Hey all
Time for a Great Crusade and Horus Heresy discussion. As I am sure you are all aware, in the 41st millenium, the primarches are all suffering from one of the 3 D's; Dead, Disappeared or Daemon, which is a real shame because they are - lets face it! - the best characters that GW has ever written. Why are the Horus Heresy books so popular? Because everyone wants their very own 10ft, daddy issues sufferer! Its why I play! So I am here to discuss a hot topic with/at you all. Audience participation is a must for this one folks...
Issue:
Horus Heresy, by Forge World, uses the Warhammer 40k ruleset. Now this wasn't a problem until GW released the Escalation supplement, bringing Lords of War to the table for all armies. Now I am not going to hate on escalation, as it actually looks pretty cool and will be great having more 'realistic' battles, but we do need to have a look at how it affects what we are doing here. We are not Win At All Costs players. We play for fun, to re-enact stories and write our own. These are the reasons we have consciously chosen 30k era over 40k era. So here is the issue; primarches are Lords of War. If everyone and their dog can now take Lords of War (that are far more powerful - I am looking at you revenant titan!) when are primarches going to see the light of day? Am I ever going to take a 500pt primarch over a warhound titan to combat an Eldar Titan? The answer is: I can't. If my opponent has a non-primarch LoW then realistically I can't waste the pts on a primarch (which can be one hit killed by D weapons) as I will need to fill up with heavy weapons to tackle the new bastard! Even in larger games, the primarch becomes a glorious looking target for D weapons and personal reputation; 'I killed a primarch!' For fast and close-combat armies like Emperors Children, Space Wolves and World Eaters you will literally have to go against their Rites of War (I speculate for SWs) to be able to bring a LoW down before it decimates your entire army, so then we are destroying the fluff! Primarches will never see the light of day unless army lists are discussed before games and agreed upon. Boooooring!!
There are a number of ways to 'fix' this 'problem'. Most of them are too controlling: you can't take so-and-so unless <insert game destroying restriction here>. So the idea we are playing around with is simple and goes thusly:
Primarches become HQs, but can still only be used in 2000pt+ games!
I am sure people will be saying thats unbalanced etc etc. Take a look at it:
Horus - the best of us - is 500pts. He has the ability to rain down an orbital bombardment and has some cool local-buffing rules. In hand to hand he is a beast, he can kill maybe 5 enemies a turn or horribly cripple/destroy a monstrous/gargantuan creature. An Avatar is less than 1/2 his pts and can probably do the same...with buffs an Avatar will actually kill most FW primarches. Why is he not a LoW? Bloodthirsters, Lord of Change, Keeper of Secrets and Nurgle blob are all just as effective and around 1/2 the pts. Swarmlord? Flyrant? 2 Hell-drakes will do more damage than a primarch. None of them have restrictions on using them in a 2000pt game. Remember - Horus is the best...
We want to see battles with Primarches, Titans, Super Heavies AND Gargantuan creatures. Allowing apocalypse death-machines in 2000pt games will destroy fluffy gaming and kill the primarches off all over again...I can't lose them twice lol!
So tell me; where do you stand? What are your opinions? Do we see a decline in primarches and play as-is or do we do something about it and amend a categorisation?
Comment below please!
Khall Sithis
