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I'm a 40k player, but am finding it hard to justify almost 100 quid just for a quarter of the Massacre content. I know that age of darkness has the rules for all legions, but I want the fluff too

Also is there any danger of the book going out of print entirely? I believe one of them already has.

Thanks,
Marc

The only book so far - book 9 will have them in. Books 4 (Conquest) & 6 (Retribution) are currently sold out, but they announced at the weekender they're re-printing the old books in softcover.

Hey, I think 6th book has Night Lords fluff, it tells the story of Ashen Claws fighting Night Lords fleet commandered by Kheron Ophion if I remember right.

The large majority of fluff for the Night Lords, including Legion organization, heraldry, and exemplary battles are all in Horus Heresy Book II: Massacre. That's the Big Black Books. All the specific rules for Night Lords, including Legion specific Rites of War, Wargear, and special units/Primarch are all in Horus Heresy: Legiones Astartes: Age of Darkness Legions (Red Book).

What you will probably see in Book VIII: Malfeasance is some more fluff for the Night Lords, probably a new Rite of War, and possibly a new unit as the Night Lords more fully embrace the Ruinous Powers.

Fluff: yes. It’s arguably worth the price because the Isstvan V story is that good, but not if you’re truly only interested in the Night Lords content.

Book 9 will cover the Thramas Crusade and therefore add more background, including (unless something goes wrong) a new unit or two for the Night Lords. They said they wouldn’t make a unit entry for Atramentar - just use Terminator-armored command squads for that. But they have an idea for a special Terminator squad. That’s a year away, maybe a few months more than that. Two years ago, FW thought they’d cover Thramas in book 8 (originally to be titled Angelus, finally changed to Malevolence), but it got too big so they pulled it out.

You wouldn’t want to use the rules from Massacre, though. Rules for legions in books 1-5 have been updated and compiled in the “Legiones Astartes Age of Darkness Legions” book. Rules for generic 30k marines, plus an additional Rite of War for each legion, are in the “Legiones Astartes Age of Darkness Army List” book (together, they’re known as the red books). I think the Night Lords’ Rite of War in the latter is the one based on Night Raptors, which aren’t very good right now.

I think the Red Books have both of the Night Lords RoW's the other one being the one that gives you Terror Squads as troops choices.

Raptor Horror Cult while being tentatively about Night Raptors also gives your Infantry Squads access to trophies of Judgment

If you want their extra Character, Kheron Ophion, you'll need book 6.

Or just wait for the updated Red Books that will eventually come out.

Just lore wise, you'll need Book 2, 6 and 9..

Carlisimo wrote:
I think the Night Lords’ Rite of War in the latter is the one based on Night Raptors, which aren’t very good right now.

People mentioned that FW folks were talking about new FAQ dropping some time after the latest weekender and it was mentioned that there would be various adjustments for units. Could be possible that Night Raptors end up getting point cost reduction, only problem with them right now is really the fact that they cost too much. If they got like 10-15% price drop people would probably use them, otherwise they are very nice NL theme fitting unit, good synergy with NL legion rules and ability to take special weapons allows them to cover the anti-armor that tends to be difficult with NL lists that play to their legion rules.

Honestly whilst raptors arent very good they arent bad and still eat marines auxilla and militia they will also be fine with daemons. They just struggle with other elite units relying on trending to try deal damage. If they saw a small price decrease they would be really good. Horror cult is definetly viable the heresey isnt about competivness and as long as you grab some sicarans to help tour anti tank you'll fair play curze is also quite nice at eating units.

Thanks for all the info folks!

I ordered book two there now and I'll be getting the soft covers when they come out.

I should also have mentioned that I'm mainly interested in this content for my 40K Night Lords army, and don't plan on actually starting a 30K army. I spend a lot of time converting my army, so knowing the full background lets me keep conversions truer to fluff (Like knowing that a Dark Angels/Ashen Claw marine tank trophy make more sense than a random marine as a tank trophy, knowing what actual Nostamen runes look like, etc).

I might actually start collecting them as a 30K army once I finish painting and converting what I have for 40K and graduate to buying/converting Mk.3/4 armoured marines and buying Forge World tanks. Most of the 30K line tanks appear in the Chaos Forge World index as "infernal" versions of those tanks right?