The Great Crusade & Horus Heresy - The Unusual Suspects

Howdy sports fans.

Welcome to another post. Today we'd like to present to you a kind of culmination of work I've been doing as part of both my adventures into the Great Crusade narrative and the exploration of the fringes of the Age of Darkness.

We all know that a great game comes from not only a great opponent, models and scenery but also from the immersing narrative that the game presents. This is ever more prevalent in the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras, where heroic last stands and character driven storylines are the norm. To that end I've been busy creating some character sheets for you to use in your games. These are obviously 'home brew' but are strongly based on established cannon and character entries in publications from the past.

For the Horus Heresy we have a full Assassinorum Execution Force which consists of Culexus, Vindicare, Eversor, Vanus, Venenum and Callidus assassins along with the Corvus Strike Fighter (their dedicated transport option).

The assassins, individually, take up various slots in a FOC when indentured into a Legion force but this also means they can be taken as a complete allied detachment in their own right.

These units are only available to the Loyalist faction however the Traitors also get a bite at the cherry with the unit entry for Spear, The Dark Pariah. Spear was once a Culexus Assassin but was infused with daemonic potency by Erebus of the Word Bearer Legion. To this end he's a horrifying prospect on the tabletop - especially when you consider his ultimate target was The Emperor himself.

Not to be left out the Mechanicum of Mars are also represented with a unit entry for a Sister of Cydonia. A deadly servant of the Machine God, dishing out vengeance and retribution to all those deserved of the Omnissiah's wrath.

We also have a few dedicated entries for the Great Crusade era. Again these units are designed by me but based on the work of the Tempus Fugitives and the Black Library novels. The process has been very similar to the units and forces presented in the Great Crusade books that you've seen in previous posts so to that end should play alongside those entries very well.

Firstly we have the Remembrancer, a creative individual thrown into the warzones of the Great Crusade in order to document and amplify the glorious nature of the Adeptus Astartes and the expeditionary fleets. This unit encourages different play styles and introduces another facet to a game.

Next we have something that has been requested lots from the desk of the Eye of Horus Podcast, a Slaugth Intendent. Principally this unit is a Slaugth mercenary in service to the more unscrupulous xenos races present in the Great Crusade. Potentially I may look at fleshing out the entry to include a full army list for the Slaugth, but for now we can see how they fair as lone wolves.

And finally something else that has been requested a lot of the last couple of years, The Greenskin Menace as presented in the Great Crusade. These are most definitely not 40K orks, and have been lifted directly from the pages of the Black Library novels. They are huge, they are dangerous and they are hard to kill. In stories they are described as being able to go toe to toe with Horus Lupercal's Justerian and Custodian Guard. These entries only cover a small proportion of the Greenskin hordes, principally those based on the world of Gorro, on the outer reaches of the Ullanor Empire. These particular rules are still going through play testing but we thought you may like to see them as a sneaky peek. It's my intention for these entries to be used in the third volume of the Great Crusade books: Compliance, which will also contain a custom campaign system which you'll also be able to play as a Risk style board game.

All these units are fully playable at King Fluff presents Events, so if you like the look of any that you want to convert up there will always be space to play them at an event. I hope you have as much fun playing with these as I had writing them.

Stay Frosty
KF