Your Mk VIs I like in a couple of big 20-marine tactical units, all with chain bayonets and vexillas. It gives them a reason to slam hard into enemy units and they’ll be very hard to shift off objectives with the buff to ranged defence from Heart of the Legion and their increased survivability in melee from the Sons of Horus trait. The contemptor can ably assist with pretty much any set up that includes at least one fist – just be sure to charge early and charge often. Likewise, you can pledge yourself fully to your chosen Legion with one of 18 sets of themed dice. You get 20 six-sided dice in each set, in the colours of the corresponding Legion – one of which is a scatter dice. Each Legion has its emblem stamped on the 6 face. In-store Swag Need to kill your enemies from further away? There’s an upgrade kit containing 10 heavy bolters and 10 missile launchers.

The Spartan is a massive chunk of plastic and comes on a whopping six sprues. It has with quad-lascannons for the side sponsons, a choice of hull-mounted lascannons, heavy bolters, or heavy flamers, and a pintle-mounted havoc launcher, multi-melta, heavy bolter, and heavy flamer. There is also an optional hunter-killer missile, smoke launcher, and search-light, as well as optional aquila and eye of Horus decorations. The gunner can also be assembled as a Commander, holding either one of two devices or binoculars, and he seems to be clad in redesigned MkII armour, so I guess there must be a plastic MkII set at some point in the future. Cataphractii Terminators A closer look at the contents of the book and my experience from the demo game I had will follow in my in-depth review of the Age of Darkness box. Initial impression & outlook If you want to go a completely different route, sell the Spartan and buy Sevatar and another big unit of terminators (this time probably with chainfists and combi-bolters). With Sevatar as your warlord you’ll be able to deep strike those units of terminators onto the battlefield. As if that wasn’t enough variety already, there are even options to outfit your Contemptor Dreadnought’s power fist with blunt fingers or sharp claws according to your Legion’s preference.

New Horus Heresy Starter Set Sprues

The Legiones Astartes are indisputably the most famous of the forces fighting in the Age of Darkness, at the centre of every pivotal event and important battle. To field an army of Space Marines in Legions Imperialis is to choose the path of the Emperor himself – or the arch-traitor Horus, should the flames of rebellion smoulder within your foul hearts. The Mk VI are of course a boon. Two 10-marine tactical squads is a great place to start, but beyond that it’s time to get a little creative. Recon squads are great in the new edition, and even better for Raven Guard, so building 10 of the marines in this box as a unit of them is a good plan. You can easily just paint them in a few camo streaks to denote them. You can just run them with bolters, but nemesis bolters are fantastic. As there are no official models for those yet, you can either find some sniper rifles from somewhere, or just find some rod of the appropriate size and extend the bolter barrels to be a silencer – perfect for snipers. For the last ten you could go several different ways – seekers are great, and again just need a different paint scheme. But since all of your tactical support squads will be getting Infiltrate, it’s hard to dislike 5 meltagun supports and 5 flamer supports to run in and cause havoc up close.

Legions Imperialis zooms right out to portray some of the largest, fiercest battles to shake the Age of Darkness. It’s truly mind-boggling in scale, and a fantastic hobby project for avid painters looking to turn their skills to dozens of small yet incredibly detailed miniatures. This is about the most you’ll be able to customize with the different head option, but we’re sure you could get some awesome conversions done with the kit! Terminator Sprues Either way, new rules and even just one new Horus Heresy starter box set at the bare minimum would be great to see. Here are all the latest rumors on the upcoming rules updates and new models for the Horus Heresy system. Regardless, let’s assume for a second it’s valid, are 100,000 copies of a starter set even a realistic number? It turns out it may be. You’re going to want to build 10 of your Mk VI marines as a tactical squad, giving all of the marines chain bayonets and your sergeant the power sword. The buff to initiative benefits all the melee weapons, but the truth is that anything your sergeant has a hope of killing (and your unit winning the combat against) is going to murder you before you can swing the power fist in most cases. There are a select number of units when Initiative 2 fists vs Initiative 1 fists are worth it, but they’re few and far between and even if your sergeant manages to wound (or even kill) another sergeant, the rest of your squad is going to evaporate fast enough.

When a bolter and chainsword won’t do the business, the Tactical Squads of the Legiones Astartes turn to special weapons, forming Legion Tactical Support Squads. With six varieties to choose from in this comprehensive set of upgrades, no battlefield conundrum will go unanswered. This set contains 10 weapons each of six types – flamers, plasma guns, meltaguns, rotor cannons, volkite chargers, and volkite calivers. They’re designed to fit seamlessly onto the Mk VI Tactical Squad, with hands moulded onto the guns to fit your Space Marines’ arms. Legiones Astartes Heavy Weapons Upgrade Set (Missile Launchers and Heavy Bolters) Here’s the strategy: push the tacticals up in the rhinos, dump them on objectives, and shoot them at stuff you want to die. Follow up that with volleys from your heavy support squads, benefiting from that +1 to hit as you do. It won’t apply to frag missiles, but it will to krak. Anything that won’t fold from your firepower gets a Spartan and then ten terminators to the face. Tough and unyielding, the Death Guard are one of the most resolute of legions and their special rule means building them in particular ways yields good results. Probably the best way to build your Death Guard Mk VI is just with two 20-marine tactical squads. I wouldn’t bother with chain bayonets, but bayonets are a reasonable add – it’s just not worth the points to give them upgrades they’re likely not going to use. These will footslog along while the terminators (powerfist and combi-bolter for flexibility is a good shout) ride in the Spartan. As for the Spartan you should consider a heavy flamer on your pintle mount to swap for a heavy alchem flamer which is a great upgrade. The Contemptor can take whatever you fancy, but I would put a heavy alchem flamer in the fist and pair it with an autocannon for flexibility and light vehicle hunting. Each of these 10 model squads comes on two identical sprues that build 5 Marines with bolters and chain-bayonets, plus a small accessories sprue. The small sprue has weapon options for the Sergeant, a nuncio-vox and Vexilla, 10 regular bayonets and holstered boltpistols, plus a few other cosmetic choices like additional heads and equipment. Unlike the MkIII and MkIV models, lower and upper bodies are connected in fixed poses, similar to Primaris Marines, and the left hand is modelled onto the bolters. Contemptor Dreadnought

Next, it would also be really cool to see all the older Primarchs get a rework, like a Siege of Terra version, perhaps? But that’s not it! You also get a Legion Special Weapons set, containing five lots each of plasma guns, meltaguns, flamers, rotor cannon, volkite chargers, and volkite calivers. Shove them into the Land Raider, and deliver your choice of high-energy death to the enemies/adherents of the Emperor! If you go with some heavy/special weapons, you’ve got a wide range of choices, mostly depending on how you want to equip the rest of your box. As we work through the various units keep in mind that you’ll want to have a mix of anti-infantry, anti-elite, and anti-tank weapons, balanced a little towards anti-tank (in part because your basic bolter marines are already good anti-infantry, in part because you’re likely to run into a lot of spartans).

Horus Heresy Starter Box set

To play, you’ll need the Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness Rulebook , as well as the correct rulebook for your army. If you’re defending the Imperium with a Loyalist Legion, you’ll want the Liber Astartes: Loyalist Legiones Astartes Army Book , and if you’re fighting for the Warmaster, you’ll want the Liber Hereticus: Traitor Legiones Astartes Army Book . Let’s start with the praetors that come in the box, because you should really consider kitbashing one or both of these. Keeping one of them as a praetor is absolutely fine, but you should consider converting the other to be a librarian as more psychic powers is generally a good idea for the Thousand Sons. The 40k range is a goldmine for bits for these guys and a fair sight cheaper than the Forge World range, so have a look at those kits to see what you can grab. Once you’ve got your books, you’ll need the usual set of tabletop wargaming tools – with a few extras. Now you know whether you’re a Loyalist or a Traitor, you can see the rest of today’s big reveals for Warhammer: The Horus Heresy in a new light.

Let’s start with the Praetors. These two models are extraordinarily cool and with their Artificer MkVI armour look as if they had sprung directly from John Blanche artworks. There are no weapon options, but both models have a choice of either bare head or plumed helmet. The Praetors are generic with no Sons of Horus or Imperial Fists iconography, and can therefore be used for any legion (although they are certainly more suitable in style for some legions than others). My favourite is the Praetor with the double-handed axe, which I HAVE to paint at some point for my collection 🙂 MkVI Tactical Squad The praetors are prime candidates for kitbashing, especially if you did get that chaos space marines kit – a horned helmet and a tainted axe is a cool as hell build, and you’ll have great shoulder pads to round it out. This Alpha Legion Armistos was kitbashed just from parts found in the chaos space marine kit, the axe praetor from the box, and a spare heavy bolter I had lying around. The Liber Astartes is Loyalists’ bible, the complete repository of rules, lore, and unit profiles for each of the nine Legiones Astartes who kept the faith and stayed true to their Emperor.

Spartan Tank

The Imperium of Mankind, you say? Sounds pretty big. What does it look like? We’re glad you asked – this map shows the entire Imperium as it stood at the cusp of the Horus Heresy as the 31st Millennium dawned. It’s printed on a massive 1,000mm x 890mm fold-out poster, and it’s the essential guide to the galactic state of play. The Horus Heresy Legion Transfer Sheets Tough, brutal and unrelenting, the Iron Warriors are looking to maximise the sheer damage output of their shooting. Demonic and destruction, the Word Bearers lean far heavier into the “nightmare horror” aspect of Chaos and the heresy than any other legion. As such this is a great legion to pillage Chaos Marine bits from 40k for and get some very spiky lads into the fray. The spartan doesn’t have a ton of options. It always has lascannon sponsons, so adding another to the hull mount isn’t tremendously worth it. Instead, adding both hull and pintle mounted heavy bolters gives it a bit of useful anti-infantry firepower, and as they’re defensive weapons they’ll be able to fire at a different target than the lascannons.