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Let's Talk About Horus Heresy: Burning of Prospero

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26 Oct 2016 08:28 #236953 by JEM
It was sold out on their webstore, then relisted as second wave. Which I imagine is a later batch.
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23 Nov 2016 08:43 #239005 by hotseatgames
Has anyone actually played this game yet? I haven't heard a single word about whether or not it's any good, and specifically how it stacks up against Betrayal at Calth.

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23 Nov 2016 08:54 #239008 by JEM
I opened the box, saw the 200 sprues and closed it again. These things take time.
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01 Dec 2016 15:37 #239581 by Michael Barnes
I've finally got round to actually playing it...and it's good! Another example of why GW is just killing it with these boxed games.

It's not the same as Calth. It's actually quite a bit simpler and quicker. There are a couple of significant differences, including an Enumeration phase where the Thousand Sons player gets to try to cast spells. This is TOTALLY a 1980s style GW mechanic. You pick one of the spell cards you have and then you draw a Warp card. These have a number on them, an effect, or a choice to make. Then the Space Wolves player draws a Will card to resist it. If, after three cards (and whatever bonus cards are drawn) the Warp total is higher, the spell goes off. But there are also cards that do things like immediately end the Enumeration phase (normally the Thousand Sons get three spells to try) or make the spell succeed without cardplay. Some folks will not like this since you are drawing cards for a resolution. I love it. It's cool and dramatic, and the choices it puts on you can be pretty tough.

Moving is what you'd expect but there are some cool abilities like how Giogor Fell-Hand can move extra to get into close combat. Shooting and attacking is sort of like Calth where you total up everything in the squad and roll it. But the difference- and a big difference it is- is that your basic Boltgun rolls a D6 and rerolls 1s with Support FIre. But move up to other weapons and you get to use different dice- something no Warhammer game has ever had. So if you have a Heavy Bolter in the mix for example, one of those dice upgrades to a D10...and criticals (double damage) are rolled on a 6+, so the shift in weapon power is pretty evident. In the armor save, the targeted group rolls a D6 standard for each die rolled in the attack with a similar die upgrade for more heavily armored models. Beat the hit rolls to save, any not saved make wounds and most units are KOd on two wounds. Wounds carry on to the end of round consolidation phase. Combat is also like 40k/AoS where you do one, then the other player does one until everything goes.

It's really quick playing and brutal. In the first "real" game (meaning not a screw-up "oops, I didn't realize the Space Wolves all had that ability" game), there was a horrible bloodbath on one side of the map where my Space Wolves Squad (with a Flamer-toting Sister of Silence) just got completely wiped out by a Tartaros Terminator and a heavy bolter. A second squad followed up but wound up getting blocked on that corridor by a wall of flame while my friend used this rejuvenation spell to keep his dead guys coming back. On the other side, the Space Wolves' prowess in close combat really showed, Giogor and his gang just tore through the group down there and wound up getting to the exit while the other guy struggled to get some people down there to block. It took about 25 minutes.

Quality, does it even bear mentioning. I do like these models (MkIII pre-Heresy armor) better than the Calth ones. If you don't mind proxying...you could probably get away with using Calth figures.

In all, it looks like another home run.
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01 Dec 2016 16:07 #239583 by hotseatgames
Okay, so if you have Prospero and Calth sitting there, which one are you more likely to want to play?

I watched a video of Prospero and it seems like it is slightly more fiddly since you have to keep track individually which models have acted, as opposed to Calth's entire unit activation.

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01 Dec 2016 17:04 - 01 Dec 2016 17:05 #239589 by Michael Barnes
You activate everything in one go, not back and forth. The combat round is back and forth but it's easy to remember who went on that. More like 40k, really.

Too early to tell what the "preferred" one will be. My buddy liked it better than Calth because it was more direct and easy to get stuck right in with. But I sort of missed the higher level of detail/unit compositions/Dreadnaught from Calth. But this has magic and werewolves.
Last edit: 01 Dec 2016 17:05 by Michael Barnes.

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01 Dec 2016 19:35 #239606 by Sevej
I saw a demo and don't like the magic phase. Seems to be overly long and can be very swingy.

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02 Dec 2016 02:22 #239627 by Vlad
I find the card-play off-putting, too. Which is very fortunate, because I'm just getting into AoS. I don't even want to think about assembling and painting yet another set that is unrelated to AoS.

But I am wondering what is the process behind all these new WH40K boardgames. There´s Overkill, Calth, Prospero, Metal Gear 40K, Vedros and they're all unrelated from the mechanics' point of view. Are these games born from scraps of the next 40K ruleset editing? Or there´s no connection besides theme whatsoever? Also adding to the sense of mystery is, who are the people behind these designs? With FFG, you have all these blogs and previews, we pretty much know every heavyweight designer and what to expect. These GW guys are seemingly working in a very different way.

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02 Dec 2016 09:11 #239639 by Michael Barnes
The magic system looks really iffy at first, but it's fun...you get this "will it or won't it" tension and a couple of decision points to back up the card-flipping. It doesn't take long- like a minute maybe?

I do wish GW would credit their designers, but I think it is likely just an internal team doing this stuff.

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02 Dec 2016 09:26 #239644 by Mr. White

Michael Barnes wrote: I do wish GW would credit their designers, but I think it is likely just an internal team doing this stuff.


I do to, as they have some top people working on this stuff. If you pay attention to WD articles and such you can suss out who's working on what.

I understand frothing 'fans' is what stopped them from doing it. I guess morons were running down creators personally or opting not to buy product if certain people's names are on it.

I dunno. Idiots suck.

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02 Dec 2016 10:08 #239650 by barrowdown

Mr. White wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: I do wish GW would credit their designers, but I think it is likely just an internal team doing this stuff.


I do to, as they have some top people working on this stuff. If you pay attention to WD articles and such you can suss out who's working on what.

I understand frothing 'fans' is what stopped them from doing it. I guess morons were running down creators personally or opting not to buy product if certain people's names are on it.

I dunno. Idiots suck.


I think it was initially done with regards to Matt Ward's Codexes, which tended to feature lots of Mary Sues, high levels of power creep, and some outright misogyny that even GW's stalwart customers thought was over the line (5th Edition Grey Knights). I'm sure other creators received lots of criticism as well, but I think Ward was the main focus.

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02 Dec 2016 15:01 #239684 by Columbob
Those spell cards remind me of 2nd ed 40K/4th ed. Fantasy Battles, where you had energy cards to power spells, Total Power that automatically cast a spell without chance of dispelling, vortex that stopped the magic phase in its tracks right there.

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02 Dec 2016 19:04 #239691 by Michael Barnes
Yep, that is exactly what I thought of too. I'm sure someone on the design team did as well.

Almost done painting the Space Wolves tactical legion...I followed Duncan Rhodes on it, but I _really_ don't like the shading step he had, putting Agrax on top of Mechanicus/Administratum. It just looks dirty. I guess that's fine if you want that look, but I like SMs to look cleaner. The color scheme is awesome though, although I seem to have bought all these Space Wolves colors for naught.

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04 Dec 2016 19:07 #239785 by Sevej
The thing is he used brown-shaded shade for that. If he had used the black one, it would look cleaner.

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04 Dec 2016 19:25 #239786 by Michael Barnes
Yeah, I'm going to try Nuln to see if I can get a better look...when I was doing it I was kind of like "huh?" But his looked fine. But I'm not Duncan Rhodes.

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