The new edition of the Horus Heresy is here, and there’s no better time to dive in to playing the terrible battles of this dark age. With a full rules revamp, a new starter set and a plethora of army books all dropping at launch, we’re diving in to give you our first impressions of the new edition, hitting the highlights of what’s new, what’s interesting and what’s worth playing in Horus Heresy third edition.
Before we get started, thanks to Games Workshop for sending these over for review.
Join us as we shine a warp-colored light on the true enlightened and the saviors of the Imperium – the Traitors. We’re mostly hitting the highlights here and will be covering these Legions more in depth with upcoming Tactica articles, don’t worry!
The second, updated version of the Liber Hereticus for the third edition of the game covers the original nine Traitor legions, with additional units likely to follow in Campaign books (demonic Saturnines?!), Legacy PDFs, and whatever other shiny stuff the Heresy studio dangles in front of us next. The nine Traitor Legions get a host of rules to set them on their third edition journey, with a Rite of War (just the new term for the set of Legion special rules rather than the alternative army builds they were before), unique detachments, weapons, characters, and units to bring some legion-specific flavor to your army.
All Astartes have access to five extra detachments in addition to those found in the core rulebook, letting you bring along Apothecaries, Retinues, Recon squads, Tech marines, and more. Traitors get an extra one too, so you can still summon those demons once we have rules for them!
All Traitor armies (either classically Loyalist or Traitor legions, as the rule is covered in both Libers) have access to a generic Prime Advantage called True Believers that allows them to make the unit Malefic, essentially what “Corrupted” did last edition. The unit can ignore Tactical Statuses and ignore negative characteristic modifiers at the cost of a few unsavable wounds, absolutely amazing on a fat brick of 20 Tactical Marines as they will never be stopped from Scoring until every single one is dead (or, more likely, locked in Combat.)
This piece covers the parts of Liber Hereticus concerned with the individual Traitor legions. For coverage of the units that both Loyalists and Traitors share access to on the table, check out our Marine Legion Core Units article.
Emperor’s Children
The fanciest of fancy boys bring a lot of melee prowess to the table this edition, as they always have. Existing as two bespoke armies within the same legion entry with the normal legion rules existing alongside updated Hereticus rules, Emperor’s Children players will have a lot of great choices to make in their armies.
The base Third Legion retain their +1 Initiative on the charge as their normal un-warped passive, a bonus with huge implications with the new melee profiles. They also got to keep their UNO reverse card Advanced Reaction, trying to out-do their opponent in a charge. Hereticus Emperor’s Children on the other hand keep the Stupefied mechanic from last edition, but it is massively increased in usefulness. Besides immediately removing any active status and granting immunity to tactical statuses at the cost of not being able to make Reactions, it also grants a (now rare) Feel No Pain 6+ and +1S. This is a hugely useful mechanic for consistent scoring above and beyond the True Believers Prime Advantage, and big blocks of Hereticus Tacticals or Breachers will be incredibly annoying to shift off an Objective, even in melee.
The base Emperor’s Children legion get a neat detachment filled with Elites and Fast Attack, feeling very Maru Skarra, and Hereticus keep their HQ heavy Fulgrim Ascended and Friends detachment (for the record, the 30k model is better, don’t @ me.)
All of the legion special units are just as flashy and quick as you’d expect, with the Phoenix Terminators taking up an interesting Retinue slot and retaining the Skill Unmatched rule letting them choose between hitting better or being harder to hit in combat. Kakophoni have a neat Stunning, Critical Hitting volkite, and the Palatine Blades do Palatine Blade things, getting cheaper Surgical Augments but unfortunately losing the ability to take jump packs.
The Emperor’s Children remain the pinnacle duel masters in Heresy, and I look forward to seeing what cool armies people are able to come up with using the updated Hereticus rules that no longer stink like that poo painting hanging in Fulgrim’s gallery, possibly using some of those sweet new 40k models…
Iron Warriors
Something something Iron Cage? The bad guy poster boys for the new edition of Heresy come in swinging with more flavor than I think they’ve ever had, something to make even the bitterest legionnaire grin.
Iron Warriors return to a more classic first edition feel by being able to ignore negative modifiers to their LD or CL for Panic and Cool Checks they have to make with their legion passive, The Bitter End. The Unfavored Prime Advantage allows an Infantry unit to gain Expendable (1). This is absolutely amazing, as it is both incredibly thematic, but also significantly reduces the usefulness of your opponents’ Vanguard (X) units attempting to kill or run them off an Objective, reducing the points scored by 1. The Iron Warriors have left their Shrapnel weapons at home this time, but in return get to have graviton crushers, an anti-armor focused thunder hammer style weapon.
Bitter Fury has gotten to stay as their Advanced Reaction, and the Fourth Legion got to keep flavorful stand-in detachments for both Ironfire and Hammer of Olympia, one with Arquitor Armor and Support slots and the other with Heavy Assault, Heavy Transport, and Troop slots respectively.
The Warsmith, Tyrant Siege Terminators, and Iron Circle are all the non-Unique special units Iron Warriors have for now, but they’re all solid. The Warsmith has a cortex controller and rare cognis signum baked in, and the incredibly tanky Iron Circle halve the amount of incoming damage on an already pretty sturdy, dreadnought-esque chassis. Siege Tyrants are real spicy with a two-setting missile pod unleashing either the high fire rate Breaching (6+) Swarmer missiles or the S9 Armourbane Breaker missiles.
Overall the Iron Warriors feel like the most flavorful version of them that has ever existed. Their simple but effective kit completely exemplifies the feeling of their grim determination being deployed by a callous commander that clearly doesn’t give a shit about them. Honestly the most “Iron Warriors” thing I could possibly imagine, maybe only next to the salt level of the players that often put them on the table.
Night Lords
The sons of Nostramo have had a few tweaks to their toolkit this edition that I think makes them remain as effective as ever on the table but also feel more like they should. With the importance of Statuses on holding Objectives this edition, the Night Lords screwing with their opponent’s ability to score with massed Status infliction that they already want to proc their Legion passive anyway (and Fear (X) making those checks all the harder), these guys are going to be absolute terrors on the table, pun intended.
Talent for Murder, the legion passive, has changed to proccing on being in combat with a Status-afflicted unit and grants an impressive +1WS, removing the bonus for ranged attacks that never made a lot of sense to me last edition anyway. This is a big swing for how the legion will play however. The focus is very much on inflicting statuses and getting into combat and away from maximising MASS in order to get those tasty bonuses to wound! This feels like brining the legion back towards playing the way they were intended.
Better Part of Valour, the Advanced Reaction, allows a unit to Fall Back from an incoming Charge while the aptly named Nostroman Courage gambit allows the Challenger to shove a mook in front of himself to die and ending the challenge.
Credit: @badusernametag
Fear inducing Trophies of Judgment and Nostroman chain glaives remain as a staple. The glaive and blade having been combined into one profile (simpler and with the loss of two-handed, obvious). The Headsman’s Axe is now pretty neat! Swinging like a Thunder Hammer but with Critical Hit (6+), meaning it auto-wounds on a 6, for D3 at AP2, OUCH!
The terminator locked Prime Advantage, Atramentar, grants the Prime unit Deep Strike and Impact (I) and also has a whole detachment dedicated to it. Terror Assault remains as a detachment, containing two compulsory Terror Squad Troops slots, one of which is Prime, and 2 Fast Attack slots.
The much maligned Terror Squads sadly got worse. They lost Infiltrate and swapped Preferred enemy for Hatred. While you can trigger status checks by upgrading them with weapons like rotor cannons or flamers and stacking this with fear, this can expensive and pales in comparison to Raptors, who have double the wounds and WS5 – or Seekers. While these do go in the troops slot and are easier to field, I would rather save my points for something better.
Speaking of, Raptors are GREAT and with high Vanguard (4) and options for Thunderhammers now they will be smashing enemies off objectives in no time! Weirdly no option for lightning claws now.
Conketar have gained the T5 of terminators but have otherwise largely remained the same. This however is most certainly a boost considering the drop in other unit/weapons effectiveness. Their Volkite Cavitor now has as many shots as a static Culverin, and heavy flamers now have a place for Panic. With an extra attack they will hit hard in the ‘fishing for 6’s to breach’ meta we’re stepping into. As a massive fan of Terminators I’m glad to see these guys shine.
There’s a lot to love about the new Night Lords kit, and I think long-time players are really going to enjoy how their army feels to play on the table.
World Eaters
The sons of Angron enter third edition with two separate Rites of War hot on the heels of Angron Transfigured getting announced earlier this year. The standard World Eaters legion passive, Violence Incarnate, will be familiar to any player of past editions with a default +1A in any turn that a unit makes a Charge Move (if you use your Set-Up move to get into combat you would miss this bonus). Joining it is a legion specific Gambit, Violent Overkill, which allows wounds in a Challenge to spill outside of the combat once your opponent falls. They can take a Berserker Cadre Detachment, with a Prime Troop, two Heavy Assault, and an Elites slot, giving a device to easily bring Rampagers to the field. Brutal Tide, the Advanced Reaction, grants Eternal Warrior (1) in response to a Shooting Attack that you can follow-up with a Charge if the unit is close enough.
For fans of angrier, bloodier, and potentially less nuanced World Eaters (if that was possible), can instead choose to use the Legiones Hereticus Rite of War instead. The Nails Bite allows units to succumb to the nails and ignore Status Effects while buffing their attacks in classic World Eaters fashion. The Hereticus Gambit, Brutal Dismemberment helps get the most out of a Challenge. Hereticus players can field the Sons of Bodt Detachment with two Prime Apothecaries and three troop choices. Their advanced reaction grants a unit the Lost to the Nails status.
Credit: @badusernametag
Like in second edition, World Eaters can still replace Chainswords with a Chain Axes for free. Cadre Weapons remain but only to Rampagers. Finally, World Eater armies can take the Chain Bonded Prime Advantage. This lets you pair a Command model with another Command model as Chain-Brothers, granting both models a +1 to hit when in both fights (while in coherency) and challenges so long as both models are in the same combat. Argel Tal and Kharn would be proud!
All unique units remain, with Angron coming back in form as an angry whirlwind of death while his Ascended form is even more angry but does not benefit the rest of his army (classic). Kharn is Kharn and finally our favorite “member” of the Legion – Lotarra Sarrin with her trusty service pistol and a very nice AP2 sword. She can remove statuses from her allies, coordinate Aerial Reinforcements, and can also fire Guns of the Conqueror at her enemies (it’s awesome).
Red Butchers are are still treated as WS3 when being struck by enemies in combat and can only join other units with the Ravening Madmen special rule… which is exactly zero other models in the game (including Angron himself).Rampagers got a nice Vanguard (3) but lack the overpowered Rending of second edition, meaning that spamming Falax Blades is no longer the instant win against all units in melee that they once were. Overall this legion is fun, and feels “right” (if you ignore the perplexing Ravening Madmen limitations of Red Butchers) with less variability between the great and absolutely awful war gear selections from last edition.
Death Guard
Count the Seven! The implacable Sons of Barbarus plod through this new edition of Heresy, still pre-stinky gifts of Papa Nurgle (unless you’re doing Siege of Terra that is).
The Death Guard’s Legion rule allows them to ignore move reduction from Difficult Terrain and gain the benefits of Heavy if they moved less than 4”. This pushes the Legion in a sensible direction, towards inexorably advancing heavy weapons teams and armor. There’s no carveout to say Transports don’t count, so you can jump out of a Rhino and still multi-melta stuff. However, it doesn’t work on Ordnance, so you’re real big guns aren’t as flexible as the smaller ones.
The Prime Benefits and Gambit both focus on making characters incredibly tough. Barbaran Resilience gives +1 Wound and Eternal Warrior (2) and the Gambit lets you use your opponent’s WS as your own Toughness. Slap this on a Centurion in Terminator Armor and it’ll take serious work to kill them in a challenge! Disgusting resilience indeed.
The Death Guard’s own Reaping Host Auxiliary Detachment has two Troops slots (with one Prime Benefit and no Assault Squads), one Heavy Assault and one Support Choice. I took a load of these in my intro games and contains slots it is awkward to get otherwise. Easy way to add Heavy Support and Grave Warden units into your army alongside Troops you might want to take anyway.
Both Terminators options have a place. The Retinue slot Deathshroud have 2 Wounds and Eternal Warrior (1), with Reaping Blow (1) Power Scythes that Breach on a 5+, leaving them equally good at dueling multi-damage elite units or clearing out chaff. The Grave Wardens might have lost their flamers, but still feel like pure upside from regular cataphractii for the same cost, with their Poison (3+) Assault Grenade Launchers spitting out a hateful amount of volley fire and their Death Cloud rule dealing additional Poisoned hits in melee.
My favorite Death Guard rule isn’t even in their section. The oft-missed Traitor specific Prime Benefit, True Believers, mentioned back at the start of the article, gives Troops the Malefic rule. This is absolutely amazing for Death Guard, and I’ll be using these to represent Plague Marines, and if you take Morty you can take four full Prime Benefit Tactical or Breacher Squads with Malefic. Beautiful!
While I’ll miss my widely available toxin grenades and alchem flamers, Death Guard feel in a solid spot with flavorful rules that really match their lore.
Thousand Sons
The Egyptian space nerds are coming in hot with one of the most interesting and versatile legion rulesets in the game. Thousand Sons have been in a weird place in Heresy ever since their release in Black Book 7, sliding back and forth between out-control-busted to next-to-useless. I am happy to report that I think they have finally found a home in third edition.
All non-Vehicle Thousand Sons are Psykers (duh) with +1WP base, including dreadnoughts! The Prime Advantage, Telekine Shift, is really cool, letting a unit force-dash across the table by gaining Antigrav and Move Through Cover when they make a Rush (read: Run) move to snatch an objective their opponent thought out of reach or get way closer to a unit than otherwise possible.
Prosperine Arcana, the rules representing the five main Arcane Cults, return as a bespoke set of psychic disciplines for the Thousand Sons that inflict less severe penalties for Periling compared to the core disciplines (doing D3 Wounds instead of inflicting Stun or [13 minus WP] wounds.) One of my favorites is Raptora, granting a ranged Armourbane attack, force choke style, and the Kine Shield psychic reaction granting a 4+ Shroud to incoming fire, a rarity now that the Evade Core Reaction has gone the way of the dodo. However, all of the Arcana have lots of compelling reasons to take them and create a lot of cool possibilities that we’ll be covering in a Legion Tactica.
Credit – Meltabombed
Thousand Sons have their own new Consul, the Prosperine Sorcerer, that comes stock with a handful of Core Psychic weapons that are +1S due to his special Prosperine Spirestaff (I+1 A S AP3 D1 Force (D)).
The Heresy rules team have also done us the favor of settling the Khentai Mindsong of Blades debacle once and for all; they activate the power at the beginning of a combat they want to use it in. Your keyboards all can rest easy now, lads.
The Osiron remains a Psycho-naught, being allowed to take BOTH a Prosperine Arcana AND a Core Discipline, making for some outrageously versatile combinations.
Sekhmet remain badass Psyker Terminators, though don’t really bring anything special to the table beyond WS5 and base achean force swords (though these did get much better with I A S+1 AP3 D1 Breaching (5+)). Lastly, Castellax Achea remain handy little Perils wound dumps, while also having some decent weaponry.
Thousand Sons are an amazingly diverse legion that can spec units into even more deadly or utilitarian roles within the army. I think players that command the sons of Prospero will be very pleased with the level of tactical flexibility they have and really feel like the fireball-flinging space wizards they are.
Sons of Horus
The best and most traitor-y of the traitors (and don’t they know it) can field armies of the elite veterans who spearheaded the great crusade against their former allies. Foremost of these are their own truly scary Justaerin and Reavers. As the key traitor protagonists they have loads of unique characters, including a loyalist one you might have heard of and some guy called Horus.
Their Legion Tactica, Death Dealers, lets them always get their full BS when Volley Firing, meaning they get a full BS shooting attack with Assault weapons into combat, either while charging or on the receiving end. You’ll want to bring as many Terminators, volkite chargers, and fancy pistols as you can. You get an excellent Auxiliary detachment, Supremacy Cadre, containing two Prime Troops slots, a Heavy Assault slot, and a rare Elite slot. Sons of Horus Tactical Veterans with volkite chargers will be excellent.
Their Advanced Reaction, Warrior Pride, probably won’t come up that often. It lets them ignore a challenge if everyone in the unit who might accept it has a higher WS than the challenger. Fine for preventing your opponent from locking Horus in a challenge but a bad fit with their Prime advantage, Martial Supremacy, that gives a model in the Prime Unit “Champion” to fight challenges as well as Duelist’s Edge (1) – but it doesn’t improve their WS, so they probably won’t benefit from the Advanced Reaction. They’ll probably just be killed by most “proper” characters.
The Sons of Horus get to keep all their fancy toys, having access to all the nicest stuff as part of the Warmaster’s own legion. Banestrike bolters are 18” range, AP4 and breach on 6+. Carsoran Power Axes and Tabars are okay, but you could get Power fists or Thunder hammers for the price and they’re probably better. The Decurion Lanius lets you automatically un-rout a unit within 12” at the start of the turn…by shooting them. Very Disposable Heroes of them.
Sons of Horus make some of the better units in the game, like Terminators and Veteran Tacticals, even better, easier to access, and more effective at what they want to be doing anyway. Horus demands a lot of his sons, and they bring a lot of elite stuff of their own; expect to see lots of them!
Word Bearers
The Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains of the Heresy make their triumphant comeback with some basic but effective combat oriented passives. The First Heretics still feel great to play with hordes of infantry, but definitely spec more into combat this edition.
Their special Prime Advantage, Zealous Assault, grants Impact (S) to the prime unit. The Legion passive, Unwavering Conviction, grants a humble yet effective (contrary to the Word Bearer’s entire schtick) +1 Combat Res. It doesn’t sound like much but it can come in real clutch considering it stacks with things like vexillas or with outnumbering the enemy at the end of a combat.
In previous editions, Word Bearers players were limited in their ability to bring all of their extremely good special elites in a given list. That problem is no longer a concern, as Gal Vorbak, the Mhara Gal dreadnought, and Ashen Circle heavy assault destroyers all now take up different roles as Elites, War-Engines, and Fast Attack respectively. Being able to split up all of these spicy special units between different slots means that players will no longer have to decide between having their warp flavored cake and eating it too.
Credit – Meltabombed
Glorious Martyrdom returns as quite possibly the most hilariously shit-headed Advanced Reaction available to the legions wherein a single model from a unit targeted by a shooting attack can elect to dive in front of incoming bullets/lasers/disintegrators(?) for his friends and end the rest of the shooting attack. This was already a standout Advanced Reaction last edition, but with the increased lethality of third edition and the addition of now being able to use this Reaction against Blast and Template attacks as well, this is probably one of the strongest Legion Advanced Reactions in the game.
The Word Bearers armory is hugely diminished, losing out on tainted weapons and warpfire plasma. However, the tradeoff is that the warpfire that remains, exclusive to the Mhara Gal itself, is truly terrifying that it can actually make use of with its standard BS4 (but getting to keep its WS5 that other dreadnoughts lost!)
Overall the Word Bearers seem to want to be in combat a lot more this time around and really feel like the zealous, gibbering hordes of heralds for the Primordial Truth they were always meant to be.
Alpha Legion
The Sssneaky Sssnakes are back at it again with the white Vans, bringing all the Lies and Obfuscation you can shake a stick at. While remaining largely unchanged with their playstyle, the Alpha Legion benefit massively from one of the generic Legions’ biggest glow-ups this edition, Seeker squads. While great on their own, the Alpha Legion “counting as 2” further away” passive that held over from last edition creates some devastating nuance for these units. The Headhunter Leviathal Detachment grants two Prime Recon and two Elite slots, the latter having to be filled by Headhunter Kill Teams or Seeker squads, giving you plenty of additional slots for them.
The Alpha Legion Advanced Reaction, Smoke and Mirrors, has had a big shift from how it played last edition. Instead of a “fade away” style move, the much more fluffy reaction now reduces the effectiveness of incoming Precision. We are all Alpharius after all; how do you know you’re shooting the right one?
Power daggers, venom spheres, and Banestrike bolters, oh my! All of the classics return with Saboteurs trolling your opponent with a maddening 6” Infiltrate, Headhunters doing Headhunter things, Exodus being the anonymous long-ranged asshole he is, and Lernean Terminators keeping their bizarre base loadouts but gaining WS5, the ability to swap out their power axes for the full suite of terminator options, and the hilarious Line (1) and conversion beamer combo. Headhunters got to keep their multi-meltas too, don’t throw your models in the trash yet.
Alpha Legion can still yoink non-Unique or Command units from other legions, being able to take Rewards of Treachery as a Prime Advantage. This time though the well known access to all sorts of shenanigans doesn’t have any true limitations to number or type of “non-unique” units stolen other than being locked to Command units used to fill Prime slots.
Alpha Legion remain the Raven Guard’s twisted mirror, continuing to truly feel like the army of faceless killers they have always been but not feeling as oppressive to play against. Opening up Rewards of Treachery feels great and allows for lots of fun variety.
Final Thoughts
Overall, marines are off to a good start this edition. Most of the legions feel a lot more like they’re supposed to, each exemplifying the stereotypical style of warfare for their legion. Players are given compelling and narrative tools and choices to make their legions feel like they are supposed to while still being effective on the tabletop.
There are some oddities with internal balance between the legions, such as points costs or or what special rules/traits such as Vanguard that their Legion units have access to. Time will tell to see if we start seeing Raven Guard Seekers and Rapier Batteries supported by a horde of Salamanders or rhino rushing World Eaters.
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