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Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion is going to be on the front of a lot of minds in the next month. Many people are buying into the new Horus Heresy boxed set (Buy from Element Games), and while the pictures imply that you’re going to split the box up with your buddy, let’s be real. This is a great way to start a full Horus Heresy army. You can’t do a full 2000 points straight out of the box (Auspex Tactics says you can make a 1980 point Warhammer 40k army, though), but you’re not far off. It’s, at the very least, a very good three fourths of your Space Marine Legion.
But How Do You Go About Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion?
To help you make this decision, we’ve broken down the decision into three basic categories.
- Aesthetics
- Playstyle
- Lore
Any one of these could be the deciding factor in why you want to start a game. You could be 100% lore, or you could live and die by the aesthetics of your army. But for most people it’s going to be a little bit of all of these. So let’s dive in.
Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion: Aesthetics
I’ve already posted an extensive article on the original Horus Heresy paint schemes (and why you don’t necessarily need to follow any specific scheme as canonical–there’s as much freedom here as there is in Warhammer 40k, with a few caveats).
While you can make your Horus Heresy Legion look like absolutely anything that you want, let’s stick to the original schemes. This may determine your decision more than any other factor.
![](https://i0.wp.com/wargameexplorer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Horus-Heresy-Loyalist-Legions.png?resize=399%2C574&ssl=1)
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- Dark Angels: Black and Silver and Red
- Emperor’s Children: Purple and Gold
- Iron Warriors: Silver and Hazard Stripes
- White Scars: White and Red
- Space Wolves: Gray and Red
- Imperial Fists: Yellow and Black
- Night Lords: Dark Blue and Lightning
- Blood Angels: Red and Black
- Iron Hands: Black and Silver
- World Eaters: White and Blue
- Ultramarines: Blue and Gold and White
- Death Guard: White and Pale Green
- Thousand Sons: Red and Gold
- Sons of Horus: Green and Black
- Word Bearers: Red and Black
- Salamanders: Green and Black
- Raven Guard: Black and Silver
- Alpha Legion: Green/Blue
So, if there’s anything here that jumps out at you, you can start to whittle down your choices immediately. For example, I know that I don’t want to paint Black, because I’m bad at it. So Dark Angels, Iron Hands and Raven Guard are right out. I also recently finished a successor chapter to the Salamanders (so they’re out) but their armor was red (so there goes Blood Angels, Word Bearers and Thousand Sons). Space Wolves straight gray seems boring, so they’re gone, and I just don’t like purple, so out goes the Emperor’s Children.
I could really talk myself into any of the others–if we’re just talking about painting a chapter. They have other pros and cons, which we’ll talk about.
Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion: Playstyle
When choosing a Horus Heresy army to play, you’ll want to look at the playstyle to see if it fits your personal preference. And be careful, because not all Horus Heresy armies fight in the same style as their 40k brethren.
So what are the playstyles of the Horus Heresy armies?
![](https://i0.wp.com/wargameexplorer.com/wp-content/plugins/trx_addons/components/lazy-load/images/placeholder.png?resize=815%2C847&ssl=1)
- Dark Angels: Fairly Balanced
- Emperor’s Children: Close Combat
- Iron Warriors: Long Range
- White Scars: Fast Attack
- Space Wolves: Close Combat
- Imperial Fists: Defensive, Balanced
- Night Lords: Close Combat
- Blood Angels: Fast Attack, Close Combat
- Iron Hands: Balanced, Long Range
- World Eaters: Close Combat
- Ultramarines: Balanced, Generic
- Death Guard: Balanced
- Thousand Sons: Psykers
- Sons of Horus: Close Combat
- Word Bearers: Balanced, Close Combat
- Salamanders: Balanced
- Raven Guard: Sneaky
- Alpha Legion: Sneaky
Of course, boiling down any chapter into single-word playstyles is dangerous because most Horus Heresy Legions are going to be fighting with a lot of the same equipment. They can all take tanks, they can all take bikes. The difference come in the special rules and stratagems.
![The Horus Heresy and Gatekeeping](https://i0.wp.com/wargameexplorer.com/wp-content/plugins/trx_addons/components/lazy-load/images/placeholder.png?resize=816%2C658&ssl=1)
Personally, there’s not a lot that I would cut out of these lists out-of-hand. I prefer long range, but I also really want to get stuck in in Close Combat. I’d love to see my Spartan drive my Terminators across the board to wreak havoc on the enemy with their lightning claws.
I can cut out the Raven Guard and the Alpha Legion, because I’m just not clever enough to properly utilize sneaky special rules. And while I’d love to get stuck in, I don’t like bikes, which cuts the White Scars, and I have played my fill of Blood Angels for years, so Fast Attack is right out. Ultramarines are a little generic for my tastes, though I guess that goes in Lore more than playstyle. But Thousand Sons are gone because I have no interest in Psykers.
So that leaves me still with a pretty good list to choose from.
Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion: Lore
When choosing a Horus Heresy Legion, now comes the big question: do I want to be a loyalist or a heretic? There is so much delightful lore that goes into all of these legions that I can’t possibly sum up here succinctly. I would point you to my article on the Primarchs, the Space Marine Legions, and the Emperor (which gets into the final battle between Sanguinious, Horus, and the Big E himself.)
![The Horus Heresy and Gatekeeping](https://i0.wp.com/wargameexplorer.com/wp-content/plugins/trx_addons/components/lazy-load/images/placeholder.png?resize=705%2C861&ssl=1)
I have been a loyalist all my life, but it hasn’t been because I haven’t heard the siren song of Chaos. It’s been because I just don’t have the patience or the steady hand to paint all the gold trim on the Chaos Space Marines. I LOVE the Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, but I’m terrible with them, and I LOVE the Nurgley Death Guard, but the Death Guard here are not so corrupted–yet.
So, now seems like a time to take a walk on the wild side and take a traitor legion. I love the traitor paint schemes, I like a lot of their playstyles, and I like the idea of playing a traitor. And, honestly, if I’m going traitor, I kinda want to go all the way. Alpha Legion? Not Chaos enough. Word Bearers? Possible. I like their corruption, but I don’t love Lorgar. Sons of Horus? I’d LOVE to, but I bet that there are going to be a LOT of Sons of Horus armies on the table at my FLGS. Death Guard could be fun–I like their place front and center in the Seige of Terra. World Eaters could be REALLY fun (it’s been a long time since I’ve painted blood effects). Night Lords are some I could really love but I don’t like body horror and there’s just a little too much flayed skin for my tastes. Iron Warriors have always been a little too stoic for my liking. And Emperor’s Children are neat but they swear allegiance to my least favorite Chaos God, Slaanesh.
Choosing a Legion for the Horus Heresy: The Final Decision
So choosing a legion for the Horus Heresy has brought me down to Word Bearers, Death Guard, and World Eaters. I already ruled out Word Bearers because I’ve been painting a LOT of red marines lately. Death Guard and World Eaters. Both of the color schemes are about the same. We’ve got Mortarion against Angron.
![Choosing a Horus Heresy Legion](https://i0.wp.com/wargameexplorer.com/wp-content/plugins/trx_addons/components/lazy-load/images/placeholder.png?resize=579%2C783&ssl=1)
To me the answer seems clear: I really need the World Eaters in my life. Paint them a little grimdark (I’ve recently taken a liking to oil washes) and a lot of battle damage, and some flecks of Blood for the Blood God and I think I’ve got the perfect Horus Heresy Legion.
I’ve ordered the full boxed set and the missile launcher/heavy bolter upgrade. I’ve ordered the Liber Hereticus (though my FLGS couldn’t guarantee that I’d get it because their supplier is less than reliable). The only thing I ordered from Games Workshop’s website is the World Eaters decal sheet.
And I’m really excited to get dug in with these guys. And, with any luck and a little saving, I’ll get Angron to add to my army.
Pretty stoked all around.