Hurrah, there's a 30k Forum on Dakka! But it's apparent that some
40k players have never really looked into 30k, what it is, and how to start it. Hence, this handy beginner's guide to playing games in the time of the Horus Heresy.
WHAT IS 30k? The Horus Heresy (30k) is a collection of books and miniatures by Forge World which allow you to play games during the galaxy-wide civil war of the Horus Heresy, when the nascent Imperium tore itself apart. The action is set 10,000 years before the events of
40k - in the 31st Millennium, which is why we call it 30k.
It's best to think of 30k as an expansion to Warhammer 40,000. The basic rules of the game haven't changed, and it's still played with the current (7th Edition) Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. Pretty much all the basic rules are intact, and will be familiar to anyone who plays
40k, including rules for Flyers, Superheavies, etc. The differences lie in the army lists, missions and force organisation. 30k has it's own set of army lists, balanced against each other. Each of the Forge World Horus Heresy books adds more units and lists to the game, and when the army grows to a decent size,
FW release a 'Red Book' of the whole army - kinda like a Codex.
Each
HH book also includes missions, which can be linked into campaigns - each book mostly tells the story of a complete campaign. The Force Organisation is also much simpler - most armies have a single Primary Detachment and can include a Lord of War and an Allied Detachment, but that's it. There are no Formations in 30k. Lord of War can represent single giant war machines, but could also represent squadrons of smaller vehicles, and are limited to 25% of the army's points total.
In addition to the regular 'Age of Darkness'
FOC, there are a few variants you can use to represent, say, a defending army or a large war machine and it's escorts, all listed in Book One - Betrayal.
HOW DOES IT PLAY? Well, quite a lot like
40k, but with some interesting differences. The game is intended for a 'standard size' of around 2000 to 2500 points. This sounds like a lot, but there are also a lot more Lords of War in 30k and squad sizes tend to be much larger, so you can get through games quite quickly.
Despite the amount of super-heavies, most 30k players would say that it feels a lot better balanced than
40k. This is, in part, due to the fact that a lot of players are using variants on the same list (Space Marines!) and that there aren't as many armies yet. However, units themselves seem better costed, there are less auto-take super-units, and
FW tend to release their rules as experimental PDF downloads which then, later, get incorporated into a
HH book with slightly modified rules - which shows there's some proper testing going on!
Due to the narrative nature of a lot of the missions and the modelling aspect, 30k also feels a lot more fluffy and less hard-competitive than
40k, which is a big draw to many players. There are still lots of list-building conversations, and lists can be tweaked just as much as in
40k, but since the armies start off on a more even level, you're less likely to play a game which is an auto-lose.
WHAT ARMIES CAN I PLAY? Legiones Astartes All 18 legions use the
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Army List Red Book as a base, so you'll need that to play. Each legion then has a series of special rules that change how their forces function, and add new units and characters (including their Primarchs). These legion-specific rules are found throughout the different books, as various Legions are brought into the story. Alternatively, most of them can be found in the
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions Red Book - this is updated every so often so the most recently-released Legions may not be in it yet.
As well as Legion special rules, your army also has the option to take Rites of War which change how it is organised (for example, making Terminators troops, or deploying entirely by Drop Pod). As well as the Rites that are available in the basic army list, each legion has their own special Rites of War to reflect their organisational differences. The Legions are:
-
I - Dark Angels - additional Legion rules in
Book Six: Retribution -
II - Emperor's Children - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
IV - Iron Warriors - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
V - White Scars - additional Legion rules in
Book Six: Retribution -
VI - Space Wolves - additional Legion rules in
Book Seven: Inferno -
VII - Imperial Fists - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
VIII - Night Lords - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
IX - Blood Angels - additional Legion rules in
Book Six: Retribution -
X - Iron Hands - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XII - World Eaters - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XIII - Ultramarines - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XIV - Death Guard - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XV - Thousand Sons - additional Legion rules in
Book Seven: Inferno -
XVI - Sons of Horus - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XVII - Word Bearers - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XVIII - Salamanders - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XIX - Raven Guard - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions -
XX - Alpha Legion - additional Legion rules in
Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions In addition, you have various non-standard Astartes forces available:
-
Shattered Legions - a mix of various Legions, found in
Book Six: Retribution -
Blackshields - renegade or pirate Astartes without a Legion, found in
Book Six: Retribution -
Knights Errant - individual agents who can be added to current armies, found in
Book Six: Retribution Mechanicum -
Mechanicum Taghmata - using the basic list in the
Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List -
Legio Cybernetica - a variant of the above list specialising in robots
-
Legio Reductor - a variant of the above list specialising in sieges and large war machines
-
Questoris Knights - found in
Crusade Imperialis: Army Lists Imperial Army -
Solar Auxilia - elite Imperial Army formation found in
Crusade Imperialis: Army Lists -
Imperialis Militia & Cults - low-powered but very versatile list found in
Crusade Imperialis: Army Lists -
Army of Dark Compliance - a mix of Astartes and Army units fielded by the Warmaster, found in
[url=https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/The-Horus-Heresy-Book-Six-Retribution]Book Six: Retribution[/url]
Others -
Talons of the Emperor - Elite forces from Terra, the Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Silence are found in
Book Seven: Inferno -
Daemons - using the
40k Codex: Daemons book. They can also be allies to Word Bearers or Cults, and have two Heresy-era special characters. Rumours are that Angelus, the next black book, will include full rules for 30k Daemon armies.
DO I HAVE TO USE FORGE WORLD MODELS? Only if you want to!
FW have a whole line of miniatures to represent the specialist units and armour marks of the 31st Millennium. However, a lot of the units in the regular
GW range were around during the Horus Heresy, and the Legion list includes a lot of familiar faces. MK7 armour was just being rolled out at the time of the Heresy, as was the regular 'Indomitus' Terminator armour, and the Legion list includes regular 'Castaferrum' Dreadnoughts, Land Speeders, Drop Pods, Land Raiders and Rhinos. It's totally possibly (and fluffy) to build a Heresy army using the regular
GW Space Marine range.
In addition to Space Marines, the Mechanicum has quite a lot of crossover with the
40k Adeptus Mechanicus range, and the Imperialis Milita list can be used to represent any sort of crazy human army, with plenty of crossovers with the
40k Astra Militarum range.
List of
40k plastic kits that can be used in 30k:
CAN I USE MY 40k XENOS ARMY IN 30k? Um..maybe. 30k doesn't yet (and may never) include any rules for Xenos armies, and many things like the Inquisition and Sisters of Battle didn't exist in the 31st Millenium. The rules are so similar that you'll probably be fine playing your Orks/Eldar against a 30k list, but since the lists are balanced to work in different worlds, one side may be a bit over or under-powered. Generally, people recommend that, if you do, you use the Age of Darkness
FOC method of building the army, rather than the special
40k Formation/Detachment method, So it's certainly possible, but up to the players themselves if they want to try it.
WHAT DO I NEED TO START? - A regular
40k Rulebook, dice, tape measures and templates.
- The Red Book or
HH Book which contains your army list. All these books will contain the relevant Force Organisation info.
- If you want to play a campaign, any of the
HH Books.
- The current Heresy
FAQ, available at
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Horus_Heresy/Horus_Heresy_7th_Edition.pdf