Each Datacard has three distinct sections; Charge Chance, Resilience and Average Damage Output.
Charge Chance
This graph shows the move and charge distances each unit can achieve and shows the chance of them achieving this distance as a percentage.
Resilience
This table shows how much damage would be required on average to destroy the unit. This is split into the various rend types most commonly found in Age of Sigmar. For example, the unit shown in the image above would need 18 damage from -2 rend weapons for the enemy to have a chance at destroying it.
This can be cross-referenced with another units average damage output to see what kind of damage they’ll do to it.
Average Damage Output
This simply shows how much damage on average the unit is expected to inflict after saves against the various save types. If there are multiple load-out choices, then these are shown separately, as is any missile damage.
Each Datacard has three distinct sections; Charge Chance, Resilience and Average Damage Output.
Charge Chance
This graph shows the move and charge distances each unit can achieve and shows the chance of them achieving this distance as a percentage.
Resilience
This table shows how much damage would be required on average to destroy the unit. This is split into the various rend types most commonly found in Age of Sigmar. For example, the unit shown in the image above would need 18 damage from -2 rend weapons for the enemy to have a chance at destroying it.
This can be cross-referenced with another units average damage output to see what kind of damage they’ll do to it.
Average Damage Output
This simply shows how much damage on average the unit is expected to inflict after saves against the various save types. If there are multiple load-out choices, then these are shown separately, as is any missile damage.
Sometimes things go wrong. Your car doesn’t start in the morning. Your boss yells at you about your TPS reports. Your roommate eats the last Oreo even though your name was on the package and he knew you were saving it (I have not forgiven this transgression).
And sometimes your printer’s FEP pops a hole and spills resin on the screen.
I recently had to deal with several small hills of resin on my printer’s screen due to a pinhole in my FEP. Hopefully my first experience leaves you more prepared than I was.
What is a FEP?
A FEP (Flourinated Ethylene Propylene) is a plastic film that sits at the bottom of your resin vat. This film acts a barrier between your liquid resin and the curing source (your screen). FEP film is used in 3d printing because it has good chemical resistant properties, and generally won’t adhere to your print.
How did this happen?
That’s a great question! Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer.
If you have a print fail you need to empty out your vat, pouring the resin back into the bottle through a sieve to make sure that you are catching any larger hardened pieces that may be present. If your printer has a self-clean function (where it exposes the FEP to a solid block of UV light) you should do this to cure the bottom layer of resin. This traps any floaters against the FEP and allows you to be sure that when you pour out the resin and peel the clean layer away you are left with a pristine tank.
But, as I said above, sometimes things go wrong. In my case, I didn’t have a print failure that I can blame. Everything was going well until it wasn’t. If you are working with poorly supported models you could potentially have pieces of resin break off from the model and start to float around the tank. If one of these floaters gets in the wrong place it will be pushed down into your FEP. This could potentially puncture your FEP, or worse, break your screen.
Protecting the Screen
The best maintenance is preventative. If you address a problem before the machine breaks you are ultimately saving yourself some pain and money.
In the case of your screen, the easiest way to protect it is to get a screen protector (who saw that coming?). These only cost a few dollars and make cleaning up resin spills much easier. Simply peel the screen protector off and dispose of it.
Not exactly what you want to see on your screen.
They also provide a buffer for your screen to keep the screen from cracking. Most modern printers arrive from the factory with a screen protector installed, but you should still verify that one is there if you are in doubt.
The one point to note: if you do not currently have a screen protector, and you are installing one on your printer, you may want to recalibrate. The screen protector will not make a huge difference, but it is an extra layer of material that your UV light must pass through.
If you don’t have a screen protector you might be in a tight spot if you have a resin spill. There are a couple methods of cleaning cured resin off your screen, and I’ll link them below. Full disclosure: I have not tried either of these methods, so I cannot personally speak to their use.
Replacing the FEP
Your FEP should be considered a consumable part of your printer. Resin, gloves, and paper towels need to be replaced more often, but if your FEP becomes cloudy or gets punctured then the only fix is to replace it.
I have an after-market resin vat from Sovol that has been wonderful to use. I also found out that it has significantly fewer screws holding the FEP in place and still doesn’t leak. There are still a lot of screws used in the process of holding everything in place, and making sure you are balancing your frame while replacing it is important to avoid slack in the FEP.
One of many machine screws
Once the screws are pulled out, you can dispose of the old FEP, and lay the new one in place. You’ll need to have a hobby knife or sharp tweezers on hand before replacing the screws. Machine screws don’t have sharp points, so you will need to puncture the screw-holes in the FEP before you can get the threads of the screw to make contact with the threads of the hole. The FEP will have some excess material around the edges, but that’s a good sign, since it means that you have less risk of a bad seal. You simply need to take a hobby knife and carefully cut around the edge of the vat to remove the excess.
Stagger your screws to keep even pressure
Once that new FEP is in place it should be drum-head tight. The video below shows some light taps so I could test the tension.
Volume up for tippy-taps
Final Thoughts
Preventative maintenance and a solid plan for accidents are the best steps to achieve worry-free printing. When those accidents happen: don’t panic! It’s all part of the fun of the hobby. The more you work with your printer the more intimate you will become with it, and the more you will be able to get out of your little box-shaped friend.
I am not paid by Anycubic, EmanG, Function_Follies_From_Formless_Failures, or RedMakers. All file design credit goes to the creators.
When the Age of Darkness box was released a lot of people in my area were buying into the Horus Heresy. I was all in, the game looked fun and was a more engaging historical game for me when compared to real-history games like Team Yankee or Pike & Shotte. The major issue with Horus Heresy was that the majority of models were, and still are, Forgeworld exclusive. Even the models that have been transitioned to plastic have either mostly been tanks or have massive supply issues. I like the aesthetics of the Forgeworld units, but Peter doesn’t pay me enough to cover those prices.
Enter the Anycubic Photon Mono 4k.
3d printer go brrrrrr
Against Games Workshop’s wishes, I found a way to build my army without having to sell one of my kidneys. This quickly turned into its own hobby. I have spent the past year with the printer running nearly 24/7.
Why Printing?
Other than the cost savings?
Let’s focus more on the ratio of work to payoff that printing can bring. I consider myself a hobbyist first and a player second. I find painting relaxing, and I spend almost every morning making some progress on my models. Printing allows me a nearly infinite supply of new models on demand, assuming I still have resin on the shelf.
Printing isn’t fast, by any means, but it allows for regular models for testing paint schemes or adding more unique sculpts to my army. The Skarbrand proxy I recently printed took nearly three days to finish, but the final result is, in my opinion, so much better than the original GW model.
Model by EmanG. Painting by @poots_paints
This model brings me to my second point: printing gives creators the opportunity to interpret models in their own way. There are plenty of one-to-one printables out there for GW’s models. GW puts a lot of effort into removing these, and I can’t blame them, it’s a direct theft of their IP. But interpretation of these models through a different lens by creators gives life to the units that you wouldn’t normally see.
Take this big dreadnought, for instance. This fits with the aesthetic of the Adeptus Custodes but is not a carbon copy of the Telemon. Or these guard models that are great proxies for the Solar Auxilia without being complete reworks of the Forgeworld models.
Model by Function_Follies_From_Formless_FailuresCredit: RedMakers
Considerations
There are a handful of things you should consider before getting into 3d printing. Your printing experience will be affected by your expectations and the amount of work you want to put in.
Printing is very much a hobby by itself. Don’t expect to come in and have zero work on the front end. A poorly calibrated printer will cause no end of frustration from failed prints. There are safety hazards present from handling resin. The cleaning process involves a lot of consumables. You need to be ready to support your models. You need to be prepared to clean your printer when your FEP inevitably gets a puncture.
Safety
Safety is paramount when dealing with resin. There are articles upon articles describing why you shouldn’t handle resin bare-handed, why you shouldn’t breathe in the fumes, and why you shouldn’t just pour your spent cleaning fluid down the drain. There are ways to safely deal with all of this, some more eco-friendly than others, but it all comes down to how much you’re willing to invest in safety equipment.
Boxes of Nitrile gloves are the best way to protect your skin from the resin. Keeping a pair of gloves on while you are handling the uncured resin is mandatory to keep from being exposed to toxic chemicals. Even once a part has been cleaning and dried, you still should not handle it bare-handed until it is fully cured.
Fumes are a bit easier to deal with. We’ve all been wearing masks for the past few years, but the mask you wear makes a difference. Most printers are shipped with a small paper surgical mask in the box. This mask does nothing for printer fumes, and you should probably save it for the next time you get the flu. Personally, I have a re-useable P100 respirator that I use. It does a great job of cutting back on the smell, but the level of protection is probably overkill. A standard N95 is sufficient, but you should try to find a reusable one. It’s also worth noting that facial hair can disrupt the seal of your respirator, so be sure that you are forming a tight seal before handling resin. I have to tuck in the points of my mustache in order to get a proper seal.
You, too, can breathe like Darth Vader!
Finally, and this is important for your water supply, your neighbors water supply, and your local wetlands: DON’T POUR YOUR USED CLEANING FLUID DOWN THE DRAIN. It’s toxic to you, and it’s worse for local wildlife. If you do that you’re a bad person, and you should feel bad.
This salamander is now dead because of you. Credit: National Geographic
Instead, find a solution for curing the resin particles in the fluid before disposal. The best method I’ve found is to pour your cleaning fluid into a bucket or large jar, allow it to settle, then set it in direct sunlight to let the sediment cure. This process will probably evaporate a lot of your liquid, but I find that I only have to replace this fluid every few months. There are ways you can find online to save your alcohol for reuse, but I haven’t tried any of these, myself.
Calibration
Once you have your safety equipment assembled and ready, you need to calibrate your printer. Your calibration is going to be unique to your setup. The ambient temperature of your room, your printer screen, and the material you’re working with can all have an impact on your print quality. I recommend a quick-read calibration print that will help identify where your problems might lie. The Amerilabs Town is a good example that shows off the possible specs, but I found that the Cones of Calibration make for a very quick study of how well your supports will stick to your model. TableFlip Foundry has made an excellent video explaining how to use and interpret the cones.
Cleaning
Cleaning your prints is straightforward, assuming you have the right equipment. I clean using a two-stage method. First, I wash the bulk of the resin in a pickle bucket. You can buy these from Amazon for around $10. It makes a great way to get an initial alcohol bath with some good agitation. For the second stage I use the Anycubic Wash and Cure station. It provides agitation similar to a washing machine, forming a small vortex in a large tank. Using it as a second stage keeps the alcohol cleaner, and won’t let sediment jam my agitator blade.
Speaking of alcohol, you’ll need some on hand. My pickle bucket has about 1.5l of fluid, and my Wash and Cure stores about 2.5l. I use 99% IPA, but you can get away with 90+%. I used water-washable resin for a long time to save cost, but I’ve found that washing that resin in alcohol leaves a nicer surface finish than washing in water. The alcohol also evaporates off the surface of the resin much quicker, which is a nice bonus.
Supports
Not all models are pre-supported. Most of the time if you’re pulling models that creators list for free on sites like cults3d or thingiverse you’re going to find that you need to support them yourself. Even if you are paying for files, there is no guarantee that they are pre-supported. Even if the files are pre-supported, there is no guarantee that the creator test printed with their supports and the prints will fail (I strong feelings on this).
Learning to add supports to your prints, and how to identify when supports have been done poorly, is vital in the printing process. There are lots of videos on how to create supports for models, but I highly recommend watching these two to get a basic idea.
For the creators out there: there are plenty of people that will add supports and test prints for your models for a cost. If you are going to sell your files, you really should have pre-supports, Lychee or Chitubox files, and test prints before you sell. No one wants to pay $10 for files, only for it to fail. That $10 file can become a $100 screen.
I have been supporting my own files for more than a year, and I would be happy to discuss supporting yours. You can contact me on Instagram @poots_paints.
Maintenance
I’ve found my printer to be mostly maintenance-free. Once it’s set up an calibrated it runs without issue. There are a few modifications I have made over time, notably a magnetic build plate and all-metal resin vat, but these are purely optional. I recommend regular cleaning. Even if your printer looks perfect, sometimes a small resin spill from an over-full tank can cause stickiness if it isn’t cleaned properly.
I’ll cover replacing punctured FEP and heavy-duty screen cleaning in a future article.
Final Thoughts
Don’t let the above few sections scare you. This is an extremely rewarding hobby. I’ve found a huge amount of satisfaction in taking a model from liquid resin to game table. With some investment of time and money, you can find a near-infinite number of new models to bring to your painting booth.
This is the Top Three AoS lists for Borderlands 2k Bash that took place at Borderlands Comics and Games in Greenville, SC on November 19th. There were a total of 12 players competing in this three-round event.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes – Army Subfaction: Underguts – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER Frostlord on Stonehorn (445)* – Mount Trait: Rockmane Elder Butcher (135)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Cleaver – Spells: Molten Entrails Slaughtermaster (135)* – Artefacts of Power: Gruesome Trophy Rack – Spells: Blubbergrub Stench
Patrick: When the Ogor Mawtribes Battletome was released it was a fair assumption that some unit spamming/abuse would come out of the new book. Tobias made this assumption as well and decided to test the waters by dropping as many Ironblasters as he could on the table. “Ironblasters are awesome,” Tobias told me. “I’m not playing Ogors because I want to play greenish stunted gitz… So none of that in my list.” He is also taking advantage of the -1 to wound from Rockmane Elder, providing some extra beef on the Stonehorn.
His Ironblasters played well into all of his matchups, although with some minor difficulty into Idoneth Deepkin due to shooting restrictions that the army carries with it. His Ironblasters killed Bloab Rotspawn in the first round of his second match. Two units firing the long range shot were able to remove him from across the table, and went on to table his Nurgle opponent by the bottom of round 2. “They will be a meta pick. If I had a big event I’d run them, but they weren’t great fun.” It may be too early to say if the warscroll needs some adjustments, but I think at the very least we will see a points increase in the future.
Congratulations to Tobias on his win, and we hope to see more lists from him in the future (the upcoming Cherokee GT, perhaps?).
Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords – Army Type: Kastelai Dynasty – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER Manfred Von Carstein (380) – Spells: Fading Vigour Vengorian Lord (280) – General – Command Traits: Swift and Deadly – Artefact: Fragment of the Keep – Spells: Invigorating Aura, Amethystine Pinions Belladamma Volga (200) – Spells: Vile Transference
BATTLELINE 10 x Blood Knights (390)* – Kastellan – Standard Bearer 10 x Blood Knights (390)* – Kastellan – Standard Bearer 5 x Blood Knights (195)* – Kastellan – Standard Bearer 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)** – Skeleton Champion – Standard Bearer – Champion’s Mace or Halberd 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)** – Skeleton Champion – Standard Bearer – Champion’s Mace or Halberd
Patrick: “After narrowing down to Soulblight, I went back and forth between a horde of Zombies and Skeletons and a mixed armes list like we have ssen across the meta. However, I thought ‘I own 25 Blood Knights,’ why not run all of them.” And run them, he did, to great effect. The list sees Manfred and a Vengorian Lord bringing buffs and spellcasting to round out his list, as well as some Expert Conqueror Skeletons for objective maintenance. Manfred’s base size came in especially handy due to his unique command ability, providing +1 to hit and wound wholly within 12”. His base size and careful positioning meant that Stuart could have at least 2 units of 10 knights with 2+/2+, -1 rend, and 2-3 damage lances.
Belladomma works to provide a quality fighter to deal with chaff units. Her ability to turn salin models into Dire Wolves worked in Stuart’s favor to keep the board saturated with threats, and can be used to bait an opponent’s dispel attempt to make room for casting from Mannfred and the Vengorian Lord.
Army Type: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Army Subfaction: Drowned Men – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER Bloab Rotspawned (320) – Spells: Gift of Disease Orghotts Daemonspew (320) Lord of Afflications (230) – General – Command Traits: Overpowering Stench – Incubatch – Dolorous Tocsin – Artefacts of Power: The Splithorn Helm
BATTLELINE 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)* – Dolorous Tocsin 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)* – Dolorous Tocsin 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)* – Dolorous Tocsin 10 x Plaguebearers (150)** 10 x Plaguebearers (150)**
Patrick: Jake’s Nurgle list was tooled to the event. “With Prize of Gallet on the list it was going to be incredibly hard to score if I went first.” This meant that he had to break away from his original list (which included no Galletian Veterans) and build in two units of Plaguebearers. They are cheaper than Blightkings, and in this instance would perform the same duty. That left three units of flies, one to deep strike with the Lord of Affliction and one to Drowned Men across the table and lock his opponent down.
Jake feels that some better deployment of Bloab could have kept him alive longer. Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws would have done a lot of work into Tobias’s chaff units, and he may have been able to get a better performance in the third round. “Mawtribes are gross now,” he told me, but he is happy with the list and his performance. “The list did what I expected it too. Flies and Jaws eat the grunts and you aim the Maggoth lords at their heroes.”
He made some final notes in our conversation as well. “Nurgle is fine, the thing that bothers me the most is the lists that are winning are the same archetype. I’d love to see a non-Drowned Men win rate. The issue is everything in that book just pushed it towards that load out. Better units, better artefacts into the best subfaction.” His next event will see the use of a Great Unclean One in more close-range battleplans, one of which will include a “no deep strike” rule.
Army Type: Seraphon – Army Type: Coalesced – Army Subfaction: Thunder Lizard – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER Skink Starpriest (130)** – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts of Power: Fusil of Conflagration – Spells: Levitate
Patrick: This list is the perfect example of why I love one-day events. The fact that large prizes generally aren’t on the line means that people will be more willing to accommodate casual crowds and test off-meta lists. Jon’s list fits this perfectly.
“The idea…was to make a bad list” Jon told me during a discussion. The Greenville AoS community tends to be newer or more casual players than he normally plays. He didn’t want to create a list that would completely shut other players out. Jon told me “I like the idea of giant lizards stomping around, and this was the only time I would ever actually run them at an event.” Dread Saurians will certainly feel robust in a Thunder Lizard list, but overall they won’t accomplish very much. They’re an ideal unit for new players to feel good dumping wounds into without getting punched back too hard, but players also need to be sure to watch the Skinks, since it would be easy to focus on the big intimidating models while Jon’s battleline consistently scores VP. It’s a lesson in threat assessment and target priority for new players.
While Jon didn’t win the event, he certainly accomplished his goals. Hopefully we see more people approach play with this attitude in event in the future.
Note: Jon did not compete in the final round due to matchups. He was scheduled to face someone he plays multiple times a week, and he decided to give them a chance to play a different opponent (not to mention it is a pain to move three Dread Saurians around).
The Iron Warriors are the unequaled masters of siege warfare. Their pragmatic and bitter approach to combat led them to capture and garrison strategic worlds throughout the galaxy, before descending on Terra with Horus and their Primarch, Perturabo. Perturabo was at the helm of the IVth Legion, and led the spearhead into the solar system, obliterating the Imperial defenses and opening the way for Horus to make his way to the Emperor.
Wrack and Ruin
This approach to siege warfare is present in the Iron Warriors legion trait: Wrack and Ruin. Wrack and Ruin allows for any Iron Warriors model to increase the strength of any ranged or melee attacks by 1 if that attack targets a Dreadnought, Automata, Vehicle, or Building.
This small bonus may seem minor at first glance, but the ability to more easily punch holes in Dreadnoughts slightly reduces the intimidation factor of those units. Dreadnoughts are by far the most powerful units in the game, and allowing your basic infantry to wound them in melee (even if only on 6’s) can be a huge boon. The other item to keep in mind is that the Land Raider Spartan that comes in the Age of Darkness box (meaning that a huge portion of the game’s player base will come sporting one) can only be threatened by weapons with S8 or greater. The ability to punch holes in armor with S7 guns gives the Iron Warriors access to mass-fire weapons that can threaten enemy heavy armor. Weapons with higher strength values, such as Lascannons or Melta weapons, will absolutely melt Rhinos and Predators, leaving your opponents exposed.
The Iron Warriors advanced reactions, Bitter Fury, is essentially a boosted Return Fire. Once per battle in the opposing player’s shooting phase you can fire at an enemy unit that just shot one of your units. When making this reaction you double the number of shots that the unit would normally make. This will make your opponent think about range and target very carefully while you hold this card in your back pocket. No one will want to be on the receiving end of 10 plasmaguns double-firing for 40 shots.
Warlord Traits
There are three Warlord Traits available to Iron Warriors Praetors. The first, Tyrant of the Apolokron, provides your warlord with the Fearless special rule, but enforces a requirement that your warlord and any unit he joins shoot or charge the closest enemy unit in each phase, if possible. Fearless is a strong ability, but the restriction on this rule seems to outweigh the benefit, since you generally want your warlord to be more flexible than what this allows.
The second trait, Tyrant of the Dodekathon, allows your warlord to pre-bomb an area of the battlefield, nominating one area terrain or building. This terrain either becomes difficult and dangerous terrain, or it becomes weakened (in the case of buildings and fortifications), forcing higher rolls on the damage table.
Tyrant of the Lyssatra provides your Warlord and any infantry unit he joins to add extra dice to ranged attacks, but the guns used for the attack gain Gets Hot, potentially backfiring on your squad. Gets Hot is an interesting rule, and generally is worth the risk of taking the hit, but it adds a layer of complexity to the army, forcing you to choose to potentially sacrifice members of your squad to ensure the enemy dies.
Rites of War
There are only two Rites of War for the Iron Warriors. Both of these provide army-wide buffs affecting both tanks and infantry. The first, The Hammer of Olympia, allows your infantry to fire an additional shot with shrapnel weapons (discussed below) following the same restriction as Fury of the Legion. This rite also allows some of your tanks to ignore the effects of Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned. The final item is an accuracy boost in the form of re-rolling 1s to hit for all shrapnel weapons (which you absolutely should be taking as many as possible).
The Ironfire also provides some buffs to all units in your army and adds some spicy army-build options. The first point is that this allows you to run Arquitors as non-compulsory Troops (although they don’t get Line). There are some general improvements to scatter when using Barrage (which your Arquitors rely on). This also allows some boosts to infantry to protect them from the inevitable moment that your Arquitor barrages go awry and land on top of your own units.
Either Rite provides some overall positive improvements to standard list building, with The Hammer of Olympia being what I expect to see more often. The pure joy of placing up to 21 Arquitor Bombards on the table would be worth seeing, however (almost 4000pts, all told, so you would have to play some truly massive games to hit that level). If you can afford that many Forgeworld models you should absolutely do this, take pictures, and share on our discord so I can tell you how wonderful you are.
Unique Units and Equipment
Legion-specific Enhancements
The Iron Warriors have limited Legion enhancements. There is only one character upgrade, allowing a foot Praetor to gain a bunch of enhancements allowing him to repair vehicles and gain some extra utility equipment for whatever unit he joins. Depending on how many vehicles, dreadnoughts, and automata you run this upgrade will be well worth the 20pts.
Iron Warriors characters also have the ability to replace select power weapons with Graviton weapons. These weapons aren’t an improvement over their default version unless you expect to be in melee with Vehicles, where the Haywire rule will come into play. As interesting as these weapons are, why would you want to rely on punching a tank when you’re the Iron Warriors and can bring your own tanks to the field?
The final upgrade is stand-out great, and you should absolutely spend the points any time you have the opportunity. For two points per gun, any bolter, bolt pistol, or heavy bolter can be replaced with a Shrapnel weapon. Shrapnel weapons lose some range and AP from their standard versions but gain the Pinning keyword. Any time you are given the opportunity to pin your opponent’s units you should take it, and with so many weapons on the field that can take this you should be forcing multiple pinning tests on your opponents every turn. This bonus also gives the opportunity to shut off a charge with some lucky overwatch rolls, as a Charge is cancelled if the charging unit becomes pinned.
Legion Specific Units
Perturabo, the Primarch of the Iron Warriors is an odd unit. His Battlesmith (2+) makes him one of the best options in the game at keeping tanks alive but requires him to hang out in the back of an army with your predators or sicarans. Master of Automata is only present to allow him to take his Iron Circle retinue. His damage output is nothing to write home about, and without line his inability to be killed (T7 with a 3+ invulnerable save is incredible) makes him better at keeping other units alive by absorbing shots, rather than really dealing any damage himself. Even his cortex controller, which makes an excellent buff for your Tyrant Siege Terminators, can be obtained cheaper from a Forgelord Centurion.
Ultimately, for the points, you’re better off with a few Centurions and a Lord of War. Perturabo can make a great centerpiece, but you could argue that he isn’t completely worth his points. At the end of the day, if your opponent brings a Primarch, Perturabo is going to get tied up for the whole fight, and if your opponent doesn’t bring a primarch they will just play keep-away with their tanks and infantry for the whole fight.
The Iron Circle Maniple is an equally disappointing unit for the points cost. For slightly less than a Contemptor Dreadnought you get an automaton with several 7s in its stat line, a graviton maul, and a shrapnel cannon. What hurts the unit is the low WS and BS, hitting with that cannon on 4s, and with WS4 it can’t fight any better than a basic tacital. These units really shine when attacking tanks in melee with the Haywire rule on their maul, but with only 3 attacks (4 on the charge) you could get pretty similar output from a lascannon-equipped predator. The big draw for this unit is the ability for Perturabo to take them as a retinue, so long as you commit to taking three of them (bringing the cost of Perturabo + the maniple to around 900pts, around 33% of you points in a standard 3000pt game).
The final unique unit for the Iron Warriors are the Tyrant Siege Terminators, a group of 5-10 Cataphractii Terminators with cyclone missile launchers strapped to their backs. These boys are possibly one of the best flexible ranged threats in the game, with the ability o punch holes in tanks, infantry, or aircraft from 48” away. The addition on an Omni-scope on the Siege Master means that they do not suffer from the negative effects of Night Fighting and allows a free use of the Interceptor advanced reaction. While they are expensive (300 pts for the first 5, and 55pts for each additional) they make up that cost by being durable infantry with great damage output. For some additional reliability, you can support them with a Master of Signals to get the additional hit bonus from the cognis-signum.
Final Thoughts
While the unique units and some of the wargear options fall a little flat, the Iron Warriors have some very strong Rites of War to make up for them. Wrack and Ruin makes them one of the best tank-killer legions in the game and the addition of shrapnel bolters forcing pinning checks constantly will help keep your opponent’s infantry in check as well.
What’s Next
As this article is part of a series, I will spend the next few months going into more detail about the rules of the game and the specifics of each legion. I would like to know if there is specific content our readers would like to see, so leave a comment or join us in the Woehammer discord to let us know what points you would like to see discussed.
The Emperor’s Children were the only legion to bear the Palatine Aquila, the Emperor’s standard. The Emperor’s Children embodied all aspects of what the Emperor expected from the legiones astartes. They were noble, loyal, strong, and civilized. These expectations drove the third legion to seek absolute perfection. This desire for perfection led to their twisting of pride into a desire for excess and hedonism. Once the legion began to follow the Warmaster their martial prowess saw massacres and brutality against the Imperium performed by the hands of a once-loyal legion.
The IIIrd Legion’s Primarch – Fulgrim
Flawless Execution
The martial prowess of the Emperor’s Children is represented through a tremendously powerful legion tactic. When an Emperor’s Children unit performs a charge make their melee attacks one initiative step higher than normal. Note that this expressly works after any initiative modifiers are taken into account. Any Vehicle units gain +1 to hit when firing with defensive weapons during a reaction.
At first glance this seems very minor, but the execution of this rule is extremely powerful. Because wounds and casualties are determined at the end of each initiative step, if a model is removed as a casualty before it has the chance to fight in a combat, that model’s attacks are lost. If two opposing models have the same initiative, all the wounds and casualties are considered to happen simultaneously, so a model removed as a casualty still has the opportunity to deal damage on the way down. This rule gives the Emperor’s Children the ability to severely reduce the amount of incoming damage following a charge, by removing a threat before it has the chance to strike.
This also greatly improves the use of Unwieldy weapons, since this increase happens after initiative modifiers are calculated. A powerfist hitting at Initiative 2 allows an Emperor’s Chosen Cataphractii squad the chance to hit opposing terminators with valuable Instant Death attacks before they are allowed the chance to die in kind. This also increases the ability for the Emperor’s Children to build expert duelists through Centurions and Praetors, who already strike at higher Initiative than most units. A high-value character issuing a challenge can potentially kill the enemy warlord before they have the chance to strike back.
At the end of the day this trait will make the third legion a dangerous melee threat. Not because they hit harder, but because they can reduce the risk of incoming damage. Overall, this cements the Emperor’s Children as a powerful melee faction.
Warlord Traits
There are three warlord traits to choose from for the Emperor’s Children, and they highlight an interesting dynamic for the game as a whole. The game does not dictate loyalty to the Emperor simply from the choice of legion. Yes, the Emperor’s Children are considered a traitor legion, but they can be played as loyalists. The warlord traits reflect this by providing one trait that can only be taken by traitors, one that can only be taken by loyalists, and one that is alliance agnostic. Each trait is solid, and they provide huge benefits with some key restrictions.
The first trait, The Broken Mirror, is restricted to warlords with the Traitor allegiance. It allows some morale mitigation for multi-model units within 12” of the warlord. If a unit that meets the conditions fails a morale check, instead of falling back, it takes a single wound that can’t be negated in any way and is then considered to have passed the morale check.
The second trait requires you to play a loyalist warlord. A warlord with the Martyrs of Isstvan trait makes any unit locked in combat with a legiones astartes unit with the traitor allegiance gain a bonus to hit. Consider this in context with the legion tactic and you’ll see that this can force your opponent to be careful about how they choose to engage a key unit with your warlord attached. The only issue is the target restriction, especially since the release of the latest books may see more games played where this warlord trait would not come into use.
The final warlord trait, Paragon of Excellence, can be played by either allegiance. This trait combines some function of the previous two by improving units’ combat abilities through morale. Every unit that passes a morale check within 12” of the warlord gains a bonus to their Weapon Skill until the end of the Emperor’s Children’s player’s next turn. Given the relatively high leadership values of marine armies, and the ability to improve that morale by attaching independent characters to key units, you will regularly trigger this ability.
Rites of War
The Emperor’s Children have two Rites of War. Both rites focus on generally improving the function of your infantry, either by adding a bonus to movement and positioning or by providing access to unique enhancements.
The first rite, The Maru Skara, will provide you with movement buffs that place you on par with the White Scars. By taking this rite, you have the option to place four of your Elite, Troop, or Fast Attack units into reserves. The units that remain on the battlefield gain a +1 to their Move characteristic until the turn that the reserve units are brought in. This is important to note, since your standard marine gaining a +1 to Move also means that they gain +1 to Charge rolls.
The second Rite, IIIrd Company Elite, allows you to take Kakophoni squads as troops. It also allows you to give all models in any given Infantry unit a surgical augmentation. The bonuses from these augmentations do a lot to offset the points cost of the equipment. You also need to have a good system of tracking which unit has which enhancement. Variety is nice, but your game can move at a snail’s pace if you increase your bookkeeping load too much.
Legion-specific Enhancements
Speaking of surgical augmentations: there are three to choose from. All of them require the Traitor allegiance and can only be placed on Character models. Sonic Shriekers provides a to-hit penalty to your opponents any time they are charged or charge your unit, so long as that enemy unit isn’t immune to Fear(X). Sub-sonic Pulsers remove the penalties to Leadership and Ballistic Skill imposed by Night Fighting. The final augmentation, a Sonic Lance, provides your model with a Template weapon with Breaching and Pinning, although the low strength value will limit its effectiveness against many opponents. The Lance can be effective on a large unit of Tactical Marines or Despoilers in a IIIrd Company Elite force, providing as many as 20 template weapons in a squad for a mere 30 points.
Outside of these augmentations, there are two power weapon upgrades: a sword and a lance. The lance is usually a better upgrade on the units that can take it, since the combination of Murderous Strike, Breaching, and a strength bonus will see more utility. There is something to be said about the benefits of a power sword with Rending and Murderous Strike, since your 6s to wound are going to be devastating when they happen. The upgrade on the sword will also make your Word Bearers friends jealous, since they pay 10 points for the same upgrade.
The Emperor’s Children also gain access to the Phoenix Warden, a unique consul upgrades for your centurions. Think of the Phoenix Warden as a modified champion, with rules focused on improving melee efficiency for himself and other units around him. The issue is that any bonus he gains from the Skill Unmatched special rule always reduces his attacks or Weapon Skill, and his Living Icons ability can more easily be attained through Legion Vexillas. Overall not a bad option, and decently flavorful, but the rules could use a tweak, given the points cost for the upgrade.
Lord Commander Eidolon
Legion Specific Units
As Primarchs go, Fulgrim is relatively straightforward. He’s a melee beatstick, with a collection of tools and rules to exceed in that role. Ost standard units are going to have a hard time dealing with him once the combat begins, but, as with most Primarchs, he can be played around simply by keeping him out of combat. He doesn’t have any real movement buffs and his increased Bulky value when compared to other Primarchs (Fulgrim demands more legroom) means that he will need something akin to a Land Raider Spartan to carry him and a retinue.
Past Fulgrim, the third legion brings along a pair of melee units, Phoenix Terminators and Palatine Blade Squads which are melee-oriented, buffed versions of Tartaros squads and Veteran squads, respectively. The final infantry squad available is the Kakophoni Squad. These are a sort of Heavy Support Squad with special weapons and surgical augmentations unique to the Emperor’s Children. Overall, an Emperor’s Children player should feel pleased with the units here. None of them will blow you away, but all three have solid rules and equipment.
In addition to the above units, there are three unique characters: Lord Commander Eidolon, Captain Saul Tarvitz, and Captain Lucius. Eidolon is a mildly upgrades jump-pack Praetor with some flavorful wargear. His warlord trait provides bonuses to fight a selected “Rival” at the cost of limiting his ability to declare reacitons. Saul Tarvitz is another upgrades Praetor, but significantly cheaper than the other two. He has a bevy of rules that ultimately break down to make him very good at fighting other Emperor’s Children. If your local meta has a bunch of other third legion players he may see some use, otherwise you’re probably better off with a Phoenix Warden Centurion.
The final character, Captain Lucius, is designed to be an excellent duelist. You want him in melee immediately, and you want him issuing and responding to challenges as often as he can. His warlord trait allows any unit to which he is attached to benefit from the Fearless special rule so long as he is engaged in a challenge.
All three of the characters are interesting, but I don’t see Eidolon or Tarvitz fitting into every list. Model collectors and painters can’t go wrong here, though, as all three models are stunning. The detail present on each model does a fantastic job of displaying exactly how obsessed with decorum the third legion was.
Final Thoughts
Given the above, the Emperor’s Children make a mean melee legion. Gaining combat advantages on the charge can be played around, however, and a savvy opponent will know to focus down the right targets at the right time. Positioning and timing are important, but the Emperor’s Children demand perfection, and they are certainly capable of attaining it.
What’s Next
As this article is part of a series, I will spend the next few months going into more detail about the rules of the game and the specifics of each legion. I would like to know if there is specific content our readers would like to see, so leave a comment or join us in the Woehammer discord to let us know what points you would like to see discussed.
The noble knights of the First Legion were too far to intervene at Istvann and were drawn to Thramas to stop the atrocities being committed by the Night Lords. This misdirection occupied the legions for years, leading to the destruction of several inhabited sectors. Lion El’Johnson, the Primarch of the Dark Angels, embarked on the Passage of the Angel of Death, a campaign meant to punish the traitor legions by targeting strongholds and home worlds. This campaign ended once the Siege of Terra began, redirecting the Dark Angels to the defense of the Imperial home world.
In the lore, the Dark Angels are the archetypical legion. They have the tools and resources for any task, and the sectioning of their legion leads to flexibility on the battlefield. This is reflected in the rules through their legion trait, rites of war, warlord traits, and specific units.
The Dark Angels Primarch – Lion El’Johnson
The Hexagrammaton
The Hexagrammaton represents the flexibility of the Dark Angels. Every unit you choose to be in your army must be assigned to one of six “wings”, with each wing providing different effects. There are additional restrictions concerning transport, independent characters, apothecaries, and techmarines, explained in detail in the Liber Astartes.
The wings provide different bonus allowing you to tailor each unit in your army to the job it’s meant to perform. As an example, the Stormwing provides a hit bonus when firing bolters, combi-bolters, or bolt pistols, making it a decent choice for tactical marines to take full advantage of the extra shots provided by Fury of the Legion. The Firewing, on the other hand, applies bonuses to wound rolls when targeting an independent character, making it a potent bonus to the units that you want to take character hunting. One of my favorite wings perfectly highlights the flavor present in the ruleset of the Horus Heresy: the Deathwing allows a bonus to Hit rolls for all types of swords, including any close combat weapons modeled as swords.
The Dark Angels’ advanced reaction, The Angels of Death, provides a unit the ability to respond to an enemy charge by becoming harder to shift. The reliance on a Leadership test makes the reaction slightly weaker, and requires more careful planning on unit selection to get the maximum benefit, but the use of Fear(X) and Fearless/Stubborn can come in clutch when trying to defend an important mid-board objective.
Warlord Traits
The Hexagrammaton provides for an immense degree of flexibility and is an excellent rule allowing for tons of flavor and performance from the legion.
Then there are the warlord traits.
There are two to choose from that are specific to the Dark Angels. The first, Marshal of the Crown, provides a minuscule leadership buff to any unit of the same wing as the warlord that has at least one model that can draw line of sight to the warlord. The second, Seneschal of the Keys, allows the controlling player to select a faction, and then state that a turn is decisive. During the decisive turn, the warlord and any unit to which they are attached gain a small buff to their WS or BS (not both) when targeting a unit of the chosen faction for the duration of the turn.
There are certainly uses to both of these traits; depending on what army your opponent is running your mileage will vary. There is an argument to make, however, that the Horus Heresy is not a competitive game, but a narrative one, in which case either of these options will add flavor to the game, but probably won’t be the reason you win a battle.
Rites of War
To make up for the slim number of warlord traits there are six Rites of War for the first legion. Each Rite is tied to an individual wing of the Hexagrammaton and provides appropriate buffs and restrictions to emphasize building your army around whichever wing you feel would be the most fun to put on the table.
If you want to run nothing but tanks, that is an option by running The Steel Fist, allowing you to take Predators as troops, Kratos tanks as elites, and gives the option to take Land Raiders as dedicated transports for your infantry. Opposite of that is The Storm of War, which pushes the use of massed infantry, giving you the option of filling your fast attack and elite slots with troops units.
The Eskaton Imperative gives you great board control, making everything outside of your deployment zone difficult terrain and allowing you to take Destroyer and Interemptor squads as troops, but providing your opponent with extra victory points if they can keep a unit in their deployment zone at the end of the battle that isn’t Pinned or Falling Back. The Unbroken Vow also provides you opponent with the chance at getting more victory points based on objective control but allows you to take Terminators as troops.
The final two Rites emphasize the use of fast attack slots. The Seeker’s Arrow giving you Sky-hunter and Outrider squads as troops, while providing some buffs and movement shenanigans to your cavalry units. The Serpent’s Bane allows you to take Seeker Squads as troops and allows you to select three priority target units in your opponent’s force, giving your Firewing units bonuses to hit against them.
Overall, every Rite of War is solid, and will have a major impact on your list building. Two Dark Angels armies will play vastly differently from one another, with all possibilities being viable, flavorful, and fun.
Unique Units
The unique units available to the Dark Angels include their Primarach, Lion El’Johnson, two characters, and three infantry units. As with every Primarch, the Lion has a ton of rules that could be covered, but to sum up you can think of him as a very flexible leader and duelist. His warlord trait, Sire of the Dark Angels, provides your army with the ability to reliably perform sweeping advances and provides a small Leadership buff for those units that can draw line of sight to him more reliably. He also is the only unit in the first legion that does not select a wing of the Hexagrammaton at the beginning of the battle, but chooses a wing at the start of the controlling player’s turn that will last the remainder of the round. This provides him with a level of flexibility to perform whatever function you need from him in the moment.
The two characters, Corswain and Marduk Sedras, are each powerful martial combatants. Corswain is the Champion of the Dark Angels, carrying a sword called “The Blade” which gains the Instant Death keyword on 50% of all wound rolls. His armor provides a 3+ Invulnerable save against close combat attacks allowing him to outlast many opponents once a melee begins. Marduk Sedras provides slightly more utility than Corswain, as he provides the Preferred Enemy special rule. This utility does not hamper his damage output, however, as he has an Unwieldy close combat weapon that hits at Strength 9 with the ability to reduce enemy invulnerable saves. It’s worth noting that at the time of writing this article Corswain does not have a model on the Forgeworld store, so if you want to run him in your army you will need to be prepared to kit-bash him from a praetor model.
The first of the three unique units are the Deathwing Companions, an HQ unit meant to act as a retinue for your praetors with a special rule equivalent to bodyguard, ignoring Precision Shots and Precision Strikes. The second is an Elites unit, Inner Circle Knights Cenobium, which are heavy-hitting terminators with the ability to tailor their strengths to the opposing army at the start of a battle. The final unit is the Dreadwing Interemptor Squad, a unit of Elite Dreadwing marines carrying special weapons which act as a combination of plasma guns and flamers.
Final Thoughts
Overall the Dark Angels meet the expectation of being an extremely flexible legion. The wings of the Hexagrammaton allow you to increase the function of each unit, increasing their ability to excel in the role chosen for them. I feel this may open the door for a crafty opponent to play around this, meeting Stormwing units in close combat, or destroying Deathwing units at range before they can make use of their improved swords. While the warlord traits are not the strongest showing, they certainly aren’t bad, and the Rites of War and unique units more than make up for whatever weakness may be in the army.
What’s Next
As this article is part of a series, I will spend the next few months going into more detail about the rules of the game and the specifics of each legion. I would like to know if there is specific content our readers would like to see, so leave a comment or join us in the Woehammer discord to let us know what points you would like to see discussed.
Since its inception in 2012, the Horus Heresy has been a largely inaccessible wargame to the general community. While wargaming in general would not be considered a cheap hobby by anyone, the steep price of Forgeworld models (the source of the vast majority of Horus Heresy-compliant models) has been a blocking point for entry to many gamers, myself included. The game required either very deep pockets, or a huge time investment to kit-bash and customize entire squads of line troops. This was vastly more difficult before the advent of cheap, available at-home 3D printers.
The release history saw a few plastic models over time, primarily the MkIII and MkIV tactical squads, cataphractii and tartaros terminators, and a contemptor dreadnought with very few weapon options. Beyond these few minis, if you wanted to field an army in Horus Heresy that used any legion-specific units or Heresy-era vehicles you needed to be prepared to shell out for them. You could see a price of $20 per model in a five-man infantry squad, $50 for a single jetbike (noting that you need at least 3 to make a minimum-sized unit), and as much as $1,500 for the largest vehicles.
Enter Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness, a $300 monstrosity of a box meant to be a starter set for the second edition of Horus Heresy. The release of the box, along with the first two faction books, Liber Astartes and Liber Hereticus, saw the promise of a more accessible game. The massive reduction in cost of entry suddenly saw an uptick in interest for the game, and while the current state of the game still requires some kit-bashing or purchasing of Forgeworld resin, there are new plastic kits introduced almost weekly.
In This Corner…
When Age of Darkness was released, the community in my area immediately sprung to life. There were about seven of us that bought the box on day one, and several others joined in later. The new ruleset was refreshing when compared to 40K, and the first two books promised a game focused on flavor over competition. The factions, while limited to the original 18 Space Marine legions, promises more books to come, including Mechanicus, Titan Legions, Daemons, and Imperial Troops, which all appear to play like their lore counterparts.
The Loyalist Legions
The First Legion: Dark Angels
The Dark Angels face off against the Nightlords
The Dark Angels, both in lore and rules, are meant to be the archetypical legion. While all other legions are specialized to one degree or another, the first legion is more balanced in all aspects of war. Their rules focus around the Hexagrammaton, which allows each individual unit to be assigned a ‘wing’ of the legion, providing distinct bonuses depending on what their assigned role is in your army.
The Fifth Legion: White Scars
The White Scars
The fifth legion are bult for speed. White Scars tend to be built to get the most out of the movement phase since the legion trait gives your army a blanket increase to movement, and their advanced reaction allows for massed movement in the enemy movement phase, assuming your units are placed in such a way to take the advantage.
The Sixth Legion: Space Wolves
Geigor Fell Hand
Before the Space Wolves became the overdone wolfiest wolves who ever wolfed in 40k, they were based on Vikings and berserkers, and their rules reflect this by encouraging a fast and aggressive playstyle. The sixth get access to a mass of unique war gear, and their legion trait has them getting the most out of movement to get them into melee as quickly as possible by combing run and charge tactics.
The Seventh Legion: Imperial Fists
Imperial Fists deploying for battle
The Imperial Fists are the masters of siege warfare, and as such make one of the best “stand still and shoot” armies in Horus Heresy. Their legion trait gives a bonus to hit rolls when firing any of the basic line weapons like bolters or battle cannons. This is the closest you might get to playing a ‘vanilla’ legion, but they have some tricks and war gear that allows them some additional flavor beyond what is seen at the surface.
The Ninth Legion: Blood Angels
Blood Angel Tactical Marine
Another melee-centric legion, the Blood Angels specialize in fast shock troops, jump packs, and deep striking. Like their 40k rules, the ninth get a bonus to wound rolls after charging, and their rites of war allow you to either lean heavily into deep strike or allow your units to become stronger as they suffer casualties.
The Tenth Legion: Iron Hands
Iron Hands Tactical Marine
Iron Hands are built around fielding the toughest units in a game of tough units. Their legion tactic reduces the strength of incoming attacks and provides some additional hardiness to their vehicles through the addition of It Will Not Die. These rules make basic line troops hardy enough to stand up to mass plasma fire and usually marine-killer weapons, forcing your opponent into having reduced wound rolls, or wasting high-strength weapons on shooting your line troops when they would be better served punching holes in tanks or dreadnoughts.
The Thirteenth Legion: Ultramarines
Ultramarines in combat
In the lore, the Ultramarines contend with the Dark Angels on who is the better all-around legion. Their legion tactic gives them an edge at range so long as you mass your fire at a single unit, and their advanced reaction allows you to have two units return fire rather than just one. They make up for the lack of melee in these traits by having some excellent melee war gear, allowing you to hit with high armor penetration without sacrificing your initiative.
The Eighteenth Legion: Salamanders
The Salamanders led by their Primarch ready for battle
The eighteenth legion are the second hardy legion in line with the Iron Hands. Their legion tactic allows them to reduce the wound rolls for marine-killer weapons, like plasma and volkite, while giving their tanks and multi-wound models It Will Not Die. True to their lore, Salamanders also get access to improved flame weapons and some unique units built around hitting your opponent with as much flame as possible.
The Nineteenth Legion: Raven Guard
Raven Guard arrayed for battle
The Raven Guard represent the loyalists’ guerilla fighters and provide some of the best tools to pull off alpha strikes. Another multi-parts legion tactic, much like a less flexible version of the Dark Angels, Raven Guard units are split between one of three branches providing the pre-game moves, bonuses to wound on the charge, and/or damage mitigation from incoming fire through the generous provision of the Shrouded rule.
The Traitor Legions
The Third Legion: Emperor’s Children
An Emperor’s Children dreadnought
The fanciest legion comes with a host of traits that allow them to get their attacks in assault in before their opponents and provide some strength bonuses to defensive weapons on their tanks. The advanced reaction allows you to pull out the ultimate Uno reverse card, cancelling an opponent’s charge and responding with a charge of your own.
The Fourth Legion: Iron Warriors
Iron Warriors terminators attack Imperial Fists lines
If the Imperial Fists are the experts at siege warfare, the Iron Warriors are the legion built for breaking those sieges. The fourth legion get advantages to cracking open vehicles and fortifications, and their unique war gear allows for punishing rolls to pin your opponents or hit tanks with Haywire weapons.
The Eighth Legion: Night Lords
Night Lords Marine
The Night Lords are built around using fear tactics to force their enemy to flee before shooting them in the back with their unique war gear. They gain bonuses to wound units that are pinned, falling back, or outnumbered, encouraging you to run large units of Bulky models to make sure that you can always outnumber your opponents.
The Twelfth Legion: World Eaters
A World Eaters dreadnought
There is no subtlety from the World Eaters. The twelfth legion is built for aggressive melee combat, and their legion trait allows them extra attacks following a charge, even if that charge is disordered. With this in mind it is not difficult for a despoiler squad to reach up to four attacks per model on the charge, causing your basic line troops to become a real threat against any opponent.
The Fourteenth Legion: Death Guard
A Death Guard Tactical Marine
The Death Guard fight battles through consistent violations of the Geneva Convention. Their slow plodding pace allows them to maintain steady heavy weapons fire while moving using their legion trait. Their unique war gear gives them access to chemical weapons that are particularly effective at dealing with enemy infantry.
The Fifteenth Legion: Thousand Sons
The Thousand Sons are the chief psychic faction in Horus Heresy. They benefit strongly from the rework to psychic rules, and their legion trait assigns all infantry and cavalry as psykers, with access to minor arcana for these units. This allows for some huge flexibility in your units, with the only downside being the high risk of suffering Perils of the Warp, given the volume of psychic tests you will be making.
The Sixteenth Legion: Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus
The Sons of Horus cleanse Orks from Ullanor
The Sons of Horus behave similarly to the Blood Angels in melee. Instead of increasing their own wound rolls, they reduce the strength of their opponents during the first turn of combat following a charge. Their rules, war gear, and unique units don’t lean them too heavily into ranged or melee combat, but rather support a blend of the two while making the most of elite units.
The Seventeenth Legion: Word Bearers
The Word Bearers take on Blood Angels
The Word Bearers are a force of heretics and corrupted psykers and marines that could ultimately take the blame for the start of the Horus Heresy. Their legion trait is not particularly strong, giving them some resistance to leadership reduction and winning ties in assault, but their unique war gear and unit modifiers more than make up for this weakness, giving you access to the corrupted subtype and power weapons that gain Instant Death with some lucky wound rolls.
The Twentieth Legion: Alpha Legion
The Alpha Legion have some odd tactics, which makes sense, given their lore. The legion trait comes in two parts, the first providing them additional protection from shooting attacks, and the second allowing an Alpha Legion player to select a different legion and have access to the unique units from that legion. There are some interesting options and counterplays that this creates for the legion, and makes for very flexible list building, but you have to be careful that you don’t spend your year’s paycheck on unique units from 18 different legions.
What’s Next
As this article is part of a series, I will spend the next few months going into more detail about the rules of the game and the specifics of each legion. I would like to know if there is specific content our readers would like to see, so leave a comment or join us in the Woehammer discord to let us know what points you would like to see discussed.
Peter: We’re always looking for fresh bl… I mean writers to join our team and expand our range of content. Patrick is trying his hand at a top three lists before he moves on to writing about the content he loves….. Horus Heresy.
This is the Top Three AoS lists for Quest of Champions Heat 4 that took place in the Sanctuary Gaming Centre and Coffee Shop in Sutton-in-Ashfield, UK on August 6th and 7th. Quest of Champions is run by Warrior Lodge in Nottingham, UK. There was a total of 38 players competing in this five-round heat, the top twelve of which will be invited back for a grand final later this year.
Want to watch some top AoS games for free? Ben Bailey’s new YouTube channel, Dice and Ducks were at the event giving live coverage. Round 4 and 5 are available to watch for free here.
The Warrior Lodge always have events coming up so why not check out their Twitter page and book your self on to their next event?
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Nighthaunt – Army Subfaction: Scarlet Doom – Grand Strategy: Fright or Flight – Triumphs:
LEADER Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead (955) Spirit Torment (115) – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome
BATTLELINE 20 x Bladegheist Revenants (350) 10 x Bladegheist Revenants (175) 10 x Bladegheist Revenants (175)
OTHER 2 x Chainghasts (95)
ENDLESS SPELLS Chronomatic Cogs (40) Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (1975/2000)
Patrick: One of the best parts of Age of Sigmar is seeing huge, god-tier centerpiece models not only regularly used on tables, but seeing those units perform to their points cost. Between the upgrades the Nighthaunt saw in their recent book, including their excellent spell lore, I imagine that we will begin to see Nagash show up in more Death lists as time goes on. Andrew’s list shows Nagash supporting (or being supported by) a big killy block of ghosts.
Nagash can produce an almost offensive number of spells in the Hero phase, and the re-roll from the Cogs makes those casts unlikely to be turned off by an early phase miscast. On top of that, Nagash is pulling double-duty by keeping the units of Bladegheists alive and closer to full strength throughout the fight.
Speaking of Bladegheists: there are 40 of them present in this list, including one reinforced unit. The buffs they can receive from the Chainghasts and Spirit Torment can turn them into a force to be reckoned with, and Andrew used them to great effect in this tournament. The units can be used both as mobile screens, protecting Nagash from incoming enemies, or as a melee threat while supported by the Spirit Torment and Chainghasts. The Scarlet Doom spirit host allows for the large unit of Bladegheists to reliably put out mortal wounds, leaning into one of the more common winning strategies in the current meta.
The Purple Sun makes an appearance in this list, as it does in most lists featuring wizards, and the forward push from the Arcane Tome wielding Spirit Torment allows for the Sun to be placed in a favorable position early in the game, rather than casting it and presenting opportunities for the opponent to dispel it as it works its way up the table 8” at a time.
This is also the only list featured today that uses a grand strategy other than No Place for the Weak. Fright or Flight seems to be leaning more towards a conservative defensive approach, relying on preventing enemies from contesting objectives rather than outright killing the opponent. Overall, a straightforward list, but one that saw Andrew win four of his games with a draw in the fourth round.
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Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Army Subfaction: Knights of the Empty Throne – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560) – General – Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield – Command Trait: Inescapable Doom – Artefact: Grasping Plate – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560) – Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield – Artefact: Corrupted Nullstone – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Spell: Mask of Darkness Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Spell: Mask of Darkness BATTLELINE 8 x Iron Golems (75) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
OTHER Mindstealer Sphiranx (95)
BEHEMOTH Chaos Warshrine (215) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Prayer: Heal
Patrick: What’s the best way to keep the Purple Sun from wiping your 500+ point leader on an unlucky roll? Have your 500+ point leader be a six-man squad of Varanguard! Or two of those units in Toby’s case. Toby is taking advantage of one of the stranger aspects of Knights of the Empty Throne, in that your leaders don’t need to be a single model, bringing a total of 12 Varanguard spread across two reinforced units. Both units carry Warpsteel Shields, providing them some resistance to spells and endless spells, and both have been improved through artefacts and command traits, allowing the two units to buff the defenses of nearby units, keep enemies locked in combat, and automatically dispel one spell. The leaders are rounded out through a pair of Sorcerer Lords, which can use Mask of Darkness to sling any given unit in the army to the other side of the board, allowing a unit of Iron Golems to catch a distant objective or place a 6-man unit of heroic Varanguard behind enemy lines.
The army wide Tzeentch mark and Chaos Warshrine give a clear image of how badly Toby doesn’t want his opponents to successfully cast, and when they do manage to get a spell off, he wants to make sure that it doesn’t hit as hard as his opponents expects. A Mindstealer is there to supplement the martial abilities of the already-proficient Varanguard, helping ensure that they can get the most out of the combat phase by delaying an opponent’s turn to fight.
The use of a Battle Regiment that doesn’t include all units in the army makes for an interesting addition, potentially preventing Toby’s priority but allowing him to deploy more reactively to his opponents. Those units may have been better placed in a battalion providing more utility benefits, such as an Expert Conquerors or Bounty Hunters battalion. Ultimately Toby drove this army to a top spot with the Battle Regiment, so it clearly worked. We can talk at length about the magic-heaviness of the current meta, but seeing a list that turns that around to focus on magical defense rather than output shows that there are hard counters present to arcane lists. The fact that Toby took this list to a 4/1 victory and 2nd place overall, with only a single loss to a Thunder Lizard list, shows that sometimes martial might makes right.
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Army Type: Seraphon – Army Subfaction: Thunder Lizard – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER Lord Kroak (430) – Spell: Stellar Tempest Engine of the Gods (265) – General – Command Trait: Prime Warbeast – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Mount Trait: Beastmaster – Spell: Hand of Glory – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140) – Artefact: Fusil of Conflagration Skink Priest (90) – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
BATTLELINE 5 x Saurus Guard (115) 5 x Saurus Knights (110) 5 x Saurus Knights (110)
OTHER 5 x Chameleon Skinks (115)
BEHEMOTH Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250) Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)
ENDLESS SPELL Chronomantic Cogs (40) Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Patrick: Ah, Kroaknado, how we miss thee. In such a magic and mortal wound heavy meta, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Lord Kroak remains such a strong presence in high-ranking Seraphon lists, going 4/1 with a second-round loss to Hallowed Knights. Tom takes advantage of Kroak’s 4 casting attempts, a stock +2 to casting, unbind, and dispelling rolls, and the ability to unbind spells cast anywhere on the map, Kroak is an arcane powerhouse. While this list does not take advantage of the ability to measure line-of-sight from skink wizards or Oracles, it does include some Saurus Guard to help beef up Kroak’s already impressive defenses. It’s a shame that the Balewind Vortex is no longer available, otherwise we could see Tom run the true insanity of 2nd edition Kroak.
A pair of Bastiladons are near constants in Thunder Lizard lists. Their tremendous defense and high-quality shooting always impress and taking two allows Tom to take advantage of Thunder Lizards command ability throughout the fight, leading the pair to push out an average of 18 wounds at their top bracket with more against Chaos armies or with the use of All-out Attack, enough to potentially wipe some reinforced squads of Galletian Veterans off a nearby objective.
The list includes a trio of utility heroes largely meant to improve the defenses and recover from heavy losses throughout the battle. A pair of non-reinforced Saurus Warriors act as excellent mobile screens to block the progress of enemy melee units. There is also a small cadre of Chameleon Skinks, which are an excellent harassing unit, and surprisingly durable when taking advantage of their “Perfect Mimicry” ability. While unreliable, the mortal wounds that can be caused by their dart pipes will always be appreciated when the dice are in Tom’s favor.
Two of the top three placing armies at this event included the Chronomantic Cogs and Purple Sun. These endless spells are highly effective at their current points cost, and the added boost the Cogs provide to any magic-heavy army cannot be understated. The Purple Sun remains ever-present in the meta and will probably be here to stay until the next General’s Handbook gets released.
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Army Type: Flesh-eater Courts – Army Subfaction: Hollowmourne – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
LEADER Abhorrent Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445) – Artefacts: Corpsefane Gauntlet – Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite – Spells: Deranged Transformation Abhorrent Archregent (245) – Spell: Spectral Host Crypt Infernal Courtier (130) – General – Command Trait: Grave Robber Varghulf Courtier (160)
BATTLELINE 10 x Crypt Ghouls (85) 9 x Crypt Horrors (330) 9 x Crypt Flayers (540)
ENDLESS SPELL Chronomantic Cogs (40)
CORE BATTALIONS Battle Regiment
ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS Artefact
TOTAL POINTS: (1975/2000)
Patrick: Hero-hammer is a thing of beauty and dropping half of your army’s cost on fitting four different rotting corpses into the leader slot of your roster is an excellent place to start. Thomas took an uncommon FEC list to the top ten, going 4/1 with a loss in the second round to a Scarlet Doom Nighthaunt list (I suppose Nagash is allowed to have a favorite child for the moment).
Thomas is using Hollowmourne to its full effect by taking two double-reinforced units of Crypt Horrors, with the right support from the Archregent the damage potential of these units can quickly build from fearsome to terrifying. The ability for the Terrorgheist to keep up with the extra speed provided to one unit by Deranged Transformation makes sure to keep the unit in the aura of hit roll re-rolls. The summons from both Abhorrent units can also help supplement the army’s relatively low model count by bringing large blocks of Crypt Ghouls to the field (up to 40 between the two).
The Crypt Infernal Courtier’s high Movement characteristic and artefact make it an excellent hero hunter. The Varghulf pulls its weight both by being a support hero for the Ghouls and Horrors, but also by being a melee threat by itself.
