Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Horus Heresy Review: Magos Reductor Calleb Decima

The FINAL entry in Betrayal is the only HQ choice for the Ordo Reductor mechanicum (but more are provided in the late Isstvan series of source books). In a nut shell, he's a loyalist mechanicum stuck with the Sons of Horus fleet, and so he naturally fell in with the loyalists on Isstvan III after being betrayed (his craft shot out of the air and crash landing on the surface of the planet).

As an HQ choice, he is actually rather reasonable. With a high toughness and 3 wounds, he's only worried about S10 and D class weapons to instant kill him.

He's not really a ranged specialist, so take some servo-automata to accompany him if you want to go down that route.

But he is going to be rather good in close combat. Particularly with servo-automata armed with anti-tank weapons (powerfists, las cutters and the like).

His ability of the Curse of the Omnissiah is terrific against vehicles. 2d6 haywire attacks are a serious cause for concern for most enemy tanks. Use this one shot attack wisely against targets you want to down. With sunder and tank hunter included in these attacks, he is a serious threat for any armour. And he has melta bombs to boot, just incase the haywire is not enough.

Place him amongst a largish bunch of Thallax and go do some tank hunting.

Overall, I regard him as a very reasonable HQ choice for a reasonable price. But with a very specific purpose on the battlefield.  Other mechanicum HQ choices in the other Horus Heresy books may provide a superior flexibility and build-ability, but Calleb Decima is not too bad overall in my opinion. And of course: very fluffy for Isstvan III.

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