Warhammer Horus Heresy - Imperialis Militia Army

The Imperial Guard

My Imperial Army for Horus Heresy!

Warhammer Horus Heresy 3rd Edition has recently been released, and it has motivated me to finish up my dream army, Imperialis Militia! However, I will just be referring to my force as the good ole' Imperial Army.

When I first started playing Warhammer 40k back in the days of 3rd Edition, the Imperial Guard were my army. I was just a junior high kid with no money trying to scrap together enough miniatures to make an army. Plastic Catachans, metal Cadians, Steel Legion and even Mordians made of my infantry. While a few precious (because of their cost) Leman Russes and Chimeras filled out the heavy support choices. I even had to use an Inquisitor in my army just to have enough points to play a standard game. The armies I took to a few local tournaments could not have been less optimized or competitive, even if I tried! But boy did I have fun. 

Over the years new units were added in as I picked up updated releases, but the army always was a weird Frankenstein's monster of units. Then when my interest in playing 40k ended I sold most of my armies, but I could never let go of my Imperial Guard, or as they were retconned, Astra Militarum. 

Other games pushed out 40k for a long time, but then when the Horus Heresy game was released, I was interested, as I enjoyed the lore for that time period. By this point the miniature gaming hobby aspect far outweighed my interest in actually playing, so the more narrative and hobby-based nature of the Horus Heresy game was just what I wanted. I slowly modded a Raven Guard army with Space Marine plastics and the occasional Forgeworld bits, but I've never been the biggest fan of the gene enhanced, brainwashed super soldiers. I love the regular baseline human standing there against the most horrendous monsters in the universe, with an old rifle and bayonet! 

Teenage me wouldn't be able to image this!

I picked up the Horus Heresy Book Five - Tempest when it came out and all the excitement of looking through the 3rd Edition Imperial Guard book came back when I saw the Militia and Cults list. It was made for customizing and creating a unique army of just regular people in the most catastrophic war imaginable. I got to work, a unit of 10 Grenadiers and 3 Ogryns were painstakingly converted from various GW plastics before other things pushed that project to the backburner.

Since this has already been too long, I'll fast forward to Horus Heresy 2nd Edition and how I really got into the game full on then. My Imperial Fists, grew from nothing to one of my most complete, and fully realized armies with the great plastics GW released, and my own 3D printer! I learned a lot about building up a large army and finishing it in a timely fashion (instead of getting sidetracked with other projects). At the end of 2nd Edition HH I started on my dream project of a massive Imperial Army force (using the Imperialis Militia rules) based on Nfeyma's incredible tanks, and the Valour Korps from The Makers Cult. This force would be based on a French DLM from World War II. So, a heavily mechanized force with plenty of tanks. One of the main things for me is that the miniatures and paint scheme be consistent from start to finish.

And now that I have their updated list in 3rd Edition, and it doesn't lose any of the fun, quirky options, I can finish things!

A unit of Grenadiers with shotguns.

Ogryn's with power mauls and shields.

A second unit of Ogryns.

Lots of Lascannon gun teams.

These were finished for 2nd edition, where they were better.

A battery of laser destroyers.

These guns get the work done!

The most basic of transports.

Grenadiers with a couple of sniper rifles.

Grenadiers with two meltaguns.

My characters. Led by an old metal Commissar Gaunt!

I love recon, these are Militia Quads.

Some old Death Korps snipers.

A beautiful Baneblade!

The workhorse Leman Russes.

Ready to take on some Astartes.

Vanquishers for enemy armor.

A Malcador.

These will also be Militia Quads.

I'm using this as a Field Gun Battery.

I dropped them on bases just in case.

Move the guns up!

The workbench still has 40 basic infantry, another Leman Russ, more transports and some tiny tanks! I plan on finishing them within a few weeks and being mostly finished.

Clash of Steel - US vs Soviets - 100 points

The table after deployment. Three objectives across the center line.

Clash of Steel

Had another great game of Clash of Steel this weekend. I brought out my Soviets, for the first time in clash, to take on Chaz and his 100 points of Americans.

It was a great back and forth game, with the Americans maintaining a slight points lead all game due to Chaz's great use of tactics cards to change objective cards!

In the bottom of turn 6 it all came down to four ISU-130's shooting two T30's off an objective, needing sixes to hit. With the Volley Fire commander ability and the Big Game Hunters tactics card, I got exactly two hits and knocked out both T30's to pull off a 54 to 51 point Soviet win! If even one T30 survived the Americas would have won.

US Hellcats and Jumbos on the US left flank.

M103's in the center, they were monsters!

One of the units of IS-3's.

The Soviet center. A lot of tanks but not very good versus the M103s.

I really like ISU-122s.

The heavily weighted Soviet left flank.

Ready to jump on the objective.

IS-3's taking fire from the US heavies.

The US Easy 8's are not feeling very confident right now.

The T-34 scouts will stay behind and hold this objective.

The Soviet center is plagued by indecision.

The US left flank advances onto that objective.

T-54's making a move against the Easy 8's.

Who don't last long.

Objective secured.

T-54's on forward!

IS-3's move up to draw fire.

The US left advances aggressively towards the center.

T30's support the center.

120 and 155mm fire rips into the Soviets across the board.

Much of the Soviet center forces shift to their right to take out things they can hurt.

But the Sherman Jumbos proved to be very tough.

The game is getting wild.

The Soviets rush the center to gain valuable objective points.

Even if most of the Soviet tanks cannot hurt the US heavies for the front.

But there are too many Soviets on the objective to be shot off in one turn. 

The IS-3s pay the toll for the ISU-130's to survive a little longer.

The ISU-130's get two hits on the T30's.

I play "Big Game Hunter" to get the kills on the T30s.

The T30's go up, and the Soviets pull off a close victory.

The Soviets tanks were brewing up quickly in the center.

But they pulled in much need poings.

The US T29's were too slow to do too much.

The game at the very end.

I will be re-evaluating this Soviet list as the eleven IS-3's I brought were next to useless against T28's, M103's and T30's. I just had to feed them to the American big guns as distractions while the ISU-130's slowly killed everything. Also, my beloved ISU-122's were also pretty useless in this matchup. (I run a regiment of them in FOW).

A very fun and quick game!