Game designers of the world, if you want to get me very excited about your wargame before I've even played it, you've got three sure-fire options: include rules for destructible terrain; make 'falling off buildings' a regular part of the game; or capture the vibes of a specific piece of fiction that I love really, really well. Games Workshop's latest rules reveal articles for Warhammer: The Horus Heresy third edition have nailed the third of these so well that my lingering skepticism about the new game has been suspended - I'm genuinely hyped.
It's critical that the new edition of Warhammer: the Horus Heresy feels like the fiction it's based on; most fans have read a huge chunk of the Horus Heresy books, or at least engaged with the many lore explainer videos on YouTube and TikTok. The game needs to deliver massed infantry combat, colossal armor battles, and epic duels, with each of the Space Marine Legions and their Warhammer 40k Primarchs approaching the conflict in unique and characterful ways.
Unless it can capture that flavor, a Horus Heresy wargame could be good, but it wouldn't be great. Fortunately the latest two rules teaser articles on Warhammer Community give lots of tasty hints at the capabilities of the different Legions, and it all looks extremely promising.
Here's my favorite rule, the one that convinced me the designers understood the assignment: Perturabo's new gambit, 'The Breaker'. Gambits are part of the revised and expanded Challenge system, which from a previous WarCom article looks like it's basically a minigame - normally each Gambit is a fighting style or special combat move.
But instead of making any attacks in the challenge, Perturabo can point at another friendly Iron Warriors unit within 12 inches, and have them unload their guns onto his opponent. I laughed out loud when I read this - it's perfect. Perturabo is absolutely the kind of guy who would declare 'Orbital strike on my position' if he couldn't be bothered to fight someone.
This doesn't look like a powerful ability, since the unit that shoots on Perturabo's behalf is only allowed to make Snap Shots - though who knows, maybe the Snap Shot rules have changed as well. But just imagine destroying your enemy's elite melee champion by firing a full meltagun support squad into them - the sheer disrespect!
The other tidbits revealed about the Legions all ooze flavor. It's confirmed that the World Eaters and Emperor's Children both have two Rites of War (a term that now just encompasses a package of army wide rules and abilities), one to depict them as they were early in the Heresy, another for after their descent into corruption. Fingers crossed that the same is true for the Death Guard.
The early-Heresy World Eater's special rule is The Nails' Bite. When a World Eaters unit fails a Leadership check, instead of becoming Routed, they can become Lost to the Nails, immediately shaking off all debuffs. In this state they add an inch to any set-up move they make (GW hasn't spelled out what this does, but context clues suggest it's part of the charge sequence), gain an extra attack, have Leadership, Cool, and Willpower 10 (unless it would be higher), and must charge if there's a target within 12 inches.
So you simply cannot break the World Eaters in combat - they just get madder. And any time you do substantial damage to them with shooting attacks (or target them with flamers, which now cause automatic Leadership tests!) you risk activating their Berserker tendencies. And sure, you'll pull them off objectives - but do you really want World Eaters slammed into your ranks?
The whole old system of generic and Legion-specific Rites of War, which manipulated the Force Organisation chart, and provided buffs and restrictions is also gone - but between the open-ended new Force Org chart, and the news that each Legion gets its own custom Auxiliary Detachment (and perhaps also an Apex Detachment) to make it easier to take iconic Legion-specific units, the tools are in place for similarly thematic armies, with a lot fewer rules.
All these rules, and the others teased in the articles, hit a sweet spot between flavor and complexity. I'm excited, is what I'm saying. It might finally be time for my battle worn Iron Warriors to be joined by their Primarch…
What do you think of the rules previews so far? Have any of the reveals tempted you to start recruiting a new Legion? Are you less optimistic than I am? Come and chat in the official Wargamer Discord community!
Did you know that a Warhammer: the Horus Heresy RPG is in development? Check out our interview with the lead designers!