The red planet is engulfed in Civil War! While the Space Marine Legions fight brother against brother across the galaxy during the horrors of the Horus Heresy, a similar civil war was starting to brew amongst the forces of the Mechanicum. Some stayed loyal to Terra and fought alongside the forces of The Master of Mankind. However some were swayed by promises from The Warmaster, who pledged that under him they would be freed from the restrictions imposed by The Emperor – they would be free to explore once forbidden knowledge and start to experiment with darker experiments…

In Warhammer The Horus Heresy: The Martian Civil War, up for pre order today, we learn more of this schism of Mars through Lore, narrative scenarios and new rules giving players the first taste of the Dark Mechanicum and their infernal machines imbued with the powers of the Neverborn. Is this full review we’ll be taking a look at everything in the book, seeing what new rules exist and what new things lie in store for those who want to side with the traitors.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us an early review copy ahead of time to check out on the site, if you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing video for the brand new plastic Thanatar Cavas Siege Automata which you can see just below or over on Youtube

So let’s dive into this tome of forbidden knowledge and see what secrets of the Mechanicum we can uncover!

Warhammer The Horus Heresy – The Martian Civil War Review

We’ve had a number of Warhammer The Horus Heresy supplements now with focuses on different events and battles in the Horus Heresy. If you’ve read any of those then you’ll know what to expect from this book – the first half is dedicated to lore with a deep dive into the Mechanicum of Mars and the events following the Death of Innocence. Like we’ve seen in other books, this is represented as a historical document looking back at the events of the Heresy. This kicks off with Kelbor-Hal’s betrayal with those loyal to him and Horus making their move, as a wave of corrupted Scrap Code catapults it’s way across the solar system causing carnage and confusion to those hit by it. Happening at the same time as the Isstvan incident, the Loyalist forces are otherwise preoccupied and Dorn is only able to afford a strike force of 4 companies of Imperial Fists led by Camda Diaz and Sigismund to dead with the Martian incursion.

This kick starts the events of the Death of Innocence as it came to be known, as civil war tears across Mars, with the small Imperial First force with Solar Aux assistance heading to Mars to help assist the Loyalists in stopping Kelbor-Hal

Over the next 70 or so pages we get one of the most comprehensive histories of what happened to the Mechanicum forces during the Heresy, and I thoroughly enjoyed digging into it, being a refreshing change from the Astartes actions of most of the books, seeing the history and machinations of the Mechanicum gave me lots of fuel for designing my own Mechanicum force along with ideas on what cool units I can include to try and represent different narrative events.

The Mars Campaign

As with the other Heresy campaign books we get a new Onslaught Campaign allowing us to fight through the events of the Martian Civil War. The core 10 page Onslaught Campaign rules are reproduced here from other books, so that if this is your first Heresy Supplement you’ve got everything you need, though these really are redundant pages for anyone who has any of the other books – If rumours are true and we are getting a new edition at some point, I think I’d rather this core Campaign rules content in the core book, then freeing up space in supplements for more unique content

Once we do get the the new Mars specific rules however lots of fun stuff opens up. One of the first things introduced is Scrap Code – this makes Automata, Armigers, Dreadnoughts and Mechanised Units have to pass a leadership test if they want to make a reaction, with a modifier to make the test as the game goes through more turns to representing the Scrap Code slowly depleting. All of the units affected here are very strong in games of Heresy and this seems a nice narrative way of dealing with things such as armies of Dreadnoughts, and traitors get to roll an extra dice and pick the lowest two to represent their resistance to the code!

The Remnant of War is a new rule that allows some extra terrain to be placed on the battlefield after deployment to represent the hostile environment being fought over – this is rolled randonly for each player and can be anything from an area of Dangerous Terrain to perhaps represent a leaking reactor or nuclear fallout that is lingering on the battlefield, a piece of dangerous terrain to represent the shattered and ruined environment or D3 craters to represent impact from distant super weapons or orbital gun batteries – these cannot be placed on any deployed units, but it can change up the battlefield post deployment and lead you to having to mix up your plans a little.

We also get three new campaign Stratagems –

Automata Reserves has you roll a dice when an Automata unit is destroyed, and on a 6 you get an identical unit put into reserves – not high chances of triggering, but very cool when it does!

Titan Support allows you to ignore the points limitations for Titans, so you can bring along a Titan army if you want without having to worry about the Lord of War allowence (You still have to fill compulsory slots, but that’s easily done with the Titan Formation)

And finally Taghma of War unlocks a new Allied Detachment for Mechanicum that has a compulsory HQ then 0-4 optional of each Troops, Elites, Heavy Support and Fast, pretty much freeing you up to take whatever you want.

The next 12 pages repeat the Core Missions we have seen in other books – Personally I’d have liked to have seen each supplement get a selection of 6 new missions, but sadly it’s the same ones we’ve previously seen a couple of times now. Yes, this is handy if you are running Dark Mechanicum so that you don’t have to bring multiple books, but thats a fair chunk of the book that we’ve seen in the pages of other supplements now.

Thankfully, we go get new Apex Missions – these are cinematic missions that are generally used to determine the fate of a campaign through a decisive battle, and they are pretty fun! 3 new ones are included here. Death of Innocence has the Defender holding objectives representing vital stashes of Power Armour that need saving in order to change the tide of the war and try and evacuate them, while the Attackers are out to stop this from happening. This is a nice spin on an objectives mission in that the defender can do this such as load the objectives onto a transport in order to try and move them quicker – the objectives take up 4 transport points (It is a crate of armour after all) and means we can get some nice interactions such as the attackers (Who get 25% more points) trying to make choke points to stop the defender getting those objectives off the board.

A Cage of Bone is a fun scenario that has one player attempting to kill Warlord, while the other is trying to kill as many elite or HQ choices as possible – this makes for a different feeling game too, with more focus on fighting units and clever unit prioritisation rather than objective play.

The final mission Giant Killers is a David and Goliath favoured one – one player has no Lord of Wars, the other ignores the limits and can just take Titans if they want to – again objectives are straight forward with the Titan player gaining 2 VP for every unit they destroy, and the other player getting 6VP for every Lord of War taken to half strength and 10 if they are destroyed (With a bonus 2 VP if they cost more than 1000 points) – Probably going to be a tough one for the non-Titan player, but lots of hard hitting weapons and focussing down targets seems the order of the day

Dark Scions of the Questoris

We now get to the part of the book that explores the darker side of the Mechanicum factions, with some upgrades and options that can be taken by Traitor forces.

For the Questoris Households we get Dark Blessings. These are a list of 9 different pointed upgrades that can be taken on your Knights. In an ace move, some of these actually give the Knight the Character Unit Sub Type meaning they can make and accept challenges against primarchs, monsters and other Knight characters

There’s some interesting stuff here – The best and most expensive is Conqueror of Worlds – this can only be taken by a single Knight and costs just under 100 points, but it increases your WS and BS by 1, and allows all knights within 8″to make reactions (Ignoring the Knight reaction rules)

Other options include giving your units It Will Not Die, taking a hit to WS and BS but in exchange giving all armigers in the same detachment Rage 2, Or what about making your Knight psychic with some cool powers that can increase your inv save

There’s a lot of variety here and its a nice way of mixing up your Knight list a little.

Automata Malefica

Next up is the part of the book I was very much looking forward to – the first rules for the Dark Mechanicum!

When taking a traitor Mechanicum force you can opt to have them be from the Dark Mechanicum and take one of 4 new Warlord Traits:

Scion of Cyclothrathe gives all your Corrupted Engines additional resistance against Haywire with them having no affect with a roll of 1-3, not a massive bonus but could be handy if you go heavily into Corrupted Engines

Scion of Xana II appeals to me as my Dark Mechanicum army hails from there! This unlocks a new unique reaction that improves the Malefic Aegis save (a special Invulnerable save that Corrupted Engines get) by 1

Scion of Retlaxi has your Corrupted Engines deal a S 5+D3 hit to nearby units when they are slain (In a similar way to catastophic damage)

And finally for Khorne fans we have probably the best one – Scion of Sarum allows you to take Blood Slaughters as a Compulsory Troops choice and gain Line too!

All of the Corrupted Engines rules and profiles from the Exemplary Battles of the Age of Darkness: The Depths of Tredecimmia PDF from Warhammer Community are replicated here, and these can be taken in any Traitor Mechanicum army. There’s no changes to these profiles and they are fun to use in games with the Decimator being a pretty good Dreadnought option to make up for the lack of Brutal in the army, and the Kytan Daemon Engine being an absolute beast (which reminds me, I really need to get one painted up to join my army)

It is a shame that nothing new is added here, and I really hope we get some new Daemon Engines in future as these are a little old now! I think it’s worth pointing out here that only rules for the Forge World Daemon Engines are included – there are no profiles for any of the plastic 40k ones (as expected) – It is nice to see these in a book now rather than just a PDF, as I’m a sucker for physical rules.

Relic Hunt Missions

While the core missions earlier in the book are the same as seen previous, we do get a brand new mission pack in the form of Relic Hunts

These are balanced for both casual and competitive play and offer up 5 new missions that have objectives that interact with the players in some interesting ways. The players actually roll at the start of the game to see how they operate – on a 1-2 they are just vanilla, 3-4 they are Arcane and 5-6 they are Unstable. Arcane and Unstable objectives have charts that are rolled on each turn, with them doing some fun things such as moving around the battlefield, reducing the movement of nearby units, forcing units to make morale checks or even dealing S8 hits to every model contesting the objective (on which only inv saves can be taken!) This really mixes things up and leaves you having to be very careful about what you put on objective duty, as there’s a pretty good chance that your units get murdered by the objective too. From a thematic point of view this makes perfect sense, as the objectives we are fighting over on Mars are more than likely going to be ancient arceotech or highly dangerous and radioactive energy sources! Your power armour isnt going to a lot to protect you from the neverborn pouring out of the experimental piece of Dark Mechanicum tech you and your squad are standing next to…

The new missions are nice and fun with some very different victory conditions to teh core missions – my favourite is probably Secure the Crash site – this has the defenders deploying in the centre of the board and the attackers at each short edge – the table is split into three areas, the first is circle 6″ from the centre, the next 12″ and finally everything after 18″ – the attackers get more points for being in the deeper ring, and the defenders more points for trying to get 18″ way from the centre – leading to a really fun tug of war as you try and force your way into your highest scoring zone.

Techno Heresies of the Dark Age

Once cool new things that is introduced in the book are new Techno-Arcana for traitors, again allowing you to tailor your force a little and take advantage of some unique rules:

Malefikite allows you to upgrade your Cybernetica units to have the Ruinious Cybernetica rule – this allows them to attempt to pass a leadership test to ignore the programmed Behavior rule, however they have to charge units within 12″ if possible, and if you fail the test you take a wound with no saves possible – this Arcana also unlocks a nice Rite that is an 18″ Assault 3, S6 AP3 Data-Dkinn with rending 5+

Nekrotek has a very undead feel with your Cybernetica gaining It Will Not Die 5+, your Cybertheurgist can also deal damage to nearby Mechanicum units in order to heal their own wounds – I picture a Magos with a big squad of Tech Thralls he is just using as a battery to heal himself up

Malamina allows you to take an Infernus Abomination as an Elites Choice and also upgrade any Power Weapons in the army to Abomination Blades that give them Rampage, +1 to hit when wounded and Breaching 4+

Aethertek unlocks a Decimator as a troops choice and also stops Corrupted Engines from having any of their characteristics negatively modified. Their Cyberthurgists are also able to give a corrupted engine one of 3 options in the shooting phase – A move up to Initiative value, increase their inv saves by 1 or increase their WS and I by 1. I can see this being very good in the faction that can take Blood Slaughters as Line…

Additional Units

Finally, we get profiles for a couple of new and updated units

Aster Crohne is a Blood Angels character who’s Warlord Trait allows Inducti units to make sweeping advances and gain +1 attack on the charge (Even when disorded). As Captain of the Inductii he is also able to join their units. He also goes into reserves on a roll of 4+ the first time he is slain

Kaedes Nex is a Raven Guard who can’t be a Compulsory HQ and is able to join Blackshields units. His main gimick is being sneaky and a crack shot with his Hand Cannon (a S6 Auto weapon that can switch between a few different profiles based on what he wants to do – a Single AP2 Brutal 2 shot with Sniper, 6 shots at Ap 4 as he simply unloads the chambers or even use it in melee with Brutal 2, Precision Stikes 4+ and Rending 5+. He’s able to deploy anywhere on the battlefield in terrain and outside of 9″ of the enemy and ignores night fighting and shrouded!

Camba Diaz joins the fight for the Imperial Fists, his warlord trait giving him Fearless and Counter Attack while within 3″ of an objective. In a nice touch when he is on his final wound he gains Feel No Pain 4+ too!

Finally we get an updated profile for the Krios Squadron – I suspect this is because a new plastic kit is on the way, and includes a new build variant, the Krios Irradiator! All the existing options are the same, but rules for the Irradiator is included, which is at a 40 point premium

The Irradiator is armed with a new Irradiation Blaster which is a rad weapon that can be fired in 2 modes – the first is a shot range 16″ Radiation beam that hits everything under the range of the weapon – you draw a 16″ line and hit every model in the path (Vehicles and models with 6 wounds or more stop the beam from going any further, but get hit by it 3 times)

Stat wise its pretty nasty with S7, AP 3, Fleshbane and Rad-Phage

If you manage to get a penetrating hit on a transport, the squad inside also takes D6 S2 Fleshbane hits as the radiation seeps inside the vehicle.

Alternativly, if you just want to hit as many Space Marines as possible you can fire it dispersed which makes it into a hellstorm Template weapon that hits at S2 (But still has Fleshbane) – the AP drops to 5 in this mode however, but you can potentially force a lot of saves on a big unit with that!

This really rounds out the options for the Krios and gives some fun alternate weapon choices!

Summary

Another awesome book for The Horus Heresy and one that Dark Mechanicum players will want to pick up in order to expand out the options they have available to them. I do have a few grumbles about quite a few pages of content that is already in other books, but the new content in here is great – I particularly like the Relic Hunt scenarios to give players some more missions and different ways of playing, and while te much hyped Daemon Engine stuff is just lifted from the free PDF, there’s a lot of additional fun things for Mechanicum players to use for their armies. I suspect we have some more Mechanicum kits on the way following this – in particular the plastic Krios, but also pictured in the book is what looks like a new plastic Vulturax (who coincedently are no longer available to buy in resin…) Interestingly we also get artwork of the Mechancum Ordinatus (which is also now sold out) – so could we see a surprise plastic Lord of War there perhaps?

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next for the Horus Heresy!

The Martian Civil War is available to pre order today and is released Saturday 14th September

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes