So it looks as though the plastic releases will be:
- Vindicator
- Knight Lancer
- probably another Spartan variant (unless ‘kings of war’ means a Fellblade)
- revised MkIII Marines, which look very Nurgle-y (damn - there goes my WiP SoH MkIII army)
- Deredo Dreadnought (because it’s in the artwork showing the new Marines)
- MkVI assault Marines (is it just me or do the designs look a bit…off?)
- a new army - no idea what that is
- Command Squad (sounds promising)
- separate melee weapons
It won't be a Spartan chassis cos there aren't any left. It'll be The Fellblade chassis or something like a Thunderhawk. Maybe even more Knights because they are LoW.
I don't think the "Mystery army release" is a whole new army. There isn't really anything but Imperial Army left of the top of my head. It'll be something for a current army, maybe plastic Thallax or some other Mechanicum stuff.
The rescaled Mk III look to have longer legs and better proportions from the image.
I have 18 unbuilt, 2 testers painted, was just to start a IW squad, might just do support squads with these and wait for the bigger ones for my main squads then.
I don't think they look "Nurgle-y" at all. The SoH ones on the cover have DG/German ww1 style spikes on their helmets but without those they are standard Mk IIIs.
The assault marine preview did look a bit unfinished, and I wonder whether that's accidental because GW needed to show something *now* to stem the questions about assault marines. Or whether they're wiser to the world of 3d prints and decided to put up a WIP that couldn't just directly be translated into third party prints?
The only other part of the preview I'm excited for is the deredo, I hope they do all the weapon options even if it's just as upgrade sprues.
Lords of War are 100% the other Cearstus variants, if GW has done anything with HH it's maxing out on vehicle variants with the lowest possible investment in new sprues. Why tool 8 sprues for a Fellblade when they can tool 1 or maybe 2 and sell a Cerastus Castigator box.
Redone Mk3 is good news but everything is coming so late I'm gonna have it printed before then - I still prefer plastics, but GW has chosen to make building a legit HH army an excruciating experience.
Assault Squad, 3 seasons away, even worse, and looks off to boot. There's a great digital kit floating around already with the same style jump pack and sensible chests.
Outer Circle was one of the first Youtubers I watched when I got into HH. Despite some good content, his sneering and nerd-raging got too much for me (there is more than enough of that out there). I think everyone agrees the lack of plastic assault infantry has been a blunder; I don’t need this guy to tell me (and to hear him endlessly mispronounce ‘Horus’ as ‘Horace’).
Upgrading the Mk III models is a bit of an odd choice. They are better than the Mk IV (who are almost comically dumpy looking) and have been very popular. Maybe it was always part of the plan to re-do one of the most iconic Heresy armour types. I think I’ll still finish my existing Mk III SoH, having invested so much time in them, but I bet Mk III sales tank now they’ve shown their replacement.
Another variant of the Cerastus Knight does seem the most likely candidate for the new lords of war.
I must admit, the 2 new resin character models look very good. I may re-think my plastic-only approach, as the SoH have a couple of excellent models now.
I hope that they've done the legs posable on the Knight Lancer otherwise it's a big step backwards model wise. Yeah the "Lords of War" releases will be the other Knight variants
Rolsheen wrote: I hope that they've done the legs posable on the Knight Lancer otherwise it's a big step backwards model wise. Yeah the "Lords of War" releases will be the other Knight variants
FWIW the Contemptor kept its posability when moved to plastic. Overall FW does a good job with these HH plastics, they're full of bits and things like older 40K models.
Snord wrote: Outer Circle was one of the first Youtubers I watched when I got into HH. Despite some good content, his sneering and nerd-raging got too much for me (there is more than enough of that out there). I think everyone agrees the lack of plastic assault infantry has been a blunder; I don’t need this guy to tell me (and to hear him endlessly mispronounce ‘Horus’ as ‘Horace’).
Upgrading the Mk III models is a bit of an odd choice. They are better than the Mk IV (who are almost comically dumpy looking) and have been very popular. Maybe it was always part of the plan to re-do one of the most iconic Heresy armour types. I think I’ll still finish my existing Mk III SoH, having invested so much time in them, but I bet Mk III sales tank now they’ve shown their replacement.
Another variant of the Cerastus Knight does seem the most likely candidate for the new lords of war.
I must admit, the 2 new resin character models look very good. I may re-think my plastic-only approach, as the SoH have a couple of excellent models now.
1. Don't make fun of peoples accent. That puts you in hot water faster than you can imagine.
2. He may be a saltmine (actually that is fairly inaccurate, he is quite balanced overall in regards to the hobby, probably more devoted to it than many of us), but one that actually worked with the plastic industry and as such is valuable or would be a valuable critical voice if gw would listen and the consumers. And instead of just putting him on a pile with other "grognards" unfairly putting your head in the sand and letting Gw get away with nonsense once again, as many do in the hobby, maybee just take it as a critical take from a person you may not like. That however doesn't change the fact that he is right in this case.
3. MK III was entirly not necessary, respectivly would be better recieved if we'd get them and the assault squads at the same time and not stretched out. The community doesn't need more tacticals, the community needs the core of the armies in plastic and that includes command squads, terminator weapons and of course assault marines and even breachers / recons, which would skyrocket immediatly availability and by extention would actually lower the barrier to entry for most people so significantly that we'd not be stagnating as we do right now.
Edit: MK III marines seem to have their reddot / Sensor/ Scope lower than the frontsight of the boltgun... so basically the reddot/ sensor/Scope is not usefull at all... unless you cut away either the frontsight or the reddot...
4. The knight (and especially the lancer) is probably the worst thing they could release in the close future in regards to relevancy. It only makes sense if the designers want to bamboozle the accountants by producing a product that will get cross sales for a fringe faction in order to get more projects greenlit. But even then there would've been far better choices for units to do so, f.e. moirax, biger bots of the 30k admech, admech tanks, etc. Which would take advantage of far larger player populations to boost sales.
5. YMMV but the new resin charachters being once again IF and SoH and only the later really being a main acteur in the HH compared to IF which basically sit on the palace and do nothing really yet again getting prefered treatment over a whole slew of legions is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
1. Don't make fun of peoples accent. That puts you in hot water faster than you can imagine.
Perhaps, but I have the same accent as he does, more or less. It’s a mispronunciation.
2. He may be a saltmine (actually that is fairly inaccurate, he is quite balanced overall in regards to the hobby, probably more devoted to it than many of us), but one that actually worked with the plastic industry and as such is valuable or would be a valuable critical voice if gw would listen and the consumers. And instead of just putting him on a pile with other "grognards" unfairly putting your head in the sand and letting Gw get away with nonsense once again, as many do in the hobby, maybee just take it as a critical take from a person you may not like. That however doesn't change the fact that he is right in this case.
‘Salt’ is a euphemism for sneering, and I don’t find him balanced. He’s certainly passionate about HH (provided it’s ‘his’ version of the game), and certainly he’s made many valid criticisms. But he routinely overstates his case. And states (strongly-held) opinions as facts. And derides decisions he doesn’t agree with as the product of incompetence or bad faith. Which is really just nerd-raging, of which there is way too much on the internet. Unfortunately, it’s ultimately a negative experience listening to his vids.
3. MK III was entirly not necessary, respectivly would be better recieved if we'd get them and the assault squads at the same time and not stretched out. The community doesn't need more tacticals, the community needs the core of the armies in plastic and that includes command squads, terminator weapons and of course assault marines and even breachers / recons, which would skyrocket immediatly availability and by extention would actually lower the barrier to entry for most people so significantly that we'd not be stagnating as we do right now.
Agreed. I think something went wrong somewhere. The fact that assault infantry are still at such an early design stage is really puzzling. And new Mk IIIs will invalidate a lot of people’s models (if they care about having them rendered obsolete).
4. The knight (and especially the lancer) is probably the worst thing they could release in the close future in regards to relevancy. It only makes sense if the designers want to bamboozle the accountants by producing a product that will get cross sales for a fringe faction in order to get more projects greenlit. But even then there would've been far better choices for units to do so, f.e. moirax, biger bots of the 30k admech, admech tanks, etc. Which would take advantage of far larger player populations to boost sales.
I dunno if it’s a poor choice - I have no interest in knights, but plenty of others do. And it looks like a nice model. I’d have preferred AdMech too; hopefully that’s the mystery army.
5. YMMV but the new resin charachters being once again IF and SoH and only the later really being a main acteur in the HH compared to IF which basically sit on the palace and do nothing really yet again getting prefered treatment over a whole slew of legions is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Sure. I want customisable plastic kits, not chapter-specific resin. I just liked these 2.
Agreed. I think something went wrong somewhere. The fact that assault infantry are still at such an early design stage is really puzzling. And new Mk IIIs will invalidate a lot of people’s models (if they care about having them rendered obsolete).
I agree, but the question is if they could have rectified that any sooner, provided the original mistake was done and recognized shortly afterwards. It may well be that their production plans are so inflexible once they committed to them that damage mitigation by rushing the Assault Squad to the earliest possible spot and revealing that they're coming to stop speculation and fan rage is the maximum of what is possible for them, under their technical, managerial and contractual constraints, that we're only dimly aware of if at all, and we're seeing the fastest reaction they could make. We just don't know, and neither do angry youtubers.
Just a couple of weeks ago, people on this very forum argued, with 100% ironclad, rock-hard conviction that the game is dead, will get no more support, will die this year, will be cancelled in favor of TOW and other such things, and now look at the roadmap...
• "More Lords Of War" = Knight & Spartan chassis variants
• "New Army" = Plastic AdMech
• "New Armour Mark" = redesigned MKVII or just the MKIII shown in the stream
DISCLAIMER: SPECULATION!YMMV
I'm most interested to see what the "Assault Weapons" and "Command Squad" will turn out to be. Assault Weapons could point to a upgrade kit for the upcoming Assault squad kit. Command Squad might also just be an upgrade kit for kitting out tac squad models into a Command squad, as HH sprue designs like to be stingy like that.
If I think about long term, GW's play might be to try to maximize the compatibility of upgrade kit bits across the various armour marks in HH. Otherwise their commitment to creating a bunch of special & heavy weapon kits doesn't line up with the overall stingyness of HH sprue allocations. The new MKIII shown suggest compatibility with the weapons upgrades. So this means the Assault weapons & Command squad kits might end up being intended for several armour marks as well.
Deredeos coming to plastic is great! I think I need to sell my resins now while they are still the only option. If the superb posability of plastic Contemptors sets a precedent, the new Deredeo plastics will be a significant step up for modellers (And my autocannon barrels will not bend hehehe)
Lastly, speaking of the Assault Squad kit, I hope those renders were early stage WIP's. Not only did they ditch the RT era jump pack look (boo!), the chestpieces look ridiculous. Thankfully, neither will be a showstopper for me even if they end up on the final models, as long as FW still sells resin MKV Jump Packs and the chest pieces remain easily convertible (as is the case with 2022 MKVI tacs)
Just a couple of weeks ago, people on this very forum argued, with 100% ironclad, rock-hard conviction that the game is dead, will get no more support, will die this year, will be cancelled in favor of TOW and other such things, and now look at the roadmap...
Well I argued that we won't see any more HH plastics until fall and I was right on that (we already knew about the Vindicator and I insist the Cerastus is a 40k release)
Thankfully looks like TOW is a lot further out than I expected, so we get to squeeze in a few more kits in the following half year, but we might be sharing production lines with Epic by that point. You have to agree the roadmap for the next 12 months is a lot sparser than the previous 12.
Just a couple of weeks ago, people on this very forum argued, with 100% ironclad, rock-hard conviction that the game is dead, will get no more support, will die this year, will be cancelled in favor of TOW and other such things, and now look at the roadmap...
Well I argued that we won't see any more HH plastics until fall and I was right on that (we already knew about the Vindicator and I insist the Cerastus is a 40k release)
Thankfully looks like TOW is a lot further out than I expected, so we get to squeeze in a few more kits in the following half year, but we might be sharing production lines with Epic by that point. You have to agree the roadmap for the next 12 months is a lot sparser than the previous 12.
Depends on how many kits we're talking about for the 'mystery army release' and 'more Lords of war', that could (theoretically) each be half a dozen kits. Unlikely, but possible. If the 'new army' has a vehicle, an infantry kit and something heavy like Thallax or Castellax that's quite sizeable, and if the LoWs contain both the Knight variants and the Fellblade+ variants that's a lot of stuff as well.
That's a lot of if-s. Why are we even still mentioning the Fellblades? Fellblades were heavily speculated because they were removed from the store. Now they're back with retooled resin hulls, why would they go to the effort of doing that if they were going to replace them again within half a year? No sir, zero chance of Fellblades. Based on previous releases you're looking at the minimum investment possible to claim a new Lord of War release - and that would be Cerastus variants. Or if they invent a new gun for the Spartan hull.
Yeah, okay, i give up, a reasonably full roadmap for the next year, including a whole new army and sizeable plastic kits for both infantry and vehicles clearly means the game is dying and we're just witnessing the final deathtroes before it all comes crashing down. That's very sane and logical, and not at all motivated reasoning driven by some sort of pet peeve. Cheerio, have a nice day.
I don't think salty and sneering are remotly the same in quality one is argoance incarnate and one is desilusion and disapointment. I also think you are giving him way too little credit considering that his youtube is only one of his social media.
Also if you are in search of an "experience" ehh.. fair enough.
Anyways i think they didn't think HH would sell at all, underestimating completly that an oldschool well worked over ruleset would have a draw from a lot of people and not just those desilusioned with modern 40k (8th onwards.) but rather a lot of people that dropped out by 6th and 7th.
Frankly as you stated something must have gone wrong in their planning, or alternativly someone made a gamble if it would sell or not. And won the bet by such a margin that now GW struggles to propperly incorporate it within its release schedules. Respectivly they decided that it wouldn't do so well anyways and skimped on the design time by avoiding making plastic infantry since the vehicles are easy sells regardless for 40k so even if HH doesn't take off the kits would get sold.
The heavy investment in plastic tanks doesn’t support the theory that they didn’t expect HH 2.0 to succeed. The Kratos, for example, is not the kind of kit that would be produced for a system that was likely to fail. But maybe it exceeded expectations - and perhaps they underestimated the number of players looking to escape from 9th Edition 40k. They also seem to be struggling with production capacity - perhaps there’s a design bottleneck as well.
I don't think salty and sneering are remotly the same in quality one is argoance incarnate and one is desilusion and disapointment. I also think you are giving him way too little credit considering that his youtube is only one of his social media.
Also if you are in search of an "experience" ehh.. fair enough.
Anyways i think they didn't think HH would sell at all, underestimating completly that an oldschool well worked over ruleset would have a draw from a lot of people and not just those desilusioned with modern 40k (8th onwards.) but rather a lot of people that dropped out by 6th and 7th.
Frankly as you stated something must have gone wrong in their planning, or alternativly someone made a gamble if it would sell or not. And won the bet by such a margin that now GW struggles to propperly incorporate it within its release schedules. Respectivly they decided that it wouldn't do so well anyways and skimped on the design time by avoiding making plastic infantry since the vehicles are easy sells regardless for 40k so even if HH doesn't take off the kits would get sold.
I'd say the assault Marines are a similar case like Plastic SOB with GW simply not knowing what people would like to see specifically, even when they do invest in a product line. And just like in the SOB case they need 1,5years until they have a finished product.
FW tanks were the obvious thing for them since they could double dip with 40K and had quality problems that even damaged the FW brand.
In the same way I'm sure a Plastic thunderhawk is on some flipchart somewhere in GWHQ, but it's just too damn large of a kit
I have been unironicly waiting for Inquisitorial Henchmen to go back on sale since the release of 'Tempest'
All i need is 8 grende launcher special weapons but i'm not paying an ebayer £36 per model for recasts of them...
Not Online!!! wrote: Anyways i think they didn't think HH would sell at all, underestimating completly that an oldschool well worked over ruleset would have a draw from a lot of people and not just those desilusioned with modern 40k (8th onwards.) but rather a lot of people that dropped out by 6th and 7th.
I'd argue the opposite considering how many products regularly go out of stock on the GW webstore. Heresy social media groups are still picking up and the place I game at has seen a fair few people ask questions or express interest about the game when I'm there with friends.
Obviously, I have no sort of hard data to say how many people are playing the game or buying what kits because that would be silly. But GW isn't going to redo a system with the level of investment we've seen with HH and expect it to fail, the company just doesn't do well when a system exceeds expectations.
Snord wrote: The heavy investment in plastic tanks doesn’t support the theory that they didn’t expect HH 2.0 to succeed. The Kratos, for example, is not the kind of kit that would be produced for a system that was likely to fail. But maybe it exceeded expectations - and perhaps they underestimated the number of players looking to escape from 9th Edition 40k. They also seem to be struggling with production capacity - perhaps there’s a design bottleneck as well.
But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.
Logistics i think we can all agree are at a point that suck, and with ToW (another main game with a LOT of factions requiring plastics and cheap one at that else ToW will die like WHFB, let's be very clear here.) and with epic now also suddendly reapearing. That takes time, manpower and production aswell as warehouse capacity.
And GW still seems to have issues with warehouses.
But logistics start at the planning phase...
Not Online!!! wrote: But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.
Or GW does what it always does to maximise sales and gives any new HH vehicles 40k rules. Off the top of my head, only the Arquitor has never gotten 40k rules. By your logic, I guess HH was always believed to be a failure all the way back when Betrayal came out and GW made 40k rules for all the brand-new Heresy vehicles there.
However you cut it, GW's supply isn't matching demand at any point on the process - neither in the quantity of new models released nor in the number or copies actually delivered to points of sale.
It's an objective fact that HH is being underproduced - for whatever reason - and they're soon adding two more games that will compete for the same production slots.
It is my personal belief that HH would have several times the playerbase it has now, at least for a short time, if GW did a better job picking which units get made into plastic first (and cast enough of them to satisfy demand)
Is it an objective fact? Because underproduced is not the same as subject to unexpectedly high demand, is it?
One need only take a look at GW’s last few annual reports to see their sales have drastically increased. To the point they had to build a second factory - which involved new Mains electricity being installed.
Production we know has a significant lead time. Think back to when we first saw the heavily blurred images of the big boxed set. The ones that got everyone excited.
Production for Heresy, and its allotted time, very likely began around then - if not earlier.
That all factors in. At the time they allotted production for the initial runs, their prediction would be based on sales at that point. Not just existing Horus Heresy sales, but looking over their overall sales data. Which, by the time it hit shelves, would be wildly out of date.
Add in social distancing and the impact of COVID (fewer people in the factory, clean down times between shifts) and the second factory just won’t have increased production as much as expected, because neither are/were running at anything like full capacity.
Now. Numbers entirely out of my arse for sake of demonstration - and the simple fact we do not know what GW’s production runs look like.
But let’s say they produced 50,000 copies of Age of Darkness prior to release. Those of course sold through, as did all the other kits. What can they reasonably do about that, when the numbers only suggest everything is selling in higher than expected numbers. Your production capacity remains finite. And you’ve other stuff squelching down the pipeline, inexorably closer to its own release. What else can they do, except their best to get stuff back on shelves as quickly as possible.
Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.
Now. Numbers entirely out of my arse for sake of demonstration - and the simple fact we do not know what GW’s production runs look like.
But let’s say they produced 50,000 copies of Age of Darkness prior to release. Those of course sold through, as did all the other kits. What can they reasonably do about that, when the numbers only suggest everything is selling in higher than expected numbers. Your production capacity remains finite. And you’ve other stuff squelching down the pipeline, inexorably closer to its own release. What else can they do, except their best to get stuff back on shelves as quickly as possible.
Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.
That's the point where in theory, their new and improved ERP system would come in, which would - again, in theory- allow for all sorts of 'agile' mumbo-jumbo like short-term switching of machine slots due to real-time forecasting of opportunity costs between kits and other things like that (i.e. highly-demanded stuff that was soon running out could be squeezed in to the detriment of other, slow-selling things), but unfortunately their systems migrations still seems to be unfinished and regularly causing problems. A thing which is not entirely unheard of for that sort of system - the common thing to do is choosing one and then sticking to it for as long as humanely possible, because migration is that much of a PitA - but probably throws all sorts of spanners into their plans of having a modern-day production environment.
Not Online!!! wrote: But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.
Or GW does what it always does to maximise sales and gives any new HH vehicles 40k rules. Off the top of my head, only the Arquitor has never gotten 40k rules. By your logic, I guess HH was always believed to be a failure all the way back when Betrayal came out and GW made 40k rules for all the brand-new Heresy vehicles there.
or it could be that gw realises that rules sell models so if a model can be used in multiple rulesets it will sell despite maybee one ruleset being not in favour, hence why FWHH vehicles always often had before even HH was a thing rules for 40k. Also HH 1.0 rulebook was 2017 according to the lexicanum. Calth was 2015.
And HH 1.0 was very small and stagnant for a long time, let's not pretend otherwise. And even if calth was a water tester the fact that it wasn't followed up is GW probably going "Oh gak it sells!" and greenlighting Bleighs game (main rulebook was out 2017). Only for the later to hand in his spoon at an unfortunate time.
Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.
Well, it indeed is, the bigger problem is then and probably were GW failed, to ask the question " OH we now have x ammount of new HH players that want to diversify their armies according to their legions and we have 6 (?) basic troops in the book? Half the legions want to go stab stuff and we only got bajonet tacticals sofar? What else do we need fast?!?"
and the answer to that question is, most certainly not a niche knight that is even niche within the knights lists whilest knights themselves are already niche.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is it an objective fact? Because underproduced is not the same as subject to unexpectedly high demand, is it?
Here's an objective fact for you:
Producing less than demand is underproducing, I don't know what else it could be. We don't know for sure where the goalposts are, but they're not being reached.
But going by what retailers say their allocations for new HH releases are tiny, so yes, I do believe the problem is supply being unusually low end rather than demand being unusually high. This is not even particular to HH but has been the case for GW in general for a while.
Surprisngly both tartaros and the scorpious are just good units to expand basically all legions. The jetbikes not so much but i will freely admit they look snazy and wouldn't mind some.
but i'd rather have seekers ..
but as we see, doesn't matter since we anyways don't have any available
Horus heresy just used the 7th ed rulebook before 2017, and was pretty popular even before calth. Granted the plastic sprues was what made it more accessible (I didn't get a legion on the go until prospero as I wanted Mk2/3 marines and couldn't stomach the cost, so I played mechanicum before then, which in those crazy times was actually cheaper than a legion!)
HH models aren’t the only ones that are frequently unavailable. As I said, they seem to have a problem with production capacity. But this kind of thing always morphs into a conspiracy theory - “GW thought HH would fail”; “GW is trying to strangle HH”, and of course “HH is a dying game”.
Still isn’t addressing the fact production levels are set far in advance, and when you’re producing multiple lines, all the time, you can’t tinker with your plans too much.
It is not a sign it’s being deliberately underproduced, which let’s face it is the real claim here.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It is not a sign it’s being deliberately underproduced, which let’s face it is the real claim here.
What does that even mean? I've not seen anyone, certainly not myself, claim that GW are trying to sabotage their own product, if that's what you mean. Heck I've not even seen anyone accuse them of FOMO, which was a hot topic, what, a year back?
Not Online!!! wrote: or it could be that gw realises that rules sell models so if a model can be used in multiple rulesets it will sell despite maybee one ruleset being not in favour, hence why FWHH vehicles always often had before even HH was a thing rules for 40k. Also HH 1.0 rulebook was 2017 according to the lexicanum. Calth was 2015.
And HH 1.0 was very small and stagnant for a long time, let's not pretend otherwise. And even if calth was a water tester the fact that it wasn't followed up is GW probably going "Oh gak it sells!" and greenlighting Bleighs game (main rulebook was out 2017).
Some things like the Contemptor, Stormeagle, and Deimos variants had 40k rules yes because HH was built on the groundwork set by the FW Badab series. GW also doesn't go by "rules sell models" and hasn't for some time.
Also, Betrayal is this:
Spoiler:
This was released in 2012 and saw the introduction of units like Spartans and Fellblades. These units were ported to 40k a year later with Imperial Armour: Apocalypse 2013 and subsequent releases were given similar treatments in most cases. The Age of Darkness book was released because 40k was going to 8th Edition and HH needed a dedicated rulebook as up until that point it just used the 6th/7th Ed rules as they were the same basic system. The game had been going for five years by that point and was the prized pony of the Forgeworld catalogue.
Indeed, but as also stated until 2017 they did coopt the 7th ed rulesbook.
And something can be the priced pony of a subdivison but still be comparativly small, and HH was just that.
IMO, the Cerastus, regardless of the quality of the model, should not have been released now, and the tanks should have been spread out more over time, with the emphasis being on core troops. The whole release schedule has struck me as very tone-deaf.
Not Online!!! wrote: Indeed, but as also stated until 2017 they did coopt the 7th ed rulesbook.
And? What point are you trying to make here?
Heresy units that were released post-2012 never got 40k rules before Heresy rules because they were not primarily for 40k. That they got 40k rules does not mean GW thought HH was a failure of a system but rather it was purely based on getting as much money from Marine players as possible.
And something can be the priced pony of a subdivison but still be comparativly small, and HH was just that.
Compared to 40k and WHFB/AoS sure but it's still that today. But what purpose does it serve to bring that up? I don't see anyone claiming HH was bigger than any other main system. What I said was right, FW basically lived off of HH from the moment it was released up until MESBG was relaunched and the specialist games came back in recent years.
My point still is, and remains that HH was a gamble that GW only recently took and as such is why we only got renders for assault marines instead of the easier to use in 40k vehicles.
A gamble would have been releasing HH 2 with no prior plastic support whatsoever. Instead we've has HH for 10 years as a ruleset with 2 box sets dedicated to plastic Heresy miniatures.
HH 2 wasn't a gamble, it was poorly planned and the higher customer interest was fumbled but it was not a gamble.
For it to be a gamble it would need to have a significant chance of either backfiring or failing completely and that just wasn't on the cards when the initial launch products were as good a showing as they were. The entry price for HH plummeted and the new kits offered excellent replacements for older FW ones.
Gert wrote:A gamble would have been releasing HH 2 with no prior plastic support whatsoever. Instead we've has HH for 10 years as a ruleset with 2 box sets dedicated to plastic Heresy miniatures.
HH 2 wasn't a gamble, it was poorly planned and the higher customer interest was fumbled but it was not a gamble.
For it to be a gamble it would need to have a significant chance of either backfiring or failing completely and that just wasn't on the cards when the initial launch products were as good a showing as they were. The entry price for HH plummeted and the new kits offered excellent replacements for older FW ones.
lord_blackfang wrote:Yea a huge box of fresh marine sculpts at 50% discount is not exactly a high risk product
But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.
Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?
Not Online!!! wrote: But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.
So hold on.
GW took a "gamble" doing plastic HH (highly unlikely) but then didn't take a gamble by making it Marines. That is some stellar logic.
Have you considered that the market for Heresy was larger than GW knew and that the AoD box was a safe release that was far more popular than expected? Because that's what most people are seeing here.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?
I... honestly... the assault marine WIP render was pretty much exactly as far along as you could expect if they started sculpting them on the day WarCom said "we hear you, more plastic infantry is coming"
Like our desire to have the second one of the two most basic units genuinely took them by surprise.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?
I... honestly... the assault marine WIP render was pretty much exactly as far along as you could expect if they started sculpting them on the day WarCom said "we hear you, more plastic infantry is coming"
Like our desire to have the second one of the two most basic units genuinely took them by surprise.
I think someone said it in the big HH thread in news and rumors, but the render could be from any time. Given how GW operates the assault mk6 have been ready for at least a year, and they’re just showing a bare bones render to limit the ability for 3rd party suppliers to copy the design and soak up the market before their product is released. And while that’s a shockingly intelligent move by GW bed-rock low standards, for a semi competent company it’s the obvious move given how the 3rd party market has stepped up in a big way to fill the massive gaps they’ve left in the range.
This is mostly based on how GW always produces and sits on their product for a minimum of a year before it’s properly shown off and released.
Not Online!!! wrote: But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.
So hold on.
GW took a "gamble" doing plastic HH (highly unlikely) but then didn't take a gamble by making it Marines. That is some stellar logic.
Have you considered that the market for Heresy was larger than GW knew and that the AoD box was a safe release that was far more popular than expected? Because that's what most people are seeing here.
You got the gist of it. I assert that they basically were so surprised.
A new line game = Risk (reminder you require design , print, hours and logistics aswell as production). Marines = minimising of risk. Tanks = dual ruleset use = further lowering risk. Marine firstborn infantry = higher risk than tanks due to primaris shift.
Gw failed to project that HH would sell to the point you are making. Ergo they avoided infantry, hence why we got renders instead of assault marines.
What gw did here is my claim, is mere risk mitigation and by extention GW "gambled" on it but did so with a very specific set of units, which would get cross rules use.
i think GW showing previews and teases is a vain attempt to stop people going to the 3d printers on the promise "we'll deliver on the troop types sometime kids! so don't go to the 3d printers because it will totally be a waste of your resources if you do because you know we'll release them just after you finished printing, you'll see..."
Meanwhile, i'm looking at the mk4 jump pack upgrade kit shaped hole in my life since BaC and wondering why anyone has any faith in them at any point.
The Cerastus Knight Lancer in plastic is another sign of 'GW going to do random gak for unpublished reasons' that i suspect is driven by the finance&accounting dept.
How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?
That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?
Not Online!!! wrote: How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?
That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?
40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?
i'm saying it's an accounting strategy because they know the kinds of sales figures they get for larger kits and therefore know the kind of ballpark region of income they will get from it due to initial sales.
Cruicially, the CKL doesn't require the consumer to have an existing kit in order to build it, so for an investor/shareholder perspective it's a far more consistent selling option.
It all makes a lot more sense if you forget everything you know about the game and just go by a shares/business strategy
GW have been on a victory lap since the start of covid where their share price was the most solidly rising stock in britain and their approach to investor dividends is tailored to long-term stock holders like pension funds, hedge funds and other dividend based investing.
Not Online!!! wrote: How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?
That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?
40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?
Out of all of gw's departments i don't think it's the accounting that is incompetent.
Actually maybee they took the niche of the niche to gage the market for hh more accurately?
Possibly, possibly not. The Contemptor Kit is super posable, but has tabs to ensure even and idiot (HI!) can get a decent post with minimal worry.
Clip those off and you get serious options.
Cerastus could go either way, but I’d hope for the latter. Because it’s easier to clip away some tabs, than carefully saw through a more solid non-joint to free up the legs/
Think I saw somewhere that it has some range but I can't find it now. Regardless, chopping up and reposing it won't be that hard and the material upgrade is worth it for a loss of posing IMO. It might not do some of the more crazy poses as easily but the wallet hole will be smaller.
Nah, thats a fairly backward step - i've done four resin Cerastus and they were an absolute joy to assemble.
Like, i wish every kit i got from FW was as flawless as any of my Cerastus knights.
The leg position conversion on the Questoris is a bit of a pita - nothing i can't handle (done 6 so far) but i would not expect anyone but already competent modelers to handle a Questoris knight leg re-pose without pre-made replacement parts.
I admit mine aren't perfect but they're good enough.to not look particularly weird.
Not denying the FW Cerastus posing is good, what I am saying is that losing some of that posing for a superior material and a price drop is worth it. All the Cerastus currently sit at £225 and I think when I considered getting an Acheron some time ago it was still about £180. Considering the price difference between the current Heresy plastic kits and their original counterparts, I'll take less posing and a significantly reduced price.
I mean prior to the release of the plastic Spartan it was sitting at around £120. Its now £70 from GW and a little under £60 at my local FLGS.
The current Cerastus are, as noted previously £225. I'd say they'll at least drop to £150 considering the next biggest Knight is the Dominus chassis at £110 from GW. Is it cheap? God no but for a model that size I wouldn't expect it to be. Is it a significant price drop? Absolutely.
Not Online!!! wrote: How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?
That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?
40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?
I don't know what you all think accountants in retail businesses do, but as someone that spent a considerable amount of their career as an accountant in retail businesses in the UK (specifically in FP&A, which actually requires understanding the wider of the products and market), it isn't what various people here are suggesting.
These decisions are taken by buyers/merchandisers/marketing/product managers depending on the exact structure/naming convention of the business, usually to preset internal benchmarks on rate of return and profitability, which would have been decided at board/senior management level, with perhaps some guiding analysis from the finance team on the implications of setting it at different levels has for profitability, and authority levels agreed by the board for sign off required to deviate below those presets.
Not Online!!! wrote: How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?
That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?
40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?
I don't know what you all think accountants in retail businesses do, but as someone that spent a considerable amount of their career as an accountant in retail businesses in the UK (specifically in FP&A, which actually requires understanding the wider of the products and market), it isn't what various people here are suggesting.
These decisions are taken by buyers/merchandisers/marketing/product managers depending on the exact structure/naming convention of the business, usually to preset internal benchmarks on rate of return and profitability, which would have been decided at board/senior management level, with perhaps some guiding analysis from the finance team on the implications of setting it at different levels has for profitability, and authority levels agreed by the board for sign off required to deviate below those presets.
It's more that nobody can come up with a good explanation of exactly why they decided to release another plastic knight when we actually ask for a whole bunch of other, simpler stuff.
At least someone from accounts realizing the companies sales need to look better in a certain quarter makes some degree of sense in the way it lacks any deeper understanding of what the players have been demanding/expecting for a literal decade now.
Why the Cerastus Knight Lancer over assault infantry?
1. They wanted to. This is best reason, but I can propose others.
2. Cerastus Knight Lancer is but a single kit. Needs just one person to stick it through the Rubicon Plasticarus. This may have been easier than normal thanks to the existing file for AT Cerastus Knight Lancers. Whilst not simply “stick that through the Resizograph”, it’s still better than going from scratch.
3. Assault Infantry? Well, first you start with the bodies. Then a jump pack. Than the weapons, for the basic kit teased. We’ve also seen promise of plastic melee weapons to come. Now all that could be a single sculptor still, but it could be multiple sculptors. In terms of production, you need to make lots and lots and lots of those, because they’re gonna sell. But being multiple SKU’s, that requires different production slots. The CKL? Single SKU, simplifying it somewhat.
4. CKL opens things up somewhat for the game as a whole. Someone with an existing Knight army can now Heresificate it quite nicely. Heresy players previously tempted but put off by price tag/big resin kits being less pleasant now have a bigger hook appealing to them.
5. GW know their market far better than we do, because they have data we simply don’t.
6. CKL is almost certainly, like the Rhino chassis, going to be a base kit. Going forward, you can do the others on as little as one Big Sprue. That’s a cheap outlay, for another *Insert Price When We Know It* in GW’s trousers.
I will argue that every step of the production process except injection machine time is utterly trivial for GW. Lone artists have no issue churning out multiple full unit kits per month on a 10$ patreon. And injection machine time, funnily, is the one that CLK eats up way more than an Assault Squad since it's a lot more different sprues to make one box.
The only two convincing arguments I've heard are
a) they are so out of touch they don't even know which units players actually need
b) someone very clever sneaked a big 40k seller into 30k budget to pad our numbers and get more funding for HH next financial season
As for production? They have finite casting resources. Even with every machine they own, running at peak efficiency across 24 hour shifts with minimal downtime for cleaning, maintenance what have you, it’s still finite.
And they’re not just producing for Horus Heresy, or something coming out for any game in the next few months.
AoS, 40K. Kill Team, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus, Blood Bowl, Aeronautica, Underworlds, War Cry. All have production demands. And new stuff has to be cast up well in advance, so you can meet your release schedule as much as possible.
Every new release puts fresh pressure on that production schedule. Should anything sell in higher than expected numbers, you then need to find time to get another run done, and boxes for shelves printed in some cases.
Yes, that's literally what I said. And a Knight eats up more machine time, and more importantly, machine downtime because it's probably going to be somewhere upwards of 5 different tools that you have to swap out versus a single tool for an infantry unit.
As for production? They have finite casting resources. Even with every machine they own, running at peak efficiency across 24 hour shifts with minimal downtime for cleaning, maintenance what have you, it’s still finite.
And they’re not just producing for Horus Heresy, or something coming out for any game in the next few months.
AoS, 40K. Kill Team, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus, Blood Bowl, Aeronautica, Underworlds, War Cry. All have production demands. And new stuff has to be cast up well in advance, so you can meet your release schedule as much as possible.
Every new release puts fresh pressure on that production schedule. Should anything sell in higher than expected numbers, you then need to find time to get another run done, and boxes for shelves printed in some cases.
The whole academic field of Operations Research and Supply Chain Management literally does nothing else than optimize machine usage, warehousing, distribution and so forth all day long. Because it turns out that these are really hard problems, even with modern computerized systems, and even for relatively small setups. GW has a pretty complex setup, as they have multiple product lines, international and regionally distinct supply chains for all sorts of component and raw materials, highly coupled material streams (need your boxes, your sprues and your booklets all at the assembly line etc.), classical transport problems and such for their sweet, sweet simultaneous worldwide launch, and on top of that financial vagaries like exchange rate risk and such. This is not your little mom&pop shop that can ignore 90% of that because they're churning out Patreon stuff on their garage full of printers, effectively paying themselves a sub-mandatory minimum wage and probably breaking all sorts of workplace safety laws which is only not a problem because they're not big enough that anyone whose job it is to care has them on their radar...
Anyway, as you said, without a lot of the data they're relying on we literally can't say what they're on about, but theories that 'the accountants' shift stuff like that around willy-nilly to 'sneak a 40k seller into 30k' or something like that are laughable, and ultimately rely on an idea about how corporate product planning works that's stuck somehwere between the early 50s and The Simpsons.
Tsagualsa wrote: Anyway, as you said, without a lot of the data they're relying on we literally can't say what they're on about, but theories that 'the accountants' shift stuff like that around willy-nilly to 'sneak a 40k seller into 30k' or something like that are laughable, and ultimately rely on an idea about how corporate product planning works that's stuck somehwere between the early 50s and The Simpsons.
Except we know from first hand accounts like James Hewitt's that GW office politics work exactly like the caricature of dumb corpo management.
Tsagualsa wrote: Anyway, as you said, without a lot of the data they're relying on we literally can't say what they're on about, but theories that 'the accountants' shift stuff like that around willy-nilly to 'sneak a 40k seller into 30k' or something like that are laughable, and ultimately rely on an idea about how corporate product planning works that's stuck somehwere between the early 50s and The Simpsons.
Except we know from first hand accounts like James Hewitt's that GW office politics work exactly like the caricature of dumb corpo management.
I fail to see how his experiences are relevant today:
I’ve worked for Games Workshop three times in my life. The first two of those were in retail. I was recruited to work at GW Maidstone in 2002, and after several shop moves, I left GW Reading in 2008 because I felt I was being repeatedly passed over for management training. I came back a year later as a trainee store manager, ran the Windsor and Kensington branches after completing my training, and left in 2011. In 2014 I was hired as a Rules Writer in the GW Publications studio; I transferred to Specialist Brands in 2016, and left to set up Needy Cat Games in 2017.
No disrespect to him as a person, but his experience as a store clerk and manager is not relevant at all for product planning issues, and his two years as rules writer are probably neither. What remains is a stint at Specialist Brands (i.e. what commonly still gets called Forgeworld, and is a subsidiary to the main production line) of 1-2 years, at least 6 years ago.
He was hired to the studio at the tail end of the 'Kirby era', and in the meantime they have changed a lot of things, among them whole new facilities for production and the implementation of a new, modern ERP system (which is still ongoing and troubled, unfortunately not uncommon for these things as these are very complex systems) which is literally what you do when you want to move away from 'cartoon management'. His experiences are just severely outdated.
I fail to see how his experiences are relevant today:
How about that lady who quit over toxic office politics a year or two ago and GW got a hit piece on her published in the Guardian, that's definitely the reaction of a healthy management.
I fail to see how his experiences are relevant today:
How about that lady who quit over toxic office politics a year or two ago and GW got a hit piece on her published in the Guardian, that's definitely the reaction of a healthy management.
I fail to see how his experiences are relevant today:
How about that lady who quit over toxic office politics a year or two ago and GW got a hit piece on her published in the Guardian, that's definitely the reaction of a healthy management.
I am not aware of that at all, can you give me a link?
"Hit piece" might have been overdramatized but they seriously did somehow push a damage control article in the Guardian within days of her going public to the tone of "some ex employees are whinging but they are just giant doo doo heads, look we're paying out a bonus this year"
"Hit piece" might have been overdramatized but they seriously did somehow push a damage control article in the Guardian within days of her going public to the tone of "some ex employees are whinging but they are just giant doo doo heads, look we're paying out a bonus this year"
Okay, so they did an article in the Guardian for damage control, with no evidence they paid for it is what it boils down to? I'm reading up on that thread, but it will take some time.
You can't even link the actual part of the thread that is supposedly relevant to your claim. Sounds even more unlikely, especially considering you've already backtracked.
Gert wrote: You can't even link the actual part of the thread that is supposedly relevant to your claim. Sounds even more unlikely, especially considering you've already backtracked.
I'm not that familiar with the UK press landscape, but afaik the Guardian is considered somewhat leftist, innit? Would they be game for publishing paid corporate hitpieces about a labour dispute?
Well, I'd usually not stoop so low as to link a professional outrage monger, but seems like most other evidence was scrubbed
Nah, sorry, my personal interest stops here. We started out theorizing about their internal managing processes and the lack of coordination therein, and now are already multiple layers deep in outrage-mongering, personal gripes, unspecific complaints about corporate culture and employee mistreatment that we can ultimately neither prove nor disprove, and sleuthing around for apparently deleted stuff from the internet that may or may not be just another heap of anecdotes.
I have no doubt that their treatment of creatives leaves a lot to be desired (that's a sorry standard for creatives almost everywhere in the industry) and probably sucks even more than the already very low industry standard, but i still fail to see how that relates to current-year ressource and production planning - it just is mostly a non-sequitur, outside of general arguments like 'Their corporate culture ist bad' which again, to me, is rather weak as relating to concrete production and distribution issues.
I'd suggest we end this derail here on the common ground of 'We can not be sure, and will probably never know'.
It was you who brought the subtopic of corpo management up as some sort of counter to the theory that someone could put what they knew would be a big seller to 40k players into the 30k production queue to pad 30k's bottom line, so whatever. I understand that no amount of anecdotal evidence will outweigh your baseless personal imagination of the inner workings of GW.
(we already knew about the Vindicator and I insist the Cerastus is a 
