Legions Imperialis – The Great Slaughter Preview

Yesterdays pre-order announcement for next saturday went online and gave us a preview on Legions Imperialis. And to be honest, it left us a bit baffled.

In January the Warhammer Community said, we would some of these items, like the Book The Great Slaughter, "later this month", and they didn't even corrected that in the article, only via social media that it would be later this year. But let us see, what will be released. All these items will go on pre-order on February 17th, with a release on March 2nd.

A new campaign supplement, The Great Slaughter, this will add not only a campaign but new units as well, as we've seen some units not included in the core rules in the White Dwarf battle report of the The Garmon Parge last year.

Fight the most brutal battles of the Horus Heresy at epic scale with The Great Slaughter, the first campaign expansion book for Legions Imperialis. Along with a thick narrative section detailing the movements of Loyalist and Heretic forces around the Beta-Garmon campaign, the book includes new Detachment datasheets for both Legiones Astartes and Solar Auxilia armies, rules for fighting battles between entire armies of Titans and Imperial Knights, and a full campaign system for linking games together on the road to the infamous Battle for Nyrcon City.

For the Legiones Astartes the Support boxed set and the Spartan Assault Tanks (box of 4) will be released on March 2nd. Both boxes are 40 EUR each.

This means, we are not only waiting for the individual release of the Sicarans and Predators, but have no sight of the Land Raiders (which I'd assumed be prioritized compared to Spartans), Drop Pods nor the Assault boxes including the various bikes and jetbikes (which will probably be part of The Great Slaughter, as they were used in battle report using the campaign supplement).

As for the Solar Auxilia, the Support boxed set and Malcador variants Infernus and Valdor (box of 4, 2 of each variant) will be released on March 2nd. Both boxes are 40 EUR each.

Arvus in plastic, Dracosan armoured transporter, Medusa and Basilisk were previewed, without dates, but as those were not part of the battle report, we don't know if these (with the exception of the Arvus) are included in campaign supplement. Yet, it is irritating that we see the Malcador variants, before we see Malcador and Leman Russ as individual releases. Especially as the individual boxes of Leman Russ tanks were leaked on eBay a few weeks ago.

No info on the Stormhammer, it is unlikely that it will an upgrade to the Baneblade kit, due to the way the sponsons are cut, but a box of its own.

There will be a card deck with the army cards for this campaign supplement. A combined one for both armies, with 22 cards. For comparison the initial release had two card decks at 24 EURs each, one for Legiones Astartes, one for Solar Auxilia. Those were quickly sold out and we have no info on a reprint. I assume this deck will be 24 EURs as well.

This is a rough start. Legion Imperialis was postponed last year and only released much later. The initial wave was sold out pretty quickly and the only thing you could grab for along time were the Solar Auxilia infantry. I expected a restock before or along the next wave, and am honestly surprised about the product line up for next weeks pre-order, as it would make sense to at least provide the individual sets from the starter (the out-of-stock starter is the only way to get more Predators, Sicarans, Leman Russ or Malcadors at the moment) along with the support and fast attack sets, with the other (new) items coming a few weeks later in a second wave.

And in addition to that, as this is the great slaughter which highly involved titan legions and knight households, I am surprised in addition to that, that we don't see the return of the two battlegroups for knights and titans.

I am aware that there seems to still be issues with the warehouse, but this is really off-putting for people, not only joining the game but keeping up with it, and I really hope they get this back on track.