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The update to points are going to be a big thing, Termies going up 10 for the full unit is certainly a start so will be interesting to see how that carries on. Hopefully the big stuff gets a points drop.

Yay, a book we have to buy.

Liber Strategia
An essential update for Legions Imperialis, Liber Strategia has content for every kind of player. This 240-page supplement collates, updates, and supersedes the previous army lists for (deep breath) the Legiones Astartes, Solar Auxilia, Mechanicum Taghmata, Dark Mechanicum, Collegia Titanica and Knight Households

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Yay, a book we have to buy.

Liber Strategia
An essential update for Legions Imperialis, Liber Strategia has content for every kind of player. This 240-page supplement collates, updates, and supersedes the previous army lists for (deep breath) the Legiones Astartes, Solar Auxilia, Mechanicum Taghmata, Dark Mechanicum, Collegia Titanica and Knight Households

I'm just getting into LI, so this is actually good for me.

Any new models is always nice, so it's not a case of "new toys", but the compendium is a red flag, especially after AT went cold after it's compendiums were released.

Kinda. Balance update is good. Not having to carry multiple books is good.

Spending money to get the original rules and have them superseded in a couple of years or so? Not so good.

But as I said, at least the expansions have more than just unit rules.

There's still loads of potential in AI.

They've not touched forces like the Sisters of Silence; and there's still a whole load of stuff they could do for Dark Mechanicum.

A collected rule book now could simply be a case of cleaning house before a new edition or something similar. Get people into the game without a confusing rules release system.


AT had the issue that it went quiet mostly because they were gearing up for AT. I can't see GW shelving AT unless they want to take it into the 40K era and - as much as I would utterly love them to do that - I don't think they will do that.

Best we might get is some advance to chaos war engines and the like.

SamusDrake wrote:
Any new models is always nice, so it's not a case of "new toys", but the compendium is a red flag, especially after AT went cold after it's compendiums were released.

AT didn't go cold after the compendia. It froze solid when they spent three large sprues worth of machine time on making a titan nobody had heard of and no-one asked for when they could have been making plastic Dire Wolves and the Rapier that people actually wanted. Even a non-Nemesis Warbringer would have been better. Instead they didn't sell enough Warmasters (because even people with five or six Warlords only needed one or two at most) and that was that.

Okay, it is what it is and here's my thoughts...

A Campaign compedium seems like the next likely release. They can now replace all the previous books with just two compendiums. The core rule book, and boxed game, will need updating.

So a new core rule book will have updated rules - at least to the standard of the current errata - and have all unit profiles removed, because they're in this new compedium. A new boxed game will have that new rule book as well, along with a separate booklet for the models included.

 zedmeister wrote:
I'm just worried that's a kind of end of release 'cap off' book. I just hope this is a simple refresh that updates points values and profiles as well as consolidate it all.

Still a ton to do for LI

This is my feeling concern as well. Something about it feels like a "we are sunsetting this product line but heres one last wave to round out some gaps for you"

I still live in hope for rules for my AI Custodes fliers. They were promised, after all... they just didn't say when.

I agree a compendium is worrying, though the hopeful side of me says its just a way to not need to have 3 books in print at once.

However, Mastodon's are amazing. They were my number 1 wish. Now I just need a Stormbird to be a happy man.

Not what I expected from an LI preview at all! I think it's difficult say about the Strategica book, it could easily be a sign that that's them rounding off the end of Legions, but I think it's hard to say for sure at this point. To give an optimistic take, it could be more that they recognise the game needs it - the long overdue FAQ/Errata went a fair way to correct some of the core issues with the games but a rebalance of units and point costs (ideally making different Russ turrets or titan weapons etc cost points!) is really needed. I think the amount of effort put into it will be a key indicator, if its pretty much just a copy paste of all the existing entries into a single list with only the most minor of tweaks that won't be a good sign. If it's the kind of update which is needed, a bit more of a thorough refresh, that may indicate a willingness to invest in the game and suggest more still to come...?

On the kits, more previewed than I expected to be honest, though I did think we'd certainly see a Fellblade so called that wrong!

Nice models to see, but I do think it's a shame the Whirlwinds and vindicators aren't dual kits like the predators/sicarans etc - personally if it was necessary sprue space wise, I think six to a box with two options would have been better than the eight with the whirlwind half/half mix and the vindicators even more disappointing to just be the demolisher variant, but there we go.

I do like the Cerberus and Typhon, so happy to see those both those too. As an Iron Warrior, I'm just happy to see lots of artillery options at last

I feel like Fellblade would have been a more surefire seller than the Mastodon, but I might just been out of touch on that one as I think its the wrong kind of fugly!

 Overread wrote:
A collected rule book now could simply be a case of cleaning house before a new edition or something similar. Get people into the game without a confusing rules release system.

Yeah I can see this being an attempt to draw more people into LI after the HH 3.0 launch hype dies down. It's harder to cross-sell people into another system when it needed 3+ books to cover unit rules, but a single compendium means they drop some new discounted battlegroup boxes later in the year.

Also this feels like a catchup wave of several kits cut from the release schedule in the last ~18 months due to various delays. After this they'll return to the regularly scheduled campaign books.

The one positive thing I will say is that typically GW launches games with a 3-5 year promise of support (this is due to the long lead times associated with product development). Like Aeronautica Imperialis was supposedly more or less dead on arrival from what I've been told, but they had a commitment to release however many waves of stuff over about 3 years (which I think was delayed by COVID a bit into a 4th year). Theres the hope that sales improve in that window to justify continued development of course, but if after a period it doesn't meet performance the plug gets pulled.

For them to sunset LI now when they have talked previously about long time plans like bringing every single HH model into LI and even going into legion specific models it has to have been an extreme flop.
And at least from what I can see online while it isn't up there with the best in terms of popularity it certainly didn't do as bad as AI.
But then again the rumours about WarCry going away while it actually did very well and was one of the best GW games makes this possible too.

For the preview itself I'm sad we still didn't get Fellblades and their variants but the Mastodons are a very nice alternative.
Also nice to finally get Scorpius/Whirlwinds and Vindicators and at least some heavy tanks in the form of the Cerberus/Typhon

Im guessing the more traditional Space Marine superheavies (Fellblade, Glaive, Falchion, etc.) are probably being saved for later in the games development (assuming development does continue) as they are very "traditional" pieces of armor (stylistically speaking), whereas most other space marine vehicles are either some sort of transport or fire support vehicle.

Leaning too heavy into traditional armored playstyles too early could skew faction identity too much and make them too similar to Solar Auxilia, which would be bad for the game. Once the game is more fully developed and internal balance more rounded out those tanks will only play a supporting role within that identity as opposed to dominating it.

I think this is connected to model design in HH and the new plastic kits there

I still get the impression that LI models are just downscaled and adjusted HH renders not newly designed for that scale (which might also be a way to reduce the cost for HH if the same design can be used in 2 games), and therefore with HH getting a new Fellblade, LI is going to follow and simply just didn't got one before the big new one was out

Might also be that LI is the backup to cover costs if needed, like if HH3 does well enough the game would have been cut, if HH3 is doing poorly they try to catch the people with LI again to get better numbers

So…Legions Imperialis gets 4 entirely new kits (might be 5, not sure if Cerberus and Typhon are a single box), with plenty units still with no models, and gets a compendium of all unit rules with revisions and updates…..and it’s being put out to pasture?

Makes. Perfect. Sense.

It does MDG. They only have bandwidth to tool so many units at once, if they made the decision to cut support then 4 or 5 new units would probably be in the pipe and theyd probably finish tooling and release them to try to recover costs incurred by that point in the process.

This would be the *smallest* release wave since the game came out, and its only for one faction, with no mention that the bkg compendium book contains any other new units in it. That itself is also unusual given how many holes there are for units in Mechanicum and Solar Auxilia that could be filled.

We've already been to this rodeo twice before with Titanicus and Aeronautica.

The Dark-Mech deserved their own campaign book for AT, and Aeronautica is still on sale without a boxed game to provide a poster required to play the game. They both turned cold when AT went to compendiums, and the 30K-only rulebook-compendium for AI.

If it is going to be different for Legions then that's up to GW to reassure us.

It's not like Titanicus got killed off though, they have released multiple compatible kits and kept up support by printing rules in boxes (plus even a faq).

But at this point it doesn't make much sense to release something specifically branded for AT and not for LI, aside from perhaps a new starter box at some point.

That is true of course as both AT and AI are both on sale, and so they're not dead games. But AT hasn't received anything substantial aside from the Dark-Mech stalkers, which belong to the LI range and all they did was place a piece of card in the box, which is low effort. The introduction of Dark Mech into AT should have been enough for a new campaign book - even if only a "journal".

Oh, and those units received an FAQ update earlier in the year to explain how they're incorporated into maniples and lances, but not even an effort to make players aware of it through a Warcom article...of which they missed a fair few weeks on Heresy Thursdays.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda. Balance update is good. Not having to carry multiple books is good.

Spending money to get the original rules and have them superseded in a couple of years or so? Not so good.

But as I said, at least the expansions have more than just unit rules.

You speak as if you didn't like being a paying beta tester! What nonsense is this ^^

Darn it people stop scaring me with all this talk of sunsetting and ending the line and trying to twist my arm to investing into the game when I shouldn't (cause of other financial commitments and stuff)

I might get the big book if stock is good, I've not really bought any of the LI rules supplement type books so it'd be nice to keep for the future if they eventually squat the system

I never really invested in Li, because my Titans already had their own game (where I can truly say, "It's like an a-hole free version of Battletech.").

The only reason I played Li, was that people liked having my Titans along for big battles in Li.

Maybe I am just too hopeful, but I suspect there are other things in the new big unit compendium that they have not shown us yet. Just like the core book came out with rules for units that were not yet released, I could see that happening with the compendium. I suspect we could still get some waves of SA and Mech from the new book. I think it all depends on how quickly GW wants to put out new stuff. Actually with the huge focus on HH3, I figures LI would not have even been included in the show so they could really just push HH3 as the only HH era stuff. The fact that we got anything in the preview is a good sign to me.

My real hope is that the compendium shows that they really do want LI to develop and with the big book having errata and updated unit profiles, it might go a long way. Maybe Medusa's will officially get the Siege ability now.

Alternatively, this could be a cycle wrap for the beginning of the game and then they start a new cycle of campaigns and new units (Mech and Dark mech specifically, Molach, etc.) Or it could be a cap stone and the game goes dormant for a while. Either way, we will just have to wait and see. I know I can't wait to get my Legion some Arty.

It’s no different to Necromunda compiling into Gangs of the Underhive, or Blood Bowl with Spike! and then Compendium.