doesn't otherwise exist.

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

Short on time. Maybe more later.

 Gert wrote:

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

It's not excluding them, it's just not including them. Excluding would imply they have a right to be there in the first place, which they don't.

That's a fun quote. Honestly I'm not sure how much more "gatekeepy" you could get!

Some points I can make:
1: There are historical game systems that cover vast spans of time, and will inevitably include rules for units that would have never met in history, yet the system still provides for it.
2: There's a WWII system that takes place over just a few years, but still has rules for Early Stage, Mid-Stage, and Late-Phase of the war, (Flames of War maybe?), so again, an even more time-specific system that encompasses time periods and armies that would not have fought each other, yet still supporting it.
3: I've read of "what-if" scenarios being played out with historicals. Some of these are simply changing scenarios, but others are about non-contemporary forces clashing. There's at least some interest in it.
4: I've personally seen historical systems used to play forces against each other that did not actually fight.

And in Horus Heresy itself, I've mostly seen loyalist armies clashing with other loyalist armies in either 2K or 3K pitched battles, none of which strikes me as being particularly "historically accurate"!

Horus Heresy could easily be a jumping off point for non-strictly HH-centric products if GW decided there could be $$ in it. I think old GW would have been more likely to support it with rules (since they didn't have to make models to go with it), but modern GW has been quick to "scrape the barrel" for content, and their ability to release models quickly (if they're interested) is pretty apparent.

In fact I've played my 40K army against a HH army too, so there.

I’d say low. Really, really low.

The Great Crusade could be done as Epic Scale, due to the staggering size of the armies and redonkulous weapons in play.

Just….don’t expect much from the Eldar of any stripe. They’d just suffered The Fall, and were licking their wounds. What would become Dark Eldar were still pocket realms, as it would be some time before Vect rose to power and truly forged the Drukhari as we know them, Commoragh too. Craftworlds? Grief, grief and more grief. Better to run and hide as best they could. Exodites? Possibly, but rarely more than a planet’s worth at a time.

Orks? A possibility. The Triumph of Ullanor was their last hurrah, the largest Waaagh! ever known. It wouldn’t be until the Era of the Beast that they rose back to problematic numbers (and even then, there’s every chance a United, heresy never happened, Imperium would have ROFLstomped it.

Necrons still largely asleep. Nids Millenia off. Tau just not a thing.

Yes there would be other Xenos species, but knowing their ultimate fate might suck all the fun out of playing them.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

It's not excluding them, it's just not including them. Excluding would imply they have a right to be there in the first place, which they don't.

That's a fun quote. Honestly I'm not sure how much more "gatekeepy" you could get!

Its not gatekeeping to say that a faction that has no place within the context of a game has no place being there, in the same way that its not gatekeeping to say that someones WW2 Brazilian Expeditionary Force army has no place in a WW1 game.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

It's not excluding them, it's just not including them. Excluding would imply they have a right to be there in the first place, which they don't.

That's a fun quote. Honestly I'm not sure how much more "gatekeepy" you could get!

Its not gatekeeping to say that a faction that has no place within the context of a game has no place being there, in the same way that its not gatekeeping to say that someones WW2 Brazilian Expeditionary Force army has no place in a WW1 game.

But there were xenos around during the Heresy. They mostly didn't play a major role, but they were there and did have interactions with both sides.

Yes Xenos existed but within the context of the conflict they didn't get involved outside of personal headcanon. It's not even ambiguous it's very explicit.

 Tawnis wrote:
So, I never really got into 30k. While I really like the Horus Heresy series, I've got plenty of Marines and Chaos now and am totally fine playing them in 40k. It got me to thinking though, what would it take to get me into investing into a 30k army? I settled on two big things that would really draw me in that 40k doesn't have, more Xenos or a change in general aesthetic to feel very much like its own thing (outside of the rules).

1) The Great Crusade:
All the models are around for loyalist legions with the exception of a few chaos corrupted ones, it wouldn't be hard to have them play as their loyalist versions pre-heresy. Having some other races to play like the Interex, Rangda, Eldar, Orks, Lear? Megarachnids? Hrud?, okay that might be stretching it a bit, but the Eldar and Orks are already around so given them 30k version wouldn't be that hard. Doing a Great Crusade style campaign where you helm an expeditionary fleet (or oppose one) would certainly draw me in.

2) The Unification Wars:
There's enough broad strokes information about this that you could build upon it for some Technobarbarian armies and Thunder Warriors, though the Astartes from 30k proper were present here as well. I feel like the armies would have kind of a Fallout Sytle astatic to them that would be pretty cool and it would be a fun era to play in. There are a lot of interesting crazy factions that are touched on in the lore that I think would look really cool on the tabletop and could play in some interesting ways.

I figure that both of these are terribly unlikely given that 30k is already far less popular than 40k, but I had the thought so I wanted to see if this was something that anyone else would be interested in.

Let's just focus on getting all the models out and available to folks, and getting new plastics for the generic units still missing (Breachers, Despoilers, Destroyers, Assault Marines, Consuls, Bikes and Speeders) before we worry about going into more game territory.

People are "gatekeeping" now, if they want to keep the setting free from unnecessary bloat?! Remember insults won´t win you any debates.

40K is a mess because of 20+ factions. 30K has none of those problems and I am pretty sure that this time GW won´t f*** it up by including scores of obscure xenos factions out of thin air that only HH novel readers are familiar with. Furthermore I have started reading the HH series myself with Dan Abnett´s introduction novel as the first book. You have the megarachnids mentioned who are confined to a single planet and the Orks were soundly beaten during the Ullanor campaign which was finished before the heresy began. So both are irrelevant to be represented in model form.

 Gert wrote:
Yes Xenos existed but within the context of the conflict they didn't get involved outside of personal headcanon. It's not even ambiguous it's very explicit.

This.

There were Brazilians around during WW1 too - but they certainly weren't WW2 Brazilian Expeditionary Force, and they didn't play much of a role since Brazil was neutral for most of the war and when Brazil did change their position they only really served as observers embedded into French units so that officers could familiarize themselves with the way the war was being fought, which is to say they basically weren't involved.

I would LOVE to play either side in a Great Crusade or even post-Heresy setting (31k-39k). Oh the Joy of seeing early era Eldar/Ork armies with new retro-inspired sculpts! I still have some chainmail wearing space elfs, mind you.

 westiebestie wrote:
I would LOVE to play either side in a Great Crusade or even post-Heresy setting (31k-39k). Oh the Joy of seeing early era Eldar/Ork armies with new retro-inspired sculpts! I still have some chainmail wearing space elfs, mind you.

if you want to play post Heresy there's this game called Warhammer 40k, perhaps you've heard of it?

BrianDavion wrote:

 westiebestie wrote:
I would LOVE to play either side in a Great Crusade or even post-Heresy setting (31k-39k). Oh the Joy of seeing early era Eldar/Ork armies with new retro-inspired sculpts! I still have some chainmail wearing space elfs, mind you.

if you want to play post Heresy there's this game called Warhammer 40k, perhaps you've heard of it?

Heard of that and dabbed with it a little, probably a few hundred times and 5 armies since 3rd Ed, late 90s.. On a serious note I'm put off by 9th Ed, currently introducing my kids and their Friends but using bare bones 8th Ed + Indexes only.

On a serious note I get your point but I wouldnt mind playing the time period closer to M31 rather than M41, i.e. with HH miniatures and matching early Xenos.

So maybe I should have written M31-35 to be more clear.

 westiebestie wrote:
On a serious note I get your point but I wouldnt mind playing the time period closer to M31 rather than M41, i.e. with HH miniatures and matching early Xenos.

So maybe I should have written M31-35 to be more clear.

Firstly, there's nothing stopping you from doing this with any edition of 40k (with the exception of a lack of Kratos tanks) because FW has been giving rules for HH-era units to Marines since before HH was a thing. There is no requirement for you to buy the 40k Tactical Squad if you want your Marines in HH-era armour instead (although on a technicality Mk7 is HH-era just right at the end).

Secondly, you (and many others) are misunderstanding how different the forces of the Imperium are almost immediately post-Heresy. It didn't take two thousand years for the Astartes Chapters to find their footing, it was done in the almost immediate aftermath of the Siege of Terra during the early years of the Scouring. Before the end of M31, the Primarchs were all gone and the Third Founding had been conducted. Any real reminders of the Heresy, including the idea that the Traitor Legions were still alive, were long gone by the Imperium's next crisis during 544.M32, the War of the Beast. It's discussed as an event long forgotten, only referred to as the Great Heresy by many, with even the High Lords not really knowing what happened or who instigated the rebellion.
As for Xenos, the Orks and Aeldari were the same post-Heresy as they are now with the exception of Ork characters and a lack of Ynarri, and the Drukhari emerged prior to the War of the Beast.
Imperial conflicts prior to the emergence of the newer Xenos races were against these races, the forces of Chaos, and often other Imperial factions during events such as the Age of Apostasy or the War of the False Primarch. There were minor Xenos races but GW isn't going to make entire model ranges for enemies that don't exist in "Current Year M41" to sell in 40k.

Some stickly responses here aye.

What I want is the visual experience of retro sculpts of roughly period matching Xenos models. Call that what you will.

Cool but why does that need a whole game when it's just 40k with Marines in HH gear? The Xenos are the same, the 40k Marine rules are what represents the time period, just use an edition you like.

I did not mean to say I needed new rules for that, it's mainly new Xenos miniatures I am after. The rules I could patch together using either ruleset as you rightly point out. It would however be cool of some now (M41) forgotten weaponry made its way in though. So maybe a new army list.

Would Eldar (sic) and/or Orks need HH specific rules to play during the Great Crusade? (I am aware of the Eldar fall and thus multitude of splinter factions so maybe Orks would be easier as I believe they were mostly the same, except with looted period gear)

Would Orks/Eldar really look that different in M35 than M41? And I don't think either race would have any "forgotten" weaponry/technology. Orks don't really "forget" anything. Their knowledge is intuitive. Get enough Mekboyz together, and they can build it.

Probably not in m35, but during the GC?

Orks should look different and have cooler toys at least during the War of the Beast.

But the big issue here is that it is unlikely to be economically feasible for GW to invest in such models because the Ork player base is a fraction of the Marine one.

As always the big problem is that Space Marines are so damn popular.

Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

Unification wars?
No, i think thats kind of a dream.
However, i very much could see it pushing past the battle of Terra and include the scouring, along with both orks, and eldar. Because iirc Orks were one of the most fought xeno races during the great crusade.

aliensurfer wrote:
Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

A big difference is that pretty much all the HH factions survived at least in some degree. They may have suffered loses, but they were not wiped out.

aliensurfer wrote:Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

If you think about it, Orks and Eldar have somewhat more of a right to be in the game than Ferrus Manus.

Tyran wrote:

aliensurfer wrote:
Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

A big difference is that pretty much all the HH factions survived at least in some degree. They may have suffered loses, but they were not wiped out.

The big ones that are important also survived.

aliensurfer wrote:
Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

Because it's part of the story, the entire point actually. The point of playing HH is to take a side in the story and some people want to play the Traitor Legions. It's like asking someone why they would play France in a Napoleonic game or Japan in a WW2 game. It's harder to tell a story without a villain, and people love a good villain.
When people suggest adding Xenos in, then the story is removed in favour of "I want my thing".

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
If you think about it, Orks and Eldar have somewhat more of a right to be in the game than Ferrus Manus.

Ferrus Manus fights in one of the defining moments of the Heresy. The Orks and Eldar didn't fight in the Heresy. Even though Manus dies in the opening acts he still has far more reason to be in the game than any Xenos faction.

The big ones that are important also survived.

And didn't take part in the conflict so it literally doesn't matter who survives or not.
Seriously, what is so hard to get about "Xenos literally didn't fight in the Horus Heresy"? I've still yet to see an example of an army-sized Xenos force present at any Heresy battle outside of headcannon.

I think it is important to remember that 40k and HH are fundamentally different games.

HH is a fictional wargame in which the recreation and simulation of a fictional history is the whole point of it.

Modern 40k meanwhile is a game designed towards competitive play and tournament support.

aliensurfer wrote:Out of curiosity, I see people saying why it would be no fun playing any of the mentioned xenos species as they get wiped out/lose. If that is a factor, why play any of the marine legions - you know who wins, you know which primarchs die, you know Horus died, the traitors flee and are forced to hide in the eye of chaos. Why play one of those factions when you already know you are going to lose, and exactly which battles your forces did lose as it's all written out already. It doesn't seem any different to playing a xenos force you know loses. It's not like any of the games you play are going to change the HH at all one jot, it will still have the same outcome as it's a 'historical' setting with a known outcome.

Exactly, I have no issues playing a later deador losing faction, as part of recreating the story of there and then. In historical ww2 games I play (amongst others) France in 1940 and Germany in 1944. They all lost, but there were tight battles and instances where they won, which can be re-imagined in a game.

Similarly I wouldnt mind playing Xenos against marines during the Great Crusade.

Its not strictly HH though so maybe that is why some here take a hard stance against it..?

Tyran wrote:I think it is important to remember that 40k and HH are fundamentally different games.

HH is a fictional wargame in which the recreation and simulation of a fictional history is the whole point of it.

Modern 40k meanwhile is a game designed towards competitive play and tournament support.

Well, I would argue most people globally play it friendly, semi-competitive among friends, at clubs or even in campaign/narrative mode. Competitive tournament play seems like something for a very small part of the hobby community.

Similarly a minority seems to do the opposite, ie play HH competitively.

To each their own, make of the hobby what gives you joy.

 westiebestie wrote:


Well, I would argue most people globally play it friendly, semi-competitive among friends, at clubs or even in campaign/narrative mode. Competitive tournament play seems like something for a very small part of the hobby community.

Similarly a minority seems to do the opposite, ie play HH competitively.

To each their own, make of the hobby what gives you joy.

IMHO, "semi-competitive" is just a way of saying "I'm playing competitive but I don't want to appear WAAC".

Sure most people don't play on tournaments, but even in friendly games most people tend to play to win, instead of playing for the simulation factor.

Now its going off topic, so a short reply:

I really dont think its that black or white.

Most friendly games have two players trying to win with varying tools and scenarios at their disposal.

Semi-competitive to me just means agreeing with your group how "hard" lists you want to play so both players end up with fairly balanced lists.

In other games systems with better balance, there is less need to do this of course.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

It's not excluding them, it's just not including them. Excluding would imply they have a right to be there in the first place, which they don't.

That's a fun quote. Honestly I'm not sure how much more "gatekeepy" you could get!

Its not gatekeeping to say that a faction that has no place within the context of a game has no place being there, in the same way that its not gatekeeping to say that someones WW2 Brazilian Expeditionary Force army has no place in a WW1 game.

To be honest I hate the term "gatekeeping". I use it only because Gert has used it in the past (and in this thread), and the quote he gives is a hilarious one to take into a different context. Like Primaris. Or Fem Space Marines.

But the quote is even pretty silly in this context. As shown, historical games have dealt with different time periods or armies which never even faced each other, because they're just rule sets. And the HH game could literally just be using the HH brand to launch a new line of products and their own expansions. (See Necromunda, and the Necromunda Ash Wastes. . . or even 40K, and then HH)

 Strg Alt wrote:
People are "gatekeeping" now, if they want to keep the setting free from unnecessary bloat?! Remember insults won´t win you any debates.

It's just icing on the cake.

 Strg Alt wrote:
40K is a mess because of 20+ factions. 30K has none of those problems and I am pretty sure that this time GW won´t f*** it up by including scores of obscure xenos factions out of thin air that only HH novel readers are familiar with. Furthermore I have started reading the HH series myself with Dan Abnett´s introduction novel as the first book. You have the megarachnids mentioned who are confined to a single planet and the Orks were soundly beaten during the Ullanor campaign which was finished before the heresy began. So both are irrelevant to be represented in model form.

A different GW might think differently about releasing rules for microfactions. They used to do so, prior to no-model-no-rules.

But you know what current GW LOVES to do? They love to sell you books. They're sitting on an opportunity to release a book for Orks or Eldar to represent HH or Crusade era armies, and they don't even need new model lines for it. They could do new models, or release army-mod packs if they wanted. But they could literally just sell you a book and be done with it.

 Gert wrote:
Cool but why does that need a whole game when it's just 40k with Marines in HH gear? The Xenos are the same, the 40k Marine rules are what represents the time period, just use an edition you like.

I mean, the real question is why does HH need to be a separate game in the first place? "Cool, but why do you nee a whole game when it's just 40k with Marines in HH gear." indeed.

as others have said before one of the appeals of the HH is everything are marines and a few "related factions" which tends to keep the pwoer creep down a little as GW no longer needs to develop rules for a dozen differant "standard alien guns" including eldar and orks would simply make HH "40k 7th edition with all the problems inherant therein"

BrianDavion wrote:
as others have said before one of the appeals of the HH is everything are marines and a few "related factions" which tends to keep the pwoer creep down a little as GW no longer needs to develop rules for a dozen differant "standard alien guns" including eldar and orks would simply make HH "40k 7th edition with all the problems inherant therein"

A loaded statement for sure. Many would argue that the core of 7th ed was solid, while things like Formations, certain psychic powers and specific additions were what broke it down. One wouldn't blame the mere inclusion of Xenos.

Well, some might say the mere inclusion of Eldar. heh. But any serious examination would point to specific egregious units and interactions in that case. It's all about execution, obviously.

I think at the very least orks should be in they are most populace race in warhammer.
They have been fightin and winning since before mankind was even a thing and if humanity thought they wiped um before the heresy it just means humanity dident spread out as far as they thought.
Orks is never beaten in battle.
They always comes back for another go. So if they wanted um in the heresy it's as simple as one line of text....... WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Boosykes wrote:
I think at the very least orks should be in they are most populace race in warhammer.
They have been fightin and winning since before mankind was even a thing and if humanity thought they wiped um before the heresy it just means humanity dident spread out as far as they thought.
Orks is never beaten in battle.
They always comes back for another go. So if they wanted um in the heresy it's as simple as one line of text....... WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

If we were to put any xenos in 30k, orks would be the only one i'd be fine with. Even if they were generally scattered after Ulanor, I can imagine there would be enough around and active to warrant it.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Boosykes wrote:
I think at the very least orks should be in they are most populace race in warhammer.
They have been fightin and winning since before mankind was even a thing and if humanity thought they wiped um before the heresy it just means humanity dident spread out as far as they thought.
Orks is never beaten in battle.
They always comes back for another go. So if they wanted um in the heresy it's as simple as one line of text....... WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

If we were to put any xenos in 30k, orks would be the only one i'd be fine with. Even if they were generally scattered after Ulanor, I can imagine there would be enough around and active to warrant it.

Nope. People joined 30K to get away from the 40K madness. Play Orks there with your twenty other factions. The Horus Heresy won´t be diluted by injecting nonsense into it.

I am awaiting the Ork fandex with open arms. I really want to represent Orks fighting my Salamanders using the 30k framework.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Boosykes wrote:
I think at the very least orks should be in they are most populace race in warhammer.
They have been fightin and winning since before mankind was even a thing and if humanity thought they wiped um before the heresy it just means humanity dident spread out as far as they thought.
Orks is never beaten in battle.
They always comes back for another go. So if they wanted um in the heresy it's as simple as one line of text....... WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

If we were to put any xenos in 30k, orks would be the only one i'd be fine with. Even if they were generally scattered after Ulanor, I can imagine there would be enough around and active to warrant it.

Nope. People joined 30K to get away from the 40K madness. Play Orks there with your twenty other factions. The Horus Heresy won´t be diluted by injecting nonsense into it.

I'm not saying I *want* orks in 30k, I'm just saying it'd be the only one I'd tolerate.

Racerguy180 wrote:I am awaiting the Ork fandex with open arms. I really want to represent Orks fighting my Salamanders using the 30k framework.

the Aus 30k codex for origional horus heresey was good, we did an Ullanor game as a goodbye to HH1.0 with it in June in Tallahassee FL with a more than 100k point game. Several of us are workign on updating that codex for HH 2.0 but need more armies out as we want to add a looted armor segment but don't want it to be too powerful.

ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Boosykes wrote:
I think at the very least orks should be in they are most populace race in warhammer.
They have been fightin and winning since before mankind was even a thing and if humanity thought they wiped um before the heresy it just means humanity dident spread out as far as they thought.
Orks is never beaten in battle.
They always comes back for another go. So if they wanted um in the heresy it's as simple as one line of text....... WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

If we were to put any xenos in 30k, orks would be the only one i'd be fine with. Even if they were generally scattered after Ulanor, I can imagine there would be enough around and active to warrant it.

Nope. People joined 30K to get away from the 40K madness. Play Orks there with your twenty other factions. The Horus Heresy won´t be diluted by injecting nonsense into it.

I'm not saying I *want* orks in 30k, I'm just saying it'd be the only one I'd tolerate.

Orks are probably the biggest one I want officially in, but there is room for the Eldar and Dark Eldar. Dark eldar are noted as using pre unification worlds as harvesting worlds to gain humans for thier amusement, and the craftworlds were def around and active. see Eldrad trying to warn Fulgrim about the fall of horus and not seeing the literal great enemy she who thirsts sword on him.

Necrons are all still asleep (well most but that's another thing and they were noninteractive if indeed the few awake were awake that early). Tau were busy evolving from tadpoles. Tyranids have no cannon to be there that early and the likely signal/dinner bell that attracted them was not sent until late in the heresy

^Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing Eldar, personally.

Or non-Imperial human factions, but that's not a commitment I'd expect from modern GW.

oh yea, a lot of the human factions liek the Interex would be super cool to see, also maybe new Xenos like the Hrud.

The Leagues of Votaan should also be around, even if they couldn't care less about the Heresy.

 Tyran wrote:
The Leagues of Votaan should also be around, even if they couldn't care less about the Heresy.

Oh right, I hadn't even made that connection. I think factions only register with me after I've played against them.

Fulgrim(the book, not the character) specifically mentions that as Imperial worlds start rebelling when Istvaan III occurs, aliens take advantage of the chaos to rampage and steal back territory.

I don't see Xenos in HH, I could see them in "Warhammer 30,000" but GW have enough trouble supporting the lines they have so are likely happy to milk HH where one kit is usable by the bulk of the factions

Ullanor would be a nice point 0 for the Heresy the GREATEST victory before it all went down the tubes a campaign book and the option to have or convert bigger nastier Orks. Being an Ork Player/Collector that would appeal to me on all levels.

But I do hear people about it just being 40k in the 30k setting...

I think GW should just expand 30k Scouring would be the next logical point of progression pursuing the traitors into the eye of terror the ahem "Death/Mortal wounding of Gulliman at the hands of Fulgrim.. etc etc...