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I'm interested in the new Horusy Heresy Forgeworld book. I liked the style of the Badab War books that essentially allowed me to field uncommon SM chapters with significant special rules variants, that often applied to the whole army, by including special charactor XXX. Is the new Heresy FW book the same style??? or is it just a bunch of background fluff and a couple cool special charactors (who do not alter your army)

I'm not looking for anyone to violate copyright policies, I just want to know if the book is worth my while.

Thanks!!

It's basically a new codex with tons of great info. I think it's very accurate to think of heresy marines as their own faction, because they are different enough to actually be one.

IMHO its the best book forgeworld has ever released. Just opening the book feels like its some ancient manusrcipt describing the meaning of life but story quality and rules are top notched, rules for four legions all woth a significant amount of special rules and characters. Can't complain about the mechanicum rules either!

Does each legion have its own codex or is it like the vanilla marine codex where picking certain characters change some aspects of how to play the provided codex? I'm more interested in pre-heresy Imperial Fists but would it still be a good idea to get this book too?

 shamroll wrote:
Does each legion have its own codex or is it like the vanilla marine codex where picking certain characters change some aspects of how to play the provided codex? I'm more interested in pre-heresy Imperial Fists but would it still be a good idea to get this book too?

Massacre is the next book. I'm guessing it will feature Raven Guard, Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Imperial Fists? for its four Legions. Imperial Fists might be replaced with Iron Fists, but it seems like 4 traitors should be followed by 4 loyalists... since there would still be 4 traitor legions left from Istvaan (Iron Fists, Word Bearers, Night Lords, Alpha Legion), they could come out in book 3, preserving the pattern and the logic of Book 1's organization. But who knows?

 Lobukia wrote:

 shamroll wrote:
Does each legion have its own codex or is it like the vanilla marine codex where picking certain characters change some aspects of how to play the provided codex? I'm more interested in pre-heresy Imperial Fists but would it still be a good idea to get this book too?

Massacre is the next book. I'm guessing it will feature Raven Guard, Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Imperial Fists? for its four Legions. Imperial Fists might be replaced with Iron Fists, but it seems like 4 traitors should be followed by 4 loyalists... since there would still be 4 traitor legions left from Istvaan (Iron Fists, Word Bearers, Night Lords, Alpha Legion), they could come out in book 3, preserving the pattern and the logic of Book 1's organization. But who knows?

By Iron Fists do you mean Iron Hands? Because they are Loyalists...

Edit: Oh wait, Iron Warriors. They are the traitors, and probably the ones that you meant. Sorry.

 shamroll wrote:
Does each legion have its own codex or is it like the vanilla marine codex where picking certain characters change some aspects of how to play the provided codex? I'm more interested in pre-heresy Imperial Fists but would it still be a good idea to get this book too?

The book provides a basic template of armies.

Legion rules give access to special units, special rules for your legion army, special wargear, and access to SC's of that unit.

You don't pick a SC, you pick a legion and you gain its rules.

 Lobukia wrote:

 shamroll wrote:
Does each legion have its own codex or is it like the vanilla marine codex where picking certain characters change some aspects of how to play the provided codex? I'm more interested in pre-heresy Imperial Fists but would it still be a good idea to get this book too?

Massacre is the next book. I'm guessing it will feature Raven Guard, Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Imperial Fists? for its four Legions. Imperial Fists might be replaced with Iron Fists, but it seems like 4 traitors should be followed by 4 loyalists... since there would still be 4 traitor legions left from Istvaan (Iron Fists, Word Bearers, Night Lords, Alpha Legion), they could come out in book 3, preserving the pattern and the logic of Book 1's organization. But who knows?

Close, the next book with have the Word Bearers, Night Lords, Iron Hand, Salamanders, plus more mechanium units. Abaddon and Loken will be the next character set to come out. The campagin will focus on the first half of the Istvaan V Massacre.

To answer the original question, The first book cantains the Cursader Legion army list detailing all common units of the crusader legions. Then there is the Legion specific appendix list, these are the special characters and 3-4 units found only in a specific legion. The main list contains options called Rites of War. These expand and limit the Legion is a specific way. Example, Orbital Assault: changes what units can take as dedicated transports (drop pods replacing rhinos, etc) limitation is all units must be able to deepstrike is some manner.

Named charters in a Legion will additionally tweak the options of a list. Example, Horus allows additional units as Troops.

Overall, a great book that looks to be the beginning of a great set. Pricey? Yes, but we have always paid dearly for FW crack. If you have the ducets for the book and can stand to not eat real food for a few months once you start buying the modes to go with the list then pick it up.

It has the first known instance of GW approved Primarch rules (Horus, Angron, Fulgrim, and Mortarion).

Frankly I think this was a bad idea, because if you give something stats, a player can then kill it, rendering these figures a lot less fearsome than if they were pure plot characters. It also therefore renders the Emperor less fearsome since now we know what Horus was like.

The stats are not all 10's, in case anyone was wondering. Lelith is faster (Initiative) than Fulgrim for example. What the Primarch rules do have though is a lot of special rules, which makes any comparisons of power a bit trickier than just comparing raw characteristics.

Frankly I think this was a bad idea, because if you give something stats, a player can then kill it, rendering these figures a lot less fearsome than if they were pure plot characters. It also therefore renders the Emperor less fearsome since now we know what Horus was like.

Considering that the Emporer has been beaten in combat before (By the biggest, baddest, truly fearsome Warboss The Beast), that we've seen all powerful figures (The Greatest of the greater daemons) rendered in tabletop format, it's not like it's not justified.

If what you basically said was true, we wouldn't have stats for daemons at all except for the weaker ones, not ones that could conquer entire planets on their own. (A feat a standard bloodthirster could do)

It is a frankly awesome book, incredibly well thought out and with a wealth of units within the army list to really represent a full Legion crusading force

There aer some deliberate design decisions to help make games work at a reasonable pace - for example encouraging fewer larger units by making 1 unit of 20 tacticals cheaper than 2 units of 10, by a reasonable margin.

The primarchs are, frankly, exceptionally well imagined - difficult to take down but not impossible. GD seminar also went through the process to create them - they thought about their powers on 3 axis: raw close combat, force multiplier, and "special effects" - psychic powers. EVERY primarch has had their rules created already based on this- a top down approach, not bottom up.

Thanks everyone! That was just the kind of feedback I was looking for.