Warhammer: The Horus Heresy

What is The Horus Heresy?

The Horus Heresy is the civil war ten thousand years before Warhammer 40,000, played as its own game: Space Marine legions against each other at a larger scale than 40,000 uses, with tanks and infantry blocks rather than elite squads. The model range is a mix of plastic boxes and Forge World resin.

Only a handful of forces field it — the Legions themselves, the Mechanicum, the Solar Auxilia, the Custodes and the Knight houses — but each of them draws on a deep catalogue, which is why this page has five factions and hundreds of kits.

What does a Heresy army cost?

More per model than 40,000, and more variable, because a good part of the range is resin sold by one manufacturer. That is exactly where comparing shops earns its keep: the plastic kits are widely stocked and discounted, the resin ones often are not, and the gap between the two is the thing worth knowing before you commit to a list.

Every price here is what a shop was charging when we last checked it, in the market you are browsing. A row nobody stocks says so rather than showing an old number as though you could still pay it.

Starting a Legion

A battle group or starter box is the sensible first purchase: the plastic Legion kits are the cheapest models per pound in the range, and a starter set puts two forces and the rules on the table at once. Character models and specialist units are where the resin — and the cost — starts.

The Legions are painted, not converted, in most cases: the same plastic kit becomes any of eighteen forces on the strength of a colour scheme, which makes the paint decision the one that actually distinguishes your army.

Where next

Horus Heresy boxes compared · Horus Heresy paint schemes · Age of Darkness vs Saturnine · Warhammer 40,000, the same models 10,000 years on