Everything Old is New Again

Hello all.

Just thought I’d post a couple of pictures of things I’ve been working on recently, as well as some thoughts about some games I’d really like to run for our group whenever we can all get together next.

First up, a couple of pictures. I’ve been painting a force of Emperor’s Children, for use using Forge World’s Horus Heresy gaming supplement. So far I’ve painted up a couple of Legion Tactical Squads, a Legion Champion, a Master of Signals, and a Predator, plus a cohort of three Mechanicum Castellax battle automata.

Predator, Legiones Astartes Emperor's Children

 Castellax battle automata, Legio Cybernetica

One thing that’s really got my attention is taking a fresh look at the Horus Heresy as a setting, especially looking over the old White Dwarfs and other publications where it originally featured. One thing I’d forgotten is that the Horus Heresy has been with us pretty much from the beginning. While it wasn’t mentioned in the Rogue Trader rulebook (but then neither were the Chaos gods!) it appeared very soon afterwards, getting a box in Chapter Approved: the First Book of the Astronomican. Then of course, it was the setting for both Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine, and was expanded into enormous detail in the Realm of Chaos books. I’m sure we all knew that, but what surprised me was how often the Heresy is mentioned in very early White Dwarf articles on 40k subjects. For example, the famous Robots article, reprinted in the red White Dwarf Compendium, talks about robots in the context of the heresy. When Tony Cottrell’s article on converting Land Raiders into Spartans and Rhinos into Vindicators, Predators and Sabre Tank Hunters first appeared, many of the example vehicles were presented in the context of the Horus Heresy. In fact, the first Predator is shown as a Heresy-era Emperor’s Children vehicle, which I hope to recreate at some point.

Now then, fast forward 25 years and Forge World are not only exploring the Horus Heresy as a complete expansion, but deliberately revisiting many old school favourites. The Spartan and the Fellblade both hark back to the late ‘80s, and the Deimos pattern Predators and Rhinos draw on the look of the original plastic kits, as do numerous other models in the range.

Anyway, this wasn’t supposed to be an advert, but rather a bit of frothing about a topic I love. I very much hope to run some games soon, in particular ones set at the close of the Great Crusade. My plan is to keep these small and narrative heavy, featuring small groups of Space Marines and other characters encountering all manner of aliens on the leading edge of the Emperor’s reconquest of the galaxy. With a bit of luck, this will allow me to convert up some suitably gribbly, mythos style aliens and to run some very fun games indeed. I’m sure somewhere there’s a long isolated human colony that needs delivering from their extra-dimensional tentacled overlords, and that this would make a great game with a lot of old school character.

Stay tuned for that battle report then – we may even get to play it this year!