Horus Heresy: Digging Into The ‘Why’ For All These New Rule Changes
Games Workshop has made some massive rules changes to the Horus Heresy. We need to dig into why all these changes were made.
With the new edition of the Horus Heresy quickly approaching I’m been trying to take in all the rules changes. While I do have some more general concerns about the changes to the core rules just adding extra steps (and thus making games take longer) for the most part everything seems …fine. This edition is certainly looking to carve a new path and really change the rules into something different from the previous version. GW has gone through the game and have rewritten core things like the stats and even added new things to them.
But why? Are these changes really needed and what was the point of them. For example: why all the changes to weapons?
Horus Heresy Weapon Rule Changes
In case you missed the news, GW has also updated the Weapon Rules. For the most part, things are generally similar to what we had before. However, there are enough difference that it will take some getting used to.
Here’s the breakdown from GW:
In addition to updating the stats, they’ve also added new special rules. They’ve also reworked how some of those special rules function. Things like Heavy (X) do apply a modifier. But it’s not how you think it works.
Having these modifiers become flat bonuses that can apply to different stats is a new change. I’m not opposed to it entirely — although I do think it’s going to take some getting used to.
Also, it’s not just the ranged weapons that got an overhaul. The Melee weapons did too.
Oh and if you’re wondering what those weapon stats are here you go:
Again, these aren’t so wildly different that it’s confusing. But they are different enough. That it’s going to take a little getting used to.
But that doesn’t really answer my overall question:
Why All The Rules Changes For The Horus Heresy?
Personally, I think there’s a few reasons. I’m sure folks in the studio and the design team really wanted to get in there and tinker. They likely saw the previous version and wanted to change things up — to add their own ideas in the mix. I can’t blame them! That’s kind of the job of a game designer, right? They had the monumental task of taking an existing game and reworking the rules in a meaningful way. It certainly seems like they put in a lot of work to do just that.
But I also think there’s the more cynical reason that these changes were made: money. While GW can keep pumping out miniatures, it’s hard to sell you a new edition of something without a really good reason. In this case, the reason is that your old books don’t have rules that work in the new edition.
This new edition is a line in the sand. It denotes the end of the current rules — which are essentially complete at this point. And it marks the start of a new batch of rules for the next edition. Rules that GW will continue to expand and support for the next few years. If you haven’t caught on by now that’s the cycle they’ve been running on for Warhammer for a LONG time now. And it seems to be working for them.
It’s A Rebuilding Year
Cynicism aside, I do think these core rules changes are because the game design team genuinely wanted to rebuild the game’s foundation. There’s clearly signs in the rules that they have plans to build more within the new framework. They very clearly want to give players more choices and options. They want to make units function differently beyond “this is a pile of wounds with a 3+ save vs a pile of wounds with a 5+ save.” There is a lot more complexity and nuance that’s been added. And yes, that does mean a learning curve and longer games as a result.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of the Horus Heresy. It’s a setting that clearly has a lot more potential for GW to tap into. I’m still impressed with just how good the different Power Armor sets turned out. And how GW made the weapons interchangeable between the sets. But those are miniature updates and not rules updates. We’ll have to wait and see how the community reacts to the new rule changes as whole. That’s going to be the true test of this new edition.
Love them or hate them, the new rules are coming to the Horus Heresy.
