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Hello again, a new topic but I'm curious. How is the Horus heresy doing as a game for you all? are you having fun with it? wishing it was still HH1?

I am personally suprised by how much i'm liking 2nd edition right now as mechanicus, even if the power level is less than HH1. Then again, I am running with some panoptica units to fill out my forces till I can get a 3d printer. outside of that, I think I'm having quite a bit of fun

I haven't had much experience with it as a game, but I really like HH 2.0 because it preserves most of the things that I liked about WH40k before 8th Edition. I enjoy making army lists for HH, for instance, whereas WH40k army lists are just rubbish. And of course I like the aesthetics - especially the look of the vehicles. The fact that there is scope for converting models to field what you want is also a plus.

I also prefer HH's slower release schedule. It gives us time to actually build stuff before the next new shiny thing (or before whatever you've done gets invalidated). That said, we seem to be in a bit of a lull in terms of model support.

Here in my town of 150,000 there is a core of about 12 HH gamers based at the FLGS that play on a weekly basis and about 20 or so who will come for events, random games and play at home.

Most transferred from 40K but a handful played 30K in 1st edition.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
Here in my town of 150,000 there is a core of about 12 HH gamers based at the FLGS that play on a weekly basis and about 20 or so who will come for events, random games and play at home.

Most transferred from 40K but a handful played 30K in 1st edition.

Oh, that sounds pretty sweet. Are you guys having fun with it?

There were 3 of us in my city and one flunked uni so had to move back home for a year, haven't played since but I'm still grinding away at the army slowly.

Game's good and deserves more play, but the local "40k" crowd is hypercompetitive so they'll play the game that has more tournament support and the non-40k crowd would rather buy into another dozen indy skirmish games than 3000 points of Space Marines.

I need to get more games in.

The model range is excellent. Having painted 120 of the buggers with 20 more to go, having just 5 MkVI bodies isn’t the drag you might think. And having a plethora of plastic Dreadnoughts and Tanks has helped make Heresy more affordable and inviting.

And as someone with a now extensive and painted collection? I need to get visible playing in my FLGS to build my circle once again.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The model range is excellent. Having painted 120 of the buggers with 20 more to go, having just 5 MkVI bodies isn’t the drag you might think. And having a plethora of plastic Dreadnoughts and Tanks has helped make Heresy more affordable and inviting.

Yeah, I like the Mk VI.

Sorry about your loss, Mad Doc…

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I need to get more games in.

The model range is excellent. Having painted 120 of the buggers with 20 more to go, having just 5 MkVI bodies isn’t the drag you might think. And having a plethora of plastic Dreadnoughts and Tanks has helped make Heresy more affordable and inviting.

And as someone with a now extensive and painted collection? I need to get visible playing in my FLGS to build my circle once again.

personally, my group is playing in an HH league, and so far it's been a blast, been enjoying it as I said. maybe get a small escalation league or campaign going?

Well I'm part of a club type thing in Syd, we got 55 members and get together every month. Ususally we have 8 or so tables. Peeps also arrange games at their own places fairly often.

Admittedly we are using a slightly modified ruleset, nerfs some things such as the obvious dreads, buffs and adds some things here and there.

If HH2 was moved into a competitive environment it'd be much worse, but if you want beer and pretzel/narrative type gameplay it's pretty damn fun if ya have nostalgia for earlier editions.

To my knowledge other areas in the surrounding suburbs also have decent sized groups, I'd hang out with them too if it wasn't a few hours travel to do so. I suspect printers letting you fill in for FW or adding in legion flair is helping to no end.

There's a small group of 4-5 of us (depending upon if the one guys in town) playing semi-regularly. And 3 or 4 more people that have stuff but haven't played in about a year.

Generally we're having fun. I acredit that more to the group itself than the system.
2 of the guys really like it. For the other 3 of us? It's OK. But we 3 also enjoy 40k where we can play Necrons, Orks, Eldar, Tau, etc etc etc.
It gets a bit stale with the limited # of factions, & even more stale when you account for what the group actually has.
Within the group:
*Me? I have considerable choice. I can do SM (Loyal or Traitor), Militia (I have no end of 40k Guard), Mechanicum (Knights & Titans), & if I felt like it Deamons. I might build a Sisters of silence army - but I need to find a file for their transport 1st.
*one guy only has 1500 pts of Militia
*one guy only has about 1500 pts of Ultra Marines - the parts of his 40k army that qualify for HH (so none of Primaris stuff)
*two of the guys only have Custodes & (40k) Knights.

We usually draw randomly to determine teams/opponents.
So since I have to be able prepared to crack Custodes (& to a lesser degree Knights)? The types of firepower I need to bring to do that makes for extremely short games when I'm facing our UM/Militia players - wether 1v1 or as part of a team. If I don't bring the firepower? The Custodes simply roll over me thanks to the AP & initiative systems.
The Custodes players bring their Custodes about 70% of the time. Otherwise they bring the Knights.
This is getting a bit old for me.
Now if I know ahead of time that all I'll be facing is either the Militia or UM players, then I can dial things down a bit....

A little jury rigging can get some Xenos into HH2. The militia rules are pretty good for doing weird stuff honestly. Or even demons for tyranids. You lose a little alien flavour... but lets be honest 10th has been doing that anyway.

WHERES MY SHOKK ATTACK GUN TABLE GW!

Australia has always had a glut of Heresy players, which considering the prices GW insists on charging us, is amusing since it's undoubtedly the most price-tag heavy system they offer.

Melbourne has a large, hard core fanbase and has done since the early days of Heresy 1.0, so there's no shortage of players no matter where you're located. There's also plenty of events run throughout the year, which are mostly story driven narrative affairs, but there are one or two that lead towards the competitive side of the game. It's a good time to be a Heresy player at the end of the day.
Much like Cody, I've part of a group that meets monthly at a venue for a games day. Attendance levels vary depending on who can make it, but we always have between 8-12 people turn up, so you're rarely short of an opponent if you want one. Within that group we have a reasonable array of armies, so it's not like we're always playing the same people with the same lists. That being said though, 3 of us Mainline Dark Angels. So its not uncommon for us to end up having "Live fire training sessions".
Most people (not me, yet though) can field at least 2 armies, with quite a few having at least 3 or 4.

I have a few niggles with the rules, but nothing that ruins my overall enjoyment of it, but definitely the sort of thing I'd like to be able to house rule. But most people around here aren't really that interested in house ruling stuff as it's too hard to get everyone on the same page for every issue. Liber Panacopica is looked upon poorly in local circles as not only trying to hard, but also as inferior "successor" to what Mournival Events was during 1.0.

But over all I'm very happy with the game. It's helped ease some of my social anxiety issues and its nice to actually use the expensive toys I've spent so much time and effort on for a change!

 Snrub wrote:
. Liber Panacopica is looked upon poorly in local circles as not only trying to hard, but also as inferior "successor" to what Mournival Events was during 1.0.

But over all I'm very happy with the game. It's helped ease some of my social anxiety issues and its nice to actually use the expensive toys I've spent so much time and effort on for a change!

Yea, The massive errata document is something that I can't wrap my head around at all. I will say that panoptica's liber ingenium is great for bringing extra admec models like skitarii. I wouldn't be able to play otherwise without being able to bring them, and thankfully they seem pretty well balanced all things considered. definitely not an autowin I can tell ya that

still, the only thing I am jealous of in australia is the HH scene

Panoptica certainly takes the cake for being even less digestible than the official books. It is so impenetrable it should be used in a writing class somewhere.

It is also clearly an ego-based project - a lot of changes are there because the authors want to put their own mark on it, not because they're necessary for better play.

I would love a minimalist HH 2.1 balance patch in a couple of pages but Panoptica & company aren't that, they're bloat, the bloatiest bloat that ever bloated, it makes Blightkings cry themselves to sleep.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Panoptica certainly takes the cake for being even less digestible than the official books. It is so impenetrable it should be used in a writing class somewhere.

It is also clearly an ego-based project - a lot of changes are there because the authors want to put their own mark on it, not because they're necessary for better play.

I would love a minimalist HH 2.1 balance patch in a couple of pages but Panoptica & company aren't that, they're bloat, the bloatiest bloat that ever bloated, it makes Blightkings cry themselves to sleep.

yea, I can agree on that 100%. i just like the ingenium book's skitarii and find it a fun add on, but i dont like the FAQ potion of it. gonna move away from it when i get a 3d printer, but then again this topic isn't about panoptica or army building, just gameplay feel and how it's doing

And now we've lost one of the people who hadn't played in a year+. :(

Got a message from one of the other current regulars that this player just sold him all his HH stuff for about 1/3 price. A good deal indeed.
Looks like he's pumping $$ into the new AoS edition.

cody.d. wrote:
A little jury rigging can get some Xenos into HH2.

Or even demons for tyranids. You lose a little alien flavour... but lets be honest 10th has been doing that anyway.

Hmm, I guess I could do Demon Tyranids....
The efforts the same: write up a list, pull models.

Flavorwise I don't really have an issue with 10th. But HH2 will definitely be a downgrade for representing Tyranid flavor I think.

Perhaps it's my ork loving heart. We had tables, weapons with random values, all the stuff chaos lost as well.

The list of USR does add a bit of clunk to things. But it also allows weapon/unit A to feel vastly different to weapon/unit B which is fun.

In regards to Xenos Demons. It's a little tricky to do the shooty aspect of nids, but there are enough upgrades to get all your combat stuff swarming across the table. Including making things like hive tyrants feel like badass monsters.

Mechanicum play oddly close to Tyranids in my limited experience.

Sure you don’t have Synapse as such, but needing to have Tech Priests to grant Automata reactions, and the difference between their muscle and chaff units is very reminiscent.

And so I’d argue that’s not a bad starting point.

I know there is a homebrew dex for orks somewhere on the web, and aparrently it's pretty balanced.

honestly, a cults and militia style book of xenos would be fun for great crusade games. and it would allow me to use my one page rules minis.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I know there is a homebrew dex for orks somewhere on the web, and aparrently it's pretty balanced.

honestly, a cults and militia style book of xenos would be fun for great crusade games. and it would allow me to use my one page rules minis.

There is an Eldar one too. Hoping to try it out soon.

That'd be the Xeno's supplements done by the Aus30k guy. I forget what his name is. Did Orks, Eldar and.... another one, which I has also slipped my mind. Had lovely 1.0 style hardback books with green covers made up for them any everything. They were gorgeous. I might have a link to them somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.

I know he was asked if he was updating them for 2.0 and the answer amounted to "unlikely in the extreme". I believe he may have dropped out of the hobby entirely as he's not on any of the local facebook pages, nor discords any more. Unless he's changed his profile name to something I'm not privy too.

I know panoptica have an eldar list, but your milelage may very with it as described by Blackfang.

I do know that this has some promise by a different third party
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/44w9hfgcml2oxvlxydhtp/Age_of_Darkness_Orks.pdf?rlkey=tl0mjborrybs7std1tk9zl6q0&e=1&dl=0

One thing I reckon will give HH2 some longevity is how easy it is to do narrative focused type things. The White Dwarf missions helps show that off.

An example that's been rocking around in my mind. 1K vs 750k the smaller force gets a free warhound or other titan with no guns. Mission is to kill the titan or get it across the table, a gentlemens agreement maybe banning heavy weapon squads with lascannons so it's not over turn 1.

I just happen to have one and it feels like a fun idea to protect a wounded titan retreating from the front for repairs.

oh yea, I love narrative missions. it's part of the reason why I want more xenos and such, to have some narrative missions set during the great crusade.

I need to get a siege game going...

It's hard to gauge when it's a group of 5 people who due to life have had less and less time to do any systems let alone HH but when we were all less busy it was good.

The event group we frequented with HH1 hasn't run anything since HH2 dropped again due to life on behalf of the organisers but we're headed to an event run by a different group at the end of August.

We all play to chill out so we also all get the chance to try out some particularly goofy lists or can play armies that aren't super powerful.
Autogun Blackshields, Chariots of the Gods World Eaters (Land Speeder army), the many many varieties of Militia, Recon Company Iron Hands, all are welcome, all are silly and that's what makes it great.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Hello again, a new topic but I'm curious. How is the Horus heresy doing as a game for you all? are you having fun with it? wishing it was still HH1?

I am personally suprised by how much i'm liking 2nd edition right now as mechanicus, even if the power level is less than HH1. Then again, I am running with some panoptica units to fill out my forces till I can get a 3d printer. outside of that, I think I'm having quite a bit of fun

i played HH2 a lot and it was fun. but it has some problems. me and a friend have just decided to just play 3rd ed using some of the HH marine stuff. we are supprised at how fun and simple that rule set is. i dont think it would be hard to house rule units into 3rd ed. but the games are quick and fun. easy to make a narative around the missions.

but i like HH2. i just wish it would get a .5 rule update. knowing GW though. i dont know.