Friday, September 19, 2014

Horus Heresy Review: Garviel Loken

Ascending to the Mournival - Horus' closest advisors that included Abaddon - in the latter parts of the Great Crusade, Loken is not only a character of note, but arguably one of the prime characters in the first three Horus Hersey novels produced by the Black Library (Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames).

Loken, naturally, is a loyalist who holds himself to the highest standards of the Luna Wolves of old. In the Isstvan III campaign, he can only be selected by the Loyalist side, and is noted for having led the loyalist Sons of Horus to take a bloody toll out of his former brethren for their traitorous actions.

His rules and statistics are interesting, with I=6, he's going to be attacking first quite frequently (one would hope), and the paragon blade should be doing some damage to enemy troops. Although he is in standard power armour, he does have an iron halo to help keep him alive.

Speaking of keeping alive, the unique rule that Loken has is the "Born Survivor" rule. Basically, he has a 5 in 6 chance of ignoring the first death caused to him in a single game. This ties in very nicely with his survival exploits in the black library serialisation and is a great characterisation in my opinion.

Other than that, he is a Master of the Legion and can function in the same manner as a praetor by being able to deploy certain rites of war should he choose.

I regard him as a characterful HQ selection. He's not a specialist in the same way as Abaddon (i.e. terminator assault), but rather, he is a troopers trooper. Take him with a large mob and get stuck in to the enemy. He won't be disappointing, but equally he is cheaper than Horus or Abaddon, but slighter pricier than a praetor but without the artificer armour. I actually think a praetor is probably more bang for the price tag. But Loken will survive longer in all probability. So there are pros and cons here. 

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