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I recall reading somewhere that GW had too many Titan models, hence they came up with the idea of an Imperial civil war, the Horus Heresy, in order differentiate the extra Titans and sell them off.

Is this true?

Yes and no. They wanted to be able to sell the same set of models to both sides, which is where the idea for a civil war came from.

jareddm wrote:
Yes and no. They wanted to be able to sell the same set of models to both sides, which is where the idea for a civil war came from.

Found the old book: http://inquisitorweb.mygamesonline.org/Adeptus_Titanicus.pdf

Interesting old fluff, they said that Horus body being carted out caused the Traitors' retreat.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I recall reading somewhere that GW had too many Titan models, hence they came up with the idea of an Imperial civil war, the Horus Heresy, in order differentiate the extra Titans and sell them off.

Is this true?

In their early days, GW came up with the idea of Titanic war-machines battling each other.

For this game they designed the first titan model.

In order to save costs, they put duplicate copies of this model in the game box so both sides used the same figure. This saved costs as they did not have to design or produce a second model.

GW fudged the backstory for the game as being a civil war, which explained why both sides used the same design of titanic war machine.

If you mean "they cast up far more Titan sprues than they needed for one side, so they bunged twice as many in the box and invented the Heresy to explain it", then no. It was the other way round - the game idea came first, then the idea of a civil war to half the design costs. Although there were two heads on each sprue so you could distinguish the two sides by that, if you were so inclined.

That sort of thing gets suggested all the time to explain things like Gangs of Comorragh - a way to use up excess sprues in stock. I'm not convinced of that - I would have thought they'd just melt the sprues down and cast something else with the raw material.

It does mean they can use existing moulds, but that's not quite the same argument.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I would have thought they'd just melt the sprues down and cast something else with the raw material.

That's extra cost and effort though.

More than writing and printing a set of rules and going to an external contractor to print the boxes and tiles and counters? And then shipping all those boxes out to retail? Possible, but unlikely, I think.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
More than writing and printing a set of rules and going to an external contractor to print the boxes and tiles and counters? And then shipping all those boxes out to retail? Possible, but unlikely, I think.

Maybe they wanted to make a new game anyway.

It's simple and easy business, particularly back in those days when plastic molds were expensive and hard to do. I imagine it's the same reason the "relaunch" of Epic so to speak is starting with Adeptus Titanicus. Short of some iconography Forgeworld can make a Warhound/Reaver/Warlord etc. and they can be used by both sides of the HH conflict. Fewer models for the same amount of play. If it succeeds, move on from there.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I would have thought they'd just melt the sprues down and cast something else with the raw material.

That's extra cost and effort though.

I remember hearing that GW had recalled a bunch of the copies of Dreadfleet that didn't sell, and that for the next several months all new plastic kits coming out were made from the recycled HIPS of those Dreadfleet kits. Obviously they didn't get all of them (one of my local shops still has like 3 copies), but the GW stores themselves all had to send them back from what I heard.

It makes sense to me to have just one sprue that is used by each side of a war, especially if you are just establishing a new setting or game system. Initial release tests the waters of interest in the customers. And if the new game sells well, then you can begin designing and selling new kits that can be specific to either side and/or introduce new factions as your game progresses.