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As a person who was interested in Horus Heresy...I'll add what I see and why HH may be in a rough spot with new players.

1) Immensely dislike 7th edition style rules. That's fine, I could do with the fan-made 8th edition rules...but this doesn't help.
2) Dislike Forgeworld resin. I could cope with some if the HH plastic boxes were still available for "most" of my basic infantry needs, etc. I've recently kit-bashed a Typhon and I could "stomach" some more....but this doesn't help.
3) Zero environment for it locally. However this is the US and that's just hit or miss.
4) If I was going to stomach the occasional Forgeworld resin piece...that ended with the price bump.
5) The uncertain future/direction is a huge turn off.

I like the Horus Heresy, read most of the first 20 novels, etc. Big fan, but there are so many impediments to even considering starting to play it, and I feel like I'm not alone. Hell almost my entire CSM Renegade army is Horus Heresy era vehicles, infantry, dreadnoughts, but I still don't see a comfortable, sane way to get into the game. Selling the idea to my friends is even more implausible.

"So there's this cool version of Warhammer, but it's resin only...expensive as hell...using old rules which may or may not change, expensive rulebooks, and part of the model range hasn't been done yet...sound good?" It's a tough damn sell.

I mean. I honestly can't see those selling well at all when a plethora of companies make alternatives that are cheaper and more affordable.

 Elbows wrote:
Hell almost my entire CSM Renegade army is Horus Heresy era vehicles, infantry, dreadnoughts, but I still don't see a comfortable, sane way to get into the game. Selling the idea to my friends is even more implausible.

"So there's this cool version of Warhammer, but it's resin only...expensive as hell...using old rules which may or may not change, expensive rulebooks, and part of the model range hasn't been done yet...sound good?" It's a tough damn sell.

I have two armies for Horus Heresy:
1) Iron Warriors being made slowly on 4 boxes of BaC and 1 BoP.
and
2) Word Bearers made from all kind of plastics i had stored from all those years. Various bits like Chaos Marines, Dark vengeance plastics, Helbrutes, etc. I only swap bolters and helms. Lots of greenstuff. Looks quite HH to me.

Me and a friend have just made the plunge into 30k, and both got our "starter sets" of FW resin down at Warhammer world this weekend. Also had a few interesting conversations down there so im quite optimistic that 30k is going to grow.

A couple of thoughts;

- BAC and BOP reached the end of their lifecycle and all of the components can be purchased separately (no doubt the SW and TS characters will get a release). With the steady stream of box sets being released, surely this had to be expected?

- The FW last chance to buy thing seems a little over-hyped, according to the gent behind the till in the FW store; just as many lines were discontinued in previous years.... they just didn't advertise it. And looking at the way the shelves are now layed out in there it certainly seems liek theres some strategy to whats being kept and whats being discontinued.

- If you have to "sell" 30k to somebody. Then its not for them. Its a game that's deep rooted in the fluff and the gaming side seems very much secondary to the hobby side. So if you dont know who Horus is or who the legions are... why wouldn't you just play normal 40k?

- Also on the above- The cost of models.... Theres nothing stopping you playing with a force comprising entirely of 40k plastic kits with a little modification, but when the aesthetic and theme come first it is worth the extra little bit of cash to get the justearin terminators over standard, or the contemptor over the standard dread etc. or just buy recast?

Pancakey wrote:
GW is currently dismantling 30k bit by bit.

The internal love affair for HH died with Alan I guess.

You can see and feel it.

Maybe where you are, but in WW there are a lot of people still playing it and they are still selling a lot.
The FW upgrades are getting purged because they take up a lot of space for what they are and they dont have enough room as it is.

 Rayvon wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
GW is currently dismantling 30k bit by bit.

The internal love affair for HH died with Alan I guess.

You can see and feel it.

Maybe where you are, but in WW there are a lot of people still playing it and they are still selling a lot.
The FW upgrades are getting purged because they take up a lot of space for what they are and they dont have enough room as it is.

Ha! Are you 'avin a laugh, mate? The site is a bloated nightmare to browse and navigate because they have duplicate product listings absolutely everywhere on practically every single page/category. It's utterly inefficient, unintuitive and a massive waste of space. If they sorted out their site and made it properly ordered and organised space wouldn't need to be an issue. Besides, they already gave their reasoning that it was poor sales/profits on the upgrade kits.

Yeah, integrating general legion options with legion specific options was a terrible decision. It felt like a clumsy attempt to increase sales, but no doubt inhibited them by having to scroll through pages of options.

Regarding sales space, whw is a warehouse, they can create whatever space they want.

sempthegreat wrote:
Heya

So, I've been thinking about Forgeworld, GW and The Horus Heresy game. With the discontinuing of many of the legion upgrade kits, Rhino doors, Betrayel of Calth, Prospero Burns etc. Do you think they are considering an exit strategy from the game after the next book drops? Personally I hope this isn't true, but I can't stop looking at the reality of what GW is doing.

/Discuss

Forge World had all of the Specialist Games dumped on them at the same time that Alan - the heart and soul of 30k - passed away. FW is just restructuring itself in the wake of these events.

The discontinued kits were not popular and not selling well. They eat up a lot of space in the warehouse that now needs to accommodate all of the FW stuff and, now, the Specialist Game stuff. If there is demand for the kits, then they will likely return for short print runs (which is the strategy that GW has used quite successfully with their old metal/resin kits).

Prospero and Calth were always going to have finite print runs. Big box sets filled with value have always been fleeting.

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
GW is currently dismantling 30k bit by bit.

The internal love affair for HH died with Alan I guess.

You can see and feel it.

Maybe where you are, but in WW there are a lot of people still playing it and they are still selling a lot.
The FW upgrades are getting purged because they take up a lot of space for what they are and they dont have enough room as it is.

Ha! Are you 'avin a laugh, mate? The site is a bloated nightmare to browse and navigate because they have duplicate product listings absolutely everywhere on practically every single page/category. It's utterly inefficient, unintuitive and a massive waste of space. If they sorted out their site and made it properly ordered and organised space wouldn't need to be an issue. Besides, they already gave their reasoning that it was poor sales/profits on the upgrade kits.

That's not what space means. They took up physical space too which is a waste if it's essentially junk.

Part of me feels that the table top is in a holding pattern until BL starts covering the actual Siege of Terra. I'm guessing GW wants those two to come out roughly at the same time.

Some clarification on the fiction side of things:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/19/the-siege-of-terra-secrets-revealedgw-homepage-post-2/

Looks like we'll get Siege of Terra as a big ending event and we'll know what will come after in November.

I would have thought that the logistics reorganization seen with the Memphis Forgeworld warehouse would have explained away much of people's concerns, but apparently not.

If they're really planning on winding down 30k, why would they have invested in US FW facilities when 30k is such a big chunk of Forgeworld's offering?

 Anfauglir wrote:

Ha! Are you 'avin a laugh, mate? The site is a bloated nightmare to browse and navigate because they have duplicate product listings absolutely everywhere on practically every single page/category. It's utterly inefficient, unintuitive and a massive waste of space. If they sorted out their site and made it properly ordered and organised space wouldn't need to be an issue. Besides, they already gave their reasoning that it was poor sales/profits on the upgrade kits.

I mean storage space at forgeworld, they take up a lot of space for what they are, packs of ten shoulder pads and they are some of the cheapest things they sell as well.
I am only repeating what I have been told at WW.

 jessagain wrote:
I would have thought that the logistics reorganization seen with the Memphis Forgeworld warehouse would have explained away much of people's concerns, but apparently not.

If they're really planning on winding down 30k, why would they have invested in US FW facilities when 30k is such a big chunk of Forgeworld's offering?

It's important to consider that they no longer need an actively supported 30K game to sell many '30K' kits. Quite a few kits can also can be used in 40K through the FW indices.

Other kits can't, and I agree that those will be sticking around for a while, especially with Malevolence on the way. But I don't think the HH rules system drives the bus at FW now like it once did. Specialist Games considerations had to have been a very important factor in the creation of the US FW facilities.

 jessagain wrote:
I would have thought that the logistics reorganization seen with the Memphis Forgeworld warehouse would have explained away much of people's concerns, but apparently not.

Forgeworld didn't bother to tell us that's the reason for discontinuing many kits, that's only our (admittedly logical) assumption.
And the associated ridiculous rise in prices doesn't help matters, either.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 jessagain wrote:
I would have thought that the logistics reorganization seen with the Memphis Forgeworld warehouse would have explained away much of people's concerns, but apparently not.

Forgeworld didn't bother to tell us that's the reason for discontinuing many kits, that's only our (admittedly logical) assumption.
And the associated ridiculous rise in prices doesn't help matters, either.

The company doesn't give an explanation, and they don't have to, the staff are ore than happy to talk about it though if you're not aggressive and don't start every conversation with "why are GW killing 30k? i demand answers, why didnt they inform me of such business decisions?, REE, REEEE"

If a kit isn't selling, their moulds are taking space up in a production facility, the old stock is taking up space in a warehouse and on the FW shelf and their part numbers etc are adding bloat to a system/website. So its cut.

With regards to some of the 30K stuff, its interesting in the actual FW shop that each legion now has a very similar offering- shoulder pads, dread, heads, vehicle upgrades- its all very uniform.

Could it just be that they are trying to strategise what they offer for each legion so as to not leave anybody out in future?

Process wrote:

The company doesn't give an explanation, and they don't have to, the staff are ore than happy to talk about it though if you're not aggressive and don't start every conversation with "why are GW killing 30k? i demand answers, why didnt they inform me of such business decisions?, REE, REEEE"

If a kit isn't selling, their moulds are taking space up in a production facility, the old stock is taking up space in a warehouse and on the FW shelf and their part numbers etc are adding bloat to a system/website. So its cut.

With regards to some of the 30K stuff, its interesting in the actual FW shop that each legion now has a very similar offering- shoulder pads, dread, heads, vehicle upgrades- its all very uniform.

Could it just be that they are trying to strategise what they offer for each legion so as to not leave anybody out in future?

The company doesn't have to give me an explanation, but I also don't have to buy anything from them. You would think that GW's change in approach to interacting with the community and the subsequent increase in sales would have given them a better game plan how to handle this situation. So for now they stay quiet and pretend that nothing has changed and I continue to not spend money on any on heresy products. While we speculate that some products don't sell and just take up space, we don't have any concrete information from the company to base that on. At the same time, re-casters continue to make money on those "low-sale" items and despite being small operations they somehow find room to store all these kits. My guess is that FW is so small in sales volume compared to regular GW departments that no one cares if they fail their sales goals and GW doesn't want to invest additional resources due to this negligence.

FW should just start buying recasted minis, repackage them and sell them. You get same quality quality after all from good recaster. Everyone is happy this way,lol
It's not like other companys moved their operations to China, and you end up buying made in China...
Recaster is suddenly workign for FW, FW is still getting that nice big piece of cake since they are selling kits with 300-400% markup if not more, players can still buy kits they want from FW, win win for everyone!

Always interesting reading posts by people that admit they don't play 30K or buy anything from Forge World and predict Doom and Gloom.

I don't think it is dead yet, but I can see it happening. I ran with three separate groups because there are some major US cities close to me. All of those groups have abandoned the game entirely.

8th edition is just a superior rules set, allowing for much more enjoyable games. It seems in my local groups everyone has jumped to AoS or back to 40K proper.

FW better do something quick or they might lose this war...

HH remaining stuck on 7E doesn't help things, that was the worst ruleset 40k ever had, and it makes it difficult to introduce new players already familiar with 8E when they have to learn an outdated ruleset.

Losing Alan has also obviously hurt, as have a number of other already mentioned factors, and it definitely feels like peak HH fever has come and gone. It also doesn't help that they've been working on the HH project since 5E and still havent fleshed out everything.

I suspect one of two things will happen with HH. It will either be allowed to slowly wither and fall off before getting scrapped in a few years, or itll get rolled into whatever ruleset 40k is using with some likely dramatically pared down faction/legion rules and rereleased down the road, but either way I dont expect the current iteration of HH will enjoy the support it once did.

 Togusa wrote:
I don't think it is dead yet, but I can see it happening. I ran with three separate groups because there are some major US cities close to me. All of those groups have abandoned the game entirely.

8th edition is just a superior rules set, allowing for much more enjoyable games. It seems in my local groups everyone has jumped to AoS or back to 40K proper.

FW better do something quick or they might lose this war...

Well, I love it when you bring this argument in some HH fb groups, how people become super defensive and tell you it's more lively than ever,lol, than tell you how 7th rule set is far superior than anything else, that 8th sucks and when told that most HH forums are barely alive anymore they just tell you, well people moved to FB groups because they are superior to forums. Good thing there is that 8th edition fan made rule set out there, not official but still good.
Worst thing that can happen is HH moving right to 8th and then 40k moving to 9th,tbh they should start slowly converting it to the 9th, because 8th edition ship has sailed, and by the time they would moved it to 8th, 8th would probably be finished or just about to be finished.

 Vaktathi wrote:
HH remaining stuck on 7E doesn't help things, that was the worst ruleset 40k ever had, and it makes it difficult to introduce new players already familiar with 8E when they have to learn an outdated ruleset.

Losing Alan has also obviously hurt, as have a number of other already mentioned factors, and it definitely feels like peak HH fever has come and gone. It also doesn't help that they've been working on the HH project since 5E and still havent fleshed out everything.

I suspect one of two things will happen with HH. It will either be allowed to slowly wither and fall off before getting scrapped in a few years, or itll get rolled into whatever ruleset 40k is using with some likely dramatically pared down faction/legion rules and rereleased down the road, but either way I dont expect the current iteration of HH will enjoy the support it once did.

Lot better than 8th and only needs good codexes to be better as HH showed. 8th ed is unbalanced mess that has reached even worse than 7th ed was while being illogical, unfun and you can't even play game to completition without house rules.

Is HH rules perfect? No. Nothing never is. But it's better than the unbalanced illogical mess that the 8th ed is

 smurfORnot wrote:


Well, I love it when you bring this argument in some HH fb groups, how people become super defensive and tell you it's more lively than ever,lol, than tell you how 7th rule set is far superior than anything else, that 8th sucks and when told that most HH forums are barely alive anymore they just tell you, well people moved to FB groups because they are superior to forums. Good thing there is that 8th edition fan made rule set out there, not official but still good.

Indeed. People love to lie to themselves.

However just because 8th is more popular at this moment doesnt mean its such a better rules system (yes, its less bloated and on less pages). What i like about Horus Heresy at the moment is that you can actually use normal infantry and Terminators. Terminators in 8th are almost non existant and normal infantry are only used as meat shields or combined with a very strong stratagems.

Current 7th edition Horus Heresy army looks more like am actual force than 8th army and i like this very much.

Tony C and Andy H appeared on WHTV to categorically deny that 30k was on the way out. WHTV have just started a 'tale of four generals' feature with HH games and armies being played. This does not sound like GW quietly winding it down to me.


I think something big is on the way for Horus Heresy games and it's a lot closer than people realize. It's interesting, isn't it, that MkII all but vanished and the two boxed games were removed.


It's been really good to see and hear of the success of Forge World's Specialist Games dept doing so well with their ventures into plastic with the gangs for Necromunda and the Titans. I'd imagine the management were pretty pleased with those sales.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Always interesting reading posts by people that admit they don't play 30K or buy anything from Forge World and predict Doom and Gloom.

I still play 30k, I just don't plan to buy anything from FW beyond transfer sheets as the pricing is tone deaf and the company is uncommunicative about the direction of the game for which it sells models. I continue to play 30k because I like the people that I play with and 30k players do tend to have painted armies.

In terms of doom and gloom, in my area there used to be 3 stores that had active communities of 30k players and then also multiple events per year to bring everyone together. Now the only store that has an active community is the one I play at and the last 30k event that was supposed to be the flagship one drew 6 people beyond the organizers. The local 30k FB page went from a lot of activity to 1-2 posts per week. So GW doesn't need to have an official announcement that 30k is a wrap for the game to die. The lack of attention is suffocating the community and without an active player base, they can't bring in more people.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Tony C and Andy H appeared on WHTV to categorically deny that 30k was on the way out. WHTV have just started a 'tale of four generals' feature with HH games and armies being played. This does not sound like GW quietly winding it down to me.

I think something big is on the way for Horus Heresy games and it's a lot closer than people realize. It's interesting, isn't it, that MkII all but vanished and the two boxed games were removed.

Right, but that's after virtually no HH presence on Warhammer Community for a year.

Besides, the situation isn't binary. Of course it's not being axed tomorrow, not with Malevolence on the way. It's going to live...the questions about are how much support it's going to receive, and whether the focus will be on growing the game or instead just maintaining it for an ultraniche set of customers.

I think it takes a lot of faith to look at the past 18 months and think that HH is on the cusp of some new renaissance. But we'll see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bogalubov wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
In terms of doom and gloom, in my area there used to be 3 stores that had active communities of 30k players and then also multiple events per year to bring everyone together. Now the only store that has an active community is the one I play at and the last 30k event that was supposed to be the flagship one drew 6 people beyond the organizers. The local 30k FB page went from a lot of activity to 1-2 posts per week. So GW doesn't need to have an official announcement that 30k is a wrap for the game to die. The lack of attention is suffocating the community and without an active player base, they can't bring in more people.

Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the game is in a healthier place in the UK than the US. Adepticon HH gaming is still strong, but does that reflect healthy local communities, or players going to Adepticon so that they can get their HH on?

tneva82 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
HH remaining stuck on 7E doesn't help things, that was the worst ruleset 40k ever had, and it makes it difficult to introduce new players already familiar with 8E when they have to learn an outdated ruleset.

Losing Alan has also obviously hurt, as have a number of other already mentioned factors, and it definitely feels like peak HH fever has come and gone. It also doesn't help that they've been working on the HH project since 5E and still havent fleshed out everything.

I suspect one of two things will happen with HH. It will either be allowed to slowly wither and fall off before getting scrapped in a few years, or itll get rolled into whatever ruleset 40k is using with some likely dramatically pared down faction/legion rules and rereleased down the road, but either way I dont expect the current iteration of HH will enjoy the support it once did.

Lot better than 8th and only needs good codexes to be better as HH showed. 8th ed is unbalanced mess that has reached even worse than 7th ed was while being illogical, unfun and you can't even play game to completition without house rules

8e is undoubtedly an unbalanced mess, as literally every 40k edition has been. 7E however was, by every measure, worse. Nobody played 7E without houserules, even if just for stuff like terrain setup. The game was an incomprehensible mess even without getting into codex issues. HP's, Jink, allies, formations, challenges, random rolls to tell you which random table to roll for another random effect on, Invisibility,etc, the game didn't work and there's a reason it cost GW, for the first time in a literal generation, to lose its top tabletop game spot to Xwing and drove me from playing for quite a while. The fundamental core rules were just bad, in addition to all the codex/dataslate/FW/campaign book issues. It was a dramatically messier ruleset, trying to be more RPG and skirmish-ey than 3E/4E/5E, while also including ever larger and more powerful things, and it just didn't work. The balance, while hardly great in 8E (and has emerged to be very alpha strikey) has nothing like the top end ridiculousness of 7E power lists. I wont defend 8E as being a perfect ruleset, it's not, it does stumble with many of the same things (allies & detachments in particular), and its not my favorite edition, but it's very difficult to see where 7E was better on the whole in any way.

More importantly however, staying with the 7E ruleset makes it more difficult to draw in players from normal 40k, as they now have to learn a new ruleset to play *alongside* the current edition, and that makes it harder to get people in.

Process wrote:
Me and a friend have just made the plunge into 30k, and both got our "starter sets" of FW resin down at Warhammer world this weekend. Also had a few interesting conversations down there so im quite optimistic that 30k is going to grow.

A couple of thoughts;

- BAC and BOP reached the end of their lifecycle and all of the components can be purchased separately (no doubt the SW and TS characters will get a release). With the steady stream of box sets being released, surely this had to be expected?

- The FW last chance to buy thing seems a little over-hyped, according to the gent behind the till in the FW store; just as many lines were discontinued in previous years.... they just didn't advertise it. And looking at the way the shelves are now layed out in there it certainly seems liek theres some strategy to whats being kept and whats being discontinued.

- If you have to "sell" 30k to somebody. Then its not for them. Its a game that's deep rooted in the fluff and the gaming side seems very much secondary to the hobby side. So if you dont know who Horus is or who the legions are... why wouldn't you just play normal 40k?

- Also on the above- The cost of models.... Theres nothing stopping you playing with a force comprising entirely of 40k plastic kits with a little modification, but when the aesthetic and theme come first it is worth the extra little bit of cash to get the justearin terminators over standard, or the contemptor over the standard dread etc. or just buy recast?

Speaking as someone who recently left this community, I take serious disagreement with your last statement there about selling 30K to people.

The game is about min/maxing Phsophor or Mechanicus Robots.

Guard, Custodes, and Ad Mech completely destabilized the game. Those three factions are so broken rules wise that I'm not even sure it is possible for the earliest Legions to compete with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
HH remaining stuck on 7E doesn't help things, that was the worst ruleset 40k ever had, and it makes it difficult to introduce new players already familiar with 8E when they have to learn an outdated ruleset.

Losing Alan has also obviously hurt, as have a number of other already mentioned factors, and it definitely feels like peak HH fever has come and gone. It also doesn't help that they've been working on the HH project since 5E and still havent fleshed out everything.

I suspect one of two things will happen with HH. It will either be allowed to slowly wither and fall off before getting scrapped in a few years, or itll get rolled into whatever ruleset 40k is using with some likely dramatically pared down faction/legion rules and rereleased down the road, but either way I dont expect the current iteration of HH will enjoy the support it once did.

Lot better than 8th and only needs good codexes to be better as HH showed. 8th ed is unbalanced mess that has reached even worse than 7th ed was while being illogical, unfun and you can't even play game to completition without house rules.

Is HH rules perfect? No. Nothing never is. But it's better than the unbalanced illogical mess that the 8th ed is

STRONGLY disagree. I almost completely quit this whole hobby tanks to 7th edition. 8th Edition has kept me immensely happy.

What do you find wrong with 8th? Care to list examples?

As i and some others said in various topics HH has to transcend into 7.5 or 8th edition to survive.

However there are some things in 7th that just work better in an environment with less amount of factions. Environment where less distinction beetwen factions has to be filled by more distinction in the core rules. Also its somewhat of a historical (kind of) game so it would benefit from a more realistic ruleset. So things like vehicle armour facings or even vehicle damage table should be in the HH rules.

Even challenge rules where 2 heroes face each other is quite cool a rule for HH.

Also as was said above its more of a codex and formations problem why 7th edition wasnt really that popular. That is why people started playing HH massively before coming of 8th because it didnt have most of those problems.

In the end i would just like HH to be saved and played by more people.