Following on from this thread

How about we start putting these ideas together formally?  Id love to be involved in making a Horus Heresy small supplement.  The ideas Ive had so far:

1) Focus the lists on a specific campaign during the heresy.  The Siege of Terra is the really obvious one here- its well detailed and has many of of the key units and characters involved.

2) Make 3 generic/core lists:
  -SM legion
  -Rebel SM list (perhaps include demons/demon engine formations?  Were these around in the Heresy?)
  -IG Terran defence force

The generic organisation would work for many different types of legion as, at the epic scale, you don't see the legion organisation- just the deployed formations

3) Have flavour lists for the units involved in the siege, i.e.
  Loyalist: Blood angels, White Scars, Imperial Fists
  Traitor: Death Guard, World Eaters, Sons of Horus

(is this right?)

4) A small list that allows you to have the key commanders, so the primarchs, plus Horus and the emperor.  Ive had some ideas on how to represent them.  The key here would be to have the army commanders as "just for fun"- so make them have a big impact on the battle without being complete one man armies.

5) What about putting fate cards into the mix, again for fun and flavour?  Fate cards could also represent the influence of the epic personalities involved upon the fate of millions.  

So, what do people think?

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"Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth; it is wise and terrible."
-Spider Jerusalem

I'd like to see this supplement. Happy to help were I can too.

Count me in too. Love the Horus Heresy (got the board game). The Emperor's children were there too but got a bit...distracted with civilians.

You also have all the titan legions - Fire Wasps, Death's Heads, Flaming Skulls.

D.

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Epic:Armageddon... Like Apocalypse but for grown-ups.

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This is the problem with the Heresy, the scale is simply massive! I think we would need to think Legion here, so Marines, Guard and Titans in a single list. This may turn out to be impossible to balance but would make for a smaller supplement than one with 7 or 8 lists!

Rather than having full legions it would be nice to have some different configurations to E:A, thinking carefully about the styles of titan and armament that would have been around in the heresy.  Perhaps there could be a couple of arming options that would represent the different legions preferences.

However, I see focus as the key to a successful supplement: Adding in separate titan lists is sure to dilute that.

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"Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth; it is wise and terrible."
-Spider Jerusalem

Would love to be involved in this. I imagine my input would be limited to background rather than balancing the lists, but have done plenty of research into Pre-heresy/Heresy-era background so would certainly be able to help with that.

The Siege of Terra: Current background has almost all of the Traitor Legions involved in the siege in fact. The Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children, World Eaters and Iron Warriors were all there in strength. A small number of Word Bearers were also present (the rest were off at Calth delaying the Ultramarines). The Night Lords and Alpha Legion were elsewhere, the NL because they were getting increasingly psychotic and just off on a wide-ranging rampage, and the AL because they were being all mysterious and doing their own thing. The Legio Victorum (Foe Slayers) was also there as well, and the Warped Dogs Legion (who had their transport vapourised while landing on Terra and were wiped out).

As for lists, you don't need that many variant lists really. The Imperial Fists and Blood Angels wouldn't need variant lists (the Black Rage resulted from Sanguinus' death) although the White Scars would. As for the Traitors - the Death Guard got 'nurglified' on their way to Terra so would probably need a variant list, but the other Traitor Legions were still much as they were before the heresy bar the inclusion of daemons and daemon engines, both of which were around by the siege (no obliterators or defilers though). I don't think a combined Marine/Titan/Imperial Army list is the way to go... the three organisations didn't really integrate any more than they do in 40K. I'm not sure you need a Titan Legion list in the supplement at all really... the current AMTL list would work fine as is I would have thought. An Imperial Army list might be a good addition, although I'm not sure how much it would differ from the standard list... the Imperial Army's equipment was much the same as it is now. Non-marine traitors could either use the Lost and the Damned list or the Imperial Army list for the less 'corrupted' forces.

So, my initial thoughts on lists:
Loyalist Marine list (Blood Angels, Imperial Fists)
White Scars list
Traitor Legions (similar to the Loyalist marines but with Daemons and Daemon Engines)
Plague Marine list (Death Guard)

I'm not sure you would actually need any other lists, the other forces can be represented by lists that already exist.

RS: I Like all of the above.  One differentiator between SM legion and the E:A list would be to make it much more ground-pounder-y and armoured.  So more, and larger, SM tanker and infantry formations. PLus SHT's

For the Traitor list I was pretty much thinking of a stripped down Black Legion with larger formations and daemon engines.  Perhaps a more rigid structure as the legions aren't as fractured and Chaotic as the BL is now.

Im happy to take the lead on putting together some lists- but I am at the end of my PhD just now, so it would be a slow-burning project at first.

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"Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth; it is wise and terrible."
-Spider Jerusalem

I'm basing much of my 'fluff' from reading the HH series of novels. In the majority of these guard and marines fight together.

How about this for a thought. Each main list can use formations from either of its sides list in the current 1/3rd Titan and air? So Marines could have guard and titans up to the third?

@ J0k3r: That was the thinking behind my provisional Pre-Heresy list that I posted in the initial thread. I didn't increase the size of Armoured formations (although it is probably a good idea) but I did include the option for larger infantry formations and SHTs, both of which are supported by the background. As for the Traitor list, I think it would probably be easier to use the Loyalist list as a starting point rather than the Black Legion one... the BL list has far too much that wouldn't be around at this stage, plus the Traitor Legions should feel very similar to the Loyalists at this stage... the fact they are so different now is due to millenia of Chaos' corrupting influence. I'm not sure how you would balance the fact that they would end up with much the same list as the Loyalists but with more equipment options though.  

@ Mephiston: The Guard and Marines often fight together in 40k as well, but still have separate lists. The Imperial Army and Legions had seperate command structures (even if Primarchs or other high ranking Legion commanders often took overall control) and were fully seperate organisations in the same way they are in 40K. Perhaps an alternative would be to have ally rules, where you could pick a Marine force, a Imperial Army force and a Titan Legion force and field them on the same side, although the different forces could only use their own Supreme Commander's abilities.

@RS- ok, how about I take the list you've put up and massage it into the standard format, then we can take it from there?  Ill get a loyalist list done by the end of the week

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"Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth; it is wise and terrible."
-Spider Jerusalem

Assuming that this is going to go 'raiders' style and possibly get printed, what are you going to do for the fluff part?  It would be important to organize this very carefully from the beginning and that includes original artwork and original fiction.  Obviously it can't be original in the creative sense, but it can't plagiarize so perhaps telling the story from unique perspectives would be an easier way to get over those hurdles.  

As for the lists, I think you'd have your work cut out for you.  But instead of focusing on balancing the lists against existing lists, maybe you can focus on balancing them against each other.  That seems like it would be markedly simpler to do and would give you a lot more creative leeway.  Just throwing that out there as food for thought.

Oh, I'll help where I can.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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Thanks Mosc

As to balance- I was seeing this as a self contained thing so internal balance would be key.

I would aim for the sort of game where you get every SM and IG mini you own on a board and fight some really big battles.

Regarding fluff, I am no artist and certainly not good at fiction. I can do maps.  So if there are others, like Red Sorceror, who would like a stab at that then that would be fantastic.

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"Do not offend the Chair Leg of Truth; it is wise and terrible."
-Spider Jerusalem

Yes the lists would need to balance against each other only. If people wanted to play what if games good luck!

Of course they could play against the current Eldar lists as the pointy eared few haven't changed!

Sounds good. Hopefully the list should do as a starting point. A couple of points to bear in mind:

1. Mephiston suggested adding the option of Land Raiders to Tactical Detatchments. Sounds like a good idea to me due to the lack of AT fire in the list, and works with the background as well.

2. My list was intended as pre-heresy, so I didn't allow Vindicators. They were around by the Siege of Terra though, so seeing as thats when we are setting this you can put them back in.

EDIT: Not sure how difficult balancing it against other lists would be. Ideally it would at least be balanced against the Imperial Guard (Imperial Army at this stage) and AMTL lists, as their forces were both present as well and it would be nice to be able to use them.

Yeah, Eldar haven't changed much. Or Orks! Don't forget the Greenies, they were much the same too, and the Legions had plenty of action against them in the PH period...

It occurs to me that one problem with doing a combined Marine/Guard/Titan list would be the loyalist and traitor lists would be pretty much the same - allowing for the odd daemon or two.

A possible solution might be to allow a player to combine forces from three lists - but only after spending, a minimum of say 2000 points from the first list, then 2000 points from the second list and so on. So if you want units from 3 lists, you need to spend over 4000 points.

A Heresy supplement might be a good place to come up with some proper seige rules though; and a good excuse to go mad and build a model of the Imperial palace.

Regards,
Reaver

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