Rules in the Age of Darkness: How to build an army in the new edition

The new edition of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy refines many of its systems to help create epic narrative games, while keeping to the spirit of long-established rules. One of the greatest changes comes before you even deploy to the battlefield, with new army construction rules giving you the flexibility to craft those incredibly thematic forces you’ve read about in the Horus Heresy novels.

In short: the Force Organisation Chart is very much still here – but it has evolved. So what exactly does that mean?

The basics

To illustrate this system we’ll be looking at the Crusade Force Organisation Chart – the standard arrangement used by almost every faction in Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – and using the Legiones Astartes army list. Other factions may have minor differences to these rules, but they all follow a similar structure.

Your army begins with its Primary Detachment, which contains a number of Slots to be filled by different Battlefield Roles. These Roles are similar to the classical categories – HQ, Troops, Heavy Support, and the like – but there are some differences. Certain kinds of units, such as Terminators and Dreadnoughts, now have separate role types. We’ll take a closer look at these later.

This is the Crusade Primary Detachment you’ll be building your army around:

High-ranking officers go into the High Command slot, with secondary officers fit in the Command slot, basic infantry in the Troops slot, and light transports in the Transport slot.* 

The first major change is that there’s no such thing as ‘compulsory’ units any more – you’re free to leave out whatever you wish. However, there are bonuses when you opt for specific Prime Slots in each detachment – these are explained below. 

The Primary Detachment provides a solid foundation for the rest of your army, though you may be wondering where all the fun stuff like tanks and Dreadnoughts go…

Detachments

This is where your Command Slots come in. For each one you fill, you may add one Auxiliary Detachment to your army – or two if you enlist a regular non-Consul Centurion – each of which include one or more slots for other Battlefield Roles. They are, in no particular order:

• Armoured Fist: Heavy transports like the Land Raider, plus additional light transports

• Tactical Support: Additional Troops slots, plus Support slots for special and heavy weapon squads, Apothecaries and other units

• Armoured Support: Armour slots which you can fill with tanks and other armoured vehicles

• Heavy Support: War-engine slots for Dreadnoughts and other war machines

• Combat Pioneer: Reconnaissance slots for light infantry and bikes

• Shock Assault: Heavy Assault slots for Terminators

• First Strike: Fast Attack slots for aircraft, jetbikes and speeders

Vehicle squadrons, Dreadnought talons, and other similar unit types no longer exist, so each individual unit will take up its own Slot. You may take any Auxiliary Detachment as many times as you like – for instance, if you want to fill your army with Dreadnoughts. Otherwise, you’ll build your army as normal, adding units until your points limit is reached or you run out of available slots.

Your High Command slot is special, as it allows you to take an additional Auxiliary Detachment or an Apex Detachment. Apex Detachments are for your best troops, such as:

• Combat Retinue: Command squads for your officers

• Officer Cadre: Additional Command Slots, which themselves unlock more Auxiliary Detachments

• Army Vanguard: Elite units such as Veterans and Legion-specific specialists

And those are the basics! With these rules, you can build a thematic army that aims for a wide spread of units, laser-focuses on a single type, and everything in between. In our experience, the biggest change is that you require a couple more Centurions or Consuls than before in order to unlock extra Auxiliary Detachments – but it is much easier overall to lean into our favourite kinds of units. Each Faction and Legion has its own Auxiliary and Apex Detachments too.

If you want to take your army further, however, there are also ways to enhance individual units and add extra slots without taking up detachments.

Prime slots

You may have noticed in the charts above that some slots have a special border around them, marking them as Prime Slots. For each one of these filled by a unit, you may select one of several Prime Advantages, which do all sorts of things from enhancing the fighting prowess of the squad’s Sergeant to bolstering the unit’s Advanced Characteristics.

Using the Logistical Benefit advantage, you can add any** one Battlefield Role Slot of your choice to the detachment. Using this, you can diversify your army even further without needing to use up a whole Auxiliary or Apex Detachment, which is especially useful if you only want one of that particular Battlefield Role. 

With these extra little boosts, you can give your army some real character and tweak it until the unit composition is just right – or, if your units already fit neatly into your detachments, give a chosen squad or two an upgrade. 

In fact, to show off just what you can do with the new rules, we’re going to borrow an immaculate Raven Guard*** army from Warhammer Community’s own Joel, and remake his current 3,000-point list with as few changes as possible.

The Warlord Detachment is a special addition to your army that you can only use if you bring your Primarch along for a 3,000-point game, and it’s a great way to add an extra Retinue and Heavy Transport Role Slot without taking up any of your usual allowance. 

If we hadn’t decided to add Corvus Corax to the list, we would have needed an extra Retinue Slot for the Praetorian Command Squad and an extra Heavy Transport Slot for the Spartan. Here, we could simply add an additional Centurion or Consul to unlock space for an Armoured Fist Auxiliary Detachment, and change the Prime Advantage on the Army Vanguard Detachment to Logistical Benefit for a Retinue Slot – or rearrange the existing Detachments in other ways.

There’s still more to see from the army building rules, including adding Allies from other factions and special themed Detachments for individual Legions. We’ll be back with more details in the near future, and an article on vehicle rules on Friday.

* Note that Dedicated Transports are a thing of the past – they must all now be taken in their own slot.

** With a few exceptions. No adding Titans to your bodyguard!

*** Which you can see on display right now at the Warhammer Leeds store.