Unboxing: The Horus Heresy – Betrayal at Calth Miniature Game

Welcome to my unboxing and review of the latest Games Workshop tabletop game product, the Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth Miniature Game set. This box of goodies is both a gripping board game as well as the first set of Horus Heresy plastic miniatures – which makes this a great tool to enter the 30k arena as well. In this review I’ll be showcasing the contents, especially the sprues as they are the focus point for me personally and will comment little on the game itself. Come join the sweet heresy after the jump.

Betrayal at Calth is a 2-player game set in the Horus Heresy era in the Warhammer 40k universe, where the Chaos-tainted Warmaster Horus has allied with himself half his brothers and their forces in rebellion against the Emperor of Mankind in a bloody civil war. The specific conflict from the Heresy that concerns the game is the Battle of Calth, where the traitor legion Word Bearers and their daemonic allies launch a surprise attack against the Ultramarines in their home system of Ultramar on the planet Calth. Similar to Space Hulk, each scenario of battles that comes with the box set is played out by arranging the board from hexes, distributing units to each player and determining the outcomes of each round of battle and movement with dice. For those interested in how the game works I will also include a very comprehensive gameplay video by Games Workshop which covers the first scenario of the game, Wrath of Veridia. There’s also a Turkish review by my buddy Xasf in the works – I’ll include a link here once ready for those interested.

Let us start with the box itself.

Badass.

First impression I got is that the box is really heavy – we had a running joke that it weighs like the 95 GBP it sells for. Next impression is about the quality of the box. So far I have acquired a series of sets from Games Workshop and among those this is the sturdiest and the highest quality of them all on par with Space Hulk. Thick cardboard instead of the regular packaging for minis is used here and it really is nice to have the assurance that no matter how far the box travels the contents will be safe.

The box is shorter in height than Space Hulk but wider and longer to house the sprues.

A nice little diorama of the fully set up game is depicted in the back.

A handy list of contents…

… and a nice bit of fluff for the game.

And let’s see the inside…

So THAT’s why it’s so heavy. So many sprues!

I took away the sprues for a moment to check the rest of the items.

The board tiles…

Game cards and dice…

Rule and Scenario Book and the assembly manual…

… and lastly the transfer sheet and what I believe to be card protectors.

It’s difficult to see however there are runic etchings on the transfer sheets perfect for Word Bearers models. For those who are unsure of their freehand skills I guess.

Lastly the bases for all the minis. They look like 32mm’s for the marines, 40mm for the terminators and 60mm for the Contemptor.

The box contains the sprues (9 of them for all models and spares), board tiles, special dice, game power cards the manual and rulebook as well as a transfer sheet for use on the models. There’s also a set of 3 plastic bags which look like card protectors of some sort. All in all very nicely packed and there was no damage whatsoever on any of the models.

Let’s take a look at the rule and scenario book.

The first page has a nice shot of an example gameplay and has the opening fluff text of all Horus Heresy novels.

Under a badass concept art we are introduced to the setting of the game.

The pieces, game mechanics and how to play the game are explained in detail, with beautiful showcase models depicted on the pages.

There are a series of scenarios (10 I believe) of which this is the first and the one used in GW’s intros.

Cover art without titles for your viewing pleasure!

The rest of the book (almost half of it) is dedicated to the story and the artistic aspect of the combatants. Nice to see the battle at Isstvan V in the corner there!

The concept art is simply beautiful and is a great source for realistic painters.

A great source of inspiration to see how to paint the Ultramarines.

The same goes for the Word Bearers.

The Dreadnought alone would be a nice model to paint.

I skipped to the end here – it shows a series of Horus Heresy products to familiarize the players of the setting.

Lastly, a set of quick rules.

The rulebook contains all the information needed to play this as a standalone game and has a series of brilliant illustrations to boot. There are plenty of scenarios to choose from and a various deployment options for the players with unique scenario objectives. It’s practically a world of its own however I have not yet had time to sift through the exact details of a game. It looks like a simplified version of the original Warhammer 40k tabletop game with move and attack actions and how units are considered exhausted once their set action points are used up. Xasf and I each got ourselves a copy of the game and I reckon he’ll be assembling his minis quickly to test out the game as soon as possible. Once we have a few games in our hands I may post on that aspect as well. For now let me share with you Games Workshop’s sample game through the scenario, Wrath of Veridia.

Now let’s get to my favorite part, the miniatures themselves!

The terminator sprue. There’s one of this and houses the five Cataphractii terminators.

Here’s a look at the back…

The sprue with the regular marines. This sprue comes three times. There’s plenty of spare parts for the 30 marines total.

… and the backside.

This sprue bit also comes in three copies.

Backside.

On to the Contemptor. It’s designed primarily as a static model which explains why the main body is bisected.

An uninteresting backside.

The sprue with the commanders, Captain Aethon and Kurta Sedd.

An… interesting design for Kurtha.

Aaand back.

There are a LOT of pieces to assemble, on nine sprues! Compared to their resin counterparts from Forgeworld there are some sculpted details missing and some differences are present especially on the studded shoulderpads but for the price we’re paying for plastics they can be overlooked. The resin counterparts, when bought separately come to hundreds of pounds just for the miniatures themselves and this kit provides even spare weapons for all units except the commanders. So from a wargaming and hobbyist perspective this is a treasure trove of models. The casting is crisp and I just couldn’t see any mould lines on the pieces – I’ll have to start assembling to see if there are peskier ones in between claws or tighter pieces. First impressions are very positive.

The most prominent downside of the lot is probably the static posed Contemptor Dreadnought thanks to the way it’s designed to come together. The legs and the body are already attached and is bisected to the sides (very complex from the looks of it) which will definitely create a gigantic join line. This can be filled and sanded after and even the static pose is no problem to some modellers out there it seems as I see many conversions from this kit where people carefully sawed off the joints to bend knees and legs. It’s up to you to decide. Once I assemble the Dread I’ll put it next to the Mhara Gal to show the various differences. The Dread comes with a ranged weapon optional arm attached at the side and not the shoulder – so that’s definitely a bonus in my book!

A point that can be seen as advantage or disadvantage is the missing sculpted legion insignia. This reinforces the fact that the models are intended to be used as cheap alternatives to the Forgeworld pieces with some freehand work however it would have been quite neat if at least the Word Bearer and Ultramarine legion accessories were included for the standalone game. I guess you can’t have everything.

The assembly manual is last in the review.

The manual reminds me of Dark Vengeance – similarly precise and simple to follow.

It’s like assembling regular marines!

The marines come on the new larger 32mm bases. More basing goodies for us!

The terminators have lots of versatility too.

Gotta think of magnets for these bad boys.

The much debated Contemptor design. I may try reposing the mini too.

Finally a set of instructions for the transfers, which I have seen for the first time among the kits I have purchased!

A round-up of all models in the box set.

Clear and numbered instructions are helpful and allows mostly for painting the pieces prior to assembly. This is especially the case for the marines where you practically get all pieces disassembled like a Space Marine box kit. It was interesting to see the terminator heads cut halfway to show they’re deeply recessed in armor however I would have preferred to have them actually go in a recess rather than glue one half of the piece to a flat chest. Another interesting design choice is Kurtha Sedd – my first thought was that it would be very difficult to paint in sub-assemblies for this character. We’ll see however when I start assembling the pieces. As said, there are lots of spares and optional pieces, ranged and mêlée counterparts for example with the terminators. I would probably take out my magnets to utilize every bit on the models for the board game.

All in all this is a great set and a good precursor to the Horus Heresy plastic kit franchise GW seems to be moving towards (to replace the Hobbit miniatures if you believe the rumors) and is a bargain if you’re considering investing in a 30k army. As a board game I still have to test it out however what I have seen in the demo gameplay is very promising. Greatly recommended altogether.

 

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