Review
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| I'm baaaaack! |
Happy days! I got my filthy little pig-hands on a copy of that most rare of tomes... The Horus Heresy: Betrayal book.
It is truly a gorgeous book.
Worth $117 CAD?
No.
I say this with a caveat, however. For the moderately hardcore and/or fluff-lord gamers, this book is a gold mine and worth every penny. I regret NOTHING about my expenditure on this book. It's beautiful. It's well laid out. The full colour illustrations and art we're started to get used to in the Imperial Armour books has been brought to a new level in this masterpiece. BUT... The leather cover, the embossed edging, the EFFORT put into this book... is lost on, what is supposed to be, a gaming book. This book is meant to be dumped in a bag, dragged out all the time to show your friends, to be leafed through by grubby, cheeto-sodden fingers... And anyone who owns this beautiful book, will have a shit-fit if it gets dusty, let alone carting it around for gaming purposes. This books lovely finish is a detriment to its use, and I for one will be mortified the moment someone mistreats it.
Which we all know will happen as soon as we let some unworthy's hands sully its filigreed pages.
Personally, I believe Forge World needs to release this book as a standard hardcover at it's usual price range ($65-$75 CAD). This would open the book up to more people (the price right now is mind bogglingly huge... akin to university textbooks) and is a real buy-stopper for newbies and veterans alike. It's aimed purely at the hardcore crowd, which, while I can understand the selling power of exclusivity, is a loss to overall sales for the company. Plus, as we all know, the same people who bought this super deluxe edition, will buy a gaming copy as well.
GIVE ME A STANDARD HARDCOVER TO TAKE WITH ME WHILE GAMING.
/Rant
With that all said, I'll get on to the actual review.
So! the first thing, as you open up the book, is the history and fluff section. OH MY JEEBUS it's fantastic. The sections covering the individual legions included in the book (Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, World Eaters, Emperors Children and Death Guard) are fabulous. The reciting of the various 'greatest battles of the legion' are astounding (Particularly for the World Eater and Death Guard). The Army Lists, as they follow are pretty mighty. I can see why people have been screaming foul up and down the interwebternets about OP and unbalanced lists and what not. These people also, in most cases, play Xenos (and should be used to getting the shaft by now. Seriously, buy some lube and get over it). and will never end up playing with or against these lists on the table top.
The army list is, IMHO, THE Space Marines list to use. It has everything a marine player should have access too. Strong base infantry, the ability to customize your list to a specific taste (via Rites of War), superior weaponry and armour, and, over-all, gives a feeling of overwhelming strength.
Let's all be honest here. Marines are NOT the uber-killmen of the universe that the fluff and story would have us believe. This list see's a slight turn in that direction and gives the power back to the marines. It puts them at the forefront as the hardcore army it's supposed to be... and all without substantial changes to the stats and power level of the individual marine. In fact, other than a slight point drop, they've got worse. The marine has lost And They Shall Know No Fear and Combat Tactics, only to have it replaces with the Legions army special rule (Which is baseline: May always regroup) and gets added bonuses depending on the legion they are a part of.
The units themselves are generally costed more fairly than the current marine codecii, and allow units to be taken, for the most part, up to 20 men. The characters are very upgradable, and fall in line with what we've seen with the new Chaos Codex (lots of options, with few stand out amazing auto-includes). Personally, I will be playing with this list A LOT. It's great.
The Primarchs... oh the primarchs. So mighty. So great. So... killable? Seriously, each of these models are not super gods of the battlefield that will lay waste to whole armies without pause. They ARE very strong, but they are incredibly balanced and require actual tactical thought touse, or else they will wither on the vine that is your shitty battle plan. And they are costed very appropriately.
There is also a very interesting little allies list in the book for the Adeptus Mechanicus (AdMech). This list screams to me of converted Necron models.. THEY EVEN HAVE LIGHTNING GUNS!
NEAT-O!
Titans and flyers and super heavies are, naturally, included in the book (It IS a Forge World publication), and have some interesting rules. Not everything is great in this book, some units have superfluous rules and their costing is off. Like most FW books, the editing is kinda poo, with spelling mistakes, typo's and other niggling little errors that, while not overwhelming, are a little silly to have... especially at this stage for FW.
Over all, I am extremely happy with this book, and look forward to the next one. Keep up the good work FW!
Until Next time,
Wear your mask while sanding that resin!
Bean out~
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