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.