30K: The Age of Darkness Rulebook Overview
What’s in the Ultimate Horus Heresy Rulebook? Come take a look and find out!
We ordered a copy of the Horus Heresy Age of Darkness Rulebook and it’s everything we were waiting for:
Let’s just get this out of the way – The Horus Heresy Age of Darkness Rulebook is the best version of 7th Edition Warhammer 40,000 ever produced. Why? Because it’s all the things folks liked about 7th and the biggest issues are removed. Which issues were those? We made a list:
- Invisibility – gone!
- Formations – gone!
- Allies Chart – makes sense!
- There are no fifth-wheel Xenos Scum bolted on to this version of the game – All Righteous (and Traitor) Marines, all the time!
Ok, that last one is a joke, but still – not having to mix in the Xenos armies does make the game feel stable. It’s focused primarily on the Horus Heresy and the factions involved in that specific conflict. Which is sort of the entire point…
The Universal Special Rules also got a good look-at as well. There are many Heresy-era specific USRs that have been added and consolidated. There is even an entire Wargear section that does a fantastic job of laying out all the weapons and families of weapons in the game. This is the most complete and up-to-date version of this ruleset ever printed.
Aside from all the consolidations, refinements, and additions to the 7th Edition ruleset, the book itself is pretty stunning. It’s physically larger than the 7th Edition book with larger pages that are thicker and gilded in silver. It’s using the same “Fancy” format of all the existing Horus Heresy books as well. This book really is a top-notch production.
Fans of the Horus Heresy, this is the book for you. And now, if you want to get folks playing for the first time or if you want to get them to return to the 30k Era, you’ve got a book you can point them at to get started. Here at BoLS we think this book is going to be the new foundation for the Horus Heresy playerbase moving forward. If you love the Horus Heresy and want it to be a “thing” this book is your new rallying point. It’s out now from Forge World – so what are you waiting for!
The Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness Rulebook £40
The Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness is a tabletop game for two or more players, in which you command an army of Forge World and Citadel miniatures representing either those Loyalist forces who fight in the name of the Emperor or the Traitors who have chosen to side with Warmaster Horus. This 216-page hardback book provides you with all of the core rules and diagrams you will need to recreate and fight the wars of the Horus Heresy.
Core Rules:
This section explains how to fight battles with your army during the civil war that tore apart the fledgling Imperium of Mankind. The core rules cover all of the basic principles of playing a game of The Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness, from moving your models across the battlefield and blasting your enemies with a hail of firepower, to slaying your foes in the brutal struggle of melee and obliterating your victims with forbidden and arcane psychic powers, including rules for summoning daemons.
Unit Types:
This section explores all of the different unit types that describe your models. From footslogging Infantry and rampaging Monstrous Creatures to armoured battle tanks and supersonic Flyers, it lists all of the special rules that apply to these models. This section also includes rules to field the largest and most destructive units waging war on the battlefields of the Horus Heresy – Super-heavy Vehicles, Titans and Gargantuan Creatures – as well as detailing how heroic characters can lead your troops to victory.
Battlefield Terrain:
The Battlefield Terrain section describes how to incorporate terrain into your games in order to recreate the battlefields of a war-ravaged galaxy. In addition to the rules describing the different terrain types, such as ruins, buildings and battlefield debris, this section also enables you to use Fortifications – towering edifices whose armoured battlements bristle with heavy weaponry.
Preparing for Battle:
The Preparing for Battle section brings all the rules you have read so far together and takes you through the steps of getting ready for a game, beginning with a guide to forging a battle-ready army from your collection of miniatures. It also explains how to play a mission; from setting up the battlefield and deploying your forces to defining how long the game will last and determining who is the victor at the battle’s end. All of the special rules that are used in games of The Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness are also described in this section, including six different missions which represent the vast scope of the wars that were fought during the Horus Heresy.
Appendix:
The Appendix contains a compendium of special rules, weapon profiles and psychic powers that are frequently referred to throughout this book, as well as in numerous other Forge World publications, such as the Army List books or Campaign books.
Reference:
The final section of this book contains a wealth of helpful quick reference material, such as a summary of the turn sequence and copies of various tables that can be found throughout this book, as well as a comprehensive index for the book itself. This section enables you to find the rule(s) you need during your games quickly and simply.
It’s time to lay siege to Terra once more…
