Horus Heresy: Actual Game, or Prestige Buy?

[Baneblade]

I think it is rather balanced, especially the Lords of War rules. In HH no more than 25% of an army can be a Lord of War. Also when the rules came out in the 5th edition I recall people stating how cheap point wise the normal legion marine is compared to the normal chapter marines. Since then with the new edition and the new marine codex dropping the points HH legion marines no longer look to be cheap.

[Brother Garrod]

Viable game ?
Absolutely.
We regularly have games up at the local gaming club , there are around 6 or 7 of us with growing ( or established ) heresy armies , weird and wacky units , superheavies , you name it
with the way workshops plastic ( and the hopefully soon to be gone finecast ) prices are going , foregeworld is no longer ' that' expensive in comparison

[AnEnemy]

The only marine army I use is my Legion list. Its very viable. Although it suffers from the most common problem with FW. People without FW don't want to play it often.

[hisdudeness]

To everyone saying they would play (mor)e 30k if there were more 30k player just so what I did...start a campaign.

I got tired of running low point games (I have 2500 world eaters) or people saying they will start a 30k list some day. So I started a 30k escalation campaign. We are running our HQs for the first mass game and will move to 500, then 750 and so on until we all have 2500-3000 points of legions. We are even running it at a local GW with support from the manager.

By August we will start running the campaign out of book 1. I have around 10 people playing Saturday so far. But 30k is fine against any 40k army.

[Matthew J Wheelden]

I've been wondering about this whole "Warhammer 30k" thing, and I realize that it's come down to one big question: is this an actual game that people actually play, or is it basically a prestige buy, something you buy to paint and paint to display and display so people know that you own it?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the display mini. Sometimes, for some folks, it's worth it to buy a model because the mini is so beautiful that you just have to paint it, and then show it off. That's part of the visual art side of this hobby, and it's fine. I don't mean any disrespect.

But, think about it like this:
• Warhammer 30k has a much smaller following than 40k.
• In any game with a smaller following, arranging games takes a lot of work.
• Any kind of limitation - trying to be fluffy about who fights who, or following a campaign track - adds to the complexity and the difficulty of lining up games. Fighting out the Horus Heresy seems to be a big part of Warhammer 30k.
• We are (mostly) all adults here, and need to balance our playing time with our painting time, and that with our jobs, families, and other hobbies.

All this adds up to a situation where I feel that this is a legit question: is Forgeworld's Horus Heresy series a game that people actually play, or are people acquiring, painting, and modeling up Heresy-era armies for fun and prestige?

My personal experiences tell me nothing. The Heresy series hasn't really caught on where I am - not even as a prestige thing - so I have no data. I am hoping that BoLS's broader community can help to clear this up.

Its an interesting point that you make. In my local store we started with afew people getting the odd kit. Palantine blades here, Angron there, command group over by the door. Than one person had a little World Eaters army. Slowly other forces seperate from each other collected my people who didnt know each other started to appear all very cool little forces only 1k points max.
Then about a month after gamesday last (September/October 13) the bug cought the "
core" of the gamers they all went mad I am guilty of catching it myself. Now we have about a dozen or more Heresy armies being collected in store. Gaming between them is still limited but increasing.

What started out as a prestige buy for a small few has spiraled into a well developed craze with me and my fellow players.

[Vash108]

The rules are quite balanced and he player base is growing.

[Learn2Eel]

The two main deterrents for 30K taking off are a) it is Forge World and we all know the exceptions some store take with it and b) it costs a lot more than a standard GW army, unless of course you live in Australia/New Zealand.

In my local Games Workshop store, for example, we have only two regulars actively collecting 30K armies, and one of those regulars is the store manager. I'm personally waiting on Thousand Sons' rules before I jump in.
I will vote that it is a proper game though as the rule-set just blows the 40K rule-set out the window in my opinion.