[HH1.0] Sons of Horus Tactica

[Nomadic Thunder]

If you can magnetise them, then i'd say do that for the 5 additional marines, then let us all know how it went as i'd be very interested to hear.

 

The Sons specialise in decapitation and hard-hitting shock assault. What better way than 10 microwave radiation beams to the face of the enemy's warlord?

Drop 'em in and pray to the dice gods...

[ToyShip]

Alright guys, I think I am going to be joining the Sixteenth. What would a decent (not necessarily competitive, but I don't want to get table wiped every game) 1000pt list look like?

 

Are Reavers worth running with plain bolters and banestrikes? Maybe add in a couple plasma guns and a power weapon on the chieftain. Or should I stick to Vets if I want to go that way? 

 

So far without running points I am thinking the following:

 

Delegatus w/ Black Reaving

2x10 man Reaver Squads

1x Contemptor Cortus with Autocannon and CCW

 

Open to suggestions on additions, I imagine I'll need ant-tank and possibly transports.

[The Scorpion]

 

Are Reavers worth running with plain bolters and banestrikes? Maybe add in a couple plasma guns and a power weapon on the chieftain. Or should I stick to Vets if I want to go that way? 

 

I'd dare to say yes, precision shots allows their AP3 rounds to dance around artificer armor. Keep in mind that each banestrike bolter is the cost of a meltabomb tho, and that reavers exel in close combat with chainaxes.

 

Always take the special weapons. And if you are going to be outflanking, reavers are better than vets since they can go up to 15 man, which is a great help for activating Merciless Fighters.

[The Ironic Warrior]

I'd say Reavers are an absolutely great unit to field for fluff and general "Sons of Horus" vibes, but sadly they are somewhat overcosted for what they bring to the table. Their job is better performed by Weapon Master Veterans, and I find regular Assault Marines are just as helpful. If you want a really nice unit for doing some damage, Destroyers are totally worth their points now and I always try to squeeze a 10 man squad with jump packs and melta bombs into my lists.

 

Javelins are really good as well, and play right into the encirclement tactics the XVIth love to utilise, and bikes of any flavour are fun without being too ridiculous to field. Dreadclaws are a perfect delivery mechanism, but you do have to make the choice of whether you use the standard one with Inertial Guidance, or the cheaper SoH one without it (two different units and the SoH one was never updated as per the FAQ) so I'd recommend the pricier one. Justaerin are great to put in them too!

 

Hope this helps!

[The Scorpion]

 (two different units and the SoH one was never updated as per the FAQ)

 

[rages in vain against the heavens]

[The Ironic Warrior]

 

 (two different units and the SoH one was never updated as per the FAQ)

 

[rages in vain against the heavens]

 

Yeeeeeep, it explicitly states which Dreadclaw was updated, and the LA one never directly replaced it. 100% dumb, I use the 115pt one at all times just to make sure I don't get caught out on that one but I have yet to meet a SoH player who believes they are one and the same unit *single tear*

[The Scorpion]

I was thinking about which legions can make the most use out of vanilla RoWs, and Skyhunter Phalanx came to mind: with Merciless Fighters, the jetbikes become better in melee, and the trick of moving into ongoing reserves to gain Outflank should have great synergy with "tip of the spear".

[CaptainBoxman]

Hey chaps. I've been doing my SoH for a while, but was thinking I might try to create the first company with Justaerin and the Catulan Reavers. I know it's probably not "viable" but how would you go about putting the first company together?

[Varyn]

You've got several options, most of which revolve around taking a character or RoW which unlocks terminators/reaver/veterans as troops, thus making your army more focused on a first company theme. Maloghurst is a great option as he makes reavers/veterans troops and he has 'Master of the Legion' so you can unlock a rite of war. 

 

You could also consider running veterans and painting them up as catulan reavers, which are essentially a mix of veterans and reavers.

 

If I was starting SoH from scratch along these lines, I would probably go with orbital assault with Maloghurst, lots of reavers, veterans and justaerin. It would definitely be viable, you just need to plan your army :) 

[Chaeron]

If I was starting SoH from scratch along these lines, I would probably go with orbital assault with Maloghurst, lots of reavers, veterans and justaerin. It would definitely be viable, you just need to plan your army :)

I’d echo this, if only because it’s what I’m trying to do :lol:. Okay, a few extra options too - but I love the thought of Orbital Assault and a build that uses those Legion specialists, so it’s totally logical for me.

 

Would be interested to see what everyone else is working towards!

[The Ironic Warrior]

Hey chaps. I've been doing my SoH for a while, but was thinking I might try to create the first company with Justaerin and the Catulan Reavers. I know it's probably not "viable" but how would you go about putting the first company together?

 

If you want to run Reavers you want to take Maloghurst or the Black Reaving.

 

Justaerin are great, I love them but they are pricey so don't rely on them to form the bulk of your army as they WILL be priority target and WILL get murdered. This will leave you with minimal scoring units left, so make sure you have Tacticals or something else to score late-game.

 

The 3 main ways to field Justaerin are either:

1. Bodyguard for Horus in a spooky drop-bomb with combi-weapons and other melee nastiness. This rocks and is great for 7 man squads
2. Bodyguard for a Praetor or other character riding in a Caestus or Kharybdis. Pretty tasty, but not invincible
3. Tank-hunting squads in units of 5 riding in a Dreadclaw (but this is done better by regular Terminators for less points)

Reavers are over costed for what they do sadly, they are fun to field with jump packs but their jobs are done better by Veterans which is a shame. If you insist on fielding them though, jump pack and chain axes with a couple of meltaguns for popping vehicles is good to harass via Outflank, but make sure you pick your targets right; Reavers are a bully unit and excel at picking on units that can't fight back or don't want to be in melee (like Mortis', Deredeos or Quad Mortars/Heavy Support Squads).

Hope this helps out! 

[CaptainBoxman]

Thanks chaps. I'm thinking about how I'm going to equip Justaerin; I know that squads with Combi Plasma/Melta are preferable in general, but how do:

 

Larger squads get armed?

Smaller squads with Combi-Bolters and/or Axes instead of the fancier options do?

[Theredknight]

Hey guys, what’s a decent 1500pt centurion list?

It’s the mournival rules.

No idea how to build SOH!

[Dark Legionnare]

Hey guys, what’s a decent 1500pt centurion list?

It’s the mournival rules.

No idea how to build SOH!

I don't know Centurion myself, and Mournival sparingly. But assuming general usability is the same (threw both criteria into battlescribe real quick) why not:

 

 

RoW: I REALLY love "Long March" but Chosen Duty (Delagatus Veterans are Troops one) is also good in small games. Scoring is good, and doesn't have the penalty potential of "Pride of the legion")

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------HQ's--------------------------------------------------------------------

• HQ 1: Delagatus w/loadout of choice.
  • Get him the gear you want, don't forget the free MasterCraft he gets. Take art armor no matter what, etc...
• HQ 2: Centurion (Warmonger) w/loadout.
  • Don't forget the iron halo and digilasers he gets in his upgrade. So kit him for melee well. Take art armor, etc...
  • He also allows a unit to deepstrike, very rare in 30k.

----------------------------------------------------------------Troops--------------------------------------------------------------------

• Troops 1: Tacticals (I love me a 15 man w/apothecary). Sarge w/art, maybe powerfist, melta bomb, etc...
• Troops 2: same as above
• Troops 3: Vet squad w/2 meltaguns, sarge w/combi-melts, art, & powerfist, rhino DT w/pintle if points filling. Vet tactics: machine killer.
  • (If trimming points, I always take the combis off sarge first. He's expensive enough already w/fist and Art-armor)
• Troops 4: #3 vets duplicated

----------------------------------------------------------------Elites--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

• Elite 1: Legion Terminator to go w/warmonger. 5-6 guys is good.(Looks like theyre elites in centurion from a cursory glance at it).
  • Cataphractii is a staple, and hardy (4+ invuln) shooters
  • Tartaros for overwatch, run, and sweeping advance ability are valid too.
  • DS'ing, so take some combis or such so they can do some specific damage if landing close to priority inf or tanks.
    • (Don't forget "Death dealers" in this case, mentioned below.)
  • Make sure to have 1-2 chainfists for fighting dreads, tanks, etc... ESPECIALLY dreads. Dreads love to eat expensive infantry no-matter-what, so having potential AP1 armorbane "kill-them-back" is a must.

• Elite 2: apothecary detachment to babysit foot-slog tacticals. x2 apoths
  • AWLAYS TAKE ART ARMOR.
  • Augery scanner for the 15 man tacs can be pretty nice for points filling by helping soften up sneaky infantry/termis. It's cheap too.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------Final Ideas/Ideals--------------------------------------------------------------------

(This was fast, and dirty. Take it with a grain of salt as a generalist idea)

 

Takeaways:

• Don't underestimate "Fury of the Legion" in small games. On a 15 man squad, a FoTL in rapid fire range (say, against opponent melee/deepstrike) is nothing to sneeze at. (60 shots).
  • A lot of times, that will deal with even another enemy terminator unit.
• As SoH you love outnumbering opponents prior to unwieldy weapons. Body count and bulky are good. (This will matter a good deal with Reavers mentioned below)

• Death Dealers is a solid generalist buff. Especially with melta/plasma for vets, reavers, combi-termis, etc...
  • Doesn't work on FotL, but even 30 BS5 shots can do damage.
• Machine Killers on vets is almost always a good idea.  It means that cursory krak toss is even better at killing light - med, and your boltguns can now pretty reliably glance 1-2 off AV11, and pen AV10. Especially if up close for "Death Dealers". IE, if heading up-table to get at what the melta are for, a rhino crosses your path at 13+" (outside melta) away trying to slow you, dakka that SoB. (Plasma 24" advantage here)

• Could swap the vets for plasma too for generalist range work.  S8 plasma (machine killers) at AP2 can at-range carve infantry, elite infantry, and put some mild hurting on light to medium vehicles.  If you do that though, you're basically relegated to melee to deal with anything AV14. Especially something "all around 14" like a land-raider.

• I've heard reavers become pretty darn decent in Mournival, so that could be something to forgo a vet squad for. (And then for sure change your RoW to "Long march". Never, ever, underestimate entire-mid-table "fleet". That will save your bacon on bad runs or charge, many, many times.  Also, crusader in the enemy deployment zone is clutch many times. Many a sweeping-advance has been had JUST from the additional D3 w/ crusader.)
  • Their ability to "snipe" on 6's with plasma, especially in Mournival where they can get artificer armor to cover for gets hot issues, can be amazing. Sniping squad art-armor sarges, apothecaries, etc... Melta is also valid for this, as it will ID apoths (no FNP) and not risk melting yourself. Take a melta-bomb on the sarge.
  • Always take chainaxes on any guy who can, then the requisite 1-2powerswords, axe, fist, whatever for dealing with other 2+ armor. Possibly cut down the tacs and an apoth to put the one apoth in a dreadclaw with 9 reavers, and the two 10-man-now tacs on foot as backfielders.
• Losing the warmonger and a terminator squad member (to become a five man) and trimming points elsewhere to get a Land raider to put them in would be viable too.

• Trimming and adjusting to have a contemptor would also be good. If taking a contemptor, take two guns, or two melee (1 chain, 1 normal DCCW)
  • I find that way a weapon destroyed doesn't ruin your day.
  • Immobilized is likely going to ruin your day on guns or melee, so, oh well.
• If taking "Long March", don't forget it lets you re-roll 1's to hit with guns in turn one.  Not too valid in the above sample list, but may help if they rush up, you pop a transport, and then want to FotL something.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Dark Legionnare

[Gorgoff]

 

Hey guys, what’s a decent 1500pt centurion list?

It’s the mournival rules.

No idea how to build SOH!

I don't know Centurion myself, 

Then you should visit here first: Mournival Events 3.0 Digital Version.pdf - Google Drive

In short:

Tanks are not allowed, which sadly makes your list and some of your ideas (not all of them!) invalid.

 

Although I like veterans myself I think it is pretty boring to dublicate them.

Or any unit.

There is just so much more about HH then only a handful of units.

Especially for Centurion mode which should be all about having fun with lots of infantry.

Two blobs of tacticals is great, though, because it fits the narrative so well.

[Dark Legionnare]

 

 

Hey guys, what’s a decent 1500pt centurion list?

It’s the mournival rules.

No idea how to build SOH!

 

I don't know Centurion myself,

Then you should visit here first: Mournival Events 3.0 Digital Version.pdf - Google Drive

In short:

Tanks are not allowed, which sadly makes your list and some of your ideas (not all of them!) invalid.

 

Although I like veterans myself I think it is pretty boring to dublicate them.

Or any unit.

There is just so much more about HH then only a handful of units.

Especially for Centurion mode which should be all about having fun with lots of infantry.

Two blobs of tacticals is great, though, because it fits the narrative so well.

Thanks for the link! Googling "Centurion" with Horus heresy wasn't yielding me results other than wiki articles and such too well. Will check it out tonight! Was going off the basis of a friend summarizing it to me about a year+ back as "30k but super light on vehicles, no battle tanks and such." So just carve out the rhinos/raider/dread mentions for more footslog goodness! 20 man tacticals ahoy~

 

Agree on the duplicate vets front, was just a quick-and-dirty example "cookie cutter" list that would deal with average opponent bringings, rather than get into nitty-gritty.

 

Moreover, took the guy's post as "Not knowing SoH so well" rather than centurion specifically. Figured I'd do the quick and fast "what plays into SoH rules" camp. If they're wildly different in Centurion; ie. no death dealers, dirty fighters, etc... Then throw everything I said out, haha.

[The Scorpion]

Justaerin terminators look absurdly over-priced.

 

 

The SoH suffer from being one of the "old" legions that got shafted by power creep.

 

If Abaddon had released in Book 8 or 9, he'd have unique weapons instead of a master-crafted powerfist and a bog-standart power sword. The Justaerin axes would have some fancypants pattern name and special rules.

 

Forge-World threw the legion a bone with "Death Dealers", but that's about it.

 

IMHO opinion the Justaerin should get the same bonus that Abaddon gets where his custom Cataphractii armor can still do sweeping advances. The Justarin wear the same hybrid armor after all.

 

The Reavers got shafted by the movement from 6th to 7th edition. "Black Reaving" was originally meant to allow the Reavers to outflank and charge, whereas now they can only outflank & run. Their unique prototype sub-pattern armor also gets no rules to represent it on tabletop, even though something as simple as "counts as void-hardened but can move normally" should do the trick.

 

This is why I hope a new AoD ruleset comes soon: so FW is forced to revisit old stuff they left behind and never looked at again. Though at the same time I feel afraid looking at what they did with the poor Dark Angels.

Edited October 15, 2021 by The Scorpion

[Gorgoff]

 

This is why I hope a new AoD ruleset comes soon: so FW is forced to revisit old stuff they left behind and never looked at again. Though at the same time I feel afraid looking at what they did with the poor Dark Angels.

... which good great rules besides some very strange ROW? Don't see your problem with them.

Anyway.

I agree that old units suffer from the fact, that they were made with a different ruleset in mind but I think both Reavers and Justarian are still very good units.

They are no Sekmhets but who is?

Nontheless I do want FW to make at least new army lists and new legion lists which they completely overhaul.

Lots of units need that.

[Marshal Mittens]

What are some good loadouts for SoH Reavers and their veterans that don't break the bank, but are also viable?

[Slips]

Merged with SoH tactica.

[The Scorpion]

What are some good loadouts for SoH Reavers and their veterans that don't break the bank, but are also viable?

Chainaxes OR banestrike guns. Taking both on every reaver breaks the bank I'm afraid.

[Marshal Mittens]

 

 

What are some good loadouts for SoH Reavers and their veterans that don't break the bank, but are also viable?

Chainaxes OR banestrike guns. Taking both on every reaver breaks the bank I'm afraid.

I can get chain axes from the new Chaos Chosen kit!

[MichaelCarmine]

 

 

What are some good loadouts for SoH Reavers and their veterans that don't break the bank, but are also viable?

Chainaxes OR banestrike guns. Taking both on every reaver breaks the bank I'm afraid.

I can get chain axes from the new Chaos Chosen kit!

 

Don't they come with pretty cool looking Chainaxes?

[Marshal Mittens]

 

 

 

 

What are some good loadouts for SoH Reavers and their veterans that don't break the bank, but are also viable?

Chainaxes OR banestrike guns. Taking both on every reaver breaks the bank I'm afraid.

I can get chain axes from the new Chaos Chosen kit!

Don't they come with pretty cool looking Chainaxes?

I'm going to kitbash/convert my reavers because the firgeworld ones are tiny and excessively expensive, in my opinion. Though my kitbashee fellows will likely be excessively expensive as well. Also forgeworld resins has screwed me in the past.

[MichaelCarmine]

seems fair!