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So, I never really got into 30k. While I really like the Horus Heresy series, I've got plenty of Marines and Chaos now and am totally fine playing them in 40k. It got me to thinking though, what would it take to get me into investing into a 30k army? I settled on two big things that would really draw me in that 40k doesn't have, more Xenos or a change in general aesthetic to feel very much like its own thing (outside of the rules).

1) The Great Crusade:
All the models are around for loyalist legions with the exception of a few chaos corrupted ones, it wouldn't be hard to have them play as their loyalist versions pre-heresy. Having some other races to play like the Interex, Rangda, Eldar, Orks, Lear? Megarachnids? Hrud?, okay that might be stretching it a bit, but the Eldar and Orks are already around so given them 30k version wouldn't be that hard. Doing a Great Crusade style campaign where you helm an expeditionary fleet (or oppose one) would certainly draw me in.

2) The Unification Wars:
There's enough broad strokes information about this that you could build upon it for some Technobarbarian armies and Thunder Warriors, though the Astartes from 30k proper were present here as well. I feel like the armies would have kind of a Fallout Sytle astatic to them that would be pretty cool and it would be a fun era to play in. There are a lot of interesting crazy factions that are touched on in the lore that I think would look really cool on the tabletop and could play in some interesting ways.

I figure that both of these are terribly unlikely given that 30k is already far less popular than 40k, but I had the thought so I wanted to see if this was something that anyone else would be interested in.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/10/07 16:28:52


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I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/07 16:43:23


 
   
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 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.


For the unification wars, off the top of my head:
- Genehanced mutants.
- Thinking Machines.
- Techno Barbarians.
- Psyker Demagogues.

I know there are more, that's all I can think of at the moment though. Not saying the lines would be super expansive, but even a handful units could be fun.

Fair point about not playing 40k in 30k. I was thinking more along the lines of giving them much more creativity with the Xenos, but having an easier transition with existing lines (could be an excuse to finally refresh the Eldar. XD). There aren't many that could stand as "factions" in 40k, but in 30k, there were Xenos empires all over the place. They could get a lot more creative there than in 40k, but then again, 30k itself would have to be WAY more popular to justify something like that.

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There were lots of minor Xenos empires, but that would be the issue. They were minor. The vast majority of conflicts during the Great Crusade were against Orks and Humans, with Aeldari factions mixed in sometimes. The Hrud and then Rangadan were of course major conflicts but not compared to Orks and Humans.
Honestly, the best way to do either one is to port the 7th Ed Xenos books and utilise the Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, and Solar Auxilia lists from 30k proper. The rules become a base from which you can make custom models from.
   
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 Gert wrote:
There were lots of minor Xenos empires, but that would be the issue. They were minor. The vast majority of conflicts during the Great Crusade were against Orks and Humans, with Aeldari factions mixed in sometimes. The Hrud and then Rangadan were of course major conflicts but not compared to Orks and Humans.
Honestly, the best way to do either one is to port the 7th Ed Xenos books and utilise the Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, and Solar Auxilia lists from 30k proper. The rules become a base from which you can make custom models from.



To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them. There's enough xenos mentioned that I think the idea would work and be awesome as there's nothing wrong with minor factions, but it would require a new cast of xenos factions, and frankly I don't think GW would take the risk.

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.
   
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R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The Xenocides are left very vague and blank to allow for mystery surrounding both the events and the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion. I did say that the Hrud and Rangdan were major conflicts but my point was that the vast majority of the Crusade was spent fighting non-Imperial Humans or Orks. Yes, those minor powers were there but they were annihilated so quickly that they didn't actually contribute much, unlike the Orks who are one of the most widespread races, and Humans who the Crusade was designed to reintegrate.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.

Just use the Cults/Militia list that already exists, the variety of options work well in simulating Xenos species, all you need to do is model them.
As for Xenos conflict during the Heresy itself, in theory, yes but in reality no. The period just before the Heresy was the peak of Humanity at the time and any real threats had been beaten into submission, indeed it was one of the reasons that there was discontent within the Legions. Many of the major threats had been dealt with and Legion forces were now being tasked with suppression and garrisons on many worlds instead of conquering them. The Muster at Calth was believed to be for exterminating an Ork threat but Guilliman himself had already determined the Ork target was nowhere near a danger to the Imperium. The Imperium was still a super-power after the Heresy and into the Scouring and Xenos only became a threat again just prior to the War of the Beast when the Primarchs had disappeared and the Imperium became very insular and inward-looking.
Finally, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Xenos don't belong in the Heresy. FW was asked quite a lot about this in the past and the position was always based around the game being about a specific event. Their advice was the same as mine, just use the 7th Ed rules if you want but don't expect any official releases.
   
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 Gert wrote:
R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?


Well... how cool do the minis look?

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 Gert wrote:
R0bcrt wrote:
To be fair most factions are minor in comparison to the Imperium. I imagine many of the xenos empire would have been as large or larger than the Tau are in 40k or the Aeldari craftworlds. It's simply the Imperium had the manpower and ability to throw legions at them that stomped them.

Yeah, there were definitely Xenos races that had substantial empires or territories but the point is that the Crusade wiped them out. If you asked people if they wanted to play a faction that in-universe dies and never comes back, how many are going to pick them up?

To be honest I'm not convinced the Rangdan xenocides were lesser compared to the wars with the Orks and Humans. In terms of all the Ork and Human wars yes I agree, but when each one is broken down to their individual conflicts the Rangdan xenocides are up there in the top list in my opinion. Granted there's no way to actually quantify it, but from the tone of the books the xenocides was one of the wars that had a legitimate chance at destabilizing the imperium, something only really mentioned in the same breadth as the Ork empire at Ullanor as far as I know. If there was a black book about the xenocides (even if redacted in sections) I would totally buy it, and is the one xenos faction I'd pick to get some rules if they ever did decide to.

The Xenocides are left very vague and blank to allow for mystery surrounding both the events and the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion. I did say that the Hrud and Rangdan were major conflicts but my point was that the vast majority of the Crusade was spent fighting non-Imperial Humans or Orks. Yes, those minor powers were there but they were annihilated so quickly that they didn't actually contribute much, unlike the Orks who are one of the most widespread races, and Humans who the Crusade was designed to reintegrate.

The realistic thing I hope for them to do would make a "Imperial Militia and Cults" for xenos. Something broad and could be used to make any number of xenos factions. Hrud, Saharduin, Fra'al etc. It would be easy to make a black book of some Xenos empire/faction resurgent and using the Horus Heresy as an opportunity to expand/achieve some goal. Afterall I doubt what xenos are left would all stand idly by waiting for the Heresy to end. Some of them would have had to done something, even something as simple as raiding old homeworlds to get old tech and the like. I think it would be cool to have a book about such a subject, but I won't hold my breath haha.

Just use the Cults/Militia list that already exists, the variety of options work well in simulating Xenos species, all you need to do is model them.
As for Xenos conflict during the Heresy itself, in theory, yes but in reality no. The period just before the Heresy was the peak of Humanity at the time and any real threats had been beaten into submission, indeed it was one of the reasons that there was discontent within the Legions. Many of the major threats had been dealt with and Legion forces were now being tasked with suppression and garrisons on many worlds instead of conquering them. The Muster at Calth was believed to be for exterminating an Ork threat but Guilliman himself had already determined the Ork target was nowhere near a danger to the Imperium. The Imperium was still a super-power after the Heresy and into the Scouring and Xenos only became a threat again just prior to the War of the Beast when the Primarchs had disappeared and the Imperium became very insular and inward-looking.
Finally, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Xenos don't belong in the Heresy. FW was asked quite a lot about this in the past and the position was always based around the game being about a specific event. Their advice was the same as mine, just use the 7th Ed rules if you want but don't expect any official releases.


You have a point that I concede to, but at the same time how many historical wargames exist and have factions that lost, such as the Gauls and Carthage? I'd like to think just because a faction lost and was wiped out shouldn't mean they ever get represented on the tabletop or expanded upon. A black book works just fine for representing a moment in the crusade or the heresy, regardless of the future. Now I know it probably won't happen, but I think a compelling enough faction is possible.

And while it is most likely true that most of the crusade was spent fighting against orks and humans, I'll first say it is most likely true but not able to be proven. We have no idea of the ratios, if they are 10%-90%, 40-60, or even if time spent fighting xenos as a collective was equal to or higher than humans and orks. Without more details I don't think this argument can really be used without a huge asterisk next to it. And ofcourse things like the Nephilim complicate things, as Xenos-Human combos would be hard to separate. And even if they were minor, does that really matter? From a historical point of gaming those battles did occur, regardless of their threat to the imperium they were obstacles.

While I agree that using the cult and militia list does cover a good chunk of potential xenos, others it does not that clearly would benefit from a list tailored to representing various xenos. For example the Hrud, it'd be very difficult to remake the Hrud in cults/militia list in a way that is believable. I can think of some ways to use the rules to represent them (such as something along the lines of rad auras for the Hruds time aura) but can't get them in the cults/militia.

At the end I think we just have to agree that we disagree. I think some form of broad xenos "codex" like cults and militia does belong in the Horus Heresy. The crusade beat the threat into submission but it didn't eliminate it (Saharduin and the Dog soldiers are two I know where mentioned in 30k lore that are still around in 40k). The Xenos populations of the Heresy era did exist no matter how small, and denying their existence in the rules of the heresy not only is a disservice to the lore and history of the 40k universe, but also creativity and the expansion of the 30k setting. One of the things I found so baffling (and frankly kinda stupid), is not one xenos faction has thought to do anything during the heresy. No Fra'al have decided to raid shipping of a complete mess of an empire (a perfect time to), no dog soldiers have decided to act on their supposed grudge against humanity destroying their homeworlds by destorying vulnerable worlds in a time the Imperium is busy ripping itself apart. Even if those powers were too weak like you said to do anything, what about the Dark Eldar? They haven't thought to raid planets and take millions of prisoners when the Imperium is distracted? We know they exist as per the Vulkan books, but they just sat there and thought they'd take prisoners after this golden opportunity? No exodites thought they'd try and reclaim lost Eldar worlds to the crusade? I agree the focus of the Horus Heresy should be the "Horus" in Horus Heresy, but I feel like we are missing out on a very different dimension of the lore by simply pretending xenos don't exist in the setting and just focusing on Traitor vs. Loyalist.

   
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Personally adding Xenos to HH would be like adding Japanese or Ottoman forces into the American Civil War. They don't belong there and honestly, it reduces the nature of the background and the game to a complete mirror of 40k. Like I said earlier, people didn't want to play their Xenos armies against HH armies because they could already do that in 40k. Once you've added Xenos, are you playing HH or are you just playing 7th Ed 40k?
Obviously, you do you but it's kind of the point of the setting and game that its Humanity fighting itself, unlike 40k where there are lots of Human factions just because Space Marines are a popular product.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/08 20:54:07


 
   
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 Gert wrote:
Personally adding Xenos to HH would be like adding Japanese or Ottoman forces into the American Civil War. They don't belong there and honestly, it reduces the nature of the background and the game to a complete mirror of 40k. Like I said earlier, people didn't want to play their Xenos armies against HH armies because they could already do that in 40k. Once you've added Xenos, are you playing HH or are you just playing 7th Ed 40k?
Obviously, you do you but it's kind of the point of the setting and game that its Humanity fighting itself, unlike 40k where there are lots of Human factions just because Space Marines are a popular product.


I get your point about comparison to 40k proper, I haven't played 30k myself so I don't know how well the rules from 7thed would actually port over, so I'll trust you on that.

You're analogy doesn't make any sense though. If the American civil war has stretched across the entire planet, then yeah, I'm sure the Japanese and Ottoman forces would have gotten involved. The Horus Hersey spanned basically the entire galaxy, you know, the place where all these alien races lived. Why wouldn't they be (at least peripherally) involved. The Cabal sure were.

It would be more about new factions too, just random small stuff that we could have fun with. Yeah you can house rule / build your own, but it's not the same as having an official line, even if it's a small one. There's very little space in 40k for new alien empires. Not so in 30k, especially pre-heresy.

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 Tawnis wrote:
I get your point about comparison to 40k proper, I haven't played 30k myself so I don't know how well the rules from 7thed would actually port over, so I'll trust you on that.

It's not perfect but it is fine as a placeholder, the limit on LoW helps but even so the general imbalance with the 7th Ed Codexes and the difference in special rules (i.e. the distinct lack of Fearless units in 30k) means that problems can and will crop up. There are community-made Xenos lists but I've never tried them.

You're analogy doesn't make any sense though. If the American civil war has stretched across the entire planet, then yeah, I'm sure the Japanese and Ottoman forces would have gotten involved. The Horus Hersey spanned basically the entire galaxy, you know, the place where all these alien races lived. Why wouldn't they be (at least peripherally) involved. The Cabal sure were.

Scale doesn't matter when the focus of the conflict isn't on the scale but rather on who is partaking in said conflict.
As for specific involvement of races, the Orks had just been beaten to the absolute outskirts of the Galaxy at this point i.e. Wild Space (yeehaw). They were no longer a threat to the Imperium at large and the only use of the remaining enclaves was as bait for Loyalists, planned by Horus to either deal a devastating blow (Calth) or to distract a potential threat (Chondax). The Craftworlds weren't actually in any shape to be fighting anyone as the Fall had occurred only 200ish years prior. The Cabal also barely got involved and mostly relied on Human Perpetual agents to do their dirty work and never engaged in actual battle. Generally, I would think that the Xenos would be looking at the Heresy not as an opportunity to retake territory but as a chance to escape nearby Imperial space. Your biggest threat has just started fighting itself but whichever side wins is still going to come after you when they're done.

It would be more about new factions too, just random small stuff that we could have fun with. Yeah you can house rule / build your own, but it's not the same as having an official line, even if it's a small one. There's very little space in 40k for new alien empires. Not so in 30k, especially pre-heresy.

The one thing HH doesn't need is more factions. There are 20 ways to play the Legions, plus Knights, Mechanicum, Cults/Militia, Solar Auxilia, and Daemons.
It really doesn't matter that there could be space for Xenos in HH, because they are fundamentally not part of the conflict. Just because you could do something doesn't mean you should.

TLDR: HH doesn't need Xenos and adding them diminishes the setting rather than enhancing it.
   
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What would be amazing, but will never happen as it involves too many fringe imperium factions that wouldn't be worth developing would be the age of apostasy.

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I would like some more "historical" 40k games like Horus Heresy. Great Crusade could be cool, if we have things like the Ullanor Orks or fringe Xenos empires.

I personally hope, that the expand the Heresy post the Siege of Terra, so we may see the breaking of the Imperial Fist againt the Iron Cage.

The Unification Wars would be amazing. There are so many extremly cool factions there and we could even have some battles between Custodes and Thunder Warriors.

I would also love to see the Age of Apostasy as a civil war on the human level with barely any Marine involvement. The models from here could also double for some cool Ecclesiarchy delegations for Sisters of Battle armies.
   
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 Gert wrote:
I think it would be a real struggle to do either period in game form.
The Unification Wars were mostly just humans fighting humans with some Thunder Warriors and Custodes sometimes. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
The Great Crusade would basically just be 7th Edition 40k but without formations. It's the kind of thing that only works if people want to do a campaign, that inevitably the Xenos or non-Imperial player will lose. Even back when my group's Heresy enthusiasm was at its peak nobody wanted to do the GC because despite there being Orks, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar, Nid's, Guard, and Mechanicum players, nobody wanted to play 40k in 30k. They could already do that and 30k offered them something different.


Inevitably lose? Why. If game is designed well both sides have equal chance barring skill.

You are basically saying GW is incompetent crap company that can't help but make broken game. Well might not be off

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tneva82 wrote:
Inevitably lose? Why. If game is designed well both sides have equal chance barring skill.

You are basically saying GW is incompetent crap company that can't help but make broken game. Well might not be off

That's not what I'm saying at all. The core of this discussion is centered on narrative and story telling within the HH game system. The narrative and story of the many minor Xenos empires that were around during the GC was that they were eradicated and their planets resettled by the Imperium. There's no victory at any point for these races like there is for the Xenos in 40k which is entirely the point. The Crusade was the Imperium's highest point of power where it was sending Legions of Space Marines led by the demi-God Primarchs and the Emperor Himself across the stars to carve out mankind's empire. If you're anything but an equal power to the Crusade Era Imperium, then you are dead.
So at best a GC game would be a copy of HH but with certain units removed while also using Orks, the Aeldari, some form of Hrud, and possibly the Rangdan because no other species lasted long enough to make an impact on the Crusade. The Laer? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade. The Diasporex? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade? The Megarachnids? Dead in one campaign late in the Crusade. Neither GW or FW is going to make ranges for Xenos that die and never show up again.
   
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Not likely but would love to GW go all the way, all the way back to pre-Men of Metal Rebellion and then start forward. Men of Metal Rebellion, Unification War, and Great Crusade - IMHO. Thats were to start and they could make a killing because it would give everybody a chance to start new small armies to play during each of the different time periods. And we all know small armies never stay small for long before they become large armies. I fear the day, if GW ever does Men of Metal because I will need a ton of robots.


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I think tbh there's probably a decent chance. There are enough people making Thunder Warrior conversions, just like a big part of the community were making big marines before Big Marines became a real thing. I could see it maybe being a smaller thing, like a boxed game, but I'm sure there are more decent legs to it than some people in here think.

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 Tawnis wrote:
So, I never really got into 30k. While I really like the Horus Heresy series, I've got plenty of Marines and Chaos now and am totally fine playing them in 40k. It got me to thinking though, what would it take to get me into investing into a 30k army? I settled on two big things that would really draw me in that 40k doesn't have, more Xenos or a change in general aesthetic to feel very much like its own thing (outside of the rules).

1) The Great Crusade:
All the models are around for loyalist legions with the exception of a few chaos corrupted ones, it wouldn't be hard to have them play as their loyalist versions pre-heresy. Having some other races to play like the Interex, Rangda, Eldar, Orks, Lear? Megarachnids? Hrud?, okay that might be stretching it a bit, but the Eldar and Orks are already around so given them 30k version wouldn't be that hard. Doing a Great Crusade style campaign where you helm an expeditionary fleet (or oppose one) would certainly draw me in.

2) The Unification Wars:
There's enough broad strokes information about this that you could build upon it for some Technobarbarian armies and Thunder Warriors, though the Astartes from 30k proper were present here as well. I feel like the armies would have kind of a Fallout Sytle astatic to them that would be pretty cool and it would be a fun era to play in. There are a lot of interesting crazy factions that are touched on in the lore that I think would look really cool on the tabletop and could play in some interesting ways.

I figure that both of these are terribly unlikely given that 30k is already far less popular than 40k, but I had the thought so I wanted to see if this was something that anyone else would be interested in.



It depends. 30k is driven by Space Marines. They love the Legions and everything that goes with them. If you did the Unification Wars, you can do some cool very Grimdark stuff. But apart from making Thunder Warriors an army it won’t tap into that demand. So I think it’s less likely. Although the writers absolutely love the Unification Wars. I feel we know more about that than the Great Crusade.

Great Crusade is kind of already covered under the Black Books lore wise. Also you would only go there to add the Xenos factions and Space Marines are what sells. A new Xenos faction limited to just 30k is pretty limited. If you wanted to do new Ork and Eldar stuff why limit it to that setting specifically?

That doesn’t rule out army rules, campaigns and scenarios to allow these sort of armies. But model support I think would be out of the question unless they really need a new setting.

The Scouring is the most likely story they’ll follow. Still a ton of Legion stuff but moving into classic Mark 8 armour and scope for Xenos factions.

As an aside, I think it’s possible they could look at the Age of Apostasy. Sisters sold pretty well, the story is very Grimdark and ripe to be fleshed out. Plus you could go crazy adding all the Saints and Goge Vandire. As well as the chapters and Mechanicus that get involved later. Maybe even tie in the Plague of Inbelief with the Space Wolves.


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Thunder Warriors, and the unification wars by proxy would be a no brainer. So many many many people would purchase a box with thunder warriors in just to have the models. Many would purchase them to kit bash with etc.

It would be easy money. The other added benefit is, any human faction made (and keeping in mind this was the techno-barbarian period) could easily be double up to be a techno-fuedal/inquisitorial henchmen faction for 40k.

It really doesn't need to be expanded further than a box set, it would work as a standalone game.

I'm going to purchase some third party 3D printed thunder warriors as it is, like many are doing.

a 10 man squad and a character thunder model would satisfy most peoples needs, not many at all want to do a full force so there's no need to expand past that.

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It's completely out of the question now for one simple reason: No models, no rules.

Does GW or Forge World have any reasonable way of producing enough models for a half dozen minor human or xeno factions? No. But GW's current policy is that units have to either have models sold by GW/FW or that can be produced by simple conversion from models sold by GW/FW.

So the Great Crusade is either ten years too late (when you could have a unit without a model), or five to ten years too early (when you might be able to buy GW 3D printing. )

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/18 02:26:38


 
   
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For HH that's not true and hasn't been for a very long time. HH rules have a huge lead time on model releases and often models never get released at all for certain units.
   
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The Unification Wars might make a neat little boxed game of Thunder Warriors vs Techno-barbarians. However, there's not nearly enough to sustain an entire wargame. Even if you succeeded, you'd have stripped that part of the lore of all of its mystery.

Tbh, I just don't see what a Great Crusade game could meaningfully offer a gamer that they can't get from 40k. The Heresy is unique because of its focus and small scale (relative term here). Opening it up to a more sandbox setting wouldn't be interesting.

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Back in the very early days of Horus Heresy (after the TCG and art books), but before Forge World made it 'official' there was a small but dedicated group of hobbyists that were into the Crusade-era and pre-Heresy events. There was even a forum 'The Great Crusade' - myself and a bunch of other guys (probably no more than a couple of dozen) used to modify existing kits and do greenstuffing - literally no official miniatures then so it was all converting chaos armour, drilling holes and scraping away aquillas to make mkV armour etc. There was some really inventive stuff going on.

We ran narrative events based during the Crusade; we were very fortunate that the guy that ran the forum had links to BL, and even managed to get a short story penned by Graham McNeil for one event: The focus was an invasion by several legions on a human world that had to be brought into compliance (they were using naughty cloning tech!). While some of this was quite inventive and fun I always regret that we didn't do more with some of the more interesting (perhaps later exterminated!) alien races, as there was so much scope there for imagination and some cool ideas that aren't found in the narrow window of 40k.

Eventually the FW stuff came along which dragged people's attention forward to the Heresy, rather than looking back at the Crusade, and a lot of the interesting modelling and imaginative side of things died when the details were being prescribed for them (this was probably when I lost most of my interest TBH).

But I agree the crusade is a really evocative setting, and it actually benefits (at the moment) from not being heavily detailed by either GW or BL; there is still a massive unwritten area for hobbyists to employee their imagination, and also do it in a sandbox that is the opposite of the 40k setting, with humanity still with hope and expanding towards the horizons - also the 'naughty' legions still fighting on the good guys' side!
I actually have an Epic 6mm project on the go at the moment and am building a Crusade-era World Eaters force. So far just Orks to go against them, but I have an eye on abhumans and other alien races (there are quite a few 6mm ranges) for the marines to fight against. And with the scale it's a lot easier (and cheaper) to replicate this than in 28mm.

A link to my blog for anyone interested: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/355088-world-eaters-of-the-great-crusade-an-epic-blog/

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/20 12:49:59


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Small but perfectly formed! A Great Crusade Epic 6mm project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/694411.page

 
   
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I agree with you Pacific, so much so that in my headcanon version of the 40k universe the great crusade is still ongoing. I think it makes the universe much more interesting and makes space for other human, xenos and particularly mixed factions struggling against assimilation. I've got the Word Bearers as the splinter chaos faction off running around the outskirts doing their thing. Depower the emperor and the primarchs down to something more reasonable and you've got a great setting.

   
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Croatia

The Unification Wars might make a neat little boxed game of Thunder Warriors vs Techno-barbarians. However, there's not nearly enough to sustain an entire wargame


Are you kidding me? There's 20 different Thunder Warrior legions and god knows how many techno-barbarian armies with all sorts of different soldiers, cyborgs, warmachines, sorcerers and so on.

Not only do I see this becoming a reality one day, but a BL series on Unification wars is bound to happen one day. It's a whole new period of history to explore and there's a ton to discover.
   
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I am also confident we will get Unification Wars in one way or another. I would like to see a skirmish system that might be expanded to a full wargame if its popular enough.
   
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As Rick Priestly said, I somewhat believe that 40k’s mythical past should be left to the imagination. IMO the HH and GC have already been fleshed out far too much. If you delve into the unification wars and golden age of humanity I fear everything that is unknown will become known. Would be somewhat boring
   
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30k is fundamentally about selling you another Space Marine army, so I'm going to say... no.
   
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Yazima wrote:
As Rick Priestly said, I somewhat believe that 40k’s mythical past should be left to the imagination. IMO the HH and GC have already been fleshed out far too much. If you delve into the unification wars and golden age of humanity I fear everything that is unknown will become known. Would be somewhat boring


Finding myself agreeing with this.
There's a lot more appeal in fleshing out the alien races like the Hrud - there's that one picture in one of the HH BBB that has a bunch of the 'unknown' races humanity had to steamroll in the great crusade and i would be hyped for a book covering their civilizations and unique threats compared to the "well that's kinda cool" response i'm feeling for 'unification wars'.

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