Reviewing the new releases for the Horus Heresy!
Today I’m review the new Liber Imperium book for Warhammer the Horus Heresy. First, thanks goes to Games Workshop for providing this to review for free. As always I aim to honest, impartial and constructively critical. Now onto the review!
Liber Imperium
Liber Imperium is the latest army book released for Warhammer the Horus Heresy. It comprises of rules and narrative content for: the Legio Custodes, Sisters of Silence, and Solar Auxila as well as rules for fielding assassins in your Loyalist armies.
For army allegiances, only Solar Auxila can be used as both loyalist or traitor forces, everything else is loyalist only. Traitor players are not to worry as the upcoming Liber Daemonica will balance the trade-off with the use of daemonic forces.
The Legio Custodes as a whole return as an elite force but not as oppressive as they were before. They gain the thematic nemesis unit rule, giving them bonuses for fighting against such units which will be found in every army you play against.
Miniature wise your only plastic kit is the base Custodian Guard squad, everything else is resin only which is a bit of a shame. Valdor is now a little toned down but still a combat beast, now gaining the Primarch unit type too.
Sisters of Silence get a much more expanded role. They now have way more units, perhaps hinting at new resin or resin upgrade units? Still, they’re very solid and Ex Obilvio makes them very good at shutting down psykers and daemons as well as basically making anyone in combat with them WS1 which is extremely tasty. All having stubborn too is very good and helps offset them as T3 marines.
Solar Auxila have an expanded rulesset with Cohort Doctrines. These doctrines basically Space Marine Rites of War. They’re all pretty thematic and strong, allowing you to tailor your Solar Auxila force more how you want them to play. They have a wide selection of human units to use, with the main drawback being that they’re all resin. Only the Leman Russ is a hybrid plastic kit and as you need a lot of these models…well…Adeptus Mechanicus players feel bad for you. Still the units are really good and cover most of the roles needed for the army.
Next are rules for fielding Imperial Assassins. You can only take 1 per army as a HQ choice. They also get a unique reaction that basically mirrors the Alpha Legion reaction by letting you move when shot. It’s very strong and helps as these assassins will be running around on their own. You get rules for all 4 plastic assassins as well as the 3 brand new resin assassins from Forge World. The new assassins fill their roles well with their rules while not stepping on the toes of the already establish 4 previous plastic assassins.
As with all Horus Heresy rule books, it comes with all the new rules they’ve used for the unit entries in the book as well as all the profiles for unit types and weapons.
You also get a full spread of painting inspirations and model showcases for all the armies in the book. I’m a fan of these as always, especially as they now show off more unique colour schemes that aren’t shown in the generally displayed model ranges.
Clade Venenum Assassin
I was also sent the Clade Venenum assassin. It’s a very nice model and close to scale with new plastic assassins, shockingly. It’s also more, well, durable than I thought it would be with stuff like the needles. Outside of the tactical rock, it’s my favourite of the 3 new resin assassins from Forge World.
Predator Support Tank
I also received the Predator Support Tank. This is the 2nd version of the new plastic update and contains all the variant weapon options for the turret that you could want. I’m already a fan of the Deimos vehicles so this kit is great. The only downside is that the weapon sprue isn’t sold separately like it is for the Dreadnaughts, so if you buy a normal Deimos Predator you can’t really get the other turret options without buying the 2nd box. Still, great to have all these weapon options in plastic.
Liber Imperium Overview
Overall I really like the Liber Imperium book. It’s a great update that brings up weaker armies from last edition while toning down Custodes but still making them a strong force as a whole. Even the implementation of how assassins are used is good too. The only real downsides as the fact that most of the unit entries are still resin and aren’t plastic updates. Still, if you have or want to run any of the armies mentioned inside the book, then this is definitely for you and you won’t be disappointed.
Pros:
- Thematic yet pretty balanced rules for all the armies inside the book
- An improved Sisters of Silence army that feels like a credible threat
- An expanded selection and usage of Imperial Assassins
- A solid Custodes force that won’t dominate the entire game
Cons:
- Mostly all expensive resin units with very little plastic units to use
- Very little plastic crossover for the Custodes army, even the Allarus would have been fine
- No use for Traitor players unless you want to mix it up a bit with Solar Auxila
You can order your Horus Heresy products directly from Games Workshop or via my affiliate link at Element Games that will net you a 15% to 25% at no additional cost to yourself while helping to support me and my content, so check it out if you can.
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That’s pretty much it for now. Horus Heresy continues to release more solid army books, which is great to see. Helps keep me motivated as I slowly continue to paint up my Alpha Legion army. So until next time, no matter how loyal to the Imperium you are, you can always win as long as you can roll a crit!
Can You Roll A Crit? 