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Horus Heresy: Tale of Six Gamers, My First 500pts


Ben Hawley's Emperors Children

At the start of this year, six of us chose to do a Tale of Six Warlords to help us get the drive and motivation to build and paint our Horus Heresy armies. We're starting with just 500pts, and set the date of April to have this small force table ready.


Easy right? We'd all hit that target, won't we?


Err, no. I missed it. But I'm there now! I'm also cracking on with the next 500pts for the next stage (but more on that later).


So I chose the freaky fellas of the Emperors Children for my Horus Heresy army. There are a few reasons for this.

  • I like Purple.

  • It's a fairly quick colour scheme (I know the irony of this!)

  • They have some of the best characters in the Horus Heresy book series (IMO).


I'm starting with the base Age of Darkness box, but I also got a heavy weapons box to be able to build something with some punch. This gave a solid start to the army, with infantry, a Dreadnaught, a Spartan Land Raider, and two HQ options. So how to select just 500pts from this for the first phase? We'd agreed that we were only going to take infantry for the first round, so that did cut out a lot of options, but still lots of options to look at.


I figured that the core of any army, no matter the size has to be the line infantry. You need them to hold objectives and you need two and an HQ as the base of force org chart. So I've leaned into that. My first 500pts looks like this.


HQ - Legion Praetor

  • Artificer Armour

  • Bolt Pistol

  • Frag Grenades

  • Iron Halo

  • Krak Grenades

  • Master of the Legion

  • Paragon Blade

  • Sublingual Glands

  • Volkite Charger


Troops - Tactical Squad 1

  • Sergeant with Power Fist and Plasma Pistol

  • 9 Legionaries


Troops - Tactical Squad 2

  • Sergeant with Lighting Claw and Plasma Pistol

  • 14 Legionaries with Chain Bayonets





Is it a bit flavourless? Yes. Is it a solid base to build the rest of the force and learn the game? Yes.


I managed to get them on the table against Craigs Thousand Sons, who with Rotary Cannons, Sniper Rifles and Pysic bullets all over the place, were far more flavoursome. Armed with just bolters and trusty bayonets, I figured it would be a fairly short game and I'd get shot off the board. The Mission roll went in my favour though and with tactics of hiding behind buildings more akin to the Raven Guard, I managed to hold out and win the day. The main thing was it was my first game of it since the Age of Darness box came out, and we both enjopyed it. I do think the minis looked good ont he table top as well!





So the next level is 1000pts. We're now letting in Dreadnaughts but still no vehicles. So I'm thinking I'm going to add in a dreadnaught, a squad of Terminators and something a bit faster to help with board control. I'll put another post up with progress when these are done.

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