Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Had my first game with Horus Heresy armies yesterday - my infantry-heavy Word Bearers versus a friend's thallaxi- and automata-heavy Taghmata Omnissiah.

I'm not going to do a full battle report - haven't got pictures or a blow-by-blow in sufficient detail to make it worth it, but the main point was that it's a very different experience to 'normal' 7th edition - not least because there are some very different missions.

Some of these I've played, some I'm looking for input from others.



Basic Missions:
There are subtly different missions to the 'rulebook' stock missions in Betrayal. I've yet to play them, and I'm curious if anyone has. They don't look vastly different. There are a few changes which are worth noting as a result of differences in the Age of Darkness army lists, though:

~ Meltaguns will not save you. Meltaguns are still not a bad thing to have, but armoured ceramite is a near-univeral option, which against land raiders, contemptors and similar, makes them unreliable antitank. Equally, flare shields are quite common, which renders mid-strength volleys of fire (and high-strength blast ordnance) next to useless. The premier antitank weapon of the battlefield is either the rapier laser destroyer or the graviton cannon (which has haywire). If you've got access to one of the handful of S10 direct-fire weapons, they'll do you proud too - Sicaran Venators and/or cerberus are a good choice for stopping enemy armour cold.
~ Fear. It matters. Sweeping advance, fear, all those rules marines normally ignore are back in force. Assaults are no easier - because overwatch is still a thing - but they are a damn sight bloodier. Expect to pay a lot for fearless stuff.
~ Variant force organisation charts. Most of them give slight shifts, but the big name one is Leviathan - a 3,000 point force consisting of a Reaver Titan and 2 Warhounds as flankers is perfectly feasible.

Zone Mortalis:
This is a very interesting game set which has been in most of the books so far, culminating in Extermination with the Boarding Action mini-campaign (it's several games but a Zone Mortalis skirmish won't take an hour, so you can play it in the same time as a big game). First comments on zone mortalis games:

~ Whilst this is dependent on the map you use, if it's anything like the forgeworld boards be very careful about thinking dreadnoughts will save the day, because you can find them unable to reach key points on the board. Hordes aren't too great either - it's very hard to bring numbers to bear. Elite infantry - especially with hardened armour and/or terminator plate - give you a massive advantage. It's no surprise that breacher squads and terminator armour are the best things going.
~ In the enclosed environment, not only are flamers and grenades more devastating, but it's hard to miss with blast weapons as they go off when they scatter into a corridor wall. Loading out on flamers and similar can really bring the pain.

Tactical Strike:
Somewhere between necromunda and Lord of the Rings. I've not played this - anyone able to comment?

Raids:
Another set of missions, this time in Conquest. Again, any comments?

Cityfight:
This is an interesting set of rules. The game we played was Judgement of Battle with Domination deployment. The deployment options are very odd compared to normal games:
~ High Ground - one ruin of your choice and the surrounding area is yours, the rest is your opponents.
~ Domination half the ruins are yours, the rest are your opponents. You must deploy in a ruin. Can leave the two armies massively intermixed - and since there are only so many ruins which can accomodate 20-man squads, the second player can find themselves in a bad position very quickly.
~ Deadly Ground - you get a normal-ish deployment zone, and can nick some of your opponent's terrain to thicken up the ruins in your area (and reduce them in his). Being the defender in a cityfight, you may notice, is generally a good thing....

The missions are similarly unusual. Judgement of Battle relies on setting fire to and/or demo-charging buildings. Note that only infantry can do this, so make sure to take plenty of basic squads. Casualties aren't irrelevant - in addition to warlord kills, the secondary missions are 1 for killing more units than the enemy and 1 for having more surviving units than the enemy - but compared to the victory points from 10+ ruins on the board, they aren't going to win the game. I lost 80% of my army in return for 5 models and still won because most of the city board was on fire.

Thanks for the feedback!

I have yet to try it but I have plans to try a game of "normal" 40k using a HH army list (Imperial Fists). From a list standpoint I like the "discount" you get for larger squads and having more freedom with character options. There are also some really flavorful unique characters, and that's not even counting the Primarchs.

I haven't looked at HH-specific missions yet but will have to get myself acquainted with those.

The Legion Astartes lists do indeed generally reward you taking bigger squads.

A basic Legion Tactical Squad costs more than a (40k) Tactical Squad (well - actually the same once the included sergeant upgrade is taken into account). The extra ten men, however, costs very little and essentially puts them more on a par with Adepta Sororitas and Necron Warriors for price.

At the same time, there are downsides - I lost a legion tactical squad to a failed morale check, and (because of no And They Shall Know No Fear), that was a three-hundred-odd point squad down the tubes which would have rallied automatically in a modern adeptus astartes army.

If playing with Age of Darkness armies, I strongly recommend playing against other similar lists, because the armies are balanced(ish!) with the restricted number of other armies in the 'set' in mind - armoured ceramite makes meltaguns cheap, for example, and the prevalance of marines means that anti-light-infantry weapons are ridiculously devastating for their costs*, whilst you pay through the nose for things like plasma guns.

If you want to use a 'normal' marine army as a 'counts as', you can do so pretty easily to get used to the new rules and scenarios - take your marine captain/chapter master, and call him a Legion Praetor. Take 'Pride of the Legion' as your rite of war, and you can field veteran tactical squads as troops, who can be armed in a fashion which looks far closer to the modern tactical squad (ten men, one heavy weapon, one assault weapon). Veteran Tactical Squads are immensely flexible, as well, thanks to Veteran Tactics, so you can experiment with different plans without really altering your army list.



* If you haven't seen them, have a try with a Volkite Culverin armed support squad against orks. The damage they can do is truly terrifying!