Horus Heresy Squads Pack

Last summer Games Workshop released the 3rd edition of Horus Heresy. For those keeping score at home, I managed to play three games of 2nd edition before they moved on. I find their urge to constantly churn their rulesets annoying, but that seems to be how it goes with their games. I probably don’t play enough Horus Heresy to justify all the boxes I have bought, but I have bought some boxes. The heart wants what the heart wants: I love those weird looking terminators.

I have managed to play a few games of 3rd edition now with Evan. We discovered that the Honest Wargamer shared some house rules for low point games that are kind of perfect for the amount of models we want to think about. The house rules for this format he has dubbed Squads restricts the game to 750 points, with further restrictions around the sorts of models you can bring, and some small changes to scoring. The house rules pack also includes some sample missions. The tweaks are quite small, but work well to scale the game down.

That said, with Heresy a small game can still feel quite big. My 746 point list was:

• Centurion
• Tactical Squad (10 models)
• Tactical Squad (10 models)
• Tactical Support Squad armed with Plasma Guns (10 models)
• Contemptor Dreadnought armed with Gravis Chainfist with in‑built Heavy flamer, Gravis Melta Cannon, and a Havoc Launcher.

32 models across 5 units still felt like a lot of minis on the table. Evan’s AdMech included even more models.

We are pretty out of practice playing the game, and unfortunately the rule book doesn’t make the game particularly easy to quickly pick up. The rule book has some of the most dreadful rules writing. So much word soup. Everything feels more complicated than it needs to be. Of course we are playing because there is still a lot to love about the game and how it works. The rules encourage a lot of flavourful situations—once you manage to parse what those rules are trying to say.

It took us a little under 3 hours to get through the game. I can’t imagine how long it’d take us to play a full 3000 points game. A lifetime, presumably. We would probably be better off playing with some experienced players. That’s what made my first experience playing at the tournament work so well.

This is currently the game Evan and I have been focused on playing. There is time for us to figure it all out. I need to name all my guys and figure out the narrative for these games. That’s where the real fun of playing lives.