Acetronomer’s GHO UK Trip Report: Leading Battlegroup Ferrata

In October 2022, I went to my first Horus Heresy event, the Siege of Vandia at the Goonhammer Open in Nottingham. Since then, I’ve been to around a dozen different narrative events for Horus Heresy, from small club events to trips to Warhammer World. My most recent event was the Exarcis Campaign at this June’s GHO UK in Leicester, which was run by Zach/Jellymuppet.

This was one of the most fun events I’ve been to, and definitely the one where I’ve felt most comfortable, thanks in part to the fact that the event was structured around four person teams. I’d been to a team event before, at Warhammer World in fact, but there was something different about this one. Part of that was the lower power level and more casual vibes of the event, but another important part was definitely the social aspect and my team in particular.

One of the great things about the Heresy community in the UK is that it’s large enough that you’re always meeting new people and new armies, yet small enough that you see plenty of familiar faces as you attend events. This is a great combination that really helps mitigate the social anxiety for me around going to new places and meeting new people, since I know there’ll almost certainly be someone I know there. In a team event like this one, where you were assigned a team even if you showed up on your own, you get to interact closely with a lot more people giving you even more opportunities to make new friends.

Battlegroup Ferrata

Before I get into the event itself, it’s worth introducing my team. Zach named all the teams, so for this event we were Battlegroup II Ferrata, though most of the team had also fought at a Warhammer World team event as the Sons of Quadrania. We first met at a casual event with a hastily assembled narrative about the battle for the radiation mines of Quadrania IV, the fourth planet in a system with four suns, hence our team name. After that, we teamed up at Warhammer World where we got absolutely demolished by the generally much more competitive lists we faced, winning only two out of the sixteen games we played between us. Despite our losses, we enjoyed playing together, which made the decision to team up again at the GHO an easy one, especially given the lower power level of the armies involved.

First up is Rob, our Blood Angels player. At the last event he’d been running Death Guard, but this time he had a very cool drop assault based Blood Angels force. Tactically, the list relied on using two deathstorm drop pods to essentially get to place down terrain anywhere you want on turn one, often effectively dividing the board in two, plus the Day of Revelations rite of war to guarantee that your reserves arrived when and where you wanted. This made for a very effective army that he really enjoyed playing. His army were the Host of the Iron Angel, led by Dantare Ameel (the Iron Angel himself) but commanded by his ally Mephisto Jorem.

Next there’s Thomas, our White Scars player running the Sagyar Mazan rite of war. This gave his infantry Feel No Pain 5+, and his jetbikes really benefited from the changes to bikes and speeders for this event that gave them Toughness 5. His White Scars were formerly of the Brotherhood of the Mantis and led by Khasar Khan of the Golden Keshig, hence why his recon marines used the extremely cool Badab War colour scheme of the Mantis Warriors.

Nick hadn’t joined us for the Warhammer World event, but we’d played before, and he ran a very cool-looking kitbashed army using the new Blackshields rules. His army was the Mithraic Consensus, also known as the Transfigured Host, Born of War, Bearers of the New Flesh. A lost company from the old 13th Legion under the command of Pater Cautopates Antallus, they were trapped for centuries in an isolated region of space, where they made a pact with an ancient machine-devil, returning to war clad in New Flesh. Again, his army is extremely cool, and you can see more of it on his Instagram.

Finally there’s me, hi. I’m Ben, though I also go by Acetronomer online, and I was elected the team’s leader when I showed up on Saturday morning. I’d led the team at Warhammer World before, though this time I had a lot less bookkeeping to do due to the way this event was run. My role was basically to assign players to tables and roll off with the opposing team’s leader to see which team deployed and played first.

I brought the same force I’d brought to every event so far, the Ultramarines 203rd Company, also known as the Disciples of the Silver Eagle, under the command of Civian Martullus. The company are a ragtag band of survivors who are on the verge of being Blackshields (though they use the Ultramarines rules most of the time). Despite losing their Emperor-blessed ship at Calth, they view themselves as the Emperor’s favoured sons and will do anything to prove themselves as such. Their colour scheme is based on that of the Silver Eagles successor chapter, who they eventually become after the war. I’ve written up a truly ridiculous amount of backstory for them, including naming every character and sergeant, of which I’ve included a small excerpt after the army lists below.

The main army list was built around a core of three tactical squads (two in rhinos and one on foot), plus a despoiler squad accompanied by a Moritat, and a praetorian breacher squad in a Land Raider Proteus Explorator. This made for five core line units, all but one of which were extremely mobile and this manoeuvrability was definitely the list’s greatest strength. I won every game this event where I made good use of that manoeuvrability and lost every game where I didn’t. In addition to the core line units, I also had a command squad with jump packs led by my Praetor Civian Martullus. I run him with the Burden of Kings warlord trait which gives him Fearless and It Will Not Die 4+ for the turn whenever he’s assigned a wound, and a Mantle of Ultramar to give him Battle-hardened (1). Combined with the Feel No Pain ability from his accompanying Primus Medicae, Plinius Caelanus, this makes him surprisingly tanky, capable of shrugging off multiple lascannon or heavy weapon attacks that would otherwise wipe out his command squad. The specifics of his command squad and the rest of the list, along with the bonus lists I needed to bring for my Zone Mortalis and Support forces, are below.

Ultramarines 2500 Points

Zone Mortalis 1250 Points

Support Force 750 Points

Game 1 vs Luke’s Thousand Sons

Our first game was against Battlegroup 2, the Betrayers, fighting in the depths of the Guts, the lowest levels of Hive Exarcis. We all played the Hold All Quarters mission on boards with dense terrain, where the special rules for that battlezone made difficult and dangerous terrain even more punishing. In addition, we’d have to deal with warp instabilities in that battle-zone, granting an Instability Point to the traitors each turn if they were the only ones with a unit within 6” of the centre of board, and an additional Instability Point if that unit was a Psyker, Daemon or Corrupted.

My first two rolls of the day didn’t go well and the traitors got to go first, as well as choosing which of their members would face each of us. My first opponent for the event was Luke with his Thousand Sons. His army was all infantry from what I can remember, apart from a volkite Kratos and a Contemptor Osiron, and my army is almost completely built to counter that kind of list. With my souped up tacticals in rhinos and scouting line units I was able to get onto most of the objectives first, despite going second, and once I had the objectives he didn’t have a good way of pushing me off them.

My command squad was able to take out his Contemptor Osiron by the end of turn 2, and by the beginning of my turn 3 I had control of three out of the four objectives. To do so, however, I’d had to cede control of the centre of the board, and that gave Luke the freedom to score a total of 6 Instability Points over the course of the game, thanks to all his Thousand Sons models being Psykers. He would have scored more if it wasn’t for an unlucky morale test and my Sicaran getting close enough to deny that objective in the last turn, when he didn’t have the anti-tank left to deal with it.

It was one of the most decisive victories I’ve ever had playing Heresy, with the final score being something like 19-1 in my favour (though we forgot to add victory points for the Cost of War at the end). Luke was a great opponent to play against in spite of that, and very gracious in defeat, especially considering that I think this was the first Heresy event he’d attended.

Game 2 vs Anthony’s Alpha Legion

Our next battle was a Zone Mortalis game aboard the Death Guard vessel Mia Donna Mori against the forces of Battlegroup 5, the Reavers. This time the pre-game rolloff went much better, with my team getting to go first and choose our opponents. I chose to face Anthony and his Alpha Legion, which in hindsight my Zone Mortalis force wasn’t particularly well equipped to deal with. Terminators are very good in Zone Mortalis, and Anthony was running two squads of them, made more challenging by the fact that they could both score objectives, since his Lerneans have Line innately and his Indomitus Terminators were accompanied by a Herald. The mission we played was Bloodbath from the Goon Mortalis mission pack, in which the first five units killed drop objectives for the players to score, with the addition of a communications console on each side that their opponent needed to destroy to prevent them calling for help.

Nothing really happened in the first turn, beyond units moving up the board, but Anthony’s second turn put me pretty heavily on the back foot. His Effrit Disruption Cadre and Castraferrum Dreadnought shot at my despoilers and forced them to retreat, before the Castraferrum charged them and they failed another leadership test and were removed from the game. On the same turn, his terminators charged my tactical squad, and though they survived to the end of my Turn 3, there was never any doubt about their fate. With that my left flank was pretty much gone, but the advance on the right flank went better and my Delegatus and his command squad wiped out a squad of tacticals.

Things deteriorated quickly however as Anthony’s Lerneans charged my command squad and slew my warlord. My Contemptor took out the Castraferrum and slowly began chewing through his infantry, but he couldn’t make much of a difference on his own. My last hope was my Herald and his Cataphractii bodyguard, but I was forced to choose between going after his Indomitus Terminators in my backline who were threatening my communications console, or going after his Lerneans who would be easier to charge. In the end, I went after his Indomitus Terminators, but he used his Alpha Legion advanced reaction at the perfect time to redeploy them out of line of sight of my Cataphractii, right next to my communications console, and I was forced to send them after the Lerneans instead.

In the final turn, my Cataphractii slew his Lerneans and held the objective that their death spawned, scoring me a single victory point as my only remaining line unit. Anthony similarly scored a single victory point with his Indomitus, but he had successfully destroyed my communications console and slain my warlord for an additional victory point, putting the final score at 2-1 in his favour.

Day one ended with a lovely meal at Herb with my teammates Rob and Thomas, and Will, one of my teammates at Warhammer World, but currently on the traitor side as a Death Guard player. Herb is a great vegan Indian restaurant in Leicester that the Goonhammer crew have been to before, and it was a great place to hang out and try new food with friends.

Game 3 vs Alastair’s Night Lords

Day two began with a battle in the dust-storm ravaged Badlands. Here the roadways between the hives allowed vehicles and cavalry to gain the Outflank rule (which I used to put my Sicaran and a Rhino into reserves), and meant that it was night fighting each turn on a 5+. Partway through the first turn of the game, Zach informed us that the Adeptus Titanicus players in the Badlands had destroyed enough terrain to cover the Badlands in a permanent dust-storm. From then on, we’d play by the night fighting rules every single turn and every unit in the Badlands got a 6+ Shrouded roll to ignore wounds that even the Night Vision rule couldn’t prevent.

Our opposition was Battlegroup 4, the Flayers, a team consisting of Will, the Death Guard player I’d had dinner with the night before, and three Night Lords players. The traitors got to choose their opponents, but we won strategic advantage so we got to act first. I was up against Alastair and his Night Lords, piratical raiders under the command of his warlord Mercadier. The mission was Changing Priorities, in which there were five objectives. Each turn you chose one objective you held to remove, scoring you a massive six victory points, but preventing either player from scoring it again.

Things started pretty well for me as I was able to get troops onto two of the objectives early on, and then charge my jump pack command squad to grab one of his backline objectives, giving me good starting board control. My command squad did great work in this match harassing my opponent’s back line, and my warlord even managed to tank a volley of shots from a laser destroyer rapier battery without taking a single wound thanks to some lucky saves. While they did a lot of damage, they also took a lot of punishment in return, and when my outflanking sicaran and rhino were caught out of position the command squad were left without support and my warlord was eventually slain by that same rapier battery.

While my command squad tore through his backline, there was chaos in the middle of the board, as rhinos from both sides just started ramming infantry, and with the leadership penalty from night fighting an awful lot of them ran away. Alastair’s inductii jumped out of their storm eagle (which apparently had its best performance of the event this game), and were able to charge one of my tactical squads who were already running away after being rammed by a damaged rhino. Another failed leadership test meant they were removed from the board. In revenge, one of my own rhinos then charged his inductii, and another two failed leadership tests saw them run away and then get removed from the board by a charge from my praetorian breachers. Another set of rams into my breachers had no impact, but after they charged and destroyed one of the rhinos, the other rammed them again and this time they ran. They recovered just in time to be rammed again in the final turn of the game and run away one last time.

The arrival of Alastair’s raptor and assault squads from deep strike on turn four only added to the chaos, as they slaughtered one of my tactical squads and took out my lascannon and despoiler squads shortly thereafter. The game ended when one of my tactical squads charged his rapier battery but were forced to retreat thanks to some unlucky rolls, giving the rapiers the perfect opportunity to take out my land raider in the final moments of the game. By the end, I had very little left on the board that wasn’t falling back, but I’d successfully secured three of the five objectives in the early game and I’d taken out just enough of Alastair’s army to prevent him gaining enough victory points from the Cost of War to even things out.

This was probably my favourite match of the event, thanks to the chaos of night fighting and the fact that match felt pretty close overall. After that, it was time for lunch and for everyone to display their armies for judgement by their peers. We each voted for four armies, the best painted and our personal favourite armies for each side of the conflict, along with our favourite opponent for the event. This was another of my favourite moments of the event, as it was such a joy to go round the hall and look at everyone’s armies, taking photos and marvelling at all the incredible work put into them. Some of the highlights were a Warhound Titan that triggered lights and sounds on command, a Word Bearers Mastodon covered in intricate patterns, and an Ultramarines jetbike dragging a Word Bearer behind it by a chain.

Game 4 vs Charlie’s Mechanicum and Solar Auxilia

For the final game of the day, my team returned to the Guts, where we once more faced off against Battlegroup 2, the Betrayers, our opponent’s from the first round. Normally, we’d expect to play a group we hadn’t faced already, but for the final round Zach paired the top two teams against each other, as well as the two teams that had scored the highest for secondary objectives. The Betrayers had secured the most Instability Points, and my team had scored the most points for surviving communications consoles in our Zone Mortalis game. As a result, the Betrayers would be assisted by a unit of daemons each, while we’d each have the assistance of a unit of Custodes, Sisters of Silence or Assassins.

This was definitely the most admin I had to do for the event as group leader, having to work with my opposing counterpart to coordinate games so that everybody was playing on different tables against different opponents than they’d faced in the first round, as well as making sure that everyone had a support unit and access to their stats. It took a while to sort out with a couple of false starts, which meant we didn’t have as much time for the game as I would’ve liked. This was the only game I played in the event that didn’t reach the final turn.

The Guts had changed since our last visit, as the Adeptus Titanicus players had once again made a devastating impact on the terrain. All terrain was now dangerous and wounding on a 1 or 2 on a d6, and the top floors of all the buildings had been destroyed. I lost the roll for strategic advantage, and due to some poor planning when assigning support units, I ended up with a single Assassin against four Daemon Brutes.

I was on the back foot almost immediately, as Charlie’s army countered pretty much every advantage I had. His two units of thallax could outmanoeuvre me with their ability to move after shooting, and they denied infiltration and scouting in a 24” bubble which took away any advantage in movement I would normally have. He outnumbered me thanks to his Solar Auxilia allies, and the addition of the supporting daemon brutes offset his lack of melee.

His myrmidons shot my despoilers off the board pretty much immediately, removing the biggest counter I had to his daemons, and my assassin had to use his special reaction to hide in terrain to avoid the mass fire of his Solar Auxilia. A rapier battery with laser destroyers quickly took out my sicaran venator, and the resulting explosion killed enough of my lascannon squad that they fled off the board immediately. It would be a real struggle to regain momentum on my turn, made worse when my assassin charged the daemons to no effect. One died, but only due to a pile in move through dangerous terrain that finished it off.

Hope came with the arrival of a supporting Warhound Titan. Its name was Velox Venator, and it was my last chance for redemption. My contemptor shot down an aircraft arriving from reserves, but the rest deployed their cargo of Solar Auxilia, and I was prevented from scoring one of the objectives by a thallax squad immobilising my rhino and blocking the route forward for my disembarking troops. My command squad arrived from reserves, but they scattered out of deep strike and Charlie got to place them wherever he wanted. In an attempt to discourage Velox Venator from shooting at his mass of infantry, he placed my command squad right in the middle of them, which had the added effect of forcing a bunch of pinning tests allowing me to successfully pin his warlord and their accompanying myrmidons. Velox Venator’s shooting did some good damage, but not enough to turn the tide, and my command squad failed their charge against the myrmidons, denying me the opportunity to try and score a victory point from Slay the Warlord.

Unfortunately at this point time ran out on the round, and we were forced to finish up the game in the middle of Turn 3. Charlie won by something like 3-0 in the end thanks to his control of the objectives. With a little more time (and a lot of luck) I could potentially have scored enough victory points to make things a little bit more even, but it wasn’t to be, and the game ended with Velox Venator self-detonating in the middle of the enemy infantry, killing pretty much every living thing within its shadow.

The Final Standings

The event ended with a draw between loyalists and traitors, with a final score of 14-14. My own team’s record was similarly even, with a final result of 7 wins, 8 losses and 1 draw. I was pretty happy with my result of 2 wins and 2 losses, and left with a newfound enjoyment of the list. I’ve been going back and forth between various different army lists at previous events, but I think I’m finally settling on this as the core of my list for future events. It performed well when I had the opportunity to make good use of its manoeuvrability to take objectives quickly, and it had just enough tools to give it a chance even when that wasn’t an option. I still need to work more on my Zone Mortalis list however, as mine didn’t feel like it performed great at this event.

Overall, I had a great time at the event. I got some solid games in, made more interesting through some good use of event special rules, but there wasn’t so much going on that it became a chore to keep track of. Leading my team was similarly hassle-free, except in the last round, and I really enjoyed the team aspect of the event overall. Getting to chat with friends over the course of an event is always fun, and having a team to hang out with both during and after the event made the whole thing just that little bit more special.

I had some minor complaints, but despite that this was probably one of the most consistently solid events I’d been to at mixing narrative, gameplay and special rules without making too much of a burden out of any of them. The missions were from the Goonhammer Approved Mission Pack, which meant they were solid to play but lacked the individuality of some of the missions I’ve experienced at other events. I also never managed to find a good opportunity to use my support force, thanks in part to being generally nervous to ask people if they want help, but also due to a lot of players wanting to keep their games as simple one-on-one competitions.

All-in-all, I had a great weekend that encapsulated everything that I love about this hobby. I got some fun games in as part of a wider narrative against and alongside some incredibly cool and unique armies, and I got to spend time with a bunch of familiar faces as well as plenty of new ones. If you play Heresy I’d seriously recommend attending a narrative event if you can. There’s quite a few of them here in the UK run by a number of different groups in their own preferred styles, and while I’ve enjoyed some events more than others, I haven’t regretted attending any of them so far. Goonhammer will be running more Horus Heresy narrative events in the future, and the next one will be a doubles event at the same location in Leicester in September. Tickets are still available at time of writing, and can be found here. Don’t hesitate to pick up a ticket if you’re interested, and hopefully I’ll see you at a Heresy event in the future.

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