We’ve been playing and running Heresy a lot since it came out, so the team at Goonhammer is here to hit you with some conventional wisdom for list building in the third edition of Horus Heresy.

My treatise, like the work of all get-rich-quick fast-talking wargames philosophers-kings on the internet, is split into bullet points and catch slogans. Six terms mandate what is Good, and six mandate what is Bad. There’s very little nuance. I’m more interested in verbs than nouns. It’s not “run 60 tacticals, a praetor and a fellblade”, and instead the much more useful “score objectives, win challenges, blow things up”.

Over the last year, I’ve been to a fair few events and played a lot of home games. We also run regular events at Goonhammer, so we read a lot of lists, watch a lot of games, and write a lot of missions. We’re making scalpel balance changes to try to make the games more fair and fun for everyone. Where it’s relevant, I’ve added what we’re doing about the thing if we consider it too good.

It's important to mention in this context that we don’t want to touch points, the standard tool normally used for balance in wargames. Points changes mess up listbuilding apps, and it's a real rug pull as a player if you find out we put up the points on your favourite unit and the list you brought to the event is illegal.

General consensus is that Traitors are more powerful than Loyalists this edition (on the most part, but quiet side-eye for Raven Guard and Salamanders), with more exciting wargear and traits, more aggressively priced unique units, and a number of quietly powerful auxiliary detachments. We try not to make changes to Legion rules, since they only affect a 20th of players, and everyone should have access to their fun Legion toys.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

Six Great Things

I think any good Heresy list should cover as many of these bases as possible. The verbs in Horus Heresy are Scoring, Killing, Statusing and Moving.

1. Line

Act one of the treatise is that you win games by scoring victory points and the best way to get them is Line. Everyone has a story about how they scored 20 Vanguard points once, but Line is the most reliable way of winning games.

Tacticals Squads are the best units in the game. They are cheap, have Line 2 and automatically fire 2 bolter shots now Rapid Fire is gone, 3 if they stand still. 20 on foot is good, 10 inside a Rhino might be better. Every Marine list should probably start with 30 or so Tacticals. Line (2) is so good that it even turns the pitiful damage of a Despoiler Squad into a great unit.

The GHO Pack: We’ve addressed this by moving Line scoring to the start of the turn, not the end (except in the final turn). We keep mission scoring at the end of turn, so you can only actualise points from Line by standing on the objective and staying there for the whole of your opponent’s turn.

2. Stuff That Kills Line (and Stuff That Kills Stuff That Kills Line)

Part two of the treatise is an obvious followup to how great Line is. You need to be able to reliably chew through those 40 Tacticals. You can’t score VP if you’re dead.

There’s a bunch of different approaches here: Reliable AP3 (be it in native or through Breaching) seems the most obvious, but the other way to overpower power armour is volume, be it via high rate of fire, templates or blast markers.

Frag or Heavy Bolter Rapiers, Volkite/Heavy Bolter Tarantulas, Lightning Claws, Havoc Launchers and en-masse Fury of the Legion Boltguns are my favorites here. Easily available Auxiliary Detachments, such as Supports, Recons and Armoured Supports are my first preferences for slots.

Battle Tanks can also excel at blowing things up, and have had a real glow-up this edition. Predators, Leman Russ, Krios, Kratoses and Vindicators all have a shocking array of dangerous and status heavy weapons on maneuverable platforms. The strength of tanks and transports requires an answer: while list building you need to bring enough anti-tank to kill a fair few vehicles. This could be your own tanks, or instead you can bring Laser Rapiers, Melta Tarantulas or mobile Melta Guns. Honourable mention as a standout super-heavy tank is the Typhon and its Stable pie plate of D6 death.

On the other end of the spectrum in terms of quality, Sicarans and Sabres are overshadowed. Both sit in an awkward midpoint between vehicles classes, with an awkward ratio between bang and buck.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

3. Statuses

The finale of the scoring trilogy. Killing things is hard work, and you don’t need to kill a unit if it is statused. There’s statuses everywhere now, and they’re very good at stopping your opponents from contesting, scoring, moving, and fighting back. As well as not being able to move, shoot or react (depending on the status), there’s a punitive list of basic effects across all statuses: you can only make disordered charges, you never count as being Stationary, cannot hold, claim or contest objective, and you’re always I1 in combat. Verbs are good, and statuses remove them.

The single best status weapon in the game is the lowly Havoc Launcher, which for 5 points is an auto include on every vehicle with S5 Stun (1) on a small blast. Disgusting.

I’ve also fallen in love with Veteran Tacticals, who fit into all 3 of the above categories: Scoring, Killing and Statuses. The best units for statuses let you stack multiple different checks within a single unit, and while Tactical Support Squads are forced to all take the same weapons, Veteran Tacticals aren’t. You can arm a unit with Rotor Cannons, Flamers (or Combi-Flamers), Combi-Gravs (plus a Rhino havoc).

Seekers are also horrid. They infiltrate, don’t have a Support Squad like the other Infiltrating units and get a Swiss army knife gun with Precision (4+) and Shot Selector to give a choice of damage or statuses, and while they’re squishy a unit of five is only 110 points. At our events, we’ve given them Support Squad (1) and tweaked their Breaching to (5+) to match a supercharged Plasma Gun.

Since statuses are good, you need ways of interacting with them and getting them off your troops before it's too late. Battlesmith and Nuncio Voxes can remove Statuses before they ruin your whole turn. I take Nuncio Voxes on literally every unit I can, and sprinkle in Battlesmith wherever I can manage it.

Malefic is good for the same reason. Instead of taking Statuses, the unit instead takes a couple of wounds. A big brick of 20 Tacticals stuffed full of demons is going nowhere fast.

4. Death Stars

It’s a game of verbs, and if your opponent has a death star (a big horrid, tanky melee unit) and you don’t, you’re going to struggle to interact with that bit of the board.

The premium units here are Command Squads and Praetors, as well as Master Sergeant Chosen Champions and Paragon of Battle Command Champions. 2+ 5++/4++ is the gold standard. Terminator armour gets you this profile but not the requisite WS5 you’ll need to really be an effective death star. The other method is buying a combat shield on your Praetorian Command Squads.

There’s two weapon approaches on melee death stars. You can either hunt squisher units with 3+ saves, using +2 attack AP3 lightning claws to blend the troops, or you can took up to counter the other death star with thunder hammers or power fists. I’d recommend filling up your Apex Detachments with your preferred flavour of murder, and ensuring your killiest melee units have transports or jump packs so you can apply violence wherever you see fit.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

5. Transports (Land Raiders, Rhinos, Flyers)

Moving is a verb. There’s no good having the things that score and kill if they’re in the wrong place. Keeping the Line safe and getting it onto the objectives is important. Getting the Death Stars where they need to be (killing Line or the other Death Star) is just as good.

Jump packs are great, but transports are better and more flexible. You can charge so far out of a transport now and even further out of an Assault Vehicle. The Rhino and Land Raider are absolute workhorses, and also bring respectable firepower for their points values. The Land Raider Explorator is a bit of secret tech here too with Outflank allowing it to come in from reserves near your opponents squishy backline.

The Storm Eagle is also a closet personal favourite, though really any transport flier will do. The strength of the transport flyer is able to charge anything on the board in most table layouts on turn 1. If they were a plastic kit, and not a hybrid nightmare of plastic and unavailable resin, you would see much more of them. You’d also see many more anti-flyer technologies, which would make the intercept much more likely.

6. Mechanicum Characters

Most characters in Heresy are good at challenges and improving the mental stats for important units, and provide valuable list building utility by unlocking slots. The gold standards in characters are Paragon of Battle Champions for combat (WS7!), Forge Lords, Master of Signals and Librarians for utility, and Praetors and Centurions for unlocking Detachments.

Meanwhile, in Mechanicum land, the characters do so much more. Don’t get me wrong, pretty much everything in Mech is good, but every weight class of Mechanicum character can provide powerful, efficient and flexible force multipliers for damage and scoring onto an array of powerful units.

Nothing short of a Marine Unique beats an Archmagos in a fight. Even the small ones are functionally equivalent to psykers, with a variety of flexible buffing and utility powers to improve stats or do weird and confusing things. They can also have Nuncio Voxes and Battlesmith to clear out tons of damage and statuses. 90% of Marine players haven’t even read the book and you can simply confuse most opponents to death.

Comptroller also effectively gives access to Line on your choice of unit. Cor blimey!

However, because Mech forces are so much more reliant on their characters they’re also much more vulnerable to character hunting. Taking out a critical Magos can shut down the Cybertheurgy, Scoring and Battlesmithing that make Mech forces so tricky to deal with.

We talked earlier about how Forge Lords are good, and it's for similar reasons. Battlesmith is good for removing Statuses and healing vehicles, automata and walkers.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

Six Bad Things

The other end of the spectrum are the less efficient trap options, usually worth avoiding or minimising.

There’s way more balance changes nested here, and we like buffs way more than nerfs. The goal is to make sure everyone has a good time at the events, and finding out your unit was massacred in the event pack feels very bad, whereas a little bump for a unit that needs it feels much nicer as a player.

1. Vanguard

Rules as written, scoring Vanguard is a nightmare. You can easily Reposition off an objective when threatened, or worse jump into a transport. For most units most of the time, Vanguard (X) is a debuff, since it means you can only ever score 1 point on an objective.

Master of Signals see a lot of play, since they can remove Vanguard from units with it, and replace it with the superior Line.

GHO Packs: We’re addressing this by shifting Line scoring to occur at the start of turn, not the end. Now you have to take risks and survive to score points. Reacting off an Objective or into a transport to avoid Vanguard scoring is more of a tradeoff, since you won’t be able to get those lovely Line points.

2. Militia, Auxilia and Demons

Third Line is an insult. Most mortal infantry cost a few too many points. Squeezing value out of mortal factions is possible but intensely difficult in a world where AP4 is cheap and plentiful. Good stuff within the list follows the same principles as above, but is missing viable options in the Death Star category, and most options are not matching the points efficiency of Marine equivalent units. The best stuff is anything with a large blast marker. Hitting on 4s doesn’t matter if you just scatter a little instead.

Demons got an absolute battering in the new edition. Pretty much every unit is undercosted and anaemic. The murderous Sovereigns, Arch Demons and Brutes of second edition are a thing of the past.

I love these factions so much, and have dedicated tons of games into trying to squeeze the value out of them, which is very hard without running weird unfun skew.

GHO Packs: We’re running a Militia and Auxilia focus event in May in Leicester. It's going to rip. Come on by to attend the council of mortals to work out how to fix this atrocity.

3. Wargear Costs

Generic weapons cost lists mean that a weapon upgrade costs the same on a 5 attack Praetor as on a Tactical Sergeant. As a result, you always want to upgrade the big units, and leave the single attack models on their base equipment. Most Sergeants, Despoilers or Assault Marines are probably best on their basic, bare bones weapons.

GHO Packs: This is exceptionally difficult to fix without making point changes, which affect list building apps, and if people don’t read packs they show up with illegal lists.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

4. Chainswords and Bayonets

Shred (6+) is useless against a huge amount of the 1 wound targets, leaving chainswords very anaemic. The extra attack on the charge is gone, leaving aggressive chainsword armed units fighting with inefficient weapons without the attacks and re-rolling wounds they used to rely on.

Sadly, an Assault or Despoiler squad already loses against any multi-wound units the Shred (6+) could help with, and the occasional damage bump is not enough to compensate.

Bayonets also took a hit, with both types losing their +1 S and chain bayonets swapping wound re-rolls for unhelpful Shred (6+). Bayonet Tacticals are now stuck with a single paltry attack at AP5, which isn’t helpful against any units they weren’t already massacring with boltguns.

GHO Packs: In Goonhammer packs, we’re addressing this by increasing the Attacks Modifier on Chainswords and Chainaxes Weapons to +1.

5. Dreadnoughts and other Multi-Wound Models

Dreads and other multi-wound models like Land Speeders are hard to justify in a multi-damage world.

Every anti-dreadnought weapon got more damage, and while the tanks got extra wounds, the Dreadnoughts stayed on the same defensive profile. They also lost a point of WS and BS, and their iconic and unique Brutal 3 fists are now commonplace. Additionally, War Engine slots are hard to come by and make list building less fun. Laser-focused Contemptors and Casteferrum are the best options available, as they are a points efficient platform for good heavy weapons: double plasma, double chainfist or conversion beamer.

GHO Packs: We’re addressing this by giving all Dreadnoughts Eternal Warrior (1) so they stick around for longer.

6. Deep Strike

Deep Strike was game warping in the last edition, leading to coinflip games, skew matchups and minimal interactivity outside of listbuilding. Only being to Deep Strike one unit a turn and not being able to charge out of Deep Strike is simply crushing. The best Deep Striking units focus on short range shooting, like Interemptors, Thallax, flamer squads and meltas/multi-meltas, or scoring, to grab a distant objective and swing it in your favour.

GHO Packs: I don’t know how to fix this, drop your suggestions in the comments. Maybe there’s a min distance you need to be away from enemy models and you can charge out of deep-strike but it’s always disordered? I dunno.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

Sample List

I’ve penned a good, boring, Legion-agnostic list that uses all the principles of the above with as little fat as possible.

Basic List

Crusade Detachment

Praetor with Thunder Hammer and Combat Shield 135pt

Centurion with Thunder Hammer 95pt

Legion Champion in Cataphractii Terminator Armour 135pt Prime Benefit: Paragon of Battle

20 Tactical Legionaires with Nuncio Vox 210pt Prime Benefit: Logistical Benefit

10 Tactical Legionaires with Nuncio Vox 110pt

Rhino with Havoc Launcher and Combi Bolter 70pt

Rhino with Havoc Launcher and Combi Bolter 70pt

Storm Eagle 200pt

Auxiliary Detachment: Tactical Support

Rapier with Laser Destroy 65pt

Rapier with Laser Destroy 65pt

Apex Detachment: Combat Retinue

10 Praetorian Chosen with Combat Shields. 6x Power Swords, 4x Thunder Hammers, Legion Standard 390pt Prime Benefit: Master Sergeant

Auxiliary Detachment: Armoured Support

Predator with Plasma Turret and Havoc Launcher 130pt

Predator with Plasma Turret and Havoc Launcher 130pt

Auxiliary Detachment: Veteran Cadre

5 Cataphractii Chosen with Thunder Hammers, Legion Standard. 290pt

5 Veteran Tactical Legionaires, 1 each of Nuncio-Vox, Combi-Flamer, Rotor-Cannon and Combi-Grav.

Land Raider Carrier with Lascannon and Havoc Launcher.

Led by a Praetor, a Champion and a Centurion for a wealth of potent detachments, this list provides a firebase of Predators and Rapiers for cleaning out Line and Tanks respectively, alongside two menacing Command Squad with AP3 weapons, character support and good transports to seek out and hunt down other dangerous units.

The remainder of the list focuses on scoring, bringing 30 Tacticals (a 20 brick with the Centurion and 10 in a rhino) and a Veteran Tactical Squad + Rhino for spewing out one of each type of status check and hopefully neutralizing enemy scoring on an objective, or softening up a target to I1 for a Death Star charge.

If I had 500 more points, I’d fill out my detachments with more Tactical Squads and Predators, or perhaps a small Praetorian Command Squad with lightning claws and jump packs for Line shredding.

This sort of list is best kept theoretical, and it’s honestly kind of important to not do as I say or I do. If someone brought this (or a list like it) to a Goonhammer Open I’d ask them to change some of the units out for less optimal choices. Ultimately it’s the kind of boring, unthematic approach to list-building a narrative focussed game should be antithetical to.

Horus Heresy Second Sphere Defense Credit: Soggy

Final Thoughts

Thus I present the Muppet treatise on gaming good in Heresy. I do not write this so you can min-max your lists or because I think Heresy should be played competitively; far from it. I want everyone to have an understanding of what makes a good list so there’s an even playing field. The game is best when the worst excesses (last edition's Dreadnought spam, Mor Dewythen combi-volkites, Monster Mash or 40 Custodian Guards) can be understood and avoided.

Breaking down the verbs of what you need to play the game prevents you from getting locked out of games due to lack of interaction with the system's key features.

You should also ignore every word I’m saying. You know more about playing with your own army than I do. I’ve seen players win games with Demons hordes, with Militia artillery parks, with Master of Descent Night Raptor blobs. I previously considered Knights completely useless, and have claimed it loudly in public, and then watched our Best Loyalist at Nightfall, Ben Gregory, go a clean 4-0 with a triple Cerastus Knights list with allied Militia Cavalry and feudal axe Velitaari.

Please come to my events, tell me I’m wrong and mock my smug and patronising tone.

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Tags: Horus Heresy | the horus heresy | heresy tactica | heresy third edition