Horus Heresy Rules

Two posts in one day - clearly I 'm on holiday!

Now, to be honest, I hadn't really intended to get this rulebook, for a couple of reasons. As well as the rulebook itself, GW had initially released two additional volumes - Liber Astartes and Liber Hereticus - containing all the info for the Loyalist and Traitor Legions respectively. At £42.50 for each book, I was looking at nearly £130 just for the rules. Then there were the rules themselves - in my experience GW rules have somehow combined quite basic mechanics with an ever-expanding set of special rules which make the game pretty complex. The IGO-UGO sequence, combined with usually having most/all of your army deployed from the start, means having the first turn is far more important than it should be, as you can potentially wipe out a significant chunk of your opponent's army before they get to do a thing (To be fair to GW, there are alternative deployment rules that can mitigate against this).

With the above in mind, I was looking for alternative rulesets, but then whilst idly browsing Ebay, I saw the books at considerably reduced prices (the rulebook was up for a tenner and the other two for not much more each), so thought what the heck, let's give it a shot. Even if the rules turned out to be as expected, I could use the info they contained to make my own rules or to modify another set. 

Now this isn't going to be a big review - there are plenty of other places that do that far better than me, not least because tbh I am still not a big fan of the rules as they stand. That is largely because they are so different in design philosophy - I don't want fixed movement rates, hordes of special rules, an unimpeded ability to move all my units exactly when I want to, an IGO-UGO turn sequence (admittedly GW have made a 'revolutionary' addition in the form of Reactions, which allow a limited ability - 3 Reactions per turn is the normal maximum - to interrupt your opponent's turn), and I do want fog of war and friction to be present in my games. So, it would be unfair of me to say "These aren't a good set of rules" simply because they were never designed to feature the kind of things I want from a game these days. 

However, whilst the rules themselves aren't my cup of tea, the other two books are more interesting. Yes, they introduce yet more special rules(!) but they also introduce rules and mechanics that give more of the flavour of the Horus Heresy, in particular in trying to distinguish between the different characters and ways of fighting of each of the 18 Space Marine Legions. For example, whereas each Legion tends to have a favoured way of fighting (The Rout like getting up close and personal, the Imperial Fists are stoic/stubborn in both attack and defence, the Iron Warriors are siege breakers), the Dark Angels are pretty good at any style of fighting, as befits the First Legion. As I am building a Death Guard and World Eaters force, I particularly liked the ideas for leaning into their respective characters. The Death Guard aren't quick, but boy are they thorough, grinding their enemies down as they remorselessly advance, letting off an array of particularly nasty weapons. In contrast the World Eaters are fast and brutally straightforward to play, as they are geared up to charging headlong into their enemies and hacking them into tiny little pieces.

So whilst I won't be using the rules as written, there is plenty here to get me thinking and to provide me with lots of ideas about how I can go about introducing this flavour into my games. 

First units for The Rout

 I have been busy painting up the first units for my 15mm-ish Horus Heresy project. These are for the VI Legion, most commonly known as the Space Wolves, but who have several much cooler names, like The Emperor's Executioners, the Vlka Fenryka and my personal favourite, The Rout.

In the lore, The Rout are the Emperor's final sanction, who are unleashed when an enemy has to be not only defeated, but that defeat is to be inflicted as savagely as possible, unrelenting and without mercy until the enemy has been completely routed (hence the name). They hold a particular hatred for traitors and 'oath-breakers' and it is hinted at that they were involved in the 'disappearance' of either or both of the un-named Legions of which all records have been expunged...

All of these models have been 3d printed, using files that were available free on the Internet. They have been upscaled to 15mm. In the event that I ever print out some human soldiers, I want the trans-human Marines to be noticeably larger, so will re-scale the humans to be about 12mm.

First up we have a unit of 10 Catapractii Terminators with a Spartan transport. Originally, these were meant to be Varagyr - one of the units particular to The Rout. Since printing these, however, I have found STL files specifically for the Varagyr, so these are now just standard Legion Terminators. I don't normally base vehicles, but the miniatures are printed with a fairly thick base and once they are mounted on a 2mm MDF base for stability, the vehicles start to look a little small height-wise. I did consider trying to figure out how much bigger they needed to be printed to keep them looking the right size in relation to the figures, but in the end decided to just put them on a 2mm MDF base as well - much less maths involved! Even so I do think that visually they could do with being bigger, so may well re-print this tank.

The Spartan is decorated with markings from the transfer sheet produced by Forgeworld; although intended for standard GW models, many of the smaller transfers work perfectly well, especially on vehicles. 

Next we have a pack of 20 Grey Slayers, another of the units unique to The Rout. All are in Mark III power armour; I think the hard, angular look of the armour, particularly the helms, embodies the savage, uncompromising nature of The Rout. These are basically tooled up with a variety of close combat weapons, the intended tactic being to charge the enemy in the face before hitting them repeatedly until dead!

The other unique Troops choice for The Rout are the Grey Stalkers, also in Mark III armour. Often comprised of Terran recruits, the Grey Stalkers are perhaps a bit less impetuous than their headstrong brethren in the Grey Slayers, and so they are equipped for ranged fighting. They actually offer a fair bit of flexibility in their weaponry - normal Legion Tactical Marines tend to be equipped with bolters only, whereas the Grey Stalkers can take several different support weapons as well. Although these ones are just equipped with bolters, I have some equipped with rotor cannons in the painting queue (not much use against power armour, but the idea of a Marine walking around with a Gatling gun is too cool to resist - I blame Blaine in Predator!). The first squad is accompanied by a 5-man tactical support squad equipped with Volkite weapons.

The second squad of Grey Stalkers is accompanied by a Speaker of the Dead (basically a combination of the Chaplain and Apothecary roles found in other Legions) and a Legion Standard Bearer - the rest of the Command Squad has not been painted yet!

Finally we have a Fast Attack option of three Scimitar jetbikes. I do like the suitably brutal look of these models. Once again Forgeworld transfers have been used for markings.

Finally, the backdrops in all these photos are from John Hodgson's Sci-Fi Backdrops book, available from Handiwork Games. 

This was recently funded on Kickstarter and mine got delivered just over a week ago. The book contains 32 different full-colour A4 backdrops designed specifically for miniatures photography and they are stunning. I am far from being a good mini photographer, but these backdrops really lift the image even someone as cack-handed as me can produce! Thoroughly recommended!

The Horus Heresy...in 15mm

 

Iconic Horus Heresy art showing Horus facing off against the Emperor of Mankind - things just got serious!

I have long been a fan of Games Workshop's Horus Heresy setting, thanks in large part to buying Epic Space Marine many years ago with its hundreds of 6mm Space Marines and hordes of Land Raiders and Rhinos. GW sadly stopped producing/supporting Epic Space Marine many years ago and although there is a shiny new range in their standard 32mm+ 'scale', that doesn't work for me either - partly on cost grounds (GW products look great but are pricey) and partly because at this scale a table gets crowded pretty quickly (and for me at least, the Heresy is not about small skirmishes). So it looked like gaming the Heresy would remain an unfulfilled ambition.

The box art from GW's Epic Space Marine

However, a chance viewing of this video on YouTube by Luke from Geek Gaming Scenics has changed all that. That, plus the advent of 3D printing. The beauty of the 3D process is the ability to resize the files to print at the scale you want. Inspired by the video, I found some free stl files online and then made a 'proof of concept' order for some Epic scale standard Tactical Marines and Cataphractii Terminators but scaled up to about 15mm. Not only was I very pleased with the print quality in 15mm, but the cost was a fraction of what the same figures would have cost me in 'normal' 32mm scale. So, I placed a few more orders, and was soon in possession of several hundred small Space Marines. 

As I am essentially a solo gamer, I have to build up both sides, so I then had to decide which Legions would be present on the table. The Loyalist choice was easy - it would be the VI Legion. Back when I played 40K, I collected Space Wolves, and I really like the way they were portrayed by author Chris Wraight in The Battle of the Fang (none of the wolfy Mcwolf paradoy they have become in more recent iterations of 40K). 

The choice of Traitor Legion was, however, less straightforward. Initially, I thought it would be the XVI Legion, after all the whole Heresy was named after their Primarch! But as I leafed through my copy of Liber Hereticus (the Traitor Army Book for GW's HH ruleset, The Age of Darkness, I became more and more attracted to the idea of a force made up of Death Guard and the frothing madmen of the World Eaters. 

VI Legion veteran

XVI Legion legionary

With this in mind I decided my Traitor force would be a joint expeditionary force of mainly XIV Legion, with some close combat edge provided by the berserkers of the XII Legion, and a few XVI Legion along for the ride and to ensure everyone remains loyal to the Warmaster!

XIV Legion Grave Warden Terminator

XII Legion 'Red Butcher' Terminator - these legionaries, driven insane with bloodlust, are sealed into their modified Cataphractii Terminator armour and kept hanging in chains between battles, the better to prevent them carving through their brethern in the Legion. They absolutely embody the crazy, OTT nature of the Horus Heresy.

Next up - rules.

Introduction

 

Like many wargamers, I have far too many incomplete 'projects', partly because of a lack of self-discipline and partly because there are just so many great miniatures these days. The COVID situation didn't help and to be perfectly honest for most of this year I have struggled to generate any kind of motivation to get stuck into the lead/plastic pile of shame.

Now however, I am hoping to get back into the swing of things. To help with that, I am going to try and keep a bit more focused in an effort to get some projects over the finish line, and this blog is part of that effort - by setting and recording some targets for myself, as well as keeping track of progress, I hope to keep the motivation up and keep myself on track.

Time will tell if this works, or fizzles out after a brief burst of enthusiasm!

TTFN.