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Hello fellow HH players,

With the upcoming plastic releases i finally decided to jump into the Horus heresy.
Now i’ve always had a soft spot for melee oriented armies, because i just love the engage of melee combat in these type of games. Especially with the depth that the Horus Heresy offers in gameplay, i think it is an interesting time to play a melee oriented army. Now as for the Legion i chose, you probably saw it in the subject, the World Eaters. As of now i ordered primarch Angron, The new Kratos tank, two plastic deimos rhino and the new core box set. I already own a unbuilt Betrayal at Calth set and a LE Tartaros Praetor tribune. ( also some banner dude, i would have to convert him a bit). I read some reviews online and I saw most of the new 2nd edition rules. I'll definitely pick myself up Khârn in the future and some legion specific units.

The issue I wanted to press here(for discussion and advice) would be the current lack of support for melee units when it comes to the Horus heresy. As a melee oriented army, people probably want to get units like despoiler squads, assault marines, destroyers and so forth. The problem I walk against and probably multiple people is the lack of support to make these/get these. The aforementioned units are only available in forgeworld resin and have a serious price tag. In case of rampagers, they are already pricey, but they have a newly added support rulewise(through rites of war). As a player you have the option to upgrade them with warhawk jump packs, but these are not available anywhere. As for the age of darkness core set and betrayal at calth, you get marines that are made to hold guns, besides the sergeant all the models are focused on having a ranged setup. As a melee oriented player, i obviously would like to upgrade with melee loadouts, but as of now not even the the Phobos chainaxe set is a great set to get, it's expensive for only 5 chainaxes/pistols first of all, but it also doesn't come with melee posed arms. As a world eater player, you'd like to upgrade all your chainswords with chainaxes, but these are also not easy obtainable. I just wonder what you guys do in these cases? What units do you go for now as a melee oriented faction? How do you go about upgrading your miniatures? Do you think there should be a whole separate wave of melee focused releases in plastic? I'm curious on what you guys think about this situation and how you guys solve it. I also take any advice on what units to get next to complement my legion setup. Any info would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

You pay the one extra point per model for a CCW weapon and then shred anything you charge because World Eaters are bananas in close combat.

First off congratulations to fielding an underrepresented legion. The AoD box comes along with chain bajonets for the beakies. My 20- man blob of Iron Hands will surely equip those. Chainaxes can be acquired from Kromlech or other 3rd party bitz sellers:

https://www.fantasywelt.de/Marine-Bitz

I wouldn't say that melee armies will be undersupported in the new HH. One must remember that Sweeping Advance is a powerful rule, and with Assault Vehicles at your disposal (Land Raider Spartan and Kharybdis for examples) your squishier warriors can get their, get out, AND charge. Tartaros Terminators would be excellent in World Eaters for sure too.

For chainaxes, I'd just look for the cheapest possible old Berzerkers from 40k and buy them for the chainaxes. Definitely thinking about an allied detachment for my Iron Warriors.

Thank you for all your answers so far, it's really appreciated.

Gert wrote:You pay the one extra point per model for a CCW weapon and then shred anything you charge because World Eaters are bananas in close combat.

I looked over them! Thank you. I actually think the chain bayonets are even better choices, having the S5 so that you can be over their T4 with shred on top of it. As a second reason I think aesthetically i also prefer them for World Eaters.

Strg Alt wrote:First off congratulations to fielding an underrepresented legion. The AoD box comes along with chain bajonets for the beakies. My 20- man blob of Iron Hands will surely equip those. Chainaxes can be acquired from Kromlech or other 3rd party bitz sellers:
https://www.fantasywelt.de/Marine-Bitz

Thank you, I've seen some kromlech stuff before and I really like the Gore Legion stuff for the world eaters. At first I thought the add-ons to the bolters were just aesthetic choices, how wrong I was!
I am definitely considering some of the kromlech axes, they also come with combat arms, which is the important part. I'm also considering just taking some MKVII assault arms from firstborn marines and see how big they are compared to the MKVI arms from HH. Essentially those 2 marks use the same type of arms.

Malathrim wrote:I wouldn't say that melee armies will be undersupported in the new HH. One must remember that Sweeping Advance is a powerful rule, and with Assault Vehicles at your disposal (Land Raider Spartan and Kharybdis for examples) your squishier warriors can get their, get out, AND charge. Tartaros Terminators would be excellent in World Eaters for sure too.

For chainaxes, I'd just look for the cheapest possible old Berzerkers from 40k and buy them for the chainaxes. Definitely thinking about an allied detachment for my Iron Warriors.

Now I didn't really say anything about them being bad rulewise. Thank you for the unit advice! What i meant with undersupported is that the current available HH marine squads are all tacticals made to hold a gun, there's no assault poses, there's no assault arms or weapons, besides the squad leader. The only legit way to get these assault units is by buying their resin counterparts, which beats the purpose of bringing a core of miniatures out into plastic, just to go back and get the resin kits again. I'm not saying it's bad to have some of the resin kits, when it comes to legion specific upgrades or units I wouldn't mind. I would actually prefer dreadclaws over the bigger Kharybdis, but that one is amazing too. At this point, because of the lack of close combat upgrade kits and the the missing weapon options for contemptors, I expect them to come out with an assault wave of plastic HH miniatures. Including units like: Despoiler/Assault Marines, Destroyers, Close combat upgrade sets, dreadclaw, kharybdis, storm eagle/fire raptor, etc. Here's to hoping. With the 40k world eaters announced and them having confirmed new berzerkers, not 1% of me is thinking of getting that outdated kit. The options inside those kits, are nice though, so thank you for the advice. Iron Warriors and World Eaters are amazing with each other, definitely go get an allied detachment!

Zphyre wrote:
Hello fellow HH players,
The issue I wanted to press here(for discussion and advice) would be the current lack of support for melee units when it comes to the Horus heresy. As a melee oriented army, people probably want to get units like despoiler squads, assault marines, destroyers and so forth. The problem I walk against and probably multiple people is the lack of support to make these/get these. The aforementioned units are only available in forgeworld resin and have a serious price tag.

I'm in a similar boat of putting together my old Calth/Prospero marines as World Eaters, and the lack of chainaxes and melee arms in plastic is definitely an issue. In my case, I have a 3d printer which has made the problem pretty easy to solve (I got into it specifically for making bits like this), but there are other 3rd party options - if your playing place is OK with 3rd party conversion bits, of course.

You already know about kromlech, which is one good option.

One option, which I'm doing, is to take ordinary bolter-armed tactical squads and add a chainsword (which upgrades to a chainaxe for free for WE). The chainsword is 5 pts per marine in the leaked Liber Astartes, but it may be cheaper in the final version. For these, you can get hands-free chainaxes from conversion world and Pop Goes the Monkey has a selection, such as this one, or Red Warden on shapeways (one option of those is hands-free). Glue em to the backpack or waist, and job done. In my case, I printed my own of Red Warden's.

Alternatively, equip the bolters of the new mark 6 with the chain bayonets. It's cheaper (2 pts per model in the leak), and the bits come in the box, but you'll lose an attack because it's two-handed.

The other option is despoilers, where they swap the bolter for a chainsword (i.e. axe for WE) at no extra cost vs tacs. Here, you'll need melee arms in addition to handed chainaxes and pistols. Pop goes the monkey and Red Warden both offer handed versions of the axes, and conversion world sell slightly flexible resin hands that can be added to the no-hand axes. For the arms, I think plastic mark vii assault squad arms will be close enough to mark vi for general use. You can also cut and repose the existing mark iii/iv arms at the elbow to an extent. I will be doing this at least in part, though I'll also be 3d printing some - and there's the gore legion kromlech axes that come with arms, though they are khorne marked.

There is also supposed to finally be a new bezerkers kit coming with the World Eaters release for 40k. For a late heresy force, that should be a rich source of arms and chainaxes and possibly bodies too, though we don't know when it's coming yet. The old bezerker kit is very old, so the scale is a bit small to fit with the new releases. Similarly, new plastic melee heresy models are sure to come, but no idea when!

For jump packs, maxmini do some excellent mark v style ones, among others. If you can find them, Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard jump packs are mark IV if you leave off the wings. And again, pop goes the monkey has a wide selection of jump packs.

Lastly, I should also mention Tortuga Bay. They do 'truescale' heresy bits that are close to primaris in size, so are slightly bigger than the new mark vi - but significantly taller than the old mark 3/4. If you were standardising around the new mark VI scale for height, you could definitely mix in some of their stuff, including jump packs.

Tortuga bay guy is 2nd from left.

Tortuga also does MK5 and various of the other varients of certain MKs, like the SoH style MkIVs. I can speak for the Mk5, Mk 4.5 and Tartaros Terminators. They are very nice.

And as you're doing some World Eaters, they offer WE specific Mk2.

arkhanist wrote:

Thank you for all the advice and the provided links. I am convinced to do some chain bayonets, but indeed, i'd like to make some of those melee units you mentioned out of my tacticals as well. I think it will be quite a project, but a fun one.
I liked what I saw on the websites, especially tortuga's offers for MKII en MKV armours, indeed the "Space Gladiators" definitely drew my attention, haha. Thank you for the size comparison picture that really helps. I do enjoy the newer scale more than the older.
I've been thinking of adjusting the height of my MKIV marines (on the legs). Sadly those Maxmini jump packs are sold out. I do like them. I own some sanguinary guard, so I am definitely familiar with those jump packs. I went from blood angels first born to black templars primaris and now to hh world eaters. It has been quite a chopping experience so far.

I've actually been considering a 3D-Printer for these kind of bits for a while now, the offers online are incredible, but being able to print them is just a fascinating concept and perhaps in the long run, the easier choice. Any suggestion on any device?

VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

They look marvelous indeed, i've been looking through the items available on the different linked sites here and I definitely think i'll get something thank you. I still hope for that official 2nd wave of assault releases though and i'm eagerly awaiting that new scale 40k World Eater rework. I know that will definitely make this issue go away. Also daemon primarch Angron, i can't wait!

 Zphyre wrote:

arkhanist wrote:

Thank you for all the advice and the provided links. I am convinced to do some chain bayonets, but indeed, i'd like to make some of those melee units you mentioned out of my tacticals as well. I think it will be quite a project, but a fun one.
I liked what I saw on the websites, especially tortuga's offers for MKII en MKV armours, indeed the "Space Gladiators" definitely drew my attention, haha. Thank you for the size comparison picture that really helps. I do enjoy the newer scale more than the older.
I've been thinking of adjusting the height of my MKIV marines (on the legs). Sadly those Maxmini jump packs are sold out. I do like them. I own some sanguinary guard, so I am definitely familiar with those jump packs. I went from blood angels first born to black templars primaris and now to hh world eaters. It has been quite a chopping experience so far.

I've actually been considering a 3D-Printer for these kind of bits for a while now, the offers online are incredible, but being able to print them is just a fascinating concept and perhaps in the long run, the easier choice. Any suggestion on any device?

One of the things I've done is 3d print some taller legs from here - quick photo of what I'm working on (they need a dust rinse under the tap next!)



I'm been using an elegoo mars 2 for a year, which is a great budget printer. Its successor, the mars 3, is higher quality again, which is useful when printing smooth surfaces like marines; I've seen it heavily on sale on amazon (UK) for not much more than the mars 2, so if it is affordable, go for that one. I used all3dp as my guide, and their reviews are accurate.

Resin rather depends on local prices and requirements, but elegoo abs-like and anycubic eco (plant based, so less odour) are both popular. Whatever one you go for, you'll want to calibrate your exposure times based on printer/resin/local temperature to maximise success. e.g. this one.

You'll also need to wash the prints in IPA to remove any left over liquid resin, and final cure the prints to harden them with a UV light. I went for the anycubic wash and cure 2.0 (elegoo hadn't released their mercury plus 2.0 at the time) to save time and effort, but you can also use a pickle tub and a UV nail light or even sunlight in a pinch to save cash. Uncured UV resin can cause an allergic skin reaction, and is toxic to marine life - take the safety warnings seriously, ensure good ventilation, and always, always wear gloves when handling liquid resin.

The Printed warhammer reddit is a good place to start for printing minis, though there are a number of good subreddits for research. Learning how to support miniatures is more art than science (some STLs come pre-supported), but I found this video useful.

Well just printing some legs seems to work really nicely too haha. Thank you for all these references and guides. I didn’t know about elegoo. It looks like a PRO variant of the 3 just recently released in May. I must say the price is attractive and I see good results when referencing YouTube as well. I’ve considered a Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K before, but when I saw the comparison between that and the elegoo, both me and the creator of the video agreed on that it seems the point of where diminishing returns start to happen has been reached. The price difference however is big. I think I might get myself the Elegoo 3 Pro.

 Zphyre wrote:

arkhanist wrote:

Thank you for all the advice and the provided links. I am convinced to do some chain bayonets, but indeed, i'd like to make some of those melee units you mentioned out of my tacticals as well. I think it will be quite a project, but a fun one.
I liked what I saw on the websites, especially tortuga's offers for MKII en MKV armours, indeed the "Space Gladiators" definitely drew my attention, haha. Thank you for the size comparison picture that really helps. I do enjoy the newer scale more than the older.
I've been thinking of adjusting the height of my MKIV marines (on the legs). Sadly those Maxmini jump packs are sold out. I do like them. I own some sanguinary guard, so I am definitely familiar with those jump packs. I went from blood angels first born to black templars primaris and now to hh world eaters. It has been quite a chopping experience so far.

I've actually been considering a 3D-Printer for these kind of bits for a while now, the offers online are incredible, but being able to print them is just a fascinating concept and perhaps in the long run, the easier choice. Any suggestion on any device?

VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

They look marvelous indeed, i've been looking through the items available on the different linked sites here and I definitely think i'll get something thank you. I still hope for that official 2nd wave of assault releases though and i'm eagerly awaiting that new scale 40k World Eater rework. I know that will definitely make this issue go away. Also daemon primarch Angron, i can't wait!

I have been on the fence about a 3D-printer too for a long while. Just printing out a complete Epic army would be awesome. However the reason why I hesitate is the fact that I would need to use continuously the printer to get full use out of it. I don´t want it to just collect dust after a few print runs.

I’ve been invested in the hobby for a long while and i do keep hitting this point where i’d like a bunch of 3rd party bitz, for either kitbashing, conversions or even as simple as to have some bitz for basing my miniatures or add some terrain. Right now i think arkhanist convinced me to get a 3D printer haha. I’ve been considering one for a while though, i just didn’t know they became this affordable. I looked into them last night and most of them have really fair pricing now. As for the cleaning and curing i saw that elegoo also is going to sell a curing and cleaning device. Do you think it’s wise to go for those as well? And what about software? Is the chituru thing they use nice?

Now to also shift us back on topic a little… what are you guys thoughts about the bayonet vs chain bayonet? The chain bayo gives shred, is it worth double the price? And what about ally options for melee focused armies? Any tips there? Is it wise? Just more for fun? Like a group of shooty iron warriors for example? Or some Dark mechanicum? How do you guys think rampagers with jump packs will do now with the new Rites? Some destroyers seem interesting too, for some added shootyness and i saw they come with chainswords, which are chainaxes for the WE. I’ve also been considering some jet bikers and the heavy speeder:

You're asking a lot of specific questions that people won't know the answers for until HH 2 comes out. At this point, I'd say wait it out for a bit.

Chain bajonets are a must for my 20-man squad because of rule of cool. Also nice weathering effect on that speeder. Love the guy leaning out of the vehicle with the axe. Hilarious!

 Zphyre wrote:
I’ve been considering one for a while though, i just didn’t know they became this affordable. I looked into them last night and most of them have really fair pricing now. As for the cleaning and curing i saw that elegoo also is going to sell a curing and cleaning device. Do you think it’s wise to go for those as well? And what about software? Is the chituru thing they use nice?

For me, I used to order quite a few 3rd party resin bits, including shapeways and pre-made bases, and the cost of that mounts up really quickly. Switching to my own 3d printer saved a huge amount of money per part. 10 red warden chainaxes on shapeways, £12.50 plus shipping, conversion world £14.50 and shipping. 3d print 10 axes? STL design from Red Warden is £5.15, and £0.20 in resin to print 10 - even including the STL price, I can print 50 for the price of 10 pre-made ones, and I can choose which ones I want and customise the exact mix I need. And there are free STLs too. So it doesn't take long to make back the cost of the printer if you're a regular user of 3rd party bits or models.

There are additional costs which need to be included - you need nitrile gloves, the FEP membrane needs to be replaced periodically (around £5 per), and you will need a decent supply of IPA, so it's not just the resin cost, but they're not going to break the bank.

The other thing is lower stress. The new contemptor only comes with some of the weapons, and not enough elbows to magnetise the spares, and forgeworld has dropped the separates - so if you want a double fist contemptor you need to buy two (or go to a bitz seller); if you want a kheres, well, wait and hope on the future upgrade sprue! For me, I'll just print em, and magnetisable elbows too. Not enough melee arms to make my assault squad? Print em. Mark II legs for my sgt? You get the idea. Of course, it's possible to go too far and start printing entire cloned models which is legally and morally dodgy, but I have no problem printing parts GW won't even sell me. And there's plenty of cool 3rd party models that aren't GW clones. (themakerscult and reptilianoverlords do some lovely alt Guard armies, and there's more incredible fantasy models and demons than you could ever paint)

Skill wise, it was about as hard as getting into airbrushing - there is a learning curve, and it will take a while before you stop getting any print failures (I initially had about a 50-70% success rate) but these days I'm at about 99%.

For washing and curing, a separate machine is not required, but it is quicker and easier, and not too expensive. I have a flex-steel build plate added to my printer, which again is purely optional but is a nice add-on. When the models have printed, I remove the magnetised flex plate with the models stuck to it. I slosh it in a 'dirty' IPA bath to remove the worst of the leftover liquid resin, then put it in the 'clean' wash and cure IPA bath for a good 5 min rinse; there's a little agitator that mixes up the IPA. I then remove the cleaned models from the flex plate - it bends, making it much easier to pop em off - and warm them up a little with a heat gun (some people use a bowl of warm water). This softens the supports, and they peel off very easily without damaging the model. Then I put the models back on the cure plate of the wash and cure, give em 1-2 minutes of UV light, and that hardens them up and cures any final left over resin traces.

The parts are now safe to handle, glue, and paint.

I clean the flex plate of any dust or marks with a bit of IPA, pop it back on the build plate, and it's all ready for the next print. If I'm going to leave it a few days before I print again, I drain the leftover resin in the vat back into the bottle with a funnel, and clean the vat as well - you can also do this in the wash and cure.

I don't think there's a lot of difference between the anycubic and elegoo wash and cure 2.0 machines; check the reviews, but I think you might as well go with whichever is cheaper. For the 'dirty' IPA bath, I use a plastic pickle tub. This preserves the IPA in my wash and cure longer, as there's a couple of litres in there and filtering it out is a bit of a pain, while draining out the pickle tub when it's got very cloudy is much easier. You could just have a couple of pickle tubs and a separate UV curing station, which would also work fine with a bit more manual sloshing. The mercury standalone curing box was almost as much as my wash and cure 2.0 and didn't have good reviews, which is why I went for the 2-in-1.

Chitubox is fine for supports slicing - it's what I use. Lychee is also a popular one, but you need a subscription to unlock the best features.

With regards what units are going to be good or bad, who knows until we see the final points and rules. I'm hoping the updated 'red hand' destroyers from the exemplary battles pdf don't suck though, as I think they'll be a cool unit on the table!