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Neat, but Black Reach is...boring.

 Alpharius wrote:
Knights would probably be as big as the could/should go?

But I'd love to see Superheavies in there, like Baneblades and the like.

I don't think any of those would be a problem. In Shadows of Normandie there are larger monster tiles going all the way up to Cthulhu, who is a 5x4 square beast of a thing. That is probably about the size you'd want for a warhound?

For the rules, the core HoN rules are being rewritten and proofed by an american writer, due for full release in the next month or two. I suspect he's also been working on these at the same time

I'll be interested to see if they are also planning Journals for this in the same way they are currently for Hon and are planning for SoN. These journals are (sort of) quarterly and include some new scenarios as well as at least one new set of tiles and occasionally a poster map to use for the scenario. This could be really neat for introducing extra new units and characters to the game, especially Forge World stuff.

I'm not sure, but this may have just derailed the plan to get back into 40k proper...

Thank you for that info on the rules, endtransmission. I've owned HoN and SoN for awhile, but never played them.

If the rules are easier/more intuitive, it'll be great.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Gah! Why Ultramarines though?

Does this question even need to be asked these days? Ultramarines are the main customer-facing brand for Space Marines and 40K as a whole, and have been for years and years.

Not only that, it's called Black Reach, which is something they've done before.

Man, that was a great starter. No sculpted chapter symbols like Derp Vengeance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've had my eye on Shadows of Normandie for ages, but now I'll wait for this (assuming it is in fact a board game and not a computer game - they've done a digital Heroes of Normandie adaptation. And it's fine but i'd rather have the tabletop version)

Have wanted this since I first played Heroes of Normandie a couple years ago.

I'm a bit surprised the news of a DPG and GW partnership wasn't bigger news or announced earlier. Tho maybe it'll be addressed later. This could potentially be huge for DPG as they appear to be more focused on self-publishing their games. Kudos to them.

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:
I'm a bit surprised the news of a DPG and GW partnership wasn't bigger news or announced earlier. Tho maybe it'll be addressed later. This could potentially be huge for DPG as they appear to be more focused on self-publishing their games. Kudos to them.

On the other hand, I'm surprised how quick this is coming around - The FFG/GW deal ending was only announced in September 2016 (IIRC) and Assault on Black Reach is ready to roll out in June?

Ancient Otter wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:
I'm a bit surprised the news of a DPG and GW partnership wasn't bigger news or announced earlier. Tho maybe it'll be addressed later. This could potentially be huge for DPG as they appear to be more focused on self-publishing their games. Kudos to them.

On the other hand, I'm surprised how quick this is coming around - The FFG/GW deal ending was only announced in September 2016 (IIRC) and Assault on Black Reach is ready to roll out in June?

Yea, it's like they were working on it behind the scenes because they new they were going to end the other deal......

Yeah, I'm pretty sure both sides knew they were done more than 6 months before the announcement.

A couple of snippets from the DPG forums

- 19th of June is not the release date (apparently), but we will find out more soon. It sounds more like the preorder date, which makes a bit more sense with the short notice

- The scale will be the same as HoN, so the boards will be compatible. A space marine tile will be three figures; so a full squad will be three infantry tiles and one officer tile

Please let them be mechanically compatible with Heroes of Normandie. Like I mentioned before, that would give three unique "Imperial Guard" armies right off the bat.

Hello everybody,

I am Axel the community manager of Devil Pig games. I am here to give answers to questions or thinking you have ;-)

I'm a bit surprised the news of a DPG and GW partnership wasn't bigger news or announced earlier. Tho maybe it'll be addressed later. This could potentially be huge for DPG as they appear to be more focused on self-publishing their games. Kudos to them.

We spoke with Games Workshop many months ago, but we signed the contract only one week ago. So that's why we cannot say anything before ;-) But we have already begun to work on before, in order to show what we can do!

If the rules are easier/more intuitive, it'll be great.

The main idea of the rules won't change, but we will work more with american editor to make the best rules we can. A big part of the job was done with the rules compendium for Heroes of Normandie and Shadows over Normandie. We will keep a part of this job and add new rules or modify existing rules in order to adapt the Heroes System Tactical Scale (HSTS) to the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

For the rules, the core HoN rules are being rewritten and proofed by an american writer, due for full release in the next month or two. I suspect he's also been working on these at the same time

The idea behind the Compendium is to have a core set of rules which represent the HSTS that we can use anew in other universe, in order that people who knows Heroes of Normandie (HoN) may play easily to Heroes of Black Reach for example, they have only to learn some rules belongign to this new universe ;-)

I'll be interested to see if they are also planning Journals for this in the same way they are currently for Hon and are planning for SoN. These journals are (sort of) quarterly and include some new scenarios as well as at least one new set of tiles and occasionally a poster map to use for the scenario. This could be really neat for introducing extra new units and characters to the game, especially Forge World stuff.

I will be honest, publishing Gazette quaterly was a disaster. We cannot keep the rythm. So, we won't do that again, but we keep the possibility to use anew the format (1 booklet with one or two punchboards, with or without poster map).

Stormonu wrote:
Gah! Why Ultramarines though?
It'd be great if they expand it out for other races/chapters, but if it uses the HoN system, won't be hard to make our own units.

H.B.M.C wrote:
Does this question even need to be asked these days? Ultramarines are the main customer-facing brand for Space Marines and 40K as a whole, and have been for years and years.
Not only that, it's called Black Reach, which is something they've done before.

You are totally right, Ultramarines is the army the most bought. Personnaly I prefer Blood Angels ;-) So, the most common battle between Ultramarines and Orks is Black Reach. Don't worry, we have already ideas to develop more chapters or army ;-)

akes sense for GW to partner with a smaller, in comparison to FFG, company. More appreciation both ways in what is being brought to the collaboration.

Yes, we hope to make a win-win collaboration with Games Workshop ^^

Knights would probably be as big as the could/should go?

But I'd love to see Superheavies in there, like Baneblades and the like.

We have already made 2x2 spaces unit or Cthulhu with its 4x5 spaces. So the HSTS manages movement of big units without any problem. And if we want to make special vehicles on which you can play more than one activation token, one per weapons, no problem ;-) We can imagine too to have tanks/ titan who can move their cannon independently of the direction it moves, we have already imagined it for the Panzerkampfwagen VI Königstiger (Word War 2), but we haven't already release it.
The HSTS can rules all these new ideas, we have just to add them, not like a patch, but like an improvement.

Only bummer is if it does too good a job at relegating HoN to the back-shelf, as I already own a couple hundred bucks worth of it. At least the boards and terrain overlays will hopefully be compatible with the 40k tokens.

I confirm there will be a compatibility ;-)

The only stepping stone will be the notoriously bad DPG rules translations, but those are getting better. Even the 'bad' rules translations are more newbie friendly than 40k lately. I taught my 63 year old father in one setting.

The most unpleasant was that we worked with profesionnals (English native)... Happily, the Compendium was corrected by an american editor who plays to our game system ;-) But we will work hard to well translate the game system rules and improve it all along the development.


I will go regularly here to answer your questions (I will try to come once per week at least ;-) We have our forums too with a great moderator, Nostradunwhich, who will be happy to give you informations about our game system ;-)

Axel

Thanks for dropping by and answering questions!

I'm really looking forward to this game.

Great to see another company here on Dakka

Way to go - you got the ball rolling at just the right speed.
Excited to see how this turns out, really hopeful here.

All I gotta say is.....nice.

I can't imagine a product for Heroes of Black Reach I wouldn't buy. My first love is 40K miniatures, but damn it's a pain painting both forces to get anyone to play with. One of my buddies is a strict non-miniatures gamer, but he had tons of fun playing Heroes of Normandie with me.

Welcome aboard Axel, and thanks for the updates.

Way to go - you got the ball rolling at just the right speed.
Excited to see how this turns out, really hopeful here.

The next update should be for after the UK Games Expo ;-) We will use the next months, to show you new templates, new recruitment tiles, to explain the game to those who haven't already played. We have a lot of informations to transmit ;-)

I can't imagine a product for Heroes of Black Reach I wouldn't buy. My first love is 40K miniatures, but damn it's a pain painting both forces to get anyone to play with. One of my buddies is a strict non-miniatures gamer, but he had tons of fun playing Heroes of Normandie with me.

Personnaly, I am a bad painter, that's why I never began to jump in hobby. But, an army well painted is so beautiful! When Heroes of Normandie appeared (I didn't work for Devil Pig Games and Yann&Clem at this moment), I knew this was the moment I could jump in wargames with pleasure, especially because I found the game system very cool! Now that we are developping the system for Warhammer 40,000, I am so excited that I work during bank holiday (yesterday) and longer week-end (today) :-D

Axel (can't wait to show you more!)

If GW can't commit the production to bringing back full Epic (with infantry etc...) I seriously hope Devil Pig will pitch them on this system becoming its stand in.

I LOVE HoN, and would buy every army they possibly released.

Same here!

I'd still love EPIC with actual miniatures, but if GW sticks to the 'Titans Only' thing, this might be the closest we'll get!

And in all reality, it's about 75% of the way there. For the uninitiated, I'd liken it to maybe a 10-15mm scale Epic. The forces represented in a usual game of HoN are maybe halfway between a normal 40k game and a 40K Apocalypse game, but if it was one played without superheavies or titans. Those are theoretically possible, but with how the Heroes game engine works they'd be really damn powerful.

I love that any given unit's shooting or hand to hand only needs a single D6 rolled, though, and a quick D6 roll for vehicle damage locations.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
And in all reality, it's about 75% of the way there. For the uninitiated, I'd liken it to maybe a 10-15mm scale Epic. The forces represented in a usual game of HoN are maybe halfway between a normal 40k game and a 40K Apocalypse game, but if it was one played without superheavies or titans. Those are theoretically possible, but with how the Heroes game engine works they'd be really damn powerful.

I love that any given unit's shooting or hand to hand only needs a single D6 rolled, though, and a quick D6 roll for vehicle damage locations.

Its only 'epic' scale in that a standard infantry unit token is supposed to represent several men...but when it comes to the actual size of the game, at least based on my experience with the HoN ipad game, you're still looking at 'armies' that are smaller than most tournament 40K games.

So I don't think of this as really a way to play 'epic' without miniatures, but rather more of a way to play 40K without miniatures that utilize some conventions (such as having infantry units as a single entity) to accomplish that.

One of the main advantage of the Heroes System Tactical Scale is'that you can make skirmish (250 army points) or bigger battle (1000 army points). Whatever you choose, you will be always limited by your orders, you won't be able to give more than 10 orders (Heroes of Normandie), so you won't make more than 10 attacks during one turn, and a game finished at the eight turn often.

Some gaming club made giant battle with 6 to 10 players with big armies on the same battleground. Here is the two biggest:

Rencontres ludiques de bretagne

https://www.devil-pig-games.com/forum/?action=viewtopic&t=9001.1 only in french sorry

Aftermath gaming club

https://www.devil-pig-games.com/en/une-partie-dheroes-of-normandie-gigantesque/

Maybe I just play larger games, as we usually use at least a battlefield of 3x4 tiles (about 3x4 feet) and 500-600+ points with High Command units for the buffs they can be given. I need to get St. Mere Eglise to add urban sections and bring my battlefields up to 3x6, and when the Battlefield #2 pack comes out I can easily do 4x6 foor maps.

Seems like anyone who was registered on the DPG site before the 10/07/2017 gets to pre-order before the general public:

https://www.devil-pig-games.com/en/8951-2/

Public pre-orders start in September, the game is due for release in March 2018.

I really enjoy their game system - it is a lot of fun.

BUT...those prices...

...wow!

I guess the GW license is pretty expensive?

That does seem pricey...will have to pass on the pre-order and wait to see how it plays with some independent review's.

If their WWII version is anything to go by, it will play just fine and be a lot of fun!

Just have to get past the buy in cost here...

Will this be coming to retail? Sorry if that's answered in the first sentence of the release in 87 point font

Yes, it will be available at 'retail'.

Now whether or not that means you'll be able to pick it up at your FLGS or your FOGS?

Who knows!

But it will be available directly from Devil Pig later on too.

Price looks about in line to match the HoN version. I definately want this, but with it not being out until 2018, I'll be waiting until it reaches my local online discounter (unless they're offering a discount as part of the preorder?).