Games Workshop 60010101001" Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth (Eng)

Product Information

Of the Word Bearers who landed on the surface of Calth, almost none would ever leave. It is estimated that 50,000 or more of Lorgar's sons and an uncounted mass of Renegade Auxilia troops were sacrificed in the battle, although only 20,000 are thought to have died in the initial fighting, with the remainder prosecuting the Underworld War on Calth for over a solar decade after the initial battle. tide of assault nor blunt the zealous fury of the Legiones Astartes Word Bearers. Valiant troopers died by the thousand, and at last the Word Bearers' intent in boarding specific orbital defence platforms was revealed as the same scene was enacted upon the bridges of scores of defence platforms. Those commanders taken alive were forced to bear witness to the destruction heaped upon the world whose defence they were sworn to. Compelled to watch by the vice-like grip of a Word Bearers Dark Apostle or other senior officer, the last sight these men and women saw served as a vital component in the vast Comprising the majority of the XIII th Legion's Destroyer assets, and the stores of volatile and hazardous weaponry that characterised their operations. The 22 nd Chapter, known as the " Nemesis" Chapter, was often deployed in small formations alongside other chapter units. At Calth, 2,000 Nemesis Legionaries were mustered along the desolate Thrascias Highlands, furthest from the densely populated cities of Calth: The battle lines are drawn beneath the surface of Calth, the Ultramarines holding their ground against the Word Bearers. Yet the brutal onslaught of the XVII Legion has left both sides desperately low on ammunition. As the Ultramarines search out hidden caches of weapons and munitions, the Word Bearers infiltrate their lines, waiting for the right moment to strike and steal their contents. Yet one amongst the Word Bearers is not so subtle in their approach to warfare… The miniatures are, of course, beautiful. It's worth noting that the Marines included in the game hail from the time of the Horus Heresy, at the very point of betrayal, so many of the good guys and the bad guys look almost identical. Painting will definitely be something you'll want to do down the line, to separate those squads out – but I'm delighted with how the miniatures look straight out of that box. These are pure Space Marines, like I remember from my youth, and the opportunity for customisation is huge.

VR Mode: The “human-scale” view of Space Marine combat gives the player the feeling of being on the battlefield in a world first VR game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Overall: I really enjoyed playing Betrayal at Calth. I love the rich history of the Warhammer 40,000 setting, but more than that I really liked the tactical decision making required during the game. The rules seem deceptively simple at first, but upon playing the game you discover there are a lot of subtle features lurking just beneath the surface. Almost every turn offered significant and meaningful choices, and nothing ever felt automatic. I particularly like the interplay of the various weapon choices and the special effects each weapon has on the enemy. Even the “weakest” weapons can be used to excellent effect by a clever and careful strategist. The six scenarios present unique and interesting challenges for both sides, and Games Workshop has already started publishing additional scenarios in their White Dwarf publication, offering the potential of unlimited replayability. There are, however, a couple of things that frustrated me as a board game player: One of the cool elements of the game is the ability of players to customize their forces before every battle, choosing which heavy weapons to arm their men with and how to equip their sergeants. But, the models need to be assembled with glue, making them impossible to change after they have been put together (though experienced modelers can get around this using magnets or pins or some other clever devise, that will be beyond the skills of most novices). As a result, you either have to buy extra models, or use models that don’t actually carry the weapons they supposedly have. The other problem is that once you assemble the mighty (and mighty big) dreadnought model, it will no longer fit in the box. If they had only made the box a quarter of an inch deeper, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Neither of these issues really affects the enjoyment of the game, but they are annoying. Rubio, with little choice, then left Calth behind with Garro in his Stormbird. Rubio would become one of the Sigillites Knights-Errant and later one of seven Astartes drawn from both the Traitor and Loyalist Legions who would form the founding core of what became the secret Grey Knights Chapter of Space Marines.Mission 3_1 will rarely freeze after a few rounds, this occasionally can be resolved by waiting a moment but otherwise will require an application restart. The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth also includes several Multiplayer maps allowing players to fight as Ultramarines or Word Bearers in either objective based missions or deathmatch. Bring the full arsenal of your chosen Legion to bear against friends with private matches or against opponents across the world with built in matchmaking. Multiplayer mode is available to both PC and VR players, allowing both formats to play against one another. VR NOT REQUIRED TO PLAY Here, at last, the fates looked kindly upon the Ultramarines. Mere minutes before the loss of the bridge, the Macragge's Honour had recovered a number of salvation craft ejected by the Sanctity of Saramanth earlier in the battle, and amongst the survivors was her captain, Shipmaster Hammed. Gage had no way of knowing if Hammed lived or had been slaughtered along with so many others among the crew, but he knew that in the veteran shipmaster lay the best, perhaps the only hope of regaining control of the beleaguered flagship. Rather than attempt to replicate the tabletop experience directly, Betrayal At Calth hopes to make the experience a little more memorable by putting the player's viewpoint on the ground with the troops in traditional FPS format, or in VR, if the tech-priests have blessed you with vision beyond the Ocular Rift, and the silly future-goggles to go with it.

Full deployment at Calth, all at a nominal strength of 10,000 Legionaries. These Chapters were concentrated around Calth's primary spaceport at Numinus City in western Erud: At around Mark -16.44.00, Magos Uhl Kehal Hesst noticed a foreign scrapcode infesting the cogitators controlling Calth's orbital defence network. The source of this scrapcode was a Chaos ritual being conducted in secret at the camp of the Word Bearers' auxiliaries, The Brotherhood of the Knife. [2d]. This ritually-produced scrapcode, known as the Octed, was finally implanted at Mark -7.55.09. [2e]

Shadow and Iron

At the same time that Lorgar had concentrated his Legion's offensive on Calth, a separate assault by the XVII th Legion on the Ultramarines' homeworld of Macragge had been prepared, using a massive prototype Battleship specially constructed by Horus' allies in the Mechanicum before the start of the Heresy known as the Furious Abyss.

Word Bearer Cult Troops: Mortal soldiers of the Word Bearers. Wielding traditional solid munition weapons and a ferocious devotion to their masters, these traitor forces can use their numbers to protect allied astartes, and to overwhelm careless opponents. The Ruinstorm would also isolate and trap those Loyalist forces caught behind it like the Ultramarines, preventing them from coordinating their efforts and supporting one another as the Traitor Legions moved towards Terra. It would even prevent them from warning each other, for a time, of the Warmaster's betrayal and the civil war that had begun to consume the Imperium. The Ruinstorm would leave Terra alone in the void, infinitely vulnerable to the approaching shadow of Horus.Single-Player Campaign: 24 combat scenarios exploring the conflict between two factions of Space Marines, divided into 5 Acts. The story progresses linearly and each level presents unique challenges intertwined with the drama of the narrative. It's still a turn-based board game, driven by dice, but the radical shift in perspective does give the game a distinct look. The current early access build includes multiplayer and the first of five story-mode acts, with the rest of the story content and a full skirmish vs AI mode planned to roll out in later updates. The developers estimate that they'll need about six months in early access to get everything in line for the v1.0 launch. In addition to Legiones Astartes assets, a great mass of cultic auxiliary units that accompanied the Word Bearers which may have numbered in excess of half a million men-under-arms, though the proficiency and sanity of most was questionable:

In the aftermath of the fighting on Calth, it was all but impossible to form an accurate picture of the losses incurred on the combatants. With the surface of the planet rendered all but uninhabitable by the actions of Kor Phaeron, it has since proved impractical to recover many of the fallen or verify the deaths of those who came to Calth with treachery in their hearts. For those looking at taking their miniature games to the next level, then Betrayal at Calth features some stunning miniatures and well designed rules. Armor on marines may sometimes not appear correctly, two known possibilities include marine heads becoming invisible at large distances, and shoulder pauldrons becoming invisible when certain weapons are equipped.

Betrayal at Calth Game Contents

Attributed to Tetrarch Eikos Lamiad, Ultramarines Legion, from the dedication of the "Defence of Bathor" monument Yet, despite the Loyalists' last-minute victory and the survival of the Ultramarines Legion and its Primarch, the forces of Chaos could consider their assault on Calth a success. The XIII th Legion had been badly crippled and no longer presented a viable threat to Horus' plan to drive on Terra. Fortunately, amidst all this negative information, somehow Magos Tawren managed to discover a killcode that her former mentor Hesst had hidden within a secure data-engine at the Zetsun Verid Fleet Yard that had then been closed off from the rest of Calth's planetary network. This data-engine was the manifest Cogitator of the Cargo Handling Guild, which was located in a secured bunker in the industrial zone between Numinus Starport and the Lanshear landing grounds. It was responsible for running cargo operations for both Numinus and Lanshear, and thus was more than powerful enough to manage the data load of the planetary weapons grid. Gathering at Saturn those of his Legion who had been embarked on crusades in distant parts of the galaxy, Roboute Guilliman would depart the Sol System mere months before news of Horus' rebellion reached the Emperor's ears. The turbulent state of the Empyrean in those years would see the Ultramarines' main strength journey to Calth by a winding and obtuse trail which would also cloak them from all attempts by Terra to recall them or forewarn them of Horus' actions. The Word Bearers, delayed by the slaughter at Istvaan, would not arrive at Calth until the majority of the XIII th Legion had already gathered, travelling a path of blood and ashes of their creation. The crux of the campaign came on the Agri-world of Calth in the Ultramar Sector, where the Ultramarines successfully broke the Word Bearers' surprise assault after a viciously-fought siege action, though at the cost of terrible casualties and the complete destruction of Calth's atmosphere and once-verdant biosphere.