Horus Heresy Inductii Rules

[Lord Marshal]

Fresh meat for the grinder. Also features a new Butcher-Surgeon Prime Advantage for the World Eaters.

 

PDF link.

 

Quote

This new incarnation of Inductii retains the individual character of the Legion-specific versions that came before, but there are a few high-level changes that players will notice throughout. The most obvious of these is that, with a couple of optional exceptions, Inductii units don’t have Sergeants. Combined with a couple of reduced Advanced Characteristics (usually Willpower and Intelligence), the Inductii are slightly more vulnerable to Tactical Statuses than your typical Legionary, helping to reinforce the idea that hypno-indoctrination and rapid implantation can’t match the decades, or even centuries, of experience that pre-existing Legionaries have.

 

With each unit typically getting one or more defining Special Rules, and Wargear Options, it was important that they didn’t outshine standard Tactical or Despoiler squads, which still represent the mainstay of the Legiones Astartes. As such, those based upon Tactical Squads have the Line (1) Special Rule, while the Inductii templated upon Despoilers instead have Vanguard (2). Neither retain the objective-scoring potential of their Line (2) precursors, but each Inductii unit has its own distinctive advantages and playstyle to help them stand out in list building, from the Blood Angels’ panic-inducing cannibalism to the morbid resilience of the Death Guard.

 

In addition to the 18 new units presented in the Legiones Inductii document, the World Eaters – the originators of the Inductii concept – gain access to the Butcher-Surgeon Prime Advantage, letting Apothecaries boost the combat abilities of Inductii Squads they join. Ultimately, these new rules are intended to give players a fun variation on some familiar units and provide an opportunity to further theme their armies amidst the wars of the Horus Heresy.

 

Edited Thursday at 09:37 AM by Lord Marshal

[Marshal Loss]

Overall I'm happy, this is largely great stuff. Some legions made out like bandits compared to others though. 

• The Inductii still have all their weird legion-specific flavour, but don't feel like "tacticals +1" now. E.g. Inductii tacticals have line (1) instead of line (2), most don't have Sergeants, can never have a prime advantage, and often have reduced stats so they'll be more vulnerable to statuses than their experienced brethren. I really love all of this.
  • The exception to this, somewhat, are those variants based on the despoiler (rather than tactical) template. They still have some disadvantages compared to their non-Inductii despoiler counterparts but trade line (2) for vanguard (2), which is just way better on a melee template. I'd have preferred to see despoilers move to vanguard (2) and Inductii despoilers to vanguard (1) as a mirror for their tactical brethren, but conscious that (at least in my 3.0 games to date) vanguard feels pretty weak compared to line anyway.
• The Butcher-Surgeon Prime Advantage for the World Eaters helps fix their awful Hereticus trait, which felt really lackluster compared to their early Heresy trait and when compared to the Hereticus EC trait. It still makes absolutely no sense that late heresy World Eaters have to jump through a bunch of hoops to become 'lost to the nails', which will often not happen throughout the course of the game (???), but at least this will make the Sons of Bodt detachment a desirable commodity.
  • EDIT: They have 'Ravening Madmen' and so can only join Red Butchers and Inductii. Booooooo. 
• In terms of my favourite legions, EC Inductii kept their charnabal sabres (yay), so I'm pleased. Their trait isn't super useful if you're using the Hereticus rite but it's still great overall and feels really thematic. The Word Bearers one is absolutely terrible, which is a pity given how cool the theme is. I can understand them not wanting to hand malefic out like candy, but I'm still puzzled how the writers thought this one was worth its salt compared to what other legions get. 

 

Hope everybody is happy with their particular legion's brand of Inductii. 

Edited Thursday at 10:10 AM by Marshal Loss

[Lord Marshal]

I'm still making my way through the PDF, but I like most of what I'm reading.

 

Inductii Despoilers being Vanguard does feel like a "we should have done this for vanilla Despoilers all along..." type of deal, but I suppose both fluff and mechanically it does give the Inductii Despoilers a bit of a different niche. Meanwhile Tactical Inductii being Line (1) with generally benefical special rules steers them nicely into sidegrade territory. Characters being able to join them is a nice, sensible addition too.

 

There's still a few stinkers in there (Word Bearers come to mind) but nearly all of them feel like an improvement compared to the 2nd Edition variants where some Legions were just comically bad and even the ones that were decent seem changed for the better. I do bemoan Night Lords losing their "gang up in a challenge and/or potentially shank their own sergeant" rule though, just because it was so flavourful.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 10:25 AM by Lord Marshal

[Astartes Consul]

Seems better balanced and with the general flavour of the previous version. Another solid PDF that gives me hope for the future.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

Glad to see them just go to a datasheet for each, the whole template thing was a bit weird previously. At first glance: My salamanders are still pretty cool and retained their WS5 sgt. My Alphas are still annoying and get a bonus combi weapon option, and my aspirational 19th are still kind of inexplicable to me. I guess I'd have to play with them a bunch to get a sense of them. The nemesis thrown in is neat.

[Vassakov]

Oh boy, does the Word Bearers one suck. I can basically just stick an actual Despoiler Squad in Exalted Conclave and... it's that but better and without hoops? And the same cost?

 

Nah lads, we're good. 

 

On the other hand, the Phrateus Conclave or whatever the technical term for "Daemon Possessed Saturnine Terminators With Serious Attitude Issues" are absolutely incredible and we get Gal Vorbak... so can't complain.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

2 hours ago, Astartes Consul said:

Seems better balanced and with the general flavour of the previous version. Another solid PDF that gives me hope for the future.

Totally agree. I find a bit weird not having a sergeant in the units, except for Ultramarines(Oh boy, Ultramarines...why always Ultramarines...) and Salamanders but the rest is of my taste.

Quite nice rules for SoH inductii, maybe we can explore them.

Edited Thursday at 12:44 PM by Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf

[arnesh88]

I noticed that some of the Despoiler inductii are allowed to have any number of models with Heavy Chainswords/Chainaxes. I wish they did that for regular despoilers, or at least 1 in every 5 can take them (separately from the 1 in 5 for power weapons) to represent the upgrade sprues.

[Indy Techwisp]

These all look pretty nice (except Word Bearers but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

Thousand Sons still retain their cantrip and Ultramarines have a Pseudo-Sargent.

I wasn't expecting Salamanders to also get a Pseudo-Sargent but I guess it make sense with the fluff.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Really happy that they brought these back. They added a ton of flavour to armies, both in rules and as modelling opportunities, and theyre very faithfully ported over. No conversions going to waste, fun builds preserved, garbage ones improved.

[MoriyaSchism]

I'm not the biggest fan of third edition but some of these look good. Really varied and almost every unit profile has some sort of conversion hook to it. I like the visual of a Death Guard unit with two rotor cannons, the Raven Guard squad and the prototype Ultramarine Tacticals. A fun idea would be to paint the Scouring era Ultramarine Inductii with icons belonging to future 2nd Founding Chapters. 

[JeffJedi]

I'm really pleased with the Dark Angels option, since I already built a squad. Having some newer Marines with powerful close ranged guns makes for a bit of storyline to me.

 

These would never have set foot on Caliban and been inducted during the Passage of the Angel of Death when The Lion took vengeance on the traitors. The Lion is not in the mood for a fair honorable fight and doesn't throw away his newest sons the way some legions do.

 

Model wise for me they have mixed armor in the squads as hand me downs and lots of bare heads showing they are less stoic and eager for battle.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Can't really speak on the rules but I really like the AL fluff for the Inductii's. I always wondered about the AL troops used for the big set-piece battles or the ones assaulting the walls in sieges, are these the troops that weren't as skilled in subterfuge as their brothers? etc so the fluff was a nice little answer to that.

Edited Thursday at 08:55 PM by Mechanicus Tech-Support

[StraightSilver]

I really like the Ultramarines entry - I can paint up some Armatura units. :)

[Casual Heresy]

Same @StraightSilver.

 

Last edition's inductii felt a bit pointless to me but the new rules make me want to actually build a squad or two for my Ultramarines. A squad of pristine new troopers led by a grizzled and ornate Evocati will be a nice wee modelling project.

 

 

[Doobles57]

2 hours ago, Casual Heresy said:

Same @StraightSilver.

 

Last edition's inductii felt a bit pointless to me but the new rules make me want to actually build a squad or two for my Ultramarines. A squad of pristine new troopers led by a grizzled and ornate Evocati will be a nice wee modelling project.

 

 

 

I'm going to be doing similar for my Ultra's too. Currently they're all MKII or III, so gives me an excuse to use some of the MKVI bodies I've lying around to be led by a vet with maybe some bionics etc. Possibly with some heraldry hints to a successor chapter.

 

I will say this is the mark of the success of these rules in my opinion. I've read them and immediately have starting thinking about cool stuff I want to build. 

[arnesh88]

What are peoples' thoughts on characters able to join inductii now? Would you do it and with what leaders? I feel like Chaplains in a blob of despoiler inductii might be good to offset their low Advanced Characteristics. 

[Marshal Mittens]

A lot of these are very flavorful though where most people will get so many heavy chain axes I have no idea. 

[Xenith]

18 new units for my Alpha Legion!

 

Great to see them, overall I felt they were slightly worse than some of the previous versions, but from this conversation maybe slightly better? 

 

The Alpha Legion ones are now immune to being targeted for 1/4 turns instead of 1/6, which is a huge boost. The random combi weapon option is weird, I'm unsure if losing fury of the legion is worth it, but couple of volkites, grenades or flamers are probably decent in there 

1 hour ago, Marshal Mittens said:

A lot of these are very flavorful though where most people will get so many heavy chain axes I have no idea. 

MK2 assault squad!

[Gorgoff]

On 9/26/2025 at 11:58 PM, Marshal Mittens said:

A lot of these are very flavorful though where most people will get so many heavy chain axes I have no idea. 

We print them of course. 

Ir just take the gigantic oversized regular chainaxes from the assault squad. 

Definitely a very nice option for those inductii who has them. Should look very cool.

On 9/27/2025 at 1:21 AM, Xenith said:

18 new units for my Alpha Legion!

 

Great to see them, overall I felt they were slightly worse than some of the previous versions, but from this conversation maybe slightly better? 

 

The Alpha Legion ones are now immune to being targeted for 1/4 turns instead of 1/6, which is a huge boost.

 

Please remember that we had 4 turn core missions for the last years in 2ed as well. 

But yes, it is a nice bonus to have and a even better opportunity to come up with a nice conversion or special paint job to represend this rule. 

I've painted mine as different loyal legions and I bought two transparent "magic" plastic squares which let things vanish if you look through them it's a nice effect.

I love those kind of gimmiks. 

So this js a wip and one bad from the finished unit.

I haven't got any better ones because my smartphone blew up the ither day and I didn't make new ones so far... 

 

And here is the magic

On 9/27/2025 at 1:21 AM, Xenith said:

The random combi weapon option is weird, I'm unsure if losing fury of the legion is worth it, but couple of volkites, grenades or flamers are probably decent in there 

MK2 assault squad!

I can tell you from experience that it is great because being immune to getting shot turn one is nice but after that they would be just worse tactical. This way they can do stuff after that.

 

I play Iron Warriors as well and boy did the improve those. I'd give them shrapnel boltguns and let those stupid but cool MF March down the enemy fire. Very thematic and effective.

 

Plus Death Guard which also sound WAY better. 

I live the Inductii rules. They really learned from 2ed I would say.

[N1SB]

The Ultramarines Inductii, with their 2 Special Weapons and 1 Combi-weapon, is the one our meta is most interested in, I think.  It's basically 3 Meltaguns you can maybe Drop Pod in, blow up a Vindicator, but 7 ablative Wounds that are Line (1), for cheap.  Or any permutation, maybe 3 Flamers just to Overwatch to maybe apply Panic or something.  High utility.

 

Reminds me of a short story where Roboute Guilliman calls Aeonid Thiel, who made red helmets cool, to his office and he's like, "Tell me again, you're taking what, a 10-man squad?  And 2 Heavy Weapons was it?  Oh 2 Special Weapons are working out in the field, to burn through bulkheads."  Thiel's trying to read what his Primarch's writing, like upside down.

 

He's working on the original draft of the Codex Astartes, like you guys said.

[SalamandersBro]

I do like the Salamanders Inductii. I can bring some forge crafted weapons and get a high Vanguard. Why not. 

 

Happy with the World Eaters. I didn't have any luck when I used Hereticus my last gane, so will be interested to see how it works.