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The new plastic kits always look vastly worse than the old Forge World resin versions. (not really talking about vehicles here, they've been generally pretty 1 to 1, and i don't think it's a nolstagia thing because i only started collecting HH mid-late 1.0)
Compare the old Rapier platforms to the new ones, the old MKIII Breachers to the new ones, the old Assault squads to the new ones, the Solar Auxilia infantry comes to mind too. The list goes on & on. We went from a gritty/realistic, well proportioned, Imperial Armour vibe, to really cartoon, chunky, amatuer looking sculpts.
They replaced the old Armour Through The Ages range (including the plastic MKIII and MKIV) that were all compatible and infinitely customizable,(with loads of resin upgrade kits to choose from) with the new plastic infantry with their overly long legs & boring mono-poses.
I've been noticing also how comically oversized some of the plastic weapons are now too. Did all the old competent sculptors/designers leave or something? I was watching the reveal stream and it basically devolved into "look how much bigger these new miniatures are wow" is that all people care about? The Saturnine stuff looks like something out of 40k to me.
Tons of really cool FW upgrades and resin kits gone OOP over the years. Every choice seems like such a downgrade from 1.0 to me. It's so bizarre.

Not to mention incoming large rules changes, I haven't even filled in all the 2.0 black books on my shelf yet (missing two) now i got to replace them all already? with what looks like to me, potentially bloated unnessecary changes.

Bit of a rant, but does anyone else feel the same?

Replacing 3 year old books is certainly a money grab for the sake of money grab and I don't expect 3.0 to be any better than 2.0

But new proportions for Marines are nicer, I just wish they updated more at the same time as half and half armies look terrible.

And I vastly preferred the old Mk2/3 legs with overlapping plates.

Hi.

Welcome to the earliest moment.

Trepidation is understandable. Worry is reasonable.

But judgement has to be withheld right now, on account of a quite staggering lack of evidence and indeed context.

Models wise? Plastic is always superior to Resin. Cheaper. Easier to work with. Not a carcinogen.

The model updates have been a mixed bag for me, the Thallax turned out good...the tech thralls not as much with their goofy legs. I do have some issues with how the newer mk II and III look. The mk II has almost zero helmet variation, they could've done subtle changes like they used to have with the plastic mk IV helmets.

Some of the new artwork looks like a cheaper produced imitation of the old black books artwork which had way better texturing and coloring.

If they are adding complexity to the game without simplifying things elsewhere we could end up with an incomprehensible ruleset.

I'm going to reserve judgment until I can see more rules.

I was hoping for some more streamlined rules, but this isn't it. But it might be a better game. Just give it time to be released before giving up on it.

Couldn't the campaigns from 2.0 books still be played with new rules?

Luke1993 wrote:
The new plastic kits always look vastly worse than the old Forge World resin versions. (not really talking about vehicles here, they've been generally pretty 1 to 1, and i don't think it's a nolstagia thing because i only started collecting HH mid-late 1.0)
Compare the old Rapier platforms to the new ones, the old MKIII Breachers to the new ones, the old Assault squads to the new ones, the Solar Auxilia infantry comes to mind too. The list goes on & on. We went from a gritty/realistic, well proportioned, Imperial Armour vibe, to really cartoon, chunky, amatuer looking sculpts.

I’m really not seeing this at all. The FW resin infantry models always looked pretty average to me, with odd proportions and in many cases pretty poor detail. And often badly mis-cast. The designs had a lot of good visual ideas, but FW was ultimately too hit-and-miss (and too expensive). And I’ve seen plenty of examples of gritty, ‘realistic’ takes on the plastic models.

It’s ultimately subjective, but maybe you’re judging a bit too quickly? And remember a lot of stuff looks better in real life than it does in GW’a initial promotional photos.

The problem so far has been the additional expense to use the Zone Mortalis rules, which covers smaller games. A large collection of 28mm scale models isn't for everyone, and a player shouldn't have to buy two expensive hardbacks just to play a small game, that basically does away with anything larger than a Dreadnought.

In that regard one is far better off with an alternative ruleset such as Xenos Rampant or the 30K fan mod for Kill Team. Otherwise Legions Imperialis makes more sense for representing the epic conflict of the 30K era.

It would also help if there was a melee marine kit that didn't require the additional purchase of an upgrade kit.

Gotta Love GW what does the community want? Lets do the opposite.

Yet, we keep paying them

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yet, we keep paying them

Sofar i wont. 8 months is too low a shelflive for a book, hence i will now approach other means.

Maybe that's why HH has layout so bad it will ruin western civilization. Piracy protection. The rules are too scattered to photocopy or use on a tablet effectively.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Maybe that's why HH has layout so bad it will ruin western civilization. Piracy protection. The rules are too scattered to photocopy or use on a tablet effectively.

Hopefully that nightmare will be over....

At least it can't get any worse.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Couldn't the campaigns from 2.0 books still be played with new rules?

Pretty much.

Hell, you can play the campaigns / missions from the Black Books in 2.0. Some missions require very minor changes (usually pretty basic stuff like adjusting an effect that's meant to interact with psychic tests), but most of them just work with 0 alterations.

EDIT:

Personally, I'll be buying the books for the new edition; and probably a starter box + a handful of models. Most of my gak is already made & waiting for paint, or is a future project I have everything but printed parts for.

I remain cautiously optimistic that Covid threw a monkey wrench in GW's plans and forced a kind of lite edition out the door, 2.0, to keep gak flowing and tide stuff over. With the generous leaning that 3.0 is more along the lines of what 2.0 was supposed to be, and will be around for more than just 3 years.

If that proves wrong? Then what I buy in 3.0 will be the last heresy products I purchase from GW, and all future consumption will come in the form of books on primary rule books on the secondary market / pirated rules, and giving my money to 3rd party producers / printers.

I won't be buying into the new edition immediately as life has chosen now to throw a box full of assorted marbles, thumbtacks and lego pieces in my path, which will mean no significantly big purchases for a while at least.
But this will work in my favour as I'll have time to let the dust settle and see whether the new edition is something I want to pick up or not. I'm sure I'll find somewhere to get the book so that I can give it a peruse in the mean time.

There's already been rumbling and ideas put forth in the local heresy pages about a potential community driven 2.5 edition combining the best of 1st and 2nd eds. if 3rd isn't to our liking. So all hope's not lost, even if 3rd is a total flop.

I certainly would like to see more before making a decision. The damage stat is a little concerning, but perhaps they'll be removing instant death and brutal then replacing it with DMG. Just hope DMG dosen't overflow to push the idea of a tool for a job and no real ultra weapon. And that we don't lose Armour Value on tanks, I hate them feeling like big monstrous creatures. Same with dreads honestly, shame the dread didn't have markers on it's base to delineate armour facing.

I mentioned this in the N&R thread, but a 3 year cycle is wrong for HH. 5 years is more reasonable. As a "historical" game, we don't have tournaments, we have events. We don't need constant churning of rules. We don't need constant codex updates.

I'd be happy with just balance patches and a campaign book here or there "indefinitely" (10ish years, like MESBG and HH 1.0). You can still do cleaned up books with new starter sets every so often. A 3 year cycle signifies GW's own resignation that they can't write rules good enough to retain a player base for longer than it takes to paint an army.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'd be happy with just balance patches and a campaign book here or there "indefinitely" (10ish years, like MESBG and HH 1.0). You can still do cleaned up books with new starter sets every so often. A 3 year cycle signifies GW's own resignation that they can't write rules good enough to retain a player base for longer than it takes to paint an army.

This, thanks.

If need be, release a balance patch for free all years atleast once, playtest it publicly if need be to outsource it for say 3 months twice, and every 3 - 4 years release an updated rulebook with criticism taken into account.
Problem solved, still potential sales and making players far less angry then this.

Is there any evidence that HH is getting updated to a new edition every 3 years?

Speculation based on both 40k and AoS doing the same thing and a general displeasure at the choice for 3rd to even be a thing in the first place.

It's the cycle for "main systems" and the annual statement messaging is that HH is a "main system".

It's been speculated on for a while and unfortunately it's rung true.

 Gert wrote:
Speculation based on both 40k and AoS doing the same thing and a general displeasure at the choice for 3rd to even be a thing in the first place.

It's the cycle for "main systems" and the annual statement messaging is that HH is a "main system".

It's been speculated on for a while and unfortunately it's rung true.

Oh, thanks for the update. I didn't know that HH had been promoted to a main system.

My enthusiasm is dampened slightly. (But I play Knights, so it can't get any worse!)

It was first mentioned back when HH2 was released (or potentially just prior) that HH was seemingly being considered as a main system in the GW annual report/review thing.

This was what many took as the first sign but then things went well for a bit.

Now, here we are.

Yes, it was something like "our three settings" or "our three IPs"

This was before TOW, mind

Outside of the possible meta existential threat of trying to turn 30k into 40k I'm more worried about little things. For example a heavy support squad the sergeant can also have a heavy weapon but what if in 3rd they can't? Now I have to make a whole new sergeant and that could take hours. HOURS!

there are 3 main games, 2 of them having a 3 year cycle for a while now and the 3rd just joined the ranks 3 years ago an now gets a new edition
it was obvious that HH get a new Edition this year 3 years ago, people have just hoped that it won't happen

same as now people hope that TOW is another main game and the cycle for all games will shift to 4 years now (and not 40k getting a new one next year but TOW)

I went back through their annual and half-yearly reports for the last few years and couldn’t find a reference to 3 year edition cycles. But HH definitely got ‘promoted’, and they definitely have high expectations of the financial return on the release of a new edition.

It's not mentioned as explicitly getting a 3 year cycle but it is mentioned as a main system and the other 2 are on 3 year cycles, and now we have it getting a new edition after 3 years.

Is it an assumption that it will stay the same going forward? Yes. But that assumption is based on good information.

I’d say it’s a safe assumption.

I suppose we can hope that, having got all of their premier games onto the churn roundabout, GW will slow the actual release cycle down a bit. It doesn't have to be 3 years.

I'm glad I didn't buy the rest of the army books for this edition. I was intending to get the Mechanicum book, but the rumours of a new edition put me off. I wonder how carefully GW have analysed the rewards of frequent releases of new editions of a game versus the loss of revenue from people holding back from purchases as an edition reaches its expiry date.