Legions Imperialis – Legiones Astartes Rhino Transport Detachment

One of the first plastic vehicles for Rogue Trader back in the late 80s and now among the first wave models for the Legiones Astartes - the Rhino Transport Detachment.

As usual, as double sprue pack with identical sprues, covering a total of 10 (!) armoured personal carriers, at a RRP of 40 EUR / 30 GBP.

Like the other vehicle kits, the Rhino comes with a decal sheet. This one is much larger than the decal sheet from the core set and covers iconography for all 18 legions, along with numbers and honour markings. A bit of a downer is the aspect, that the entire sheet is black and white and not full coloured. I would recommend looking into the large decal sheets from the 30k range, as the amount of shoulder icons and so on, will easily cover your army project in Legions Imperialis. I got myself the large sheet last year when the 2nd edition of Horus Heresy was released for my Imperial Fists.

The sprue is properly packed. Good details and minor mould lines, and with 5 chassis per sprue this is really a lot to work with.

As we are in the 30th millenium, we have the Deimos pattern Rhino in front of us. This one goes back to the classic Rogue Trader design of the Imperial Rhino (RTB04) from July 1988 (!). It picks up the round side doors and double armour plates in the front. The Mars Pattern Rhino (Rhino Mk IIc) was released within the 3rd edition of Warhammer 40k and provided then the basic chassis for full plastic kits (compared to the hybrid kits we had with the RTB04 kits, with plastic hull but metal turrets etc.). Forge World released a hybrid kit, where you would use the new Mk IIc plastic as a core, with resin side walls to recreate the Deimos pattern, with the release of the 2nd edition of Horus Heresy, we got full plastic Deimos Rhinos.

The chassis for the Rhino are all the same, you get five per sprue and they are quickly build - until you have to attach the exhaust pipes. Of which there are 40 (10 rhinos, 4 pipes, a lot of cleaning mould lines).

The optional parts on this are the hedge row cutter along with the various variants of the cupolas. With a single or double bolt gun, missile launcher or the pintle mounted weaponry.

If you cut down the pin on the bottom, you can use the cupolas from the Kratos, Predator or other Astartes vehicles, to provide a bit more variation.

To give a comparison of the new and the old scale, here are Rhino next to their predecessors. Along with a comparison of the currently available Space Marine vehicles.

And a few Rhinos as a showcase. I don't have a Deimos Rhino in full scale at hand, otherwise I would have provided a comparison picture. But let me assure you, it is 400% bigger than the ones below. I have to say, I am quite tempted to recreate something like below, which I have even seen in nature, at my first visit to Warhammer World.

Conclusion

This one is a banger! 10 Models for 40 EUR is surely a proper deal and you have some variation in there. They really used the space they had per sprue. And in combination with the infantry kit, this really would give you the option to build entire chapters of Astartes legions. Beyond that, you will probably be covered with 2 boxes of these for most army lists, unless you go for something really infantry heavy. And beyond, we will see further transport options for the Astartes. Currently available is the Thunderhawk, which can transport up to 8 bases (compared to the 2 per Rhino) and Storm Eagle with 5, but we haven't seen the rules for Land Raider Carriers, Spartans and the Mastodon. But I assume that these will be 2 bases per Land Raider, 4 for the Spartans and probably 8 for the Mastodon (as derived from their 30k / Horus Heresy capacities).

As the Rhino is the basis chassis for a lot of the Astartes vehicles, and we now know that we got 10 "basic" Rhinos in a box, and 6 Predators, I assume that vehicles like the Vindicator or Scorpius / Whirlwind will probably be around 8 models per box, as you don't have sponsons and "only" the turrets to fit into the sprue.

If you are not satisfied with the decals included, the 30k range covers generic decal sets from the infantry and vehicles, as well as reprints of the original Forge World ones, who are more detailled. For a lot of the vehicles the regular shoulder pad insignia should fit.

The Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.