horus heresy FAQs

FW recently released an errata and FAQ for the first horus heresy book, and one of the FAQ happens to reflect all the troop choices in the emperor's children army im making, so i figured i'd post it here.

a little info into the reason for this question; veteran tactical squads have 5 universal special rules that i have to choose 1 of for each squad to have. one of them is the Sniper usr, and some people on the power armor sites, like B&C were wondering how'd that affect you when using bolters that normally wound on a 4+, or something like melta or plasma where you'd normally wound on a 2+. the debate became whether Sniper nerfed the wound results needed for the special guns.

Q: Can you tell me how the Sniper rule applies to the Legion Veteran Tactical squad (if it is chosen as an option) and the Vigilator?
A: All of the shooting attacks made by these units gain the ability to inflict Precision Shots (see page 63 of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook) if they did not already do so.
In addition, all of the model’s shooting attacks never need greater than a 4+ to wound their targets, regardless of their weapon’s relative Strength and their target’s Toughness.
Note that if they would normally need less than 4+ to wound thanks to their weapon’s Strength, the better To Wound roll is still used.
(So a Melta gun fired at a Space Marine by a Tactical Veteran with the Sniper special rule still only needs a 2+ to wound regardless for example).
Other special rules for the weapon they are using remain unchanged.

and this one should cover some gaming questions if anyone here wanted to try to field a horus heresy army at a tournament:

Q: Are the armies and units in the Horus Heresy books by Forge World meant to be used in games against regular Codex armies, such as say Grey Knights or Orks?
A: While Forge World’s on-going range of Horus Heresy books and their game content are all designed to use and be compatible with the Warhammer 40,000 rules, they have been fine-tuned and focused on playing battles in the milieu of the Horus Heresy rather than in conjunction with the Codices representing warfare in the 41st Millennium, and this will remain the case.

Designer’s Note: This means that while you are, of course, free to have fun and play games against your friends using any forces you like, and Horus Heresy forces will be broadly ‘a fair fight’ with Codex forces of the same scale, certain rules anomalies and inconsistencies may be thrown up that you have to deal with, although these should not seriously affect the game in most cases. (For example, certain units, such as those with the Stubborn special rule, are at a premium costing in Horus Heresy armies over their regular Codex counterparts, owing to the results of play testing within their own sphere.)

In terms of using Lords of War and the Primarchs, however, these are definitely not intended to be used in standard Warhammer 40,000 games, but only in games where both sides use the Age of Darkness Force Organisation chart, and the specific provisions within, and in games of 2,000 points or greater.

Designer’s Note: So if, for example, you wanted to play a battle representing a narrative where the Sons of Horus Legion fought Orks or Eldar during the Great Crusade, you could quite easily use those xenos forces’ Warhammer 40,000 Codices (possibly house-ruled to accommodate larger squads) to proxy for their Heresy-era counterparts. In this case, however, both sides should be using the Age of Darkness Force Organisation chart, with the army’s own Apocalypse level units and flyers available as Lords of War entries following the guidelines found on page 184 of Betrayal.