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Hi guys
Thinking of starting a Horus Heresy army but I don't actually know what books I need to get to start.
I already have the old 40k 7th ed rule book and don't know the difference between that and the Age of Darkness book, I really don't want to shell out £40 for a book I basically already have.
Also which of the two astartes book I need to buy (do I really need both!)
Thanks for help in advance.

You can start with just the 7th book, but you'll need to get the Age of Darkness Rulebook at some point.
Age of Darkness Army List is the generic Legion lists, while Age of Darkness Legions has the Legion specific stuff in it.

What Legion(s) are you thinking of starting?

Salamanders, world eaters, iron hands or imperial fists

From a model perspective, I would recommend the Betrayal At calth box. Super good. Two of those gets you all the mk4 you will ever need, 10 Terminators, two dreads, 4 characters to customize to you hearts content.

Burning of Prospero is great for mk3 but the silent sister and Custodes are not as good IMO unless you want a small allied force, plus the special characters are pretty much only able to be used for Space Wolves and Thousand Sons. The plastic Tartaros are a solid kit.

Really it depends on the legion.

Alternative take on the Burning of Prospero box: you can sell off the Custodes and sisters to recoups a fair proportion of what you paid for Prospero.
Calth and Prospero are both fantastic deals for what you get and provide a solid core for any 30k force.

You can easily add to that with the 40k plastic vehicles (the rhino and the land raider phobos).

Addendum: Calth/Prospero Tactical Marines can usually be found NOS on Ebay from people parting out the box for ~$30, which is tremendously helpful given the amount of bodies Legion lists can contain.

One thing that can prove irritating starting 30k is that GW's only made plastic models for bolter Tacticals, so melee-oriented Legions need to go digging for melee arms; this is especially annoying with the World Eaters because their chainaxes are both incredibly good (+1S on every melee unit for free...) and incredibly expensive (almost $5/axe not including correctly posed arms from FW). Fortunately Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Imperial Fists all work just fine with shooty Tacticals.

It's usually a good idea when starting the Heresy to run Pride of the Legion to put Tactical Veterans in Troops since that gets you squads arranged like 40k Tactical Marines (5-10 with one upgrade gun per five models); without a Rite of War putting something else in Troops your choices that can fill the compulsory slots are squads of 10-20 bolter Tacticals, 10-20 Assault Marines, or 10-20 Breachers (the riot shield models, who get expensive (cash and points) very quickly).

Salamanders and Iron Hands both have mechanics that make all their tanks significantly tougher; Iron Hands particularly have the ability to buy Blessed Autosimulacra (6+ IWND) for all their tanks, a Rite of War that gives it to them for free, and if you take Ferrus he gives them normal IWND (which stacks, so have both a 5+ roll and a 6+ roll to regenerate hull points every turn on every tank with AV13+ on at least one facing), so if you want to run lots of tanks that's the place to do it.

I know it's not the best solution but for my Grey Slayers I used knives and chainswords to show melee weapons on bolter marines so I think you can do that for normal Tacs as well.

9x phosphex thudd guns! Best way to make friends...

So... Which books do you need? Age of Darkness + Army List or Legions? Can you get by with one or the other or is it best to have both so you can have more than 1 army?

The Legiones Astartes red book is the core Legion list, the Age of Darkness Legions red book is the Legion-specific rules for the first thirteen Legions released. You need the core army list book whichever Legion you pick, you need the Legions book if you're playing any of those Legions (which is everyone but BA/DA/Scars (who aren't properly released but have partial rules in Book 6), or Thousand Sons/Space Wolves (who are in Book 7)).

 Chet wrote:
Salamanders, world eaters, iron hands or imperial fists

Adding a comment here:

All four of those Legions play drastically different. Can you narrow down how, exactly, you like to play?

The Salamanders are a Loyalist, all around style army with great special terminators and like flamers (like, seriously, they gain +1 str with all Flamer type weapons), and strong defensive tech (Pyro Cloaks and Shields).

The World Eaters are best run as a Traitor Legion that specialize in close combat. You'll want some kind of transports to get them into close combat. They are brutal when they get the charge, and do fairly well. They have weak shooting.

Iron Hands greatest claim to fame is that opponents subtract 1 from shooting strength against them. They are a very slow army, as you have to make a LD test to run or sweeping advance.

Imperial Fists are the best, all around, generic Legion in 30K. They gain +1 BS when using Bolters, They do everything well, but can't specialize as well as other Legions. They love bringing some terrain with them to the table.

That's just a taste of what those four Legions are like. 30K has Space Marines in it, but each Legion plays very differently with unique units, characters, wargear, special rules, and Rites of War. You could pick a legion purely on aesthetics and discover that you absolutely abhor how they play on the table. 30K is "optimized" for playing at 2,500-3,000 points. Browse through the sticky posts above and they'll answer most of your questions about "What do I need to play 30K?"

Good luck, and remember that Rule of Cool > All in 30K.