Horus Heresy Exemplary Battles - The Depths of Tredecimmia (Inc. Daemon Engines)

[Lord Marshal]

WarCom article.

 

Direct PDF link.

 

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Andy: Welcome to the latest stop in our examination of the more esoteric factions of the Age of Darkness. So far we’ve uncovered the conjured Neverborn horrors of Bound Ruinstorm Daemons and the massed armies of the Imperialis Militia, leading us to our latest offering – a treatise on those most horrific constructs of the Dark Mechanicum, the earliest Daemon Engines.

In Exemplary Battles of the Age of Darkness: The Depths of Tredecimmia, we return to a battle presented in Horus Heresy Volume 6 – Retribution during the previous edition of the game. This time we tell the tale from a somewhat different perspective, pulling back the curtain to describe the involvement of Daemon Engines in a way that was only hinted at in the original tale.
 

Also included in the download are rules for using a number of classic Daemon Engine models in your Age of Darkness games – from the scuttling Brass Scorpion and smaller Blood Slaughterer, to the lumbering Decimator and Kytan. These have never had dedicated rules for Warhammer: The Horus Heresy before, but we always intended to provide them when the time was right, and the Exemplary Battles series is the perfect place to explore these niche but highly entertaining subjects.

 

 

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This isn’t the end of our exploration of all things dark and daemonic, as we have at least two forbidden tomes to crack open before we’re done. We are currently putting the finishing touches to a Daemons of the Ruinstorm army list, as well as a set of rules for Corrupted Knights, inspired by the Corrupted Titans that will be familiar to Adeptus Titanicus players.

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[sitnam]

I’m not generally an expert on HH lore, but have daemon engines really showed up in the series or campaign lore to this point? I was always under the impression that Daemon Engines were a later development post-Heresy. Indeed the lore for the Decimator puts its earliest sightings in M35 iirc.

 

Just seems like a crappy way to shoehorn in something I associate far more with modern Chaos. Unless some of the old Mechanicum were developing these engines pre-war, it doesn’t even make sense that these would show up in the relatively brief timespan of the Heresy

[darkhorse0607]

3 minutes ago, sitnam said:

I’m not generally an expert on HH lore, but have daemon engines really showed up in the series or campaign lore to this point? I was always under the impression that Daemon Engines were a later development post-Heresy. Indeed the lore for the Decimator puts its earliest sightings in M35 iirc.

 

Just seems like a crappy way to shoehorn in something I associate far more with modern Chaos. Unless some of the old Mechanicum were developing these engines pre-war, it doesn’t even make sense that these would show up in the relatively brief timespan of the Heresy

 

Some of them have popped up during the Siege ircc, not outright saying them but describing demon engines that are similar. I'm sure if you dig really hard you might find another example

 

But yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I don't mind when they come out with a new tank or something and say it's been around, or even MKVI being a mainstay for every legion. This feels more like "CSM players aren't buying enough of these so let's put them into the Heresy"

 

Hardly the biggest problem facing the system/heresy modeling/whatever so i won't complain too much

[Lord Marshal]

47 minutes ago, sitnam said:

I’m not generally an expert on HH lore, but have daemon engines really showed up in the series or campaign lore to this point? I was always under the impression that Daemon Engines were a later development post-Heresy. Indeed the lore for the Decimator puts its earliest sightings in M35 iirc.

 

Just seems like a crappy way to shoehorn in something I associate far more with modern Chaos. Unless some of the old Mechanicum were developing these engines pre-war, it doesn’t even make sense that these would show up in the relatively brief timespan of the Heresy

 

The Dark Mechanicum army list kept getting pushed back in 1.0, which is presumably why they never had a massive presence, but they've popped up in some of the Heresy novels and I'm pretty sure they've been referenced a fair bit in Black Books with Traitor/Dark Mechanicum.

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'd need to look back on the specifics, but the Dark Mechanicum in the lore was definitely going nuts with things very quickly, once all the restrictions were off. So that there would be Daemon engines makes perfect sense.

 

That said, for these particular ones, this was obviously a shift of home from 40k as they were moved to Legends of the Horus Heresy, probably as the FW/Specialist Games studio wanted to keep the models around.

[Noserenda]

Yeah the Dark Mechanicum has been knocking out Daemon engines since the opening of the Heresy, essentially as soon as they could publicly experiment. Im confident one(or more) of the forgeworlds was secretly doing in beforehand even. 

Its not particularly hard to do really. Well, its hard to do and survive maybe... :D 

Out of game its obviously 40k studio fobbing of the FW units, spot that everything in this is from them, none of the plastic daemon engines.

Interested to see how these units shake out, the Praevian seems like a duff option compared to taking Mech allies, i notice they have made most of them dreadnought type instead of automata which makes some sense. 

Very glad they are finally linking sub types to wider ones, IE Corrupted engines are explicitly Corrupted units for anything that affects that, which avoids the Armiger problems.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Noserenda

[WrathOfTheLion]

All that said, a greater brass scorpion painted in the brown of Xana II would look fantastic though. Definitely thinking about it...

[Misterduch]

Wasn't there a whole hidden cache of Deamon egine adjacent creations prior to the Heresy aswell on Mars itself? Or am I misremembering the Mechanicum novel?

[Petitioner's City]

14 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

All that said, a greater brass scorpion painted in the brown of Xana II would look fantastic though. Definitely thinking about it...

 

There was a lovely brass scorpion painted from the hierarch ingenium rules by "Bealkor15" 

 

 

[DuskRaider]

The only Daemon Engine / Abominable Intelligence Machine I can think of during the Heresy was the Kaban Machine. I’m sure there’s been more mentioned in later books but I wouldn’t even know what. 
 

But yeah, most of these are more “modern” creations. I suppose if anything they’re rules and you can make your own models for them, though. 

[Irate Khornate]

So I know these are for dark mechanicum, are the data sheets good compared to what they also have available?

[SkimaskMohawk]

So originally they wanted the full daemons list out this summer, with the daemon engines and cultists meant to cap off that release. Guess they skipped right ahead to the extras.

 

Right off the bat we have yet another new unit subtype, which looks suspiciously like the normal corrupted subtype.

 

Cyberthurgy buffs them. Very helpful on the decimator and kytan.

 

Aetheric dominions. You get khorne or reroll armour save, and they're pre-assigned. Kinda the exact opposite of how they were originally implemented.

 

And.....it's just the old resin daemon engines that got legends'd from 40k and two of them are lords of war, so fight with primarch for that slot.

 

The kytan is really fast and can beat up on dreads decently with ws6 and brutal 3, but fails to one round the dread (which is kinda good); it can really gobble up custodes. It's big weakness is of course being a vehicle, and as a side effect, basically gets no benefit from the corrupted subtype (other than fear and being targetable by cyberthurgy). The brass scorpion is also pretty fast, but its melee is more suited for vehicles. It's got a bunch of shooting, most of which is whatever against marines and super useless against terminators or bigger. You're still taking it for the melee, which means the kytan is a better choice. Also fails to benefit from corruptions other than fear.

 

At first glance the blood slaughterer is really good. It's fast, gets a solid +2 to charge, has hit and run and decent amount of attacks at ws5, all at a very cheap price. But it attacks at I3, and has a 3+ save, which means it gets hosed by krak grenades and other elite melee units that have ap3 weapons. Also it bounces against dreads. It's cheap, but the arlatax really outperforms it in its niche for 40 more points.

 

The decimator is actually good. It's probably also close to what contemptors should be priced at, and can tank it's way through small arms fire super easily. Edit: I had said it was finally a mechanicum dread, but the moirax is actually that already. It's just speedier and a little more of a glass cannon, while the decimator is way more durable and consistent with the cyberthurgy.

 

Thats about it though. Still following the trend of no customization on the daemon stuff, and only for models they sell. Honestly expected like a cool corrupted upgrade system like in AT for pre-existing vehicles. Nothing super new or unique in terms of role either.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[Boytoy]

Anyone else a little bothered that imperial fist are taking centre stage in autek mor's most famous engagement?

[Lord Marshal]

14 minutes ago, Boytoy said:

Anyone else a little bothered that imperial fist are taking centre stage in autek mor's most famous engagement?

 

It was already covered in Retribution, which iirc barely touched on the Imperial Fist presence compared to the Iron Hands and Solar Auxilia (who weirdly don't even get a name drop here despite being the majority of the invasion force. )

 

I'm not too fussed by a, "and also Imperial Fists were on a side quest fighting against Daemon Engines (buy now beat the rush)" side story, but it would be nice to get a new Exemplary Battle where Traitors don't lose or get a Pyrrhic Victory. 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[Urauloth]

It's nice to get a proper origin for the Kytan, which iirc has always just kinda been there. It makes sense as an experimental knight from Sarum.
On the other hand, the Decimator, previously dated to M35, is a pretty big retcon. Back-dating stuff to the Heresy just means it's "been around longer than we thought" so it's not really a huge issue, but I don't really like it. Also, didn't it have a laser armament option at one point? Did the mould for that break?

[SalamandersBro]

So you just need a praevian to run one of these units in a non mechanicum army? Not too bad.

[tinpact]

Yeah, the Decimator used to have a conversion beamer and a storm laser - I think they dropped them at the same time as the rest of the Vraks stuff.

 

I thought it was kind of funny they took pains not to call the daemon engines by their names in the story - I guess they have plausible deniability as far as Decimators not canonically showing up until M35.

 

I'm not sure about the mission - the scoring for controlling the defender's DZ seems a bit much (I might have to reread the ZM rules because I'm not sure where the deployment zones are actually marked out) but the rest seems fun.

[Gorgoff]

3 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Interested to see how these units shake out, the Praevian seems like a duff option compared to taking Mech allies, 

Let me phrase it like this:

I have one Praevian.

I have zero Mechanicum.

1 hour ago, Boytoy said:

Anyone else a little bothered that imperial fist are taking centre stage in autek mor's most famous engagement?

They did a stellar job making Imperial Fist universally hated just like Matt Wart did with Ultramarines. 

 

26 minutes ago, SalamandersBro said:

So you just need a praevian to run one of these units in a non mechanicum army? Not too bad.

Precisely. 

Only one model to build and not being forced to buy a whole allied detachment is very nice.

[Noserenda]

2 hours ago, Boytoy said:

Anyone else a little bothered that imperial fist are taking centre stage in autek mor's most famous engagement?

Imperial fists? Hogging the limelight? With this team? :D 
 

20 minutes ago, Gorgoff said:

Let me phrase it like this:

I have one Praevian.

I have zero Mechanicum.

 

 

Precisely. 

Only one model to build and not being forced to buy a whole allied detachment is very nice.

You dont need anything else to take the two Lords of War as allied LoW detachments though, and outside of IRL costs having a mostly useless Consul (as he cant do his thing, hes just a costlier centurion) feels more of a waste than a barebones HQ and troops personally, mileage may vary ofc! 

[Marshal Rohr]

Imperial Fists were always at Bodt, Autek Mor is still the star of the show. This just covers the Fists assault during the battle. Having a hard time seeing how people don’t understand that unless they haven’t read the Black Books or are just looking to complain. 
 

If people are new to the Heresy I can sort of understand the complaints, as in they never read a single thing about the Heresy until 2022. But if you’ve been here since 2013 the Imperial Fists had the Battle of Phall, a small part of the Manachean War, and Bodt covered by in depth lore until the Siege of Cthonia (which came out four months ago). All of those were shared in Black Books that covered the Shattered Legions, Sons of Horus, Death Guard, and World Eaters with more detail. It’s a recency bias. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Marshal Rohr

[SkimaskMohawk]

So uh, can you just induct a kytan with the praevian? It only says you have to have the FoC choice available, and....it's available in the Crusade Chart.

 

Idk what legion would work best for it though, maybe EC for the initiative increase or world eaters for more attacks. Possibly scars for the movement?

[LameBeard]

On the lore point, in Master of Mankind

Spoiler

The Daemon of the First Murder possesses the Mechanicum cyber-engine leading their force, if I remember correctly.

Of course she is none of the things listed here, so the models don’t necessarily suit, but one of the profiles might.

[Blight1]

Bah I own both of the weapon options that the decimator seems to have forgotten about.

[Borbarad]

Almost as if GW wants to nudge chaos players who just post their FW toys into starting a HH army 

[Xirix]

Nice to see the Decimator getting some love... but er, I guess the laser weapons were developed for it after Heresy *shrug*