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.

Hi all, I'd like to have a discussion about how people feel about using xenos in 30k and whether people actually are doing it.

My gaming is all very friendly and narrative driven so it's all quite chilled out and we don't bother with the competitive differences as normally we aren't even being too strict on points anyway. I love the 30k setting, much more so than the 40(41?)k one and I think it's much better handled, even the typical look is just better. I think using Orks and elder within the setting I love is great as it makes for more interesting narratives and once you chill about the rules, it makes sense in every way.

Now I am also willing to use other xenos (gasp) such as tyrannies, tau and newtons, as frankly, there are untold billions of planted out there and, in the setting, a vast array of alien cultures. Technologically advanced races like the tau, robotic armies like the tyranids and incredibly alien aliens like the tyranids. Now I wouldn't play tau as tau via some convoluted backstory, they would be another species in another time, and the same would for for all the xenos. Now I can see why some wouldn't like this, but i feel like adding to setting makes it richer and expands it beyond purely the civil war, and ultimately as we don't have that many xenos rule sets why not just use the ones we have.

Do you agree? Would you try to formalise it more to account for the slightly differing points (admittedly now with the 7th 8th divide it's all kinda buggered, we're just doing it all as a loose fuzzy mess of 8th, specific rules aren't a priority for us). If you have been playing with xenos in 30k do. tell me about your experiences, I'd love to hear them. I feel it's a vastly undertapped part of the lore and something I personally love

Nope. 30K is about the Legions, and maybe the odd Mechanicum or IG regiment. Deamons and Custodies later- as the traitors get closer to Terra.

However, you and your friends are free to play 30K however you wish.

Orks - yes why not, there were plenty of them in the galaxy at the time. There codex seems reasonably balance to 30K stuff as well.

Elder - sure, all three factions existed in their current states at the time, however craftworld and harlequins will curb stomp the normal marine lists I see played (infantry heavy built from the boxed games)

Necrons - it's a stretch, an odd tomb world waking up early maybe.

Tau / Nids - no fluff justification at all. But for the sake of a game I'd play nids, like the orks their codex seems to work well against 30K.

It would be cool to see a few xenos races from the books. ...primarch sacks an alien world, picks up the aliens sword,gets corrupted by chaos. That kinda stuff.

Or that one that had the black cube. Alpha Legion retreated from them.

"Robotic armies like the Tyranids"

Think you have a little typo there :p

Oh yes I have, I hope it was obvious that that was meant to be necrons...

Tyranids- get caught in a warpstorm, are dropped out in 30k space.

Tau- get caught in a warpstorm, are dropped out in 30k space.

Enjoy your fluff justifications.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Tyranids- get caught in a warpstorm, are dropped out in 30k space.

Tau- get caught in a warpstorm, are dropped out in 30k space.

Enjoy your fluff justifications.

They don't have to be tau and tyranids.
Tau could simply represent a technologicaly advanced civilization, as the Imperium encountered during the Great Crusade.
And tyranids could be a lot of things (the monsters on
Murder, anyone ?).

I like the idea of "Tau aren't Tau, they are one of the many alien civilizations the Great Crusade just genocide". Same with Tyranids. Can work with some cool scenarions and representations of historical battles from the HH before the actual HH, of the proper Great Crusade.

Sounds lovely.

On the other hand, if you actually want to play Tau or Tyranids during the Horus Heresy it's easily fluff justifiable.

I'm with Tamwulf on this one, its all about the legions themselves and a few bits on the side, the game is designed to revolve around all the conflicts between the traitors and the loyalists. using 40k armies just breaks the immersion in the setting as well as making the game balance poor. armies such as eldar, dark eldar and orks I would be OK with if they were incorporated into a narrative campaign in some way and weren't making up a majority of the armies played, in a friendly pick up game then no, its not even 30k you're just playing 40k with a forgeworld army list. what makes 30k special and unique is the different rules and army lists it uses as well as being more narrative/fluff driven, if you start including stuff from 40k and going against the fluff (adding necrons, tau and tyranids really??? ) it loses what makes it unique and breaks the immersion. the same applies to using MKVII+ armour, indomitus termiantors and other marine models that didn't exist at the time.

 Glasdir wrote:
if you start including stuff from 40k and going against the fluff (adding necrons, tau and tyranids really??? ) it loses what makes it unique and breaks the immersion. the same applies to using MKVII+ armour, indomitus termiantors and other marine models that didn't exist at the time.

Except Necrons and Tyranids definitely existed at the time.

A good number of the Heresy novels tell, in great detail, the stories of Legions fighting xenos races. Seems kind of ridiculous to exclude them from the game, on the basis that it's not fluffy enough.

You can make a fair counts-as ork freebooters force with the militia list...

Maybe he doesn't want to play only the Heresy but the Great Crusade, too ?
I understand what you say, and I agree with it (I would never play 30k vs or with a 40k marine army, for example), but what if I want to save the Blood Angels on Murder, or fight on Ullanor ?
Of course, 99% of my games of 30k are Heresy, as this is why I came in 30k, and the narrative is so powerful.
But sometimes, a little Great Crusade isn't bad ! :p

I'll admit that balance and fluff issues can be a problem. But as most of my gaming is done from a narrative standpoint neither of those really come into play anymore. However I do completely sympathise with the desire to keep the 40k armies out of one's age of darkness battles, if I weren't playing narratively it would be harder to justify

I understand it, too. Certainly I wish GW would keep 30k out of 40k. Goddamn primarchs being shoved up 40k's arse.

From the Betrayal FAQ Errata V2 pdf:

Q: Are the armies and units in the Horus Heresy books by Forge World meant to be used in games against regular Codex armies, such as say Grey Knights or Orks?

A: While Forge World’s on-going range of Horus Heresy books and their game content are all designed to use and be compatible with the Warhammer 40,000 rules, they have been fine-tuned and focused on playing battles in the milieu of the Horus Heresy rather than in conjunction with the Codexes representing warfare in the 41st Millennium, and this will remain the case.

Designer’s Note: This means that while you are, of course, free to have fun and play games against your friends using any forces you like, and Horus Heresy forces will be broadly ‘a fair fight’ with Codex forces of the same scale, certain rules anomalies and inconsistencies may be thrown up that you have to deal with, although these should not seriously affect the game in most cases. (For example, certain units, such as those with the Stubborn special rule are at a premium costing in Horus Heresy armies over their regular Codex counterparts, owing to the results of play testing within their own sphere.)

In terms of using Lords of War and the Primarchs, however, these are definitely not intended to be used in standard Warhammer 40,000 games, but only in games where both sides use the Age of Darkness Force Organisation chart, and the specific provisions within, and in games of 2,000 points or greater.

Designer’s Note: So if, for example, you wanted to play a battle representing a narrative where the Sons of Horus Legion fought Orks or Eldar during the Great Crusade, you could quite easily use those xenos forces’ Warhammer 40,000 Codexes (possibly house-ruled to accommodate larger squads) to proxy for their Heresy-era counterparts. In this case, however, both sides should be using the Age of Darkness Force Organisation chart, with the army’s own Apocalypse level units and flyers available as Lords of War entries following the guidelines found on page 184 of Betrayal.

No! Don't get your filthy xenos in muh Spehss Mehreens!

Depends on the Xenos and if the players are willing to abide by the same restrictions placed on 30k armies. Eldar, Dark Eldar and Orks I have zero problem with. Necrons is iffy but if played on a thematic board I'm down A Great Crusade era Ultramarines strike force accidentally wakes up some necrons on a desolate tomb world would be an awesome scenario. Tau and Tyranids probably not unless they did some conversions. Tau could represent a technologically advanced civilization but their models still look like 40k Tau and... well, the aesthetic is half the reason why I play this game, for example.

I also wouldn't play against Grey Knights, Primaris Marines, Inquisition or any army painted/modelled as a 40k army for the record. I'm not discriminating against xenos. Just anachronistic armies. If people want to use those armies I am perfectly happy to bust out my 40k salamanders or Tau.

Genestealers existed back then didn't they? IIRC they were in our galaxy long before the hive fleets arrived.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Depends on the Xenos and if the players are willing to abide by the same restrictions placed on 30k armies. Eldar, Dark Eldar and Orks I have zero problem with. Necrons is iffy but if played on a thematic board I'm down A Great Crusade era Ultramarines strike force accidentally wakes up some necrons on a desolate tomb world would be an awesome scenario. Tau and Tyranids probably not unless they did some conversions. Tau could represent a technologically advanced civilization but their models still look like 40k Tau and... well, the aesthetic is half the reason why I play this game, for example.

I also wouldn't play against Grey Knights, Primaris Marines, Inquisition or any army painted/modelled as a 40k army for the record. I'm not discriminating against xenos. Just anachronistic armies. If people want to use those armies I am perfectly happy to bust out my 40k salamanders or Tau.

That seems very reasonable really. I'd say that's a similar enough way to how I approach it, i think the need to keep the heresy aesthetic consistent is a good one which i neglected to mention. I certainly now model and paint my Orks in a manner to fit the setting better

Yeah, this is a case of people being totally entitled to negate games if they break the "historical inmersion".

Just like I can totally understand why a guy with a roman army don't want to fight napoleonics ones.

 Galas wrote:
Yeah, this is a case of people being totally entitled to negate games if they break the "historical inmersion".

Just like I can totally understand why a guy with a roman army don't want to fight napoleonics ones.

I am majoring in history in college so... yeah.


Though I do sort of want to paint some Necrons up led by Trazyn to ally with my Ultramarines to represent his PokeMarines during Gathering Storm. That would be glorious.

I once played an awesome and incredibly fluffy game where someone brought an army using the Tau book and (i believe) warmahordes miniatures, along with someone running GSC models and using the Imperial Cults army list. They faced off against my Raven Guard, one of the store managers' Death Guard and someone else's Ultramarines. The game was set during the Great Crusade, and the Tau/Imperial Cult represented a non-compliant world where xenos had enslaved the human population, and it was our job as the Emperor's chosen to conquer the planet. The game had custom rules and we played it on an apocalypse sized board, so I wouldn't call it "normal", but it was still a fun game.

To answer your question: I am ok with xenos lists, but only sometimes.

I don't play 30k, mainly because the Heresy period doesn't particularity interest me, but if they were to extend the period back a little to include the Great Crusade I would be very much on board.

This would let me use my Orks to re-fight 'historic' encounters like the battle of rust which would be great!

Yeah absolutely why not?

30k is technically about the Heresy, but there's the whole Great Crusade as well. Humanity encountered (and genocided) more alien species during that time than any other known point in their history.

If you want to use Tyranid, Tau and Necron rules as counts-as minor (or major) xenos species during 30k then I think that's a great idea especially if there's some creative modelling going on.

I would refrain from using them as their actual races as none of them were really around at that point (although Necrons you could argue could have woken up early). Selective use of Necron units would be a great way to represent holdovers of the Iron Men, and Tau would make a great alternative human civilisation (taken a different tech path to Terra, using more DAoT tech). Hell, Tau rules would make a great stand-in for Interex.

As others have said, the Orks and Eldar would have been around too. The Orks would probably be culturally identical, and would probably have been having a whale of a time during the Long Night. You probably wouldn't find them in any ex-Eldar places quite yet though, as the Eldar Empire was more than capable of keeping them off their turf.

The Eldar is a very interesting one, and something I've put a fair amount of thought into. Personally, I'd think that they would be radically different from the Eldar factions you see today. People often forget that the event that kicked off the Great Crusade was the Fall of the Eldar. Given how soon after the Heresy happened, in terms of timeline the collapse of the Eldar civilisation was pretty much alongside the collapse of the Imperium. During the Heresy, they'd still be scrabbling around in the ashes of their civilisation, trying desperately to survive. They're not established. They're immediately post-apocalypse. Here's a list of things that I'd think would be different:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Craftworlders
1. No Aspect Warriors. Immediately post-Fall, Asurmen was still teaching the Phoenix Lords. Almost certainly they hadn't got to the point of travelling to the craftworlds to spread their teachings. Even if they had just started, they would be far from established. Weird monks teaching weird spiritual junk to maybe a dozen dudes and dudettes. About as far from an army as possible. Oh, and no Karandras yet. It'd still be Arhra.
2. No Path system. Again, one of Asurmen's inventions. No time to have spread it anywhere or teach anyone but the Asurya and perhaps a handful of others. Certainly not enough time for it to become a way of life.
3. Probably no Infinity Circuit. Again, invented post-Fall by Iyanden. That will have taken time. Perhaps they had some sort of proto-Infinity Circuit aboard Eldar vessels as a sort of control mechanism, but certainly the idea of using it as storage for souls wouldn't exist. Even if Iyanden had invented it in super-quick time after the Fall (unlikely given the turmoil), it would not have spread yet.
4. Spirit stones either wouldn't exist or would be fantastically rare. They're harvested from the Crone Worlds. I doubt the Eldar even know that's how to get them at this point. If anyone is venturing back into the maw of Slaanesh, they're certainly not coming back.
5. Craftworlds would be much smaller, and probably accompanied by a fleet of other fleeing ships. It's stated that the Craftworlds of today have grown massively in size since their pre-Fall trader days.
6. Craftworld military would be a shambles. They're trading vessels, not warships. Perhaps they had some sort of standing militia (which might have evolved into the Guardians), but pre-Fall Eldar relied on automatons for military endeavours. Presumably, those stopped working post-Fall as we don't see them in current armies (perhaps the shells of them went on to become Wraithguard, but seeing as Spirit Stones and Infinity Circuits are non-existent, they'd have no way of using them).

So, add all that together and basically Craftworlders as we know them don't exist at all. They're more akin to Corsairs/Refugees, but with a sizeable capital ship.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dark Eldar
1. No Kabals, and vastly different social structure. Vect brought in the idea of Kabals when he deposed the noble houses that previously ruled Commorragh (and would still have ruled Commorragh for quite some time post-Fall). They were still slavers, and there's evidence in the Asurmen book of proto-Dark Eldar raiding Eldar worlds as their civilisation collapsed, so they would probably still be raiding. I doubt it would be anywhere near as efficient though. If there's one thing that Vect has brought the Dark Eldar, it's efficiency.
2. Wych Cults would have still existed. Lelith Hesperax is stated to have been notorious in the arenas before Vect was born.
3. Covens I'm not so sure about. The idea of a coven of Haemonculi working together is stated to have been a response to Vect's restructure of Kabals, so they probably wouldn't be working together. Perhaps they were more mad scientists in the employ of others, or working alone on pet experiments. The jury's out as to whether they had their widespread cloning tech.
4. Speaking of Tech, theirs would be wildly different to the DEldar tech we see today. Probably similar to craftworld tech. Reason being that they're not psychically stunted yet, so all of their previous tech would still be working for them and they'd have no drive to need to change it.
5. Psykers wouldn't be banned yet. Basically everyone;s a psyker, and it's just as dangerous as having psykers in Commorragh in 40k. Probably quite a lot of daemonic incursions.
6. Commorragh would probably not quite exist in the form we know now. It would still exist, but as only the largest of a dizzying array of sub-realms.

So again, probably quite similar to Corsairs, but the more S&M style ones.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harlequins
1. I don't think these guys existed yet. Cegorach's probably still in hiding after witnessing the butchering of every fellow Eldar God, and Slaanesh is still glutted with billions of Eldar souls. Even if he's doing something rather than simply keeping his head down, he hasn't had much time to recruit, let alone establish Harlequins as any sort of recognised force. Probably anyone claiming Cegorach is alive would be viewed as mad seeing as all the other Gods are pretty comprehensively murdered. Certainly not any sort of authority figure.
2. Perhaps the Black Library exists. Can't remember whether it was a craftworld that got put into the webway to hide it at some point, or a separate webway realm containing a craftworld.

So, basically, Harlequins don't exist yet.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exodites
1. Probably pretty much unchanged, depending on whether you like your exodites to be space-hillbillies (tedious), or technobarbarian Eldar (much better!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Yeah, this is a case of people being totally entitled to negate games if they break the "historical inmersion".

Just like I can totally understand why a guy with a roman army don't want to fight napoleonics ones.

Not quite. It's more like asking someone to bend the rules in order to represent civilisations we know could have come into conflict during the Great Crusade. A Pulse Rifle is just a 30" S5 gun after all. Could just as easily be some powerful human weapon, with appropriate modelling.

A better analogy would be using Wild West Native American models (without guns) in a battle against medieval Viking models to represent the Norse discovery of the Americas. Two miniatures that are hundreds of years apart historically, but used to represent people's we're pretty damn certain actually met.

Actually, spirit stones existed and the (craftworld) eldar military was pretty similar. There are plenty of references to spirit stones in the BL books, from the battle against the eldar in Fulgrim to the mass sacrifice of spirit stones in Angel Exterminatus. Plus there are references to Avatars of Khaine, fire prisms, wraith constructs, guardians and banshees (so aspects existed too) in the former of those books.

The Fall occured several hundred years before the Crusade. Asurmen started the path of the warrior within years of the Fall. Plenty of time for his teaching to get spread out.

As pointed out, the novel Fulgrim covered in great detail that Ulthuan had aspect warriors, an Avatar of Khaine, and wraith constructs.

The Fall wasn't something that can be pinpointed in time either. It was happening for thousands of years. The results of that were also happening during that time.

Commoroagh was forming, Exodites were leaving, etc.