Horus Heresy: Emperors Children Preview

Hello Bunnies!

Welcome to perfection! Today I will be taking a look at the Emperors Children Legion rules for Horus Heresy 2.0. These are my initial thoughts on what they may look like on the tabletop in the new edition. 

I do like the look of the how the EC have come out this time around. It has been a long time since they had any love and this feels like the update they needed. After all they have a beautiful model range and now some rules to make those models shine to perfection! The thing that I like the most from the rule set is how they feel like they will be able to play nicely as pre and post heresy force.  

Legion Trait - Flawless Execution:

When you charge you get +1 initiative and tanks get +1 to hit with defensive weapons when shot as part of reaction. 

The +1 initiative is the main thing you will be aiming to make use of and it feels very EC. It is basically the same as what the EC had access to in 1.0.The Legion specific units are going to really like this trait, as is any unit you charge with. Main downside is that it definitely leads you towards creating armies that like to assault, if you don’t assault you don’t get much from this. 

Advanced reaction - The Prefect Counter:

This look like it could be a lot of fun! Once per game Reaction to use in the Assault phase, when an enemy unit declares a charge against you, you can choose to counter by rolling a charge distance roll against your opponent, if you roll higher you get to charge instead and cancel your opponents charge. If you roll less you get to overwatch instead. 

I am loving how this could play out, don’t forgot your legion trait will kick in if you make the charge! Plus all those extra attacks! If it doesn’t work you still get to shoot, so not a huge downside.  

Warlord Traits:

The Broken Mirror - For traitors only, lets you suffer a wound instead of falling back when you fail a morale check. Reminds me of the Guard rule of shooting some one to keep from running. Not really sure about this one, situational but could be useful at points. 

Martyrs of Isstvan - Loyalist only, Gives you plus 1 to hit against all traitor legions. This is cool and fluffy and fits well with wanting to be in combat from the legion trait. 

Paragon of Excellence - Can be traitor or loyalist. I think this is interesting and possibly the most useful for the legion but maybe too situational to really shine. When you pass a morale check 12” of warlord you can give that unit +1 weapon skill. It sounds great but would only trigger if you need a morale check, which would suggest you’ve just been shot at and lost some models potentially. It will help fighting back though. Playing games will show the real worth of this trait. 

Rites of War:

The Maru Skara - I always loved the idea of this in 1.0 but ultimately just wouldn’t work. It has been given a new lease of life in 2.0. You select 4 units from elites, troops or fast attack (no heavy, slow or bombard). Those units gain outflank. Units on the board get plus 1 move whilst these units are in reserve. Those units that you have assigned to a flanking assault don’t need to make a reserve roll and you choose what turn! This just flat out sounds fun and new rules for Flanking Assault really make this shine as you can guarantee everything turning up together and when you want. 

Third Company Elite - Similar to the 1.0 version. Makes Kakophoni troops. However it doesn’t give them the Line Sub-type. I’m not sure how usual it is to make units troops but not score, I suppose it means you can take even more of them. The other benefit is a 30 point per unit upgrade to give a Surgical Augment. Fluffy and cool extra for those wanting to run the EC deep into the heresy. 

Armoury:

Surgical Augments - Sonic shriekers seem to be the best option here, it imposes a -1 to hit in rolls in combat. Again this stacks nicely with the other rules, legion traits and warlord traits. The other 2 are interesting but probably situational, one is for night fighting, the other is a low strength template weapon. 

Phoenix Pattern Power Weapons - The spear is joined by a rapier. Both are AP3 with Murderous strike. Rapier has rending. Spear gives +1 initiative on charge and breaching and is now +2 strength. Both is these look good and the spear is now so much better than the 1.0 version! Real win here! 

Phoenix Warden - a unique Tartarus centurion upgrade. Gives the Skill Unmatched and Living Icons special rules. Skill Unmatched giving you a few different options around how you fight in combat. Living Icons is +1 to combat resolution. It also gets a Phoenix Power weapon and Iron Halo included, which seems like a good deal for +30 points. 

Fulgrim:

To me Primarch’s feel a bit more like beat sticks and not the army wide buffers of before. With that said Fulgrim looks great and has retained much of what he had in 1.0. He is a beast in combat and will be hard to deal with once there. He can still choose between the Lear blade and the Fireblade. I like both and 1 isn’t an obvious choice over the other, which is better than 1.0. Fireblade hasn’t changed but the Lear blade gains fleshbane and Duellist’s Edge. His warlord trait give all EC models that can see him access to his leadership for leadership and morale checks. The whole army also gains +1 to combat res. The first Reaction used byt Fulgrim and unit doesn’t use up any of your allocation. His invun is +3 up in combat and +4 elsewhere. He still gains attacks in combat based on the difference between his initiative and his opponent. He is has a once per game ability that requires the opponent to pass a leadership check to do reactions against Fulgrim as his unit. 

Overall he feel better than before but still seems an individual all about him. That is probably as it should be!

Phoenix Terminators:

These used to suck. The no longer do! As with all termies they have an extra wound (Yay!!) The are cheaper in points, gain the same rules as the Phoenix Warden mention above. They have also gained stubborn. You can take them as a Retinue command squad now, and even give one of them a legion standard. These guys have finally seen the update they sorely needed for 10 years! I expect to see them in a lot of EC lists. 

Palatine Blades:

They gained a wound as well! However they can no longer take jump packs. Phoenix Weapons can be taken by all and are only +5 points. They have counter attack and the new Skill Unmatched rule as well. Overall these too feel like an upgrade over 1.0. It will be great to see these guys on the tabletop. 

Kakophoni:

Rightly so the Kakophoni are limited to traitors only. The are now fearless rather than stubborn. The Cacophony weapon is also much improved. First up it’s an assault 3 pinning and gains the new shell shock rule (-1 to leadership on pinning). It still Gets Hot but does now have Deflagrate. I’ve never been a fan of this side of the EC however if you’re going down the later heresy route these guys are going to be very useful. 

Lord Commander Eidolon:

Gone up in points and no longer has the option to add the jump pack, it is just part of him. He mostly retains much of the same rules as before. His warlord trait is all about him! You nominate a Rival in your opponents army and get a bunch of buffs around wounding and Reactions of the Rival and his unit. He looks like a solid choice to lead your army and will beat up basically anything you put in front of him! 

Saul Travitz:

Many people love Travitz from the original trilogy of the Black Library books and rightly so as he is an awesome character. He finally received his model as well! He is a well priced leader for your loyalist army. His warlord trait makes him and any unit within 12’ fearless, if you meet one of 4 different criteria. Looks good and very fluffy as well. He gains a big bunch of buffs for fighting EC traitors, super situational but again very fluffy. Finally his sword is really good and a big improvement over the previous version, +2 strength, Rending on a +4 and Duellist edge (2). Love the look of his rule set, especially for the point costs!

Captain Lucius:

The new kid on the block, at least in terms of rules and model! He is the definition of a character killing machine, all his rules are designed to show off his true skill in combat, and he will very much be a very scary opponent to face down with any other character or unit. He will definitely be cutting big holes in your opponents army. He is armed with 2 swords, one is Fulgrim’s Lear blade and the other is called Nineteen. Nineteen looks like it will be great for cutting people with Rending on a 3+ however the downside is no AP basic on the weapon. His rule set is very much as you would want and hope for from someone so infamous in the lore as Lucius. 

Overall I really like the look of the EC’s rule set! It is even tempting me start them again and get them playing how I wanted to all those years ago! Of course I would run them as loyalist and set before the legions fall and I am thankful that approach still looks possible in 2.0

P.S Notice the likely new plastic Land Raider on the painted miniature page! Looks great! 

Happy gaming!

Andy

Posing a dread

Hello all!

I was asked around a month ago to do a post on how I go about posing my dreads. I have recently built a contemptor for my Emperor's Children and took some photographs as I went to show off the process that I go through.

I always aim to pose the dreads in a human way. What I mean by that is no poses that I can't do myself. So if the dread is running it's legs are alined in a way that you would expect to see from an athlete running on a track. Legs don't bend back much at the hip and should stay inline with the back.

The other thing to remember is that they are very heavy!! I imagine that they are agile and able to do whatever a marine could do but with a lot more weight. This means that the joints  and stance of the legs will need to compensate for this weight. Legs are therefore unlikely to ever be completely straight and wide stances would be used to balance themselves.

Momentum will be a huge factor in a dreads ability to cause damage. They have weight and would want throw that weight around. As such I think arms will keep moving and hips keep turning to stop them from getting bogged down.

I chose to start with my double close combat contemptor for the EC and a knew I wanted it running forward, cutting enemies down as it went.

Get all your parts cleaned up and cut off the sprue. Get some blue tac ready, you will be using it for setting out your pose. 

Example of how I apply the blue tac. Be patient, it can be a pain to get it stick together sometimes! 

As I wanted the running pose I started with the legs and working out a rough layout for them. All of this is blue tac'ed together. The blue tac under the feet is built up a bit and will potentially end up as green stuff. Adding some green stuff under the feet will help you to lift the feet and create some more dynamic poses. It can be covered by your basing materials later. 

Torso and hips added to check that it works. The current layout is what I was referring to above with the running poses. 

I often add green stuff to joints at the hip and feet to give a wider range of movement to them, this again allows you to creates a more dynamic pose. The blue tac can work like green stuff to space joints to give you an idea of what movement you might be able to achieve. 

I have started working on the arms. Originally I had planned to have the front arm shooting and the back swinging back ready for a punch. This changed as it went along and I ditched the front arm shooting in favour of creating a bigger looking punch. 

By removing the front arm from shooting it freed up the pose a lot. I turned the hip more to create the dramatic back swing of the left arm. One thing to note it that you need to pick a focal point for the face. This would be the enemy that he is fighting, I turn it to be looking at them along the line of sight of the primary weapon that it is currently using. For example a dual shooting weapon dread will be making use of the one of the arms and it will be looking down the barrel of that gun, straight at what it is shooting. In the case here he is looking at the thing he is about to swing his fist into. I added a bit of green stuff under the head to lift it up slightly as the torso is angled down a lot. 

Use the hips to tilt and turn the dread. I have both of the hip joints pivoting in slightly different directions and angles to create movement. Experiment with turning them all to get a feel what they can add to the appearance. 

I have reached a point I'm now happy with. Now start pulling bits off and get the glue and green stuff out and carefully recreate each part of the pose. It will change slightly as you get glueing, the blue tac pushes the parts apart more than the glue will so it won't quite look the same and some parts don't hold as well with the blue tac and sag slightly. 

Here is the final pose on the dread. 

I'm pleased with the final pose. I did mess up the claw on the left arm. I glued it at the wrong angle. The claws should have been on top. I noticed it too late and the glue had set! I'm deciding if I'm ok with it or not, so I may change that. 

Hopefully you have been able to pick up a tip or two, comment below if you have any further questions. I have another 2 contemptors to build for the EC so can expand more if needed. 

Happy Hobby!

Darien

Emperor's Children Update 5: Fixing a Storm Eagle

Hello all!

When I first started in the Heresy a few years back I feel in love with the Storm Eagle model and promptly ran out and purchased one! I knew I should leave building it until I was more experienced working with resin but I couldn't resit. I set about building it for my Sons of Horus army. It went badly!

You can see the big gaps that I left in the front! I hadn't worked out that a hairdryer is a Forge World's fan best friend. I also realised that I managed to glue the front wings on the way! I also glued the heavy bolters up the wrong way! >.< The front and rear hatches were also some what disastrous!

The Storm Eagle had originally been intended for the Sons of Horus, however I never really found a place in the army list. I contemplated selling it off but while playing around with lists and campaign ideas I decided that it would fit in well with the Emperor's Children.

Now that it was staying in the collection it needed some serious love and attention! I set about fixing it! First up I snapped the front wings off and tidied up the glue on them. Got them back on the right way, as well as up the right way! Next I dealt the front ramp and the crazy gaps I had left. I scraped the glue out from around the bottom of the ramp and managed to free up the all sides so that I could close the gaps. Then out came the hairdryer to warm up the sides and get them bent back in place. 

I fixed the rear ramp and the bent a few other bit and pieces back into shape. Now it looks like it should! Well nearly, not a lot a could do heavy bolters being up the wrong way. It's now ready to join the ranks of the Emperor's Children. The only thing I have left to decide upon is whether to go with etched brass or transfers. 

Anyone else managed to make a mess of building a model? Did you manage to fix it?

Happy hobby! 

Darien 

Emperor's Children: Update 4

Hello all!

Progress has been steady on my Emperor's Children project. I am approaching the painting stage, hopefully within the next month or so. I have been looking at the list I will be able to build out of all the units that I have built so far. I have sort of settled on list that I think will play how I want. Once the last few bits are done hopefully I will be able to get some practice games in as they are going to play very differently to my Sons of Horus First Company.

One thing I noticed while list building is that I seem to have very few vehicles and it is going to be a very infantry heavy army!

I have completed building my Pheonix guard, they are very pretty models! They should be a blast to paint!

I did notice that the arms on these models don't make an anatomical sense as they seem to be above the head...

Oh well they still look damn cool! 

Happy hobby! 

Darien

Emperor's Children: Update 3

Hello!

Progress continues with the Emperor's Children! I decided to stick with my original plan of a 10 man Volkite support squad. I was going to arm the squad sergeant with a Power Spear, however none of the weapons had the hands the right way around! I was going to do some hand swapping but in the end figured a bit of a variety would be good!

You may have seen in update 2 I had 5 Lascannon heavy support squad done and had another 5 to build but I was debating what to arm them with. In the end, again, I stuck to my original plan and added another 5 man Lascannon squad to the growing army. 

I have also finally sat down and tested out my colour scheme plan. I used a Leadblecher base, which a brushed on. Then a zenith though the airbrush with a vallejo silver, followed by a nuln oil wash and then airbrushed Eidolon purple from Forge World. I am happy with the purple, the nuln oil wash needs some work, I need to thin it down more either with medium or pledge.

I do need to try a varnish on the purple. I am thinking of trying purity seal but I know this could lead to problems. 

Next up I am planning to get the legion specifics built. I have 10 Phoenix Guard and 20 Palatine Blades to build. I do need to get my hands on 20 Mk4 jump packs for the Palatines though! 

Darien 

Emperor's Children: Update 2

Hello!

I have been continuing my work on my Emperor's Children in the background, whilst I work on getting 15 Custodes painted up for the group. I have completed building the 4 15 man tactical squads I was working on. I have added a 5 man lascannon squad and a 5 man plasma support squad to the growing legion.

The lascannon need the cables adding to them. 

I plan on doing another 5 man heavy squad and another support squad but I am undecided on what to arm them with. Originally I had planned to have another 5 lascannons and a 10 man support squad with volkite. I am now debating whether I should mix it up a bit more and arm them up differently. What do you think would be good heavy and support squads for the EC's?

Happy hobby!

Darien

Emperor's Children: Update 1

Hello!

As you maybe aware I am starting work on my Emperor's Children. They have been a long while coming, as I purchased the models for them this time last year! I have opened packets, picked up clippers, knife and glue and started putting stuff together!

I decided that the best way was to go for some batch building for my feet on the ground so set about clipping 110 tactical marines (about 80 of them are for the EC, the other will be green SoH) off the sprue and separating all the bits into boxes to make the construction easier. I also washed all the resin upgrade sets that I had and got to work. So far I have managed to put together 18 marines.

I will be doing 4 squads of 15, the sergeants will all have power spears because they are cool! I will also be adding the top note to them, to help them stand out from the crowd.

I have a Sicaran and Rhino built as well, I haven't yet decided between etched brass or transfers for the legion symbols on them.

I will be building more tactical this week and will hopefully break the back of the construction on them! 

Happy Hobby!

Darien 

3rd Legion - The Emperor's Children

Hello Bunnies!

For the month of December we are working through the Legions that we are planning on working on. The idea is to give you all an update as to where we are with each legion and what we plan to do when we get around to working on them. So on the 3rd we bring you an update on the 3rd Legion The Emperors Children.

Where I am: 

Not very far! As you can see I own the models but not started working on them yet, they currently sit in large cardboard box! Work will be beginning within the next 2 months. The last thing I need buy is the Power Spears, thankfully the are now available! 

Whats the plan:
The legion will be fully based within the Great Crusade and usable up until Isstvan 5, after that they don't appeal to me as they go a bit to crazy!

My plan is to base them around a small expeditionary force lead by Darien Vasco. It will be a pathfinder style force consisting of a company of marines and support elements. The will operate ahead of the bulk of the legion and undertake small compliances. This will allow me to create some unique campaigns for them to play, plus have the bulk of the legion follow up behind if needed if I want to use some different characters or Fulgrim. I would really like to follow Darien Vasco through his whole great crusade and tell his story through various campaigns to find out what his ultimate fate is! I will also make use of the legion within other better known campaigns.

3000 point list plan:
Preator (Darien Vasco)
Champion
10 Tacticals in Rhino
10 Tacticals in Rhino
20 Tacticals on Foot
10 Palatine blades
10 phoenix guard
4 Jetbikes
3 Javelins
Sicaran
Spartan

Characters:
These are the characters that I will painting/creating to support various campaigns or because they are cool!
Fulgrim
Eidolon
Darien Vasco
Saul Travitz
Lucius

I may also do some of these guys if needed:
Solomon Demeter
Fabius
Julius Kaesoron

Painting:
2 options for this, I will be trying:
Iron hands steel base, Runefang steel highlight, nuln oil wash, 2 coats of Eidolon clear purple.

Second option:
The 2 forgeworld purples, nuln oil in the recesses.

What do you want to see?
What campaigns would you like to see the 3rd in?
What other characters would you like to see?

Happy hobby!

Darien

Forge World new releases: Custodes Grav Tank

Hi guys, lets see what goodies Forge World are releasing this week!

The headline item this week is the Caladius Grav Tank for the Legiones Custodes:

This is retailing at £85 and is a beautiful kit. You can also get this new kit with a squad of Legiones Custodes for £120 - a surprising move considering that you can't get the Prospero squads as separate kits yet but it also tells us that they will retail for £35 per squad of 5, not bad at all compared to the Calth plastics!

In addition to the grav tank, we also have the following legion upgrade kits:

All of the kits (apart from the plastic Custodes) were available at the 40k open day at the start of the month so are a welcome release for anyone who missed out then.

What do you guys think of this weeks releases?

Until next time!

Hector Cephas

Emperor's Children Tactics Discussion

Hello all!

My last post focused on what I have planned for my next legion, The Emperor's Children. Today I want to discuss my current thoughts on how I will play them. I would love to here from you all what you think of my plans and any suggestions you might have to help me out once I get them to the table!

A quick reminder on the army that I have planned:
Troops:
2 x 20 man tactical marines
2x 10 man tactical marines with rhino's

Elites:
10 Phoenix Terminators
2 x 10 man Platine Blades (I think with jump packs but I haven't decided yet.)

Fast attack
6 Jetbikes
3 Javelin attack speeders
Xiphon

Heavy support
10 heavy support marines with lascannons
Sicaran
3 Predators with lascannons

Lords of War:
Fell blade

The army is set during the Great Crusade and will of course contain a selection of characters to lead them. I am very keen to capture the perfect style of warfare that the Emperor's Children aimed to achieve, with a fast moving attack to hit the enemy hard. 

I plan on using the Unique Rite of War: The Maru Skara. This looks like a great starting place to capture the legions feel. It consists of an Open Blade which provides bonuses to movement on the first turn for all units and a Hidden Blade that gives 3 elites/and or fast attack units outflank and a guarantied arrival turn. 

Currently I am thinking that I will use the Hidden Blade for my 3 fast attack choices to provide some hard hitting firepower to one flank of my opponent when I think it will be needed most. 

The game plan thus looks like this:

1. All units deploy, except the 3 in the Hidden Blade

2. Make use of the extra 1" move on the first turn to push all units up the mid field to put some serious pressure on my opponent straight away. 

3. Bring the hidden Blade in from one side of my opponent on turn 2 to try to push them into one corner.

4. Send in the Palatine Blades, Phoenix Guard and 2 20 man tactical squads to assault the enemy infantry.

5. Use the 2 tactical squads in Rhino's to support the assaulting units and provide reinforcement where required. 

6. The tanks and lascannon squad focus on any armour and providing fire support to see of any counter assault units where possible. 

Currently I am thinking:

Are the 3 fast attack choices the best for the Hidden Blade? 

Do you think Phoenix Guard or Palatine Blades could go with the Hidden Blade?

What turn is best for the Hidden Blade to arrive on? 

Any help or advice you could provide would be awesome! 

Darien

Darien Vasco the next legion: Emperor's Children

Hello all!

I have spent the last 10-11 months working non stop on my Sons of Horus First Company. I am running out of steam and models to paint for them, having finished about 5500 points! I still have a little bit to finish off and I will hopefully be completing a few more bits ready for the Shadow War campaign at the end of October.

I am now looking to get going on my next legion, The Emperor's Children.

I found coming up with a list to be quite straight forward. I wanted to include elements that I felt suited the legion as well as those that Fulgrim was known to favour. I also wanted to make sure they play very differently to the Sons of Horus. As such I have planned to include lots of marines, some fast moving elements and of course the legion specific units. The legion will be set in the great crusade era so will be seen at its high and before it starts it fall to Chaos, meaning I won't be making any use of  Kakophoni or Sonic Shriekers.

The army will be headed up by a bunch of different characters depending on the campaign they are fighting at the time. Fulgrim, Saul Travitz, Eidolon and Darien Vasco will be main leaders. The current line up for the army is as follows:

Troops:
2 x 20 man tactical marines
2x 10 man tactical marines with rhino's

Elites:
10 Phoenix Terminators
2 x 10 man Platine Blades (I think with jump packs but I haven't decided yet.)

Fast attack
6 Jetbikes
3 Javelin attack speeders
Xiphon

Heavy support
10 heavy support marines with lascannons
Sicaran
3 Predators with lascannons

Lords of War:
Fellblade

It will mostly be used with the Emperor's Children Rite of War The Maru Skara. Which will add another different level of play feel over the rest of legions.

As for painting I am planning on getting some test models done soon, I think I will be using a metallic scheme to match the art from the black books. Base coat leadbleacher, zenith highlight with runefang, wash with nuln oil and then wash with Eidolon clear from forgeworld. I am not sure what gold to use yet, so any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully this will then look like this:

I would love to know your thoughts on the list and paint scheme plan!

Happy Hobbying!

Darien

Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal - An overview

In the Bunny camp we have decided that its time for us to do an overview of our favourite books, the Horus Heresy series from Forgeworld. Book number 6 has just been released and we want to show those of you that might be on the fence about purchasing this great series that it is well worth it! We are kicking this series off with Betrayal. Below you will find an overview of each of the chapters and my thoughts on the content.

Book 1: Betrayal

Preface

The book starts with a small 1 page preface written by the 'author' of the book. Now I don't mean the actual author (That was Alan Bligh) but by the character that Alan uses to tell the fateful stories from. This is a nice touch which gives me impression that what I am reading has been taken from the depths of a library somewhere on Terra to discover the horrible truth of a past long gone. This character, most likely a remembrancer, signs the page AK. While a very simple page, it seems to me to add some real weight and significance to the words locked up for all time in the book. Almost as though the storyteller can't believe the story he is retelling actually happened. The art work at the begin is incredible and help sets the mood of the horrors of the story to come.

The Age of the Emperor

For the Horus Heresy to make sense we need to understand what came before the it. The 13 pages making up this section detail the rise of the Imperium and the Emperors. The story kicks off with details regarding the Age of strife, followed by The Unification Wars and the rise of the Imperium. It then moves onto the Great Crusade, more details around the Imperium's make up and finally the beginning of doubt within Horus. If you are not overly familiar with the pre-heresy fluff then this is great chapter that will help to fill in your knowledge. If you happen to know the facts then there are still some great tidbits of information that you may not have been aware of to be discovered.

The Legiones Astartes

A small chapter that details the history of the Astartes, starting with creation and Initiation. This is followed by the strategic disposition of the Legions. It's a great resource, showing the ideal composition of the legions. You will find the various ranks and structures in place within a legion detailed, as well as some of the assets that the legions had at there disposable. You may find this extremely helpful if you're aiming to recreate a sizeable chunk of a legion or, like us Bunnies, creating your own characters of differing ranks.

The Death of Isstvan III

Here is where you find the story of the Warmaster's betrayal, split into a three part story detailing all of the events that took place on Isstvan III. If you have read the first 3 Horus Heresy books from Black Library then this part of the story will be mostly familiar, however this version is more fact driven rather than focusing on the major characters. It is an account of all the events told from the perspective of someone that witnessed them first hand or at least gathered all the information available from those that has witnessed them. It is a really good read. I enjoyed having all the information being in one place, along with detailing some of the elements that were not covered in the Black Library books. Each of the legions that fought on the planet have there time in the spot light. If you wanted more details of what the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters or Emperors Children parts in the story then this is certainly the place to find it! The art work looks great as always. There are 2 orbital picts of the Choral City which show the avenues of attack that all the legions took at different times of the battle. The orbital picts really show the scale of conflict and helps reinforce what the story has to say about the forces involved. Ending this chapter are several picts of some of the legions vehicles, extremely useful for painting ideas or styles that you may want to use on your own vehicles.

The Space Marine Legions

This chapter is entirely devoted to the four legions that fought on Isstvan. It contains loads of specific details on each legions history, structure, fighting style and exemplary battles. As well as plenty of art of the legionnaires armour and armoury, again extremely useful for understanding what your legion of choice looked like during the lead up to and during the events of Isstvan III. If you're collecting Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters, Emperors Children or are a fluff buff then you really need to read this part of the book! The information contained is first rate and can help you to solidify the direction you take with your legion, as well as giving you a greater understanding of what each legion was like before the Heresy.

Legio Mortis
This is for the Legio Mortis what the previous chapter was for the legions. Great for fluff buffs or Mortis collectors.

The Death of Isstvan III Campaign

Have you ever fancied playing out the battles of Isstvan? I know I have! The chance to recreate these awesome moments from 'history' that we have been reading about for years has always been something that I have wanted to do. Forgeworld has now given us a great guide on how to recreate these battles an in fact have laid out an entire campaign. Included in this chapter is 6 deployment maps and 6 missions specifically for your battles in the Age of Darkness. Having used these in games that I have played, I can safely say that they are fun, fluffy, enjoyable to play and better than the 40k counterparts! These are really supplement missions intended to fill out the campaign before the main events, 4 Legendary Battles that are intended to represent the major conflicts that took place on Isstvan III. These look fantastic and I am looking forward to playing these with the other Bunnies in the future. As a bonus they have including the Zone Mortalis expansion as well, although I prefer the boarding mission version in Book 3.

Battles in the Age of Darkness & Space Marine Legion Crusade Army List

At the time of its release this was the place to find all the information you needed to construct a legion. This chapter is unfortunately outdated now due to the additions and updates made across the other books. The release of the Legion Army list red book includes an updated version of this very army list. Since this separate army list book was released I have not made use of this chapter!

Space Marine Legion Army List Appendix I 
Again at the time of the release this was a awesome chapter, it features the rules to the 4 Isstvan legions. Unfortunately as with the previous chapter this is now outdated, twice in fact, so you certainly won't be using this book for these rules.

Age of Darkness Army List Appendix: The Mechanicum
The start of the Mechanicum army list, again very outdated now, don't buy this book for this list! After the Mechanicum list are Forgeworlds Apocalypse rules, which are sort of useful but again not particularly up to date.

My Thoughts
This is a brilliant book, I highly recommend it! The quality of the book is outstanding, each page feels special and the leather finish on the cover combined with the silver metal corners helps to finish off the overall look. The art work is brilliant and inspirational. The story that it tells, while familiar, is a really good read and provides a lot of information that isn't available elsewhere. The legion information is the stand out and if you are a die hard fan of one of the four legions featured in this book then you should definitely be considering getting it. The downside is the out of date army lists which take up nearly half the book. Being the first book also goes against it. Book 2 feels a lot more refined than this one and the legion content included in book 2, is on the whole, better. If I was just starting in the Heresy now would I buy this book? Definitely! They are a Warhammer 30k/40k fan and collectors dream!

What are your thoughts on this book?

Darien