Aeronautica Imperialis - The Horus Heresy News

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**stonehorse**

Really hope that GW change their mind and do the Chaos planes. Feels a bit odd having a multi factioned 40k game and Chaos not being in the game.

**chaos0xomega**

Vorian wrote:
The poor sales and AI being scrapped was not particularly reliable as far as I remember.

Its been a long standing and persistent rumor since not long after AI released, I didn't really believe it at first but I've heard it from so many sources, including several I know to be generally reliable and somewhat accurate, that at this point I think its more likely to be true than not.

**Vorian**

Well comparing it to the 40k rumour, which is pretty close to just a factual list of future releases now, it's very much just a rumour.

I think you can reliably assume it isn't a success on the same level as AT/Necro/BB just from the amount of chatter you see online though.

**zedmeister**

Well, I hope to see this return one day:

**Dysartes**

Sorry, zed - what is that?

I doubt many people would object to a Chaos vs. Necron box being released at some point, would they?

**Iracundus**

It's a Chaos Harbinger super-heavy bomber, from the previous IA edition.

**beast_gts**

Dysartes wrote:
Sorry, zed - what is that?

Harbinger super-heavy bomber - the Hell Blade & Hell Talon's big brother.

**TheGoodGerman**

chaos0xomega wrote:
The 5 factions thing was in writing somewhere, it might have been in a white dwarf article or in a Warcom article, I forget which, but it is known/confirmed.

„It is known.“

I think it was in comments from a designer during an event prior to launch of current AI, and it is mentioned on early pages in this thread. But that was years ago and the situation might have changed.

Hopes aren’t too high though, with Eldar now being the only faction that does not have flyers in the card pack beyond their starter box.

**robbienw**

Absolutely criminal if they stop at just these 5 factions with no more models, there are so many cool 40k planes to debigulate.

Chaos is a must, the Hell Talon, Hell Blade and Harbringer are so cool.

Several more cool SM flyers that should get a release as well The Storm Raven, Nephilim/Dark Talon for the Dark Angels, the Space Wolf longboat looking flyers, Thunderhawk transport.

Eldar not getting the Vampire is just wrong!

**MarkNorfolk**

If the Vampire Raider is not in the card pack, I can only hope it's an upcoming Forge World model (who tend to have the rules/stat card in the clamshell/blister pack).

**Tyranid Horde**

Really like the ground assets for Eldar, but Pulse Lance is a weird blend of Pulse Laser and Bright Lance.

**chaos0xomega**

TheGoodGerman wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
The 5 factions thing was in writing somewhere, it might have been in a white dwarf article or in a Warcom article, I forget which, but it is known/confirmed.

„It is known.“

I think it was in comments from a designer during an event prior to launch of current AI, and it is mentioned on early pages in this thread. But that was years ago and the situation might have changed.

Hopes aren’t too high though, with Eldar now being the only faction that does not have flyers in the card pack beyond their starter box.

At most it was about 2 years ago (game released in 2019 which was around the time the statement was made). GW works about 3 years in advance on average, so even if plans changed somewhere since then, we're probably at least a year or two away from seeing any additional factions.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Yeah the 5 faction thing I believe was in one of the early warcom articles where they were talking about how it would be a supported game rather than a one and done thing.

GW does supposedly work on a 3 year advance, but I'd be very surprised if they can't change tack in half that time or less if they figure out a product is a waste of time, or they see some low hanging fruit and want to release something quickly.

**TheGoodGerman**

chaos0xomega wrote:
TheGoodGerman wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
The 5 factions thing was in writing somewhere, it might have been in a white dwarf article or in a Warcom article, I forget which, but it is known/confirmed.

„It is known.“

I think it was in comments from a designer during an event prior to launch of current AI, and it is mentioned on early pages in this thread. But that was years ago and the situation might have changed.

Hopes aren’t too high though, with Eldar now being the only faction that does not have flyers in the card pack beyond their starter box.

At most it was about 2 years ago (game released in 2019 which was around the time the statement was made). GW works about 3 years in advance on average, so even if plans changed somewhere since then, we're probably at least a year or two away from seeing any additional factions.

Yeah. 2 years. Before corona. That feels like ages ago.

I really hope for AI to expand (and get a rules update), but I am not too optimistic. My Tau player friend is still hoping for his tiny Manta.

With resin models they could be quicker than plastic. But I feel if they planned more Eldar even recently, they would have included them in the cards. For Tau and Astra Militarum this is what they did with the resin planes (see Remora, Arvus, Vulture).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah the 5 faction thing I believe was in one of the early warcom articles where they were talking about how it would be a supported game rather than a one and done thing.

GW does supposedly work on a 3 year advance, but I'd be very surprised if they can't change tack in half that time or less if they figure out a product is a waste of time, or they see some low hanging fruit and want to release something quickly.

Also if I remember right, they said that the game was fully developed with 5 factions before launch. Does not mean they stopped at that point. There’s still hope…

**(HN)**

Overread wrote:
If anything GW's attitude then helped grow the increasing reliance/use of the 3rd party market that they now contend with today.

I'd say that the main reason for 3rd party to be so prevalent when it comes to GW is twofold, the first being their ever increasing prices that have skyrocketed to the point of having small handmade 3rd party bit be cheaper than the "legit ones" (which makes absolutely no sens), and their trend to do less and less subfaction specific bits while making more and more monopose stuff that don't offer any variety to the hobbyist.

Overread wrote:
Plus GW knows that good expansion and codex books on the shelf are things their staff can put directly into customers hands as sales

This is very true, but at the same time books are heavy, take shelve space and are the one thing that they can put in the shredder the second the new edition is released, so moving to a free and digital rule system also have a lot of upsides, but probably not enough to offset the massive amount of money they are making with how overpriced these books are.

What they could do tho is still selling books, but purely lore/hobby focused book, like the Army Heraldry books of Warhammer fantasy. I'll buy that in a heartbeat... but then again, I probably wouldn't buy them every 2 or 3 years too... but I may buy books of other factions I dont even play.

As for factions missing, it would be a real shame if they end up canning the game before chaos, necrons and Drukari ever show up.

**Overread**

(HN) wrote:

As for factions missing, it would be a real shame if they end up canning the game before chaos, necrons and Drukari ever show up.

Don't forget Tyranids!

**(HN)**

I love tyranid too (they are my first army) but somehow having them do jet dog fight doesn't seem right...

What they could do tho is have a totally different gameplay with a whole lot of slow moving flyers and some kind of mele / kamikaz attack...

**Kalamadea**

I just want a Dark Eldar Voidraven and Razorwing fighter. I'd even be perfectly happy to use them as counts-as Eldar from the new set. I don't 3D print, hopefully something will pop up on Etsy now that Eldar are about to release

**lord_blackfang**

Apart from Dakkajets everything in IA is old Forgeworld designs, no GW plastics, which rules out all the missing factions except Chaos I'd think.

**Wha-Mu-077**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Apart from Dakkajets everything in IA is old Forgeworld designs, no GW plastics, which rules out all the missing factions except Chaos I'd think.

Isn't Valkyrie a GW plastic too? They're also in IA.

**chaos0xomega**

Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:
Apart from Dakkajets everything in IA is old Forgeworld designs, no GW plastics, which rules out all the missing factions except Chaos I'd think.

Isn't Valkyrie a GW plastic too? They're also in IA.

Nope, the Valkyrie was originally a Forgeworld kit that GW plasticized, the GW Valkyrie is very faithful to the design of the FW original, only very slight minor detail changes were made for manufacturability, otherwise its a solidly FW based design.

**Wha-Mu-077**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:
Apart from Dakkajets everything in IA is old Forgeworld designs, no GW plastics, which rules out all the missing factions except Chaos I'd think.

Isn't Valkyrie a GW plastic too? They're also in IA.

Nope, the Valkyrie was originally a Forgeworld kit that GW plasticized, the GW Valkyrie is very faithful to the design of the FW original, only very slight minor detail changes were made for manufacturability, otherwise its a solidly FW based design.

Well bugger.

**Mr_Rose**

Even the dakkajets were preceded by a couple of Ork fighters made by Forge World, though the resemblance is less strong.

**robbienw**

The Storm Eagle is in part GW plastic, given the Storm Raven parts used in the 40k size model

**Smaug**

I thought the original rumor was for 6 armies. So Chaos might be the last one as I think the only reason Militarum and Navy where split where so each box would have a Imperial faction in it. This could set up a second wave of Space Marine fliers with Chaos as the opponent.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Mr_Rose wrote:
Even the dakkajets were preceded by a couple of Ork fighters made by Forge World, though the resemblance is less strong.

I think they share a lot of design features, but they obviously updated them to match the GW dakkajet rather than the old fighta. This is one of my Fightas from the old AI...

But yeah, AI hasn't done any planes that aren't FW designs or at the very least started as FW designs.

I'd say it's intentional because most of the FW designs look better than GW's efforts, lol.

I reckon GW limits themselves by what is practical in a plastic boxed set and a game of regular 40k, whereas FW had no problem making aircraft that feel more realistically scaled and proportioned even if they were a bit more impractical.

**schoon**

While I would love to see a Chaos vs ?? boxed set sometime in the future, I can't see GW sinking more resources into it.

**Vorian**

Smaug wrote:
I thought the original rumor was for 6 armies. So Chaos might be the last one as I think the only reason Militarum and Navy where split where so each box would have a Imperial faction in it. This could set up a second wave of Space Marine fliers with Chaos as the opponent.

It was 5:

schoon wrote:
From the 4pm BST Twitch Stream with Andy Hoare:

* The basic set was designed to allow you to do a basic dogfight
* Designed as a short-play or demo capable set
* The bases are new design for AI - does basically the same thing as the old bases
* Rynn's world book has basic rules; adds background story; more scenarios; and campaign rules
* Campaign rules are fairly simple - meant to link a few games
* 5 factions in development (including the two in the basic game)
* New factions should come pretty fast
* After that will depend on how the games does
* Designed Marauder so it can have variants - Pathfinder and Colossus are possible new variants beyond the two we have now
* Ground assets have anti-air and objectives
* Aces rules were designed to stay simple and balanced
* They want the rules to be precise and balanced for competitive play
* Ork models are designed so bits are interchangeable - to 2 should be alike
* Ork Eavy Bomma is to carry LOTS of ordnance
* Grot Bomz are designed to be fun
* Battle of Calth - will be a new AT book
* Basic map is only designed for small battles
* 2 Rynn's World map sets can be combined to make an even bigger board
* AI and AT are 1/4 scale of Warhammer 40K - the scale is consistent - Space Marine is 8mm and normal human is 6mm
* Bases could be taken apart, but weren't designed for it. CAN be done if you're very careful
* They will be doing resin aircraft upgrade parts
* The current plan is for maps to be in thick card
* The game is ideal for tourneys - they plan to do a matched play supplement in the future

**Sarouan**

Vorian wrote:
Smaug wrote:
I thought the original rumor was for 6 armies. So Chaos might be the last one as I think the only reason Militarum and Navy where split where so each box would have a Imperial faction in it. This could set up a second wave of Space Marine fliers with Chaos as the opponent.

It was 5:

schoon wrote:
From the 4pm BST Twitch Stream with Andy Hoare:

* The basic set was designed to allow you to do a basic dogfight
* Designed as a short-play or demo capable set
* The bases are new design for AI - does basically the same thing as the old bases
* Rynn's world book has basic rules; adds background story; more scenarios; and campaign rules
* Campaign rules are fairly simple - meant to link a few games
* 5 factions in development (including the two in the basic game)
* New factions should come pretty fast
* After that will depend on how the games does
* Designed Marauder so it can have variants - Pathfinder and Colossus are possible new variants beyond the two we have now
* Ground assets have anti-air and objectives
* Aces rules were designed to stay simple and balanced
* They want the rules to be precise and balanced for competitive play
* Ork models are designed so bits are interchangeable - to 2 should be alike
* Ork Eavy Bomma is to carry LOTS of ordnance
* Grot Bomz are designed to be fun
* Battle of Calth - will be a new AT book
* Basic map is only designed for small battles
* 2 Rynn's World map sets can be combined to make an even bigger board
* AI and AT are 1/4 scale of Warhammer 40K - the scale is consistent - Space Marine is 8mm and normal human is 6mm
* Bases could be taken apart, but weren't designed for it. CAN be done if you're very careful
* They will be doing resin aircraft upgrade parts
* The current plan is for maps to be in thick card
* The game is ideal for tourneys - they plan to do a matched play supplement in the future

Actually, we have 5 factions in the game : Orks, T'au, Eldars, Space Marines and...well, Aeronautica Imperialis (they just did a small trick by making some aircrafts specific to Astra Militarum, but that's technically the same faction).

**chaos0xomega**

Yes, we're all aware of that.