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I personally have never found the Horus Heresy interesting at all. SM's attacking SM's is just too boring to me.
It's just a personal taste and I understand that people have different likes, but I'm confused as to why/

So, what do you personally find appealing about 30k? Why do you like it?


Also, haven't been on here in few months, so hello again everyone.

The Horus heresy has a nice story behind.
Marines vs. Marines provides a more straightforward and smoother game when compared with 40k. It can be fun too. Give it a try.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The Horus heresy has a nice story behind.
Marines vs. Marines provides a more straightforward and smoother game when compared with 40k. It can be fun too. Give it a try.

I suppose, but I do like more variation in it.

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The Horus heresy has a nice story behind.
Marines vs. Marines provides a more straightforward and smoother game when compared with 40k. It can be fun too. Give it a try.

I suppose, but I do like more variation in it.

There is enough variation in 30k. I play WE led by Angron. This guy and Red Butchers (like GK Paladins) are hard to deal with in cc. There are also very shooty in 30k like Devastors (who carry all the same heavy weapon, not just four as in 40k) and Contemptors with two kheres assault cannons each.

Taghmata is better than 40K mechanicus. Legion specific units is other thing.

It's better written and designed than 40k.

I think eldar players like w30k, because they get everything they have now, plus FW stuff and the things that hinder them a bit like w40k grav or invisibility is non existent in w30k. So their eldar get even better in w30k, this leaves them space to experiment with stuff. One can take two or three squads of banshees and scorpions, when you know that the two knights you have will let you win anyway.

Indeed, Eldar even get better in 30k. I guess we'll see 30k tournaments in the near future.

Didn't even know you could Eldar in 30k.

 Harley Quinn wrote:
Didn't even know you could Eldar in 30k.

Eldar, DE, and Orks existed already in 30k.

I like the fact that there is a lot more 'canon' fluff in 30k, it feels like a combination of sci-fi and historical gaming. There's massive amounts of info on particular units colour schemes and armour types, lots more vehicles and it just feels more complex, yet more balanced. The models are much more crisply details, and while you can use them for 40k I suppose I just find a nicely painted Lunar Wolves army in mk2/3 armour much more impressive than a made up Chapter of 'blood killer scourge Angels'

Makumba wrote:
I think eldar players like w30k, because they get everything they have now, plus FW stuff and the things that hinder them a bit like w40k grav or invisibility is non existent in w30k. So their eldar get even better in w30k, this leaves them space to experiment with stuff. One can take two or three squads of banshees and scorpions, when you know that the two knights you have will let you win anyway.

30k as a ruleset does not include anything but the 30k codexes.

Also, CWE would not exist in 30k. It takes place just after the fall, before the invention of aspects, wraith constructs or most Eldar technology...

And 30k isn't balanced against stuff outside the ruleset. And I hate to point it out bit grav and invisibility totally exist in 30k. Grav existed there before it existed in 40k.

I used to feel the same as the OP regarding HH. Then, I compared the Horus Heresy books with our 40k Codexes and I understood.
A well-written and complex fluff, wonderful illustrations, units details, battle scenes and original rules with much more variations between factions than you can guess at first glance. The whole universe is just wow and many of the sculpts have an amazing quality. You really have to be involved in the story to enjoy it, you just can't feel it by just reading small & disorganized pieces of fluff just like GW usually do. I just regret there are no rules/tweaks to play xenos factions.

The models wouldn't be insanely priced, I'd certainly give it a try.

Best written army lists in GW history. Huge numbers of options, no one way to play each legion, lots and lots of toys, generally fun lists as opposed to the hyper competitive crap in 40k.

-Most other 40k races work fine for 30k, just remember to not allow formations and use the age of darkness FOC just to keep the game balanced. the newer elder and tau codices will tear apart a 30k legion without limitations.

the_scotsman wrote:

Makumba wrote:
I think eldar players like w30k, because they get everything they have now, plus FW stuff and the things that hinder them a bit like w40k grav or invisibility is non existent in w30k. So their eldar get even better in w30k, this leaves them space to experiment with stuff. One can take two or three squads of banshees and scorpions, when you know that the two knights you have will let you win anyway.

30k as a ruleset does not include anything but the 30k codexes.

Also, CWE would not exist in 30k. It takes place just after the fall, before the invention of aspects, wraith constructs or most Eldar technology...

And 30k isn't balanced against stuff outside the ruleset. And I hate to point it out bit grav and invisibility totally exist in 30k. Grav existed there before it existed in 40k.

I'm pretty sure that's Graviton not grav. They are very different things.

The "Graviton Imploder" listed in my HH book works exactly like a 40k grav weapon...

I don't remember the graviton imploder but yeah grav weapons aside from maybe that one thing are two different things completely between the systems.

I have been playing primarily against 40k armies for years now. They are fairly well balanced against each other over all although obviously there are some potentially bad matchups. Building an army meant to smother another marine army in wounds to force saves will devastate traditional 40k horde armies. By the same token, be fun to see a hand to hand army go up against a horde army.

So I looked it up-You're right. Oddly enough, the Graviton Imploder was apparently the first "prototype" 40k style grav weapon. So, my bad. Graviton Weapons usually do use different rules (they are I believe blast weapons? Idk there isn't any in my codex as far as I can see)

I have played my mechanicus against 40k and it does seem fairly balanced but all the marine armies I've seen out of 30k would probably get slaughtered by a 40k list with formations and the like.

I like 30k due to the fact that there are no formations or detachments, allowing more freedom when wanting to create a powerful list

 Harley Quinn wrote:

So, what do you personally find appealing about 30k? Why do you like it?

I'm a roleplayer at heart, whenever this question comes up I always roll out this snippet from Codex Titanicus (it was so good they even put it into the Titan Legions version, even though that was set in 40k not 30k):

No quarter was asked, no quarter was given. Hatred drove us. Hatred and fear.

Aye, fear. For we were the finest warriors in the universe, elite among elites, the chosen of humanity. Once we had acknowledged no foe as our equal. Now we must- for were not these men the same as ourselves? Spawned from geneseed, trained by masters, armed and equipped with the best from humanity's realm. Finally we faced a foe worthy of fear, a mirror image ourselves and all we believed in. Is it any wonder we knew fear?

We fought like tigers, but were met with equal ferocity. We shot accurately. Our eyes were like those of hawks. Yet equal numbers fell from our ranks. We met at close quarters. Weapons flashed and gouged but who was to say which was faster? For every Traitor who fell, so fell a loyal brother.

The battle surged back and forth till in the end faith prevailed and we had mastery. Yet we were slaughtered. But one in ten survived. The city was dust.

Thus it was at the scouring of Tallarn. I know, for I was there and saw it with me own eyes. I will not forget.

There's a big thematic difference between a marine/marine fight in 30k vs 40k.

The sculpts, fluff and rules are just so much better than 40k. Read the cult mechanicus codex for 40k, then read the Ad Mech red book for 30k. Look at the 2 model ranges. 30k is 40k without everything people hate and with a lot more of what brought people to the game in the first place. Yes, it's expensive. However, after getting into 30k I'm dangerously close to putting all my 40k stuff on eBay and only doing 30k from now on. Just build up an army slowly, painting everything to a high standard as you go. You can only paint so fast to a level worthy of some of these FW models anyway. Even if it takes me a year to get to my 2000-2500 point list, I would rather do that than build another 40k army.

I agree with everybody else on balance and that its when Marines were at their most powerful, in 40k they are a shadow of what they were in 30k.

I'm also a massive long term UM fanboy, being able to have official rules and model for my Primarch and being able to take him in a normal game against his brothers means a lot to me.

Another plus to 30k is lack of codex churn. If some new rules come out for your legion, they don't make the existing rules obsolete...so you don't have to buy a new book every 2 years or whatever the current shelf-life for 40k codices is.

30K represents the height of technology and human achievement in the Imperium. All the Primarchs had been found, the great Unification Wars were coming to an end, and for the first time in tens of thousands of years, it looked like Humanity would finally take it's place as a power in the Galaxy.

The Legion Space Marines are everything I imagine a Space Marine to be. They have thousands of Space Marines, millions of support personnel, fealty worlds, fleets of star ships, a TO&E that would actually WORK... for me, playing 30K represents playing with a real army that can field air support in the form of Fire Raptors and Lightning attack fighters, true armor on the ground with Fellblade tanks, and Sicarian fast tanks on the flanks, and a real armored APC in the form of Land Raiders backing them up. Drop Pods that have actual, useful weapons and can not only land, but take off again. Just reading about the Legions makes you realize just how powerful they actually were, and how the modern Space Marine Chapters are like a candle to their roaring flame.

To have all of this come crashing down in betrayal by Horus because of the influence of Chaos is like a Greek tragedy, and is a cornerstone of modern literature. No one wants to read about the goody two shoes hero anymore. They want the flawed hero, the tragic hero. They want conflict and strife- in other words, they want the hero to be more like a real person then a hero. They want the hero to make bad choices, and see the repercussions of it.

So for me, playing 30K enacts out the tragic and flawed Hero's of the Imperium when the Space Marines were at their best... and worst.

Game play wise- the Legions don't have ATSKNF. That is so huge and game changing that... well, it makes 30K an entirely different game to me. It makes morale checks nail bitters. Having a squad of Space Marines swept off the table due to a sweeping advance... it's distressing and great at the same time.

The next time you play 40K with Space Marines, play them without ATSKNF and you'll see how totally different the army plays.

Thanks for the answers everyone. I might consider doing 30k sometime.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
30K represents the height of technology and human achievement in the Imperium. All the Primarchs had been found, the great Unification Wars were coming to an end, and for the first time in tens of thousands of years, it looked like Humanity would finally take it's place as a power in the Galaxy.

The Legion Space Marines are everything I imagine a Space Marine to be. They have thousands of Space Marines, millions of support personnel, fealty worlds, fleets of star ships, a TO&E that would actually WORK... for me, playing 30K represents playing with a real army that can field air support in the form of Fire Raptors and Lightning attack fighters, true armor on the ground with Fellblade tanks, and Sicarian fast tanks on the flanks, and a real armored APC in the form of Land Raiders backing them up. Drop Pods that have actual, useful weapons and can not only land, but take off again. Just reading about the Legions makes you realize just how powerful they actually were, and how the modern Space Marine Chapters are like a candle to their roaring flame.

To have all of this come crashing down in betrayal by Horus because of the influence of Chaos is like a Greek tragedy, and is a cornerstone of modern literature. No one wants to read about the goody two shoes hero anymore. They want the flawed hero, the tragic hero. They want conflict and strife- in other words, they want the hero to be more like a real person then a hero. They want the hero to make bad choices, and see the repercussions of it.

So for me, playing 30K enacts out the tragic and flawed Hero's of the Imperium when the Space Marines were at their best... and worst.

Game play wise- the Legions don't have ATSKNF. That is so huge and game changing that... well, it makes 30K an entirely different game to me. It makes morale checks nail bitters. Having a squad of Space Marines swept off the table due to a sweeping advance... it's distressing and great at the same time.

The next time you play 40K with Space Marines, play them without ATSKNF and you'll see how totally different the army plays.

Also, the lack of ATSKNF has had me win a few games against 30k lists. I has Lelith Hesperax and a Succubus charge a 20 man blob and killed only like 7. The rest were run down by Lelith's Initiative 9! It was fun, but I felt pretty bad when she did it again in the same game. 40 marine kills to her name for just that game is pretty impressive I think.

Is there a way to play normal humans in 30k?

Yeah, you can play Solar Auxilia (30k IG pretty much) or a Militias and Cults list for normal humans.

SirSweetroll wrote:
Is there a way to play normal humans in 30k?

What do you mean normal humans? Like Imperial Guard (won't use the Astra Whatever GW has come up with). If that is the case, you should be looking for Horus Heresy Book IV: Conquest and maybe Book V: Tempest for rules to use Imperial Army units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Harley Quinn wrote:
Thanks for the answers everyone. I might consider doing 30k sometime.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, the lack of ATSKNF has had me win a few games against 30k lists. I has Lelith Hesperax and a Succubus charge a 20 man blob and killed only like 7. The rest were run down by Lelith's Initiative 9! It was fun, but I felt pretty bad when she did it again in the same game. 40 marine kills to her name for just that game is pretty impressive I think.

30K is not really meant to be played against 40K. There are more then a few blurbs about it in each of the HH books. A few questions I'd ask about your DE vs. Legion game- how many points were you playing? 30K doesn't really come into it's own unless you play more than 2000 points. Was his army tailored for Dark Eldar? That would be the #1 reason why 30K isn't meant to be played vs. 40K. If the Legion player knew he was playing against Dark Elves, and it was at a decent points level (more than 2000), he would have shot you off the table and none of your units would have gotten anywhere near his for close combat. It also sounds like it was the ideal situation for Lelith charging a unit of Legion Tactical Marines- a non-close combat unit. It would have been interesting to see her charge a tooled up command squad with a Praetor, or a Legion Assault Squad, or even a Terminator squad. Terminators suck in 40K, but they are pretty darn good in 30K.

Because people get to feel superior to others since they can show off that they spent more money on their man-dollies than you did.

30k'ers are the hipster, vegan, reborn Christians of warhams, They'll preach and tell you how great it is every opportunity they get whilst feeling superior for no reason.

Some of the models are pretty rad though, I won't deny that.

*Waits for accusations of not being able to afford a 30k army, since that's the only possible reason to not want one*

better balance, better rules, more then just marines (don't forget mechanicum, daemons, auxilia, militia), most xenos can come and play. better model quality (though not price)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Drasius wrote:
Because people get to feel superior to others since they can show off that they spent more money on their man-dollies than you did.

30k'ers are the hipster, vegan, reborn Christians of warhams, They'll preach and tell you how great it is every opportunity they get whilst feeling superior for no reason.

Some of the models are pretty rad though, I won't deny that.

*Waits for accusations of not being able to afford a 30k army, since that's the only possible reason to not want one*

it's not that I (and other 30k players locally) want to be superior. It's that we got fed up with the arms race that is regular 40k, and with 30k you can build a fluffy army, or a non-optimal army and still have a very good chance at winning. I'd hardly go to that level when it comes to "30k'ers" We're a vocal group, but remember the sheer stigma against forge world in this hobby, and it makes more sense that those of us using forgeworld armies would be vocal about how it's "not broken, and actually has good rules" as a way to make the army/forge world more "socially acceptable"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:


30K is not really meant to be played against 40K. There are more then a few blurbs about it in each of the HH books. A few questions I'd ask about your DE vs. Legion game- how many points were you playing? 30K doesn't really come into it's own unless you play more than 2000 points. Was his army tailored for Dark Eldar? That would be the #1 reason why 30K isn't meant to be played vs. 40K. If the Legion player knew he was playing against Dark Elves, and it was at a decent points level (more than 2000), he would have shot you off the table and none of your units would have gotten anywhere near his for close combat. It also sounds like it was the ideal situation for Lelith charging a unit of Legion Tactical Marines- a non-close combat unit. It would have been interesting to see her charge a tooled up command squad with a Praetor, or a Legion Assault Squad, or even a Terminator squad. Terminators suck in 40K, but they are pretty darn good in 30K.

Ehhhhh, kinda. Locally, my group has played quite a few 30k v. 40k games, and it's generally pretty well balanced (tipping towards 40k's favor) Yes, most games you want to play will be around 2000 points. also, if we factor in list tailoring as a balancing mechanic for deciding if 30k and 40k can play, there will be no clear conclusion, just a massive arms race.