Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Sometimes I think about starting a 30k army. I read the 2.0 rulebook as soon as it went out but it didn't convinced me enough to buy the starter set. Random charge, unconvincing mission, doubts about balance...
I see a lot of posts about hobby and modelling on social media and forums but very few about played game, almost no tournaments ecc.
So what are your thoughts about this ruleset? Do you think it is a good game overall or just an hobby fest, good for painters and modellers? Is it fun and tactically convincing or a dice fest?
Let me know what seasoned players thin about it, thanks!

Only played it once, so can't really comment on most of your questions.

However, most of GW's games are dice heavy, so qualify as being 'Dice Fests'. Horus Heresy is no different, GW make games where a lot of D6 are used at a time.

You won't see tournaments of HH very often because the general player base isn't very competitive minded. That isn't to say people don't want to win but more that they play the game more casually or look for narrative themed armies rather than what happens to be the "meta".

But overall, it's a good game. A couple of general thoughts I have:
- Overall balance is pretty good. None of the Legions IMO outright suck and they're all pretty generic with their Legion Trait so it applies to most units in an army.
- The rules are pretty centralised with each faction having a big tome of rules which means it's a lot easier to test play other armies.
- Legion armies are pretty damn forgiving in terms of unit choice or learning curve. However, other factions are less simple (Solar Auxilia).
- Special rules are a bit scattered which can be a pain.

i saw it as a ham-fisted way of forcing a meta rather than letting one develop.

Very little care for the original version, especially where it came to reflecting the freedom of choice the original army lists allowed for.

Missing units all over the place at the start and no care as to how they ended up that way gave me the distinct feel they basicly were seeing what they could get away with removing.

That basicly removed my intrest in learing the new 'reactions' shtick which is the biggest shame of it all since that could have been good if the type of 'standard' reaction a unit could take was determined by the force organisation slot they were taken for and then having certain units getting the option of a unit specific reaction that reflects their character/use.

I mean, thats just me casually shooting the air with an idea, but it feels better than what we were given.

Don't get me started on trying to force me to buy models i don't like in order to use my existing ones.

I've probably had about 20 or so games at this point including an event with 18 people. Wouldn't call it a tourney as it it wasn't WAAC but there was an entry fee and some prizes. Also have another one in a month to prep for.

The random charge is pretty standard for GW at the moment, but that random value is lessened by charge modifiers I reckon. Or you can make them harder with difficult terrain so model placement gets a little more important.

Missions, there could be more variety for sure. Here's hoping for a campaign book or something with 6 more at minimum. Though the white dwarfs have had the occasional mission which adds a bit more content.

Balance has a few outliers for sure. Dreads are a bit to strong, tanks a little too weak with defensive weapons. The legacy units also have some units that are lackluster and others that are too strong.

Overall, it's in a place I'm pretty happy with in regards to tactics. Do i react by backing off or pushing forward, do I throw a cheaper unit into a combat I know it can't win and then commit more stuff in a later turn or push past it towards objectives. Challange to try and kill a character or maybe use snipers. Build a unit with the niche but useful wargear or go cheap and deal with them being less versatile? Every time I build a list it feels like i have to choose between one thing or another, can't have everything and I like that.

I don't feel like the game is braindead like 40k or that I can lose the whole game in a single turn like warmahordes. But i've not played every wargame so there certainly could be better ones out there.

I have no nostalgia nor love of 40k editions before 8th. And many of the mechanics that were left behind when 8th was introduced, I really liked them being left behind. I begin this way because I knew starting Horus Heresy, I wasn't really the audience. Save for the fact I like space marines and am one of the rare players that like marine vs. marine games. Couple that with getting a new (at the time) Codex: Chaos Space Marines and not being very impressed my the way the rules tried to simulate the strengths and weaknesses of the Black Legion.

So I won't get into my personal disdain of templates and vehicle facings. Except that with space marine vehicles, armor facings are that big of an issue, and Horus Heresy also seems to have much less (or tons more depending on the game) of Deep Strike, so vehicle facing is something you have to give away or your opponent has to earn, for the most part. Templates importance also feels reduced compared to what I remember from 7th. And while spacing out your infantry still has to be a thing, I don't think much is gained by insuring all models are 2" apart. A good ~1 1/2" is usually enough in my limited experience. Biggest template complaint is the plasma cannon as 10 can be in a squad, which is the height of annoying.

I'll start with Reactions. I don't really like them the way they are done in HH. The movement ones are okay-ish. They can be the kinda annoying, but it's something a player can try to work around. It's one of the Shooting ones (Return Fire) that I greatly dislike. It is clearly not at the same level as any other Reaction. If the reacting unit had snap fire or removed causalities, it'd be a lot more palatable. Heck, if Pinning weapons were a little more prevalent; it might be okay. Part of me really wants Heavy Bolters to be pinning weapons. Charge reactions are also okayish. I think Overwatch should have a penalty to hit. I can't say much about advanced reactions. I play Sons of Horus, and mine is garbage (or at least how I use feels like garbage). Finally, I don't really like the way HH gives out additional reactions. I think I'd much rather just get 1/phase per 1000pts (or less) and call it a day, and also ensure Reactions' effects are lesser than actual active player actions. I'm not against Reactions as an idea. My favorite miniatures war game (Dust Warfare) had reactions. I just don't think they are done well in HH.

This is more controversial, but I'm not really a fan of Rites of War. Made all the worst that HH has horrible, horrible internal balance. While learning the game, I have been sticking to not using a Rite of War to get a feel for things playing a more typical pre-8th 40k (or 8th-9th Battalion Detachment) army list. Basically a melee Praetor, 2 fairly big squads of Tacticals, too many Tactical Support squads (it's what I have), a Dreadnought, 10 or less terminators, a Heavy Support squad and some tanks. And I feel like I'm playing with one hand tied behind my back. Sons of Horus don't have great general legion rules. Much of their strength comes from Rites of War and specialty units. At least as far as I have seen. If it weren't the fact I'm facing opponents that want to get into melee just for glorious combat, I'd already have games that my marines might as well have been Black Shields (no rules at all). I tried to escape 40k because I didn't like the direction the Black Legion went. But at least they have rules I make use of every game. However, this is largely down to which legion you go with and just how much you want to, for lack of a better term, Flanderise your army. I only want a squad of Justaerin and maybe a squad of Reavers and/or Vets with Legion specific weapons. Otherwise, I kinda want to add the units I think are neat. Like a squad of Volkite Chargers with Chainswords.

But that leads to my next criticism. Balance be wack, yo. The contemptor is a high profile, but there are tons of stuff that's bad. Pretty much any Tactical Support squad. And it's not just units. Wargear is all over the place. Artificer armor is a steal, Augury Scanners for good shooting units too. Legion specific stuff seems to be pretty efficient for the most part. Which I don't think would be much of an issue if not for Rites of War that make it easy to spam it. The balance is somewhat kept in check by players not going for all the best stuff, but even a player indulging in their legion's specialty feels like they have a leg up on someone just going for a rounded, TAC-for marines list.

Gameplay itself feels stodgy and binary. Which, truth be told, is how I felt playing 5th and later 7th edition. I'm certain this is a me thing. As stated at the start, I wasn't much of a fan of pre-8th 40k. Made worst having played 8th and 9th edition. It's tough to go back to Power Armor either getting a Save or nothing, choosing between shooting or charging and going through all the effort charging and having a static Initiative decide the who swings first. I have already been the victim of losing a tank within 5 minutes of putting it on the table (as well as a bunch of infantry I didn't have the space to not get caught in the blast. HH is also a big step back in trying to make generalists (such as a shooty and melee units) work. HH rewards specialists a little too much for my liking, as I enjoy trying to balance out the best percentage of shooting and melee to get the most out of a generalist unit.

I'm not against USR, but I found I have to create my own datasheets to have the rules quickly at hand. Since USRs are both in the BRB and in the Iibre. Though, many of the common USRs (like Shred) are pretty easy to learn. Just the same, there's a ton of wasted space in those two giant books. I'm almost prefer weapon option lists over listing things over and over on the unit. And the less said about GW's take 3 sentences to say 1 sentence or less of information, the better. Overall, it's GW being GW. I don't think they have the ability to write rules in any efficient way.

That's not to say it's all bad. I like the return of Gets Hot weapons, mostly allowing a Save after rolling a 1. While I hate templates (even before I started playing 40k consistently), I like the flame template. Reactions aren't a bad idea, just not implemented very well. Plus, there's the positive of HH that is very much toned down to a beer and pretzels level of competitive effort from the players I play. Everyone is looking for a friendly, close games. Not to smash their opponent's army's face in. HH is likely to be very stable rules change wise. I'd kinda like a fine-tuning of the rules at the year anniversary of Age of Darkness, but nothing crazy. Even if the game still has a bunch of balance issues. As I'd much rather have what HH is than what 40k has become with rules shifting.

Bottom line, HH is a game that really isn't made for me. It's for players like grew up playing 40k in 3rd, 4th, 5th and maybe even 6th and 7th edition and liked its quirks. The game knows what it is, and makes no apologies. And there's an honesty in that. Even as a player that doesn't really like it, the game isn't so bad that I can't overlook the things I don't like and play a game.

That seems like a perfectly understandable take on HH. I think you are right about it's appeal to people who played earlier editions of WH40k. I doubt that they were a target for the designers, but HH has also ended up attracting a lot of players who (regardless of whether they played pre-8th Edition WH40k) have become disillusioned with WH40k in its current iteration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Johanxp wrote:
Sometimes I think about starting a 30k army. I read the 2.0 rulebook as soon as it went out but it didn't convinced me enough to buy the starter set. Random charge, unconvincing mission, doubts about balance...
I see a lot of posts about hobby and modelling on social media and forums but very few about played game, almost no tournaments ecc.

Try SN Battle Reports. They play with fully painted armies, which means they are great to look at. While they do not play at a highly competitive level (and readily admit to making mistakes), you get a pretty good feel for the game watching their videos. Ultimately, I think you need to be invested in the fluff and the feel of HH (as well as the models), or you are probably not going to get much out of it.

I've played a lot of it and I think it's really great. I would be wary of people online throwing out too much negativity about balance etc.

As already stated, it isn't a "tournament" community but there are a lot of events, most of which have an overarching narrative and custom missions.

The base rulebook missions are decent and simple enough to play but there's plenty of others out there if you want them, including the many developed for events and also the plethora of missions from the black books which are playable with v2.

It's definitely designed with the older 40k/30k ethos in mind of theme and modelling being of a higher priority that tournament and competitive play.

I would encourage anyone who enjoys tabletop games to get into it as it's a fantastic community and an incredibly engaging and fun game. If you're after a competitive game with less emphasis on the hobby side then I would recommend sticking with something else. The main downsides of 30k at the moment are the terrible layouts and writing style of the rulebook and the mechanicum army list. Both could do with a decent FAQ and errata. It's easy to have a minute discussion with who you're playing with but it would be nice to have clarification on some things that could absolutely be interpreted more than one way or simply don't work I'd you were to play straight RAW, which sadly is far more common in games like MTG and tournament 40k.

Tldr I would recommend getting into it for sure, unless you want to play competitive games all the times, in which case go for something else

 Snord wrote:
That seems like a perfectly understandable take on HH. I think you are right about it's appeal to people who played earlier editions of WH40k. I doubt that they were a target for the designers, but HH has also ended up attracting a lot of players who (regardless of whether they played pre-8th Edition WH40k) have become disillusioned with WH40k in its current iteration.

That was HH 1.0 for me, as I could not stand 8th and onward.


2.0 is worse than 1.0, the only upside I can think of is expanded transport capacity on the rhino. I respect the choice to have relatively few missions even though they're pretty bad overall. I also think if the rumour is true about campaign books the missions/scenario count might bloat up quickly. Overall I must agree with SirDonald, there is very little care for the original version. I think what's truly unforgiveable though was that if 1.0 had any issues it was legacy problems of one specific unit type and sub type being monstrous creatures and by extension flying monstrous creatures, and that really mostly applied to daemons and maybe a tad to mechanicum but was an outlier. Instead of moving away from mc's, they made dreads mc's for no reason, started wound creep on termies, I say creep because it meant the 2 wound ones in some cases would then have to become 3 wound ones. They also really messed with javelins for no reason, and most unforgivably of all jetbikes and skimmers can't even move over friendly or enemy models. It's just a much worse rule set than 1.0. Reactions were bad from their inception, nothing makes sense about an enemy unit doing more shooting in my turn than their own or vice versa, it's just a terrible gimmick and worse, it throws a massive wrench in the large battles HH players like to have because the level of book keeping/accounting for reactions is a non-starter. Silver lining though is taking 2.0 models releases and just playing 1.0 with them, saves money on books that can be spent on models and avoid the heartburn of having to engage with 2.0 in general.

Simple answer-garbage

I have all the original books, i have played 1.0, it is a very good fixed version of 7th ed 40K. Bligh knew what he was doing and now GW is just dumping on everything he worked so hard for, to turn it into 9th ed "light".

 aphyon wrote:
Simple answer-garbage

I have all the original books, i have played 1.0, it is a very good fixed version of 7th ed 40K. Bligh knew what he was doing and now GW is just dumping on everything he worked so hard for, to turn it into 9th ed "light".

It's true though, 1.0 wasn't perfect but they did everything but dance on the guy's corpse given how little respect was paid. I still remember people saying 8th was the "last" ruleset and it was now a living ruleset and with the announcement of 10th looming they sorta duck when they see me lol

GW already plotting how to make us pay to fix 2nd in the form of 3rd ed HH

 Crablezworth wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Simple answer-garbage

I have all the original books, i have played 1.0, it is a very good fixed version of 7th ed 40K. Bligh knew what he was doing and now GW is just dumping on everything he worked so hard for, to turn it into 9th ed "light".

It's true though, 1.0 wasn't perfect but they did everything but dance on the guy's corpse given how little respect was paid. I still remember people saying 8th was the "last" ruleset and it was now a living ruleset and with the announcement of 10th looming they sorta duck when they see me lol

GW already plotting how to make us pay to fix 2nd in the form of 3rd ed HH

Nope. I never played 1st HH. When I have collected all books from 2nd HH I am done. Just like with 40K after I have realized that GW never intended to improve the game with an edition change.

See if you don't like HH 2, that's fine but don't use Alan Bligh to score points. It's crass.

 Gert wrote:
See if you don't like HH 2, that's fine but don't use Alan Bligh to score points. It's crass.

Surely the gaming community must be venerating his replacement and the admirable job he did of maintaining alan's legacy... oh wait the dude already quit to make video games or something. Visionary.

So proud of his work he left the company. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anujmalhotra87/?originalSubdomain=uk

It's true sadly, it was a very unfortunate direction to take the game with 2nd edition given the love that man put into 1.0 and the frakenstein's mosnter of 2.0 being somehow above reproach. I'm not suggesting 2.0 was ever going to make owning a collection of giant books a requirement but they abandoned the contents entirely when options like red books existed. The take away is 2.0 does not respects its roots at all. It's fair to take notice of the changes and lament the one that take the game in a worse direction. It's not even a matter of not commenting and "letting people enjoy things", they're not enjoying them. Locally people certainly purchase 2.0 models but the game doesn't have too many players. When asked many people are still waiting for assault/breachers to even finish their starters.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
. Just like with 40K after I have realized that GW never intended to improve the game with an edition change.

Yeah the incentives are about as honest as a casino sadly.

Ok, can we PLEASE not rehash this asinine argument for the nth time? Everyone knows everyone else's opinions on the ruleset. We all know why X person thinks Y. We really don't need to go over it again.

NVM. Not worth it.

 Gert wrote:
You won't see tournaments of HH very often because the general player base isn't very competitive minded. That isn't to say people don't want to win but more that they play the game more casually or look for narrative themed armies rather than what happens to be the "meta".

But overall, it's a good game. A couple of general thoughts I have:
- Overall balance is pretty good. None of the Legions IMO outright suck and they're all pretty generic with their Legion Trait so it applies to most units in an army.
- The rules are pretty centralised with each faction having a big tome of rules which means it's a lot easier to test play other armies.
- Legion armies are pretty damn forgiving in terms of unit choice or learning curve. However, other factions are less simple (Solar Auxilia).
- Special rules are a bit scattered which can be a pain.

A "bit", yeah xD. The books are a fething mess. Only way I can really find stuff is looking it up on the pdfs.

for what its worth (not much I admit) I like HH2, I like the background and I especially like how the "I beat you in the list building phase" players are not playing it locally so it can be played in a more fun way - thats the players not the game though

I'd prefer if reactions available scaled with game size, indeed all parts of the game should scale with game size and for the most part they do - its not a game breaker but it does push to larger games

I'd also like infantry units to have a facing as well, just "front/rear" based say on the sergeant or some other nominated single model in the unit - with the unit firing to its rear being at say -1, and then having the ability for some units to have a better save, or worse save based on the arc - minor point but stuff like MkIII being slightly better from the front and slightly worse from the rear maybe, flavour thing really

definite plus lots though on the layout of the books, would prefer if this was a ring binder based system with section dividers etc but GW have never been very good at readable layouts where rules are where you would expect to find them (Necromunda says hello!)

I would prefer if templates were replaced with how 40k does it, just for sanity when units with multiple template weapons fire but its something I can live with as it is

I'm enjoying it, there are some infuriating bits like whoever wrote the XV legion rules apparently not having a clue how the game worked but for the most part its good and an enjoyable way to spend a day with friends, which is really all a game needs to be

Re: scaling

Given the FOC is static as well, I would say the game is consciously designed to be played only in the 2000-3000 pts range and anything outside that should be house ruled. Possibly because they want to sell us an "Apocalypse" supplement down the road.

Love it. Love it. LOOOOVVEEE ITTTT. IMO, this is what 8th edition should have been, instead of the godawful gamey mess that we got (which only got worse with 9th). AV? Check. Templates? Check. Real morale rules? Check. And amped up Night Fighting? Check (though I admit to being biased on those last two ).

Oh, and the best damned ruleset that the 8th Legion has ever had? Check.

Do I have a few problems with the overall balance and the balancing of the various Reactions? Yeah (But that's probably better left to another thread). But, overall, I love it. Soooo much fun. And so many kitbashing and customization opportunities.

I love it. It's a blast.

Question about Support squad balance. Is that just because having 5-10 marines with special or heavy weapons tends to be gamebreaking, or is there some other reason?

Played a couple of games using my old (as in I bought and painted them in 3rd edition) marines as stand ins while I work on the new stuff and, while it's no 4th ed, I think it's solid.

My biggest gripe would be with the cover / terrain system. TLOS is trash, being able to shoot through area terrain neuters the need to maneuver, and I'm not a fan of how everything short of ruins only gives 6+.

Disgruntled shout out to some of the hard-countery stuff going on: I.E. you absolutely need to take the scrambler or w/e to not be bum-buggered by DS lists, but how it in turn renders DS nearly unviable for just a few points.

But largely I'm fond of the ruleset. I wouldn't rate it above early 8th edition before the insane bloat set in, but it's head-and-shoulders (and torso, and legs, and ankles...) over the awful dumpster fire which was 6th and 7th edition 40k.

Biggest non generic-rules gripe would be that it obviously had silo'd devs, given how some legions are pretty unbalanced amongst themselves, with most of the loyalist rules absolutely dumpstering most of the traitor legions.

While I rate the core ruleframe of 9th edition higher than the 3rd-7th chassis before the unnecessary layers of special rules kick in, HH 2 is a pretty fun romp for laid-back games. As Morgan says, it's no 4th ed but it's a solid update for that particular design paradigm. As an avid lover of infantry, I'm happy this edition has put boots on the ground and stompier dreadnought boots in the spotlight in a big way.

There are parts here and there which could do with conservative finetuning at some point, like certain unit types working more consistently (Armigers). My main gripe is the continuing meaninglessness of terrain, which should preferably always be the third army on the field and dictate the flow of battle more than anything but that's a ubiquitous complaint in any 40k game that hasn't been heavily tailored to local tastes.

 Sherrypie wrote:
While I rate the core ruleframe of 9th edition higher than the 3rd-7th chassis before the unnecessary layers of special rules kick in, HH 2 is a pretty fun romp for laid-back games. As Morgan says, it's no 4th ed but it's a solid update for that particular design paradigm. As an avid lover of infantry, I'm happy this edition has put boots on the ground and stompier dreadnought boots in the spotlight in a big way.

There are parts here and there which could do with conservative finetuning at some point, like certain unit types working more consistently (Armigers). My main gripe is the continuing meaninglessness of terrain, which should preferably always be the third army on the field and dictate the flow of battle more than anything but that's a ubiquitous complaint in any 40k game that hasn't been heavily tailored to local tastes.

The terrain thing is unfortunate with the trend being towards 5-6+'s, part of the issue too is losing go to ground as a core mechanic, which honestly given how pinning is the way around units being able to react, it probably should be put back in. It was a good mechanic, basically choosing to self pin in order to have a chance of holding on, good for units just trying to keep an objective in their hands. But at least the terrain is an easy fix assuming both sides see the worse saves as an issue, could just agree to improve the overall saves cover gives, either indexed to type of terrain or just a flat cover save that's better than 6. HH 1.0's weakness was also terrain, a lot had to be sorta ported from 40k on the ruin side to help smooth things out.

 infinite_array wrote:
Question about Support squad balance. Is that just because having 5-10 marines with special or heavy weapons tends to be gamebreaking, or is there some other reason?

Well, there were rumours abound that the tactical support squad (specials) had line.
There's also the fact that you can drop pod them down on something.
There are some quite questionable design choices in HH2.0, i will freely admit that, like contemptors, Custodes as a whole, TS and special weapons for the special support squad, aswell as BC's on the SA. other than that i am quite happy. Doubly so since my R&H soon will get to see the tables again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

The terrain thing is unfortunate with the trend being towards 5-6+'s, part of the issue too is losing go to ground as a core mechanic, which honestly given how pinning is the way around units being able to react, it probably should be put back in. It was a good mechanic, basically choosing to self pin in order to have a chance of holding on, good for units just trying to keep an objective in their hands. But at least the terrain is an easy fix assuming both sides see the worse saves as an issue, could just agree to improve the overall saves cover gives, either indexed to type of terrain or just a flat cover save that's better than 6. HH 1.0's weakness was also terrain, a lot had to be sorta ported from 40k on the ruin side to help smooth things out.

agree on going on ground. Granted i'd go a step further an allow units to dig in as a choice instead of shooting but then again gw has a tendency to not creat core mechanics and rather remove them.

HH1.0 main disadvantage was in many ways a worse balance and prohibitive expensive rules decentralisation. Phosphex comes to mind as a main offender and being arty ehh.

Not having played 1.0, I enjoy 2.0 very much, as I have no grudge about changes that make my models useless or rules I sorely miss.

Most rules complains I hear center around vehicles, dreadnaughts, artificer armour, deep strike and reactions.
I must say besides the low cost of dreadnaughts I do not share them.

Still we use some house rules to make the game in our eyes better by addressing some of those complaints or things that seem have to be overlooked.

All Terrain is area terrain. No matter how small, it's still an area.
You can trace LOS into and out off, but never through any piece of terrain that has a feature higher than both target and shooter. Or any other piece of terrain that you define as obscuring. If need arises (e.g. a high, but defensible wall) you can define a model to be in a piece of terrain when it's base touches the terrain.

Antigrav models can pass over models as well as terrain.

When allocating the first wound in a wound pool or when a model is killed, proceed as in the rules. But once you have chosen a model, you must not select a different model (this is also true for characters) until this model is killed or the wound pool runs dry.

When allocating wounds from a wound pool in close combat, the allocation only stops once no target model is still alive that was engaged in combat when that wound pool was "opened". ( Otherwise the allocation would stop immediately when the last model in base contact has been removed)

Occurrences of Instand Death cause D3 wounds against models with the Eternal Death special rules.

If a Primarch is killed, the controlling player can not win the game. An otherwise win of his is reduced to being a draw.

One Dreadnought per 1k points. If you want to play more for whatever reasons, you can do so, but the points cost of each dreadnought including all options is raised by 50%.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
While I rate the core ruleframe of 9th edition higher than the 3rd-7th chassis before the unnecessary layers of special rules kick in, HH 2 is a pretty fun romp for laid-back games. As Morgan says, it's no 4th ed but it's a solid update for that particular design paradigm. As an avid lover of infantry, I'm happy this edition has put boots on the ground and stompier dreadnought boots in the spotlight in a big way.

There are parts here and there which could do with conservative finetuning at some point, like certain unit types working more consistently (Armigers). My main gripe is the continuing meaninglessness of terrain, which should preferably always be the third army on the field and dictate the flow of battle more than anything but that's a ubiquitous complaint in any 40k game that hasn't been heavily tailored to local tastes.

The terrain thing is unfortunate with the trend being towards 5-6+'s, part of the issue too is losing go to ground as a core mechanic, which honestly given how pinning is the way around units being able to react, it probably should be put back in. It was a good mechanic, basically choosing to self pin in order to have a chance of holding on, good for units just trying to keep an objective in their hands. But at least the terrain is an easy fix assuming both sides see the worse saves as an issue, could just agree to improve the overall saves cover gives, either indexed to type of terrain or just a flat cover save that's better than 6. HH 1.0's weakness was also terrain, a lot had to be sorta ported from 40k on the ruin side to help smooth things out.

It's less about the value of the save, that's mostly an ephemeral part of the resolution process but doesn't particularly affect the decision making that then guides the flow of the battle. The save value matters nought against small arms while cover in general should still do something and so on. Beyond obvious bottlenecks like straight walls, there are no robust mechanisms to interact with hitting propabilities or battlefield control either. A lot can be done with a narratively minded group if one wants to start fixing save values, introducing hitting penalties, dangerous traps, fortified positions, interactable objects like radars and bridges but straight out the book various versions of 40k have always suffered from rather lackluster utilisation of their scenery.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
While I rate the core ruleframe of 9th edition higher than the 3rd-7th chassis before the unnecessary layers of special rules kick in, HH 2 is a pretty fun romp for laid-back games. As Morgan says, it's no 4th ed but it's a solid update for that particular design paradigm. As an avid lover of infantry, I'm happy this edition has put boots on the ground and stompier dreadnought boots in the spotlight in a big way.

There are parts here and there which could do with conservative finetuning at some point, like certain unit types working more consistently (Armigers). My main gripe is the continuing meaninglessness of terrain, which should preferably always be the third army on the field and dictate the flow of battle more than anything but that's a ubiquitous complaint in any 40k game that hasn't been heavily tailored to local tastes.

The terrain thing is unfortunate with the trend being towards 5-6+'s, part of the issue too is losing go to ground as a core mechanic, which honestly given how pinning is the way around units being able to react, it probably should be put back in. It was a good mechanic, basically choosing to self pin in order to have a chance of holding on, good for units just trying to keep an objective in their hands. But at least the terrain is an easy fix assuming both sides see the worse saves as an issue, could just agree to improve the overall saves cover gives, either indexed to type of terrain or just a flat cover save that's better than 6. HH 1.0's weakness was also terrain, a lot had to be sorta ported from 40k on the ruin side to help smooth things out.

It's less about the value of the save, that's mostly an ephemeral part of the resolution process but doesn't particularly affect the decision making that then guides the flow of the battle. The save value matters nought against small arms while cover in general should still do something and so on. Beyond obvious bottlenecks like straight walls, there are no robust mechanisms to interact with hitting propabilities or battlefield control either. A lot can be done with a narratively minded group if one wants to start fixing save values, introducing hitting penalties, dangerous traps, fortified positions, interactable objects like radars and bridges but straight out the book various versions of 40k have always suffered from rather lackluster utilisation of their scenery.

^ This

4th ed is often touted as the best 40k has ever been not because the terrain gave better saves (IIRC it largely didn't), but because the terrain actually effected the battlefield. Having a maximum depth at which units could shoot into - or out of - area terrain, combined with never being able to shoot through area terrain (though you could shoot over it with a good vantage point) meant that how you moved your units actually mattered beyond "Melee run forwards, ranged castle up and shoot, chaff camp on the objective". Sight lines was a huge factor, without the concern of being able to shoot a unit through the windows in two ruins and the reflected light off a beetle's ass.

Absolutely agreed, area terrain in 4th was... honestly the only time 40k was ever a genuinely good game.

I have just realised that World Eaters can take Chainaxes on Land Speeders.
S5, Shred, 5 attacks on the charge Land Speeders.
Any argument that says HH 2 is bad is immediately rendered moot in light of this.