Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Five

Forge World Book V: Tempest

Due for release in Spring 2015 – “optimistically”, said Tony Cottrell. It’s not quite out of the studio yet, and it hasn’t been printed. There will, hopefully, be early copies at the Warhammer World re-opening in May, so we can expect hopefully by the end of June it’ll be widely available.

Key points it will include:

• Ultramarines (People booed)
• Word Bearers (More people booed)
• Mechanicum (Nobody booed)
• Imperial militia (Absolutely no reaction)
• Warp Cults

In more detail:

• The story of the Word Bearers’ assault on Calth.
• Background on the XIII Legion, the largest of the Legiones Astartes at around a quarter-million Marines. (THIS is the bit I’m really interested in. I think the main fault of ‘Conquest’ was that it lacked a pre-Crusade/pre-Primarch history of a Legion and I think that’s something I really need to enjoy one of these books.)
• Further background on the Word Bearers as the changes in their Legion continue.
• Background and narrative for Knight Houses and Titan Legions both loyalist and traitor.
• A new campaign system (Ugh. Every fucking book.)
• Imperial Militia and Warp Cults army lists and background.
• Additional Legion units and rules.

‘Tempest’ will show FW trying to capture the scale of ‘Know No Fear’. Similar to that book, in ‘Tempest’, they’ll try to focus on the first 30 hours or so of this fight. The Underworld War will follow in the book after this (which wasn’t named) – as well as the continued war on Calth, it’ll also deal with the Shadow Crusade, Ultramar (Imperium Secundus?), and the World Eaters. It will hopefully be with us before Christmas 2015.

Coming up next for Forge World books, they plan to release a Horus Heresy masterclass book – in fact there will be a series of them. After that, they will probably deal with Prospero and start building all the Tizca pyramids (possibly out of Ferrero Rocher) for the dioramas of the Burning. That will most likely begin 2016. The book will feature Thousand Sons AND Space Wolves (presumably including full army lists and background for both Legions, as well as an account of the assault on Prospero).

Tempest

Calth is a microcosm for the Imperium at its height of its powers – smashed by the Heresy. Its destruction is symbolic, which of course, the Word Bearers appreciate. Expect to read a bit about Macragge. Speaking of which, Alan pronounced it “Macraije”? I’ve always said “Mah-krag”. Guess I’m an idiot. In terms of other stuff in ‘Tempest’, the Knight Houses include the loyalist House Vornherr (I can’t be sure how it’s spelled) who rallied at Ithraca (hey, remember that fight from ‘Honour To The Dead’?). They will not survive the book. They are the largest Knight House in the segmentum.

There will be extensive background on the Ultramarines and also on Ultramar – why the XIII are allowed to have an empire within an empire.

As people were expecting, the next Forge World Primarch work in progress was shown – but people weren’t expecting it to be Guilliman. The model showed him looking very noble and handsome, perhaps in a more rugged way than you might have seen him before – maybe even Dorn-esque. FW’s sculptors have come a long way since the grotesque-looking face of the Fulgrim model. There is a lot more work to do on him, especially the base – they’re hoping to get him ready for purchase at the Warhammer World opening (broken record alert). Guilliman will carry a sword and a power fist. Like all Primarchs he had an extensive armoury, but they had to limit themselves to two weapons. It might not be in line exactly with all the books or artwork, but it will be in line with his appearance in ‘Betrayer’.

The Warp Cults are meant to reflect the huge number of mortal units brought along by the Word Bearers in this conquest. It’s not going to be a giant, deep army list, but you’ll be able to put together a pretty good non-elite force flexible for multiple purposes. The list is going to represent the diversity of Imperial worlds. You could even field muskets against Space Marines, if you really want. To the Word Bearers, Calth is a mass ritual killing and it was “great fun” to add extra stuff to all aspects of the background.

They didn’t pay much attention to how Ultramarines are in 40k, as they aren’t yet transformed by the Codex. No exploration of the “We’re the best” mentality in Heresy-era. The Luna Wolves had really been the most successful pre-Heresy, not the Ultras. They did explore some origin sections of the Successor chapters.

They plan to do gladius upgrade packs for Ultramarine models.

Daemons will be present in the story parts of ‘Tempest’, but not the rules. In the follow-up there will probably be rules for them.

The new campaign system will partly be familiar, some will draw from the novel. It’ll be about small scale stuff in comparison to the massive scale of the Battle for Calth itself – you can’t stop Calth from falling, obviously. There is a scenario included which could tie in to the fight on the Macragge’s Honour.

We will see a lot of Ultramarine character rules – Guilliman, a Dreadnought that fell from space (Telemachon?), a captain (Ventanus?). As well as that, there will be some new Word Bearer characters and revisits of old Word Bearer characters (I guess Lorgar and Kor Phaeron?).

The Mechanicum in Tempest will be extra units – not a new list.

Tempest follow-up

There will be a Calth slipcase like there was an Isstvan slipcase.

Argel Tal will be in the Shadow Crusade book, probably, as will Samus. Maybe it will also feature daemon Angron.

Prospero

They do anticipate challenges for Prospero. The Sisters of Silence and Custodes will probably be the biggest challenge as there’s no framework for them yet. The Thousand Sons will probably require the most playtesting. They want to get the magic and the sub-cults feeling right (As I’ve said before, this is an area I always thought was kind of a shortcoming in Graham’s book, so it’ll be nice to see that get fleshed out, in both rules and background).

Other stuff

More Shattered Legions stuff is coming. It was meant to be in ‘Conquest’. FW would love to put them in a smaller book or perhaps into the ‘Tempest’ follow-up. It will deal with small disparate groups of loyalists, even some Marines from traitor Legions who remain loyal.

They do want to do a Mars book. It keeps getting away from them in the schedule. It wouldn’t just deal with Mars, it would deal with the wider Solar War.

At the very beginning of the project, Alan Bligh and John French tried to map out strengths and weaknesses of each Primarch and Legion. Alan Merrett also helped.

Corax will be done – work has been started on sculpting him. They reiterated that they do plan to get models out for every Primarch there are rules for, but they can’t really comment on the timeframe for that.

There probably won’t be rules for Oll Persson, though they may do a book focusing more heavily on agents of the Emperor and Warmaster – but that’ll need a stronger narrative reason for an Oll feature.

Shifting/corrupted Traitor Legions will be represented by both all-new lists and updated lists. Both sides will change as their method of war changes. We can expect more stuff like the Mhara Gal dreadnought.

While I would have preferred a bit more emphasis on Black Library through the Weekender, I definitely could see that this was the most positively received seminar of the whole schedule. The book looks very exciting and I'm really looking forward to it.