Horus Heresy Age of Darkness: Top 6 Reactions
Today I talk about the best of the best when it comes to the most powerful reactions in Horus Heresy.
Everytime you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future – D. Chopra
Reactions are probably my favorite new feature in Horus Heresy 2.0. They allow action from both you and your opponent throughout the course of the entire game and they are incredibly powerful. There isn’t a reaction out there thus far that doesn’t have some application. Also taking Characters and Warlords that give you additional reactions per phase is both thematic and very strong. I wanted to talk today a little about the best of the best when it comes to the most powerful reactions in Horus Heresy. My criteria for evaluating these is pretty simple. In diving into this article I looked for reactions that could win me a game, or where I could see them synergizing well with the strengths of the army that can utilize them.
6. Return Fire
Return Fire has fundamentally changed the shooting phase in Horus Heresy. No longer do I observe players simply firing every weapon they have downrange at opposing models with impunity. You have to try and bait out the return fires or attempt to pin ranged adversaries before engaging with more lethal units. In some cases, I’ve seen opponents not even bother shooting units because they don’t want to risk the chance of losing units to Return Fire. This is especially true for dedicated close combat units with limited or below-average shooting.
I think this reaction is ideal on infantry squads and dreadnoughts that don’t have the restrictive defensive weapons caveat. Vehicles that aren’t setup with return fire in mind (Str 6 weapons or lower) may not be able to take full effect of this reaction. Squads of Siege Tyrants or Fulminator Terminators make awesome Return Fire candidates, though many players will opt not to bother shooting at high volume high damage targets because they fear this reaction.
5. No Prey Escapes the Wolf
It’s hard not to see the benefits of “No Prey Escapes the Wolf.” Not only does it occur in the opposing player’s movement phase, meaning you have the opportunity to engage a distant unit and potentially tie it up and avoid their shooting but the obscene amount of inches you can traverse is outlandish. Unlike other chapters or reactions, this one uses the highest initiative in the reacting players unit and you move that distance, then charge. That means that if your opponent has the misfortune of planting units even remotely close to a terminator unit or a blob of Deathsworn accompanied by Leman Russ, you’re moving 7″ and then charging. For most other characters or HQ models they’ll move 5″ and then charge. At max you’re moving 19″ or 17″, on average you’re probably looking at 14″ or 12″. That is hefty movement for an army that is actively looking to cross the field and engage you in close combat.
The small but overlooked silver lining to this reaction is that this charge does not provoke any reactions from your opponent. If you choose reasonably close targets and utilize this against your opponent they will have few answers to deal with this. They can’t overwatch, they can’t withdraw…nothing. They are stuck there as your horde of Space Vikings run amuck in their lines.
*I also felt that the Blood Angel advanced reaction, “Wrath of Angels” was a close contender to “No Prey Escapes the Wolf”. “Wrath of Angels” has the advantage of being useful both defensively in providing shrouding to a unit so it can sluff wounds, but also gives you a charge opportunity after the opponents unit has shot. The trouble that I have with it, is that the defensive portion is mediocre, a 5+ shroud is good, but not great especially when you look at other legions getting a 3++ Invlun or 4+ FNP from their reactions. Finally, the charge is just there as gravy, theres no bonus to make it reliable. Any savy opponent is going to steer a wide berth around your dedicated close combat units and make you work for that sweet close combat goodness.
Scornful Fire
Call me biased because I love Mechanicum, but stick with me on this. Scornful Fire is such a useful and good reaction it’s hard to believe it works the way that it does. Firstly the reaction goes off when a player targets a unit that has an attached Independent Character. I think anything your opponent is really going to want to remove is likely going to have a Magos, Arch Magos, or other attached IC to create that deathstar. So that is easy criteria to meet. Secondly and probably most importantly, the reaction triggers prior to enemy shooting, after your opponent declares the target, that is the point at which this goes off. You gain the potential to mitigate a significant amount of damage from whatever is shooting at you simply by killing off the attacker first.
The downside to this is that unless you’re running Scoria in the army, automata won’t get be able to react efficiently, making some of your deadliest shooting units unable to take advantage of this. Also, this reaction excludes any template weapons, and vehicles are restricted to defensive weapons only. Finally, many of Mechanicum’s weapons are surprisingly short range 18-24inches, so there is an inherent limitation in reach and it requires a gunline strategy to stack units to fire with. On the upside, Myrmidons Destructors are perfect units to make use of this reaction and from the way things have shaped up this edition they are quickly emerging as one of Mechanicum’s top tier units.
*A close second to Scornful Fire was the Son’s of Horus “Death Dealers” reaction. The +1 balistic skill and fewer units restrictions made this an excellent option. However Mechanicum’s ability to fire off multiple units edged this out.
3. Withdraw/Advance
If you didn’t know, tabletop games are generally a game of inches, and the most important phase of the game is movement. Outcomes are heavily influenced by being in the right spot at the right time to take advantage of lines of fire, scoring objectives, increasing the odds of successful charges, etc. The Withdraw and Advance reactions give you an opportunity during your opponents movement phase to shift a critical unit.
Both are excellent for moving something like a tank into the line of fire to provide line-of-sight blocking cover to an exposed or vulnerable unit. You can also move a unit to intercept a charge or deny a charge lane. Finally, we can utilize Advance to eek out additional inches from close combat units to set them up for a charge in proceeding turns. Best of all both reactions function off the highest initiative in the unit, meaning that attached HQs typically with high initiative can shift a unit a substantial distance. Looking at you Primarch’s Russ and Johnson.
2. The Angels of Death
My local meta is so overly saturated with Dark Angel players that I get to see the usefulness of this Advanced reaction often. The barrier for entry is generally pretty easy to pass, leadership 8-10 is not bad. Gaining Fear and Fearless for the full duration of a turn is quite good and even if you fail the leadership check you still gain Stubborn and Fear. This is exceptionally good if you’re in a situation where you need to hold a point or tarpit your opponent to score or jockey your forces to get into a position to counter assault.
*A close second here for me was the Thousand Son’s “Fortress of the Mind” it is exceptionally good at mitigating damage giving a unit a possible 3++/5++ when being fired upon. I think the only downside is you have to make a psychic check and there is the possibility for it to go awry and cause perils to both players’ units.
1. Smoke and Mirrors
Smoke and Mirrors is the ultimate reaction. Not only do you have the potential to mitigate shooting against one of your Alpha Legion units but you also get 12 inches of movement. There is so many good ways to use this it’s unreal. I’ll just list a few:
- Cap an objective
- Challenge an objective
- Setup a charge for next turn
- Actually mitigate shooting by moving out of LoS or utilize the 12inch move in conjunction with the the Alpha Legion “Lies and Obfuscation” to get out of range.
- Deny a charge by moving a unit into a charge lane
- Simply move your unit to a desired location, wherever you need to be, you can be there.
I would say the only real downside to this reaction is how you place a unit. You really can’t move the units into cover in ruins or fortifications and there is some degree of scatter (D6) so it can be imprecise. That being said, this is a reaction that can win you games by getting a critical unit exactly where you need it to be when it needs to be there.
*A close challenger for #1 was “Remorseless Advance” not only do you gain a 4+ FNP against all shooting attacks from a triggering unit but you also get to move 7″ and ignore all pinning and morale checks caused by the shooting. This is so strong! While it doesn’t move you the insane 12″ that the Alpha Legion Advanced Reaction does, it does mitigate a ton of damage and it keeps you fighting by shrugging off any pinning or morale issues. While excellent, I think the “Smoke and Mirrors” edges out “Remorseless Advance” because of the overall distance you can move and it also triggers prior to any of the shooting giving you the opportunity to completely get out of dodge and avoid taking casualties.
Final Thoughts
I have yet to see a single reaction that doesn’t have a place in the game. To me, that is the beauty of the reaction system. Unlike the pages of stratagems that litter 40k codices and don’t see play, every reaction has its place, and since you’re not restricted by scarcity in command points every reaction gets its moment to shine. Are some better than others? Absolutely. But overall I’ve yet to see one I flat out wouldn’t use. The other thing that I enjoy is, because the number of overall reactions is limited at this point you don’t need to know your opponents army cover to cover, everyone has access to mostly similar reactions. I think that this leads to more balance and a more cerebral game. There’s fewer gotchas and feel bad moments.
Age of Darkness: Reference Cards are just around the corner and should be a solid pickup for any Horus Heresy enthusiast. Please note prior to buying the cards, they don’t include any of the legion specific or Mechanicum advanced reactions which I think is a miss. It would have been worth the wait to put those into the deck.
