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Road to Argentis - Part III Sons of Horus Rules

So while the painting is going through the long, boring part of coloring in black I guess it's time to start talking tactics and ideas. I think the best place to start is by looking at the rules for the Sons of Horus Legion. 

The 16th Legion are a group of lads known for finding the sensitive parts of their enemies and smashing as much meaty, metal fist as they can into it so that the rest of the body dies in the shock wave. The rules express this as being better at shooting weapons up close and a re-roll to reserve rules. The special units for the legion are the special Justaerin Terminators and the Reaver Attack squad. 

The Anvillus Drop Pod was also originally an exclusive unit for Sons of Horus, but that isn't the case anymore so I guess we will just ignore that little bit. Ok, lets get some soup-to-nuts talk going on here. 


The Holy Text is sacred.

Sons of Horus/ Luna Wolves - 16th Legion Traits

Bitter Pride: Sons of Horus can't use warlord traits or leadership of allied characters. No one cares because if you don't use The Arch-Traitors by themselves then you are wrong.......NEXT.....

The Edge of the Spear: Units in reserve may re-roll reserve rolls of 1. Now this is not too shabby. Thankfully, it is a MAY and not a MUST. Meaning that when I roll the reserve roll I can look at the battlefield and decide if discretion is the better part of valor for my boy's survivability. It is only on that roll of a 1 so it doesn't happen all that often, but it could be clutch. I think this is one of those secretly good rules that most people will forget. It is enough to base an army idea on if you decide to exploit it as much as possible. My current list won't be using this rule much, but it is there for later.

Merciless Fighters: Sons of Horus can swing their weapons around 1 more time at Initiative 1 as long as the weapon does not normally swing at Initiative 1 and the Sons of Horus outnumber the enemy. Its one of those rules you get really excited when you see it and then realize that its super MEH. The implication is that you can't swing the weapons you wanted to swing more with. Most of the AP 2 and strength increasing weapons are unwieldy which forces you to the Initiative 1 spot. The best you can get from most of your squads is going to be a power sword, but they can be unreliable in murdermaking. The extra swings from your boys is going to be nice, but it isn't going to win games on its own and it doesn't make the Sons of Horus a melee army. 

Death Dealers: +1 Ballistic Skill while shooting within 12 inches when shooting pistols, assault, or rapid fire weapons. Ok, so this is the meat and potatoes of the army in my opinion. The legionaries are good at putting a slug in someone's brain pan as long as they are at that medium range of 12 inches. This DOESN'T apply to fury of the legion so they still only hit on 3s for that. In my opinion this helps Vets the most since they can bring the special weapons that you want to hit with. Hitting with a bolter on a 2 is nice......but hitting with a melta or a plasma on 2...that just brings a smile to my face. 

Justaerin Terminators: So this unit is what I think all terminators should be measured against when rules are being written. Justaerin are everything you could reasonably want in a terminator unit. They have WS 5, can take whatever weapon they want, have furious charge for easy killing on the charge, and all of them can take challenges to maximize putting what you want where you want in melee. And to top it off these muthas also get the coveted 2 wounds on terminators in cataphracti plate. They cost a chunky amount of points, but it is hard to argue with their effectiveness. I have to really dig deep to even come up with something to complain about, and it is very minor. Gonna get really microscopic and say the only downside is that they HAVE to be in a transport whenever you use The Long March rite of war......oh no...

Reaver Attack Squad: I want to like them.....I really really want to like them for the sweet sculpts and awesome fluff, but these guys are just butts. They are supposed to represent a unit of cold, hard assassins working together to slice people up and put them on slices of bread. Unfortunately, if the enemy is easy to kill with these guys then you probably could have just hit them with a round of bolter fire to get the job done. They get precision shots and attacks, but their weapons leave a lot to be desired. Chain axes are great, but since their lack of artificer armor is going to make them vulnerable to being smacked around. This forces the result to really come down to who rolls better. If the victims are terminators then these guys are just going to melt into bits of dead people as their weapons just ding off the heavy armor.

Well that is a quick sum up of what I think of the units and rules that I will be using. I think the reavers are butt, and I don't think they are worth the points they cost. I am still going to use them because they are awesome looking and I think people like to see them. 

Next tactics post will be the actually 3K army list so that you guys can look at it and laugh at me. And base you entire army list around beating me up and making me feel bad enough that you have to buy me dinner and drinks for the rest of the night. Truly, the actual plan.

Keep up the boom boom guys and cya next time.

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