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Hey, it's another one of these.

I have been getting into the Horus Heresy novels, and really enjoying them. Additionally, I have seen a number of people playing Horus Heresy on YouTube, and would like to start trying to get into it. I may be doing an order sometime soon in the future, and wouldn't mind picking up a Contemptor of the legion of choosing.

Here is the problem, I don't know what legion I want to play. I keep flopping between a bunch of them, so I am looking for some advice on what to choose!
As here is a bit of an information dump!

Legions I like the look of:
Salamanders, Alpha Legion, Imperial fists, Dark Angels, Iron Hands, Iron Warriors, Sons of Horus.
Though not the biggest fan of Perturabo, or Ferrus.
I love the paint scheme of the Alpha Legion, and to a lesser extent the Sons of Horus. They both have a that glossy, greeny blue look to them, though the Alpha Legion is a tad brighter. Sadly, I am not the biggest fan of the hydra symbol of the Alpha Legion but I could likely get over it.

Tactics I enjoy:
I am looking to fill out my collection with as many vehicles as possible. Dreadnaughts and tanks are some of the best things in the game. Dreadnaughts over tanks, but tanks over transports (yes, even the land raider). What can I say, big robots are the best.
Terminators, I really like terminators. I think they very nice models. Not the biggest fan of cataphractii version of the armour. I like the better invuln save, but I like the mobility of the tartarus. Obviously if deep striking is an option, the slower cataphractii is less of a hindrance.
Heavy weapons. I love me some big killy guns. Squads with Missile launchers, or Lascannon's, or other weapons whose name's escape me. Brilliant.
As much as I enjoy melee combat, I actually prefer shooting things over charging head long across the field. Though, face beating should still be an option.

Other things to consider:
I have a 40k Salamanders force, and I have a 40k Custodes force as well. In fact, one of the things I am going to be picking up from FW is going to be the Custodes bundle, so that I can round things out and perhaps use them in 30k as well.

I dunno, I have just had difficulty just nailing down what legion to go for.
I like a number of things about a number of legions, so it is hard to pin down.

Anyway, sorry if this is a repeat of a lot of other threads, but any advice, tips, or things to consider would be great.
Sadly, the usual mode of 'pick the one with the models you like the most' won't really help cause, there are far too many I really do like.

Of course, if you have questions to ask, I am happy to answer them.

This is a pretty general set of preferences; you could do most of that just about anywhere. Vehicles particularly are very Legion-rules-independent and tend to be good wherever you put them.

A general summary of Legions:
I: Dark Angels: Generalist. Unique tools tend to focus on melee/close-quarters shooting, but between their plethora of unique Rites (six) and the Hexagrammaton they're by far and away the most flexible Legion.
III: Emperor's Children: Aggressive, melee-centric. A bit one-dimensional, most of their rules and unique toys focus on winning combat/overrunning on the charge. Kakophoni and Third Company Elite is a powerful shooty-infantry list, though.
IV: Iron Warriors: Prefer shooty/artillery-based play, their unique units are both shooty infantry and they've got an edge on shooting-based morale. If you don't want a static gunline the Ironfire is a rolling-barrage list where your infantry make your artillery more accurate as they push forward.
V: White Scars: Fast. Can play shooty or melee, but their rules key off of how fast they move, so hit-and-run is a must. The Reserves bonus makes them a good Legion to try and use planes in.
VI: Space Wolves: Encourage a melee infantry swarm. Lots of stuff to get your infantry into place faster, and lots of stuff to make them killier when they arrive.
VII: Imperial Fists: Generalist, good easy place to begin 30k. Most of their rules are shooty but they have strong melee units and their characters are stronger in challenges. Storm Shields and Teleportation Transponders make their Terminators play more like 40k Terminators.
VIII: Night Lords: Fairly one-dimensional at their initial release ("rush people with Assault Squads!"), but Book 9 has given them some extra tricks. Largely melee-focused and their rules are disproportionately good for jump pack units. Contekar are one of very few Terminator units where everyone gets a heavy weapon, but they're still primarily melee. Be aware that some whole Legions are immune or effectively immune to Fear.
IX: Blood Angels: Fairly melee-centric, their best unique toys are the jump pack Deep Strike lists but Book 8 has given them a jump shooty unit to make that more flexible. The jump pack Dreadnaught looks like the coolest thing in the world until you realize the jump pack only works once, but it's still pretty cool.
X: Iron Hands: Bonkers tough, all the infantry are effectively T5, so most small arms bounce off pretty badly. They have one of the only non-Rite vehicle bonuses (the ability to buy Blessed Autosimulacra to regenerate HP), and their unique units are pretty much regular Terminators/Breachers only with FNP.
XII: World Eaters: One-dimensional. Load up with chainaxes, go "KILL!", and run forwards. Major difference between two World Eaters lists is how they get their infantry horde into combat.
XIII: Ultramarines. Weird. Their Legion rule gives you rerolls if you shoot someone another unit has already shot or charge a unit someone else is already in melee with, so list building tends to be small units to paint targets and big units to take advantage of the bonuses. Some unique tricks that trigger off of having Militia allies. They tried to copy the Iron Warriors' shooty Terminators, only theirs are horrifically overpriced.
XIV: Death Guard: Vicious and destructive. Resistant to phosphex, two strong unique Terminator units, and a Rite that grants army-wide Move Through Cover (a valuable commodity on dense tables, especially for vehicles). Yes, Mortarion does walk through walls.
XV: Thousand Sons: Do not start playing 30k with Thousand Sons. Heavy reliance on a badly-written psychic system makes them range from way too powerful to unplayably bad based on pre-game rolls. Can be great fun and Guard of the Crimson King is one of the iconic power lists, but complex rules and extensive bookkeeping makes them a bad choice to learn the system with.
XVI: Sons of Horus: Aggressive, close-quarters centric. Shooting buffs in short range, Reserves re-rolls, and DT Dreadclaws in any Rite make them a strong choice for a Deep Strike/Outflank force. Reavers can be very expensive, but rapid-firing Precision Shooting combi-plasmas at BS5 and sniping out a Praetor is very funny.
XVII: Word Bearers: Odd. The basic rules are fairly basic melee/morale edges, but they have a weird grab-bag of strange toys other Legions can't really replicate that do funny things, and are much better at interacting with Daemons.
XVIII: Salamanders: As you'd expect, really: All of the fire. Not much to write home about in melee, but the short-range shooting is very destructive. One of the strongest deathstars around, due to Firedrakes (2W/3++ Terminators) combined with a 3++/EW Praetor.
XIX: Raven Guard: Ambush Legion 1. Lots of Infiltrate, anti-character toys, and the fun that is the Mor Deythan (infiltrate + scout + Rhinos means they can be anywhere they want at the start of the game, effectively).
XX: Alpha Legion: Bizarre. The raw power of their rules is mostly uninspiring, their true power comes in their ability to do weird and unexpected things. Infiltrate Land Raiders/Terminators, utterly shut down enemy Reserves, hide your Primarch in a Tactical squad like an old-school Dark Elf Assassin, borrow unique units from other Legions. Very difficult to use but very funny.

A note on Allies: Custodians are "Agents of the Emperor", which means you can ally them to any Loyalist force. Any Legion except the Word Bearers can be played as loyalist if you want, though some characters and units are Loyalist/Traitor only. It's sometimes worth looking into Mechanicum Cybernetica-bots or Thallaxii for use with a Cortex Controller or Praevian, particularly if your Praevian rule is especially good (Imperial Fists, Salamanders, Alpha Legion) or if you've got more Cortex Controllers than normal (Iron Warriors, Iron Hands). Militia, Solar Auxilia, and Knights have no specific interactions with the SM (other than a few Ultramarine tricks), and Daemons are funny but usually better either on their own or only with Word Bearers.

Your tactical thoughts pretty much describe Iron Warriors. As you don't like Perti you could go loyalist and then you could take your Custodes as allies and differ the paint scheme slightly if you want to.

Their rite Hammer of Olympia (did they get a second one at some point? Seems odd to only have one) let you double down on HS slots and gives out extra armour for your vehicles.
They get a Pseudo-Techmarine Praetor with the Warsmith and they can take pinning ammunition for their HBs.

 Shadox wrote:
...(did they get a second one at some point? Seems odd to only have one)...

Second Rites for most Legions were printed in book 6, the Legions red book is current up to book 5 but the core list red book has some book 6 content, including everyone's second Rite. It's called "the Ironfire", it doesn't really alter your FOC at all but it makes your Barrage weapons scatter less if targeted near Iron Warriors units and it makes your Iron Warriors units Fearless while close to where your Barrage weapons have been hitting. It's a fairly specific build (you need the artillery, plus a tough frontline to keep it accurate, so you may not have points left for allies or non-Barrage support weapons) but it's characterful, evocative, and interesting to play.

I appreciate the breakdown of factions. Seems as though the choice has boiled down to Iron Hands, or Iron Warriors.
From my understanding they both like the medium to long range gun play, and like vehicles/dreads/robots.
As menitoned, while I am not the biggest fan of their primarchs, I can get over that. I will delve deeper into their rules, models, and look up some other information on them to finalize my choice.

Again, thank you for your input!

Flip a coin 18 times

For a shooty Legion, I would suggest Imperial Fists, Death Guard/Dusk Raiders, Iron Warriors, or Iron Hands. Other commenters have made some good points on Iron hands and Iron Warriors, but the devil is in the details.

Death Guard/Dusk Raiders: chem munitions for all models, including vehicles and dreadnoughts, not just those with the LA rule. Additionally, the DG Reaping RoW lets you take Heavy Weapons Squads as non-compulsory troops, which frees up Heavy slots for Grave Warden terminator squads. DG Armored Breakthrough can result in lots of chem heavy flamers and flamestorm cannon to fry infantry.

A Shattered Legion of DG/DR and World Eaters/Warhounds allows you to take WE/WH assault squads to complement the DG/DR footsloggers and tanks.

Similarly a Shattered Legion of Iron Warriors and WE/WH has the same synergy of shooty and choppy, plus they are mutually Battle Brothers rather than Fellow Warriors.


Imperial Fists: the IF Legiones Astartes rule has two important points: First everyone is +1BS with all types of bolt weapons. This includes combi-bolters, Heavy Bolters, Twin HB's and Quad HB's. With this in mind, look through the army list and see which units actually have the LA rule. Importantly: Attack Bikes, Jetbikes, and Rapier crew. So your Rapier Batteries are BS5 with quad HB's, and attack bikes and jetbikes come with heavy bolters as basic equipment. Further, Veteran squads can take HB's with suspensor webs. Using the Pride of the Legion Rite of War lets you take Veterans as troops, so you can scatter HB's amongst your line infantry and keep the +1 BS. The +1 BS will also apply when Fists fire emplaced HB's on a fortification.

In smaller points games, take a battery of 2 or 3 rapiers for your fire support as they are less points than a HB Heavy Support Squad. Transition to HS squads in higher point games. Adding an Armistos Consul buffs the whole squad of HB's to Master Crafted to take care of the small number of misses with your BS5. In higher points games I run out of Heavy Support slots, so transition from heavy bolter squads to Sky Hunters (fast attack) with basic heavy bolters. Resist the temptation to take a single large squadron. Pay the extra points for two or three smaller squadrons. Resist the temptation to upgrade their weapons. The whole point is the BS5 on the HB's. Use the jetbike's mobility to get around the side of opposing units to subject them to enfilading fire and pound the common troops without their sergeant or characters tanking the hits. Take advantage of the HB's range to keep assaulters at arms length, don't let the jetbikes get locked in combat in a melee where they can't move or shoot.

Secondly, all Fists Heavy Support Squads get Tank Hunters, so squads of Missile Launchers or Lascannons are prominent. Fists prefer HB's, ML's, and LC's to multimeltas, plasma cannon, and autocannon. Resist the temptation to use krak missiles on tough characters while vehicles are around. Concentrate on light and medium vehicles first, only switch to targeting infantry after all the good vehicle targets are dealt with. Take advantage of the Hardened Armor option on all your heavy weapons squads. Instead of assault squads, try Destroyers without upgrading their bolt pistols (remember the +1 BS and the Destroyers' two-gun mojo).

When taking Breachers, Veterans, or Phalanx Warders, resist the temptation to give them a few melta- or plasma guns, instead add a small Tactical Support Squad with meltaguns. A few Volkite Chargers or flamers are OK, but consider Tac Support Squads for them as well.

Just on principle, I routinely equip all squads with apothecaries, augery scanners, artificier armor sergeants, and vexilla to increase their durability.

A lot of people go for the Stone Gauntlet unique RoW, but I find it problematic because of the requirement to take a troops choice for every elites + fast attack. Instead I find myself using Pride of the Legion, Armored Breakthrough (not Armored Spearhead), and Sky Hunter Phalanx. Occasionally a Hammerfall Strike Force.

If you make the force a Shattered Legion with Fists & Blood Angels, or Fists & BA & Ultramarines, you can use Blood Angels Assault squads instead of Fists, with the two Legions complementing each other's strengths. And both have access to Illiastus Assault Cannons. Adding an Ultramarines Master Of Signal to a Shattered Legion allows you to take a Damocles (UM MoS Dedicated transport) without using an extra HQ slot. And Fists, BA, and Smurfs are all mutually Battle Brothers to each other.

Visually, in addition to the standard yellow, the fluff has the option for Fists to be void black or ceramite grey with yellow pauldrons or arms, and yellow helmets.

Since you mentioned that you like tanks, The Armored Breakthrough RoW is a tank heavy force with Predator Destructor Squadrons as Troops, and all tank type vehicles with 3HP (Predators, Laser Vindicators, Whirlwinds) upgraded to Fast, so shoot 2 weapons with a 12" move, +1 more for those with a Machine Spirit. If you field your Preds and Laser Vinicators in full squadrons then you can also take a command tank for each so the whole squadron gets Tank Hunter and Monster Hunters. Take the Company Command Tank option, but another consul to be Warlord, as the Cmd Tank's Trait isn't useful without infantry. I find it quite simple to make a pure tank force with no infantry except consuls and maybe a few jetbikes or a Fire Raptor, or a Contemptor Mortis or Deredeo for air defense if my opponent likes flyers.

Since the Fists don't get any special abilities for vehicles, taking an Armored Breakthrough with them does not bother me, and a DG Armored Breakthrough might be flamey, but is not overpowered, but with Iron Hands where every vehicle can have a Blessed Autosimilacra it might be OTT.

That summary just made me want to start a 30k Dark Angels army. Unfortunately my friends aren't interested in 30k at all, but the 30k DA seem a lot more interesting and fun than the 40k ones.

 Kelligula wrote:
That summary just made me want to start a 30k Dark Angels army. Unfortunately my friends aren't interested in 30k at all, but the 30k DA seem a lot more interesting and fun than the 40k ones.

Helps that their ruleset is based more on them being the very 1st legion and less about them hunting the fallen.