GW Grognard: Lessons After a Battle

Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to talk about my first game of Horus Heresy.

After judging a number of events this year and playing the the 8 game weekend that was the GW Open in San Diego, I was ready for a change of pace. Luckily the Horus Heresy stuff was just about to release and I already had some models just waiting to be built from the old Burning of Prospero and Betrayal at Calth boxsets. So I quickly put some models together, along with some that were put together but not painted yet, and took my Son of Horus out for a 1,000 point test drive. Here are a few things I learned.

Remember to Spread Out

Having played the current edition of 40K for a number of years now has instilled in me a way of moving my troops. they never really worried about where they are sanding because there are no templates in the game currently and so I don’t have to worry about the placement of my models within the squad. Horus Heresy, however, was a stark reminder of the necessity of spacing my models out to minimize the damage caused from blast and flamer weapons. My opponent’s marines and my marines suffered for both of our complacency in the placement of out models. this first game was a good reminder that template weapons are a constant danger in the 30K universe.

Deep Striking Can Mean Death

I deep strike all the time in 9th edition. Whether it is through magic, a relic, or a vehicle, I am always deep striking any chance I get. It is relatively safe too. Unless someone want to auspex scan or use a similar stratagem, then there is really no harm in deep striking. In the Horus Heresy it can be a big risk to deep strike a unit. Drop pods can mitigate this with their inertial guidance but if you are just teleporting a squad in, you better be careful where that scatter dice takes you as you could easily get killed before you even show up on the board, if at all. The other factor is that you cannot charge after coming in from deep strike you get to be shot for a turn before you are able to charge at something or move to a better location. This is also if you are even allowed to use deep strike as it isn’t something that is available just because you are in terminator armor. Oh the cost of having cool armor.

It’s Like Riding a Bicycle

I was surprised and not surprised how much of 7th edition came back to me as we began to play our game. Remembering how blast weapons worked, some of the universal rules, and many of the old weapons profiles began to refill my mind like an old coat that I hadn’t worn in a while. Sure there are still a few new things that needed to be learned like the reaction system and the little tweaks made here and there but for the most part it wasn’t so bad to learn again. Now we only played a thousand points and we will be ramping that up as we go along but so far so good. i am sure I will still get confused at many points in the game but I was easily able to switch my mind back to the thinking of 7th edition. I almost feel sorry for players that have only played since 8th or 9th edition. Almost.

That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what your thoughts are on the new Horus Heresy, in the comments section below. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!

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