Horus Heresy Board Game

by Horus Heresy

Product Features

• New Game in the Warhammer 40K world
• Includes over 120 detailed miniature models, also 10 plastic terrain pieces, and more than 200 cards
• An epic board game for two players set in the dark future of Games Workshop's pre-eminent Warhammer

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.8 x 2.5 inches ; 6.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: 1589946847
• Item model number: GW02
• Manufacturer recommended age: 12 years and up
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #14,924 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)

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  Toys & Games > Games > Board Games > Adventure & Story Games

• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Brother fights brother, and the universe hangs in the balance! Long before the grim darkness of the 41st millennium was a time of myth and legend, where god-like beings met in a monumental battle of brother against brother. Let us return to the Imperium of the 31st Millennium when a golden age was shattered by betrayal, and exploded into the greatest battle of all time! Welcome to the Horus Heresy, an epic board game for two players set in the dark future of Games Workshop's preeminent Warhammer 40,000 universe. One player will take the role of the godlike Emperor of Holy Terra and valiantly stand as the last beacon of hope for the future of all mankind. The other player will lead the attack as the Warmaster Horus, once the most trusted and loved scion of the Emperor, now turned entirely away from sanity and hope, twisted beyond recognition by the insidious taint of Chaos. Both players will command their vast legions in pitched battle across the now war-torn surface of Terra, birthplace of the human race. Can Horus succeed in this profane quest to crush the Imperium, drowning the galaxy in a flood of Chaos and destruction, or will the steadfast Holy Emperor of Mankind break the bloody siege, turning the tide of assault against the cruel machinations of the Dark Powers of the Warp?

Product Description

On the thirteenth day of Secundus, the bombardment began...

In the greatest betrayal the universe has ever known, the Warmaster Horus - once humanity's greatest general, now corrupted by Chaos - has turned against the Emperor and hurled the Imperium of Man into ferocious civil war. The galactic conflict has risen to its climax. The Warmaster's ruinous legions have assaulted Holy Terra itself, the Emperor's seat. Here the fate of humanity hangs in the balance during the greatest military campaign ever seen.

In the Horus Heresy board game, this legendary battle unfolds across the razed plains of Terra and in the frozen orbit above. Deadly fighting ranges from the Emperor's golden Inner Palace to Horus's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Taking the side of either traitor or loyalist, two players control either fearless Space Marine legions or deviant Chaos Space Marines, mighty Titans, Imperial Armies both loyal and traitorous, and a fearsome array of other units, including the Emperor and Horus themselves.

An innovative order and initiative system forces each side to carefully consider the commands they issue to their troops. A dramatic, card driven combat system incorporates escalating damage, gives players the opportunity to allocate resources between attack and defense, and brings to bear the unique special powers of each unit type, from fortification-destroying Titans to the perverse daemons of Chaos. Brother fights brother, and the universe hangs in the balance!

Horus Heresy includes over 120 detailed miniature models including 10 plastic terrain pieces, and more than 200 cards to bring this sweeping conflict to life on a stunning map of the war-torn Terra.


CONTENTS: NA

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Complex, Slow, Not Quite Fun, September 5, 2010

By	A. Smith (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Horus Heresy Board Game (Toy)

Horus Heresy is a Fantasy Flight "big box" game, which means that it ships in a box much larger than your copy of Chaos in the Old World or Arkham Horror, comes stamped with a high price tag, and has a ton of parts. Given its high price and epic production values, this game sets a standard for its own judgment. If it's pricier, bigger, and has more stuff, it begs to be considered in an echelon of games above the likes of Chaos, Arkham, Dominion, because it seems that if FF would ask for more, they would certainly give more in turn...right?

Well, yes and no. HH is a game of superb strengths and dismal weaknesses, and it is one of the most involved games I have ever played (this from someone who is working on the design of an RPG, and considers RIFTS to be rather light regarding rules!) As far as theme, scope, and presentation, HH rarely disappoints. Setting up the game board alone feels quite epic. As my opponent and I deployed our figures using the scenario guide, painstakingly trying not to miss a figure, I immediately began to see the possibilities for implementing strategies, and was also drawn in to the theme. Placing the mighty Warmaster Horus in his ship, for instance (which has its own small, separate map) tickled my imagination. This also goes to theme: the mythology of the Warhammer universe is incredibly integrated and feels very immediate and real. While Chaos is certainly one of the best modern games I've played, it pales in comparison to HH regarding theme. HH hints even further at the world of figure-painting and map-making of Warhammer's home turf, and it is all the better for it.

Horus Heresy's presentation is awe-inspiring on first blush, and while it continues to pay off with exquisite artwork and production, there are some problems with the game that seem almost too large to have been forgotten when it came time to sell it. There are many, many figurines, each well-detailed and evocative, and the amount of different figurines, each with their own unique abilities, will impress your friends. The idea of showing the rank of the figures using their base is a fantastic means of including visual guidelines and removing more rule-book-referencing (if they could figure out how to squeeze in movement limits it would be a further plus!) There is a small slit in the back of each figure's base that allows players to insert damage markers which is also an intelligent solution to reduce track-keeping. The 3D inserts that go into the map won't necessarily invoke the imaginations of players. The paint jobs are muddy and lack detail, and feel much more mass-produced and flimsy than the rest of the game board (which unfortunately had a bit of warp to it) but the 3D inserts do create a more interesting topography than other map boards, and adds to that big box feeling of an epic presentation.

The two major oversights in presentation and design are that the traitor's Chaos Warband and Chaos Cultists are incredibly alike, to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable without their differing bases. One must hold the figure within inches of the eye--and in good light--to differentiate them. The second problem creates another impractical element to the game: the map sections are more often than not too small to house its figurines. For instance, it is literally impossible to balance all of the figures that go in the inner palace on initial setup, let alone to have any more figures there for combat. In large battles my opponent and I found ourselves displacing figures to other parts of the board to examine them and execute combat, as we simply could not manage it in the cramped 3D sections of the map, as well as other sections inter-cut by those 3D inserts. It can also be difficult to differentiate between the main heroes and villains (who for some reason are 2D cardboard) because they share similar color palettes and the cropping of the original paintings often rescales the illustration so they don't match the provided reference sheets. The figurine and map issue are glaring errors that really should have been addressed by Fantasy Flight before this game was sold.

HH's game mechanic should theoretically overshadow the presentation--with all its bells and whistles, positives and negatives. Because while a game can be exquisite to look at for a while, after that first half hour or so the figures and the board become abstracted, and become mere markers for potential strategies and gameplay. The three mechanics of interest are the Initiative Track, a unique addition to player turn-order and a ticking clock that counts down to game-changing events and phases in the game as well as game end. The second solid mechanic is combat: when a fight breaks out players draw a hand of combat cards relative to their combined figure-rank, and play those cards both in attack and defense. This says something more about the game's scope: an entire other game is played during battle rounds. Card battles can be exciting and certainly game-changing (they are battles, after all) and add color and shape to war that a mere handful of dice do not. The third mechanic of note, and perhaps the strongest and most exciting, is the player's use of order cards (a whole different set of cards!) Order cards begin battles, redeploy figures, or build reinforcements, and are played at the expense of initiative. Cards can be played directly from a players hand at a sometimes high initiative cost, or placed on a strategic map to the right of the main map, and executed in later turns for a low initiative cost. Waiting to execute orders placed earlier in the game adds suspense and excitement, and some battles and map control can be won from playing orders on that strategic map alone. This is perhaps the most cerebral element of the game. The game mechanics in HH show how dedicated the designers were to adding scope, originality, and value to this production, and nearly account for the game's shortcomings.

I said before that HH is one of the most involved games I have ever played. This is what makes the game feel large and special, but also leaves it mired in too many tedious details. It is an involved game because of how large it is in scope- and this is a positive. Unlike in lighter, shorter games, players need not rigorously pursue a single trail to victory. The game gives enough room and size for a player to be working two separate strategies simultaneously, waiting for each to come to fruition, hoping and anticipating that their plans aren't foiled by their opponent.

The demanding rules are what makes HH "involved" to the game's detriment. On my first, second and even third play through, I kept the rulebook in hand and tarried over the minor details, always missing some rule or another. First I neglected to understand or enforce activation markers, then movement limits, then card recycling, etc. It seemed that each time I was able to understand and implement a specific rule, I was missing another. To run this game properly is to run an unwieldy machine at times. Some rules seem absolutely necessary but easily neglected, while others seem unnecessary but rather brutal to one player or another, and easier to remember. So while FF delivers on scope, they over-deliver on a set of rules that can be oppressive and demoralizing when misunderstood or neglected.

Horus Heresy certainly provides an epic experience. The scale and scope of the game is broad, the theme is well-integrated. And yet it is more of a major production than a good board game. The gameplay provides for fresh, detailed new mechanics, but the rules, some of them unwieldy and difficult to keep track of, some seeming a bit arbitrary and tacked on to add depth, disrupts the primary flow of the game. The presentation is at once awe-inspiring (with its diversity of figures and interesting map-features) and depressing (with the regrettable similarities between figurines and the cramped regions). Perhaps this is what makes a "big box" game, the unwieldy, pro-and-con nature of it adds to the sheer byzantine quality of the thing.

Still, I have enjoyed other "big box" games with seemingly limitless amounts of rules, less attractive figures and productions, and not felt so tied down and disappointed (I'm looking at you, Twilight Imperium). So if you are looking for something big, unwieldy, even spectacular at times, you may be pleased with Horus Heresy, but if you are looking for a great game, and think that another $50 or so will get you there, I suggest you wait.