Where are we up to this week about 3rd Edition for Horus Heresy?

Where are we up to with the new Horus Heresy 3rd Edition this week?

Still no confirmed release date. However. Games Workshop has announced a competition online which involves winning your choice of Primarch, a bunch of upgrades like resin heads and shoulder pads for a legion of your choice, as well as the relevant transfer sheet and so forth. This comes with the new boxed set. Of significance here is the small print:

• 6.2 The approximate retail value of the prize pool is £1245/$1942.5 USD/$2975 AUS/€1565. This value excludes delivery and sales tax, where applicable. 
  
  

• 8.1 A redraw, if applicable, will take place at Games Workshop, Willow Road, Nottingham NG7 2WS at 10 a.m. (UK Time) on 6th August 2025. The redraw will be made by computerised random selection.

I am left wondering about the release date of the new boxed set. It seems from this it won't be until AUGUST! That seems a long way out here at the end of May. 

The prize pool is incredible as well. GBP1245 is very high. Let's break it down. There will be 5 winners, hence each winner gets a value of GBP249. This is incredible value just by looking at it. 

We will assume that a Primarch is worth GBP100 (it isn't on average, but Magnus the Red is clearly expensive compared to Angron). Down to GBP149. 

Shoulder pads are worth GPB16. Multiplied by 4 - because there's supposed to be enough for the box - that's GBP64. Heads are the same price. So another GBP64. Add on GBP23 for the transfer sheet and we get down to GBP negative 2. And that's before any of the paint brush bundle, and the paint pot bundle. Let alone the boxed set itself. My estimate for the boxed set is somewhere in the region of GBP150. Total guess. YMMV. 

And then the Horus Hearsay page itself has updated to confirm which things were real, versus hearsay. And to be honest, there are no surprises. There's no d18 in the boxed set. Hardly a surprise. I don't think the rest is exceptionally surprising either. 

Regardless, loving the forthcoming miniatures (breachers, assault squad, and everything else). Just a bit disappointed that the three year old books are already being eliminated. 

Wargames Gallery: Contemptor Clash

For reasons that I swear made total sense at the time, two contemptor dreadnoughts that lack any melee armaments engage in close combat. 

In imagination, the combat was won by the best dancer since all of the damage was presumably done through sheer application of weight, the odd blast going off, and mostly kicks. 

For the curious, the Salamanders dreadnought won the battle against the Alpha Legion dreadnought. But only just. And it took a while. 

The Dropsite Preview / Horus Heresy 3rd Edition: Thoughts, Opinions, and Impressions

Did you watch the Dropsite Preview live? I did. And I have thoughts. Let's dive in.

First up: there is NO CONFIRMED RELEASE DATE for the new rules and the Saturnine boxed set at the time of writing. This is incredibly disappointing to say the least. I wanted to know this factoid more than anything, and have walked away from the otherwise excellent preview disheartened. The best we got was "Summer". I remain optimistic that the mean Terran Northern Hemisphere Summer. With apologies to my Antipodean friends out there. My guess at this stage is late June pre-order perhaps. 

Cinematic. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. Cool. But not quite on the same level as second edition cinematic for me. I didn't like the voices too much, I have to admit. I did like the "ambushes" that seemed to take place, but of course, these were focused on the new miniatures to showcase them. No problem really. I liked the disintegration effects. And the consul charging in was very good. Would have liked to have seen the plasma in action a bit more! The teleport in could have been better too. 

Mark II Armour and Disintegration weapons. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. Nothing else I could give realistically! Love this. The disintegration weapons are so good, and it is great that they are interchangeable with the rest of the range. 

Saturnine Armour.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. I started out a little skeptical, but I actually really like their sheer goofiness. The terminators are massive, and the dreadnought simply epic. Amazing scale comparison to the leviathan as well. Truly amazing. 

Rules Changes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5 stars. Rounded Down. Challenges are yet to be fully revealed, so I'll hold my tongue a little bit on them. I am optimistic. Army construction seems to be more liberal and this might be a good thing, or it might be a bad thing with too many lists drifting to become over-powerful in competitive play. Could go either way. Tactical status evolves to be more than just pinned and running away / routed, adding into the mix suppressed and stunned. Seems more tactical, but who knows. Maybe suppressed and stunned could have just remained as pinned for simplicity sake. In terms of the Stat Line Characteristics, Rogue Trader returns basically! Look, there was a reason we ditched Cool, Willpower, and Intelligence, and just rounded them down to Leadership originally. We seem to have collectively forgotten why. As an old timer let me tell you: better flowing games. I worry the extra stats will slow games down. I remain open to be convinced otherwise. But I do see the benefit of greater tactical depth for the game! The re-work of weapon profiles is actually good in my opinion. Looks like we drop (e.g.) Brutal(2) and gain D=2 instead. That's fine by me. The modifiers for Strength, Initiative, and Attacks is a nice slim lining move. I like it. 

We obviously have not seen the full extent of the rules updates. Nothing on reactions here. Are they still part of the game or not? 

Other new miniatures.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. Fellblade is exciting to see in plastic. But what is a real highlight for me is the chain axe wielding jump pack marines. Oh my. The World Eaters will jump for joy. I want a box set of these already. Love the tarantulas as well (and their bigger brother in the boxed set - wow). Fantastic to see the rapiers back as well. Just tell us about drop pods for goodness sake. And those tech-marines that use them are nice as well. Possibly new cataphractii armaments. And. Finally. Plastic breacher marines. Finally. Oh my. How many years have we collectively waited for these. Since 2012 ish? Seems about right. 

Other thoughts. 
"The rules for the new edition of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy are not compatible with the rules in older books"

Boo. How long has the new Martian Civil War book been out? Not long enough. I hate the fact that we have a new edition within 3 years. All those lovely printed books outdated already. Despise this. Not good. 

I will probably just invest in the digital versions from herein to be honest. 

Very disappointing to hear that the Custodes and Sisters are not getting released along with the initial FIVE books. But spare a thought for the Daemons players out there as well, okay. And goodness knows which units will now become relegated to legacy units. I had plans dammit. And what about black shields too please? Too many unanswered issues right now. 

More Horus Hearsay

The rumour mill is seemingly running amok on the 3rd edition for Horus Heresy - and the Horus Hearsay website is keeping on turning that mill at increasing speed. Clearly there's a lot on there now and in the last few days we have seen things like cardboard dreadnoughts being prints out for battle. We all know that is going to be very low on the probability scale. So instead, I wanted to pick out something that I was personally interested in. This image, below. 

Did you know that in the metadata of this image, it is labelled as "post 25". I need to count the number of images on the page to see if they're doing it sequentially and check all the metadata, but perhaps someone else might like to do that or beat me to it.

What I like about this image is the sheer retro-feeling that it gives off. It is labelled as a multi-melta, but visually I am not 100 per cent sold on that interpretation (could be a multi-disintegrator?). Regardless, I really like the stripped-back feeling that it has to it. The detail is also really crisp and superior to yesteryear. Beautiful sculpt really. 

The other thing to notice here is the numbering. This component is number 5. Now. Usually when we are building miniatures, the core parts have the low numbers. Arms. Legs. Torsos. Shoulder pads. The weapons typically have a slightly higher number. So I think what we might be seeing here is an upgrade frame rather than a core Mark II frame? The assumed rectangles to the left and below the centre of shot are suggestive of the same as well. How many of these will we get, are they distinct to the core box itself perhaps? Not sure at this stage. But we are seeing and living in interesting times now. 

More updates and thoughts in future days, I'm sure!

Despoiler Test Model

I've still got a few Mark 6 marines left to build before the new boxed set goes on pre-order for the mark 2 marines. I've therefore decided to assemble them as Despoilers. This is the first test model, and also the squad leader.

The backpack and head are from the chaos space marines range, but is a nod to the forge world that supplies the World Eaters in general. The power fist and bolt pistol are left overs from the assault squad range, where as the base features another barrel that I chopped up to make the miniature have a more dynamic feel. I like this overall and am now intending to round out the rest of the squad soon. Small goals!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Krios Squadron

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3.5/5 stars, rounded down. The rules are reasonably good overall.

Background.

This is probably the final Second Edition review!!! Wow. I'm really surprised that second edition has only lived for three years. Let's see what Third Edition might bring. 

The Krios is a re-print of the Mechanicum entry, but with a new gun option which is the Irradiation Blaster. 

A battle tank that is swift and deceptively skeletal in appearance. Its armour is essentially provided by overlapping power fields and its true origin is unknown. What is known is that it falls outside of the STC constructs and therefore doesn't appear outside of mechanicum forces. 

Strengths.

The main strength of the tank comes from its primary weapon. There are THREE variants now. The first is the lightning cannon which I see as being well able to handle marines and other lighter tanks. The second is the pulsar fusil which is more of a terminator killer overall. The Irradiator Blaster if it gets a penetrating hit on a vehicle will also get a flame hit on the transported content. This is very interesting and unique. But the strength isn't great here. 

Other worthy notes here are the movement rate of 16 which makes it incredibly fast and easy to position.

Weaknesses.

Watch out for the rear armour of 10!

Builds. 

3x Krios, Lightning Cannons (375 points).

In all honesty, the "naked" version is great. I actually don't think the pulsar fusil is quite worth it. Add some hunter killer missiles to taste. The triple tank version is very nice and can take out many targets that you set your sights on short of those all round armour=14 tanks. 

Please Do Not Bring Back The Psychic Phase For Horus Heresy. But Yes to Shattered Legions.

Please do not bring back the psychic phase for the Horus Heresy.

There. I've said it. The title of the post was so important to me, I've written it again above. 

But "yes" to shattered legions. 

Link: https://thehorushearsay.com/

An AI Image Generation Experiment for Horus Heresy: The Isstvan Boxed Set!

Hello readers! Today I wanted to have a brief experimentation with how easy (or not) and how realistic (or not) it is to produce fake images of novel Horus Heresy boxed sets. This is purely an academic experiment and not meant to cause any offence or over-step any copyright claims - it is conducted under "fair use" and is a purely academic investigation. 

Given the recent "leaks" that we have all seen by now about the new boxed set, I was wondering if it were possible to create a novel boxed set that felt "authentic" but was nonetheless completely fake. I used two sources for this: both MidJourney, and ChatGPT. The results are below. 

Of course, I'd be willing to eBay or Facebook them for some 500 dollars each. But they simply don't exist. So how well has the technology done? 

To the trained eye (which is probably you and me, dear readers) they are OBVIOUSLY fake. The second image is worse and comes from MidJourney. It doesn't even have the right logos associated with it. The marine looks okay, but it's not great either. I did like the explosions in the background though. And it is certainly sitting in a car, so that looks good at least! 

The first image is better and comes from ChatGPT. The artwork of the Iron Warriors is poor though. Where are my hazard stripes? And what exactly has happened to the eye lenses? If I could improve on that, it might be better, and maybe I can, but I'm not willing to put in the time and effort here. 

Conclusion. It is easy to generate images that at first glance might look authentic, but to get them passed the trained Horus Heresy eyes is much, much harder. I think with work I could do it. Just. But its not worth the effort. My short conclusion then is that the leaks we have seen are real enough!

Saturnine

No, I'm not going to link it. But it is readily found by looking in some of the more obvious places on the interwebs. 

Just some brief thoughts. Firstly, it appears that most of the rumours are entirely true. We are seeing a large boxed set with 40 new mark 2 space marines, a praetor in the same armour, along with 2 sets of 3 saturnine terminators, a praetor in the same armour, a saturnine dreadnought, two sets of disintegrator weapons, and a quad gun platform. These all appear to come with templates, dice, instructions, transfers, reference cards, and a book that (as far as I can make out) is called the third edition rules. 

Honestly, I love what I'm seeing! I get that some others don't like the aesthetic, but I absolutely do! It is going to be an automatic purchase for me in less than 399 hours time!

I wonder what else will go on pre-order at the same hour?

What I hope we will NOT see is the need for entirely new units and entire rules replacements for everything. I just cannot believe it is going to be an entire new system a mere three years out from second edition's launch. We just need a tidy up of the rules, not re-built from the ground up. Pretty please?

Hours Heresy 2e Review: Decimator

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. Good for close combat, but not for ranged.

Background.

Designed as the antidote to the leviathan, the Heresy would see them infused with malevolent warp powers and used for the traitor side. They are much like a dreadnought otherwise!

Strengths.

The stat line reads like a dreadnought and it comes with a suite of special rules such as hammer of wrath (2) and furious charge (2) which help with its core mission. It re-rolls saves against low strength firepower thanks to Malevolent Artifce which means that bolt guns probably will not be taking it down. 

Where it really shines are the decimator claws that it comes with. These are AP=2 with Brutal (3) hitting at S=8 which is impressive and very intimidating.  

Weaknesses.

I do not hold a high regard for the ranged weapons to be very honest. The butcher cannon doesn't pump out enough shots for my tastes but it is sufficient for low value AP tanks arguably, whereas the soul burner is actually okay for softening up a target. Keep to the claws and get in combat as quickly as you can!

Builds.

Decimator, 2 Claws (265 points).

This is the non-upgraded version that is purely focused on close combat and it really shines for this battlefield role. You just have to get there with movement rate=7. 

Primarch Corvus Corax Painted

Corvus Corax - Primarch of the XIXth Legion - Fully painted!

This is a project that I started years ago, but have not finished until recently. I had a bit of a "painter's mental block" on this project until a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if that is a real thing or not, but if writer's block is real, then I'm just going to assert that painter's block is also real. I'm not quite sure what it was. 

The pinions were certainly part of it which I did want to airbrush initially, but veered away from in the end. I'm not sure if I've done them justice or not using traditional painting, but it'll do. The blend from grays to blacks all over was challenging, but the sheer detail in the sculpt helped along the way no end. 

I also didn't know what type of legionary Corax's opponent was until I started the World Eaters project of mine - this decided it in the end as ultimately this was going to be very Isstvan in origin if I could help it. I've applied some decals to the World Eater to give it a bit more impact.

The broken tiles were also a challenge until I decided upon the alternating pattern that I've painted up some of the older scenery in my collection with. Deciding which tile was going to be blue, and which was going to be vanilla was surprisingly difficult to envision across the broken nature of the diorama. Some were just guesses, but others were trying to visualize what the tiles would have looked like before Corax smashed into them. I think I've got this bit almost right overall. 

The debris is picked out in two tones as well. I was going to just go for rock grey initially, but the base of the miniature cried out in more earthy colours. This was also a point of indecision, which ultimately also went for two-tones in the end. The larger slabs are picked out in the grey colour, whereas the smaller debris is the earthy brown colour overall. They provide a surprisingly nice contrast to each other without either seeming out of place or dominating. This is rounded off by some splashes of metallic paint and night haunt gloom technical blue paint streaked here and there. 

Speaking of technical paint. The blood for the blood god paint is just brilliant once again with the World Eater. Although the core of the chest has this painted on, I've added more sploshes to the chain blade as well as the pistol hand as it lets go of the side arm in the moment. Contrast red paint has also been flicked over the surface to round it all off. This is a legionary who chanced his luck against the enemy lord and fell very short indeed.

Corax himself was also a bit challenging in his own right due to the sheer detail in the sculpt. I could have gone further by having the pouches painted in a leathery colour, but held back on that and opted for the matte off-black shade instead. I'm not sure the dry brushing on these has paid off, but I am satisfied regardless. 

And his face. Oh my. That took a lot of effort to get even vaguely right. I mis-painted one of the pupils in the eyes as well first time and had to correct this. That was a pain and very embarrassing. The face, if anything, was intended to be a bit more pale, but given that he's probably been fighting on the sands of Isstvan for weeks without so much as having a wash, I suspect the deeper colour is no bad thing. I should probably have added some stubble, but hey, maybe he doesn't grow facial hair, or that's his one grooming habit on Isstvan using one of his lightning claws to have a really close shave. I think I've got the look of matted hair done well though, even with the dynamism in the model. The face is a really beautiful sculpt overall - I'm very excited by it. 

Hope you like it! It has been far too long to finish off due to the painter's block! 

Comments very welcome.

Horus Hearsay. Third Edition? Flawless Blades!

Is it a massive trolling event by Games Workshop to launch Horus Hearsay? 

Is it a way to communicate that Third Edition for the Horus Heresy is coming?

It is all Alpharius' lie?

The new website launched by Games Workshop today called Horus Hearsay touts that third edition Horus Heresy is on its way soon. AND I'VE NOT FINISHED REVIEWING THE MARTIAN CIVIL WAR YET FOLKS. To try to be balanced, we can immediately reject the hypothesis that they are showing a push fit space marine sprue on the new site. That sprue belongs to the Flawless Blades recently released. It is just dyed green to support the Salamanders claim in the article. 

Let's switch to the d18 cited. Do d18's even exist? Well, yes they do. They might be far from standard fare, but I have seen them in the wild and can confirm that they exist. Although the one in the photograph here seems rather photshopped to say the least.

What about that dreadnought? I'm not sure. Looks like a leviathan at first glance, but its off kilter. Something lighter potentially?

This said, it ties in with some wild rumours spread earlier about the Salamanders being in the next big box release. If they do Mark 2 or Mark 5 armour in plastic that I'll sign up regardless of the rest of the boxes contents! If true. Saturnine terminators would be awesome too. 

But here is the problem. Almost everything on the new webpage seems to be a lie or manipulation of some kind worthy of Alpharius. Very weird advertising by Games Workshop either way.

To be honest, whilst there are some issues with second edition (looking at dreadnoughts in particular - could that image be a clue?!), I actually don't think they're that bad. I also don't think a three year cadence for a new edition is entirely called for either. Just my opinion. 

I'm hoping for a new boxed set with a new variant armour, and potentially a tidy up of dreadnought rules. Anything beyond that I'm not so sure. Either that, or its an excellent trolling effort going through some recent online rumours (cf., Salamanders). Hats off. 

Wargames Gallery: Caught in the Open

Somewhere on the sands of the Isstvan system, the World Eaters hunt down the dredges of the Iron Hands survivors and catch them out in the open. 

Will their reaction and over-watch be enough before contact is made on the charge?

Fiddlesome Solar Auxilia

I have now built 5 solar auxilia las rifle sections. I can't lie - I am finding it hard going!

I am finding the small parts to be highly fiddlesome to say the least. But that's not the worst bit. It seems - and I might be wrong - but it seems like the numbers on the sprues don't line up with the numbers of the parts in the instructions. Hence I have been guessing which left arm goes with which right arm. Eventually I just glued three rifle arms on to the torsos and dry-fitted the supporting arms to evaluate which worked best with what rifle arm. This was less than great.

The fiddly bits that caused me headaches though were the shoulder pads and the hip accessories. The grenades and the pouches were okay in the end once I'd figured out how to attached them onto the belt part. The spare rifle power packs remain something that I don't feel I've glued well into position on the front of the legs. And the shoulder pads were exceptionally fiddly to trim and shave the excess plastic off from. Some of these parts could readily come pre-attached with the plastic sprue to be candid. Hence although I will finish assembling the other 15, I genuinely need a break from these models and I'll focus on other bits of painting and assembling for the moment!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Blood Slaughterer

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

3/5 stars. Reasonable, but not outstanding.

Background.

Line breakers. Carnage. Who else but the World Eaters would have thought to supplement their dreadnoughts with a mechanicum forged bunch of blades that runs quickly to get up close and personal. They are ultimately beasts as judged by their howls as they get close to their targets. Or friends. Its hard to tell.

Strengths.

With a movement rate of 9 inches, the blood slaughterers are relatively quick on the board. The rest of their stat line is good enough and very similar to a boxy dreadnought overall. 

They have some blades, but can replace these with a harpoon. The harpoon is worthwhile just to make your opponent I=1 to be honest. The re-roll on the charge is icing on the cake. The blades on the other hand are passable. 

Special rules like hit and run and furious charge help the model do what it does best. 

Weaknesses.

There's a problem with 2+ armour saves that this model can't do much about beyond rely on its rending rules with the blades. This is unfortunate. And it doesn't have the weight of attacks or brutal to be a massive priority target for your enemy. 

Overall.

A reasonable unit, but not an outstanding unit for what it does. There are probably better choices, but it is fluffy!