Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness Unboxing

I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor. This is how the first book of the Horus Heresy novels starts. And it sets the tone for the entire narrative. With me already being in Horus Heresy mood through the audiobooks, I was really excited about the way they introduced 2.0 on Warhammer Fest, and they kept firing on all cylinders pumping content on all legions, integrating content creators and painters and really keeping it visible.

And with today, I can finally join in talking about the new Age of Darkness kit (RRP 225 EUR / 180 GBP), that is on pre-order since today and I received a bit earlier to have time to prepare my coverage. Thanks to Games Workshop for providing me with a copy.

The content of the new starter set for Horus Heresy is a lot, so I'm going to split it across a few articles to not overload one article with too much information and pictures. This one is mostly about the unboxing and I'll go into detail in the upcoming posts on the kits themself.

Age of Darkness is the third plastic starter set for Horus Heresy (or at least heresy themed) after Betrayal at Calth and Prospero Burning. And just like these two, this kit doesn't need to a be a two-player starter set. As this is covering a civil war, you can use all the miniatures for a single project if you like. In the press pictures they are split between the loyal Imperial Fists and traitorous Sons of Horus.

It sets you up with everything you need to get started in a generous way. Besides the hardcover rulebook, there is a total of 40 (!) Space Marines in Mark VI Corvus armour, 10 Terminators in Cataphracti armour, a Redemptor Dreadnought and even a Land Raider Spartan, along with some gaming materials like templates, reference sheets, dice and sticks.

Opening up the sturdy card board box, you are greeted by a wall of grey sprues, on top of which you'll find the translucent orange templates and red rulers. Beneath the sprues Games Workshop usually puts a thicker paper sheet, often designed with the cover artwork or something similar, to keep the sprues from punching the remaining material inside. It was good that this was there, as the paper was quite worked up, and even some minor parts left the sprues.

Beneath that you'll find the hardcover (!) rulebook, which is more than 300 pages, and to its left and right the materials like decal sheet, dice and bases for all the miniatures included.

A quick spread out of the Age of Darkness content. About half a square metre with the sprues stacked on top of each other. Have to say, even as the boxed set is above the 200 EUR bar, this is impressive.

Let's take a closer look. As you can see the bases are bagged roughly into the two forces shown above. The decal sheet covers beautiful insignia of both legions, including larger iconography for vehicles. The thing is, you can supply either force A or B to your liking as Imperial Fists or Sons of Horus, but you don't have enough decals for all the marines to join one legion. The backside of the black content protector is an overview of the remaining (upcoming) plastic range of the Horus Heresy, the Space Marines in Mark III and Mark IV armour (as a repack of 20), the two different designs of Terminator armour in sets of 10, the Sicaran, the new Kratos tank and Deimos Rhino.

The red rulers have some kind of legendary status within the community. As they are bendy, they are often used for rather mischievous pranks (you can properly hurt someone with these). But most important, the 18 inches aren't 18 inches. So make sure that you either both use these for measuring, or dispose them and grab yourself a proper measuring tape.

The building instructions cover a short army list and rules, which comes in handy, as the hardcover rulebook is a bit on the hefty side. The instructions are clear and easy to follow.

And now of course, the sprues.

You get 4 Space Marine upgrade sprues, and 8 (!) of the Mark VI armour sprues.

The Contemptor Dreadnought is finally available as a posable and multi-options plastic kit across two sprues. It was available as an easy-to-build kit in plastic before and cheaper than the resin and often out of stock ones by Forge World. But now you have full posability and various weapon options.

Not new, but a repack from the 2015 Betrayal at Calth, the Terminators in Cataphracti armour, two sprues each for a total of 10 Terminators.

The characters in this kit come as two Praetors in power armour, each in a sprue of their own.

And the most massive build from this box, is the Land Raider Spartan, the prolonged and widened Land Raider variant to transport the real big units. As such it is constructed in a way that it could be built as a Land Raider as well, once some of the sprues are replaced, but more on that in the detailed review of this kit. You can even read the Land Raider print on some of the sprues. A total of 4 huge vehicles sprues and two smaller sprues covering the weapons and vehicle accessories.

And a personal highlight, that really brings this boxed set home and reminds me of the old days, when starter sets had the full, large sized rule books. They even one-upped this, with the Age of Darkness being a very impressive hard cover, incl. cloth book mark and used thick, full coloured pages. Just look how it compared to one of the older Warhammer 40,000 rule books.

You open up the book and are greeted by the campaign map of the Horus Heresy, with a really nice detailed overview of the galaxy, with all the home worlds of the different Space Marine legions (I don't remember having such a proper overview in full, especially as 40k maps don't have the exterminated home worlds of the traitor legions etc.). The book is very heavy on the narrative, on the lore. Providing you with a full-on setup on the story, all the elements of Warhammer 30,000, with lots and lots of lovely and detailed illustrations. For example, these well-made overviews of the different Marks of power armour.

And then it continues, introducing each and every one of the 18 legions that you can play, with a proper description, some samples of their colours and uniforms, and of course covering their primarch.

It continues with various army shots of the studio armies, mixed from Forge World projects along with those of the employees using the new kits for a Horus Heresy for their projects. And of course, the rules are in there as well, covering everything you need to know about movement, fighting, shooting etc., and some profiles of units. But I keep that short, as the lore part of the book is just so impressive and entertaining to look at.

After that, we even have a full coloured map of the galaxy. The picture that is used for the first and last pages of the book. Along with a timeline, giving you an overview of what happened when, during the Great Crusade and how it turned into the Horus Heresy. But this book is not just all about Space Marines, it covers the allied forces in a brief way as well, from the Solar Auxilia, over Imperial Agents, Titan Legions up to the Talons of the Emperor, the Adeptus Custodes and Silent Sisters.

And that's it, what you find in the Age of Darkness set for 225 EUR. It might not be the cheapest starter kit they have, but it surely is one of the most impressive. The book really suits the topic, as the Horus Heresy is far more about the story than it is about competitive gaming, so the focus on that much artwork and world building absolutely pays off. But it is not just the rules, you already have a solid force to begin with, covering a proper 40 (!) Space Marines, 10 Terminators, a Contemptor and the incredible Land Raider Spartan (I already built that one and I had such a blast in the process, you'll see it in the upcoming review).

I can't give you an overview on the actual savings yet, as I don't have the individual final prices. But if we assume 47,50 EUR per 5 Terminators, that's already 95 EUR for those, 47,50 per squad of 10 Space Marines, another 190 EUR, a Spartan at around the price of a Repulsor so 85 EUR, the Contemptor at the price of the Redemptor of 55 EUR, and the two praetors at 27 EUR each - that's a sum of 479 EUR retail value, not even counting in the rulebook. And a rough estimate on what this would have cost with Forge World (just an estimation, as many items are not listed at Forge World anymore) this would be over 800 EUR, with each Space Marine squad of 10 going for around 90 EUR. Thus, providing those who buy Age of Darkness with a ~55% discount towards the individual plastic, and around 75% (!) compared to the prices of Forge World. I'll update this section accordingly, when we have final prices.

Enjoy the pre-order. I hope you have read our introduction on Horus Heresy if this is a new topic for you, beyond that, take a look on what's going on at Warhammer Community, along with following the buzz on social media, there is already a lot to be seen from the pre-plastic times of this game. Get in the mood and decide for yourself if you want to join this epic battle for the fate of the Imperium.

Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.