Alert – GW let slip the Warhammer The Horus Heresy Saturnine release date!

Wargamer confidently predicts that the Warhammer: The Horus Heresy Saturnine release date will be July 26. A recent Warhammer Community article sets out a roadmap for free downloadable rules PDFs for the Horus Heresy third edition, which starts in July – and, given everything we know about how GW markets this kind of product, this means the only possible date Saturnine can release on will be July 26.

For major releases – and Warhammer: The Horus Heresy third edition is a seriously major release – GW allows a two week pre-order window. It also announces that window one week in advance, on a Sunday. So if Saturnine releases in July, pre-orders must be announced on Sunday 6, the two week pre-order window must open on Saturday 12, and the set will be in gamers’ hands by Saturday 26, the last Saturday in the month.

GW revealed the roadmap for digital downloads in a WarCom post on Wednesday – we’ve reproduced it below. The releases will be the Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF, and the Talons of the Emperor Army List, both of which will be available in July.

The article explicitly states that the Talons of the Emperor PDF will be provided “at launch” for third edition – hence our confidence that the book will release in July. It is conceivable that there is an error in the roadmap graphic, but GW is usually pretty quick to correct that kind of oversight. We’ll find out this Sunday if we’re right!

The article goes into more detail about when and how army lists will be available for the various Horus Heresy factions. At launch, the following hardback Liber army books will be available:

• Liber Astartes – Loyalist Space Marine Legions.
• Liber Heresticus – Traitor Space Marine Legions.
• Liber Axuilia – the Solar Auxilia.
• Liber Mechanicum – the progenitors of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Dark Mechanicum.
• Liber Questoris – Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights, and Warhammer Titans.

The Talons of the Emperor (Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Silence) will get a full rules PDF when Saturnine launches. This will be superceded by a Liber army book at some point later. When the Mechanicum and the Solar Auxilia got their second edition Liber books they also received a whole range of plastic miniatures: GW has already hinted at one new model for the Talons, and it seems very likely that the rest of their range will be upgraded.

The Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF will contain rules for units that either never had models, or for which models are out of production. The WarCom article states that “the current plan is that all official Warhammer-run events will allow legacy units”.

There will be more PDF releases to come:

• August – Militia Imperialis Army List (low-grade troops and cultists).
• September – Daemons of the Ruinstorm Army List, Legion Inductii Rules (rushed Space Marine converts used to replace losses).
• October – Blackshields Army List (renegade Space Marines loyal to neither throne nor Warmaster), Shattered Legions (forces made from the survivors of several legions).
• November – Zone Mortalise rules (close quarter battles in bunkers, space ships, and dense hive cities).

GW also mentioned the new Journal Tactica series. These are 48 page softback expansions that will focus on a single part of the Horus Heresy, and come with “new lore and missions” and sometimes “a small number of new units to add to your games”. The first book will focus on the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre and will release alongside Saturnine.

Are you hyped? I’m hyped. Come and share your hype in the official Wargamer Discord community – why not post your Legion in our dedicated army gallery, or chat lore in the Warhammer channel?

My thoughts on Horus Heresy third edition have evolved as GW has revealed more of the rules: cautiously optimistic when I first learned about new systems, concerned and apprehensive when the new army building rules came out, and finally completely converted once the rules for individual Legions began to emerge.

Want to catch up on the lore? Check out Wargamer’s guide to the Horus Heresy books.