Odds on seeing 30k expand beyond the Horus Heresy? (In reverse)

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**Backspacehacker**

I could possibly see them doing a bit past the HH. Like I would be totally ok with war of the beast using HH rules.
Like eldar and Ork in HH officially? Yes please!

**Gert**

Why would the War of the Beast use HH rules? The Legions were long dead by that time and the rest of the Imperium had been reformed into the institutions we see today.

**Backspacehacker**

Because we still had some primarchs running around at that point and by then we could get Ork and eldar official rules.

**Gert**

It was just Vulcan and he didn't actually do much. He only showed up about halfway through then died like a few weeks later. The HH rules just don't make sense for an event that happened about 1k years after the Heresy ended.

**Backspacehacker**

Eh fair enough, I would be ok with some progression past the siege of terra, something to include Ork and eldar.

I would really just like to see HH preserved as like an official "old hammer" kinda setting if that makes sense

**Gert**

Why not just play an older edition though?
Why does it need to be the "official" Oldhammer game when it isn't that now beyond using the 7th Ed rules as a basis for the AoD ruleset?

**Backspacehacker**

Because we all know that "official rules" draws a larger audience and crowd. It's harder to get someone to play a set of rules that are unsupported

**Gert**

Why do you need to use old rules to play historical events post-Heresy? Do you just not like the 8th Ed rules style?

**Backspacehacker**

Nah, 8th was ok, imo because I saw it as a transition edition, but with 9th I just hate the rules, don't find 9th fun in any capacity, hell imo it's the worst the rules have been but that's neither nere no there.

More or less I'm just looking for an officially support HH rules expanded to orks and eldar. Which honestly could stay in the realm of HH since you know that happened to

**Pacific**

Backspacehacker wrote:
I could possibly see them doing a bit past the HH. Like I would be totally ok with war of the beast using HH rules.
Like eldar and Ork in HH officially? Yes please!

If you're just looking for things to do in games yourself, I haven't tried it, and don't have much knowledge of the rules of that era, but I have read that the HH ruleset is close enough to 7th edition that you can just use the Xenos codexes from that edition. I'm not sure how close they would be balance wise.

**Backspacehacker**

Yeah they are, there are fan made xeno and and Ork rules out there and nids iirc, that I heard are decent would jaut be nice to have it in a official capacity is all

**Gert**

Backspacehacker wrote:
More or less I'm just looking for an officially support HH rules expanded to orks and eldar. Which honestly could stay in the realm of HH since you know that happened to

Yet as I have said previously in this thread, no Xenos were involved in battles during the Heresy, and as soon as you add a full list for a Xenos race into the AoD ruleset, it's not HH anymore. You've removed the core premise of the game and setting.
As far as official sources go, just use the 7th Ed rules for any Xenos factions you want to play.

**Backspacehacker**

Xeno battles still happened during the HH.
I think at that point you would need to distinguish the difference between 30k era and the HH event.

So yeah I would agree to keep the HH event to imperium forces, but I still would enjoy seeing 30k era orks and eldar, and nids as well.
If anything just for the ruleset, can't help that 30k has better rules and would enjoy seeing those better rules expanded to other armies.

**Gert**

Backspacehacker wrote:
Xeno battles still happened during the HH.
I think at that point you would need to distinguish the difference between 30k era and the HH event.

So yeah I would agree to keep the HH event to imperium forces, but I still would enjoy seeing 30k era orks and eldar, and nids as well.

Except that isn't the case outside of people headcannoning "If the Imperium was in a Civil War then surely some Xenos took back territory". As I stated earlier, the Orks were beaten, it was why the White Scars were bored with Chondax because the Orks didn't present a real challenge and why Guilliuman believed the Calth Muster was primarily a political move to get him and Lorgar to put their enmity behind them during a joint campaign since the supposed Ork "empire" presented no threat to the Imperium, and the Craftworlds had no intention of interfering while their biggest threat beat itself bloody. At best you might get a Drukhari raid on an outlying colony with no form of military defence, which doesn't make for any sort of game.
The Tyranids, Necrons, and T'au don't show up until M.41 so they literally cannot be in the HH setting.

If anything just for the ruleset, can't help that 30k has better rules and would enjoy seeing those better rules expanded to other armies.

So you want HH to become 40k. You're not going to find a whole lot of people who are going to agree with you on that.
Ultimately this is a discussion about one thing, setting. It doesn't matter if you don't like 9th and prefer older editions, as soon as you add non-Human army lists into HH it's not HH anymore, it's 40k and the setting is lost. I feel like a lot of this comes from the flanderisation of HH into 30k, where people see the number and think that because the game is set in M.31 there should be Xenos in the game. The reality is, HH has always only been about one specific event, the Horus Heresy. Not the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, or the Horus Heresy and the Scouring. Just the Heresy.

**Tawnis**

The HH rules could (aside from some of the Chaos stuff) be used for something pre-heresy. If you had Ork rules, you could do something like an Ulanor campaign. That would be pretty cool. In that respect, you could have rules for Custodes too, since they actually played a pivotal role at the end there unlike most of the crusade/heresy.

**Sevetar_VIII**

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.

What about GW/Black Library going back and doing the beginning of the Great Crusade, finding the Primarchs, and then up to the first book in the Heresy in a new novel series? Also doing a series that picks up right at the end of the Siege of Terra and spanning up through the entire scouring time period ending at the start of the 40th millennium?

I don't play the tabletop so I don't know anything about that or how this would work there, but would you or the fanbase like to see those two time periods shown and explained indepth? Do you think GW/Black Library could actually pull those two off and make them right, expand on the Primarchs and their Legions before the Heresy then after the Siege of Terra? Give us a more indepth look at who each one really is and expand upon them in a deeper way that we haven't seen before?

**Boosykes**

Need orks and craft worlds for sure. And I would be all in on orks would hope they wold really get into the sheer size and horror of the orks.

**Strg Alt**

@OP:

I hope not. The Horus Heresy is a story with a beginning and an end. Lets leave it like this. People who yearn for xenos already have a game: It´s called 40K.

**BrianDavion**

pretty near nihl.

as for adding xenos into HH I sure hope not. part of what, IMHO makes the HH game work is due to the absence of the number of xenos factions, the game is a little more balanced because generally speaking there's far less exotic weapons. start addin in xenos and many f the issues 40k has historicly had move into HH.

**ArcaneHorror**

I do think that xenos species like Orks and Eldar should get rules, but as a pdf instead of a full book.

**Insectum7**

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.

"Just humans fighting humans is not worth making rules about."

And:

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.

"Keep HH as just humans fighting humans."

That comes off a little wierd.

**Gert**

Thats because you've twisted what I've said to suit your opinion. Humans and Humanity are two different things.
The Unification Wars were mostly fought by thr Emperor's baseline human forces fighting the various techno barbarians and city states of Old Earth. The Custodes and Thunder Warriors were present but (apart from one very specific incident) they didn't fight each other. There are very specific parameters to each side of the conflict. One side is very much stuck with using the Militia list (or a copy of it) and the other gets all the bells and whistles. The Astartes show up at the end but with no distinction between the various Legions and lacking a vast majority of the units in the army list.
The Heresy is Humanity as a whole fighting itself. Astartes, Custodes, the Mechanicum, Knight houses, various mortal forces and then the Daemons of the Ruinstorm as a bonus. There's justification for nearly every army fighting itself and every other army at any time due to the nature of the conflict.

**Insectum7**

That all still sounds like humans fighting humans.

So if the Unification Wars are all on old earth, why couldn't that be expanded upon? Why do you say that'd so homogenous? That's sorta the "one world one culture" sci-fi trope. Earth today isnt homogenous. GW has already done a non-homogenous single-world game in the form of Necromunda too. Like, obviously it's possible.

**Gert**

In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

**ProfSrlojohn**

I think it would be closer to a grand-scale necromunda. These are *techno-barbarians* and they had all sorts of wild technologies, and we know that many of them had various technologies similar or even better than the burgeoning imperium. The Yndonesian bloc for example were the only ones with Thunderbirds. Albia had proto dreadnoughts, while Akkad had the Udug Hul, gene-altered supersoldiers, and around 200,000 of them fought the First legion. The Maulland Sen Confederacy in Scandinavia had Demons and gene edited warriors, and the Ethnarcy had vast swaths of Dark age tech and gene-altered warriors as well. Beyond these, i'm sure someone creative at forge-world could come up with more. There's a reason the Emperor made the Thunder warriors so much stronger and more brutal than the Astartes, he needed them for the harshest battleground he would face, Terra herself.

Obviously, most of this infromation si from the Emperor himself or the custodes, so it could all be a fabrication, but I still think there's a lot of variety possible there.

**Insectum7**

Gert wrote:
In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

I didn't assume you were wrong. I observed what appears to be a double standard.

The Horus Heresy is about humans fighting humans. Some of the human factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are humans nonetheless. The Unification Wars are humans fighting humans. Some of the factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are also humans nonetheless.

Your issue here appears to be that there is a greater number of "mortal" humans. Which. . . why is that a problem? Are enhanced humans required to make a wargame? (obviously not, since we have Necromunda, not to mention numerous historical wargames.)

You mention Titans, Knights, Mechanicum etc. Is your issue the lack of factions taking part in the Unification Wars? There are Custodes, Thunder Warriors, Space Marines, regular human Imperial troops, plus whatever opposition factions one can come up with for the techno-barbarian states, of which there were many. Btw, it's quite possible that there were Titans wandering about, since the Warlord Titan dates all the way back to the Age of Strife. The point is the Unification Wars haven't been expanded upon much, which also means it's rife with possibility for interesting stuff, including non-Emperor "enhanced" humans if you really wanted them.

Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

In short I see no issues expanding HH backward in time and coming up with Great Crusade or Unification Wars material. Alien or human factions defending themselves from the onslaught of the Emperors war machine (which also did involve many, many "mortal" humans), or exploring the possibilities of the warlord states of Terra during the Unification Wars.

**Gert**

Insectum7 wrote:
Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

Once again you are massively oversimplifying and resorting to whataboutism.
HH is a very specific story and setting whereas 40k is not. 40k rulebooks and Codexes always used to include timelines with events marked out retracing the thousands of years over which the setting takes place. The Codexes would mention the Heresy and many other campaigns or battles from the Scouring all the way to 999.M41. Now I know the 9th Ed Codexes have removed the timelines (not sure about the rulebook) which IMO is a loss for people wanting to recreate events from the 40k timeline but as I am so often told, 40k is a sandbox for people to tell their own stories or recreate famous ones. There is no set time frame for battles to occur (generally speaking) so time is not a concern.
HH is not the same. It's not a sandbox setting where you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You couldn't have Necrons fighting T'au in HH because neither faction was there. You as an individual can do games using fanmade rules or older Codexes in HH 1 but the setting for HH is a specific story and is akin to a Historical wargame with set factions and armies. I've already made the point before about introducing something like Teutonic Knights or Samurai into the American Civil War period as something similar to putting non-HH factions into HH.
If you want to do an alternate Heresy with the sides swapped (i.e. Dornian Heresy or some other popular retelling) then that works within the setting because the change is then down to paint schemes and allegiances while the rules remain (largely) the same.
I get it, people love their official rules and junk. But here's the thing, if you're so desperate for it then find a way. There are fanmade Xenos books out there for HH 1 and possibly 2. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of people making a Unification Wars style Necromunda game as well. Go find your own thing and leave HH as it is.

**BrianDavion**

Insectum7 wrote:
Gert wrote:
In a very simplified way, yes its humans vs humans because there are no aliens. But once again you've chosen not to actually read what I've written.
I never said it was "one world one culture", I said that it was very much mortal humans vs mortal humans with a small sprinkling of Thunder Warriors or Custodes with maybe some very generic Space Marines later on but only one side gets access to these latter ones. There were no Titans, Mechanicum, Knights or any variety of Astartes. And as I said earlier, apart from the final purge of the Thunder Warriors by the 1st Legion, the Imperial aligned forces didn't fight each other unlike in HH where that's the whole point of the setting.

Yes GW has made Necromunda. But we're talking about an expansion of the HH game not an entirely different system altogether. It might very well work as a small skirmish game similar to Necromunda/Warcry with set techno barbarian clans and City states but it wouldn't work as an expansion of HH.

You should try reading my points properly before assuming I'm wrong.

I didn't assume you were wrong. I observed what appears to be a double standard.

The Horus Heresy is about humans fighting humans. Some of the human factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are humans nonetheless. The Unification Wars are humans fighting humans. Some of the factions are "enhanced" humans, but they are also humans nonetheless.

Your issue here appears to be that there is a greater number of "mortal" humans. Which. . . why is that a problem? Are enhanced humans required to make a wargame? (obviously not, since we have Necromunda, not to mention numerous historical wargames.)

You mention Titans, Knights, Mechanicum etc. Is your issue the lack of factions taking part in the Unification Wars? There are Custodes, Thunder Warriors, Space Marines, regular human Imperial troops, plus whatever opposition factions one can come up with for the techno-barbarian states, of which there were many. Btw, it's quite possible that there were Titans wandering about, since the Warlord Titan dates all the way back to the Age of Strife. The point is the Unification Wars haven't been expanded upon much, which also means it's rife with possibility for interesting stuff, including non-Emperor "enhanced" humans if you really wanted them.

Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

In short I see no issues expanding HH backward in time and coming up with Great Crusade or Unification Wars material. Alien or human factions defending themselves from the onslaught of the Emperors war machine (which also did involve many, many "mortal" humans), or exploring the possibilities of the warlord states of Terra during the Unification Wars.

the probem with doing the unification wars is, the Horus Heresy is effectively "The Orgin of..." all the factions are ones that have a modern incarnation in 40k. so there's some built in emotional connection and world building there that doesn't otherwise exist.

the only other comparable war would be "the war in Heaven" and I'm sure if GW felt there was a big eneugh market for a war of proto-necrons, proto-eldar and proto-Orks we'd see that

**Insectum7**

Gert wrote:
Insectum7 wrote:
Is your issue the very title of the game itself "Horus Heresy" and therefore believe that it should only represent this very specific time period? Warhammer 40K has in it's title the time period it takes place in, but could very well be used to play out scenarios thousands of years earlier by just not using certain factions and units, depending on what you're doing. HH is an expansion/evolution of the 40K paradigm, ITSELF having piggybacked on the 40K ruleset. If you take HH as just a set of rules, and do some faction modification and swapping, the Unification Wars seem plenty doable.

Once again you are massively oversimplifying and resorting to whataboutism.

Relevant examples for argument aren't whataboutism.

HH is a very specific story and setting whereas 40k is not. 40k rulebooks and Codexes always used to include timelines with events marked out retracing the thousands of years over which the setting takes place. The Codexes would mention the Heresy and many other campaigns or battles from the Scouring all the way to 999.M41. Now I know the 9th Ed Codexes have removed the timelines (not sure about the rulebook) which IMO is a loss for people wanting to recreate events from the 40k timeline but as I am so often told, 40k is a sandbox for people to tell their own stories or recreate famous ones. There is no set time frame for battles to occur (generally speaking) so time is not a concern.
HH is not the same. It's not a sandbox setting where you can do whatever you want whenever you want. You couldn't have Necrons fighting T'au in HH because neither faction was there. You as an individual can do games using fanmade rules or older Codexes in HH 1 but the setting for HH is a specific story and is akin to a Historical wargame with set factions and armies. I've already made the point before about introducing something like Teutonic Knights or Samurai into the American Civil War period as something similar to putting non-HH factions into HH.
If you want to do an alternate Heresy with the sides swapped (i.e. Dornian Heresy or some other popular retelling) then that works within the setting because the change is then down to paint schemes and allegiances while the rules remain (largely) the same.

I'm no expert in historical wargames, but I'm fairly certain rulesets are built and expansions created which allow players to do exactly what you claim is not possible. That is, having different forces from different time periods that never would have met in history, but meet on the tabletop simply because players wanted to do it. So can it be a thing? Totally yes.

Also, I'd like to see some reason why you'd be so certain that HH is not simply a different sandbox. If GW is building HH into a third "tentpole" product to sit beside 40k and AoS, why would they constrain themselves by sticking to this very specific subset of possibilities, when there's clearly space for possible expansion.

I get it, people love their official rules and junk. But here's the thing, if you're so desperate for it then find a way. There are fanmade Xenos books out there for HH 1 and possibly 2. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of people making a Unification Wars style Necromunda game as well.

Let's turn that argument back around for a moment. Why push for official GW female Space Marines when fans can just swap heads and paint models however they want?

Or as a different response, why can't you as a "HH purist" simply not use any faction/expansion you don't like? I use the Space Marine book in 40k, and just skip over any Primaris entry, myself.

Go find your own thing and leave HH as it is.

LOL. Oh Gert, we'll make a grognard of you yet!

Keeo Tau out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Necrons out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Primaris out of 40k, they don't belong! Keep Unification Wars/Great Crusade out of HH, they don't belong!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

the probem with doing the unification wars is, the Horus Heresy is effectively "The Orgin of..." all the factions are ones that have a modern incarnation in 40k. so there's some built in emotional connection and world building there that doesn't otherwise exist.

Well, that explains some human factions. But it doesn't give a reason for excluding the Xenos factions from HH, something Gert has also argued for.

Short on time. Maybe more later.

**Gert**

Spoiler: