In a shocking turn of events we have a Sons of Horus character who isn’t just about breaking face in melee, Maloghurst is another Cthonian ganger, turned astartes, having been a part of the Luna Wolves before Horus had them renamed to the Sons of Horus, Maloghurst was unusual for a Sons of Horus Warrior, cunning, secretive and generally disliked by his brothers as they saw him as untrusthworthy, eventually being promoted to Equerry after his stormbird crashed during a negotation, leaving him horribly disfigured and earing him the nickname “The twisted” as he was both cruel and unable to fight on the frontlines anymore, Maloghurst took this in his stride and began to work as Horus’s master of spies and chief of his secret police, his name becoming synonymous with vanishing under mysterious circumstances and high level espionage, eventually embracing chaos and becoming a potent sorcerer in his own right.
This translates in game to Maloghurst having several rules to dissuade you from throwing him into a head to head fight, and focusing more on scoring and command duties.
Maloghurst has the typical officer level character stats, weapon skill 5, strength and toughness 4, 4 wounds but only movement 6 even though he is in power armor, this means his bodyguards will have to slow down to keep up with him, or just don cataphractii armor to keep Maloghurst safe. Weapons wise he comes with a power sword and banestrike bolter. For the love of god don’t let him fight in a challenge against anyone stronger than maybe a legate marshal in the solar auxilia, he will loose and it will be sad. He can escape challenges by using his “broken in body” rule, which allows his controlling player to just make him non eligible to fight in a challenge, presumably because he got worn out trying to keep up with the young whippersnappers in the rest of his unit, I would suggest giving him a bodyguard with either another consul who will happily fight in that challenge like a champion or librarian, or master sargeant / martial supremacy as the prime benefit so one of the regular squaddies can fight and hopefully not die
So far this sounds like a lot of negatives for a 140 point consul, he costs almost the same as a praetor and doesn’t hit half as hard, what’s his deal? The deal is all in his walking stick, or as it is actually called the “icon of the warmaster”. In short he is allowed to increase either the line or vanguard value of his unit by one. This is insane to put it lightly, combined with his good mental stats of 10/9/9/10 maloghurst is a stand out for three units in my mind, tactical squads, veteran tactical squads and the justaerin. With tacticals they become line 3, highest in the game without using some debatably legal solar auxilia jank. This means his tactical squad will be scoring 3 VP + whatever the objective they’re parked on is worth, overall I would just let him crash on your home objective as for 140 points scoring 3-4 extra VP is huge, veteran tactical marines are the same thought process but should be used more offensively with banestrike bolters, going from line 1 to 2 is huge. Lastly there is the justaerin who will become vanguard 5. This is really swingy but really fun, being able to possibly score 5-15 victory points a turn is hilarious if you run a big enough unit in a spartan, its technically less effective than just sitting him on your lawn chair unit in the back but giving maloghurst the chance to kick ass in melee again is too cool not to do.
There is also the honorable mention of pairing him with a master of signals to give a unit maloghurst is in line (2). Is it good? not really but its fun to have a squad of siege termies camp a middle objective with their plasma blasters
Maloghurst has a great miniature from forgeworld, clad in artificer mk2 armour and leaning on his walking stick He’s a great painting project.
Maloghurst turns up frequently throughout the books but not really as a main antagonist or protagonist, mostly a background or side character doing something heinous to the loyalists or furthering the traitor cause.
