GW Designer Q&A, Horus Heresy & More!

Imperial Armour Volume 13: The Lost and the Damned.
-Daemon possessed Fellblades were mentioned
-Decimator as well being included
-The Kharybdis Assault Claw makes an appearance for Chaos as well.
-There are also some references to Chaos Hereteks. 

-The army list is a single army list with many options – it expands on the army lists from Vraks, allowing you to field any of those armies, but also adds in options for Slaanesh and Tzeentch Renegades as well.

-The army list includes a lot of HQs which unlock options, and also purchasable upgrades for Warlords to unlock yet more options still. Renegades and Mutants are all in there, with a particular combination of traits intended to allow you to give models Hellguns to allow for Chaos Storm Troopers. 

Horus Heresy Book 4: Conquest 

-Ships end of November, so people can order it in time for Christmas. 
-It is currently at the printers. 
-It is the biggest book so far. 
-There is a Forge World Knight on the cover, which gives a bit of an indication as to the book’s focus and content. 

It covers:

-The Battles of the Cyclops Cluster
-Siege of Mezoa
-Conquest of Manachea
-Defence of Agathon

These are battles that aren’t in the Horus Heresy Novels, but is about what Horus and friends did “in between the gaps”. It covers the conquest of a significant portion of the Northern Imperium, as Horus takes control of a sector of space cut off from the rest of the Imperium by warp storms so he has a base of operations. For example, Manachea is a big Agri-World, and a bit of a bread basket for that sector of the Imperium.

Forces in the book are:
Sons of Horus
Death Guard
Iron Hands
Salamanders
Imperial Fists
Dark Mechanicum
Mechanicum
Solar Auxilia
Knights
Titans

There was a mention that some of the Loyalist forces have gone mad, others are engaging in revenge attacks to worlds that have allied or even capitulated to Horus, and others are waging a guerrilla war.

The world of Cyclotrathe was mentioned – a Dark Mechanicum world which isn’t in the 40K background, because someone has (rightly) turned it to ash by the time 40K happens. This is where some of the worst of the Dark Mechanicum are, licensed by Horus to forge their own mini empire as long as they keep his armies supplied. Their forces are now carving out their own client empire, harvesting humans for their experiments.

There’s a mention of the Knight Houses of the area, and their interlinked backgrounds. It covers why their histories and existing allegiances determine the side they end up on. One example given was a House which had only been a part of the Imperium for five years at the outbreak of the Heresy, so sided with the only faction they’d ever met – Horus. (Apparently, that didn’t go so well for them!)

The Solar Auxilia are an elite branch of the Imperial Army. There was a Latin name for the Imperial Army, but someone mumbled, so I missed it.

The book will include a history of the battles, background for the Solar Auxilia, background for the Knight Houses, the background to 4 new Knight Houses of the 31st Millenium, a campaign system, a Solar Auxilia list, and a 30K only Knight list.

Q&As

Any Iron Warriors? Some bits and pieces are on the way.

Warhammer Forge models going away? Some models will come back once they’ve looked again at sales and profitability. They will then likely add a few models next year.

Dark Angels? After Ultramarines but not too long. They want to do Thramas plus the Blood Angels at Signus Prime relatively soon.

Chaos Dwarves? No plans right now, but maybe.

Sigismund model? Will get around to him – it will take a year or two to get all the characters they want to do done.

What will be the breakdown of the Calth book? The final decisions on this aren’t really made yet – they’re still in early stages and playtesting the Ultramarines Legion rules. It’s likely there will be more than one book and the first book will be the first 24 hours and the turnaround.

Will they do every character they’ve written rules for as a model? Nope. Some are better suited to conversion from a Praetor or Captain model. They won’t necessarily do every one, but will where there is demand and a different enough model to merit it.

Will there be Heresy era Xenos? Not very likely at all. Horus Heresy is about a battle of man against man, and becomes a story about man versus Chaos. They will probably avoid Xenos outright as that’s 40K’s thing – but if they reach the Scouring, that’s the time of the revenge of the Xenos. They won’t cover pre-Davin Xenos as they’d have too limited a scope.

Chaos Knights? On the list to do conversion bits for.