The Horus Heresy: Legions – Guide for Beginning

Welcome, legionaries! If you’re reading this guide, I assume you’re new in the game, and may be kind of lost about how does it work. You may have played some other card games already, and there are similarities to them, but I intend to explain everything so there is no doubt left in your immortal soul. Praise the Emperor!

But first, a little history lesson…

It is the 31st Millennium. The Emperor of Mankind, in an effort to unite the human race, has launched a Great Crusade among the stars. World after world are being pacified, and now the embrace the Imperium of Man as their flag. To achieve such a massive task, the Emperor himself created 20 genetically-engineered transhuman individuals, the Primarchs, which would later be spread by unknown forces across the galaxy. In time, the Sons of the Emperor were found again, and to each of them was assigned a Legion to command, therefore named Legiones Astartes, aided in battle by the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum.

But among the Primarchs there are seeds of corruption. The Gods of Chaos, powerful entities whose only existence is denied by the Emperor himself, are plotting to tear down all work done by Mankind, to bring humanity to another age of darkness. The influence of such foul enemies has started a revolt against the Emperor, led by the most trustful of His sons, Horus. With brothers fighting brothers, each with powerful armies to back them up, there is little hope for humanity.

For in the grim dark future of the Horus Heresy, there is only war. 

After this brief introduction to the lore, which I can’t advise strong enough to expand by reading the Black Library novel or lurking the Lexicanum, we can begin with the game itself. First of all, we are welcomed by the Tutorial, which is pretty self-explained. I’ll gather some of the basic concepts here:

• Warlord. This is the main unit of the game, and represents the commander in the battle. Kill the enemy warlord and win the game, get your warlord killed and you’ve lost. There are currently a vast of 46 unique Warlords to play in the game, and more will come with following expansions. But as now, we will focus on Garviel Loken, the first Warlord unlocked right at the beginning.
• Energy. This is the main resource in a match, used to play your cards and units. You start the first turn with 2 energy points (2e), and will gain one per turn until you reach 10.
• Health. This is the resistance of the unit. It’s stated at the lower right corner of the unit with a number, and it’s lowered down by battle or other card effects.
• Attack. This is the most basic way of damaging the enemy, and it’s stated with a number at the lower left corner of the unit portrait. Attack doesn’t drop by using the unit, just the remaining health based on the enemy attack. This way, you can keep on smashing your units against the enemies until they get destroyed, although this isn’t always the best move.
• Abilities. These are sort of the unique skills of the unit, each of them having a different display of them. These abilities can be either active or passive, applied at the beginning or the end of the turn… Variety is the spice of life! By tapping over a unit you’ll get a brief explanation of what does it do, and how much energy does it cost to activate its effects.

  

• Tactics. One of the two types of cards you can play in the game. Tactics don’t have neither attack or defense, they don’t stay on the field and their effect it’s resolved right away. It’s effects, unless stated otherwise on the card itself, are permanent!
• Troops. The other type of card you can play in HH: L. Troops are units that stay on the battlefield, just as warlords, but have way less health than them. The difference between Units and Troops is important, since some cards will only affect other troops, not units overall!

Let’s take a moment to analyze the cards, ok?

First, on top, we have the name of each card. By default, you can only have 2 cards of the same name on a deck. Then, on upper right corner, we have the energy cost. Here with Valoc Predator it means it can’t be played until we have 8e. In the middle you can see the portrait of the card and it’s ability. We will have a deeper study on the different effects each card can have, but let’s focus on this one in particular.

“Rally: Deal 3 damage to the enemy Warlord.” Wait, a whole effect is explained in one word? The heck is a rally? Don’t you worry, it’s explained in the blue square at the right of the hand. Rally means the effect activates once when the card is played from hand.

After the ability, you can see a symbol and another name: “Sons of Horus”. This is one of the Legions you will be able to command. Sons of Horus are the troops leaded by the Primarch Horus (figures), the leader of the revolt against the Emperor. There are other Legions in the game, some of them loyal to the Throne of Terra, while some others are vile servants of Chaos. And also, there are some neutral troops and tactics, common to all Legions. If you check on the tactic “Seek and Destroy” up there you’ll see it’s from the Imperial Army.

Finally, at the bottom of the card, we can see it’s a “Vehicle”. This is one of the different type of troops we will find in game. There are five of them in total: Astartes, Infantries, Vehicles, Structures and Daemons. Sometimes, cards will only affect some of this types, while in other case a certain type will be immune to the effects of a card. Also, structures can’t attack by default.

After the first tutorial you’re led into Istvaan III, for a battle against the heretical inhabitants of that forsaken land. In this combat you shall find your first battle with complete freedom, yet you’re limited to 20 cards in your deck, instead of the usual 30. You can check your deck by tapping in “cards” and clicking in the eye symbol near the deck’s name (upper left corner). It will show this:

First I want to draw your attention to the “Deck Info” graphic. There you’ve a resume of how it’s composed your deck. The diagram shows how balanced is the deck in relation to the number of cards and the energy cost. You want to have a deck with more cards in the middle, so you don’t get stuck in your first turns with high cost cards or run out of cards later in the games. This is called the “curve” of the deck, and sometimes, depending on your gameplay and the warlord you’re using, you may want to have a higher or a lower cost curve.

Also, notice how there are more troops than tactics. The Sons of Horus have many good tactics, but even then a troop has a “body” (the combination of health and attack), aside of the ability of the troop itself. This way you can keep on doing damage to the enemy warlord even if you were just looking for the effect of the troop, and also the enemy has something else to focus its attacks besides of your own warlord.

Before I let you step in a match against those disbelievers of the Imperial Truth, let’s take a look at what each card does. If you feel in a hurry, step in into battle and come back to check what you got in your starting hand and what does it do.

• Garviel Loken: As the starting Warlord, Loken has some nice traits to pick him, even later on when you get more warlords in your collection. He starts with an aditional card, so he gets more options to fight the enemy warlord and it’s less likely he runs out of cards in the middle of a game. His active ability does 2 damage by spending 2 energy. The energy spent for the damage provoked is decent enough, considering also its versatility: you can damage both troops and warlords with it.

  The next point to consider is initiative: Loken has High, but there are also Warlords with Mediumand Low. It defines which player goes first, and this is a huge advantage in this game. After all, players going first have the chance of doing the killing blow a turn earlier.

  As a last defining trait, Loken has 30 health. This is one of the downsides of this warlord, since others have 35 starting health, while Primarchs and a selection of the rarest warlords have even 40. This turns Loken in some sort of a glass cannon: you want to burst your enemy as soon as possible, before he has a chance to kill you himself.

  

• Abakhol Squad: This is a cheap troop to put in play whenever you’ve 1e to spare before ending the turn. Its passive ability, Drop Pod, works as a protective shield. It turns the troop into a 0/2 until the beginning of your next turn, and if a troop attacks it and the drop pod is destroyed it goes back to the original 2/1. This only works once when it’s deployed from hand, so don’t expect to regain this shield every turn.

  

• Quick Fire: A simple tactic, doing 2 damage for 1 energy. Rather keep it to strike the killing blow on a troop without losing health by attacking with anything else. Also, keep in mind it’s the same damage input that Loken’s default ability, but with 1e to spend. Choose wisely when to use it.

  

• Feron’s Militia: This troop has an interesting ability, but you have to play it wisely. Relentlessactivates the effect of the card once at the begining of each of your turns. In this case, Feron’s it’s able to multiply, creating another copy of itself (with basic stats, 2/1). But being activated at the start of the turn means the enemy has an entire turn to bring it down, so I advise you to play some sort of defense beforehand. Considering it cost only 1e, that shouldn’t prove difficult in the middle of a game.

  
• Syrin 12th Regiment: This troop has Frontline, an ability also showed on the tutorial. It’s the most basic way of defense, since you’ve to destroy it before you can attack any of the other units without Frontline. Considering it has 3 health, it can survive a couple of hits by the default warlord, making it a good defense on an empty board.

  

• Seek And Destroy: Another card we already saw on the tutorial. This tactic allows you to inflict 3 damage on a troop only, so don’t think on save it for the enemy warlord.

  

• Resupply: The “Pot of Greed” of HH:L. By spending 2e, you get to draw two cards. This shall be used in mid/late game, since it doesn’t put any pressure or damage on the enemy, it only brings you more options for you to play.

  

• Bunker: This troop is… Well, not a troop at all, but a building! Structures are a special type of troops that cannot attack. Usually, this means they also have special effects to compensate the lack of offensive methods. In this case, Bunker has Frontline and a high health, up to 5 points. That’s 3 warlord’s attacks to get to your troops, so it’s a pretty solid defense for only 3e.

  

• Krak Grenade: This tactic has two possible effects. If you use it against a Vehicle it does 5 damage, a pretty good deal for only 3e. But if you throw it to any other unit it only does 2 damage. Sometimes that is just enough, but Loken himself can do that much by 2e, so consider saving it up for when a big tank shows up.

  

• Sallan 11th Infantry: This troop has the body of a 2e troop, since its only 2/3. But that extra energy cost comes well spent thanks to its ability: Backlash. It does something when it’s destroyed, in this case allowing you to draw another card. Troops with backlash usually stay longer on board. After all, not many enemies want to activate beneficial effects for their opponents.

• Chariot of the Gods: This tactic has a nice tempo value. Not only it does 4 damage for 4e, but also lets you draw another card. Either strike the enemy warlord or eliminate a potential threat already in play.

  

• Durkhall Squad: This troop is oriented to damage the opponent, having 5 attack for only 3 health. But not only that, it also has Unstoppable. This ability allows you to attack any enemy with it, no matter if he has Frontlines on the way. The face is the place!

  

• Mortar Strike: This tactic makes use of the Random Number Generator (RNG) of the game. You play it and it damages ANY enemy unit at random for 5 damage. If the warlord has an empty board, it means 5 direct damage for 4e. But if there are troops on play, you take your chances on hitting the unit you need to destroy, and pray the Emperor it hits there.

  

• Markov’s Rangers: The stats of this troop are not very good, being only 2/4 for 4e. But its ability allows to improve it based on how many enemy units there are, Warlord included. Once when you deploy it from hand, it gains +1 attack for each enemy unit. The downside? Its health stays the same, so it won’t last long on play.

  

• Chaggrat Squad: Another troop we saw on the tutorial. It has a nice body 5/5, and lets you damage enemy units for 3 points by only 1e. This effect can’t be used the same turn it comes into play, but it’s likely it will stay alive for the next turn so you can use it. Still, consider that attacking with it instead of using its ability is going to inflict 5 damage to the enemy… Even if it takes damage back, sometimes those 2 points can be decisive.

  

• Khaddark Squad: This troop has a very interesting effect: Cleave. When units have cleave, they infflict additional damage equal to it’s cleave value to both units besides the one you’re attacking. So when you attack with Khaddark, you’ve the potential of doing 4 damage to 3 units at once! Now that’s a lot of damage! Notice this won’t apply if the unit recieves an attack, only when attacking.

  

• Hanun’s Mortars: This troop inflicts damage the very first moment it’s played. Same as Mortar Strike, it damages a random unit by 4. The body is weak for 5e, being only 2/4, but its likely you do enough damage with it to make it worth.

  

• Outflank: This tactic has a high potential value, but only in specific situations. It eliminates completely an enemy troop. No matter if it has drop pod, high health… Outflank kills it without breaking a sweat. You better use this to destroy a big meanie troop, and only when you got no other methods of killing it. You never know if the next turn the enemy is going to play an even bigger threat, when you have already wasted your card.

  

• Valoc Predator: We already know this big guy tank from the tutorial, even if we didn’t have the chance to use it. As the most powerful card in the deck, it can be a good finisher to blow up the enemy warlord’s health.

And these were all the cards you’ll find in your starting deck. As you can see, you got a large range of different abilities, tactics and troops, but there are a lot more to discover. Now you know what the different cards can do, you’ll have no troubles in the first games on Istvaan III. After some wins you’ll unlock new cards, wich will be directly added to your deck until it reaches 30 cards. Just remember that every new adition can be zoomed by clicking it, and its effects are described in game.

Now that we have analyzed the basic concepts of the game, we can step in the main layout of the game. Among these different menus I will show you what you can find after beating Istvaan III single player campaign.

After launching the game, you can see the main menu. This will have the different options to battle, and some of the rewards to gather. Right at the middle of the screen you can see which planet are you standing on, and you move as you raise your ranking rating. It goes like this:

• 0-499 rating: Isstvan III
• 500-999 rating: Isstvan V
• 1000-1499 rating: Calth
• 1500-1999 rating: Prospero
• 2000-2499 rating: Mars
• 2500 or higher rating: Terra

The rating goes up and down with each battle won or lost. At first you won’t lose points by losing a match, but later on in game you may do so. Matchmaking it’s also based on the planets, and you’ll be paired with similar rank players. If the enemy has higher rank than you, you’ll earn more rating points. On the other hand, if you lose to a player with lower rank, you’ll lose more points.

The “Friendly – Ranked” switch right under Battle allows you to play either the ranked or a “practice” mode, both of them online. While playing in practice no rating points will be granted or taken from you, but you’ll be able to do challenges and daily missions.

These are represented by the crates at the right of the screen. There are three different crates there: Free crate, Daily mission and Challenge. Free crates are a complementary freebie, each one of them with 3 items. These are usually 2 cards and some gold or gems. The cards are usually common, but sometimes one of higher rarity will drop. The cooldown of free crates is 6 hours.

Daily Mission crate is granted for 5 victories against a random player, and it counts victories on the different game modes. It will have 5 items: 3 random cards, gold or gems and a ticket for the Event matches. It will count 24 hours and stack once if you miss it, resetting the timer. This means if you let it uncollected 36 hours, right after you open it the timer will be reseted, immediately allowing you to start another daily mission that will last for 24 hours since that very moment.

Challenges are another kind of daily reward. These will ask for a random objective with three levels of difficulty, each of them unlocking a better crate of 5 items. These objectives can either be accumulative or to be done in a single match, and will often require you to build a specific deck to beat it.

Finally, another kind of crate will appear here. These are the achievement and level crates. Those are usually better than the daily ones, but can only be unlocked once for each achievement. For example, take a look at this reward for beating the Istvaan III single player campaign.

As you can see, the crate is golden and in this case there was a Primarch inside. You’re not always guaranteed to obtain a high rarity card, but the chances are higher in golden crates.

After this we shall review the customizations menu. You can access here by pressing the symbol right next to your name, in the top left corner.

In this menu you can see all sorts of info, including your rating in ranked, the number of won matches, your level and experience and your “legendary points”. These points are purely bragging rights. You get more the higher you’ve ascended into ranking beyond Terra. Keep in mind each month the ranked season is restarted and everyone above Terra goes back to 2500 points, so legendary points allow you show how far have you pushed the ladder overall.

You are also able to change the cosmetics items of the game: Cardbacks, Badges and Warcries. The first is shown as you play, as the later ones ar portrayed in the victory resume. You can collect them same as cards, by crates or directly bought on the shop.

Last but not least, you can check the achievements of the game at the bottom of the page. They are awarded for feats such as games won, days logged or card collection unlocks. Try and get them all!

Right next to your profile icon there are other three to see. The first one, the crossed swords, allows you to test decks vs bots in three levels of difficulty, and also allows you to friendly challenge other players (Those matches will not count towards daily rewards).

The other two icons are the Friend List and the Log. Your friendlist allows you to keep kwnown players and duel them whenever you want, and the log is a list of your last 20 matches to check your streaks and see replays.

At the top right corner you can see the game’s currency. There are Tickets, Gold and Gems, and with they’re used to expand your collection. We will review how to use each in the Shop section.

The first tab on the left is where you manage your card collection, build decks and check on the cards. Let’s have a look at it.

You are welcomed by your deck, by default Garviel Loken’s “Istvaan Speartip”. This is a Sons of Horus deck, and will show you a combination of both the Legion and the Neutral cards (Imperial Army, Chaos and Mechanicum). You can tap cards to zoom them and see their effects, and by dragging them to the left you add them to the deck. Once in deck, you can simply right click to take them out.

There are four different “rarity” levels. You can identify them by the color of the borders, being common (no color), rare (green), epic (orange) and legendary (golden). Once you start to build a deck, keep in mind that you’ll have a maximum of two cards of those from common to epic, and onlyone copy of the legendary ones. This is easily noticeable because you won’t be able to hold more than two copies of the cards, and one copy of the legendary; the extra copies you may get will be automatically turned into gems. The ratio of conversion for gems is 5 for commons, 20 for rares, 100 for epics and 400 for legendaries.

Deckbuilding in this game is as important as playing. You may have many good cards, or be quite good at playing, but if you don’t make a properly balanced deck you may find yourself losing match after match. I know it’s kind of frustrating to encounter yourself with a limited card collection at the start, but you’ll get cards soon enough, and take in consideration the other players at your rating are usually as clueless as you. But they may not be checking this guide, so allow me to give you some advices.

• Damage is everything in this game. Often you’ll see some troops and abilities that improve the stats of your army, or give you more troops to your hand… That’s only useful when you have troops already in game. Half of the time, you’ll find yourself looking for methods of dealing with the enemy troops or trying to smash harder the enemy warlord. Specially with Loken, if you add cards that do direct damage, you’ll have half the match already won.
• Don’t trust cards that rely on you having troops on game, or with conditional effects. This goes along with my first advice, as you may usually find those card “dead” in your hand, without a troop surviving long enough to benefit of them.
• Rally abilities are overall better than their active counterparts. Sometimes you may encounter a troop that requires you to spend energy to do some powerful effects. This isn’t bad by default, but they won’t be able to act the same turn they’re deployed. This gives your opponent a whole turn to deal with them, and if they already have something on board this could be an easy task. So try to prioritize rallies and passive effects (backlash, relentless…)
• Troops with Fast and Flank bring A LOT of value. Same as with Rally, a troop that can attack or do it’s active ability the very first turn they come into play can change the tables in a turn. Also, it’s a surprise attack that can win you a match if played correctly.
• Stealth troops can’t be targeted, but can still be destroyed. Keep this in mind no matter if you are playing stealth troops or confronting them. Sometimes you may find a hidden enemy that can crush you next turn, and you have no methods of dealing with it. Besides the cards that reveal stealthed troops, you can use “random” damage to destroy them. Cards like Mortar Strike or Defense Satellites do their damage without targeting, and with some luck they will clean those sticky stealthed cowards for you.
• Keep your curve balanced. After making a deck, take a look at how does the chart in Deck Info looks. If it’s looking like a World Eater Badge, with spikes everywhere, you’re doing it wrong. The curve has to be smooth, with no more than 2 cards of difference between energy cost levels. The exceptions are the first and last levels, 1- and 7+. For those, it’s ok if you have less cards around.
• Duplicated cards give consistency. If you got the chance, add two copies of the same card instead of single copies of a lot of different cards. You want reliability in your deck, and if you consider one card to be worth of being included, why not two of them? Of course, this doesn’t apply to legendaries. I sometimes wish to have two of some of those in my decks. A man can dream.

Hope these points help you build a better deck. But besides of that, let’s see how to make a new deck from the beggining. To do so, press the “change deck” button on the top left corner.

Here you’ll access to a full list of all your decks. First it will be only one, but you may wanna have many different decks to play with the Legions you’ll be unlocking. By clicking the [+] square you’ll begin the deck by selecting a warlord. Also, you have two additional buttons in the top right corner. The two squares copy the selected deck, allowing you to edit one without losing the previous one. The trashcan allows you to delete the selected deck, in case you don’t want it anymore.

Here we started to make a new deck. You can press left and right arrows to change between your available warlords. Right after you start, only Garviel Loken will be available, but you can easily get new ones by playing or in the Shop, as we will review later. After creating a deck, you’ll begin again at the deck editing menu.

Still, you may be wondering how to check the cards you got from a different Legion, not only Sons of Horus. You can access those by pressing the “Collection” button, right next to “Change deck”.

There you’ll have a full list of the cards you’ve unlocked, even if you don’t have a warlord of their Legion. To change between legions, click through the symbols of the left. Also, you can check the full list of cards by sliding between “Your cards” and “All cards”, at the top left of the window.

Every single warlord is different from the others. Not only that, but warlords themselves also have the same rarity system as other cards, being them common, rare, epic and legendary. The only common warlord is Garviel Loken, since he is granted as you start the game, but I’ll be doing here a list of different warlords advisable for starters.

• Abaddon. The warlord commonly known as “the Armless” has all the benefits from the Sons of Horus Legion, such as fast troops and devastating tactics, but also has a nice ability for himself. Even if he’s not able to damage enemy warlords, the additional point of damage by only 2e means you can launch a Seek and Destroy without wasting a card. He also has 5 extra health points, and that’s always a bonus.

  

• Garro. The loyalist Death Guard warlord has an unique ability that can bring full range destruction to the enemy. After you play a troop, he gets the chance to do another action. This means you can attack, play a troop, attack again, play another troop… As long as you’ve energy remaining and enough small troops, he’ll keep going. The downside is his small health pool, but for that you have his active ability, which allows him to heal 2 to an ally unit, including himself.

  

• Durak Rask. A master of siege craft, Durak Rask has two interesting abilities that can bring despair upon the lower ranks of the game. First, his passive ability allows him to destroy buildings and vehicles completely after attacking and damaging them. Those pesky bunkers won’t get in the way anymore. On the other hand, his active ability allows him to do a devastating 4 damage input to any damaged troop. This turn him into a very versatile board cleaner.

  

• Ehrlen. This loyalist captain of the World Eaters is a solid choice even in High Terra, and if you play it correctly you’ll be tearing down players easily. He focusses in one sole thing: attacking the enemy warlord. His skill does up to 3 damage, and can bypass frontlines and any other way of hiding. Just by tapping his active ability you would kill a 30 health warlord in 10 turns. Also, he has high initiative, so he will be going first in many of the games you’ll play. Told you before, going first means having the chance of striking the killing blow earlier. Also, he begins with an additional card, so he gets more options at the start of the match. With the World Eatears card pool, full of troops with suicidal high attack rabid berserkers and damaging tactics, you can aim higher than any other rare warlord.

  

• Ornatov. This Imperial Army warlord is truly different from any of the other ones listed. First, he doesn’t have a Legion. He uses only neutral cards for his deck, and even if that gives him less resources, you’ll find he can make it worthwhile. He has low initiative, meaning he’ll go second almost always, but to amend this he gets to start with an additional energy point. It’s like going first every match but skipping your first turn. Also, he’s never running out of cards. He can spawn Imperial Army troops out of the deck to his hand as long as he has no troops on board, and those new cards are totally random. You may get a legendary you didn’t even have in your collection (or a bunch of Arcadias, if the RNG gods are messing with you). Finally, he can also give Frontline to any troop he plays with his active ability. This is a strong defense for a warlord focused on control.

I could also fill this list with any of the Legion Primarchs, or many of the warlords of Istvaan V and Extermination. There are a lot of good leaders to choose, but I’ve decided to restict myself to the base expansion, Istvaan III. What warlord should you choose, then? The answer is easy. Try them out. Find your playstyle and stick to it. And later change to another you didn’t really like before and give it another try. As you keep enlarging your collection you’ll find an entire galaxy of possibilities. Not to mention the future expansions that will make the warlord roster broader.

The shop is the menu of the left, and it’s one of your possible methods to enlarge your collection. Here you’ll have a way to spend your hard earned currency, and improve your decklist in different ways. Let’s get a look of it.

Right after you open the store, you’re welcomed by a large crate. These, same as the ones you unlock by playing your dailies, have 5 items on them. In these case, the Istvaan III crate, there will be 5 cards inside, and at least one if guaranteed to be rare or better. The cost of these crates is 100 gold, and you’ll get cards from the different legions and the neutrals of each of the expansions:

• The Istvaan III crate: Sons of Horus, Emperor’s Children, World Eaters and Death Guard.
• The Istvaan V crate: Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard.
• The Extermination crate: Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Night Lords.

There is also a cosmetic crate, with cardbacks, voicelines, warcries and badges from any of the previous legions, and at least two of them are guaranteed to be rare. Overall, the average epic drop rate is one every 5 crates, and goes up to one every 20 crates for legendaries. Stil, for those REALLY unlucky there is a pity counter of 30 crates, meaning you will always find a legendary in time.

At the left you can find the single card store. This is where you can find those rare cards that seem to be avoiding your crates enterely. Instead of gold, they’re bought with gems, the second currency used in the game. As you can see, commons go for 20 gems, rares for 100, epics for 400 and legendaries for 1600. As I said before, you get gems for each extra card you already had, meaning there is overall a 1-4 exchange ratio in the store, going for 1-5 with rares.

There is also another full rooster of cards for those with the “Veteran” status. You get promoted to veteran by login in daily for a full week, and a star is portrayed near your name. You can also pay for it with a weekly fee, along with other benefits such as gold and tickets. Those can be explroed in the Star icon at the right.

As for the last of the left side tabs, you may encounter the cosmetic store. Same as cards, you can acquire here missing voice lines, cardbacks, badges… Whatever floats your boat.

On the right, you may find the currency stores, where you may buy tickets and gold. But also, there is the “Daily Deals” section. There you can find Legion and Neutral specific crates, with 5 cards exclusively of the portrayed faction. Those specific crates go up to 200 gold, so you’re potentially missing 5 additional cards, but later in game when you’re looking for very specific cards to fill the gaps on your collection, they will be very usuefull. The faction changes daily, so keep it in mind if you are waiting for anything you want.

Besides of these crates, in the Daily Deals you can also buy premade decks. Those usually go along with a nice cardback, and you can easily check their contents by clicking on them without buying them.

Lodges are the cooperative part of the game. Formed by players all over the world, you can fight alongside your brothers and sisters, getting to know them and compete besides them against other rival Lodges. By joining or creating a lodge you’ll be able to talk with other members in a private chat, check on your progress and share strategies of the game. Also, Lodges are usually active in the Discord Server, with individual channels and a lot of content and fun. You can join up to be part of one of the most caring and kind communities in CCG.

In the Lodge tab you can also find the global chat, with people outside the Lodge talking and looking for players willing to duel.

The event is the alternative game mode of Horus Heresy: Legions. During the span of two weeks, a classic battle of the Heresy or the Great Crusade will be displayed, allowing you to decide the fate of the campaign, being it for the Loyalist or the Traitors.

You can join this battle with Tickets you can obtain playing. Each Daily Mission crate has a ticket, and you get an additional one by staying in the Vip subscription. Also, you can buy them from the shop. If you feel like betting hard for yourself, you can play with 10 tickets at once, multiplying with it the rewards obtained.

The event is based not on your collection, but on loaner decks. Once you start an event run, you’re offered four different warlords. Those are chosen randomly between a larger pool, and changes based on the event. In this example, we will pick Abaddon.

After that, we get to choose a loaner deck we want to play. Each warlord has 4 different decks, and we are offered 3 of them. As you keep playing events, you’ll realize which cards you want to get for the runs. Usually, the decks are balance, and you’ll have to decide the one you’ll use by your playstyle. Now, I’ll pick Urban Warfare. It contains Vengeful Spirit and Serghar Targost, two of the best SoH legendary cards, and also has enough direct damage and fast troops to burst down the opponents before they can react.

Every event run goes up to 12 wins, and every win improves your reward. By default, with no wins, you get a common crate by spending your ticket. The crates improve to blue, green, red and golden, and with each improvement their contents also get boosted. A 12 wins run gives you a golden crate reward, which will give you a guaranteed epic card or better, and has higher chances for legendary cards. But not only that, you’ll also get your ticket back!

Also, you can see the Lodge Points at the right of the screen. Being in a Lodge not only allows you to enjoy the company of your fellow teammates, but you can all share the common objective of fighting your way up to the Event Ladder. There, lodges compete to obtain the most points by accumulating wins, and just by being there you get an extra crate at the end of the event. Those in top 10 get extraordinary benefits like guaranteed legendaries and are able to play the new warlords before anyone else.

This means winning event runs has the greatest income of the game, allowing you to build a collection based only on how good you’re at playing. Once you’re playing, you can be defeated a maximum of three time. If you accumulate three losses before reaching the twelve wins, you’re out, and you’ll receive the reward crate based on how many wins did you reach.

Well, there is quite a lot of content I’ve left out of this guide. There are currently 10 Legions, each one with their own themed abilities, plus the four neutral factions. Each one of them could have been granted a chapter, but I’d rather stick to the most basic knoledge need to play the game. At first you’ll find it a bit complicated, with all the stuff you may need to know, and it’s possible you don’t quite get how does a card work until you try it by yourself.

My advice for you is to read every card. You have time, the turn doesn’t end up that quickly, and the opponent can wait for you. Also, don’t be shy to comment up if you feel there is something you may wanna know and I didn’t post it here. I’m here to help people enjoy this game as much as I do.

Finally, if you feel this guide could be improved somehow, or you find my grammar hideous, or even if you consider I went too deep in very simple issues, I’ll be honored to recieve your suggestion and constructive criticism.

Goodbye, and enjoy the amazing universe of the Horus Heresy: Legions.