Indefragable

The trick with the Unification Wars or before is to give us just enough of a glimpse of the past to better understand the present (from 30k-41k) but not ruin the mystery of things which is what Old Night/Age of Strife etc should stay as. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of the Scouring but it has grown on me the more I’ve thought about it. Huge potential there if handled right. As for this book I’m pretty excited. Time for Sangy to shine!

Quite true. But they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Just because I want more and better Sanguinius depictions doesn’t mean I don’t always want (way) more Horus as well. I think he’s criminally underrepresented and unexplored. I want all the Primarchs to have depth and exploration and their moment in the limelight, something I think they have not done as good of a job as they should have <cough> Ferrus Manus <cough>

Out of curiosity which book would you say achieved this? So far all they have done i feel is tie him to the red thirst and his death. But i want Sanguinius as a father, who came to a legion of cannibal ghoul men and taught them art, nobility, sacrifice. Who cared for them and argued for them and fought for them. The man who turned the monsters INTO the angels and did so by leading by example and humility. Whose actions caused the Imperium to love him and the army to cheer loudest for him on the day of days that was ullanor. I want the Sanguinius whose death still plagues Roboute 10k years latter and who drove the church of utter fanatics to find a way to dial it up too 11 during space jesus christmass and causes even the administratum to get the day off. And by heck this is the first real chance we have of getting him. Very well said. IMHO, Sanguinius’ best depictions are: Out of curiosity which book would you say achieved this? So far all they have done i feel is tie him to the red thirst and his death. But i want Sanguinius as a father, who came to a legion of cannibal ghoul men and taught them art, nobility, sacrifice. Who cared for them and argued for them and fought for them. The man who turned the monsters INTO the angels and did so by leading by example and humility. Whose actions caused the Imperium to love him and the army to cheer loudest for him on the day of days that was ullanor. I want the Sanguinius whose death still plagues Roboute 10k years latter and who drove the church of utter fanatics to find a way to dial it up too 11 during space jesus christmass and causes even the administratum to get the day off. And by heck this is the first real chance we have of getting him. Very well said. IMHO, Sanguinius’ best depictions are:

Quite fair. Sanguinius gets a number of scenes in the HH novel series, but they are hard to remember for the most part because as you say…..he’s literally on screen and that’s about it. I get the feeling that many authors wanted to write about him (a Dan Abnett interview from like 2010 has him saying that as an author, the one character he is most excited to write about in any way is Sanguinius…explains the cameo in Unremembered Empire?) and just wanted to get a scene with him in, but weren’t sure what to do beyond that and/or we’re worried about stealing thunder from later episodes. Guy Haley having him do a whole lot of nothing in imperium Secundus stuff and then go to doing EVERYTHING in Titandeath and such. It’s a bit :cusszo and symbolic of his depiction overall throughout the series. To wit, all the depictions of him in the series to the best of my memory: TL;DR: I think opinions on his depictions directly correlate to opinions on the books he appears in, for better and worse (duh?). In contrast, I think he has a good showing in *Titandeath* despite having mixed feelings on that book overall.

Wow. My Intel was wrong. I was sure James Swallow was handling the Sanguinius novel. I spoke with Jim in person about it at an event and got the distinct impression he was doing it. Maybe he was just talking about his pitch for the book? Regardless I am pumped for Chris Wraight’s take on them. What little we saw of Sangy and Co in the Khan novel was some of the best stuff yet on him (kind of like how the Lion’s showing in the Russ novel was one of his best showings as well…must be a Wraight thing)

I can’t help but feel that there is some Canary Trap elements going on with these playtest leaks, and thus whether intentionally or not the final rules will be slightly different. The # of Reactions allowed in particular seems like it could be too much…as soon as I understood what they are and they you could do something almost every phase of every turn, it sounded like a bit much. That’s precisely the sort of thing I would do, though; give one playtest group too many and another too few to see what the (predictable) feedback would be and what version gets leaked.

I’ve been toying with the idea of Traitor UM for a little while now. There’s a blurb in Inferno about a UM contingent Horus orders to wipe out a detached TS outpost around the same time as The Burning of Prospero. It’s more of a “because” idea than a real passion project, but it’s fun to speculate on the motivations of any sizeable Loyalist contingents that would actively side with Horus.

'tis a good place to get more Heresy chat.

My favorite part about Kh'Bhanda's rules is how he gives everyone (friend and foe alike) within 12' +1A.

I'm not mathematician, but if they plan on doing at least one Exemplary Battle/Unit for each of the 18 Legions.... ...and they are released ~1 per month... ....and they combine some Legions to save space and time (like DA + DG in the latest one), thus doing 2-for-1.... ...and they've done 6 total Legions so far.... then we've got about 6 months of Exemplary Battle releases to go, putting us around June/July. GW likes to do BIG releases around that time, in June/July. Ergo.... GW would never do anything for free when they could have a revenue-generating option instead. Thus, Exemplary Battles in my estimation are the free bread to keep us waiting for the steak. I'd guess the summer is when we'll see anything.

Considering they are free and flavorful without being broken, I consider it a massive win overall… …so long as we still get “full” releases down the line.

I and my core "warhammer friends" have all shifted almost entirely to 30k after a few games when 9th ed came out. It wasn't a conscious thing, but it just became abundantly clear that none of us were motivated to play 9th but 30k was keeping our interest with a vengeance, even after some of us had played it for years. That's not to start a "which game is better" war, but just pointing out an anecdote that ties into the background of this article. My first thought is Deep Strike. Remember that term? A simple term and concept that applied to a whole host of options yet is simple enough that a two-word phrase instantaneously communicates what a unit can do (in some fashion) without the need to discuss it. In 8th + it's ".....so do those guys have Deep Strike?" "uh....no they have a Teleportarium Timepass Ticket...." "......so Deep Strike, got it." I get the flavor angle of having certain things named differently on unit data sheets, but one small step to cleaning up would be to make game abilities and concepts as simple as "Deep Strike" again. IMHO.

Amazing work

Are Huscarls a straight-up improvement over A. Regular Termies B. Command Squad ? A seems like yes, other than cost (duh) and the ability to take a Spartan as dedicated Transport. For B....you're trading out wargear options (including shooty ones) and a 2W banner guy for a larger squad size, the Shield Wall ability of Phalanx Warders, and the ability to take Solarite Gauntlets. A regular command squad is more of a force multiplier while Huscarls are more straight-up fighty.....though given that both Shield Wall and the +1T from Stone Gauntlet don't work if you are the one doing the charging, so even as a QRF, Huscarls seem like not as straightforward good as they might be. Just planning out to do as I finish building out my VII Stone Guantlet force. I keep leaning towards A, vanilla Termies with storm shields to save some points and to get that precious FOC-less Spartan.

<slow clap>