Let's Read the Horus Heresy 19: The Primarchs

He did not dream, he never dreamed, yet this was, inescapably, a dream.

 - The Reflection Crack'd, Graham McNeill, in The Horus Heresy: The Primarchs

Due to Black Library charging 1€ more for the whole volume than for just the Alpha Legion short story I wanted to read, I got the entire twentieth Horus Heresy book.

**

The volume starts with Graham McNeill at the Emperor's Children again. Even though Fulgrim was almost unbearably turgid, McNeill's improved since, and I found I quite liked being with Fulgrim and his captains again. There's some good bits here, but the ending is a massively disappointing cop-out and Fulgrim's fulminations are just plain boring.

One thing McNeill definitely deserves credit for, and it's Lucius. He is unbearably arrogant, and I think so far the absolute best villain of the Horus Heresy. He was a bright spot all through Fulgrim, and I especially enjoyed his antics in Galaxy In Flames. He's great here as well, and genuinely turning into one of my favorite characters.

The next story is about the Iron Hands, who are boring, and it's by Nick Kyme. I've read one short story of his earlier and it wasn't very good. Neither is this one. The Iron Hands are waging war by marching around on foot and in formation in a desert, as if this was Napoléon in Egypt or something, and Ferrus Manus is a complete buffoon. I didn't finish the story. Gav Thorpe's The Lion is another one of his Dark Angels stories, just as soulless and forgettable as the others.

The greatest sin of the mediocre-to-bad Horus Heresy stories is that they make the primarchs boring. The first novels, from Horus Rising on, had a simple formula: we saw the space marines through the eyes of the human remembrancers, which let us properly appreciate how superhuman the Astartes are. The primarchs were one step above space marines and inscrutable, transcendent characters compared to them.

This all just absolutely falls apart when authors like Thorpe and Kyme make us listen to the primarchs' boring and mundane internal monologues. After Deliverance Lost, I can't think of Corvus Corax as anything other than incredibly boring. The same goes for Guilliman, El'Jonson and Ferrus Manus, to name just a few. They've gone from demigods to just, like, bigger space marines with funnier names. It's a great loss to the series.

Finally, then, The Serpent Beneath, by Rob Sanders. I love that so far, an Alpha Legion story means that the writers seem to get permission to do the silliest spy thriller and video game stories, because as with Legion, this also feels like the author is having fun with it. The story also stars a Primarch, but because it's an Alpha Legion story, any statement of fact about it can always be followed by "or does it". I enjoyed it, and I'm developing a real love for XX Legion.

**

I think that was my third short story anthology, and they're still very hit-and-miss. For every good short story, there's at least one distinctly mediocre one, and usually one that's just plain not worth reading. Again, I might still pick some up for pricing reasons if there's a story I think I want to read, but if I'm honest, on their own merits these aren't worth it.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 18: Know No Fear

 Who are the first to die?

 - The Horus Heresy: Know No Fear, Dan Abnett

We're back to the Horus Heresy with Dan Abnett and the battle of Calth, between the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines, and after the disappointment of Deliverance Lost, this should be so much better.

**

I begin reading the book. The book is by Dan Abnett. Dan Abnett is good at writing books. But this book is different. The sentences are short. The sentences are simple. It is like the books I read as a child, when I was learning English. I did not speak it yet then. I do not know why the book is like this. It is strange, because Dan Abnett is good at writing books, but this book is not good.

I apologize for this, but honestly, starting Know No Fear is a truly bizarre experience. As the Battle of Calth starts and the action gets underway, the language loosens up a little, but it's still startlingly clunky for Abnett. Shockingly, it almost feels like reading Gav Thorpe again.

What the story reminds me of most is Battle for the Abyss. Once again, the Ultramarines are incredibly boring. I can't tell them apart, and since everyone's names seem to have come out of the Knights of the Old Republic name generator, they don't help, either. Guilliman is there and is also tremendously boring. It's appropriate that the quotations from his writings that start each section are such mind-numbing blather that I couldn't finish reading them.

Less than an hour after finishing the book, the only Smurf I can remember is the sergeant who was due to be disciplined, and therefore had his helmet painted red. Since he distinguished himself in battle, Rowrowrowyourboat ordered all the sergeants to mark their helmets red, and that's a nice backstory to why Smurf sergeants still wear red helmets in 40k.

The other main similarity to Battle for the Abyss is that the Word Bearers are, once again, just ridiculous mooks. Ultramarines always take them by surprise and slaughter them with ridiculous ease as if they were Star Wars storm troopers, not Space Marines. This makes the battle scenes quite boring toward the end of the book, as it's always the same story of the Ultramarine video game protagonist butchering a dozen Word Bearers without suffering so much as a scratch. The trouble with this is that it makes the Word Bearers not seem like space marines at all, so the general vibe of the book is much more 40k rather than Horus Heresy.

As for the plot, the scale of the destruction wrought by a single cargo ship ramming the Calth docks is frankly unbelievable. Or to put it another way, if you can do all this by accelerating a single fleet tender, why bother with battleships at all?

Also, if the Word Bearers' objective was to capture the Ultramarines' most powerful ships intact, why did they do such a terrible job of it? The plan to take over the flagship seems to have inexplicably failed, as the boarding troops apparently spent ages trying to cut through the hull. Did they forget their boarding torpedoes, teleporters and assault craft at home?

Also, if the planet's surface was going to be destroyed by whatever Erbs supposedly did to the star (we're going to ignore the idea that firing planetary defence systems at a star can make it go nova and decide that it was the ritual that did it), why did the Word Bearers fleet bother to bombard the southern hemisphere? Surely it would have been much more important to finish off the Smurf fleet. In fact, I'm not sure I understand why the Word Bearers bothered to fight on the surface of Calth at all.

So to be honest, most of the plot makes no sense. I did enjoy Kor Phaeron blasting Guilliman with force lightning like he was the Sith Emperor, but the scene actually ended up being far too Star Wars for comfort. Erbs again shows up to make some ritual gestures and sneer, and it's not clear if Lorgar was even really there.

I know I'm biased as a Word Bearers player, but it's such a disappointment to have them go back to being totally disposable, incompetent moustache-twirling bad guys again after how brilliant First Heretic was.

**

To sum up, after Abnett's previous efforts, Know No Fear is a huge disappointment. Once the action picks up, it's a smooth enough read, but the writing is hopelessly clunky throughout, the plot makes no real sense, and the characters are very forgettable. I can't really recommend it to anyone.

Epic: Ten thousand of us will hand you the wrath of Heaven

This noble king was cleped Cambinskan,

Which in his tyme was of so greet renoun

That ther nas no-wher in no regioun

So excellent a lord in alle thing;

Him lakked noght that longeth to a king.

 - Geoffrey Chaucer, the Squire's Tale

Earlier, the new Dune movie made me meditate on the relationship between Dune and Warhammer. Which I suppose can be most concisely described as Warhammer stealing everything from Dune that wasn't nailed down, and then some. Now, though, with the return of Epic, I have cause to revisit the subject, because the Legions Imperialis box comes with a whole pile of Solar Auxilia. I painted the tanks earlier, and now it's time to get to the infantry.

**

Once I started thinking about Dune-themed Horus Heresy things, it struck me as fairly obvious that the Solar Auxilia in their void armor were a perfect match for the Sardaukar. I wasn't really interested in trying to collect any in 28mm, but now that I have a pile of Epic Solar Auxilia, I'm definitely turning them into the Padishah Emperor's fanatical shock troops. Canonically, Sardaukar armor was grey with black details, but the movie armor looks more white than grey and I prefer painting off-white anyway, so that's what I'll go with.

One of the innovations of the 2021 Dune movie was Sardaukar throat singing. I've been exposed to a fusion of throat singing and popular music at a sensitive age, when my girlfriend at the time played me some Yat-Kha.

So based on that, my Sardaukar are going to be the 337th Yat-Kha Shock Cohort of the Solar Auxilia. 

**

Clearly, the most Sardaukar auxilia unit is the Veletarii Storm Section, so that's where I'll start. The uniforms are Ivory, the axe handles Black Brown, and they have Luftwaffe Camo Green shoulder insignia.

I like the models, but I defy anyone to explain why the presumably far more numerous Solar Auxilia troops get power axes as standard equipment while space marines have to make do with chainswords.

The Auxilia infantry sprue also comes with some Charonite Ogryns. Sadly, I misplaced one of the torsos somehow, so I took the tactical command guy and had them take charge of the Ogryns.

I kinda struggled to figure out a good color scheme for the Ogryns. I ended up painting the harness thing they're wearing Gunmetal Grey, as well as the weapons, with Ivory for the uniform. I don't know if I like the result.

I also painted the flamer infantry.

For the lasrifle squads, I did a very simple paint scheme: Ivory uniform, Luftwaffe Green shoulder pads and a Black rifle. The HQ stands aren't much more complicated.

Here they all are.

I think I'll be trying them out in a future game of Legions!

Let's Read Warhammer: the Dark Coil Series

A friend recommended Peter Fehervari's Dark Coil series of Warhammer novels, so after the sheer disappointment of Deliverance Lost, I gave it a shot.

**

‘Don’t go out tonight, father,’ Mina said.

 - Requiem Infernal, Peter Fehervari

The first Dark Coil novel I read was Requiem Infernal, and it's just really good. It's a supernatural horror story set on a very unusual Imperial shrine world, starring some fairly strange characters. There's grisly murders, demonic possessions, and whole thing just drips atmosphere. Fehervari very much knows what he's doing, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.

There are objections online that Requiem isn't really a Sisters of Battle book, in that the Order of the Last Candle and their homeworld is so unusual. I get where that comes from, but the Imperium is huge, and I love that Fehervari has been let loose to carve out his own little niche of it. I liked Requiem Infernal enough that I decided to read the rest of the series.

**

‘We have to go,’ the ghost boy whispered into the darkness.

 - The Reverie, Peter Fehervari

The fourth Dark Coil novel stars the Angels Resplendent, a Blood Angels successor chapter who appeared in Requiem. They're a bunch of crusading artists, who collect interesting people they call Muses on their homeworld. It's quite similar to the Remembrancers on the expeditionary fleets in the Horus Heresy novels. However, all is not well on Malpertuis, the Painted World, with some of the Muses and even some of the space marines becoming corrupted.

It's all rather Fulgrim, in other words, if much less boring. But for whatever reason it didn't grip me nearly as well as Requiem, although it gets better toward the end. I think that part of it is that frankly, loyalist marines are kinda boring, and the parallels to Fulgrim were quite strong as well. But I was entertained.

**

No matter how often Voyle relives it, the end always begins the same way.

 - The Greater Evil, Peter Fehervari

The first two Dark Coil novels are collected in an omnibus called Dark Coil: Damnation with a bunch of related short stories. The first novel is Fire Caste, and it's basically Apocalypse: Now 40,000, with the Imperial Guard protagonists going upriver in search of a Tau leader who might as well be called K'urtz. It's very Fehervari with its haunted characters, very properly grimdark, and very good.

I'm a little disappointed that GW's barely done anything with the Gue'vesa, that is, the humans who've gone over to the Greater Good. One of the only recent games with rules for them was Aeronautica Imperialis, before it switched over to 30k, and I enjoyed painting a bunch of Imperial flyers in Tau colors. I've kind of lost interest in 28mm lately, but Fire Caste almost makes me want to build some Gue'vesa.

Fire Caste is followed by Cult of the Spiral Dawn and its associated short stories, all of which are quite good. Again, this is dangerous stuff, because I've still got the Genestealer Cult half of a Deathwatch: Overkill box hanging around, and now I want to actually paint a cult.

I like Fehervari's characters, his writing is good and effortless to read, and I think he really nails the dystopia of the Imperium without descending into grimdark for the sake of grimdark.

**

So yeah, I'd say that if you want to read Warhammer 40,000 fiction, I don't think you can do much better than the Dark Coil series. Highly recommended.

Epic: Let's Play Legions Imperialis

I'm very happy to say I got a chance to play Legions Imperialis! We had a fun and lethal day of 8mm wargaming that I thoroughly enjoyed.

**

Our first game is going to be a 1685 point battle, because that's the amount of models my opponent has. To face them, I'm bringing my Word Bearers, and an allied Auxilia tank company, because I like tanks.

I've got four formations. From left to right, the 1st (Air Assault) Demi-Company of the 4th Company; 2nd Tank Company, 3rd (Armored) Company; 2nd (Signals) Demi-Company, 5th (Combat Support) Company, all from II Battalion, Morbid Fane Chapter, and at the back, the Lords of the Old World from the 337th Yat-Kha Shock Cohort. And here's the official army list:

1st (Air Assault) Demi-Company

HQ: Legion Command Squad (25 pts)

Core: Legion Tactical Squad (30 pts)

Core: Legion Tactical Squad (30 pts)

Support: Legion Terminator Detachment (50 pts)

Support: Legion Assault Detachment (30 pts)

Vanguard: Legion Scimitar Jetbike Detachment (35 pts)

Air Support: Legion Storm Eagle Squadron (100 pts)

4th (Signals) Demi-Company

HQ: Legion Command Squad (25 pts)

Core: Legion Tactical Squad (30 pts)

Core: Legion Tactical Squad (30 pts)

Support: Legion Rapier Battery Detachment (quad-launchers) (40 pts)

Support: Legion Missile Launcher Support Detachment (40 pts)

Transport: Legion Land Raider Detachment (2) (80 pts)

3rd Tank Company

Battle Tank: Legion Predator Squadron (all lascannons) (115 pts)

Battle Tank: Legion Sicaran Squadron (accelerator autocannon, lascannon) (105 pts)

Heavy Armor: Legion Kratos Squadron (Kratos battlecannon, lascannons) (150 pts)

Heavy Armor: Legion Kratos Commander (Kratos battlecannon, lascannons) (100 pts)

Air Support: Legion Xiphon Interceptor Squadron (2) (180 pts)

Lords of the Old World

HQ: Tank Commander (10 pts)

Battle Tank: Leman Russ Strike Squadron (Vanquisher battlecannon, lascannon) (175 pts)

Battle Tank: Malcador Tank Squadron (twin lascannon, demolisher cannon, heavy bolters) (165 pts)

Heavy Armor: Auxilia Stormblade Squadron (120 pts)

**

My gracious host had an excellent gaming table and mat for us, as well as some buildings to fight over. It looked pretty darn good!

We marked out a 4'×4' surface, and rolled for a mission and got Conquest. This meant we would deploy in opposite corners and fight over six objective markers.

Here's our deployment from my point of view.

I deployed the signals company on my left, one detachment on foot to storm the central building, and one in the Land Raiders to grab objective 3. The Auxilia tanks would also go on the left flank, while the Sicarans and Kratoses (?) would advance on the right. One detachment of the air assault company would grab objective 5, with the HQ and other detachment in reserve in the Storm Eagle. The Predators and assault marines would go where they were needed, the Rapiers would sit on objective 4, and the jetbikes were my reserve.

It got a bit crowded in my deployment zone!

The battle started with our Forward Deployment moves: my Land Raiders sped toward objective 3, and the loyalist Aethon Heavy Sentinels secured objective 6. In the movement phase, both our armies surged out of their deployment zones.

A side note. When Legions Imperialis finally came out after a long, unexplained delay, it was roundly criticized for how rubbish the order counters were. I can attest that the criticism was well-deserved: they're printed on thin cardboard and are difficult to even punch out easily. What I didn't realize until my first orders phase was that there are also comically few of them, even for a 2000 point army. I'd brought along my own set, minus some damaged in trying to detach them, but was reduced to writing orders on scraps of paper.

Dashing out at a quick march, a detachment of my signals company occupied the central building in the face of the advancing loyalists.

Two Xiphon interceptors swooped down directly amid the enemy formations, sanguine that the loyalists' lack of anti-aircraft weapons meant they were invulnerable.

As the opposing forces came into range of each other, the firing started. First blood was drawn by one of the loyalist Warhounds: it fired at a Xiphon and missed, but its shudder missiles exploded around the traitor jetbikes, destroying a stand and leaving the detachment shaken.

One of the Land Raiders by objective 3 took an enemy round and exploded, and the Aethon Sentinels unleashed a barrage of missiles at the central building, completely wiping out the tactical detachment garrisoning it!

The other Warhound damaged a traitor Kratos and slowed the squadron down with its shudder missiles, and a Malcador took a hit and damage. Traitor return fire was ineffective, with only the Xiphons managing to damage a loyalist Malcador tank.

As the first turn came to a close, both sides controlled three objectives, but all the casualties were on the traitor side.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 17 VP

Traitors: 17 VP

**

Putting their faith in the Ruinous Powers, the Word Bearers continued their advance. Turn 2 opened with the traitor Malcadors gunning their engines and speeding at the advancing loyalist infantry, their heavy bolters spitting death and nearly wiping out the Veletari. The few survivors were blown apart by the traitor missile launcher detachment.

The second turn is the earliest when units with deep strike rules can show up. A bright flash and loud bang announced the arrival of the Cataphractii Terminators of the House of Justice, threatening to wrest objective 1 from the loyalists. A squad fell to overwatch fire from the Imperial Fists.

Meanwhile, the Word Bearers flyers swooped down on the battlefield. Covered by the Xiphon Interceptors, the lone Word Bearer Storm Eagle deposited a detachment of the 1st/4th (Air Assault) demi-company in the ruins overlooking Objective 6.

Undaunted, the loyalist advance continued. The Ogryns stubbornly marched for objective 3, only to be cut down by the concentrated bolter fire of the surviving signals company detachment.

Bloodied but unbowed, with shells from the traitor Rapier quad-launchers falling among them, the Imperial Fists advanced, while a Solar Auxilia tercio rushed to secure the central building. Denied a charge against the hated Aethon Heavy Sentinels, the Word Bearers assault marines fired their jump packs and descended on the Auxilia instead. In the ensuing mêlée, the traitors took heavy casualties and nearly wiped out the tercio.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the firefight continued. The Xiphons unleashed their lascannons and missiles on the Sentinels, destroying three of them. Loyalist return fire blew up a Sicaran and a Kratos on the traitor right flank, and a salvo from one of the Warhounds destroyed two Predator tanks.

Having deployed its cargo of tactical marines, the hovering Storm Eagle turned on the Imperial Fists Dreadnoughts and scythed them down.

On the traitor left, the Yat-Kha Malcadors paid for their impetuous advance as the Imperial Fists destroyed one and damaged another.

The Yat-Kha Stormblade and Leman Russes accounted for a loyalist Malcador and Sicaran.

Finally, the Word Bearers air assault detachment avenged their signals brethren by bringing down the last Aethon.

The carnage was terrible, with dead bodies and burning tanks littering the battlefield. The traitor tank company and the loyalist Auxilia both broke, with the loyalist Leman Russes and the surviving Sicarans on both sides running away!

Although the tide of the battle was turning, with the loyalist side taking heavy losses, no objectives changed hands this turn.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 34 VP

Traitors: 34 VP

**

The battle was bloody, but with both sides fully engaged, the loyalists mounted a counter-attack. The last surviving Ogryns charged objective 3, but fell to the fire of the Word Bearer signal detachment.

The Imperial Fists secured the central building, mopping up the last of the traitor assault marines.

Behind them, the Warhound Titans strode forth to challenge the traitor armor, while the Word Bearer aircraft screamed down on them. The traitor Terminators charged the Imperial Fists defending objective 1, but were unceremoniously wiped out in close combat.

The Word Bearer jetbikes swooped in on the surviving loyalist Malcador and destroyed it, and the traitor tanks concentrated their fire on the Warhound contesting objective 2. As its void shields collapsed in a shower of sparks, the Storm Eagle and Xiphon Interceptors opened fire on the Titan's rear armor. With a terrible metallic groan, the Titan collapsed.

At the end of Turn 3, five of the objectives were in traitor hands, and the battle was effectively over.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 38 VP

Traitors: 59 VP

**

We decided to play turn 4, mostly so that the remaining Warhound would get a proper chance to shoot at my tanks.

It did so, and the tanks and Storm Eagle knocked down its void shields, and the Xiphons scored their second Titan kill of the game.

Game ends: traitor victory.

**

Tanks blew up, Titans fell over and infantry died in droves. It was also excellent fun and I want to do more of it.

I've read a number of complaints about Legions online, and I have to say that I don't understand some of them. Keeping track of formation break points, for example, is a simple matter of some tally marks on a piece of paper, or just putting the casualties in one pile and keeping count of them. Overall I found the system quite fluid and easy to understand, although I will admit we forgot about some special rules.

Since we were both new to the game, neither of us really knew what we were doing. I'm happy I had a plan of sorts and more or less stuck to it. I could have manoeuvered my Auxilia tanks a lot better, though. Having air superiority certainly helped, but it's a luxury I'm pretty sure I won't be able to enjoy too often in the future.

Legions appears to be very lethal, as our piles of casualties attest. I was especially shocked by the Aethon Sentinels just casually wiping out my Tactical Marines, and also quite disappointed at how badly the assault marines and especially the Terminators did.

**

As a final note, in recognition of my Xiphons' titan-killing prowess, I added little Warhound kill markings to them in memory of this first game.

So to sum up, Legions Imperialis is a great game, and I hope I get to play it again soon.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 17: Deliverance Lost

The last time he had been in the Isstvan system, his departure had been very different.

 - The Horus Heresy: Deliverance Lost, Gav Thorpe

I'm skipping Graham McNeill's The Outcast Dead, but I picked up the next ebook with some slight trepidation. I remember Gav Thorpe as a controversial character back in the old 40k days, to put it mildly. I've read a couple of his short stories over the course of this project, as well as Lorgar, and they haven't been very good. I'm a bit curious about the Raven Guard, though, and Deliverance Lost does also feature the Alpha Legion. So let's see what it's like.

**

Deliverance Lost starts where Thorpe's short story The Face of Treachery left off, with a Raven Guard ship rescuing Corax and the last survivors of the drop site massacre.

Both Face of Treachery and Deliverance Lost prominently feature a Thorpe invention called reflex shields, which make Raven Guard starships stealthy by redirecting their emissions into the warp. Coincidentally, during our Rogue Trader campaign, I had suggested that maybe the reason there are no kind of radiators on Warhammer ships is that they dump their excess heat into the warp. I mean basically the warp means magic exists, and as technology can interact with it, you can and indeed do have magical technology in Warhammer. So from that perspective, sure.

I have two questions, though. First of all, given that we've learned over the course of this book series that Imperial sensors are incredibly bad, I'm not sure what you need something like this for. Nobody seems to be able to see entire fleets of warships coming at them, cloaking device or no cloaking device.

But more to the point, the Raven Guard have this technology, and it's not even apparently particularly secret. Why doesn't anyone else? If you can do this, and the Raven Guard are known to be able to do it, surely other people can do it as well. If reflex shields really let entire space marine battle-barges sneak around a system packed with enemy ships, surely you'd think someone would be interested in them. So to me, this makes no sense from a wider point of view, but feels very Gav Thorpe.

As they're escaping the Isstvan system, the Raven Guard ship goes to "blacklight" protocols, where they power down all systems and divert everything to the engines - while still staying cloaked. As if the enemy sensors are detecting overall power output and not the plasma drives propelling the ship. If you can figure out the physics of that, more power to you.

**

The biggest problem with Deliverance Lost is that it's just boring. Thorpe's prose is plodding at the best of times. We get exhaustive descriptions of all the places the characters go to, and of the entirely humdrum things they're thinking, but neither places nor people develop any particular personality in the process.

The plot has Corax arrive at Terra, where the Emperor tells him where he can find some ancient gene-tech that he can use to rebuild his legion. It's hidden in a subterranean labyrinth that he has to puzzle out. Meanwhile, the Alpha Legion is fomenting an insurrection in the Raven Guard's home system. The trouble is that none of this is particularly interesting, not least because the writing is so leaden, so I gave up.

This is the first Horus Heresy novel where I simply cannot be bothered to keep reading. The characters and plot just are not one bit interesting, the story doesn't really tie in meaningfully with any of the broader narratives. As the Raven Guard started figuring out the Emperor's puzzle-labyrinth, I realized I just do not care what happens next.

Avoid.

Epic: Let's Paint Solar Auxilia Tanks

I've painted the space marines from my Legions Imperialis box, but when I get around to playing it, I'm pretty sure I also want to try including some Solar Auxilia tanks as allies.

**

The first thing I did was rebase my Imperial Navy flyers from Aeronautica Imperialis for Legions.

I really like the dark green I painted my Aeronautica, and it matches my Titans, so I think I'm also going to make my Solar Auxilia vehicles the same color. I tried a base coat of Black Green and a drybrush of Luftwaffe Camo Green, but I wasn't really happy with the result, so it's plain Luftwaffe Camo Green for the Aethon Heavy Sentinels.

My reasoning is that both the Navy and Auxilia forces have been attached to Legio Venefica for so long that they've adopted the same color scheme for ease of identification.

Then it was on to the fun stuff: the tanks. I started with the entertaining lozenges that are the Malcador tanks.

And moved on to the Leman Russes.

With the basic rules, i.e. pre-Liber Strategia, there was no reason to take the basic battlecannon Russ over the Vanquisher, so that's how I built mine.

The Legions core set came with enough space marine tanks to build 2/3 of an armored company, and the Auxilia got the same. So I needed to pick up some super-heavies to be able to field a company, and with my regular Titanicus opponent threatening me with his Titans, I had to pick the Shadowsword. I built the other tank as a Stormblade, and they're both very handsome beasts.

And so here's my armored company!

Finally, since I have a pretty strong inkling that I'm going to be fighting a Titan Legion, I went and bought some Valdor tank destroyers. The shock pulse ought to come in handy knocking down void shields and screwing with the Titans in general, and besides, I really like painting little tanks.

I wanted to be able to paint the gun under the covering, so I left that off for priming.

And here's the end result.

**

What can I say? I adore tiny tanks, and want to paint more of them.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 16: Age of Darkness

He wanted to weep, but the last two years had turned his heart to stone.

 - Rules of Engagement, Graham McNeill, in The Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness

This time on Let's Read the Horus Heresy, it's another short story collection, called Age of Darkness.

**

McNeill opens with a story about some Smurfs doing combat simulations; it's not bad, but they really are the most boring legion. Liar's Due by James Swallow is a really good Alpha Legion story, and after this and Nemesis, I'm kind of a fan. Nick Kyme's Forgotten Sons is, sadly, also very forgettable.

The first Horus Heresy novel I actually read was by John French, and this collection has his story The Last Remembrancer. I quite liked it, and on reading it, I realized why I've developed such a dislike of Rogal Dorn. He's a bully. I'm not sure I've seen an appearance from him yet where he doesn't threaten to murder people for crimes like disagreeing with him, or telling him something he doesn't want to hear.

Chris Wraight's Rebirth is a visit to the ruins of Prospero, and speaking of bullies, the comparison made in it between the World Eaters and Space Wolves is very apt. The World Eaters are a tragedy: genetic super-soldiers literally driven insane by their desire to emulate their deeply damaged Primarch. So far in these stories, in their interactions with the other legions, the Space Wolves and Leman Russ just come across as hypocritical assholes. Y'know, sorcery is terrible, unless a "rune-priest" does it. I freely admit I never liked the faux space viking thing, but it's not as if anything I've read so far has made me change my mind.

Gav Thorpe's story, The Face of Treachery, was just flat and boring. Little Horus, by Dan Abnett, wasn't really anything that special, but the quality of his writing really is head and shoulders above everyone else. I still like the Luna Wolves because of Abnett, and am trying to resist adding yet another legion to my Epic collection. Rob Sanders's Iron Within is a decent enough story about some loyalist Iron Warriors, and Aaron Dembski-Bowden finishes on a strong note by taking everything that was good about Descent of Angels and running with it.

**

So far, these anthologies have been a bit of a mixed bag. Both ones I've read have had some really good stories, a couple of bad ones, and several very forgettable ones. A I write this, though, Black Library are charging 6.49€ for an anthology, and 3.49-3.99€ for a single short story, so basically if there are two stories in an anthology that I'm interested in reading, it's actually cheaper to get the whole thing. So maybe I'll be reading a few more.

Let's Play Cuba Libre

Mmm... organized crime.

 - Homer Simpson, Last Exit to Springfield, the Simpsons, season 4

I remember seeing a copy of Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War, 1954-62 at our friendly local gaming store and thinking to myself that anyone who makes a board game out of the Algerian war has got to be mad. Of course, I now know more about GMT Games and can testify that they are, indeed, quite mad. Still, I was intrigued by the idea of an entire series of counterinsurgency games, and since the publishers themselves suggest starting with Cuba Libre, that's what we're going to do.

**

The first impression I got was sheer delight at how small the game board was! We're used to games taking up the entire table, so it was a delight to have some actual elbow room. Despite its tiny size, the board is very functional, and the cards and wooden pieces are excellent.

We're playing as four factions fighting over Cuba: the government, Fidel's rebels, the Revolutionary Directorate of 13 March, and the US Mafia. While the government is trying to hold on to power and suppress the rebels, the rebels are trying to control enough territories to overthrow the government, while the mob is trying to keep its casinos open and make money. While all factions have different win conditions, I was very interested in the asymmetrical nature of the Mafia faction, so that was who I played as.

Cuba Libre is a card-driven game, but in a very clever way: players don't hold cards in their hands, but a card is revealed from the deck, and then the top card of the deck is turned face up. So there's always one card in play, and you can see what the next card will be as well.

The icons at the top of the cards determine the order in which the factions act that turn. In that order, they can decide to pass, play the event, or conduct operations on the map. Once two factions have played, play moves on to the next card, and the factions that took an action last turn have to sit the next one out. In some cards, like Herbert Matthews above, you pick one out of two possible event outcomes.

It's a very clever system, which forces you to think quite hard about your decisions every turn. Furthermore, victory points are scored whenever a Propaganda card comes up; they're distributed throughout the deck, one per quarter.

We started as we went on: I was trying to open casinos and amass wealth, the Directorio massed in the central highlands and Fidel's gang founded bases in the east. Santiago de Cuba attracted huge amounts of police, military and guerrillas throughout, and somehow none of them got much done. The most miserable people on the island must have been the unfortunates who lived in Las Villas, which was constantly being shaken down for resources by the Directory's guerrillas.

When the game ends is determined by when the last Propaganda card comes out. If the deck is prepared properly, it should be in the final quarter of cards: one of cards 40-52. In our case it was card number 49. So with the third Propaganda card showing up surprisingly early, the last campaign turned into a bit of a slog. However, in the end, the Directory won a surprisingly tight game.

We all enjoyed the game and found it quite simple to pick up and play on a weekend day. The asymmetry between the factions and the card-driven system are excellent. I've put in a P500 order for Pendragon, the COIN game set in Roman Britain. Before it shows up, I'm pretty sure we'll bust out Cuba Libre again.