Horus Heresy: 2023 – A Year in Review
Join me in a little reminiscing in just what we all did in Horus Heresy in 2023.
The end of the year always seems to sneak up on me. I’m sure for many of you with busy lives and schedules, family, and a gaming habit, its the same. One day, it’s Halloween; the next, it’s Thanksgiving, and suddenly, you’re in the midst of the Holiday season, and BAM, New Year. As I stare down the barrel of an impending 2024, I always like to take a point in this busy time of year to look back at where I was and measure how far I’ve come.
The Models We All Wanted and Some We Didn’t
The breakneck pace of Heresy this year has been admirable. While GW has struggled monumentally with its supply chain through 2023, Horus Heresy still managed to achieve around 65% of their advertised deliverables. The below graphic was taken from Games Workshop’s own Warhammer Fest in Q1 of 2023. It outlined a roadmap for upcoming releases into Q1 of 2024
The major releases this year constituted:
Swing and a Miss
The roadmap, upon its release, saw some major critique by the community and, in some ways, has impacted the overall interest in the game. Locally I did observe my Horus Heresy community shrink a bit over the course of the year. This could be due to WH40k 10E seeing a spring/summer release in 2023 as well as a drop off of Heresy releases that were relevant to building the basics in a list. You’ll get natural attrition as new popular games draw people away, but beyond that natural player sink, talking with many people throughout the wider Heresy community, new players were struggling to get ahold of essential models. The release roadmap reads left to right as expected yet the natural progression of how you would anticipate a game release Right to Left. If you provide players with the essential models they need to fill in the force organizations, players will inherently be drawn toward those releases to start new armies and add to existing ones.
The first thing that people really need in Horus Heresy are the essentials: troops, HQs, infantry, and bodies. 2 years in, and we’re just getting Assault Marines, and on the flipside, Despoilers leaves this author scratching his head. Beyond that, we’d also expect upgrade kits, things that could easily expand and enhance the existing range and make the building of armies easier. I shouldn’t be digging in my 40k bits for upgrades simply because they were left off the sprues. We should have similar melee upgrade sprues similar to the heavy weapons upgrades we got upon release.
New Army
For me, the big miss this year was the New Army release. There is a ton of speculation on whether this will be Solar Auxilia or Sisters of Silence…or maybe something far sinister? Any addition will be most welcome in that it adds model diversity to the existing range and new play opportunities for players. Also, new armies generate interest in the game. It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen anything truly new for Horus Heresy. While I am not naive enough to assume that all production on Legion releases will be halted in lieu of this new army, I’m excited to see the previews and release…whatever that will be, and whenever that will be.
Legion Command Squad
Every army needs a commander, and every commander needs a cool hat. While there are plenty of good options to draw from across the hundreds of kits produced by GW there is something about opening a fresh box of plastic or resin and it being exactly what you want, with exactly the right parts, and the right fit and assembles quickly and hits the table even faster. Hopefully, we will get this in the near future.
New Characters and Upgrades
We’ve yet to see the upgrades, but we are getting a trickle of Characters sculpts that are interesting. Thus far, we have entries for some of the consuls, the White Scars Stormseer and the Alpha Legion Saboteur. There hasn’t been a significant upgrade kit aside from the MKVI upgrade helms and 5 man chain swords and bolt pistols. Hopefully, we will be seeing something for Apothecaries, veterans, and others as we head into 2024.
It’s About the People, Community, and Friends
If there’s one message I’d like to convey to my dozen readers, it’s the undeniable value of community in wargaming. This year, I made a conscious decision to immerse myself in my local Horus Heresy community, recognizing that, especially as one gets older, building friendships and establishing connections is harder.
People enter the hobby for various reasons, but those who sustain their passion over the long term often do so through strong community ties or a close-knit circle of friends. Just as Steve Jobs had the support of Woz and Arnold had Franco Columbu, I’ve found steadfast hobby friends in JC, Dan, and Monji—three dedicated Heresy enthusiasts. I’ve discovered that navigating the intricate process of painting an army becomes much more manageable when you have cheerleaders rooting for you on a few Sundays a month. Titans seemingly assemble themselves with three pairs of hands, and when you’re racing against the clock to finish a squadron of Custodes flyers and armor, having someone to drybrush and assist with basing at 2 am means the difference between six hours of sleep and three hours of sleep. To Monji, JC, and Dan, thank you for being my accountability-buddies; without your help, I doubt I would have accomplished even a quarter of what I did this year. Together, we painted and based hundreds of models, crafted dozens of pieces of scenery and terrain, and attended a multitude of events.
I’m always enamored by the African Proverb:
If you want to go fast, go alone
If you want to go far, go together
I have a boss that echoes this sentiment frequently in my department in my professional life, and I’ve adopted this into my hobbies as well. If you want success, having people to push you, bounce ideas off of, and provide different perspectives is invaluable. Find these people in your local communities, they exist, and they’re probably just as excited to find other like-minded people as you are. Find a group of people with abilities and skills unlike your own; maybe one of you is a topnotch painter, another is a great community organizer, and maybe you’ll even be able to pull a lore aficionado away from their books to ensure your dudes-men are “accurate” to the source material. Whoever you find will assuredly push you to be a better overall hobbyist and player; maybe you’ll luck out and find someone who will be just a great friend.
On behalf of BoLS and the wider Horus Heresy community, I wish you happy hobbying, great games and comradery during this holiday season.
