Legions Imperialis first details

Warhammer Community has put up Legions Imperialis first details of the box, the rules and the game.

You can check it out right here: 10 Things you need to know about Legions Imperialis

There are some great early themes the team has revealed, not least they appear to be keeping the weapon category concept from ‘Epic Armageddon’ which is a great move. It solved the issue integrating the god-like power of Titans with regular infantry and tank units. If not familiar with how Armageddon was designed, weapons were divided into three broad ‘types’.

Anti-infantry: stuff that was highly effective against infantry, but less effective against tanks and no effect at all against war engines. Anti-tank: stuff highly effective against penetrating armoured vehicles but much less so against infantry, or war engines, which shrug off anything other than the most overwhelming co-ordinated salvo. Finally, the war engines themselves had ‘macro’ weapons. These were designed to take out other war engines, or pretty much anything the princips wanted to delete. They were somewhat effective versus tanks and less so infantry who simply got the heck out of dodge, the diminishing rate of return making them pointless to waste of stuff that cannot hurt you anyway. It was a simple, but elegant way to give everything on the battlefield a purpose. Great to see they are keeping a similar approach in Legions Imperialis.

Formations

Also sounds like the Epic Armageddon’s approach of flexible formations is also being kept, another nice touch. In previous editions of Epic forming armies could be rather specific in what you could and could not take, how many units were in each detachment and depending on the force or faction often led to quite cookie-cutter looking forces. Some of you may even remember the awesome unit and detachment card sets from Titan Legions and second edition. I’ll confess I secretly still have those and quite like them, purely from a  nostalgic point of view. I may sneak some in for a fun way to select formations. We will see.

One scale to rule them all

Already well covered by Warhammer Community posts, but possibly the best news of all is ‘finally’ a unifying and consistent scale for Epic that encompasses the entire game range. This is something I’ve longed for, as long as the game has existed (I mean since 1988 of course). It does make much, probably most of my legacy collection redundant, but I’m actually pretty fine with that. Legions Imperialis has its lens firmly on the events surrounding the Horus Heresy timeline. It doesn’t stop me painting my existing legacy xenos collection for fun, or even off timeline gaming. So for me, bringing the entire range into consistency is a big win.

If I’m being honest one of the reasons I’ve been meticulously picking up Aeronautica and Titanicus kits, other they are both great games, is pure speculation the final piece of the ‘Epic’ jigsaw would eventually happen. And it has. That’s why on the workbench right now are three flyers getting their new Legion colours in preparation for the games launch.

The galaxy in ruins

It’s also great to hear the excellent modular building kits that were launched alongside Titanicus are going to make a return for Legio Imperialis. The attached image in today’s article also shows what appears to be a new ‘ruined’ component section for the existing kit which is fantastic! I got a lot of mileage out of the plastic ruins set that was released alongside the Epic 40,000 edition. Over the years it gained something of a legendary status being so hard to source once the game went out of production. I don’t even recall if it was available separately like the newest kits are. The teased ruins section is going to be a great addition to the existing set, I’m really looking forward to discovering how many ways it can be utilised to create some stunning war zones for Imperialis.

I’m not saying I’ve cleared an entire area of the workshop to build some new epic terrain, but I have and regret nothing.

Starting at the end

Over the weeks leading up to release I’ll be focusing on testing out colour palettes and working on a few units I feel confident will make it into the game from my existing collection of Titans and Heresy era Aeronautica miniatures. I do have a plan for both sides of the heresy, and a specific conflict in mind. Epic has a long and storied history that spans multiple warzones, so I will be delving into some ancient canon to dig find ways to link the new edition right back to some classic settings.

As for the initial setting I will be focusing on. Of course, it has to be ‘The Siege of Terra’. I already have maniples for Legio Soliaria and Legio Mortis available to browse in the archives. Both give clues to the loyalist and traitor forces I will be painting first.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Warhammer Community reveals next for Legions Imperialis. Let me know in the comments below, or in one of my social channels what you are most looking forward to with Epics return to the Horus Heresy setting. Until next time, happy hobbying.