Is Horus Heresy Really a Dying Game?

By Juan Lopez | January 5th, 2018 | Categories: Editorials, Horus Heresy

There’s been some talk our there lately stating that Horus Heresy is dying off. So we brought in one of that game’s community leaders to see what his thoughts were on the matter.

Horus Heresy just got its own standalone rules, but some people think that’s not enough, and the game itself is dying. There was a recent editorial on a different site that stated Horus Heresy was dying off, that sparked a lot of outrage in the HH community as a whole.

Michael Montelongo of Radio Free Isstvan seems to think that Horus Heresy is thriving, and let us know exactly why he thinks that way when we spoke with him the other day.

Let’s take a look at what he had to say.

I could contribute us being busier than ever on the podcast to us getting more popular.
However, we are inundated with emails of people just starting Horus Heresy.
I mean just based on the Survey, there are three times as many people who have started playing Heresy vs those who have left.

Horus Heresy event has sold out at every event including Adepticon, NOVA, STIF, and taking of Phyrux. Most of those events were even sold out months before the event was scheduled.
We also have a good number of 8th Edition refugees who don’t like the constant FAQs that are going on.

Right now the biggest draw to Horus Heresy is the strong community and the focus on Narrative play. That has always kind of been the draw though.
People want to escape the hyper competitive tournament scene, but still want to have organized events to play and meet new people.
We get called “elitist” a lot because every event organizer pushes and (most of the time) require a fully painted army to play in events. But, honestly this couldn’t be further from the truth. Every bit of the community that I have dealt with have been welcoming of all new players. There is a strong push for fully painted armies, much more so than traditional 40k, however that’s just how the community has flowed.

On to the elephant in the room… Do I think Horus Heresy should have moved over to 8th and do I think by not doing it, it slated it self for Failure?

First off, IF Heresy had moved to 8th, I still would have played, let’s just get that out in the open. I love Horus Heresy and I love the community, so I know they would have adjusted and there still would have been the Competitive/Narrative divide you see.

Secondly, I do not think 8th edition and Horus Heresy are good for each other. There are aspects of 8th edition that I do like (looking at you Psychic phase), however, 8th edition is an evolving edition. This is the first “community driven” edition that changes with the player base.

So FAQs are brought in to limit overpowered units, and points are adjusted on underutilized units. This sort of works for 40k. However, It takes manpower for Games Workshop to track this info, “playtest”, and make the call for changes. This is simply manpower Forge World does not have (The last FAQ was in June of 2016). I think 8th would have been rushed and unfortunately caused the game to become stagnant for months, with the same issues that were addressed within the first week of 40k 8th.

We haven’t heard anything about Horus Heresy losing interest, the new 7.5 edition of the rules actually seemed to have drawn more people into playing the more Narrative game. Not all players are happy with 8th edition 40k, we get that, and Horus Heresy is a great way to keep playing the 7th edition rules they enjoyed.

We saw a huge community response when 8th edition was announced. Some people were worried about the future of Horus Heresy, and there were some who didn’t want the rules to change over, but there were also some that did want the rules to change. However, Forge World listened to the majority of the community and made the Horus Heresy a standalone game that no longer has the line “refer to Warhammer 40,000 core rules”, thus edition 7.5 was born, allowing Heresy players to continue to play the more complex rules that they enjoyed.

But we’re more interested in hearing what the community has to say on this subject. Do you think Horus Heresy is dying? Do you like the new 7.5 rules? Or do you think Forge World should have made the change to 8th edition? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and be sure to visit Radio Free Isstvan for the latest and greatest on the Heresy!