Horus Heresy – Solar Auxilia Battle Group

Games Workshop is moving the Horus Heresy past the strong focus on only the Astartes. We already have plastic Solar Auxilia in Legions Imperialis, but now they are available in the full scale of the Age of Darkness as well. And similar with the updated Astartes range, we start with a Solar Auxilia Battlegroup covering various elements from the army list, including infantry and multiple (!) vehicles.

For 130 GBP / 170 EUR RRP the Solar Auxilia Battle Group covers all new plastic kits for:

• 25x Solar Auxilia Infantry (1x Line Command Section and up to 2 Rifle Sections)
• 1x Aethon Pattern Heavy Sentinel
• 1x Leman Russ Battle Tank
• 1x Dracosan Armoured Transport

Quite the load-out and a proper competitor for the Legion Astartes Battlegroup, with the Mk 3 Power Armour Marines, Dreadnought and Land Raider.While the box is rather flat, it is heavy and packed to the top. You take the lid off and see a lot of grey sprues and a full sized, multi-coloured booklet covering the instructions. On the sides of the box are painted examples of the new Solar Auxilia Infantry shown, in the colours of the Bormanite Devils.

Beside the sprues and instructions you get the bases for the 28 miniatures (25x 25mm round bases and 1x 80mm round base for the Aethon Sentinel, the Leman Russ and Dracosan don't need bases) along with two different decals sheets, for infantry and vehicles.

The instructions cover all the units in this box, including transparant overviews on the options and variants. As the Aethon Heavy Sentinel is a new unit and not part of the army list in the Liber Imperium, they added the data sheet in the assembly instructions. The rules will be part of the next campaign supplement The Battle for Beta-Garmon (this is about The Great Slaughter, but not to be confused with the campaign supplements for Legions Imperialis or Adeptus Titanicus Titan-Death).

And as you can see, quite the pile of different sized sprues.

The Aethon Heavy Sentinel is spread across two mid-sized sprues, including the variants for the weapons, and uses the 80mm round base that is included in this set. As the main sprue covering the legs and body is split in the middle, it might be a modular mould, sharing parts with the Hermes Light Sentinel.

As for the new Solar Auxilia Infantry sprues, there is a main sprue, similar to the Legiones Astartes covering five soldiers per sprue, and as such there are 5 of these in there to cover all the bits and pieces needed for the rifle section, along with a small upgrade sprue, with various options for the command sections).

The main battle tank in this battle group is the Leman Russ Strike Tank. The Leman Russ will be available in two variants, covering different weapon systems, with the Strike Tank they are a battle cannon, a vanquisher cannon, a gravis lascannon, or a gravis Autocannon, in case of the Assault Tank they are a massive demolisher cannon or a volkite macro-saker.

The Leman Russ are build from five sprues, two for the chassis, one for the turret, one small one for the hull weapons and an update vehicle upgrade sprue with distinctive Solar Auxilia options and design features. These sprues will provide the base for further full plastic variants of the Leman Russ Chassis, like the Medusa or Basilisk.

Based upon the Malcador chassis, the Dracosan Armoured Transport, is a huge vehicle which can bring even the largest units of the Solar Auxilia onto battle. It is build from five sprues as well, two medium-szeid for the chassis, a medium and small one for the Dracosan options (mostly enlarged hull along with he hull weaponry) and the vehicle upgrade sprue shown below.

The first two sprues are shared with the upcoming Malcador Battle Tank, and it is rather likely, that we will see further variants on that kit like the Valdor or Infernus be released in full plastic as well. And maybe, if we're really lucky even the Minotaur.

This sprue is included twice, to complete the build of the Leman Russ and Dracosan. The new Solar Auxilia Vehicle Upgrade Sprue, updated design with new options and variants of existing add-ons, this covers among other items the dozer blade, the crew men and pintle mounted weaponry.

We will cover the various units and models from this battle group in individual reviews, to give you a deeper insight on what you can build from these sprues and what to expect.

Conclusion

At 130 GBP / 170 EUR this is a reasonable entry point with a solid amount of saving. We don't have any individual prices yet, but if we compare them to similar sized units from the existing range, the 20 miniatures Rifle Section is probably 60 EURs like the Astartes boxed sets, the Dracosan Armoured Transport at 70 EUR like the Land Raider kit, the Aethon Sentinel, which is likely being 35 EUR like the updated 40k Sentinel box and the Leman Russ at the 55 EUR mark similar to the Predator tanks. That's already 220 EUR and quite a bit more than the RRP of the battle group, not counting in the Command Section of the Solar Auxilia.

For comparison the Astartes Battlegroup covers 245 EUR RRP of individual boxes at a discounted price of 170 EUR. And just like that battle group, this once again is a very solid starting point for a 30k army project, with the addition due to the mass of the Solar Auxilia makes quite sense to be bought multiple time.

As mentioned above, detailed reviews of the items will be posted on this blog.

Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.