Today we’re featuring three very influential members of the Age of Darkness online community: Nick Froese, Henry Steele, and Ash Barker.
They’ve been using two recent releases from the Horus Heresy era to play huge narrative battles: Legions Imperialis: The Great Slaughter and Campaigns of the Age of Darkness: The Battle for Beta-Garmon. We’re also previewing a new scenario for you to use in your own games of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy, which you can download below.
Nick Froese, Play On Tabletop
Play On Tabletop is a YouTube channel that recently released a 14,000-point Legions Imperialis battle report, tackling one of the scenarios from The Great Slaughter to show the power of Titans.
We believe playing wargames is often best approached as a shared narrative between the players. Yes, it's a game, but ultimately you want to see a cool story happen on the tabletop!
Everybody can tell you about the time their lone hero stood up against unbeatable odds – most of the time, winning and losing don’t even come into the story! I love the Legions Imperialis ruleset as it allows a bigger narrative to take place and more of those moments to happen.
Getting to play a massive game allowed so many amazing stories, from the defenders on the walls to the lonely tank taking out a titan. You can picture all these events emerging on the battlefield.
One thing I really want to try is playing a game across different scales, starting with the big picture and Legions Imperials, and zooming in on a section of the battlefield to play Horus Heresy! You’d match up the terrain and the forces in the area, perhaps showing an assault on a key fortress, and then fighting another battle over the gate!
Henry Steele, Cult of Paint
Henry is a Horus Heresy superfan who has recorded multiple painting guides for Cult of Paint, throwing himself into the narrative aspect of Beta-Garmon.
Right now there seems to be an awesome Horus Heresy-related release nearly every week, and the addition of Legions Imperialis has meant there is always some new cool miniature to paint. Personally, I’m finding the focus on the battle for the Beta-Garmon cluster really exciting.
It’s a hugely significant part of the storyline, the prelude to the Siege of Terra, and it’s something we haven't had much information on outside of the excellent Titandeath novel by Guy Haley.
All that’s changed now with The Great Slaughter and The Battle for Beta-Garmon books. They encompass a particularly bleak period of the heresy, in which Dorn’s Mortification Index measures the value of soldiers’ lives in the minutes they add to delaying the arrival of Horus to Terra. They also contain tons of new background information and colour plates for all the various forces involved. And plastic Solar Auxilia at both scales too!
Being able to paint the same force at multiple scales, and even just being able to make my Solar Auxilia commander at regular scale to sit next to my Legions Imperialis Solar Auxilia army is awesome.
I’ve painted schemes for all the Space Marine Legions, and I’ve enjoyed trying out a few different options for army painting various Solar Cohorts, but for our upcoming Shadow Crusade adventure, I will be painting Cthonian Headhunters and some of the militia forces that fought alongside the Word Bearers.
Then of course, there’s the new Blackshields and Shattered Legions to play around with, which is what I’ll be up to for the next month or two. So much heresy to do, and here was me thinking it was all over after The End and the Death…
Ash Barker, Guerilla Miniature Games
Ash has retold the Clash Atop the Ghal-Zammad for Warhammer: The Horus Heresy. It's brother vs brother, Khan vs Warmaster. Who will win? Find out on the Guerrilla Miniature Games Youtube Channel, and then download it to try it out for yourself.
Getting back into the Horus Heresy with the Beta-Garmon book gave me the perfect opportunity to explore more narrative missions in the Age of Darkness. Having already planned and played games of Legions Imperialis with my freshly painted Sons of Horus, the new Apex Missions gave me the chance to dial in the action and include some units that might otherwise disappear in the grand scale of these games, like Primarchs!
Chris and I chose to re-enact this struggle between Horus Lupercal and his brother Jaghatai
Khan. The Clash Apex mission is designed to recreate these struggles between Primarchs, so this was a great excuse to get them on the table right away.
I also wanted to play this scenario as it’s the moment the Khan really realises what Horus is becoming… and, in wounding him, pushes him even further into the grip of Chaos as he accesses his power. Having dedicated missions gave us both an excuse to start our new collections with big, cool models and to get right into the action of this pivotal moment in the war.
Having already painted up a first wave of Sons of Horus for Legions Imperialis we will most likely alternate between the two systems. The results of one game will dictate the narrative missions we choose for the next one. Switching back and forth is somewhat like zooming in the camera to a pivotal moment, and as we get to play games about once a month, this gives us lots of structure for what we want to paint next and keeps the story fresh because we’re able to do both huge battles and more dialled in personal combat too.
Thanks guys! If this has got the creative juices flowing for larger games in the Age of Darkness, please let us know on Facebook and X!