There may be other events planned that will still be using the 1st Edition rule set, but for me the next event I’m going to is the last time I’ll be playing Horus Heresy 1st Edition. A few weeks later I’ll be in Nottingham for the July event, pitting my Loyal Dark Angels against the disgusting traitors that have turned there back on the Emperor and Imperium they’ve sworn to defend. But first a little…. Heresy.

Joining the Traitor’s

Let me go on record as saying that the Dark Angels legion was, and is, considered a Loyalist legion by most everyone. They are not traitors, they didn’t throw there lot in with the dark powers nor were they corrupted by whispers from a certain annoying Chaplain.
Unless they were on Caliban, in which case all bets are off as the Dark Angels under Luther’s command did secede from the Imperium. They generally kept to themselves and didn’t go out looking for trouble. Mostly because they knew that if (or when) the Lion found out he’d be back and would kick so much ass there’d not be much of anything left after his rampage¹. Why am I mentioning this? Because for the King Fluff event I’m going to take some Traitor Allied Dark Angels into Zone Mortalis.
Yes.
You can make the joke now. Get it out your system.
Done? Good, moving on.

What Am I Taking?

I’ll detail the list below in a simple text format, but what I wanted to do was paint up units I didn’t have and hadn’t used. Something I’ve played a lot is armoured company / Ironwing style lists. Rhinos and Spartans transporting Tactical marines around while supported by Sicarans and Dreadnoughts. These aren’t an option in Zone Mortalis, so I needed a new plan. Originally that was going to be a Terminator heavy block of Death Guard but then 2nd Edition was announced. Which meant I wanted to do more Dark Angels. And I have done, with 10 Interemptors painted up in under a week so far.

Zone Mortalis - Defender

# HQ
Centurion [110pts]: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Calibanite Warblade, Melta Bombs, Refractor Field
Storming, Warlord

# Elites
Contemptor Dreadnought Talon [370pts]
- Contemptor Dreadnought, Legion: Plasma Cannon, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon: Twin-linked Bolter
- Contemptor Dreadnought, Legion: Plasma Cannon, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon: Twin-linked Bolter

Dreadwing Interemptor Squad [340pts]: 
Interemptor Praefectus, 9x Interemptors 
Plasma Burners, 2x Plasma Incinerator, Rad Grenades

# Troops
Tactical Squad, Legion (Compulsory) [265pts]:
14x Tactical Space Marines
Additional Wargear: Additional Chainswords/Combat Blades, Vexilla, Legion
Tactical Sergeant, Legion: Artificer Armour, Chainsword/Combat Blade, Power Fist, Stormwing

# Heavy Support
Heavy Support Squad, Legion Lascannon [265pts]: Bolt Pistol, Lascannon, 4x Space Marines, Legion
. . Sergeant, Legion: Augury Scanner, Stormwing

# Allegiance 
Legion and Allegiance: Dark Angels, Traitor

Total: [1,350pts]

Is this list fair for a small sized Zone Mortalis game in cramped confines? Possibly. Possibly not. I did get to try out the Interemptors for the first time this weekend at Warhammer World after an impromptu road trip. Two games, 1W 1L. Against the Night Lords they lost 8 of there number pretty early on but between two of them they plasma flamed so many Night Lords into a gloopy puddle it would bring a tear to the Lion’s eye. Granted one of the remaining few was the heavy plasma burner which was throwing out an ungodly number of shots each turn². Gem two however things did not go to plan. A Master of Signal and a Volkite Contemptor are not my friends when I have to run length ways across a table³. That game was War Of Lies though and the two Contemptors more than made up for it and we will say no more on that matter, Prince!

What About 2nd Edition? And the July Event?

Ah yes. Well that one is certainly going to be fun, I’ll have maybe had 1 game under my belt before the Nottingham trip in July and that is going to be learning the rules changes mostly. I do have a plan and have already informed a few people of what it will likely contain but here’s two words to give an idea.
Eskaton. Imperative.
We Are Death. We Are Here.

Now the final decision on that list hasn’t been made just yet, mainly because I don’t have a copy of the rule book in my hand but soon I’ll post up what my list is and try and take pictures of all the models I’m painting for it. At present I think I’m painting about 1,500pts of new models and units that I previously haven’t used or owned before, which is going to make this a very fun event to just play something different from my usual double Plasma Sicaran shenanigans. They will have to come out to play at a later date. Possibly when the plastic Sicaran is finally released so I can have full choom sponsons⁴.

Other 2nd Edition News

You may have noticed we’ve been a bit quiet all things considered with the announcement and pre-order for 2nd Edition. We’re not a big group nor a regularly talked about one that has GW’s attention so we don’t have reviews of the box contents to look through, and a fair few outlets have already gone through what’s in the box and books this weekend already. We do have a couple of ideas on content we’d like to add, starting with a look at the scenarios from the Black Books and updating them (if they need updating) for 2nd Edition. That is only one of the schemes I have in the works and one day, if I have to drag people kicking and screaming, we may even have a podcast of our thoughts as well to go along with these walls of text I like to write.

But that is not this day. And on that reference I will see you all another time with hobby updates and other news from the Damned.