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First of all, allow me to preface this article by saying that I’m a huge fan of Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy. I have played the tabletop game and many of Games Workshop’s licensed games, both physical and digital. I would also like to note that I have played since the game entered Open Beta almost a year ago, however, this review of The Horus Heresy: Legions is based on its current state as of its most recent update; which was released on February 1st, 2019.

The Horus Heresy: Legions is a digital card game developed by Spanish game studio Everguild, who previously developed Drakenlords. The game itself has improved greatly since its’ release on July 25th of last year; from balance changes to economy improvements, and the release of seven new legions (individual factions with their own identities and exclusive card pools) to supplement the original four and the three neutral card pools available at release.

The game itself follows the normal post-Hearthstone gameplay design model of a 30-card deck, 2 copies of each card in your deck (except Legendaries, which are rare, high powered cards that are limited to 1), a 3-card starting hand, and resources that increase with each turn. However, there is a twist, your Warlord is in play and can attack enemy troops from the beginning, no weapon cards required (though they are still available).

Gameplay is fast and exciting with many things dying in the process, much like the source material it is based on. Games can last anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes, depending on the Warlord match-up and how each player has built their deck; so you can definitely get in a couple games on your lunch break at work. Oh, and each Warlord also has fully voiced quote options from the respective characters’ appearances in novels and lore, my favorite is hands down “Have I told you the joke about the bear?”

Speaking of voice-overs, let’s talk sound and art! The sound design is great and really gets you in the mood to purge some heretics, with fairly well voiced character lines from the novel series. However, the music track is limited to one or two tracks and quickly becomes repetitive. Art-wise the game is a bit of a time capsule, mixing art made with new school techniques and old school illustrations, though the old school designs can feel somewhat out of place and dated compared to its successors.

As for game modes, The Horus Heresy: Legions has three modes available: Ranked, Friendly, and Event. Ranked is the default mode where you test your mettle and pit your best decks against other players for monthly rewards. Friendly is a casual mode, generally dominated by folks who are looking to test new decks or trying to complete their daily challenge (a specific mission that has three tiers of completion for a reward), or are just playing fun/meme decks.

Finally, there is Event mode, which you enter with either 1 or 10 tickets. Entering with 10 (known as a 10x run) is a risk/reward feature giving you the benefit of ten times the rewards for one tenth of the games. In Event, you choose 1 of 4 Warlords out of the standard 6 or 8 options (2 new ones are added halfway through the two week cycle). Each Warlord has 4 prebuilt decks, which you then use to play up to 14 games with goal of winning 12 before losing 3. Every 2nd win unlocks a better crate and you receive the highest quality one unlocked at the end.

The game’s economy is fairly decent for Free to Play players with a design that values rewarding its players better quality cards and coins (in-game currency), as opposed to just giving them coins to spend on packs. The packs, or crates as they’re stylized, are the typical five card standard; with four Common cards and a single Rare one. Each crate has a chance for an Epic (1 out of 5) or Legendary (1 out of 20) card, and does have a pity timer set at 30 crates for a given crate type, which reminds me, there are currently three sets: Isstvan III, Isstvan V, and Extermination, with all except Isstvan III having a self-titled crate (Isstvan III’s crate is the basic Cards Crate).

Overall, The Horus Heresy: Legions is a fairly polished licensed card game and is, in my own opinion, one of Games Workshop’s best licensed games, it is well worth checking out.

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