The Liber Volumes are here alongside the new 3rd Edition of Warhammer The Horus Heresy!

Liber Astartes and Liber Hereticus between them contain all the new rules for fielding Loyalist and Traitor Space Marine armies in your games of Horus Heresy 3rd Edition. The two books themselves are almost identical in terms of content, both presenting narrative background regarding the organisation and purpose of the Astartes Legions alongside all the ‘shared’ profiles and rules for fielding them in your games. Where they differ of course is with regards to the specific background and rules for the individual Legions themselves – you’ll find the nine Loyalist Legions in the Liber Astartes book and the nine Traitor Legions in the Liber Heresticus book. Each Legion has access to its own Rites of War, Armoury and Legion specific units (such as the Primarchs and special units). We cover such Legion specific rules in a separate article (Loyalists here and Traitors here) but in this article we’ll run through the common Legion Astartes rules and profiles.

This is just part of our 3rd Edition Heresy content – you can check it all out on our 3rd Edition Hub

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over an early review copy to check out. If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We have also filmed a full video going through a lot of these changes, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

Before we dive into the Legions Astartes roster itself there are a few additional rules and details which set the Space Marines apart from other factions in the game. Armies whose Primary Detachment is from the Legiones Astartes Army List benefit from an additional Reaction Point provided it contains a unit with the Master of the Legion Trait (ie. a Praetor or Primarch). There are also six special Auxiliary Detachments that are availale to players using the Legiones Astartes Army List.

The Daemonic Manifestations Auxiliary Detachment is unlocked by a Traitor Esoterist unit is selected to fill a Command slot and grants access to three Heavy Assault slots which can be filled with Daemon Brute units (from the Daemons of the Ruinstorm Army List).

The Veteran Cadre Auxiliary Detachment is unlocked when a Legion Champion unit is selected to fill a Command slot and grants access to a Retinue, Elite and Heavy Transport slot which have no further limitations with regards to what unit can fill them.

The Apothecarion Delegation and Techmarine Covenant are simple six slot Detachments restricted to only Apothecary units and Techmarine units respectively.

The Storm Battery Detachment is unlocked if you take a Siege Breaker unit in a Command slot and grants four additional slots, two Transport and two Armour slots which can be filled with Rapier Battery Units, Arquitor Bombard and Vindicator Siege Tank Units.

The Recon Demi-Company Detachment is unlocked when you include a Vigilator Unit in a Command slot and grants three Recon slots which must be filled by Reconnaissance Squads and Fast Attack slot.

Astartes players have access to such a large variety of Detachments (and keep in mind each Legion has access to at least one more) that players should have no problem putting together a well rounded and themed army.

Both Libers also share an additional Prime Advantage, Corrupted Legions, however this is restricted to Traitor armies only. This Prime Advantage bestows the Malefic Sub-Type on models in a unti filling the Prime slot which has pros and cons. Firstly the unit is somewhat immune to the effects of Tactical Statuses, suffering D3 automatic wound with AP2 in place of the usual effects. They are also immune to any negative modifiers which may otherwise effect Leadership, Cool, Willpower and Intelligence stats. Lastly models with the Malefic Sub-Type cannot join or be joined by models that do not have this Sub-Type.

There is also a shared upgrade, the Legiones Decurion, available to models with the Vehicle Type selected from the Legiones Astartes Army List. These are in fact two separate upgrades, the Defensor and the Locus. The former provides the ability for the Vehicle to make additional Volley Attacks againts a charging enemy and also reduce its Charge Roll. The Locus is a great upgrade which turns all of the vehicles Turret Mounted Weapons into Defensive Weapons when making a Return Fire Reaction whilst also providing a +1 to Hit bonus for any other Defensive Weapon whilst making the same Reaction.

There are several lists of Legion Wargear, such as Legion Office Wargear and Legion Heavy Weapons. These all have points values and updated 3rd edition profiles in the books and are referenced in the profiles for many of the Legion Astartes units.

It’s worth noting here that there’s quite a few units and options that have been removed from the book – but don’t worry, These books just contain the rules for models which you can buy today. Now over the years there’s been profiles for units which you cannot buy, that you needed to convert or are simply no longer available. Rules for all these units will be included in Legacy Rules which will be able to download from Warhammer Community. We had the same happen last time round with some units not present in the books only to be available in the Legacy volumes, so please don’t panic that your army is no longer valid.

The unit profiles themselves are split into the various Battlefield Roles as follows.

High Command

Here you’ll find the various Praetor units including the brand new Saturnine Terminator equipped Praetor. The regular ‘Artificer’ armoured Praetor now has four wounds and five attacks base. The Saturnine Praetor is a much tankier unit with access to much harder hitting weaponry. Whilst it is possible to include a Praetor with Jump Pack it is no longer possible to take one on a Jetbike, at least not for now.

Command

There is a large selection of units available in the Command Role which is good as you’ll need to include a fair few of them in your army to unlock the various Detachments. Here you’ll find the standard Centurian (both ‘Artificer’ and ‘Terminator’ armoured and the Optae. There is the Damocles Command Rhino which comes equipped with a Command Vox-Relay allowing it to influence Reserve Rolls and also possessing a useful trick allowing it to give a unit Line (1) or Vanguard (1) each turn.

Each of the original Consul options such as Librarian and Legion Champion are listed here as well. The Herald in particular is very interesting, its Icon of Allegiance Wargear allows it to accumulate Honour Points at various points throughout the game, such as when it or its unit wins a Challenge. These Honour Points translate to Victory Points at the end of the game but be careful as they can also be lost should the Herald be removed or become Disgraced.

Retinue

In the Retinue Role we find the different Command Squad type units of old but one important thing to note is that only the ‘Champion’ of each unit has the Champion Sub-Type allowing it alone to issue and accept Challenges. Note there is no Saturnine Terminator Command Squad (though this will be following in a future Journal Tactica).

Elite

In this Role we find the three different Terminator units. Tartarus and Cataphractii units are Toughness 5 and possess the Vanguard (3) special rule which make them super important units for attacking objectives claimed by your opponent.

The new Saturnine Terminators hold more of a ranged role, with duel disintergrators in particular looking like a decent option for putting out some firepower. They have firing protocols (2) when stationary to can pump out a lot of shots.

Troops

The Troop Role contains Tactical Squads which have an updated version of the Fury of the Legion special rule which adds the Heavy (FP) special rule to their Bolter weapons. You’ll also find Despoilers, Assault Squads (which also possess Vanguard (2)) and Breacher Squads.

A big change here is the fact that Artificer armour isnt available as an upgrade, so it’s not really possible to have a guy jumping forward to catch shots for the rest of his unit! I really like this change, as that always felt a little off from a game point of view and didn’t really capture the narrative.

Support

The Support Role is where you’ll find the various Tactical and Heavy Support Squads, Rapier Batteries, Apothecaries and Techmarines. This is also where you’ll find the Deathstorm Drop Pod and the new Araknae Quad Accelerator Platform which is an interesting unit which provides an 5+ Invulnerable Save bubble for nearby units and some decent ranged fire power in the form of its Turret Mounted Quad Accelerator Autocannon.

War-Engines

The War-Engines Role contains the different Dreadnought units including the new Saturnine Dreadnought. The most obvious change here is the drop in Weapon and Ballistic Skill characteristics. Despite this they are still formidable opponents.

Transports

The Transport Role contains the Rhino, Drop Pod and Termite which each possess the Light Transport special rule which prevents them from carrying models with the Bulky (X) special rule.

Heavy Transports

This is where you’ll find the Land Raider Carrier units, the Spartan, the Dreadnought and Dreadclaw Drop Pod and the Kharybdis Assault Claw. The Land Raider and Spartan units posess the Assault Vehicle special rules which allows units that have disembarked to make declare charges without them being Disordered. They also have the Auto-repair special rule which allows them to more easily recover wounds when making Repair Tests.

Recon

The Recon Role contains the Reconnaissance Squad which have the Infiltrate (9) special rule allowing them to deploy up to 9″ outside their Deployment Zone. The Sabre is also present here alongside Outrider Squadrons, the Land Raider Explorator, Tarantula Battery (also possessing the Infiltrate (9) special rule and can make a special zero cost Automated Fire Advanced Reaction allowing it to shoot at enemy units that end a move within 48″.

Fast Attack

Here you’ll find the different flyer units as well as the Scimatar Jetbike and Javelin Squadron (perhaps not quite so resilient in this edition) and Land Speeder Squadron.

Armour

The Armour Role contains all the non-Lord of War Battle Tanks such as the Predator and Sicaran variants.

Lords of War

This is where you’ll find the Super-heavy vehicles including the Mastodon!

This concludes our review of the general Legiones Astartes rules. As mentioned above we have separate articles which cover the Loyalist and Traitor specific rules which you can read here and here respectively.

Published by captberk

View all posts by captberk