+ inload: army building in Horus Heresy 3rd edition +

+ Once more Unto the Age of Darkness +

+ Horus Heresy 3rd edition army building thoughts +

+ A new edition of Horus Heresy is on its way, and since some of the PCRC are gearing up to play, today's inload is looking at how the rumours/releases affect my army. +

Brother Eumon, Locrian

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A brief note at the start: For anyone hoping for opinions on Horus Heresy news in general,  I'm rather ill-qualified, as I haven't played in years! This is a discursive and rather self-indulgent article about my Ultramarines army alone, not an editorial on the rules or hoo-ha surrounding weapon options – there's quite enough sound and fury about that elsewhere on the noosphere! 

Suffice to say that I don't have particularly strong opinions on things beyond sympathy for people who feel (for whatever reason) that their armies or units feel invalidated. After many editions of 40k and related games, I've got largely inured to the idea that certain things will or won't work quite the same between editions. Sometimes models, units or whole armies go into mothballs for an edition or two – as is the case with my Ultramarines, the Praetors of Calth [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. That's fine if you're in the lucky position of playing multiple games or having a collection that allows you to roll with the punches, but I sympathise with anyone who's finding that favourite models are no longer useable.

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+ Sorry, who are the Praetors of Calth? +

Turning to the matter in hand, Goonhammer published a useful article on building a Space Marine army [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], which is nicely balanced and well worth reading through if you want a bit of an overview. 

As an example of the thought process, were we'll look at what changes my army might need, what (if anything) I need to change, and so forth.

It's worth noting that the army has progressed and advanced in-universe as well as in real life. What started as a Great Crusade-themed army has grown and expanded into a Horus Heresy force, and I've had a cast of characters develop quite naturally over time. While I haven't made a particular 'thing' about that in terms of gaming, and haven't pinned things down in stone, I'm always quietly pleased when edition changes roll around and naturally help create milestones.

To give a bit of an insight into this, Holion is probably the best example [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. Starting out as 'Holion the Young' as part of the original project, he fought as a Legionary in first edition Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness (AoD). 

 

He was always a bit of a poster boy for the army – I think because he was protecting a civilian (Cassie), which lots of people (kindly) said was a neat touch.

When 2nd edition rolled around, I thought it'd be fun to promote him, so he became Lieutenant Holion, with a new model:

Likewise, a couple of models – Cestus and Telcion – were quietly killed off-camera when they turned out to not be 'legal' in that edition and replaced with new models in their squads; but I remembered their names and used them for Dreadnought pilots.

Little narrative touches like this are all very minor, all very supplementary to the broader game, and likely only of personal interest – but it's something that entertains me, and I'm keen with 3rd edition rolling around to do some more stuff like this. 

I mention this largely because that I've got experience of the frustration of having models suddenly not useable. There's no getting around that beyond house-ruling and chatting with your mates; but if that fails, sometimes you can make the best of things. As the Ultramarines might put it, if circumstances change, you need to either devise a new theoretical and practical. If your army is affected badly by the new rules, then I hope that doesn't mean you sit it out, like I did with 2nd; and that you're able to roll with the punches and come up swinging.

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+ Mustering the Praetors of Calth and 190th Company +

'New' Ultramarines from the 190th Company – by this point in my narrative, Holion, the young whipper-snapper from the 15th Chapter Praetors of Calth, had been promoted to Lieutenant, and had been transferred to the 19th Chapter to help command a newly-raised Company during the Muster on Calth.

To the meat of things: in 2nd edition AoD, I wanted to differentiate my older models from newer ones (like the examples above) by making them veterans, but as they were equipped with old-style Tactical equipment (the army pre-dated AoD first edition, being built for the Tempus Fugitives campaign weekends), this was a bit awkward.

+ Glory days of the Tempus Fugitives Heresy campaigns at Warhammer World. I think this was 2010/12ish +

I ended up building some new bolter-armed individuals to replace the special/heavy weapons in those squads, but there wasn't a neat way of making them functionally different beyond using them as Seekers, which I did a couple of times, but always felt a bit 'icky' doing. In the end, I tended to leave them out of the army entirely, and rely on the new models I built almost completely – but then 2nd edition AoD never really took off in my group, so I only played a handful of times.

Secondly, I also wanted to field all my low-level characters – Lieutenant Holion, Master of Signals Pullo, Chaplain Highheart and my Herald – as I was proud of them, and wanted to show them off. The force org meant that 1 had to be left out. A very minor problem, really, but an annoyance.

The new approach seems flexible to the point of fault – the system looks a lot like Legions Imperialis' super-complicated and functionally irrelevant army building, where it takes a very long time to find out that there aren't really any limits on what you can take.

On the face of things, I think it looks slightly more polished than LI, with the Prime slots mechanic a clever reward for basic theming (and allowing me to do fluffy things like allowing Sergeant Mox to have some slightly improved stats to represent his background story of being the senior sergeant in the Company); and not having the awkward Formation break point to track.

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+ Good in parts +

So, I can fill out the new Detachment quite nicely:

No High Command – since it's optional, I'm not encouraged to use Praetor-level stats for my Lieutenant-level character; and can just take Holion as a Centurion (command) – and happily he can now take both his Axe of Ultramar and special shield (I forget the name).

Pullo and Highheart fill the other two Command slots, but Holion remains a little bit special as he can occupy the 'Prime' slot, so he feels more in charge (albeit with a brevet rank of Captain, following his commander's death during the initial attack on Calth).

I can then field three squads of ten Tactical Marines (Troops), each with their own Rhino; plus have one of my old squads fielded as Troops with a Prime slot... or I can take two squads of twenty Tactical Marines and my Breachers.

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+ Some limits +

Oh, wait... my Breachers have power swords, because that was an option for Ultramarines. So I can't take those... except that they're now a special Ultramarines-only unit (Praetorians). Those are presumably Elites, which aren't an option on the Crusade Primary Detachment, so by virtue of taking three officers I'll have to take those from an Auxiliary Detachment, right?

... Ah. Looks like there's no option for Elites here, so I have to go back to the Crusade Primary Detachment and rethink. Oh – looks like Holion's as-yet unused Prime benefit can be used to take a Logistical Benefit, which will unlock the right slot, so that's that.

For bigger games, I might want to bring in some more specialist stuff – and at that point I start running into choices. I can take Captain Aethon at this point as a High Command choice; but to me, High Command implies Tetrarch rank (i.e. there's only a handful of them, rather than being 'ordinary' Chapter Master level), so I'd rather not do that.

At this point, however, I run into a problem. As far as I can see, there's no way to get more Command slots without using the High Command slot. And I haven't yet been able to squeeze in my Herald.

Perhaps I need to get over the idea that High Command represents genuinely exceptional individuals (like Abaddon and Sigismund), and accept that Chapter Masters (in Ultramarine terms, Captain Aethon is an equivalent) are okay to take as High Command. If I do that, then things get a little more fun as I can take an Apex Detachment.

I can now take the three squads of my old Praetors of Calth as Veteran Tactical Squads in the Army Vanguard, which are allowed exactly the equipment the models have (hooray!), and still get Mox as slightly better than Epipatros and Santiagon.

Pullo (my Master of Signals) allows me to unlock the Armoured Fist detachment and take my Land Raider; and Highheart allows me to take a Heavy Support detachment so I can field my Dreadnought Lazaron.

I think that still leaves me with the Centurion (Holion's) two Detachment choices to play with, so I can also bring to the field Techmarine Arius and my apothecary.

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+ Stop rambling – what's your point? +

... anyway, this is all a long detour towards a general thumbs-up on the army building. As long as I can get over the idea that Captains can be High Command, this version of Age of Darkness better fits my idea of what an army should look like, is flexible enough to fit my idea of background theme – and I get to field the force as I originally wanted it, all those years ago. 

Is it perfect? No, not at all – I feel very sad for anyone whose army doesn't fit in, or whose hard-built favourite units don't have a place. There's no getting away from the fact that it's a [SCRAPSHUNTERRORABORT] if your old army doesn't translate across or requires cludgy 'counts-as'. As noted above, I know that feeling well from 2nd edition.

Nevertheless, I found the exercise of army building in AoD 3rd edition a lot more approachable and fun than the Legions Imperialis army building experience, which (despite my keen desire to like it and a lot of patience) is about as fun as hammering nails into splintery two-by-fours.

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+ New theoreticals; new practicals +

In writing this, it struck me that the bolt-it-on approach of the new way of army building has got my brain fired up for expansion. In theory, I can build more Tactical Marines; or field my Salamanders or Iron Hands (or Silver Stars... or Steel Legion as Auxilia...) as Allied Detachments quick as a wink, rather than having to slog through making 1,500pts+ of them. Being able to game with those smaller forces alongside my Ultramarines is great, I think I'd struggle to have the motivation to build them otherwise.

I think the new system also lends itself to expansion better. If a model comes out that I like the look of, I'm not talking myself out of it by thinking about what I'll have to lose from a set force – and if I decide that I want to field something really weird like an Apothecary-heavy army for a scenario like defending the genebanks, I'll be able to do so without being forced to drag an important officer from the frontlines.

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