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In the US, it seems like "a booming 30k community" is sort of like bigfoot- you can go on the internet and people will claim that there's this huge group of people playing 30k, it's totally real, and you're the crazy one for not believing in it. Some people would have me believe that 8th Edition 40k is just completely nonexistent in their area and the FLGS is just wall-to-wall with Horus Heresy players, even though most stores aren't keen on people playing games that they don't actually sell (except for the Mk3/4 base kits). I'm not calling anyone a liar; but I am gonna say that nearly every time I've managed to brush up on the rules, get my models together, make a few lists, and drive (for 45 minutes, to 3 hours of driving)- these areas where the game is "popular" tends to be 4 guys in a damp garage playing on an old door laid over a pair of sawhorses.

That makes me sad, considering the amount of money I sank into a collection. Don't get me wrong, I hardly regret it- the models are great, and there's 30k models for Legions I don't even play that I bought because they looked cool, I use various Horus Heresy Units that are allowed in 40k, and the Legion Upgrade Helmets are scattered throughout my Deathwatch and CSM armies. But it'd be nice if the game actually had a bigger following.

Now, I am specifically talking about the USA. Not the UK or other parts of Europe where the game seems to have quite a bit more popularity. - I haven't confirmed it's true, honestly... I'm just giving you guys the benefit of the doubt because I'm not down for traveling to confirm it just yet.

So, why isn't it more popular n the USA? Well, let's go ahead and let someone blurt out that we don't know what a good game is- and ignore the fact that a 'good game' is just shelf decorum if no one around you plays it.

Horus Heresy is a pretty big investment- and before you say "It's no more expensive than 40k if you know how to shop" or something, because even if that were actually true... well, it's assuming people haven't already spent money on 40k stuff. And chances are, they have, because people will buy stuff for games that are played regularly. I can tolerate dropping $50 on a skirmish game, only to discover that it's lacking any real community within a short drive (looking at you, Guild Ball). But the amount I've spent on Horus Heresy stuff... it's kind of hard to stomach that when I've managed maybe 5 games since 2016.

So I started asking people. Quite a few people had, at one time or another, tinkered with 30k and eventually just got rid of it or stopped collecting. Here's some answers I got:

1- Price Point. Yeah, I can't argue this- it's a pricey game. I mean, when a squad of 5 terminators is going to cost you $100.00, it's a bit of a strain on the wallet. And yes, we get it, you can always buy from some Chinese Recaster- well, all I can say is that 'your guy' might be great but I've seen some recasts that look better than Forge World... and I've seen a lot that looked (and smelled) like they weren't worth the effort of slicing open the box, much less 'half the price of the real thing'.

2- Poor 'Pitch'. Kinda had my own experience with this. I've encountered the guy whose 'pitch' for 30k was "It's so much better than this stupid crap that everyone here is playing all the time". Or "It's an actual decent game with good rules". And "People just don't know so they stay and play 8th edition, which is baby rules". Hey, maybe "you're an idiot and don't know what you're doing, go spend a thousand dollars on this thing you've never experienced and take my word for it" might work as a sales pitch in some insane part of the world, but for a lot of people... you sound like a douchebag.

3- Bad Communities. I've gotten some mixed responses on this, but more often than not it was "a bunch of dudes that had barely any terrain and a bunch of proxies that didn't seem to care at all about the hobby", to "these guys were nitpicking literally every single bit of my army and essentially said I was doing it wrong because I had Mark 3 and 4 in the same squad", and even "they flat out treated me like I was walking in on them while they were having some sacred religious ceremony and treated me like an idiot the entire time" (I'll admit, the latter was my first experience).

4- No entry point. I'll admit that Kill Team isn't my favorite skirmish game- but it serves as a 'mini-40k' game, and it's good as an introduction. Someone can go and buy a box of dudes and learn the basics and tinker around with kits and build up a collection over time- and actually play a game with their stuff until they're ready to put down a whole army. This is not only easier to learn, and easier on the wallet... but it gives the player something other than a massive pile of things that need to be built and painted over several weeks before they can actually sit down and enjoy them.

5- Less comfortable purchasing Forge World than purchasing models from a store. Sounds odd, but it made sense. You walk into the FLGS, you buy a model- if you can't see it in the blister pack, you can at least open it in your car or in the shop- and if the kit is messed up, you can swap it out or get a refund. Yes, we all know you can send stuff back to FW for a replacement but now you're talking about me spending money and then maybe a few weeks later getting what I paid for. You can even try and pretend this is rare, but for a while I could never figure out why my Sicaran came with a single lascannon... because it was supposed to come with two, and I only got one.

All these things considered, what do you think could be done to improve the presence of Horus Heresy in the USA?

Personally, I think a smaller skirmish variant of the game (similar to the HH Weekender N17 scenario) would be a great way to start getting people into the game. Perhaps more board games as well, maybe even a "Warhammer Quest" taking place during the Crusade or Heresy.

But what do you think? Don't forget the smash that 'like' button and subsc- oh.

There's definitely issues with the community, HH players must be the 1% of the Warhammer community both because of the cost, the inconvenience of the models and the mountains of fluff.

Yeah 40k has mountains of fluff, but it boils down to Tolkien in Space and everyone is fighting ALL THE TIME. So paint your space men the color you like and FIGHT!

HH players (and fans of the novels) seem to actually care about whether Sgt Steve will get the Gun of People Killing in the next novel. And honestly I'm a GW Super Fan and I can't be arsed to track every secondary or tertiary character.

I've been to places for 40k where someone told me I was doing it wrong and, seriously, dude, we're all nerds here.

Well, HH had two more accessible skirmish-board-game hybrid entry games with Calth and Prospero.

I have both, and the games are actually quite good, but the entire "desaturated colours" graphic design and background flavour lack the usual quirky 40K-fun. The "40K but serious" works if you're a 14 year old desperately trying "not to be a child", but the pretentiousness of it all get's tired very quickly.

Also, the HH game at the peak of it's popularity benefited from a lot of people that weren't necessarily playing HH for the HH game/lore itself, but simply as a refuge from a neigh-unplayable late 7th Ed. with all the weird formations, digital downloads, and every tournament basically having to publish 30+ pages of private FAQs (which often differed from tournament to tournament).

These people all left as soon as 40K became more playable and standardised again with 8th.

All of the points (except point 3) you mention are important. HH was at the raise during the latter days of bloated 7th edition but it actually shared the rules with it. So it was easy to switch. Also to play using HH armies against xenos and such. Now im not saying HH should switch or not to 8th edition... I suppose we are past this point. Maybe someday.

I dont have any such experience with point 3. HH players are usually veterans of main GW games. People with lost of experience in the hobby. Also best painted armies out there.

Ofcourse these HH guys can be more conservative in their view of how to equip/convert models than usually more liberal 40k community. Its a semi historical system so it does attract these sort of guys.

But im from Europe

What is the most important barrier to overcome? I think point 4 which corresponds with point 1.

We need plastic boxes of:
1) Big starting box like Betrayal at Calth. If they dont want to make a new one just rerelease this box (with included small rulebook and cut down version of Legion army list)
2) Rhino/Predator old pattern
3) Assault marines box or a conversion blister with chainswords/pistols and jump packs.
4) Devastators

This is bare minimum to start an army and even win some games without buying FW stuff. Bare minimum to get some point of entry for new guys.

Would be also good to get:
5) Jetbikes
6) Land Raider Spartan
7) Leviathan

We only really have tacticals, Termies, box of heroes and plastic Contemptor.

Glumy wrote:
We need plastic boxes of:
1) Big starting box like Betrayal at Calth. If they dont want to make a new one just rerelease this box (with included small rulebook and cut down version of Legion army list)
2) Rhino/Predator old pattern
3) Assault marines box or a conversion blister with chainswords/pistols and jump packs.
4) Devastators

This is bare minimum to start an army and even win some games without buying FW stuff. Bare minimum to get some point of entry for new guys.

Would be also good to get:
5) Jetbikes
6) Land Raider Spartan
7) Leviathan

We only really have tacticals, Termies, box of heroes and plastic Contemptor.

In all fairness, we do have Heavy Support squad boxes. If you have enough Tactical Squads, you can make a good amount of support squads with the weapons on the sprue, or just buy a pack of heavy weapons from FW.
With 6 Tactical boxes, I was able to make 5 squads of support squads (plasma, melta, flamer, missile and heavy bolter), alongside 20 Tacticals and 15 Breachers. However, Betrayal at Calth was the main way I got those Tacticals, so without the cheap buy-in, that wouldn't be so practical now.

All of those are good reasons.

For people playing out of a local store, there's little reason for the store to support it over normal 40k for which they can actually sell product.

Importantly, it's also using an older ruleset that's not directly compatible with current 40k, and whatever issues people have with 8E, the 7E ruleset has its own broad set of deep issues, but most importantly, enough time has passed such that a significant portion of the playerbase is not familiar with 7E rules and no interest in learning them.

From a larger perspective, especially outside the deeply devoted 40k Space Marine afficionado, there's not much to drive interest in 30k over 40k as a game. It's more expensive, less accessible, largely centered around a far more smaller array of factions and units than the larger 40k universe, but otherwise largely wants to do the same thing, and that's a hard sell. It has become a competitor product, not a complementary one, in large part due to the edition change.

Because HH has all the 'time consuming' rules that the american market has driven out of 40k to make it faster, more streamlined, acessible, easy to play etc.

So if you are trying to sell more difficult game the market is not keen on, at higher price point, you wont get the same buy-in as 40k.

Also I would imagine its no fun when its space marines beating up other space marines all of the time. Space marines need some aliens to beat up and look cool doing it.

Which brings me to my next point, HH is great if you like space marines. But if you dont want to play as space marines then you arent really spoiled for choice.

I really like the HH rules. But as there is no faction for me if i have no interest in playing IOM or chaos im not buying in.

Obviously just like my opinions but I think these reasons get compounded in the US due to the even higher price tag.

30k players seem to be historical elitist when comparing to 40k players.
1) 30k lacks diversity in term of xenos, so its a marine hotdog fest, the players have to be able to tell the difference between Mark II, Mark III and Mark IV armor, then their associated bolter patterns, plasma gun patterns and so on...

2) most 30k are in resin, a material new and harder to work with than plastic, not to mention cost; so the new 30k player would most likely to be a 40k veteran gone to the deep end, whereas a new 40k player is probably a teenager getting their first plastic krak

3) availability of 30k outside of EU, now it’s just gotten a bit easier with the new FW shop in the Dallas, TX USA. Prior to that was very expensive with getting what was already expensive resin kits out of EU; thanks to the Brexit, the dollar is worth more to the pound, kits are somewhat affordable.

4) a lot of us collect 30k models for coolness, or use them as subs, but not enough to play a legit 30k game.

So as an American who is getting into 30k, I have a few thoughts based on my experiences:

1- Price Point/No Entry Point: I've been thinking about playing 30k for a long time but took the leap when I discovered the final version of the Zone Mortalis ruleset, which have a 1,000 point cap on most games. While it's not Killteam size, the Zone Mortalis rules means you only have to purchase an HQ, a few infantry units, and a Contemptor to have a viable list, making it a great entry point for new players like me. To be sure, you'll likely to need some FW models and FW/third party bits manufacturers to flesh out your list as well as the rulebooks, which makes it more expensive than Killteam. But any conversation about 30k's price point and no entry point need to take into account this game mode.

2- Poor Pitch: This is really subjective for every person. I play 40k as well but wanted to get into 30k because of the lore, interesting approaches to defining the unique characteristics of each faction and building lists around them, and the awesome events at the NOVA Open. But what works for me may not work for another person, so you need to listen to what players are looking for in a game and then make your pitch for 30k based on these parameters. But I definitely agree that the system needs more plastic models to boost its appeal to new players.

3- Bad Communities: One of the reasons I got into 30k is due to the 30k tournament organizers/players at the NOVA Open. They're enthusiastic and welcoming, love the game, and take a lot of their pride in their armies. Their events are awesome and are filled with beautifully painted models too, so it was a natural choice for me to sign up for their Zone Mortalis events this year. But I recognize that not everyone has this experience, so I can only speak for myself.

5- Less comfortable purchasing Forge World than purchasing models from a store: I think this is a stretch because most people these days have purchased enough minis online without seeing them in stores that they don't perceive this issue as a problem, especially when you can get replacement parts from FW. The only place where I see this being an issue might be paints and washes where you don't know if you're getting a good product until you paint. But that's less of an issue for FW, which focuses on minis.

Again, this is based on my own experiences, so this may not apply to you.

Just out of curiosity can't you use Orks and Eldar for 30k with their 7th edition codexes? They'd be pretty much exactly the same.

Necrons too though technically they weren't awake, though who's to say there wasn't a tomb world awake somewhere. After millions of years 10k is just a rounding error.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Just out of curiosity can't you use Orks and Eldar for 30k with their 7th edition codexes? They'd be pretty much exactly the same.

Necrons too though technically they weren't awake, though who's to say there wasn't a tomb world awake somewhere. After millions of years 10k is just a rounding error.

Sort of. There are balance assumptions GW and FW made during 7e that were wildly different; 30k tends to have higher AV on vehicles while 40k tends to give vehicles saves, for instance. 1d4chan has a pretty extensive and thoughtful piece on porting the 7e Xenos books to 30k at https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Xenos_in_30k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
...All these things considered, what do you think could be done to improve the presence of Horus Heresy in the USA?

Personally, I think a smaller skirmish variant of the game (similar to the HH Weekender N17 scenario) would be a great way to start getting people into the game. Perhaps more board games as well, maybe even a "Warhammer Quest" taking place during the Crusade or Heresy.

But what do you think? Don't forget the smash that 'like' button and subsc- oh...

Three things: Small-scale rules, plastics, and xenos. Heresy feels intimidating in the way old WHFB felt intimidating because of the sheer number of models you need for some lists, more emphasis on small-scale Zone Mortalis or similar would really help. I got really annoyed by the decisions on what models to put in Calth and Prospero because they were both bolter-Tacticals and Terminators, which made melee Legions just straight-up harder to play than others. Plastic assault squads and Deimos-pattern kits would be a big improvement. And the Heresy feels very much like Marines are the protagonists and anyone else are NPCs that exist to get beaten up by the Marines, which turns off folks who don't like Marines so much. Extending the game back a bit into the Great Crusade and adding some Xenos rules, and possibly making the Militia/Auxilia less of a one-dimensional punching bag propped up by a few really broken units, would help.

If they made plastic kits that were affordable and I could get others to play I would delve into it. But as everyone pointed out, the three reasons are:

1) Prohibitive Cost
2) Almost exclusively made out of a material that few people want to work with
3) incompatible rule set that is far harder to learn

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
...3) incompatible rule set that is far harder to learn

I think there are some differences between 7e and 8e that are actually a selling point for 7e/30k (less deterministic reserves/Deep Strike, slower movement/harder to charge, vehicles with armour facings and immunity to small arms, etc.) but it might be interesting if they went back and tried to clean up some of the things that make it harder to play (wound allocation/Look Out, Sir!, random psychic powers, that kind of thing).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
...3) incompatible rule set that is far harder to learn

I think there are some differences between 7e and 8e that are actually a selling point for 7e/30k (less deterministic reserves/Deep Strike, slower movement/harder to charge, vehicles with armour facings and immunity to small arms, etc.) but it might be interesting if they went back and tried to clean up some of the things that make it harder to play (wound allocation/Look Out, Sir!, random psychic powers, that kind of thing).

The problem, to my eyes at least, is that 7E also has at least as many issues of its own to boot (yeah vehicles are immune to small arms fire, but are trivially easy to kill in CC and otherwise are generally just T6-10 models with 2-3 wounds in most cases and no armor save, and are only immune to one strength level more than they would be with a T value, and can be stunned/crippled/immobilized/etc) and a lot of the depth people would want from that ruleset clashes with the even higher than normal typical scale of HH games relative to normal 40k. Methinks the two systems went in the direction the other should have gone

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Three things: Small-scale rules, plastics, and xenos. Heresy feels intimidating in the way old WHFB felt intimidating because of the sheer number of models you need for some lists, more emphasis on small-scale Zone Mortalis or similar would really help. I got really annoyed by the decisions on what models to put in Calth and Prospero because they were both bolter-Tacticals and Terminators, which made melee Legions just straight-up harder to play than others. Plastic assault squads and Deimos-pattern kits would be a big improvement. And the Heresy feels very much like Marines are the protagonists and anyone else are NPCs that exist to get beaten up by the Marines, which turns off folks who don't like Marines so much. Extending the game back a bit into the Great Crusade and adding some Xenos rules, and possibly making the Militia/Auxilia less of a one-dimensional punching bag propped up by a few really broken units, would help.

Well, if you had the old Kill Team 7e Ruleset, could it be modified for Horus Heresy? I have that old book around here somewhere, but it's probably in one of the boxes in the storage room and I don't feel like flipping through hundreds of books and manuals to find the thing. Maybe someone else could have a look and see?

I do understand that the Horus Heresy's mostly-Astartes thing can put people off, but then again... it is called "The Horus Heresy", and we unofficially call it "30k"- so the focus is on the Heresy. However, I can't say there's a good reason an Astartes Legion shouldn't be going up against Orks, Aeldari, etc. during that time frame, even if the focus was on the Heresy.

What would be interesting is an experimental 7th/8th hybrid (taking some of the better aspects of both) and incorporating earlier versions of Xenos armies- perhaps even leaving open a generic Xenos faction ruleset where you 'create a Xenos army' based on rules options through the Codex (A melee-focus, high-toughness Xenos could be big crab creatures or perhaps even humanoid reptilian brutes with primitive weapons).

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
...Well, if you had the old Kill Team 7e Ruleset, could it be modified for Horus Heresy? I have that old book around here somewhere, but it's probably in one of the boxes in the storage room and I don't feel like flipping through hundreds of books and manuals to find the thing. Maybe someone else could have a look and see?...

7e Kill-Team and Heralds of Ruin are both options, but the army lists aren't designed for it, and that's almost too small. What you really want is a restricted 1,000pt format (like Centurion but smaller) to serve as a better intro rather than needing to explain Rites of War to everyone to point out that your Troops don't have to be 10-20-man boltgun-only squads.

...I do understand that the Horus Heresy's mostly-Astartes thing can put people off, but then again... it is called "The Horus Heresy", and we unofficially call it "30k"- so the focus is on the Heresy. However, I can't say there's a good reason an Astartes Legion shouldn't be going up against Orks, Aeldari, etc. during that time frame, even if the focus was on the Heresy...

And it would help if there were Ork, Eldar, etc. rules balanced against the Heresy armies, but right now all we've got are the 7e books, which are cross-compatible but definitely not cross-balanced.

...What would be interesting is an experimental 7th/8th hybrid (taking some of the better aspects of both) and incorporating earlier versions of Xenos armies- perhaps even leaving open a generic Xenos faction ruleset where you 'create a Xenos army' based on rules options through the Codex (A melee-focus, high-toughness Xenos could be big crab creatures or perhaps even humanoid reptilian brutes with primitive weapons)...

Maybe. I'd rather try and patch 7th without copy-pasting any of the changes out of 8th just because 8th feels too much like the card game has taken over everything. Up the page a bit I did link 1d4chan's page on porting 7e xenos books to 30k.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
7e Kill-Team and Heralds of Ruin are both options, but the army lists aren't designed for it, and that's almost too small. What you really want is a restricted 1,000pt format (like Centurion but smaller) to serve as a better intro rather than needing to explain Rites of War to everyone to point out that your Troops don't have to be 10-20-man boltgun-only squads.

1000 points isn't a bad spot at all for a basic learning game of Horus Heresy. However, I still think there's some value in a skirmish variant- I found a Horus Heresy 8th Edition Kill Team thing online, made by a fan.

I mean, as I was explaining earlier today at this Necromunda 'intro/demo' thing at the FLGS- Small-scale skirmish games are more likely to appeal to someone than a larger-scale war game. It's a much lower price point, and people tend to be a lot more hesitant to throw down hundreds or thousands of dollars into a large game system that you may not be able to play very frequently. Not to mention- assembly and paint. There's also the matter of 'space'- a case about the size of a lunchbox that holds all you need to play a game, and being able to play on the kitchen table with room to spare is pretty good.

Since early 2017, 30k has been hit by a series of hammer-blows:

- Inferno's god-awful balance, which quite literally broke the game
- Alan Bligh's death, leaving FW bereft of their greatest creative talent and with no passionate figurehead to push the cause
- Release of 8th edition, which - being enormously popular - took a lot of wind out of 30k's sails, which had previously enjoyed a niche as the "better-balanced wargame"

FW have also been right tits with their product range, removing some arbitrarily and generally maintaining it poorly. EC just got a transfer sheet after a c. 4 years wait. C'mon.

3+ years later FW models have increased in price drastically in the US and across the world. These factors combined aren't exactly conducive to a thriving 30k community. Now 30k is still going strong(ish) in the UK and AU, for example, so I don't actually know why the US in particular has been hit hard. But I also didn't live here until very recently so I can only comment on the bigger picture.

I'm not a member of the "30k is dead" crowd, nor do I think 30k needs to change to the simpler 8th ruleset, but FW badly needs to lower the cost of entry with some more plastic kits/the introduction of a plastic starter set at the bare minimum. Having to pay local prices in particular for FW resin left a bad taste in my mouth and I haven't bought a single kit since that happened (whereas I'd spent a shameful amount of money on a shameful amount of Legions in the years prior). I won't consider spending any money on FW's 30k until the cost of entry is lowered.

Around here, local gaming stores are the cornerstones of the community. They provide advice for new hobbyists, places to play and organize events like tournaments, narrative campaigns and leagues.

Aside from GW's own stores, there's very little incentive for a local gaming store to promote and support a game that will only ever generate a single sale of a starter box, if that. (Whereas if you sell someone a Magic the Gathering intro deck, a D&D Player's Handbook or Dark Imperium, there's a good chance they'll be spending money in your store every month for the next 20 years.)

I feel like FW missed the opportunity to address some of the larger issues with the 7th edition rule set, things like tanking shots on sarges, duels, etc. There were a few rules that most people didn’t remember or that didn’t work well that could have been tightened up. Instead, they pretty much just re-issued 7th.

8th put the nail in the coffin of HH because when it first came out, it was easy to build a force (Index), the game played more simply and elegantly, and games moved along fairly quickly (all of which have since disappeared under rules and supplement bloat).

HH and 7th were “better balanced” because it was just Marines. Each of the forces also felt and played differently based on the Rites. So in that regard, it was true, it was simpler and without the free formations from 7th 40k.

Now, who knows. Very few people want to remember two different rule sets, and when I review the HH rules, I’m reminded why 8th felt so fresh. 7th is downright Byzantine at times.

Just my 2 cents. I still have and will likely keep my sizeable (and half painted) Word Bearer force. They were fun and felt like WBs, unlike CSM in 40k.

From my experience and talking with people, the issue in the US is primarily the prices. That is almost exclusively the reason I have heard, it is always 'I am interested but dam even by Warhammer standards it's expensive!' This is strictly personal experience however.

30k is basically less accessible and more expensive than 40k, while having the limits and expectations of a historical game. I have an army I’m thinking about selling, because while I enjoyed the background, I never found a play group, and I cannot go back to 7th edition rules.

I also somehow heard endlessly about how balanced it was, but it seemed that the good builds were so far ahead of everything else as to make the games moot.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
...3) incompatible rule set that is far harder to learn

I think there are some differences between 7e and 8e that are actually a selling point for 7e/30k (less deterministic reserves/Deep Strike, slower movement/harder to charge, vehicles with armour facings and immunity to small arms, etc.) but it might be interesting if they went back and tried to clean up some of the things that make it harder to play (wound allocation/Look Out, Sir!, random psychic powers, that kind of thing).

Armor facings is something a lot of people don’t want to deal with. Just one number to remember for the entire vehicle instead of 4 or 5 is infinitely better. That is something that makes HH less desirable

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
...3) incompatible rule set that is far harder to learn

I think there are some differences between 7e and 8e that are actually a selling point for 7e/30k (less deterministic reserves/Deep Strike, slower movement/harder to charge, vehicles with armour facings and immunity to small arms, etc.) but it might be interesting if they went back and tried to clean up some of the things that make it harder to play (wound allocation/Look Out, Sir!, random psychic powers, that kind of thing).

Armor facings is something a lot of people don’t want to deal with. Just one number to remember for the entire vehicle instead of 4 or 5 is infinitely better. That is something that makes HH less desirable

A 7e non-walker vehicle statline had five numbers (BS, Front/Side/Rear AV, Hull Points). An 8e vehicle statline has nine numbers (Move, WS, BS, S, T, W, A, Ld, Sv) plus usually eight more for the damage table (bracket 2 threshold, bracket 3 threshold, and usually three stats that change there). You may argue that armour facings made for more subjective judgement calls/fiddly details of positioning, and you may be right, but AV means too many numbers on the statline! is kind of nonsense.

Same reason 40K dominates the scene over other better systems like DUST.

30K is a better game than 8th ed because it is a fixed version of 7th ed. but it is far easier and more promoted to find and play 8th. also if you have nobody in the community promoting it nobody really knows much about it.

I started playing 30k because I already owned a bunch of FW models that are usable in 30K and I can repurpose my regular pre-8th 40K minis to use as 30K units. more importantly a newer player who became a regular at the FLGS came in with all the books and showed me how to play.

the downside it that officially the line is very limited with loyal space marine/mechanicus/knights/titans/imperial army and their traitor counterparts.

technically you could use 7th ed codexes for necrons, elder, and orks (with some character restrictions in the latter 2) since they all were around in 30K to add variety but it isn't official. think about how much fun re-fighting ullinor could be

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
From my experience and talking with people, the issue in the US is primarily the prices. That is almost exclusively the reason I have heard, it is always 'I am interested but dam even by Warhammer standards it's expensive!' This is strictly personal experience however.

You're not wrong. At all.

So, to get a basic, not 'competitive' but 'not made of suck' army- you're looking at close to $700.00. Maybe more or less depending on a few choices you make. Honestly, once you get rolling and actually want some options- it's going to be more like $1000.

That's a hard sell. ~$1000 for a game that has a very small following and limited opportunities to play it? That's money you could spend on multiple other games that you could enjoy more times in a single week than you could in an entire month with Horus Heresy.

 aphyon wrote:
Same reason 40K dominates the scene over other better systems like DUST.

TBF that might not be the best comparison, DUST's instability of developer/publisher and the kickstarter debacle were significant factors in hindering it. The DUST scene was slowly but surely growing at my flgs until the kickstarter gutted enthusiasm, which put it on a downward spiral. The biggest fear with 30k is that they'll publish some crappy rules for it.

TBF that might not be the best comparison, DUST's instability of developer/publisher and the kickstarter debacle were significant factors in hindering it. The DUST scene was slowly but surely growing at my flgs until the kickstarter gutted enthusiasm, which put it on a downward spiral. The biggest fear with 30k is that they'll publish some crappy rules for it.

Past problems with business contracts or kickstarter mistakes don't change the fact that the current game mechanics are better than 40K and the state of support, release, balance and cost are good.

As for 30K getting a bad rule set-the current one is good, nobody is going to force you to use a terrible update.

I still get in games of 5th ed 40K at the FLGS

I am unsure if you understood the point I was trying to convey. Though to be fair I had some difficulty in trying to phrase it. Regardless, while that factor is a big deal I do not feel it is particularly relevant to 30k specifically.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There's definitely issues with the community, HH players must be the 1% of the Warhammer community both because of the cost, the inconvenience of the models and the mountains of fluff.

Yeah 40k has mountains of fluff, but it boils down to Tolkien in Space and everyone is fighting ALL THE TIME. So paint your space men the color you like and FIGHT!

HH players (and fans of the novels) seem to actually care about whether Sgt Steve will get the Gun of People Killing in the next novel. And honestly I'm a GW Super Fan and I can't be arsed to track every secondary or tertiary character.

I've been to places for 40k where someone told me I was doing it wrong and, seriously, dude, we're all nerds here.

Funnily enough, HH seems is people's first exposure to 40k far more often than would be expected (more than 1/3, I'd say). Usually, they stumble across one book or something, figure out how it all ends, and then want to skip most of the middle bits and get right to 40k. The HH books give 40k a sense of history and depth that market it better than the heresy.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Well, HH had two more accessible skirmish-board-game hybrid entry games with Calth and Prospero.

I have both, and the games are actually quite good, but the entire "desaturated colours" graphic design and background flavour lack the usual quirky 40K-fun. The "40K but serious" works if you're a 14 year old desperately trying "not to be a child", but the pretentiousness of it all get's tired very quickly.

The lore and art weren't that bad, but I don't really think they were intended to get people interested in the Heresy. All the units in the books had 40k rules and jumping from a board game to HH is not something anyone would do. I can see how existing heresy players would get them to fill out their army, but I can't see how they would get people into HH or could be called starter sets in any way.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I think there are some differences between 7e and 8e that are actually a selling point for 7e/30k (less deterministic reserves/Deep Strike, slower movement/harder to charge, vehicles with armour facings and immunity to small arms, etc.) but it might be interesting if they went back and tried to clean up some of the things that make it harder to play (wound allocation/Look Out, Sir!, random psychic powers, that kind of thing).

I've played a little bit of 7th and it seemed like a slightly more "realistic" and competitive focused game. I imagine HH is a polished version of 7th/old 40k and will continue to stay that way as a relic of the past, much like the HH itself. I suspect WHFB's rebirth will be much the same way, games set in an older time with an older rule set that contrast with more arcadey modern games, 8th and aos.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
That's a hard sell. ~$1000 for a game that has a very small following and limited opportunities to play it? That's money you could spend on multiple other games that you could enjoy more times in a single week than you could in an entire month with Horus Heresy.

To put that in perspective, $1000 will get you about 4000 pts worth of 40k mini's, two armies worth.