Horus Heresy 3e Review: Castellax Infernus Maniple

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. The rules are hot!

Background. 

Built especially for the close quarters of Zone Mortalis, the Infernus configuration of the Castellax replaces the usual melta weaponry with purging incinerators and flamers that are well suited to vaporize entire tight corridors of enemies. 

Strengths. 

The purge incinerator is a template weapon with S=6, breaching and panic. Strictly better than a heavy flamer, but still not with the valuable AP=3 for dealing with space marines. It does, however, have AP=4 which makes it very effective against mortal squads. 

The power blades are good as is the phased refractor shields which augment the already good T=6 and W=4 with a space marine like saving throw. Vanguard and firing protocols round this out. 

Weaknesses. 

No real long range threat. This is a pure flame build with excellent close combat potential. Although I like the incinerator, I did wonder if the multi-melta might still have been preferable? I'm on the fence. 

Builds.
There are no options here to discuss other than the number of Castellax to use in the unit. These extra bodies don't come with a discount, so I'd suggest taking whatever your points cost or build aesthetic wants or needs. 

Horus Heresy 3e Review: Zone Mortalis Advanced Reactions, Reserves, and Detachments

Zone Mortalis Advanced Reactions

(1) Take Cover.
This is an obvious advanced reaction in many ways. When you are shot at, players can use this to gain the Shrouded special rule. This is only at 6+, so it is debatable how worthwhile this is, but it might help once in a while.

(2) Bypass Cogitator. 
A more interesting one to use in the movement phase where an enemy comes within 8 inches of a battlesmith. The battlesmith then closes or opens doors up to his battlesmith number if an intelligence test is passed. This is interesting in the context of Zone Mortalis and encourages players to take battlesmiths just for the boarding action use here. 

Reserves.
These work exactly as you might otherwise expect and brings online all the different flavours used over many years. This includes Reinforcements (own board edge), Forced March (like reinforcements, but more likely to succeed at the risk of being pinned when they arrive), Encirclement (deploy on the opposing player's edge), Flanking Force (side edges), Mass elevators (you need an elevator platform in play), or Teleport Strike (deep strike as you might expect, with the usual risks). 

In addition, a prime advantage can be selected to buy teleport transponders for anyone wanting to risk a teleport strike, which is generally worth it if you can manipulate your rolls to avoid a result of 1 and destroying your own unit!

Detachments.
There are 3 detachment that players can use instead of their normal primary force. 

Zone Mortalis Strike Force has 8 slots: high command, command, heavy assault, and troops. This is nice and very welcome for the general player.
Zone Mortalis Bulwark the same number, but this time: high command, command, war-engines, support, and troops. I actually like this one a lot!
Zone Mortalis Linebreaker also has the same number with: high command, command, heavy assault, troops, and elites. 

Of course, players can expand these in the normal fashion to include auxilliary, apex and other detachments. 

Overall, these rules are nice and streamline and I quite like them. 

Painted Vindicare Assassin With Glitch Camo

A painting experiment complete!

This is a Vindicare assassin with glitching camouflage.

The central portions are painted with contrast (Guilliman Flesh) and highlighted with a dry brush and stippled technique with eldar flesh dry paint. Some further highlighting was applied to make everything consistent. 

One of the interesting parts was the Imperial Eagle which is affixed to the building ruins. I have given the assassin some silvery grey on his calf to try to mimic this and blend in even further. I think this has mostly worked as well in the abstract sense. 

The outer parts were picked out in Eshin grey and then dulled down using nuln oil. I picked out some parts in silver (parts of the rifle, the close combat blade sheath) as well as the red on the end of the blade and the red lens with yellow and white highlights. 

For the glitching, I've used a steady build up from dark blue through to lighter blues (3 different colours there in fact) and a vanilla and white highlighting. Hence 5 different colours layered on top of each other. The base dark blue was applied probably a bit to thick on the joint between the ruins colours and the black and grey of his uniform, but this only serves to enhance the glitching. Although I was originally intending to make the glitching a bit more digital by having squares painted freehand, I think the straight forward approach is much easier and works just as well. 

The base rounds it out with Armageddon technical grit which has been inked and highlighted to blend in with the rest, and some application of green knots of weeds. Not sure if I'll keep him or sell him on eBay at a later point, but that's a decision for later. Hope you like this paint scheme. 

Vindicare Assassin Build

The Vindicare Assassin model is sold as a single blister pack in all plastic. The price is fairly steep for a single miniature though, but I got one regardless since I wanted the challenge of painting it.

As a build, the miniature was very easy in many respects. I think the only "mistake" if I can call it that was that I shaved a bit too close to the shoulder when I was removing it from the frame. Although it was mostly push-fit, glue is certainly required. The pose is nice enough and I didn't feel the need to undertake any conversions with it. 

My premise to paint it up will be to use a digital glitching camouflage approach. I'm not quite sure what the exact form of that will be, but I'll decide once I've figured out the colour scheme for the rubble behind the assassin first. He will then have an identical scheme for the main part, and black on the left and right hand side I think. More on this concept later in the week I hope!

 

Which Faction Is Easiest To Play In Horus Heresy?

Which Horus Heresy faction is the easiest to play?

It is a seemingly innocent question, but goes deeply into how the game plays and how players can learn the game. It is also the question that Gaming Gitz recently posed to me! A few conversations, and we have a new collaboration video out:

My answer here, for the sake of spoilers, is Iron Hands. 

But you are going to have to click on the video link to hear why (assuming that you can suffer my dulcet tones!). Enjoy!

Warhammer: Birmingham City Centre

No trip away from home would be complete without attempting to hunt down the local Warhammer store and checking it out. Recently, it was the turn of the city centre of Birmingham!

Birmingham is often referred to as the second city of the UK (but I do know a number of Liverpudlians who would dispute this and would explicitly note that London is the second city). As such, the infrastructure for getting there is excellent. Birmingham New Street train station is one of the busiest railway stations in the UK with 36.6 million transits in 2024-2025 making it the busiest outside of London (but not the largest by any means). The Warhammer store is literally a short stroll up the road from New Street station. 

The store isn't big in the grand scheme of things, but it is well appointed and the staff were very friendly toward me (yes - I know its their job, but still, they were genuinely enthusiastic!). 

What caught my eyes the most were the window displays: one of each for Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k. The detail of these were excellent. I was quite taken by the Age of Sigmar one myself (the reflection of me in the glass and the general light in the background also don't do the image much justice - it was superior in real life I assure you!). The Salamanders were very nicely painted in particular. 

Great job Birmingham and you certainly passed my "mystery shopper test"! 

Onward to the next store whenever it happen!