Getting Started With Age Of Darkness Horus Heresy Miniatures
The latest batch from Games Workshop around the Age of Darkness Horus Heresy line has been sitting on my workbench for three weeks now. I want to talk about what you actually need to know before you invest time and money into these models, because the packaging materials and the miniatures themselves have some quirks that aren't obvious until you've already cut your fingers open or snapped a limb off a Space Marine primarch-scale figure. First, the sprues. The plastic is tougher than standard GW range material. You will strip a blade if you try to free these figures the same way you'd handle a standard Primaris kit. I spent about twenty minutes trying to pop out the helms of two Chaos Space Marine officers before I switched to needle-nose clippers and angled them closer to the connection points. Takes longer upfront but the helmets stay intact.
Age Of Darkness Horus Heresy: What Actually Comes In The Box
Depending on which version you grab, you're looking at somewhere between 15 and 30 miniatures plus a small rulebook. The scale is consistent with the rest of the Heresy line, meaning these are bigger than current-day 40K troopers but not as large as the superheavies. If you're converting an existing army, the color separation on most of these figures is fairly clean. One sprue usually handles a complete unit type rather than mixing multiple roles together. The bitz bag that comes with it is worth keeping. Two of the officers have interchangeable heads that are actually different sculpts, not just paint masks. I figured this out after peeling apart four models and realizing the torsos didn't quite match up with certain head options. The official assembly guide shows some combinations but leaves out a few that definitely work if you look closely at the underside of the pieces for molding seams.
Painting And Assembly Workflow That Actually Works
I do these in batches of six. Prime everything flat black first, then drybrush the raised details with a contrasting color. For the Age of Darkness Horus Heresy range, the armor plates tend to have deep recesses that hold primer, so if you skip the drybrush step your finished models end up looking muddy. Use a fine brush and a nearly dry stroke to get into those areas without pooling paint in the crevices. Glue choice matters more than people admit here. Standard plastic cement works but takes longer to set on the larger joints. I switched to liquid poly cement on the shoulder pauldrons and helmet attachments, and the bond holds better without needing clamp time. One thing I learned the hard way: do not glue the poseable sword arms while they are still on the sprue. The hinge point is fragile and I broke two of them before I realized I needed to trim them free first and glue them separately with the arm positioned in the firing stance.
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Common Pitfalls And Where This Line Falls Short
Not everything about these models works well together, and I need to be straight about that. The footprints on several of the larger officers are narrow relative to their height, which means they tip over easily if you put them on a base smaller than the recommended size. I tried squeezing them onto 40mm rounds to save space on my display shelf and had three models fall over during a move. Went back to 60mm bases and the problem disappeared entirely. The rulebook included with the Age of Darkness Horus Heresy product uses the current Heresy edition ruleset, but the point values in it were never updated after the last codex revision. I caught this when running a practice game against a friend and my Horus-listed units came in about forty points cheaper than they should have been. Double-check every unit against the latest battlefield magazine before you field them competitively. The army construction rules themselves are fine and the detachment options make sense for a thematic list, but the numbers are stale. Another issue is the weapon attachments. Several of the bolter variants clip onto the hands rather than the arms, and the clips are tight. When I painted my first batch I accidentally cracked the grip on a chainsword while removing it to touch up the hand underneath. Workaround is to leave the weapon attached during painting and use a small detail brush to get around it instead of taking it off.
Conversion And Customization Notes
If you want to mix and match parts between different kits in this range, most of the upper bodies are interchangeable within the same faction. A Chaos Lord torso will mount onto a Cultist leg assembly without modification, though the joint gap might be noticeable depending on how careful you are during assembly. I've seen people swap the helmet options freely between the various officer sculpts and it looks clean. The terrain pieces that sometimes come in special editions are decent but the connection points for building modular layouts are weaker than the older Imperial Heresy terrain. I would not trust a two-story structure made entirely from these clips to survive being moved from shelf to gaming table. For permanent displays, add a drop of gel superglue into each clip joint and let it cure for ten minutes. Holds firm after that. I also want to mention something nobody really talks about: the packaging for the sprues themselves is poorly designed. The plastic trays that hold the runners flex outward during shipping and a few of my figures ended up with bent weapons because the sprue wasn't rigid enough to protect them. If you are buying these online, inspect them immediately upon arrival and report any damage right away. GW's replacement policy is decent but they won't cover wear that looks like it happened during your unpacking.
For people just getting into the Horus Heresy side of the hobby, this range is a solid entry point. The miniatures are well-sculpted, the color separation is mostly thoughtful, and you get enough variety to build a functional army without spending a fortune on individual boxes. The issues I've described are real but manageable, and most of them come down to taking your time during assembly rather than any fundamental design flaw. Just don't rush the gluing and check the current rules before you commit to a list.
