My first contribution to our burgeoning social media empire is effectively the result of thinking too much about fluff. I love fluff. While some people are into power lists and crunch combos, I just want want to see the famous aspects and styles of each of the 18 Legions represented on the tabletop.

Having delved into the Black Library Horus Heresy novels with a vengeance of late, I was struck by the portrayals of combat thus far – legendary characters and high ranking officers leading what felt like a handful of tactical squads into battle, all armed with the signature bolter, bolt pistol or chainsword. I found the descriptions to be much more visceral and realistic than what I had come to expect from typical tabletop campaigns – no descriptions of ‘Feel No Pain’ wonder healing, no Paragon Blade spam or other widely available high end weaponry, no artificer armour or invulnerable saves, no melta bomb spam, definitely no Custodes allies. Just desperate, brutal, fierce, disciplined war, where a bolter round to the face is likely to offend.

Obviously, I loved it. I’ve always strived to represent the fluff as much as possible in my army lists – for example, lots of recon infantry and deep striking jump packs for my Raven Guard.

As a result, I frequently get kerb stomped. Recon armour would get shredded by anything and everything, assault squads would be thinned out too much to be effective before they could ever get a charge away, pie plates would be liberally sprinkled over my battle lines and all my snipers roll a surfeit of ones. Not that I mind, the XIXth are kinda used to it, but I never felt like they were the elite, stealthy, surgical strike specialists I envisaged, just paper men with pea shooters.

So where is all this going? The planning ball has started rolling on a campaign set during the Horus Heresy I’d like to run over the coming year, centring on the dark compliance and (hopefully) liberation of our little sector of Imperial space. With that, pondering of potential house rules and game types have overrun my brain. I want a level playing field for everyone – limited equipment, no legion special units, no rites of war, just the players tactical nous, luck of the dice and the chance to tell a story.

I want to draw on the rulesets for Shadow Wars, Strategic Raids and Zone Mortalis, to represent a campaign of tactical objectives fought over several worlds and outposts against Traitor garrisons, renegade militias and – gulp – daemonic incursions. Small teams of legionaries, operating in the space between Killteam and Centurion rulesets, and maybe climaxing in larger allied offensives. I want to see fortifications breached or defended, orbital stations to be commandeered, warp breaches to be [REDACTED]. I have a definite idea of the limited army list we’ll be starting with.

Most importantly, I want to tell the story of how the Cambrian Sector became what it is in the 41st Millenium, for better or worse. There may be some dead worlds created along the way, agri-worlds decimated and diseased, feral colonies raised to glorious compliance, or maybe the whole Sector will fall to chaos and corruption, its citizens preyed on by dark denizens of the immaterium.

It’s a big galaxy out there. Watch this space.