u/Zigoia

Although I still mourn the loss of the Black Books, I’ve been more than willing to give both the Campaign books of Heresy 2.0 and the Journals of Heresy 3.0 a chance. Up to this point I’d have given them a solid 6/10 overall when it comes to lore and art - which is the primary reason I’m reading these books anyway as narrative is my main focus when it comes to army building.

But after finishing The Battle of Tallarn Part 1 I’m just left feeling sad at what the Heresy storytelling and artwork has been reduced to. In the Journal we get some bland tale of an ambush by Solar Aux on an IW armoured column as they search for an unknown artefact. The background art throughout the book is uninspiring and often features Solar Aux on pintle mounts, manning Rapiers, or wandering around without helmets in the case of the Ogryns. Tallarn is supposed to be so toxic at this point that anyone other than a power armoured Legionary starts to melt moments after exiting a protective atmosphere - as we see on the cover of Tallarn: Ironclad. The same applies when we see the model showcase, I know GW want to show of their shiny new models, but it’s wild to see their representation of a Tallarn Reborn force featuring Ogryns without helmets and Solar Aux outside of vehicles!

We get a couple of colour plates total for the Legions and Solar Aux total - and none for the Mechanicum despite them having a whole-ass new detachment in the book. This would’ve been a great opportunity to show a bunch of really heavily corroded and battered examples of Legion/Solar/mech vehicles and automata. The loss of the OG Forgeworld painting style is felt very keenly here as the ‘Eavy Metal style of painting does not translate well to battered tanks and grime coated infantry.

Overall I’m just sad really. I was hoping the switch to Journals would result in us receiving a well written and engaging lore slice every few months along with half a dozen or so Heresy style art plates but it appears this would be asking too much.