The Horus Heresy was a bad time even for Space Marines, so imagine how the regular human soldiers felt when the World Eaters showed up looking wild-eyed and axe-crazy. Well, imagine no more – this month’s Legacies of the Age of Darkness download puts you in the shoes of the Imperialis Militia, those poor souls who have to go up against superhuman Space Marines with nothing but guts, gumption, and a lasgun.
It’s an exciting time for the little guy stuck in the middle of a demigod-on-demigod civil war, and Andy from the Horus Heresy team is here to tell us more.
Andy: This month we're pleased to present the Imperialis Militia Army List. This faction has always been a favourite amongst veteran players, especially with modellers, and has spiritual roots going way back to the Lost and the Damned army list in Codex: Eye of Terror, and even further back still to the Chaos Cultists army list in the very first Codex: Chaos.*
Like its predecessors, the Imperialis Militia army list is unabashedly intended as a kitbasher's dream. When we wrote the previous edition of it players had the Forge World resin Death Korps of Krieg and other ranges to serve as the basis for their collections, and many enjoyed mixing in elements of other armies such as the Cadian Shock Troopers and Catachan Jungle Fighters, creating their own bespoke forces.
Now players have an even greater range of miniatures to draw from when putting together their militia armies, including (but in no way limited to) the brand new Cadian Shock Troopers, Death Korps, Blooded, Chaos Cultists, and a plethora of Necromunda gang sets and upgrades.
Ruleswise, veteran Age of Darkness players will find the army more or less as they remember it from previous editions of the game. We've taken the opportunity to dial back on some of the previous extremes, in particular moving away from huge Fearless hordes backed up by masses of artillery – the game doesn't really support such forces and they were never particularly fun to play against.
Instead we've doubled down on character and customisation, and added in some options that leverage other recent releases, such as the Necromunda Cargo-8 Ridgehauler and the Cadian Field Ordnance Batteries.
The Imperialis Militia list is ultimately aimed at veteran collectors looking to collect, build, paint, and game with a truly unique and highly characterful army. We're really looking forward to seeing what the endlessly creative Horus Heresy community comes up with using it!
You can dive into Warhammer: The Horus Heresy now with the Age of Darkness box set, containing two opposing Space Marine armies (or you can combine them to make one really big force), and find a wide range of plastic and resin miniatures on the Games Workshop webstore.
* The Chaos Renegades army list in White Dwarf 107 was another major inspiration.