Horus Heresy: Digging Into the “Siege of Cthonia”
An all new campaign book – The Siege of Cthonia was unveiled for Horus Heresy at Adepticon. Let’s dig into the details.
If you missed all of the major reveals from Adepticon as well the hype train making its way around the internet via social media, you my have noticed that Old Man Lion is back for his Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) era. Also 10th edition Warhammer 40k was announced along with snapshots of some of the redone models as well as a slick trailer that is driving speculation about new space marine units, new Xenos scum and all the possible weapon loadouts. Dare I say that the 10th edition trailer is probably going to be more dissected than the Abraham Zapruder film. Alas, we’re here to discuss Horus Heresy!
To say I’m Disappointed Would Be An Understatement…
I think given the breakneck pace of releases over the last year for Horus Heresy, I was honestly expecting something bigger, something flashier, and something more definitive than just a campaign book. If the 12 of you who read my articles recall, my predictions were far bolder than just one “Black Book”, I believe I damn near guaranteed Super Heavy Tanks (Fellblade, Glaive, Falchion), new Sister of Silence units, plastic Mechanicum, maybe some Hectaeron Guard, the list goes on. But I think that’s what I was expecting from Adepticon this year. In my nerdy heart of hearts, my demand was really to recognize Horus Heresy as a growing and popular third pillar to Games Workshops Warhammer40k and Age of Sigmar and give Heresy outsized spotlight as it is “my game.”
Complaints aside…looking back to HH 1.0 I think it was the “black books” that defined the game/era. If the HH models were the chalice, the black books were the biblical texts and quintessential must-buys for fans. Even if your army didn’t have entries in the books, I know plenty of people who went out of their way to pre-order and collect the books. Even today, the HH 1.0 black books are still selling for sometimes ridiculous cash on Ebay. They are so jam-packed full of amazing artwork, lore, rules, missions, and campaign scenarios; they were never your typical Codex from Warhammer40k or Age of Sigmar. They were, and probably still are, books that had longevity in mind, something you will still have gameplay value and lore value in 5 years. The kind of stuff that is just as much coffee table artbook as game manual.
So What’s In The New Black Book
Honestly I wish I knew more. From the sound of it we’re going to be taking a hard look at the The Siege of Cthonia; a splinter war on the homeworld the Sons of Horus and Horus Lupercal himself. The narrative revolves around a garrison of Imperial Fists and other Shattered Legions under the command of Evander Garrius attempting to capture and hold the world of Cthonia as a contingent of Sons of Horus, Word Bearers and Alpha Legion lead by Vheren Ashurhaddon attempt to fend off the Loyalists before Horus claims Terra. To me, this is a strange vector to take. With the upcoming conclusion to the Siege of Terra and what many have speculated is the end of the Horus Heresy series of books, I felt like this was a moment to align the Horus Heresy novels to the game and flesh out the end of the Heresy with a focus on legions and armies that haven’t received as much attention in HH 1.0. There will be new missions, new units, new lore and of course, new models that come along with the release of the book (so there is plenty more to speculate about in the future, if you’re me).
Missions
After I broke out my magnifying glass I was able to take a deeper look at the mission sample that was provided during the reveal. It seems that HH is headed toward round-by-round scoring with Primary objectives as well as secondary objectives. This is a vast departure from HH1.0 and what is in the existing Age of Darkness Core Rulebook. It also mentions Core Mission Secondary Objectives. I assume this means that we’ll be choosing Secondary’s akin to the way competitive Warhammer 40k missions are played. While I’m not a huge fan of the bookkeeping that round-by-round scoring takes to accomplish, I feel that this is probably a better way to play the game for balance’s sake.
It forces the game to slow down and for players to focus on capturing objectives rather than tabling their opponent. Players need to dedicate units to holding points on the map rather than just marching across the table and punching someone in the mouth or simply just focusing on slaughtering their opponent’s army. Tactical play is rewarded, and someone who is fielding a less potent army still might have a chance to pull off a win by focusing on the mission. As always, the existing more traditional missions are still there for you to play, but it offers more competitive-minded players some mission variety that they might enjoy more than kill point missions.
Also, in case you missed it Zone Mortalis is back with rules headed our way in the new “Black Book”:
Campaign System
With my deft screen capture abilities, I spied this neat little tidbit. It seems that we’ll be getting a full campaign system and if you look closely under Setting up an Onslaught Campaign you’ll notice that not only does it push a team-based campaign but it also mentions Campaign Strategems. Obviously, I can only speculate on what those Strategems are going to be but…I’d say they are probably more in line with a reinforcements mechanic or something campaign-wide rather than battle or army specific. I think reactions will still be the main currency of the game, and Strategems will be campaign or meta-specific abilities that happen at the star map level.
Horus Heresy Final Thoughts
Adepticon didn’t deliver the things I was after, but we did get something, and we’ll continue to get things. Be it more Space Marine tanks (we’re almost through them folks, just another dozen or so to go, then we can move onto fliers and speeders), or Space Marine infantry…basically anything Space Marine, we’ll getting plenty of that. Someone should tell GW that many legions can use Castellax and Thallax. On the horizon, we have the Cerebus coming our way. If you picked up the Typhon recently you’ll know that the front plate for the Cerebus was included in that kit (they are both based on the Spartan chassis), so I suspect beyond a sprue swap with the Dread Hammer Siege Cannon, it will get through production relatively quickly. Basically, its a new box, new instruction sheet, and packaging and they’ll be ready for pickup at your FLGS. To my knowledge there hasn’t been a release date announced, but I foresee them coming in mid April, early May.
What are your thoughts on this release? What are you most looking forward to? What are you least looking forward to?
