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Really want to start a 30k army, but I have no clue where to start. I like speed when it comes to armies, but not really feeling White Scars. Raven Guard would be fun or maybe Alpha Legion? It's just so conflicting. Any tips?

Hey buddy. Buddy come here. have you ever heard of the wonders of magic?

Do you like Jetbikes?

Do you like being Closet Traitors?

Is Black your color?

If you answered yes, than you should check out the Dark Angels.

I feel like you need to do a bit more soul searching in order to resolve which Legio you wish to proceed with.

Do you fight for the Emperor? Or do you serve the Warmaster?

Are you looking for a particular challenge painting colours you aren't used to, or for something more in your comfort zone?

I don't know how anyone else feels but White Scars may not necessarily be the be-all end-all in terms of general speed. Do you want bikes? Assault marines? Drop pods? Deep strikers?

Piff, Iron warriors drop pod army.
Bring big man himself. Roll reserves turn 1.
75% of the army rains in first turn.

Join the followers of the Warmaster! The rightful heir and ruler of the Imperium! Become a Son! A Son of Horus! We have cookies!

Most Legions can do speed fairly well off of the generic units/Rites, especially given that Assault Marines are just Troops all the time for everyone. Night Lords, World Eaters, Ultramarines (perhaps surprisingly), Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, Raven Guard, Blood Angels, White Scars, and Dark Angels all have access to special jump units or Rites that give jump or bike units extra toys.

Outside the Legions it's mostly slowish guns/artillery, but you can build a respectable skimmer/jetbike Talons of the Emperor army and the Questoris list can keep up with most.

I do realize I've just listed about 40% of the armies in 30k, you may need to give us more to work with.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Most Legions can do speed fairly well off of the generic units/Rites, especially given that Assault Marines are just Troops all the time for everyone. Night Lords, World Eaters, Ultramarines (perhaps surprisingly), Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, Raven Guard, Blood Angels, White Scars, and Dark Angels all have access to special jump units or Rites that give jump or bike units extra toys.

Outside the Legions it's mostly slowish guns/artillery, but you can build a respectable skimmer/jetbike Talons of the Emperor army and the Questoris list can keep up with most.

I do realize I've just listed about 40% of the armies in 30k, you may need to give us more to work with.

Questoris list doubles as a 40k army as well if needed.

Azeroth133 wrote:
...Questoris list doubles as a 40k army as well if needed.

It may be more or less well-received depending on your meta. And on how appreciative people are of you using the Cerastus datasheets off of the Forge World downloads page.

Also the Questoris list has a lot more interesting options than the 40k Knights with the Household Ranks system.

This may help

Why are the Dark Angels down the 'no thanks to black' path of the flowchart? The green armour didn't show up until the Fall.

 edbradders wrote:
This may help

Spoiler:

HAH! This made my day!

Really this should be sticked at the top of the 30k subforum to head off all posts like this. It worked for me!

@Stewe18

Speed is not limited by Legion, as you can go for Rites of War that reflect it somewhat. You can do Ravenwing Protocols in Dark Angels, if you like their fluff. If you want to go Jump Packs for speed, you can do Night Lords or Blood Angels.

You can also do any Legion you want with the Armored Breakthrough RoW and get a bunch of Fast 3HP vehicles, if that is more up your alley.

I found that jumping into 30k requires the full trio: Fluff, Hobby, and List.

If you don't like the fluff, don't pick them. If you don't want to model/paint them, don't pick them. If you can't find a list you like, don't pick them. If you can get one Legion that does all three, go for it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Why are the Dark Angels down the 'no thanks to black' path of the flowchart? The green armour didn't show up until the Fall.

Right? Too amusing they fudged that up.

Also, can't we have Loyalists and Traitors for all Legions?

I can have Loyal Sons of Horus just as much as I can have Traitor Imperial Fists. I don't see why "would you rather be loyal or traitor" is a question when asking what Legion you want to play?

I am a Raven Guard player so I am a tad biased, but with certain characters and Rites of war you can have a very fast, hard-hitting army. Javelins, land speeders, outriders all have a place in a decap army alongside drop pods, etc raining down. Flyers can tag along, as well as papa Raven himself.

RG also start pretty well out of the starter boxes, whether you go burning of prospero or betrayal at calth. Calth gets you a dread where prospero gets you tartoros termies which fit raven's a tad better.

Any RG questions, let me know - I'm always down to talk 30k ravens.

In addition, with the heresy - pick a legion you feel comfortable painting. More so than 40k, this is a HOBBY and people won't dig rolling up to grey plastic/resin legion armies, at least I don't. I'm almost fully painted with 3500 points of RG. Just some transports, quad mortars and a couple characters away.

Happy heresy!

Yeah true. The Custodes look pretty cool, but gawt damn they're expensive. The gold is beautiful, but might be better just to go for more of a marines army for budgets sake.

It's important to make a distinction between Loyalist and Traitor because certain selections are not available for one or the other (Red Butchers are traitor only, Kyr Vhalen is Loyalist only)

Thousand Sons of course have no such icons on their character datasheets. Because you know, they were always loyal

stewe128 wrote:
Yeah true. The Custodes look pretty cool, but gawt damn they're expensive. The gold is beautiful, but might be better just to go for more of a marines army for budgets sake.

Hm... Custodes are not that expensive since you need so few of them.

 em_en_oh_pee wrote:

stewe128 wrote:
Yeah true. The Custodes look pretty cool, but gawt damn they're expensive. The gold is beautiful, but might be better just to go for more of a marines army for budgets sake.

Hm... Custodes are not that expensive since you need so few of them.

Also it turns out if you search Ebay for 'Legio Custodes' instead of 'Adeptus Custodes' you get the people selling the five from the Prospero box for $40-50 instead of the people selling them for $70-80.

(I will concede that the Custodes don't have the Marines' 40k-vehicles shortcut.)

I PRESENT TO YOU:

EMBER'S (SOMEWHAT) COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE ARMIES OF THE 31st MILLENNIUM!!!!
I have listed the army's core mentality and why you should play them. I also thought i'd mention something: you can always play a "loyal" traitor army or vis-versa, but "Loyal" traitors tend to be more interesting.



I Legion: Dark Angels: A better, more melee oriented version of their 40k selves, the Dark Angles are quite a "generic" army. Why play them: because you want their awesome Rites of War, which allow you to build an ultra-fluffy lists that is fast AND hard-hitting, or close range AND even more hard-hitting.
III Legion: Emperor's Children: The battle is all about the sensation, glory to the dark prince and all that. Why play them? Cause you can give your characters +1 Initiative. Thats why.
IV Legion: Iron Warriors Long range siege specialists. Quite a decent legion, but not ultra-unique (like 1kSons), but do lack big weaknesses.
V Legion: White Scars Fast, like their 40k selves. But unlike 40k, they can take Jetbikes as troops (with their RoW) so are MUCH better.
VI Legion: Space Wolves Don't know, don't care.
VII Legion: Imperial Fists The Vanilla Marines. Excel at everything they do, but they don't do much. Decent melee, decent range, decent everything. Run them because you want Sigismund, the Emperor's Champion. He's got 4 wounds.
VIII Legion: Night Lords FEAR US!! Surprisingly, they get Fear, which isn't too good until you realise that ATSKNF doesn't exist in 30k. Plus their special troops squad (with their RoW) get Volkites.
IX Legion: Blood Angels Again, a better version of their 40k selves. Can spam jump packs (assault squads are troops in 30k) and make the enemy pay for all those points spent.
X Legion: Iron Hands A quote from 1d4chan: The Iron Hands are also considered one of the stronger Legions to play with, if only because of their sheer resistance to incoming fire.. Thats all you need to know.
XII Legion: World Eaters THE melee specialists. They get more attacks, better attacks, stronger attacks, just place a positive adjective in front of attacks and thats them.
XIII Legion: Ultramarines The most similar to their 40k selves, the Ultrasmurfs are, like the fists, a decent legion.
XIV Legion: Death Guard Slow and steady, they get shredding flamers. Plus immune to fear, which is a big deal due to no ATSKNF.
XV Legion: Thousand Sons Awesome. EVERY single model gets an awesome buff, chosen form 5 different ones, psykers are EVERYWHERE (mastery level 3 praetors is all im saying), they get super cool special units, and Ahriman is just awesome. Their RoWs aren't too good, unless you want to spam termies, but that doesn't really matter. (Yes, I do play KSons. Sorry)
XVI Legion: Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus Another assault-oriented legion, the SoH are quite good all-rounders too (BS5 Veterans). Plus they get the Warmaster.
XVII Legion: Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines that are better than Chaos Space Marines. Their primarch is pretty weak, though.
XVIII Legion: Salamanders FIRE!! MUAHAHA!! They get good special weapons, and their special terminators are THE ONLY ONES THAT GET TO TAKE THUNDERHAMMER/STORM SHIELDS!!
XIX Legion: Raven Guard Again, awesome. Every infantry model EXCEPT terminators gets INFILTRATE AND FLEET, and termies get FURIOUS CHAAAARGE! Plus Mor Deythan, their special unit, can give their ranged weapons Rending for one turn per game. Rending flamers. Awesome. (Yes, I also run Raven Guard.)
XX Legion: Alpha Legion Dunno really, they do get to steal other legions special units (like Mor Deythan or Salamanders Terminators) and Alpharius (I am Alpharius, in case you were wondering) is good too.
Age of Darkness Theme: Shattered Legions Allows you to mix 2 or more legions to make a post-isstvan force. Interesting and VERY fluffy.
Age of Darkness Theme: Army of Dark Compliance TRAITORS ONLY! Lets you mix Cults and a legion of you choice. Can be good, could be bad, is defiantly something to consider.
Blackshields Not sure. Haven't ever seen them played.
Mechanicum VERY elite, lets you take small armies that still get stuff done. Downside is that every model is FW and will cost you a lot.
Imperial Militia and Cults The most customisable army out their, blows you to make just about anything. Do not have any official models, so you have to use your imagination.
Solar Auxilia Again, don't know. Go google it.
Knights Imperial knights. With the FW ones. Whats not to love.
Custodes/Talenz of Teh Emprah Easy to build an army, as you only need a few models . Their HQ choice (shield captain) is arguably the second-best generic charachter out there, second only to the Shield Captain Tribune, the Custodes' other HQ. Take them, either as an allied detachment or a full army.



Thats it, my guide to the armies of the Horus Heresy. Hope it helps!

Ember

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I PRESENT TO YOU:

EMBER'S (SOMEWHAT) COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE ARMIES OF THE 31st MILLENNIUM!!!!
I have listed the army's core mentality and why you should play them. I also thought i'd mention something: you can always play a "loyal" traitor army or vis-versa, but "Loyal" traitors tend to be more interesting.



I Legion: Dark Angels: A better, more melee oriented version of their 40k selves, the Dark Angles are quite a "generic" army. Why play them: because you want their awesome Rites of War, which allow you to build an ultra-fluffy lists that is fast AND hard-hitting, or close range AND even more hard-hitting.
III Legion: Emperor's Children: The battle is all about the sensation, glory to the dark prince and all that. Why play them? Cause you can give your characters +1 Initiative. Thats why.
IV Legion: Iron Warriors Long range siege specialists. Quite a decent legion, but not ultra-unique (like 1kSons), but do lack big weaknesses.
V Legion: White Scars Fast, like their 40k selves. But unlike 40k, they can take Jetbikes as troops (with their RoW) so are MUCH better.
VI Legion: Space Wolves Don't know, don't care.
VII Legion: Imperial Fists The Vanilla Marines. Excel at everything they do, but they don't do much. Decent melee, decent range, decent everything. Run them because you want Sigismund, the Emperor's Champion. He's got 4 wounds.
VIII Legion: Night Lords FEAR US!! Surprisingly, they get Fear, which isn't too good until you realise that ATSKNF doesn't exist in 30k. Plus their special troops squad (with their RoW) get Volkites.
IX Legion: Blood Angels Again, a better version of their 40k selves. Can spam jump packs (assault squads are troops in 30k) and make the enemy pay for all those points spent.
X Legion: Iron Hands A quote from 1d4chan: The Iron Hands are also considered one of the stronger Legions to play with, if only because of their sheer resistance to incoming fire.. Thats all you need to know.
XII Legion: World Eaters THE melee specialists. They get more attacks, better attacks, stronger attacks, just place a positive adjective in front of attacks and thats them.
XIII Legion: Ultramarines The most similar to their 40k selves, the Ultrasmurfs are, like the fists, a decent legion.
XIV Legion: Death Guard Slow and steady, they get shredding flamers. Plus immune to fear, which is a big deal due to no ATSKNF.
XV Legion: Thousand Sons Awesome. EVERY single model gets an awesome buff, chosen form 5 different ones, psykers are EVERYWHERE (mastery level 3 praetors is all im saying), they get super cool special units, and Ahriman is just awesome. Their RoWs aren't too good, unless you want to spam termies, but that doesn't really matter. (Yes, I do play KSons. Sorry)
XVI Legion: Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus Another assault-oriented legion, the SoH are quite good all-rounders too (BS5 Veterans). Plus they get the Warmaster.
XVII Legion: Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines that are better than Chaos Space Marines. Their primarch is pretty weak, though.
XVIII Legion: Salamanders FIRE!! MUAHAHA!! They get good special weapons, and their special terminators are THE ONLY ONES THAT GET TO TAKE THUNDERHAMMER/STORM SHIELDS!!
XIX Legion: Raven Guard Again, awesome. Every infantry model EXCEPT terminators gets INFILTRATE AND FLEET, and termies get FURIOUS CHAAAARGE! Plus Mor Deythan, their special unit, can give their ranged weapons Rending for one turn per game. Rending flamers. Awesome. (Yes, I also run Raven Guard.)
XX Legion: Alpha Legion Dunno really, they do get to steal other legions special units (like Mor Deythan or Salamanders Terminators) and Alpharius (I am Alpharius, in case you were wondering) is good too.
Age of Darkness Theme: Shattered Legions Allows you to mix 2 or more legions to make a post-isstvan force. Interesting and VERY fluffy.
Age of Darkness Theme: Army of Dark Compliance TRAITORS ONLY! Lets you mix Cults and a legion of you choice. Can be good, could be bad, is defiantly something to consider.
Blackshields Not sure. Haven't ever seen them played.
Mechanicum VERY elite, lets you take small armies that still get stuff done. Downside is that every model is FW and will cost you a lot.
Imperial Militia and Cults The most customisable army out their, blows you to make just about anything. Do not have any official models, so you have to use your imagination.
Solar Auxilia Again, don't know. Go google it.
Knights Imperial knights. With the FW ones. Whats not to love.
Custodes/Talenz of Teh Emprah Easy to build an army, as you only need a few models . Their HQ choice (shield captain) is arguably the second-best generic charachter out there, second only to the Shield Captain Tribune, the Custodes' other HQ. Take them, either as an allied detachment or a full army.



Thats it, my guide to the armies of the Horus Heresy. Hope it helps!

Ember

This is a super-helpful guide in general Ember. I'd wanna put this in a pinned post with the prior FW image for newbies trying to decide which legion to choose. One question though, is your T-sons analysis based off of the Inferno rules? Cause with that book finally out i'm strongly considering playing them as my legion.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I PRESENT TO YOU:

EMBER'S (SOMEWHAT) COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE ARMIES OF THE 31st MILLENNIUM!!!!
I have listed the army's core mentality and why you should play them. I also thought i'd mention something: you can always play a "loyal" traitor army or vis-versa, but "Loyal" traitors tend to be more interesting.

*snip for space's sake*

Thats it, my guide to the armies of the Horus Heresy. Hope it helps!

Ember

Great! but you have some minor flaws that can really drive thoughts the wrong way:

1) I hate them, but wolves you could probably go: "speedy and super stabby. can run and charge, or shoot and charge if they want." get's their gimmick across fine.
2) You're REALLY underselling the fists, truth be told. Also they have access to thunder hammer/storm shield terminators too (actual storm shields, not just the +1 invuln version salamanders have). Their terminators can also teleport and take assault cannons. + being an entire army of BS: 5 T: 5 super men is fun.
3) DG are more than just slow and flamers.... though I might just be indignant
4) Solar auxilia: " 36" lasguns, and rerolling LD 10. that is all" or "better vindicators or aegis lines are their transports" kinda gets the point across fairly well

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:

Age of Darkness Theme: Shattered Legions Allows you to mix 2 or more legions to make a post-isstvan force. Interesting and VERY fluffy.

They are only 'very fluffy' if you run them as The Shattered Legions using Raven Guard, Salamanders and/or Iron Hands (Or Raven Guard + Almost Anyone going off their Novels). How ever there is no limit on which Legions you can mix and match.

Blackshields Not sure. Haven't ever seen them played.

They are basically a way of playing 'Your Dudes' want to use a color scheme not used by the Legions, do it here. Want super strong experiment Marines? Do it here. They have a number of options on how to run the army, but do no get RoW and have other limitations.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:

Age of Darkness Theme: Shattered Legions Allows you to mix 2 or more legions to make a post-isstvan force. Interesting and VERY fluffy.

They are only 'very fluffy' if you run them as The Shattered Legions using Raven Guard, Salamanders and/or Iron Hands (Or Raven Guard + Almost Anyone going off their Novels). How ever there is no limit on which Legions you can mix and match...

There were vast numbers of little splinter elements of various Legions that didn't side with their Primarch and may have teamed up with others; Shattered Legions can be used to do very fluffy things (like replicate an element of the Ultramarines/World Eaters/Space Wolves/Thousand Sons task force depicted in Battle for the Abyss, or the Salamanders/Iron Hands/Raven Guard forces at Istvaan), but it can also be used to do silly/dubiously legal things solely for mechanical advantage (pseudo-T6 Breachers, Sicarans with four assault cannons in addition to the turret gun).

So be careful with the Shattered Legions rules lest you fall afoul of the special-snowflake/mary-suedom pitfalls wherein you find yourself trying to make your dudes the best at everything. There's no shame in being a specialist and there's no shame in a generalist being outperformed by a specialist in one area.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Blackshields Not sure. Haven't ever seen them played.

They are basically a way of playing 'Your Dudes' want to use a color scheme not used by the Legions, do it here. Want super strong experiment Marines? Do it here. They have a number of options on how to run the army, but do no get RoW and have other limitations.

Pirate Marines. No sleeves, boltguns stripped of the casing for lightness, and limited big/heavy stuff in favour of flexibility and mobility. Get in, take the stuff, get out.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:

Age of Darkness Theme: Shattered Legions Allows you to mix 2 or more legions to make a post-isstvan force. Interesting and VERY fluffy.

They are only 'very fluffy' if you run them as The Shattered Legions using Raven Guard, Salamanders and/or Iron Hands (Or Raven Guard + Almost Anyone going off their Novels). How ever there is no limit on which Legions you can mix and match...

There were vast numbers of little splinter elements of various Legions that didn't side with their Primarch and may have teamed up with others; Shattered Legions can be used to do very fluffy things (like replicate an element of the Ultramarines/World Eaters/Space Wolves/Thousand Sons task force depicted in Battle for the Abyss, or the Salamanders/Iron Hands/Raven Guard forces at Istvaan), but it can also be used to do silly/dubiously legal things solely for mechanical advantage (pseudo-T6 Breachers, Sicarans with four assault cannons in addition to the turret gun).

So be careful with the Shattered Legions rules lest you fall afoul of the special-snowflake/mary-suedom pitfalls wherein you find yourself trying to make your dudes the best at everything. There's no shame in being a specialist and there's no shame in a generalist being outperformed by a specialist in one area.

Vast numbers yes, but the one specifically called Shattered Legions (and thus the one I assume he refered to as VERY fluffy) is just the IH,RG and Sallies. But yes you can, and its encouraged to mix and match your forces and theres nothing wrong with that. They even have the rules (that are awful) representing the EC and SoH hunting the Shattered Legions. But oh man yes, the stupid combos you can make.

Also not sure where you are getting 4 Assault cannons on Sicarans as the only Heavy Flamer they can take is the Pintle Mount. Its sponsons can only be Heavy Bolters or LasCannons, and I dont think the hull mounted one can be changed out.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Blackshields Not sure. Haven't ever seen them played.

They are basically a way of playing 'Your Dudes' want to use a color scheme not used by the Legions, do it here. Want super strong experiment Marines? Do it here. They have a number of options on how to run the army, but do no get RoW and have other limitations.

Pirate Marines. No sleeves, boltguns stripped of the casing for lightness, and limited big/heavy stuff in favour of flexibility and mobility. Get in, take the stuff, get out.

Pirates with that stuff yeah, but they hardly have a limitation on vehicles taken. DTs don't count towards their maximum and their basic Squad gets Land Raider Proteus as a DT. If anything I'd say their flexibility is more limited than standard Legion Forces, as they do not have RoW and only one of their Rought By War choices gives them an alternative method of transport. Plus if you want Drop Pods you have to go with the bigger more expensive ones. All that combined with the fact your allies (if you want those) are severely limited.

Really they are there for if you want to get creative and have your own dudes that are Pirates for what ever reason, ie; dont like daddy, dont like Horus, didn't like that Uncle Russ and Guilliman destroyed their Legions. Chose your back ground and run.

Ya'll be making it extremely tough haha, but I've been thinking about Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, or White Scars all are so tempting and out of my comfort range for painting which is good adds something new.

stewe128 wrote:
Ya'll be making it extremely tough haha, but I've been thinking about Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, or White Scars all are so tempting and out of my comfort range for painting which is good adds something new.

What particularly about those three calls to you? Perhaps we can help narrow it down further.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

stewe128 wrote:
Ya'll be making it extremely tough haha, but I've been thinking about Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, or White Scars all are so tempting and out of my comfort range for painting which is good adds something new.

What particularly about those three calls to you? Perhaps we can help narrow it down further.

For Alpha Legion the whole mysterious undercover stuff is just awesome to me. Raven Guard and White Scars would be the speed and uniqueness of styles. White Scars with the pigtails and white armor and RG with the wings basically haha

Fun thing to note about 30k White Scars, at present everyone, even those on foot, have the Skilled Rider USR. So you can have parkour Marines.

stewe128 wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

stewe128 wrote:
Ya'll be making it extremely tough haha, but I've been thinking about Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, or White Scars all are so tempting and out of my comfort range for painting which is good adds something new.

What particularly about those three calls to you? Perhaps we can help narrow it down further.

For Alpha Legion the whole mysterious undercover stuff is just awesome to me. Raven Guard and White Scars would be the speed and uniqueness of styles. White Scars with the pigtails and white armor and RG with the wings basically haha

Why not play Shattered Legions and run all of them?

stewe128 wrote:
Really want to start a 30k army, but I have no clue where to start. I like speed when it comes to armies, but not really feeling White Scars. Raven Guard would be fun or maybe Alpha Legion? It's just so conflicting. Any tips?

I just recently started Horus Heresy and I have to say I love it. It is a much better game when compared to the insanity that runs unchecked in 40K these days. I played my 6th game on Sunday. When I was at LVO I got lucky, and picked up both legion books (the Red Covers) for about 50$ due to some light damage on the bindings. I flipped through them, reading the rules for each legion and looking at the special characters. I ended up choosing the Ultramarines for my first fore in to the Horus Heresy. The Alpha Legion are quite cool, I faced off against them two weeks ago. Very nice and fluffy, I especially like their saboteur units. Just choose whatever speaks to you and make sure to have fun with the game! It's really quite brilliantly balanced. If all keeps going well I plan on starting a force of Sons of Horus (Loyalists) soon!

Best of luck in your new hobby!