The Sons of Horus have a reputation for alpha-strikes: cutting out the heart or weak point of an enemy in a decapitation assault from which they will never recover. Such is the Cthonia legacy.
The special rules for this legion reflect this.
The first special rule that all Legiones Astartes (Sons of Horus) have is The Edge of the Spear. The ability to re-roll abysmally failed reserve rolls is pretty crucial. It lends itself well to descent of Angels style assault drops, or terminator alpha strikes -- almost in a Death Wing kind of style to some extent.
The Merciless Fighters rule is probably the one that the Sons of Horus are best known for. Should the Sons be in a combat round and outnumber the opponent at the end of it (counting models in a fashion reminiscent of 4th edition 40k rules), then they gain an extra attack once initiative=1 attacks have been finalised. This can be very powerful and is more than anything the embodiment of the Cthonia influence: violent, savage and remorseless. It lends itself well to having large numbers of models in units -- especially the front line melee units such as Praetors, Centurions, Terminators, and Assault Squads (amongst many others!). Even having full Tactical Squads will be amplifying this rule -- so take them. But equally, this means that the Sons of Horus player must be able to get in to the target combat they're seeking out and not be a static take-and-hold army. This blends in well with the Edge of the Spear rule -- particularly for terminators assaults and drop pod assaults.
The final rule is Bitter Pride. To be honest, I think if one is running Sons of Horus, there's not going to be too much need for them to ally with other legions (other than fluff of course), hence I don't think folks are going to worry too much about this. I'm yet to see people regularly field allied 30k legions (e.g. 2/3rds of the points from one legion, and 1/3rd from another -- say the Sons of Horus!) -- I think this is an un-mined field of potential that merits serious thought. Hence I suspect that in the future when folks start playing 2000+ points games and decide on allies, this Bitter Pride rule might plausibly come in to play. As, to be fair, the Sons of Horus are rather darn charismatic and would regularly ally with many others! But even in those circumstances, surely the Sons would be the primary detachment and this rule bypassed?!
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