16 November 2015

White Dwarf: The Horus Heresy Edition



The Horus Heresy box set has been playing on my mind recently, after some online discussions. Is it the bargain of the century or is it another expensive GW cow-milking exercise aimed squarely at the space marine fan boys. I used to be one of those fan boys a decade ago and would have sold my soul to get my hands on something like this back then, regardless of price. Nowadays though I'm a little older and a little wiser (just a little) and not so easily taken in by shiny photos and beautifully painted miniatures.

I put in a cheeky request with the wife as she was leaving for town on Saturday, asking her to go to the one place she hates more than any – the local "sweaty geek shop" as she calls it – to get hold of last week's Horus Heresy edition of White Dwarf. I just wanted to see what the fuss was about, plus I had read somewhere it has a free miniature on the cover.


She returned some hours later and the first thing I discovered was that the free miniature was actually a free metal badge of an Ultramarine space marine – why? what possible use or value does that have? Secondly the edition cost only £2.40 which seemed remarkably cheap compared with the last WD I purchased, but then I discovered it's because there are only 34 page in this edition!

(I'd just like to say that I think this is a sad state of a magazine with so much history and heritage, but there you go.)

The 'magazine' itself turned out to be more of a glossy brochure for the Horus Heresy game, with shiny pictures and a lot of text I couldn't bring myself to read because I know it's just marketing hogwash. I had a flick through but personally was unmoved.


So, is the game worth it from a model perspective (assuming you're just in it it for the sprues)?

The box set was advertised in the magazine for £95 (£85 at Element Games) and for that you get 30 mk4 tactical marines, 5 terminators, a dreadnought, a terminator captain and a chaplain. If you were to purchase the same plastic models (though not heresy era of course) it would cost you £75 for 30 tacticals, £28 for the terminators and £28 for the dread – that's £130 before your character models (£111 from Element Games).

I think that's a resounding bargain, a saving of approx. £60-70 on buying regular models – and they're heresy era stuff as a bonus. So all you marine players out there… buy, buy, buy!!


4 comments:

  1. I got a copy and I am very pleased with it. The game seems good, even the wife wants to play after seeing the boards, and the minis are at a bargain price and are fully featured with as many options as you would expect from a normal box, if not more. I'll be using the models for a variety of things- Chaos Contemptor for my Alpha Legion, the tactical marines for my Iron Hands to make devastator squads and a tac squad or two. The Terminators will become Nurgle Terminators and the Chaplain a Dark Apostle. All told I'm very happy with my purchase, which was £76 including shipping from SNMStuff.co.uk Could have got it about £2 cheaper from Dark Sphere but I like supporting the little fella aho in this case was nearly as cheap and better service.

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  2. The magazine is split in to two editions, both a pale shadow of there former selves!

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    1. Ahh don't get me started on the 'Visions' magazine, lol.

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