Heresy!

I had the pleasure of joining Lord Boroth http://apostlesofcontagion.blogspot.com
in a game of Horus Heresy last Saturday. 3000 pts. per side, Night Lords vs. Iron Warriors.

Horus Heresy is an elegant game to me. Space Marines vs. Space Marines. The rites of war are interesting but still restrictive enough that they don't resemble the formations that ultimately broke 7th edition. With some minor tweaks added in like multiple grenades are allowed and
Invisibility is removed, the revised rule set for 7th is balanced and fun. We played the mission that involved kill points and choosing an enemy unit to acquire additional victory points if those were destroyed by the end of the game. The game was 6 turns. Break out the Scatter dice and Templates!

The Xiphon scouts the enemy position.

Night Lords rolled to secure first turn. Using the Terror Assault rite of war they deep struck 2 Drop pods of 10 man Terror Squads with an Apothecary included. One of my placements seemed a mistake as I dropped them near a couple Iron Warrior Medusa, intending on destroying one and completely forgetting that st. 5 Volkite Chargers would have no effect on front armor 12. This somehow worked out for me though as the unit did distract several of the Iron Warrior units who had to deal with an enemy in their back field.

10 Terror Squad fought 20 Iron Warriors for 4 turns.

The game seemed to be going the way of the Iron Warriors until the Night Lords Leviathan broke the large squad of Iron Warrior Terminators and ran them down. Then the game seemed to shift into the favor of the 8th legion.

One of the highlights included an endless combat between a Terror Squad and Iron Warrior tacticals that went on for about 4 turns. I had forgotten how effective Artificer armor could be with the help of an Apothecary. Ultimately, the Night Lords lost that fight but won the battle. I chose units with the "tank" keyword as my target unit.
Boroth chose infantry. Both choices seemed wise with the army makeups. I screwed up my counting of kill points which made the final score much closer then we had originally thought. I believe the final score was Night Lords 22 pts. Iron Warriors 16.

The game was really a lot of fun to play. As I said earlier, Horus Heresy is a beautiful system. Lots of troops (which I love) and a nice balance as both players have access to largely the same unit types. I did have to brush up on my 7th edition keywords the night before as well as some of the rules that are now different in 8th edition. But it was worth it because it was a very fun game. I hope I can continue to sprinkle in some Heresy in the near future as I love it.

Ave Dominus Nox