The Battle of Pluto: Hydra’s Devastation

Fresh out of the Warhammer Community today is the first in what promises to be a high quality series of releases for the Horus Heresy: Exemplary Battles in the Age of Darkness. In this case, it is The Battle of Pluto: Hydra’s Devastation. This particular release centres around the battle of Hydra and is one of those very notable battles in the Heresy that hasn't received as much attention as it might otherwise deserve -- and hence the release.

Here, we get to grips with the Alpha Legion tearing into the outer solar system defences around Terra. Arranged against them are the forces of the Imperial Fists. These events are covered in the Black Library release Praetorian of Dorn. The release is a solid 12 pages long (10 not counting the covers) and gives us a new campaign to fight that consists of 3 individual battles, along with a new unit: the Huscurl Squad. All this set with a good amount of background material and lore that would make some of the earlier writers of the black book series proud, I would like to believe.

The so-called "legendary battles" themselves are entertaining. The first one (A Spear in the Void) represents the Alpha Legion making a surgical strike on Hydra with the Imperial Fists defending. The second (Maelstrom of Carnage) deals with the aftermath of the first game and is effectively a Zone Mortalis game. Whoever won the previous game is the attacker here and must push on into enemy territory to either damage things further, or to kill off the remaining forces (also depends on your point of view I guess!).

The final game is "Nucleus of Destruction" and represents the clash between Dorn and Alpharius at the culmination of the Battle for Hydra. The outcome is decided by who kills the opposing Primarch. All told, this is an interesting series of connected games that can feature in a connected campaign for the dominion of Hydra. 

We will review the new Imperial Fists unit in a distinct post. 

About the only thing that I can say I'm slightly down on is that fact that this publication might not end up in physical publication format. But that's life. And I'm very pleased to see the Horus Heresy line get some quality attention like this. It certainly bodes well for the future. Bring on the second edition of the game!