Horus Heresy: Army List Building In The Age of Darkness
Games Workshop is changing how army list building work in The Horus Heresy. The Force Organization chart is evolving.
The Horus Heresy is getting an update to the classic Force Org Chart. With new army construction rules you’ll be able field a more diverse and flexible army list. But how will it work? It’s moving on to Detachments.
“To illustrate this system we’ll be looking at the Crusade Force Organisation Chart – the standard arrangement used by almost every faction in Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – and using the Legiones Astartes army list. Other factions may have minor differences to these rules, but they all follow a similar structure.”
Detachments Come To The Horus Heresy
So at it’s core, this should all look very familiar if you’re playing 40k, AoS, or even The Horus Heresy currently. The symbols are updated but the ideas is close enough that this concept shouldn’t be anything completely out of the blue. But before we get into all the options, we do need to level set about what the different units are.
“High-ranking officers go into the High Command slot, with secondary officers fit in the Command slot, basic infantry in the Troops slot, and light transports in the Transport slot.”
Dedicated Transports are “a thing of the past.” In this version, they will be taken in their own slots. You’ll also notice that there are no “compulsory” units either. Those are gone and you’re free to leave out whatever options you wish. But there are bonuses for filling out these “Prime Slots” in your roster.
Now, you’ll also notice there’s lots of stuff missing. Where are the Dreadnoughts? Terminators? Jet Bikes?! Don’t worry…those are coming.
Auxiliary Detachments In The Horus Heresy
“This is where your Command Slots come in. For each one you fill, you may add one Auxiliary Detachment to your army – or two if you enlist a regular non-Consul Centurion – each of which include one or more slots for other Battlefield Roles. “
Here’s the list from Games Workshop:
GW also made a handy chart with more icons to look at.
It’s also worth noting that You can take any Auxiliary Detachment as many times as you’d like to in your list. Oh and things like “Vehicle squadrons, Dreadnought talons, and other similar unit types no longer exist” which means that each unit will take up it’s own slot.
There’s also the new Apex Detachments as well. These are based on your High Command.
These Apex Detachments are for your best troops and from what I can tell are a tad more limited than the Aux Detachments. So choose what you want from these slots wisely! Additionally, each Faction and Legion has it’s own batch of Auxiliary and Apex Detachments, too. These are just the basics and there’s plenty more coming.
What Are Prime Slots?
GW mentioned Prime Slots and thankfully have circled back around to those as well.
“You may have noticed in the charts above that some slots have a special border around them, marking them as Prime Slots. For each one of these filled by a unit, you may select one of several Prime Advantages, which do all sorts of things from enhancing the fighting prowess of the squad’s Sergeant to bolstering the unit’s Advanced Characteristics.”
One example GW provided was for the Logistical Benefit Advantage to add one Battlefield Role Slot to a Detachment. In this case they opted for a Leviathan Dreadnought.
Detachments For All
If you’ve got an existing army there’s a really good chance there’s a Detachment that exists for you. The WarCom article went in with 3000 point army and rebuilt it using the new Detachments, I’m pretty sure you could even go back and slice this army up in different ways and still get the same outcome.
The point I’m trying to make here is that you’ll have the ability to really create them thematic Horus Heresy army you want with this new Detachment system. Honestly, this doesn’t even seem “new” as it’s modified from other editions of 40k/AoS. So if you’ve been playing GW games you’re going to make the adjustment to this system pretty fast.
Detachments are coming to Horus Heresy? Doesn’t feel that much different, TBH.
