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 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I want my Dark Mechanicum lists and new units more than I can express in a typed message and I'm eager to know how it will alter my growing mechanicum force, but right now I'm ok with holding off and have a gak ton of other things to build, paint and field for 30k, in addition to going back to my 40k armies to do some much needed updating.

Oh yeah, no doubt. Sarum? As a WE player, I'm all over that.

But then at one time I also thought I was going to get a Shadow Crusade-focused book. I think it was originally slated to come after Tempest. Now...boy, I dunno. And expecting people to just be patient for some undefined time into the 2020s really is a big ask.

I can foresee a future in which the community ends up 'taking back' 30K just because FW is too busy with other stuff. I'm sure the minis will still flow. But support for 30K (in terms of fluff and rules) is so much greater than their other product demands, that I can see hard decisions getting made down the road.

I'm fine if they need to drop the fluff so we can get the rules.

We have the Heresy novels if nothing else. I'd much rather they make that hard decision, instead of just dropping the line.

 gorgon wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I want my Dark Mechanicum lists and new units more than I can express in a typed message and I'm eager to know how it will alter my growing mechanicum force, but right now I'm ok with holding off and have a gak ton of other things to build, paint and field for 30k, in addition to going back to my 40k armies to do some much needed updating.

Oh yeah, no doubt. Sarum? As a WE player, I'm all over that.

But then at one time I also thought I was going to get a Shadow Crusade-focused book. I think it was originally slated to come after Tempest. Now...boy, I dunno. And expecting people to just be patient for some undefined time into the 2020s really is a big ask.

I can foresee a future in which the community ends up 'taking back' 30K just because FW is too busy with other stuff. I'm sure the minis will still flow. But support for 30K (in terms of fluff and rules) is so much greater than their other product demands, that I can see hard decisions getting made down the road.

I don't think they're was ever going to be a book focused solely on the Shadow Crusade but it is featured in Book6 Retribution.

How is it a 2 year delay for Angelus?
Pretty sure in February they only announced that they had recently started work on it and didn't announce a date at all.
On its own that would have meant it likely wouldn't be released before the start of next year, and given the state FW is in at the moment with Alan's passing and having to scrap and redo parts of Fires for 8th, an extra year isn't that much of a stretch (especially as they're also working on a HH BRB - which they might have decided to do extra mechanics changes to over the existing 7th Ed Expansion).

Have they confirmed anything that's coming for Mechanicum? I know rumours are going around saying Scoria will get a model, and I hope that's true. I don't use him very often, but that would probably mean the Homunculex will be getting a model, which means Arlatax models, and THOSE I really want to try.

Will probably get a Domiatar and convert my own, but I really want to see how FW sculpts these bad boys.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
How is it a 2 year delay for Angelus?
Pretty sure in February they only announced that they had recently started work on it and didn't announce a date at all.
On its own that would have meant it likely wouldn't be released before the start of next year, and given the state FW is in at the moment with Alan's passing and having to scrap and redo parts of Fires for 8th, an extra year isn't that much of a stretch (especially as they're also working on a HH BRB - which they might have decided to do extra mechanics changes to over the existing 7th Ed Expansion).

Actually, at the FW Open Day in November of 2016, they threw out a release schedule for HH Book VII Inferno, and HH Book VIII Angelus. FW actually had said earlier in 2016 that Book VII was going to be out by the end of 2016, and many thought that meant the FW Open Day in November. So it was a bit of a shock that it didn't drop until February of 2017. FW had some slides about Book VIII at the November 2016 Open Day, so work on that book had to already be under way.

I believe that 8th edition caught Forge World flat footed, and that GW demanded FW update the Imperial Armor books in time for the release of 8th edition. The passing of Alan Bligh was also a huge blow to 30K, as by many accounts, he was the captain of that ship, and did more for it than anyone else. He has left a huge void that still hasn't been filled.

Now FW has committed to publishing a new Red Book for rules of playing games in 30K. I don't expect many changes at all to that rule set. Everything has to be compatible with what is already written, and with the exception of Book VII, the balance in the game is pretty good. There really isn't anything in the base rules that needs to be addressed. It's specific rules within the Legions themselves that need to be looked at.

Right now, I bet we won't see that new red book for rules until 1Q2018, and Book VIII? 2Q2019 unless something drastic happens within FW- like GW adds more people and resources to the project. That probably won't happen because GW is busy with 8th edition and the success that edition is having, and the updates to Age of Sigmar along with writing all new codexes for 8th edition by the end of 2017.

We're really entering into a lull period for 40K, where it's going to be a long, long time before we see any new content outside of the odd 30K model.

Kasper Hawser wrote:
I don't think they're was ever going to be a book focused solely on the Shadow Crusade but it is featured in Book6 Retribution.

Shadow WARS vs. Shadow CRUSADE. Not the same thing. The Shadow Wars describe a host of smaller operations done by shattered legions, etc.

The Shadow Crusade was a large-scale conflict involving the Word Bearer and World Eaters fleets in Ultramar during the Ruinstorm. And I'm pretty confident that it was at least rumored at one point. It would be a natural place to introduce daemonic Angron and other characters like Argel Tal. But I'm not sure how many black books we're really going to get now, let alone one Shadow Crusade-focused. I'm not putting money on anything after Angelus, at least.

And regarding Angelus, just take whatever FW gave as a tentative release date and add 3-6 months. That isn't a criticism, just the probable reality of it given that FW hasn't hit a release date in basically forever.

 Tamwulf wrote:
I believe that 8th edition caught Forge World flat footed, and that GW demanded FW update the Imperial Armor books in time for the release of 8th edition.

That's what, one day of delay? Given the sheer number of errors in those updates, many of them things the community spotted within minutes of getting their copies, it's clear that no playtesting or editing was done. Even under the most generous possible assumptions there's no way that was more than a week worth of work.

The passing of Alan Bligh was also a huge blow to 30K, as by many accounts, he was the captain of that ship, and did more for it than anyone else. He has left a huge void that still hasn't been filled.

And this is just sheer incompetence. 40k is not a deep or well-designed game, and GW/FW show no real interest in thorough playtesting. Any random GW rule author should be able to take over the 30k project and get some rules done without any loss in quality. And unless FW is spectacularly incompetent all of the work on 30k is documented, leaving plenty of design notes for the new author to pick up. I'm sure Alan Bligh was a great person, but there's no way his loss should have been more than a minor disruption. The idea that this one person was so essential to the project that his absence means over a year of delay on a book that shouldn't take a year to write in the first place is just insane.

Right now, I bet we won't see that new red book for rules until 1Q2018

This is just insane. The red book is already written, it's 7th edition plus copy/pasting a few bits from the various 30k books. Call it a day or two of work to write it, then a pretty short time to create the files to send to the printer. Even if FW didn't know a thing about 8th edition until the rest of us did (and that would be spectacular incompetence) the book should be done by now, and the only thing we should possibly be waiting for is the delay for the printer to get finished copies shipped and ready for delivery. The digital version of the book should have been done the week 8th was released.

and Book VIII? 2Q2019

Again, insane. The fluff is already done. The rules do not take a year and a half to write, even if the project consists of a single author working part-time on it. That schedule may be true, but there is nothing at all reasonable about it. It's the kind of incompetence that makes the average dakka proposed rules thread look sensible and efficient in comparison.

Everything you posted Peregrine is spot on, and I'm not trying to defend FW or GW here, but I think I can see why it's like this at Forge World.

GW is this huge, sprawling, publicly traded bureaucracy of a corporation. There is no one person in charge of everything; rather, it's design by committee with the ultimate decision makers the Board of Directors who answer to the share holders who want a return on their investment. Any project that is started probably takes weeks to be approved by several departments (The Department of Departmental Approval and Scheduling), and any one can say "Nope" killing the project. It's probably a corporate culture where it's easier to cancel and kill a new project, rather then innovate or move the game forward.

Now, here comes Forge World, the Red Headed Step Child. Out of the thousand employees of GW, you have a handful of artists, writers, and sculptors, with one of them being a charismatic, enthusiastic, and won't take no writer who is passionate about 30K. He pushes his entire department to make 30K a reality. He "walks" his project through every approval meeting, day in, day out, with so many meetings, that he can't write nearly as much as he wants. He doesn't take no for an answer, and forces GW to recognize FW's worth. All his corporate politicking and navigation of the corporate bureaucracy of GW gives us 30K- a project that GW once said was never, ever going to happen.

And then he gets sick. Unable to write, unable to lead his team, and more importantly, unable to force his project through. Meanwhile, the corporate entity finally says it's time for 8th edition, and not next year or two years from now, but within the next six months. ALL the old rules will be scrapped in favor of this new edition. ALL departments will change over, and here is the development cycle measured in weeks, not months or years, and no, there will be no new hires or outside resources devoted to it's development. Forge World is directed to scrap all of 30K and rewrite everything. The remaining members of the FW Development Team, while not as corporate savvy as their leader that just passed away, points out their own development release cycle, the products that are in the pipe, and most importantly, all the money that will be wasted on the development of 30K up to that point if they are forced to switch to 8th edition. They said the magic words... money.

The GW Board considers FW, and finally says "OK, we recognize how much money you contribute to the company, and how you can't adapt to 8th edition... yet. We will allow you to continue with 7th edition, BUT you MUST write a new rule book for your system, as we'll stop supporting 7th edition immediately. Also, you MUST rewrite all the Imperial Armor books and make them 8th edition. Also, you will accelerate your modeling schedule. We think the players don't care about rules, they want new sculpts. We will not be hiring a replacement for Alan Bligh, nor will we be expanding your department. From now on, all your projects will go through the Department of Departmental Approval and Scheduling."

TLDR GW is a corporate bureaucracy that is single minded in it's development of new products, and has created a culture where all the new projects require several committees to say yes, and it's easier to say no, and any no's kill the project. Forge World lost it's champion that would never take no for an answer, and now FW is forced to play by the same rules as all the other departments in GW, and no one outside of the FW Team cares about 30K. It's not the incompetence of any one individual that is leading to these long release times; it's the bureaucracy of the company that is preventing it.

@Peregrine -- The only thing that's insane is you apparently thinking all Alan Bligh contributed was rules writing. Perhaps you skip over the first 150 pages of every black book, but most 30K hobbyists don't. Perhaps you don't care about the way he helped conceptualize and shape the fictional history of the HH -- to the point where the BL authors would bounce their ideas off him -- but most people understand that the man WAS 30K.

I don't know what to tell you other than that you're just completely wrong with your understanding of the situation. They can easily find people to write up stats for new dreadnoughts...it's with everything else where his shoes become very hard to fill.


@Tamwulf -- My impression of FW is that it actually used to be the opposite of a bureaucracy, where creatives had more freedom to work on the things they wanted to work on compared to the GW studio. The Solar Auxilia was famously something a sculptor developed on his own before the team decided they were too good not to adopt. That's probably changed quite a bit now that FW is taking on higher-profile game design duties, though.

This also plays into why I question the fate of black books after Angelus, even beyond AB's passing. The black books -- no matter what some may think -- are a big undertaking for a small team at 300+ pages each, including background, rules, art, photography, etc. Given that the plan was for 15-20 black books, they're looking at probably 3000 more pages of material to produce over the next 8-10 years.

OR, they could take those man-hours and deploy them toward more projects like Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Adeptus Titanicus, etc. that are far smaller in scope but potentially appealing to a much wider audience. Meanwhile the 30K minis can keep selling as long as they have appealing rules for use in 40K.

Especially with AB's passing, I fear someone at GW is doing to do the math on this and make a hard decision we may not like at some point.

[quote=gorgon 736341 9581726 ebedf0805b824cd998e09f5b6a20460b.jpg

Especially with AB's passing, I fear someone at GW is doing to do the math on this and make a hard decision we may not like at some point.

 gorgon wrote:
@Peregrine -- The only thing that's insane is you apparently thinking all Alan Bligh contributed was rules writing. Perhaps you skip over the first 150 pages of every black book, but most 30K hobbyists don't. Perhaps you don't care about the way he helped conceptualize and shape the fictional history of the HH -- to the point where the BL authors would bounce their ideas off him -- but most people understand that the man WAS 30K.

I don't know what to tell you other than that you're just completely wrong with your understanding of the situation. They can easily find people to write up stats for new dreadnoughts...it's with everything else where his shoes become very hard to fill.

That's not an excuse. The fluff should be done by now based on the time taken to do previous books, and would not be delayed by 8th edition (or the debate over whether to use 7th or 8th for 30k). So either FW is incompetent because they need to spend two additional years on a book (for a total of ~3 years!) trying to update a few pages of rules, or they're incompetent because they had no backup plan at all for keeping the 30k project running in the absence of a single person despite that person having a long-term illness that left plenty of time to prepare a backup plan.

And, again, the 30k fluff is not that special. It's fun, and the fluff sections are pretty good by the standards of gaming books, but this is not great literature we're talking about. Alan Bligh may have been a great person, but it's ridiculous to suggest that he was irreplaceable from a professional point of view.

Peregrine.

You seem to know a lot about games design, lead in times and publishing. Also you seem to know a lot about what to do when your senior writer dies unexpectedly of cancer.

Perhaps, for the sake of accuracy and so that the rest of us in this thread can understand that you're not being a repugnant and insensitive horse's arse, but are in fact giving your expert appraisal of the situation, you can state your experience and/or qualifications for speaking with so much authority?

gorgan- I think you misunderstood my post. What I was trying to say is that Forge World is a small team of passionate sculptors, writers, and developers who have no leader now, no one that is politically savvy enough, or as stubborn to never take no as an answer, to navigate the corporate bureaucracy that GW has become. They take orders from the GW "Corporate Design Staff" and everything they do now is scrutinized by the Department of Departmental Approval and Scheduling.

LunaWolvesLoyalist might have hit the nail on the head. If Book VIII doesn't make a huge splash, the DDAS may just cancel 30K. Book VIII just may make or break 30K. It'll probably sell well based on the fact that it will have two of the most popular Legions- Blood Angels and Dark Angels. Maybe well enough that FW will have enough "credit" to do book IX, but unless that one is the "Siege of Terra" with Daemon Primarchs, the White Scars, and the Emperor, there is no way it's going to sell that well. Based on how slow everything has been to this point- we might not see Book IX until 2020... and by then, GW will be talking about 9th edition...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Peregrine.

You seem to know a lot about games design, lead in times and publishing. Also you seem to know a lot about what to do when your senior writer dies unexpectedly of cancer.

Perhaps, for the sake of accuracy and so that the rest of us in this thread can understand that you're not being a repugnant and insensitive horse's arse, but are in fact giving your expert appraisal of the situation, you can state your experience and/or qualifications for speaking with so much authority?

What qualifications do you need to analyze such an obvious situation? You don't need to be an expert in the publishing industry to look at the time required to create and print the previous 30k books, which is six months to a year between books. Nor do you need to be an expert in the publishing industry to see that many science fiction authors produce novel-length works at a much faster pace than one per three years. And you don't need to be an expert in the industry to see that the quality of the 30k books is nothing special. Yeah, they're well-done game books because GW invested more effort in them compared to the average codex, but they're still game books. These aren't great works of literature we're talking about, where only the original author could possibly keep the series going. So we have two possible explanations for the delay:

1) It's all because of 8th edition. This doesn't hold up to even superficial questioning. The 30k rules are barely better than anything else in 40k, and show limited concern for playtesting and balance. Even starting from scratch it should not take very long to write the rules content for book 8. And the 8th edition index books are certainly not an explanation for the delay, as they are half-finished trash that couldn't possibly have taken more than a week to write (and that's being generous).

2) FW's remaining staff are completely incompetent, and can't finish a 6-month project in three years. Even if you assume complete incompetence in getting any kind of succession plan done while their lead writer was suffering from an extended illness, resulting in literally zero work being done over that entire time, it's still two years between his death and the earliest possible release date. TWO YEARS. That's just inexcusable. If FW's remaining authors can't get the book done within a year at most then it's probably time to fire them all and replace them with someone more qualified.

And sorry, but that "repugnant and insensitive horse's arse" is just plain stupid. This is not about Alan Bligh's death, or who he was as a person. In no way does acknowledging the sad loss of someone a lot of people loved create an obligation to pretend that the current functioning of a for-profit business is acceptable from a business point of view. If you want to take "FW's current authors are incompetent" as some kind of attack on Alan Bligh then that's your problem, not mine.

 Peregrine wrote:

What qualifications do you need to analyze such an obvious situation? You don't need to be an expert in the publishing industry to look at the time required to create and print the previous 30k books, which is six months to a year between books. Nor do you need to be an expert in the publishing industry to see that many science fiction authors produce novel-length works at a much faster pace than one per three years. And you don't need to be an expert in the industry to see that the quality of the 30k books is nothing special. Yeah, they're well-done game books because GW invested more effort in them compared to the average codex, but they're still game books. These aren't great works of literature we're talking about, where only the original author could possibly keep the series going. So we have two possible explanations for the delay:

1) It's all because of 8th edition. This doesn't hold up to even superficial questioning. The 30k rules are barely better than anything else in 40k, and show limited concern for playtesting and balance. Even starting from scratch it should not take very long to write the rules content for book 8. And the 8th edition index books are certainly not an explanation for the delay, as they are half-finished trash that couldn't possibly have taken more than a week to write (and that's being generous).

2) FW's remaining staff are completely incompetent, and can't finish a 6-month project in three years. Even if you assume complete incompetence in getting any kind of succession plan done while their lead writer was suffering from an extended illness, resulting in literally zero work being done over that entire time, it's still two years between his death and the earliest possible release date. TWO YEARS. That's just inexcusable. If FW's remaining authors can't get the book done within a year at most then it's probably time to fire them all and replace them with someone more qualified.

* - Right, firstly you have no idea how long it takes to write, at all, or what other duties the employees were performing while Alan was ill. I can keep reiterating this for you but either you get that Forge World is a very small outfit and people 'muck in' as needed for things across the spectrum and also get involved with other GW tasks as needed.

* - Sci-fi novel writers write 1000 to 2000 words a day (about two pages of a 30k book). So fething what? It's a completely different mode of writing, which you'd know if you'd done either. These are not stand alone novels, they are also not novels, they have more story in them than most novels and that has to tie in with gaming, scenarios, rules and so on also included in the book.

* - On Alan's illness, no one, including Alan, knew it was terminal until a couple of days before he died. He was the heart and soul of 30k, everything. EVERYTHING, including HH novels, GW's games, outside licensed games, went via Alan first and foremost for approval or (usually) a good degree of tinkering to ensure it tied in with his master plan. He knew how the entire Heresy was to be played out from start to finish and across the spectrum, all of it had to ensure continuity and no unforeseen knock-on effect. So Forge World waited on him to get better, to take the wheel again and until that time they weighed anchor, because he had plotted the course, because he knew the waters but most of all because he was the captain of the HH.

* - UK employment law is very different from US law - you can't replace someone because they're ill and no one in FW would have wanted to anyway. As I've already explained previously, there are no hordes of writers in warehouses secreted about Nottingham awaiting activation, the HH writing consisted of the triumverate of Alan, Andy H and Neil W, Andy started up Specialist Games, Neil was tasked with bringing all FW units into 8th edition compliance and Alan had the temerity to develop cancer... They have an understudy, Emma, who's moving around helping out, principally to Neil and the 8th changeover.

* - You keep assuming there's been an announcement about when Angelus will be released or how much work has been done so far. There hasn't. They just showed 'what this book will be about', that was it.

 Peregrine wrote:

And sorry, but that "repugnant and insensitive horse's arse" is just plain stupid. This is not about Alan Bligh's death, or who he was as a person. In no way does acknowledging the sad loss of someone a lot of people loved create an obligation to pretend that the current functioning of a for-profit business is acceptable from a business point of view. If you want to take "FW's current authors are incompetent" as some kind of attack on Alan Bligh then that's your problem, not mine.

Where could I have taken offence at that? Hmmm...

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
They're bigger then most novels, fluff wise.

Sure, but that fluff isn't all that impressive. An amateur author can write a mediocre scifi story in a month, a team of professionals taking two years (or more!) to put out a new 30k book is inexcusable incompetence.

* - But the biggest reason it's out of order for you to continually reiterate insult to both the work Alan did and to the work that others do in Forge World in your posting would be utterly obvious to someone who wasn't a blinkered sociopath... The reason I suggested that, unless you actually had some relevant qualification or experience to demonstrate why everyone in Forge World are such an incompetent disappointment to your very important self, is that Alan's grieving friends are fething reading this.

It is grotesque for you to sit there fanning your powdered wig, loftily complaining that the death of this man was 'some kind of glitch' and that the rest of the 'bungling incompetents' should have provided you with your book (of dross, easily written pulp) by now and that your lack of your new toy is due to their inefficiencies and lack of talent.

If Forge World, the Horus Heresy and the Creative Team are such an overwhelming disappointment to you, if what they write is so utterly easy and puerile, can I strongly suggest (and hope) you take your expectations and staggering lack of empathy elsewhere... (although I strongly suspect that, in time, they too will similarly disappoint you and your vaulted sense of entitlement...).

Thank you, MeanGreenStompa!
People like Peregrine don't deserve a game like the Horus Heresy, provided with a world, that was created by such a remarkable human being as Alan was. I guess only someone who feels himself dull and redundant would talk like that about other people.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
* - Right, firstly you have no idea how long it takes to write, at all, or what other duties the employees were performing while Alan was ill. I can keep reiterating this for you but either you get that Forge World is a very small outfit and people 'muck in' as needed for things across the spectrum and also get involved with other GW tasks as needed.

Of course I have an idea, because there have been seven 30k books published so far. And when you look at the release interval it's consistently six months to a year. If, as you say, FW is a small group with very limited resources then they aren't working on multiple 30k books in parallel and work on the next book does not start significantly before work on the previous book finishes.

(And if they are capable of working on multiple books in parallel then the loss of one designer should not have had such a significant impact on the schedule, as there are plenty of people to pick up the work.)

* - Sci-fi novel writers write 1000 to 2000 words a day (about two pages of a 30k book). So fething what? It's a completely different mode of writing, which you'd know if you'd done either. These are not stand alone novels, they are also not novels, they have more story in them than most novels and that has to tie in with gaming, scenarios, rules and so on also included in the book.

Yeah, no. I've read the 30k books, and they don't have "more story in them than most novels". They may have a longer list of battles than most novels, but story-wise they aren't really even novel length. We're talking about a couple of battles, with some side notes about other events happening at the same time. If they cover more events it's at the cost of covering those events in detail, mentioning a battle as a single-paragraph note rather than a multi-chapter event.

And no, I do not accept your claim that this is completely different from writing a novel. The fluff sections are purely fiction, and any differences between the two are superficial at best. Writing a battle scene is writing a battle scene, regardless of whether or not you have to mention the Forge™ World™ Resin™ Model™ Kit™ that is the major release tied in with the book.

* - On Alan's illness, no one, including Alan, knew it was terminal until a couple of days before he died. He was the heart and soul of 30k, everything. EVERYTHING, including HH novels, GW's games, outside licensed games, went via Alan first and foremost for approval or (usually) a good degree of tinkering to ensure it tied in with his master plan. He knew how the entire Heresy was to be played out from start to finish and across the spectrum, all of it had to ensure continuity and no unforeseen knock-on effect. So Forge World waited on him to get better, to take the wheel again and until that time they weighed anchor, because he had plotted the course, because he knew the waters but most of all because he was the captain of the HH.

And this is incompetence if it is true. Where are Alan Bligh's notes and documentation of the 30k plan? Aside from his unfortunate illness, what was FW going to do if he'd showed up to work one day and said "I've got a better offer elsewhere, I'm leaving in two weeks"? Well-run companies have the ability to absorb the loss of employees and keep going. And the simple fact here is that the 30k series is a product made by a for-profit business, not Alan Bligh's personal artistic work.

* - UK employment law is very different from US law - you can't replace someone because they're ill and no one in FW would have wanted to anyway.

Seriously? I don't believe for a moment that UK law requires you to leave someone's work untouched if they're ill and not at work. I'm sure you can't fire someone for being ill, but nobody is suggesting that.

As I've already explained previously, there are no hordes of writers in warehouses secreted about Nottingham awaiting activation, the HH writing consisted of the triumverate of Alan, Andy H and Neil W, Andy started up Specialist Games, Neil was tasked with bringing all FW units into 8th edition compliance and Alan had the temerity to develop cancer... They have an understudy, Emma, who's moving around helping out, principally to Neil and the 8th changeover.

Ok, sure. Andy is on specialist games, that's a legitimate project with multiple games in development. But that "8th edition compliance" should not have taken more than a week to finish. The 8th edition books were a complete dumpster fire that clearly had zero playtesting or even basic proofreading, with blatant errors that the community spotted immediately (units that can't fire their weapons, etc). It was clearly thrown together in a very short amount of time, and should have had zero effect on the 30k products. Meanwhile the only 40k book in progress has also been delayed forever, so that's not an excuse either. Put Neil and Emma on the new 30k book and get the product finished.

* - You keep assuming there's been an announcement about when Angelus will be released or how much work has been done so far. There hasn't. They just showed 'what this book will be about', that was it.

See the OP of this thread, the entire reason it exists. They've announced that it's coming at the end of 2018, and that's assuming it doesn't get delayed yet again.

* - But the biggest reason it's out of order for you to continually reiterate insult to both the work Alan did and to the work that others do in Forge World in your posting would be utterly obvious to someone who wasn't a blinkered sociopath... The reason I suggested that, unless you actually had some relevant qualification or experience to demonstrate why everyone in Forge World are such an incompetent disappointment to your very important self, is that Alan's grieving friends are fething reading this.

So let me get this straight, nothing but praise can be said about anything even tangentially related to Alan Bligh because anything less than complete praise is an insult to his friends? We can't criticize the work of his former company that is happening after his death, because oh god what if someone happened to see bad things? Nonsense.

If Forge World, the Horus Heresy and the Creative Team are such an overwhelming disappointment to you, if what they write is so utterly easy and puerile, can I strongly suggest (and hope) you take your expectations and staggering lack of empathy elsewhere... (although I strongly suspect that, in time, they too will similarly disappoint you and your vaulted sense of entitlement...).

Ah yes, more absurd hyperbole. You know, there's a difference between "this is nothing special" and "it's puerile and disappointing and I hate it". I've enjoyed the 30k books, just like I've enjoyed a lot of other things that were entertaining but not great works of art. They're well-done gaming books, but they're still gaming books. There's nothing special or unique about the writing, any of countless scifi authors could probably take over and do just as well with the concept. And the critics agree with me. How many writing awards have the 30k rulebooks won? How many have they even been nominated for? AFAIK, none. To anyone who isn't already dedicated to the 40k/30k hobby they're average works, entertaining enough while you read them but not the kind of thing that becomes a beloved classic or a "must read" draw for people outside the niche.

I'd love to know what Peregrine's job is, he seems to know everything about everything. How people work on the books? How much had they done on the first seven books before the first one even hit the shelves? Have GW management changed there priorities to unreleased models before more books? How much of an impact has further Imperial Armour books done to the Horus Heresy release schedule? How many people were moved across to Specialist Games? please answer all these questions before getting back on your soapbox.

 Rolsheen wrote:
How much had they done on the first seven books before the first one even hit the shelves?

Can't prove it, but judging from the way previews at FW events sounded (things like "we're starting work on X" with rough WIP outlines rather than "we've been working on X for 3+ years and its almost ready") and how the plans they've told us about what the future books were going to be kept changing there doesn't seem to have been much overlap. Maybe there was a rough outline in place to give some structure, but as far as we can tell work on the next book started once the previous one finished.

Have GW management changed there priorities to unreleased models before more books?

This shouldn't matter. Sculpting and writing are two entirely different things, and should be done by different people in a competently-run company.

How much of an impact has further Imperial Armour books done to the Horus Heresy release schedule?

Zero. The only IA book that has been mentioned at all has been delayed even longer than Angelus, and is clearly second priority at best. And the 8th edition update "books" were a complete dumpster fire that had minimal effort invested in them. I would be shocked if the 8th edition updates took more than a week, and I'd probably fire everyone involved in that debacle if it was a legitimate best effort and not the result of GW handing them the rules for 8th edition and demanding finished books by the end of the day.

How many people were moved across to Specialist Games?

Apparently, one author. Though given the fact that 30k is the cash cow for FW it seems like a pretty questionable decision to prioritize a re-launch of a product line that couldn't generate enough sales to stay alive over a massively successful product line that performed so well that "main GW" had to start giving it releases.

 Peregrine wrote:

How many people were moved across to Specialist Games?

Apparently, one author. Though given the fact that 30k is the cash cow for FW it seems like a pretty questionable decision to prioritize a re-launch of a product line that couldn't generate enough sales to stay alive over a massively successful product line that performed so well that "main GW" had to start giving it releases.

One author apparently, yes.

That's one author out of a team of what, three? A full third of the writing team transferring away. Can you not see why that might create issues?

Again, looking to see your professional experience in this matter, regarding managing and writing a nearly full ruleset and lore compendium with what, three people?

Your 6 month stat isn't the norm for FW - the average is more like 8 or 9 months, and those didn't have things like, I don't know, an entire edition and ruleset change and the entire driving force of the whole project dying. It's unfortunate, it really is, but I think it's incredibly rude to expect and demand something like this. You are not owed anything. Yes, waiting sucks, but tell that to SoB players. Have patience, and a bit of respect.

Or, if you don't fancy that, how about doing it yourself and make your own fanmade Horus Heresy, and try and get that accepted to play with.

GW/Fw works on a very long realease schedule that was torn open to make room for 8th. So they probably had to decide priorties what project do we do first and push back others. That can snowball real hard on the project that is put last in line. Cue HH biggest champion dying in the middle of this and you've got your last in line project.

The delays on HH didn't start with Angelus they started with inferno that's been pushed back multiple times (it was originally book 5 or 6 but the psychic phase of 7th forced them to redo the TS).

If they had reshuffle FW's release slots and they are 8 months or so apart than you only need to be 3th/4th in line for a two year delay.

Ok, it's obvious there's no diverting you from your opinion, Peregrine. All I can honestly say is this, you have a very low opinion of the Forge World crew's efforts, yet you clamor for more of it. You claim work should be done faster without insight into the company's inner workings when someone who might well have a good deal better knowledge of what's going on explains reasons for delay, when confronted with those reasons you wave them away, again with no insight, because an arbitrary amount of time you have ascribed to a task isn't being met, all via opinion and all without experience. You dismiss someone dying, someone noted by many as the driving force behind the entire project, because his work isn't all that special and anyone could do it, yet, again, you are angry and accuse incompetence because the book he would have been writing isn't available for you to buy...

So, in conclusion, you're a contrarian, you're arguing for it's own sake and you have neither experience nor understanding as to why a product you don't especially rate isn't available for you to buy because a new edition of the game it belongs to was launched, to which one of three writers was ascribed, specialist games were relaunched, to which another of the three writers was appointed manager and lastly because the third of the trio, the guy the other two answered to and who oversaw every single aspect of the game's setting and how all components interact, had the temerity to develop a terminal illness.

Wondering just how much talent and creativity you yourself possessed to be able to make this series of absolute judgments, with such authority, I decided to run a search for your own creative writing...

You have one paragraph's worth of 40k fictional writing on the Dakka forum. It consists of tau babies being used as target practice, a very tropey commissar and 'brain splashing'. So, you can honestly say what the feth you like about 30k, Forge World and the creative skills of the team that produce the books, because in comparison, the one effort we have from you for public consideration, when held against what they bring us, is like looking at an asylum inmate's fecal wall smearings because he's claimed that 'Durer was a hack'...

If the rest of you want to see how our maestro here gets to tell us all how crappy and lightweight FW's writing is, here's his masterpiece of blue-baby-tossing. 'Bon appetite'...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/666657.page

The number of ad hominems in this thread is making Aristotle sick. (And thats something, considering hes dead))

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
All I can honestly say is this, you have a very low opinion of the Forge World crew's efforts, yet you clamor for more of it.

No, you just don't seem to read what I actually wrote. I said that FW's fiction in the 30k rulebooks is nothing special, not that it's terrible. There is plenty of stuff that I enjoy that is just plain average, and plenty of average stuff that I want more of for whatever reasons. The only thing I have stated a very low opinion of is the 8th edition "update" to the 40k FW rules, which is self-evidently a zero-effort dumpster fire.

You claim work should be done faster without insight into the company's inner workings when someone who might well have a good deal better knowledge of what's going on explains reasons for delay, when confronted with those reasons you wave them away, again with no insight, because an arbitrary amount of time you have ascribed to a task isn't being met, all via opinion and all without experience.

Yet when people with an equal lack of knowledge of the situation, who have not posted their credentials as expert game designers or GW employees, claim that a two-year delay is reasonable we're supposed to consider that a valid argument and listen to it. And the only reason for this double standard seems to be a desire to believe that the delay is reasonable, and selectively pick the evidence favoring that side.

And it's not an arbitrary amount of time, as I've said multiple times in this thread. It's an amount of time based on previous release dates/previews/etc, giving an estimate of how long previous books required.

You dismiss someone dying, someone noted by many as the driving force behind the entire project, because his work isn't all that special and anyone could do it, yet, again, you are angry and accuse incompetence because the book he would have been writing isn't available for you to buy...

You're right, I dismiss it. This is basic competence as a business: make sure that you can survive the loss of employees. Again, what was FW going to do if he had said "I'm tired of working for GW, bye"? Give up and shut down the project? Basic competence says that you do things like documenting work, preparing outlines of future work, etc, so that if you lose an employee for whatever reason you can transfer their responsibilities to someone else and keep the business functioning. If your core product line is instantly crippled by the loss of a single employee then you have screwed up, badly.

You have one paragraph's worth of 40k fictional writing on the Dakka forum. It consists of tau babies being used as target practice, a very tropey commissar and 'brain splashing'. So, you can honestly say what the feth you like about 30k, Forge World and the creative skills of the team that produce the books, because in comparison, the one effort we have from you for public consideration, when held against what they bring us, is like looking at an asylum inmate's fecal wall smearings because he's claimed that 'Durer was a hack'...

Wow, not even going to pretend that rule #1 exists, are you?

And it's a stupid "argument" to make anyway. You don't have to be a great chef to recognize that when a restaurant takes five hours to bring out your dinner there's something wrong. You don't have to be a great musician to listen to a song you dislike and say "this sucks". But suddenly when it comes to criticizing a thing that you like you first have to be an expert at doing it yourself? no. And, unlike FW, I am not expecting to get paid for my writing.

RULE #1 certainly does exist.

And it is taking a beating in this thread.

This thread that is now locked.

Contents under review.

Some of you should be expecting PMs and E-Mails soon.