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My nether regions are a bit sore after the shipping was thrown on, but mine is pre-ordered. At least I'll get a shipping voucher with it. -_-

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
And...what does Book 4 focus on then?

Padding.

Hmm, not sure I agree. The popularity of HH has allowed them to turn it into a setting of its own now, rather than just a condensed version of the BL fluff with rules to fight out the well known battles, so I have no issue with them "padding" things providing the "new" content they produce is of equivalent quality to the "main" content; BL's current turn with the HH isn't gak because they're expanding beyond the basic Istvaan > Wee Bit of Random Stuff > Mars > Terra progression, it's gak because the stuff they're adding is either pedestrian repurposed Space Marine Battles rubbish or ridiculous ultra-super-mega-special-limited-collector-edition micro-novellas etc.

Considering that at the moment Warhammer/40K is to GW as Theon Greyjoy is to Ramsay Bolton, the more (good)HH stuff FW put out the better.

I dunno. Didn't they say Prospero needed three books? Seems excessive. And this book has an air of Vraks 2 to it. What I mean by that is that Siege of Vraks 2 might as well have been re-titled "Reaver Titan: We Sell a Reaver Titan", as the book was basically a massive hardbacked advert for their new Reaver kit.

This book is all about them Knights, and I'm worried that FW has once again gotten so enamoured with a kit that they've forgotten that the kits support the book, not the other way around.


Is this a standalone book, or part 1 of a new trilogy?

 warboss wrote:

 Davespil wrote:
Damn, I was hoping that the there would be a few more knights in the book, like the warden. Might have to pick this book up. So what is this DRAYKAVAC? Is he an Knight or just one of the mechanicus guys?

Look up a few posts for the Draykavac info apparently (can't verify it personally but azeroth posted some tidbits). As for the number of knights, half a dozen isn't enough? You went from ZERO knights a year ago to now 8+ (don't know if the ones in conquest include or are in addition to the already published FW variants). You've got one heck of a knight household appetite! I love me some space marines (especially HH stuff) but I'm glad they're putting the focus (at least temporarily) on something other than astartes for a book. IMO, both FW and BL are unnecessarily dragging out the stuff to pad their releases for a decade or more. For instance, I would have preferred if Istvaan was just two books and then they moved onto some other theatre (and legions).

I was hoping for the Warden that people were talking about. Maybe a new variant of Knight. At least they stopped making Marines for a bit so we get some cool stuff.

 Davespil wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 Davespil wrote:
Damn, I was hoping that the there would be a few more knights in the book, like the warden. Might have to pick this book up. So what is this DRAYKAVAC? Is he an Knight or just one of the mechanicus guys?

Look up a few posts for the Draykavac info apparently (can't verify it personally but azeroth posted some tidbits). As for the number of knights, half a dozen isn't enough? You went from ZERO knights a year ago to now 8+ (don't know if the ones in conquest include or are in addition to the already published FW variants). You've got one heck of a knight household appetite! I love me some space marines (especially HH stuff) but I'm glad they're putting the focus (at least temporarily) on something other than astartes for a book. IMO, both FW and BL are unnecessarily dragging out the stuff to pad their releases for a decade or more. For instance, I would have preferred if Istvaan was just two books and then they moved onto some other theatre (and legions).

I was hoping for the Warden that people were talking about. Maybe a new variant of Knight. At least they stopped making Marines for a bit so we get some cool stuff.

No kidding. I have mine all designed out and ready to build as soon as they release the rules. I also would have accepted a build-a-knight template.

Is this a standalone book, or part 1 of a new trilogy?

It's a stand-alone covering the battles of the Cyclops cluster around Port Maw in what will be the Gothic Sector.
HH5 is Confirmed as Calth.

 STC_LogisEngine wrote:
It's a stand-alone covering the battles of the Cyclops cluster around Port Maw in what will be the Gothic Sector.
HH5 is Confirmed as Calth.

Ok, that makes life easier. I might pick up the collector's edition then.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 STC_LogisEngine wrote:
It's a stand-alone covering the battles of the Cyclops cluster around Port Maw in what will be the Gothic Sector.
HH5 is Confirmed as Calth.

Ok, that makes life easier. I might pick up the collector's edition then.

Unlike GW, the LE is only a small premium over the usual price anyway. I got caught because IA13 was £50 LE, and £45 regular, assuming it would be as much of a premium as the GW regualr gak, I waited.

I waited as well, but I didn't really want the poster.

Also, didn't FW say that this book is basically there to give players some more stuff to play around with, lists, force-orgs, missions, campaigns, etc, while introducing relatively few models to let them play catch up?

I mean, the Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, Night Lords and Raven Guard have a grand total of a few basic marine conversion parts and Contemptors, and they're waaaaay behind on characters across the board (though they also said that not all characters will get a model). Before they move onto the Ultras and Space Wolves/Thousand Sons, it'd probably be wise to flesh out some more of the range.

The only genuinely new models in this book would be the Auxilia and a Knight or two, while still providing some good gaming fodder and variant playstyles, which is kind of FW's big thing when it comes to rules writing.

If it was advertised as a book that contains the imperial guard (or astra militarum) i'm sure it would get more players excited.

More playable lists are a major addition to the 30k battles, and some variety some players have been asking for, not that I was complaining.

I'm sure I'll manage to add more 30k players to my group because of this book, so i'm happy.

There's also the fact I play sons of horus and ad mech.

I hope Calth is only 1 book.

I can only take so much Word Bearer.

And I've already had enough!

Hey! I like the Word Bearers. But yes, we can't go overboard with existing Legions because we need the ones we're missing (at least Calth gives us the Ultramarines Legion).

So if this one is "Horus Heresy: The Wars of Padding" and the next one is "Calth", that makes number six... what? The war on Mars? The start of Prospero? Padding Wars 2: The Revenge of the Filler?

Thramas Crusade and Signus Prime I think is the current thinking for Book 6. So Dark Angels and Blood Angels (and Night Lords and Daemons).
They may try and squeeze White Scars (and Alpha Legion) into that in some way too, because waiting until the Siege of Terra is a bit harsh.

Did the White Scars do anything else during the Heresy?

Old lore?

Not much - but they were in near full strength at Terra for the Main Battle!

Taking back spaceports and what not - crashing the Sky Fortress (?) or something or other and making it go full nuke on the Traitors, etc. etc.

New lore?

A bet they're up to a lot more!

 STC_LogisEngine wrote:

Is this a standalone book, or part 1 of a new trilogy?

It's a stand-alone covering the battles of the Cyclops cluster around Port Maw in what will be the Gothic Sector.
HH5 is Confirmed as Calth.

Well, this is good news to me. I am definitely keen to see the story "continue" in terms of available models, especially since I play BA and DA, and they have nothing as of yet. Calth won't help me, but at least it will get us a new Legion to read about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:
Thramas Crusade and Signus Prime I think is the current thinking for Book 6. So Dark Angels and Blood Angels (and Night Lords and Daemons).
They may try and squeeze White Scars (and Alpha Legion) into that in some way too, because waiting until the Siege of Terra is a bit harsh.

So, this is better news for me, but at this point, who knows how far away a Book 6 could be. Waiting until the Siege of Terra (which I don't think will even be WRITTEN about in HH for years to come) is definitely the worst possibility for me.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, the White Scars spent most of the Heresy running around in circles being thoroughly trolled by the Alpha Legion, who had been tasked with delaying them form joining any of the fronts, along with a couple of other Legions who escape me atm, and they just about made it to Terra for the big finale, but as Alpharius said, they made it in near full strength. Therefore I think they could be a relatively easy Legion to shoe-horn into another book, as they don't have much of a campaign or major battle until Terra, at least atm.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This book is all about them Knights, and I'm worried that FW has once again gotten so enamoured with a kit that they've forgotten that the kits support the book, not the other way around.

I don't think it's quite that bad. There's a lot of space given to "look, we sell knights", but we also get 30k IG and ~60 pages of new mission rules (including city fighting updated to 7th!). Yeah, the fluff is probably going to suffer from being drawn out into so many books, but I look at this as an equivalent to IA1/2/13. It's all about the army lists and individual unit fluff, any story that happens to be attached is just a nice bonus.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I dunno. Didn't they say Prospero needed three books? Seems excessive. And this book has an air of Vraks 2 to it. What I mean by that is that Siege of Vraks 2 might as well have been re-titled "Reaver Titan: We Sell a Reaver Titan", as the book was basically a massive hardbacked advert for their new Reaver kit.

This book is all about them Knights, and I'm worried that FW has once again gotten so enamoured with a kit that they've forgotten that the kits support the book, not the other way around.


Is this a standalone book, or part 1 of a new trilogy?

To be fair, not just Knights, it has the Imperial Army list as well, which from the content page looks to be just as extensive as the Massacre AdMech list or the basic Legions list. I do agree they're going OTT on the Knights though.

The Prospero thing was 2 books I think, due to the inclusion of Sisters of Silence and Custodes on top of Wolves & Sons, and given the blurb for that recent Super Special Limited Moist Novelette from BL there's room there for a wee Death Guard-related sideshow too.

This book is standalone, next up is either a Calth book/duology or a Signus book, Prospero having been pushed back. Thing is if they just go hammer & tongs at the main storyline, there's not actually a huge amount to cover - 1 or 2 Calth books, a Signus/other random stuff book, 1 or 2 Prospero books, then what else is there really apart from 1 or 2 Mars books and the final Terra trilogy? Assuming they keep firing out two books a year, that's 3.5 to 5 years, less if they made Mars the first book of the final trilogy. I don't think one or two books like this one are too much, as long as they don't start farting out filler books between every major plot book it should be fine.

 Yodhrin wrote:

it has the Imperial Army list as well,
.

Forgive the possible pedantry, but my understanding was that the Solar Auxillia was categorically not the Imperial Army?

Well considering they're making a clear effort not to outpace the BL novels, which aren't even remotely close to Terra at their current rate, because filler ahoy and all that, I'm sure we'll see some more genuine sideshow stuff along the way, or once the books have caught up they might focus on something else book-wise, who knows.

Lord knows we've got a good 15 years before BL reaches the Siege of Terra.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

it has the Imperial Army list as well,
.

Forgive the possible pedantry, but my understanding was that the Solar Auxillia was categorically not the Imperial Army?

But they did serve as the template for the Imperial Army, so functionally it's an Imperial Army list, leaving aside the inevitable "special snowflake" unit or two.

Until GW arbitrarily decides that the Imperial Army were something completely different (and give them a dumb name).

Post Chapterhouse they are never going to be called Imperial Army, so that isn't FW's fault. I'd hope we'd see something usable for whatever Imperial Army ends up being called in the next book as the UM made use of a PDF type force even then.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Until GW arbitrarily decides that the Imperial Army were something completely different (and give them a dumb name).

They would never do that!!!

Look at what they did to the Imperial Guard...

-...sarcasm meter goes off the scale...-

 Padre wrote:
They would never do that!!!

Look at what they did to the Imperial Guard...

-...sarcasm meter goes off the scale...-

Sarcasm meter? Don't you mean your Metrum Incavillor™?

 Haighus wrote:
Yeah, if I remember correctly, the White Scars spent most of the Heresy running around in circles being thoroughly trolled by the Alpha Legion, who had been tasked with delaying them form joining any of the fronts, along with a couple of other Legions who escape me atm, and they just about made it to Terra for the big finale, but as Alpharius said, they made it in near full strength. Therefore I think they could be a relatively easy Legion to shoe-horn into another book, as they don't have much of a campaign or major battle until Terra, at least atm.

Did you read the newish HH book "Scars?" It deals with this pretty well (including the Alpha Legion to some extent though not in the way you describe) but is the first real look at the Legion.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
Zone Mortalis is cool, but requires three souls value worth of unique terrain to play, but urban warfare? I'm down for a newer version of Cities of Death.

I agree I miss Cities of Death, an update would be awesome!

If you own Space Hulk then the board for that is pretty handy for playing Zone Mortalis games, thats how I make do

Ok, so my 'man on the inside'** has confirmed that it's a standalone book, so I ordered it.


**He'd hate me calling him that.