Warhammer: The Horus Heresy (Second Edition)

 I caved and bought the Age of Darkness boxed set when it came out.  I probably shouldn't have, but that's in the past.  But I have all three of the books out so far; the rules, the Traitor Legions army book, and the Loyalist Legions army book.  Let's dive in.

The Rule Book

"I heard 'heresy' and arrived as quick as I was able."

A little over half the Age of Darkness rulebook is taken up by background material.  Which is fine for Warhammer 40,000 and its associated games.  There's a lot of lore for people to engage with and it's there to suck them into the game if we're being brutally honest.  For somebody like me who only really engaged with 30k in the form of the tabletop material, it's quite nice to get a summary of many dozens of novels.  I also don't own all the huge campaign books from the previous edition, so doubly nice for me.  Long time fans of the Horus Heresy may not get anything out of the lore section though.  For new fans though, plenty to take in and enjoy.

As is typical of a Games Workshop book, there's enough illustrations and photos of models to give a reader a good sense of what the models are supposed to look like.  The Horus Heresy material seems like it occupies the place of a historical war game to me, as there's not a lot of room for custom color schemes.  Variations on or remixes of schemes, sure; at least for the eighteen Space Marine legions.  There's more latitude outside of those, whenever those books get released anyway.

The rules themselves are an evolution of the previous rules (WH30k 1st edition or WH40k 7.5e depending on your viewpoint) found in the big red book, with the explicit caveat to old timers that the rules are similar to the old ones but not one-to-one.  As I have made an effort to forget 7th edition 40k, I'm mostly safe from this.  Mostly.  I'm not going to pretend that there's not a jumble of half-remembered stuff from 40k 4e and onward knocking around in my head.  Also keep in mind that I have not made a thorough read of the rules nor have I had a change to sit down and play it.

That said... The rules have been massively reorganized into a form that is far more useful to a gamer than the previous rulesets were.  There's a clarity now that was sorely needed before.  I feel like I could teach myself how to play this edition, whereas trying to relearn the previous edition was a non-starter.  The previous rules were another area where 30k felt like a historical game: you needed somebody who already knew the game to teach you the game.  Gatekeeping is not conducive to the growth of any hobby-based business.  So I'm happy to see the arcane-esquery get axed in favor of learnability.

If you wanted simplicity out of the rules, you'll be disappointed.  What we have here in 30k 2nd edition is 7e 40k with everything not relevant stripped out or reduced for consistency and clarity.  Previously we had Bulky, Very Bulky, and... Extremely Bulky to indicate how many slots a model occupies on a transport.  Now it's just Bulky (X), where X is how many spots the model occupies on a transport.  This is an example of a reduction for the sake of consistency; you don't need to remember how many slots Very Bulky occupies, you only need to see the number on the model's special rules.

Psychic powers are easier to use and comprehend as well.  Instead of the six or seven powers, you get one power that's shared among all the disciplines (the equivalent of Smite if you're familiar with 8th or 9th edition), a discipline specific power, and a discipline specific psychic weapon.  Writing out psychic powers that function as a weapon is something I've been wanting them to do for years and years.  Reverting back to 40k 5th edition's style of psychic tests and powers is nice; no more psychic phase to worry about.

I'll probably have more to say when I actually get to play some games with the rules.  After all, reading the rules is not a substitute for actual play.  It will probably be awhile though.

"I cast FIST!"

Liber Astartes and Liber Hereticus 

Does anyone else find it darkly ironic that an all-male force of genetically engineered super-soldiers is named after a war goddess?  No fooling, look up Astarte some time.

These books consist of three parts; the shared Legiones Astartes army list, the shared Legiones Astartes rules, and the legion specific units & rules.  Essentially everything you need to play any given Space Marine legion in one book.  They are rather cumbersome books for actual play; I would not be surprised if Games Workshop plans to release individual legion books much like how the Clan Houses of Necromunda got individual books.  But more on that later.

Once again I'm going to end up comparing my experiences with the previous edition to the new one.  Right off the bat the unit entries are not as complex as they were before.  This is a good thing because it's not as confusing to determine what a model can have.  What were previously multiple units in a single entry were broken out into their own entries.  The first example one would run across is that there are three Praetor entries; one in artificer armor, one in Cataphractii terminator armor, and one in Tartaros terminator armor.  Ditto for the Centurions, which also list out the Legion Consul types available for that particular entry; no more having to remember which consul type can take terminator armor.  Granted, the consuls still have to list out restrictions for jet bikes, bikes, and jump packs, but having one less thing to remember is better.  I would also like to note that some of the restrictions that made things hard to use were removed, just take a look at the new Fury of the Legion rule for an example.

Players and collectors of the old editions will notice, as they flip through the shared units, that there are things missing.  The ones I noticed are the standard Dreadnoughts, the Contemptor-Cortus Dreadnoughts, and standard Terminators.  There's probably more missing out of the shared units, but I haven't looked too closely.  It seems like almost everything that doesn't have a 30k specific model was pulled from the army list.  Scouts and drop pods are the two exceptions I noticed, but that doesn't mean there's others.  There's also some wargear options that were lost for some units, such as Heavy Support Squad sergeants not having any, but I think it makes for easier list-building.

The middle chunk of the books are given over to the shared Legion Consuls, the weapons, wargear, and special rules.  There are some special rules I think should have been in the main rules (I'm looking at you, Brutal), but all of these are much easier to read than they were before.  We'll probably see a number of weapons, equipment, and special rules repeated in future army lists (like Mechanicum and the Imperial Army).

The last part of the army books are the legion specific rules, gear, and units.  There's a lot that changed from edition to edition.  Here is where we see some tortured paragraphs for rules.  While it is necessary, I think that writing them out in a solid paragraph was absolutely the worst thing to do because the phrasing simply comes across as confusing. Breaking things up into new lines and adding some itemized lists would have improved readability and comprehension.

Those familiar with the old material will note that, as with the common units, there are missing legion-specific units.  As I mentioned before, the things removed really seem to be anything without a 30k specific model.  It's more consistent with the legion-specific material though; everything that doesn't have a bespoke model was yanked.  Rylanor the Unyielding, subject of endless internet memes due to his story, is missing.  Within the Ultramarines, the Locutarus Storm Squad and Fulmentarus Terminators are gone.  These missing pieces are what make me strongly suspect we'll get legion specific books, with models of the missing units accompanying them.  The only alternative is that all the missing material will get updated and incorporated into the Exemplary Battles stuff.

Wrap-up

 I mentioned before that I haven't had a chance to play the new edition of 30k, but I think it'll be easier to learn and play than the last edition.  I'm honestly looking forward to it.  I'm going to keep it to small 500 point games so I can focus on learning the rules, then scale up.