Tactical Strike: Why is Forge World not pushing this?

[YorkNecromancer]

So for Xmas my gf got me Horus Heresy volume 3, and I've basically read most of it, and the thing that really stands out to me are the Tactical Strike campaign rules.

Seriously: why is no-one talking about these and why THE FRAK is FW not pushing these hard?

Simply put, they are a campaign system for representing the endgame of the Istvaan Dropsite Massacre. Players are assigned one role: survivors or exterminators. So Loyalists or Traitors basically.

Army lists, however, are where it gets interesting: it's a fluff-based Unbound system. You can use any model you like FROM ANY APPROPRIATE CHAPTER that fought on Istvaan. You can have a Loyalist faction with a 9 man tactical squad made up of seven Iron Hands, and two World Eater Rampagers who stayed Loyal! You can have a Loyal Emperor's Children Palantine Blade leading a squad of Raven Guard assault marines backed up by a Death Guard Apothecary! It's bloody amazing!

And here's where it gets really interesting, and why it's nowhere near as broken as it sounds: because it's a campaign system, you are affected by army-wide rules that apply certain restrictions on you, based on the amount of resources you lack. Because of the sheer levels of attrition, your army may no longer be able to make Sweeping Advances, because their power armour lacks the fuel cells. Your ammunition might run out. Internal politics may affect your leadership levels because your men don't know who to trust.

As you play games, you gain the equivelant of XP, and this affects your resources, meaning holding/achieving in-game Objectives actually has meaning outside the game you play. Say your men are running low on war materiel and you play a game with an ammo dump as an Objective. If you hold it at the end of the game, your weapon stocks are refilled.

In essence, it's Horus Heresy + Necromunda, able to scale from small, Kill-Team skirmishes of 500 points, all the way up to the standard 3000 point battles of 30K. And on top of this, you have to name three Generic miniatures with the Character rule to be the heroes of your story, and if they achieve personal objectives, not only do you gain resources for your army, they level up and gain new abilities.

I swear, it's the best 40K campaign system I've ever seen and it deserves to be an official 40K supplement way more than dross like 'Campaign of Fire' or any of the 'Warzone' supplements.

You could literally buy just the models you like, and make a workable, playable army of them, and because of the inherent balance to the 30K system, it would totally work.

And I have literally heard nothing about this until I read it today. Seriously, if I was Forge World, I'd put the rules online for free, and make little 'bitz kits' of choice Legion parts for people to customise their own rag-tag band of misfits.

So I'm kind of putting the word out there - this is a great, great addition to the Heresy-era game, because it'll let you do proper, fluffy, exciting Heresy-era battles, getting only the models you like, without spending crazy money. It's totally worth checking out.

[Darren Richardson]

HUH, I didn't know this, but then, I don't have enough money to splash down on those books sadly.....

[YorkNecromancer]

Exactly why they should have the rules on their site. They take up about five sides of A4, and most of those are for a few charts.

They could easily make it a mainstream 40k supplement and it would be awesome.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I have been reading the rules all day since you posted, and yeah, that's ace! I have gathered a group who are interested. We love Skirmish games.

[YorkNecromancer]

It's literally the variant of 40K I've always wanted. Like, WHY IS THIS NOT A SUPPLEMENT ON IT'S OWN? It perfectly bridges fluff and rules, allows you to collect whatever you like, and allows for levelling up! It's amazing...

[ctuttle]

It's literally the variant of 40K I've always wanted. Like, WHY IS THIS NOT A SUPPLEMENT ON IT'S OWN? It perfectly bridges fluff and rules, allows you to collect whatever you like, and allows for levelling up! It's amazing...

So you buy the rules and buy more models. It's that simple. I'm not sure what you mean by FW not PUSHING IT SO HARD. I suppose they could release the rules for free like Zone Mortalis - but notice that those are in support of buying the ZM board?

You answered your own question in the original post.

Also - who's to say it DOESN'T make it into a regular 40k supplement? After all that's where Lords of War came from... (Of course GW removed the 25% point limitation which is bananapants.)

Forge World doesn't PUSH Games-Workshop "prime" to do anything. They create rules and models and GW Prime comes and takes what they think will work or are good ideas.


And I have literally heard nothing about this until I read it today. Seriously, if I was Forge World, I'd put the rules online for free, and make little 'bitz kits' of choice Legion parts for people to customise their own rag-tag band of misfits.

GW has moved away from this model over recent years. A new (and arguably cool) rule set is not going to get them to change their corporate approach.

[Haineko]

So, essentially, it's a mix of Unbound Armies, with RPG-esque rules?
Ya know, this might be what finally pushes me into buying some HH models..

[jmimbs]

This is awesome! Thanks for drawing attention to it!

[YorkNecromancer]

So you buy the rules and buy more models.

Well, duh.


I'm not sure what you mean by FW not PUSHING IT SO HARD.

Ahem.

Let me explain.

What I mean is:

'I have discovered an interesting way to play Warhammer 40,000 that I feel would be a rewarding gaming experience. Simultaneously, I have been pleased to discover it allows players to play Horus Heresy games with a minimal amount of expenditure. As the teacher in charge of running my school's Games Club for the last seven years, I am well acquainted with the difficulties facing the current generation of future players - namely, that they simply cannot afford to play the game any more - as well as their love for all thing Horus Heresy (because let's be fair, most people who like 40K kind of love the Horus Heresy for its 'Avengers: Assemble!' superpowered fun).

'Now, knowing my pupils as well as I do, I think it's fair to assume that there will be a great many people like them on this forum. People who, due to pecuniary issues, are unable to waste money on £250 of sourcebook (because who's going to just randomly buy volume 3? One or two lunatics, but that's all). However, this perfect little system is hidden away, and no-one is talking about it. Everyone's talking about the power levels of Primarchs, and the interesting fluff, and oh how pretty all the legion-specific Marines are, but then everyone finishes by saying 'I'd love some, but there's no way I can afford a Horus Heresy army'.

'Well, now you can. If you play Tactical Strike, anyone can afford a Horus Heresy army, which doesn't really fit with Forge World's 'We're the luxury product in a company that only makes luxury products' schtick, hence why they aren't pushing it.'

You see, I do actually know why they're not pushing it, on account of it's bloody obvious. However, I felt it best to use a clickbaity title to manipulate reader's emotions - encourage their curosity - so they click and read and thus find out about something which I feel is quite wonderful, but which otherwise they would NEVER hear about, because it's hidden away in volume bloody 3 in between a badly written section about the Alpha Legion (TL;DR version: twelve pages and 3,000 words of utterly sequipedelian loquacious twaddle that reveals no-one knows anything about them - what a waste of my time it was reading that load of old bollocks).

My question: 'Why is Forge World not pushing this?' was by and large rhetorical. I realise now that I perhaps phrased it badly. Let me make my thoughts clearer for you.

I feel that Forge World's current 'luxury goods only' policy is bad for the hobby, as young people - who are the lifeblood of tabletop gaming - are priced out of the hobby buy it, and the 'Tactical Strike' ruleset would be a great way for everyone to play Horus Heresy battles, regardless of their income levels. The fact that Forge World will not release these rules as a free download is lamentable and a real missed opportunity, if, like me, you value the community over profit. For while I am aware that businesses need to make a profit to survive, I am also aware that collectors are always older people, who buy things based largely on nostalgic feelings from their youth, and if the youth of today cannot afford to play 40K, then they will have no nostalgia for it, and thus no interest in being collectors and so WHERE WILL THE COLLECTORS OF THE FUTURE COME FROM?

It's the business strategy equivalent of staving off hypothermia by cutting your own throat in an effort to use your blood to keep warm; those first few moments when it's gushing down, oooh, you'll feel much nicer... But then the cold sets in, and deeper than before, because you used up what little warmth you had. I get the feeling that GW has kind of identified this, hence the frequent two-army starter kits, but still...

In summary: not really asking a question, more lamenting the state of an industry and community that traditionally hates its youth. :(

[Haighus]

Surely, though, the low starting point, is likely to entice people to start a small army of one squad. Then, next time they have a Birthday/Christmas/enough pocket money etc, they can buy another squad, and before you know it, they have spent 100's on a big army. But not in one go, which is scary. I think games like this are great for leading into further customer loyalty.

It sounds like a brilliant little game type too :)

[Chris*ta]

They could easily make it a mainstream 40k supplement and it would be awesome.

I'm not convinced. All the armies in WH30K use basically the same list, with a few unique units each, whereas in WH40K, there's a large number of lists, that each have their own rules and such.

To explain, in Tactical Strike, my army consists of one squad, but it can include guys from different lists. All the lists are still basically Space Marines, and interactions between various special rules are generally already covered. In 40K, we now have to ask if Dark Eldar's combat drugs affect an attached Broodlord, whether a Big Mek's Force Field protects the Riptide he's attached to, etc. etc.

And that's still ignoring the game balance issues, which are far more straight forward where everyone's playing very similar lists.

I'm not saying it would be impossible to bring this expansion to 40K, I'm just saying the complaining from the peanut gallery would be deafening.

As to the idea of promoting this expansion more widely, I'm all for it. I like the idea of modelling a unit of Marines as a collection of heroes, and the last rules that really gave that chance were the Movie marines in, umm, WD 301?

[YorkNecromancer]

I'm not convinced. All the armies in WH30K use basically the same list, with a few unique units each, whereas in WH40K, there's a large number of lists, that each have their own rules and such.

Oh, I quite agree. As written, it would need reworking for 40K proper. Definitely do-able, probably by banning Allies, but it's not there yet for 40K proper. However, as a way to get everyone playing HH it would be unmatched.


Surely, though, the low starting point, is likely to entice people to start a small army of one squad. Then, next time they have a Birthday/Christmas/enough pocket money etc, they can buy another squad, and before you know it, they have spent 100's on a big army. But not in one go, which is scary. I think games like this are great for leading into further customer loyalty.

Perfect summation of why FW should be pushing it.