Horus Heresy Campaigns in the Age of Darkness: The Martian Civil War

[Marshal Rohr]

 

dunno if this has been posted here yet

Looking tasty. Very excited to grab this. 

[Tyriks]

Historically, how good (as in mutually fun and varied) have missions been in prior campaign books?

[Noserenda]

 

Historically, how good (as in mutually fun and varied) have missions been in prior campaign books?

I think some of them are reprints? The refight ones have historically been a bit mixed but there are a whole bunch of examples written by this team in the Exemplary battles series you can look at for free in the downloads section and judge for yourself :) 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/horus-heresy-downloads/

(You might have to roll down a bit) 

[Gorgoff]

 

Who are these for those of us that know nowt please? :)

Aster Crone and Nex had pictures in 1ed:

We will see how their models will look. The fist will possibly get a model as well. 

[Nagashsnee]

Nothing says a book on the Mechanicum civil war like 4 new marine characters.  Unless there are hidden in the chapters the Mechanicum get not a single new unit in this book? Re prints of the deamon engines, re prints of the chaos knights, Krios squadrons (maybe a new gun idk) and 4 new marines? Techo heresies will be a chaos themed mech list to use the deamon stuff. 

 

I dont understand why after the years and years of delay they would even bother to put this to print? Clearly they needed more time to work on adding Mechanicum elements into the Mechanicum book.  

 

They could have just released a generic black book focusing on random campaigns, put out the marine characters and the re prints and save Mars for when they actually have CONTENT for it. 

[lansalt]

For the record, Camba Diaz was already in Visions of Heresy as part of Sigismund's force when the IF tried unsucessfully to stop the rebellion and left with tons of new power armour suits, so he's always been linked to the Mars civil war. But yeah, the IF don't need another character in the game. IMO the unavoidable space marine "tax" would have been better served by a new Sigismund mini without need to add SM rules to the book, since the current one it's showing his age and it's very small. Maybe add the WS as the marines doing raids during the following years instead of wasting them in Beta-Garmon fanfiction, since it's a plot point in the series that Dorn didn't want to help the martian loyalists to save resources for the Siege. The Khan doing it anyway along Shattered Legion misfits would be a better match for his character.

 

The lack of at least a single new Dark Mech character/unit is really baffling.

[Pearson73]

Yeah this is rather disappointing, not gonna bother with this now.

Edited August 31 by Pearson73

[TheArtilleryman]

This looks to me like another example of GW trying to drip-feed DLC-style updates to the game. Just put all the characters in the big book for their faction because they cost an arm and a leg already. Stuff like this just creates FOMO among people who have to have everything.

[Mr Farson]

The special characters rules are up on reddit.

 

Diaz is ridiculously cheap at 120pts. 

[lansalt]

Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/1f5hq7x/aster_crohne_kaedes_nex_and_camba_diaz_stat_lines/

 

 

[Astartes Consul]

Like that they’ve given Aster Crone a bit more of a purpose with the Inductii buffs. His old rules seemed a bit out of place, despite being quite a cool character idea.

 

Happy for Raven Guard players who will almost certainly be getting an actual HQ model now! 
 

Unless there is some really good stuff in the Dark Mechanicum section though, it’s going to be a bust for Mech players.

[Nagashsnee]

 

Unless there is some really good stuff in the Dark Mechanicum section though, it’s going to be a bust for Mech players.

 

Well what else would you expect in this book? The Martian Civil war was famed for its utter utter lack of Martians. And the one thing the Mechanicum does not field is units of the Mechanicum. Now buy more space marines! 

[Dagoth Ur]

The remainder of the new DarkMech rules has been leaked on reddit. Here's the relevant post:

 

 

 

Make sure to check the comments as well.

 

Edit: I just noticed the post got deleted. I have all the leaks saved and will post them up after work.

Edited August 31 by Dagoth Ur

[Lord Marshal]

I can't get too mad about Diaz; short of a Siege book this is the only place he'd really fit. 

 

I am surprised by the lack of named Mechanicum characters though.

[Burni]

Seems like the plastic Krios will have a new weapon option (radiation weapon with two profiles - beam & template).

[Redcomet]

So the book about Mars has very little Mechanicum in it…

[irlLordy]

I don't collect Fists, but the Diaz sections of Saturnine were really, really good. Will be interested to see how his model looks as I might just pick him up to paint. I take it there were no pictures of the marine character models in the book or else we would have seen then already.

[Gorgoff]

 

So the book about Mars has very little Mechanicum in it…

Not true at all.

It feels this way because we had seen most of it in pdf beforehand. But it is actually a lot of stuff. 

That they didn't bring one named character or missions where Mechanicum fights Mechanicum is a big oof though.

 

[Nagashsnee]

 

Not true at all.

It feels this way because we had seen most of it in pdf beforehand. But it is actually a lot of stuff. 

That they didn't bring one named character or missions where Mechanicum fights Mechanicum is a big oof though.

 

I mean only dark mech got any unit rules. So the point can be made that the book had no mechanicum rules in it.

 

For loyalist  mech, lore is the only reason to buy this book I have seen in any previews of the book. Happy to be proven wrong tho.

 

This is not a a nitpick. But people should know before they buy. Assuming that mechanicum would get new rules in this book is I feel not unreasonable.

Edited August 31 by Nagashsnee

[SkimaskMohawk]

And like i feared back in the first page, the exemplary battle units rules are reprints. 

 

I harp about value every time one of these supplements come out. Its frustrating that these rare updates to the game aren't really....updating the game all that much. When the black books dropped there was usually a huge subtraction drop and they had full release rules for a few units. Often those new units were pretty* good and you'd be excited to incorporate them (or the relics from book 4, before they faq banned them), and they'd almost always be updated from their experimental rules to be more compelling if they were initially a bit of a miss. Everyone was excited for the next black book; everyones game experience was enhanced by them. 

 

Now it's not quite like that. All the legions were out from launch, so that aspect of exciting new thing is gone, fair enough. Two of the four supplement books have been mostly reprints for free pdf units; reprints of disappointing to mid units, without any update to make them compelling. We've had these mechanicum units for over a year from their pdf release; we thought it was a weird chaos themed release (that dropped the cults), but it was actually their finished book rules. The inductii and black shields felt like exciting additions, and it felt like they broadly had a lot of fun writing those rules up (except the BAs lol); the old world team also clearly have a lot of fun writing up the rules and arcane journals for that game. Where's the rest of the enthusiasm for heresy? Why are half the books reprints? Why don't they expand the sandbox? Why do a lot of these new units and rules just feel so defeated and aimless? Its giving me LI vibes, where theres a billion different versions of the Russ or baneblade hull, but one of them just does the job so well that you wonder who they thought would want to feel bad using their rules for the others. 

 

Idk, let the black shields rules people cook, or ask the fantasy guys what it's like letting their players enjoy using their models on the field.

[Sete]

If Cambas Diaz gets a model I hope it's in plastic. I have plans, sweet plans for the Longsword.

[Schrödingers Primarch]

The one book about the Mechanicum has 0 loyalist rules, no new mechanicum units, and only space marine characters? The mental gymnastics GW has go through to produce a book this bad is astounding. 

[Cryptix]

Found a summary for the new mech rules

 

>WARLORD TRAITS

Retlaxi: Daemon Engines explode on death automatically but slightly :cuss:tier/more random, +1 shooting reaction

Sarum: Blood slaughterers as Troops and Fast Attack, they get Line, +1 movement reaction

Cyclothrate: Haywire does nothing on rolls of 1-3 against Daemon Engines, +1 movement reaction

Xana II: Once per game advanced shooting reaction of +1 Malefic Aegis saves for a Daemon engine unit. +1 shooting reaction.

 

>PROSCRIBED TECHNO-ARCANA

Malanima: 1 Infernus Abomination as Elites, 10pts Upgrade Power Weapons/Power Blade Arrays to a SU AP4, Specialist Weapon, Rampage (1), Breaching 5+, +1 to hit vs units with wounded models.

Malefikite: Can buy Ruinous Cybernetica for Cybernetica units for +10pts, gets Machina Malefica Cybertheurgy (see Cybertheurgy Arcanas), can skip shooting and roll a dice to infect cybernetica unit within 2" with Ruinous Cybernetica for free, lasts for 1 turn on a 2-3 or for the entire battle on a 4+. (Ruinous Cybernetica units roll a Leadership test at start of their Shooting phase, on a pass models ignore Programmed Behavior but must charge if able. On a fail, they suffer an auto wound with no saves.)

Aethertek: 1 non-comp Decimator troop, gets Anima Malifica (see Cybertheurgy Arcanas), Daemon Engines with 6" ignore characteristic modifiers.

Necrotek: Cybernetica in the Detachment get 5+ IWND, gets Ephemera Nekrotek (see Cybertheurgy Arcanas), +1 Wound

 

>CYBERTHEURGY ARCANA

Anima Malifica: Exact same as PDF

>Machina Malefica

Rite: Pick an enemy unit (or on Cybertheurgy pass, just all enemy units within range), roll a D6 for each non-Vehicle model within 6", if the you roll greater than their armor save they take a Wound. For each Vehicle model, roll a D6 and they get Crew Stunned on a 6.

Weapon: 18", S6, AP3, Assault 3, Rending 5+, Data djinn, Cyber Focus

 

>Ephemera Nekrotek

Rite: Roll 3D6, each 4+ let's you drain a Wound/HP from a friendly Mechanicum unit with 6" to heal the caster. Cybertheurgy check to reroll the D6s.

Weapon: SU, AP4, Melee Unwieldy Haywire, Cyber Focus Melee

 

>Krios
Basic and Venator are exactly the same. New weapon option, the Irradiaton Blaster, for 40 points. 2 profiles, Dispersed: S2 AP5 Fleshbane Radphage Hellstorm template weapon, Focused: 16" S7 AP3 Fleshbane Radphage with slightly nerfed Heavy Beam (1mm wide, blocking model only suffers D3 hits, on hitting transport unit inside suffers D6 S2 AP- Fleshbane hits)

[Marshal Rohr]

New Krios sounds fun. I wish they’d included the rule for mech adjacent militia. 

Edited August 31 by Marshal Rohr

[Cryptix]

 

New Krios sounds fun. I wish they’d included the rule for mech adjacent militia. 

As far as I can tell the Forge Remnants Provenance still lets you buy the new Krios since it just replaces the datasheet instead of being a new unit. 

 

And man I was really hoping that there'd be an option to allow Cybernetica units to buy Corrupted Engine + an Aetheric Dominion (replacing their Atomantic Deflectors with Malefic Aegis so they font suffer 2D3 wounds from instant death of course ). It really feels like thats all thats missing to tie the book together.

Edited August 31 by Cryptix