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Hey guys,

I've got this thing that's bugging me and I think some of you might be going through the same thing, so I was wondering if you can relate to what I am about to say and how you deal with it..

So here's the thing.. The coming of 40k 8th edition has both been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I really like the new 40k system and all the innovation and promises of a bright future it brings. On the other hand, it's not been good for my Heresy motivation.
First, there's multiple rule sets to keep track of. Now, with the little time I have, I don't play very often, and it's just too much to keep track of (I also like the dabble in AoS). Secondly, there never were, to my knowledge, that many Heresy players in my area and it's not really possible anymore to pitch my DG against a 40k army like was (sort of) possible in the past. I also feel (but haven't really gone out to check as we have a small group of friends that play that we meet up with) that the few people that were interested in the Heresy may have moved on.

So everytime I pick up a Heresy mini and a brush, or try to build an awesome FW model, I kind of get stopped in my tracks by a feeling that there's not really a point to it, except for painting something that I like (but then I also play DG in 40k, so I end up painting Plague Marines instead; 30k DG and 40k PM don't really mix as the PM are much bigger).
Some things are interchangeable between 30k and 40k (like Sicarans, Dreadnoughts, etc.) but the marines and the heresy specific units that make it such an amazing setting (gravewardens, heavy weapon teams, etc) kinda aren't.

So the cycle I go through is that I read about the Heresy, realise it's my favourite setting, pick a mini, get 'pointless-paralysis' and paint something 'useful' instead.

I mean, it's not all bad. My other armies have been growing rapidly, but my 30k hasn't.



How do you stay motivated for the Heresy?



Cheers!

I stay motivated, because I find the game to be better then 8th edition. I find the depth of it more entertaining, and I find the emphasis on the modelling aspect of it to be more driving.

All in all, I find 30K to be a labor of love. I just do 40K because it's what is available to play.

Same here. I will take 7th over 8th any day. Plus, I find FWs models to be way more visually appealing than GWs. So I'm staying motivated because I get to paint lovely looking resin soldiers for a decent game system

I agree with the two other respondents so far. I prefer the depth of 7th and the editions that preceded it to 8th. TBH, after 30k was released I sold off all my 40k stuff and haven’t looked back, even with the edition change (still read about it to keep up to date though). Though I don’t get games in super often, I do set goals for myself based of major events I want to attend, like a tournament or the LVO. Writing your own fluff can be an inspiration as well.

 djones520 wrote:
All in all, I find 30K to be a labour of love. I just do 40K because it's what is available to play.

This. I got back into Age of Sigmar a year before 40K 8th dropped, and then also picked up 40K in all the 8th edition hype. I started collecting 30K a few months in after that.

Something about the minis, the lore, and the way the game played in 7th drew me in and gets me excited a lot more than 8th. It's all a lot more reminiscent of 3rd Edition 40K and 6h Edition Fantasy, which were the main editions that I played a lot of back in the day. 8th just feels so different to me, from both a model perspective with the gigantic (but incomplete range of) Primaris and Death Guard minis, and from a gameplay perspective with it's aura bubbles, lack of scatter dice and templates and AP modifying mechanics. None of this is bad on it's own, but it all kind of adds up to put me off. As a Marines player, I feel like the faction is in a bit of a weird limbo state and doesn't "feel" right to play, but I've never been much of a Xenos guy myself (my friends all play Xenos though, so this isn't a problem). Finally, the fluff is in a bit of a weird place and while I absolutely love the grimdark/ministorum elements of the 40K universe over the Age of Darkness, things like returning Primarch's and the like just don't feel like the 'fit' the same way as they do in 30K.

Once I started my Heresy-era Space Wolves, I just found myself more and more interested in them over my 40K Chaos Space Marines army - the 30K model range is just so rich, and there's so many cool things to expand and explore - and they're cross-compatible with 40K, even if 40K models aren't cross-compatible with 30K. I don't really love the 40K lore or gameplay like I do 30K, so to me it's a no brainer every time I pick up a brush whether I add to my 30K or my 40K - it even got to the point where I wanted a foil to my 30K Wolves, so I sold off my CSM and just started a traitor legion in 30K - it's just so much more rewarding and exciting for me as a hobbyist if I'm building and painting 30K minis with the intent of a 30K army and doing the odd 40K piece to make it more cross-compatible than to work on Oldmarines in 40K with the overall looming dread of Primaris-scale minis coming to make my army look silly.

Another reason I'm more motivated to paint 30K is that even if I don't get to play more than a single game with half the minis I've painted for my 30K Wolves, there's something incredibly exciting to me about seeing my legion grow. 30K is a larger battle game, and so my collection has a lot more large centrepiece models, and massed infantry and all of that just looks really impressive to me when I occasionally get it all out on the table to drink in my smug self-satisfaction. For the past few months, I've been focussed on expanding what was originally 3-4K of Space Wolves to a crisp 10,000 points with a half-reasonable FOC distribution - for the flexibility of listbuilding, yes, but mainly so I can just look at it all. This isn't really a unique reason to keep on collecting and painting Horus Heresy miniatures, but hey, you asked what motivates us! That being said, I do think that the incredibly wide range of legion minis and sheer variance in scale from a humble MkIV Marine (available in uniformly equipped units of up to 20) all the way up to Fellblade-chassis tanks, Mastadons and Titans with everything like Contemptors and Spartan Assault Tanks in between facilitates this kind of massed army collection a lot better.

So, I mean, that's about it, really. To summarise, even though I get games of 40K (which always tend to be very 'gamey' affairs) about twice a month or so, and I only get to play 30K maybe twice a year at local narrative event weekends, I still find 30K just so much more fun and exciting to hobby because I think I find the setting and fluff more engaging, and the miniature range captures my imagination and excites me a little more - and that has a knock-on effect for making me more productive in hobbying as a whole. It also helps that my 30K army is my biggest army project, and that tends to give me the momentum to keep going with it and grow it out (and maybe it'll even get big enough that my Warhound Titan won't look silly next to it). Cross-compatibility with 40K is a nice bonus to.

Hope this helps!

I stay motivated because 30k is the best Warhammer game available. I'm not interested in the various specialist games, AOS is awful and 8th is just eh.

It also looks very cool.

My motivation for HH gaming has dropped considerably. To each his own, but I'm uninterested in the overcomplexity and special rules bloat of 7th. There are aspects of 7th that are as complex as 2nd edition, when it was a borderline skirmish game played with 1/3 the number of models. I find that 8th flows better and scales much, much better.

I still love the setting, though. And I still love the models. So I've been tooling up my WE for use in 40K. With the FW indices, I can use many of my 30K models. Others I can make work, like how I can use my jetbikes as regular bikes by changing their bases and weaponry. Red Butchers...not so much, since I gave them double axes. Maybe after the WE codex, though?

I've also been busy painting up Khorne daemons. And hey, it's possible they could also be fieldable with my WE in 30K when we get to the Terra books in...2028? Anyway, I really like having an army that can be played in 40K, and in 30K too if I feel like punishing myself.

But I realize that the OP has dual DG armies, so this approach doesn't help much. Could Nurgle daemons be a side project that would keep your interest and potentially have some dual use down the road? Daemons are obviously going to get standalone rules in Malevolence, but it could be a long wait for rules to field them with your 30K DG.

pm713 wrote:
I stay motivated because 30k is the best Warhammer game available. I'm not interested in the various specialist games, AOS is awful and 8th is just eh.

It also looks very cool.

One could argue that HH is the LAST warhammer game in existence!

I’m lucky Heresy hasn’t suffered at all in my area most people at my club have actually come over to the Heresy setting since the release of 8th.
I definitely agree with previous posts you should play what you prefer. But I found the 7th edition rule set was horrible for 40k with formations and terrible balance. Where FW seemed to get the balance just right.

Kasper Hawser wrote:
I’m lucky Heresy hasn’t suffered at all in my area most people at my club have actually come over to the Heresy setting since the release of 8th.
I definitely agree with previous posts you should play what you prefer. But I found the 7th edition rule set was horrible for 40k with formations and terrible balance. Where FW seemed to get the balance just right.

I find FW has it's share of issues e.g. Varagyr. But then my area mainly stayed okay with Formations which I actually miss.

pm713 wrote:

Kasper Hawser wrote:
I’m lucky Heresy hasn’t suffered at all in my area most people at my club have actually come over to the Heresy setting since the release of 8th.
I definitely agree with previous posts you should play what you prefer. But I found the 7th edition rule set was horrible for 40k with formations and terrible balance. Where FW seemed to get the balance just right.

I find FW has it's share of issues e.g. Varagyr. But then my area mainly stayed okay with Formations which I actually miss.

Yeah you’re right they have done since Inferno was released. The biggest problem with that book was the lists in there seemed to be balanced amongst themselves and not the rest of the armies. I got called away while writing previous post and submitted it instead of saving it to finish later.
I played Chaos marines (Death Guard mix of plague marines and FW models) and Blood Angels in 7th and really struggled to enjoy games against my regular opponents (Eldar, Tau, Space Marines and Necrons) so found 7th a real chore to play.

I think it’s hard to stay motivated if you’re not enjoying or playing the gaming system that you want to paint models for. At my club we have been playing a Heresy league so motivation for me to paint my WE has been easy to find while my 40k armies are stuck in a corner at the moment. Although a lot of us are looking forward to kill team and my current painting project is a small Death Guard kill team (4 plague marines and 10 pox walkers). I honestly don’t think I’ll get motivated for 8th and am considering selling my armies I can’t stand the fluff and don’t enjoy the system which is a shame because GW are releasing some great models for Age of Sigmar and 40k but I’ve always been a fluff junkie and find that lacking for the last few editions of 40k especially when compared to FW imperial Armour books and or course the beautiful but insanely expensive Horus Heresy Black books.
Anyway good luck finding motivation I’d say try and see if there are any fellow Heresy gamers in your area that would be the best thing to motivate you to paint your 30k Death Guard if not I’d sell them rather than have an expensive set of models just sitting around doing nothing.

At my store I have no one to play 30k with. I content myself with the fact that my Iron Warriors models (sans the Domitar Ferrum) are broadly compatible with 40k and fit my vanilla marine playstyle far better than my actual 40k marine army (Carcharodons).

If I can get a game of 30k in, that's great. But I go in with my expectations low that it'll be months between that happening and stick with my regular 40k in the meantime.

Play heresy with 8th fan made rules. Quite good. I actually managed to get a game with local guy, because 8th killed 7th, and no one cares at all for 7th heresy in my area. Actually, looking at most online boards, same happened at most areas, since there are basically almost no new to very little posts in heresy forums across internet in a long time...

Without a player base that is rough.

I would use the fact that Heresy miniatures are cross compatible, but then again I have a strong 30k community here in MA and I HATE 8th.

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I started reading up on all the fuff again (and am again very excited , HH setting is tbe best!) and got a friend to do a "Tale of Two Heretics" escalation thing with me. We're going to build a casual evenmatched army together step by step to keep eachother motivated. Slowly build together, play increasingly big games, but at a pace to allow for other projects as well.
What's exciting is that my friend has agreed to switch to a new HH army as well (he's been doing Ultramarines for 20 yrs) so that's a pretty big thing and I know he's excited about this as well.

Currently painting up Konrad Curze in the best way my skills currently allow me to, as a way to get motivated for a new project. I am going to slowly collect a Night Lords army.
It's a deviation from all the DG I've been doing but I feel like it's going to be refreshing to paint some blue instead of more Death Guard drab

Send pictures!

I agree with the first 3 posts. The game and rules are better (7th over 8th any day), the models are nicer and far more interesting, the lore is far more polished and interesting, the books are far better quality. Basically FW do everything GW do but far better.
That said, HH has taken a back seat for me at the moment because of all the fantastic AoS releases and the fact that FW haven't actually released anything new for HH in months and haven't shown anything new at any recent events either that isn't just a legion praetor model. HH will continue to be my favorite so long as they keep with the current rules (and don't nerf Russ any further or leave Varagyr as a useless mess).

I have the same issue with trying to up to speed on multiple rule sets, so my regular opponent and I have decided to focus on HH for now rather than move to 8th ed. We stay motivated because we decided to do HH together and have an escalation campaign going. We try to keep our armies in line with the background rather than power gaming and that’s easier to do in a small group. It also opens up the opportunities for lots of custom scenarios and missions to keep things interesting. We update our painting progress and make battle reports for the battles to help give them the feel of a story or movie rather than a strictly competitive game played only to win. To us, enjoying HH is all about immersion in the coolest sci-fi setting and story out there. I think for anyone who enjoys gaming primarily for the cinematics of painted models squaring off within a brilliant setting will always be motivated for Horus Heresy as nothing else comes close.

Riddle: your gaming group sounds amazing! Sounds like you guys have been doing what we are planning on doing. Sounds great. Keep up the good work.

gurus: I finished the Curze, I'll put it on the blog and put up a link somewhere in the near future

Im staying motivated by the fact that 1st legion are getting done properly with a similar treatment to the other legions, and aalso locally there are still people in a similar spot to me with 30k armys and and interest in playing.