Legions Imperialis – Mustering the Imperial Fists

I did an initial draft of the theme of my Epic scale Imperial Fists, long before the rules of Legions Imperialis (or even the game itself) were announced. And now with access to the various formations and detachments, I want to create a proper scope for this project.

Initially, they are meant to be Defenders of Terra, the Imperial Fists forces of the Third Sphere. We made an example army list, using the content of the starter boxes and first wave. This is somewhat limited, but gave us around 2.000 points to work with.

The access to the Sicarans, Predators and Kratos will give us the option to use a proper armoured company, as well as solid transports within a Demi-Company using the Rhinos.There is a lot of infantry, that I won't use, as I don't feel like Mk VI being the proper choice to represent an Imperial Fists army, but more on that further below. As the rulebook for Legions Imperialis doesn't provide that much content on the individual legions (and far less for the Solar Auxilia), I grabbed a few of the 30k ressources that I have at hand, and kind of "scrapbooked" the image of the Imperial Fists army that I would like to build.

The core rulebook for the Age of Darkness, Horus Heresy 2nd edition, gives you a good starting point to navigate yourself, what the rough idea might be. And from there, after you chose your allegiance / legion, you can for example grab the Liber Astartes, for more, indepth information. And of course, as far as you can get hold of them, the black books from the first edition, provide additional information - in my case Book 3 Extermination, as it contains the Imperial Fists.

During the Horus Heresy the Imperial Fist counted 100.000 combatants, far more than the 1.000 a chapter in the grim dark future consists of. Causing a less uniform design across the companies. Beside the armour, which went to pretty much full Primaris in 40k, in the 30k Imperial Fists armies black is a much more often used contrast colour. One of the companies who used it a lot, where those who would become the Black Templars in the second founding.

I did some "moodboards", collecting various images from the books, for me as an orientation for example while painting. I did that with my Legio Astraman, to get an idea how to apply the colours on the models (which was in case of the titans usefull, as I wasn't aware which parts would show the colours of the Coat of Arms, which would be metal and so on). But in case of the Imperial Fists it made pretty clear, that Mark VI wouldn't be a proper choice to this project, and I will use 3d printing to replace the infantry.

Mark III is very dominant among the Imperial Fists, with Mark II and IV for Veterans and certain units like the Phalanx Warden or Templar Brethren. With the formations currently available, I would like to build one Demi-Company around regular Mk III tactical detachments with support of heavy weapons, and a second one using the breacher units, with shields and the support of plasma legionaries.

The Vanguard slots cover mostly fast assault units like Jet Bikes, and we don't have veterans beside terminators yet. I would like to add a Garrison force, for the more elite warriors of my army. Using the black painted armour. This would even give me the option to paint up some very elite Terminators, like the Huscarls. And while I could use regular command bases for these three formations, I would go with Fafnir Rann for the Breacher-themed Demi-Company, have the regular Demi-Company under the command of Sigismund, and the veteran Garrison-formation lead by none other than Rogal Dorn, who we will maybe see somewhere down the road as a resin kit by Forge World.

With the options for Dreadnoughts, expanded in the Astartes Support Formation, I will have access to a lot of siege equipment, that I can add to these as well. Once again picking up the perfect theme for Imperial Fists.

The transport detachments have expanded, as we not only have Spartans and Land Raiders. But I would like to use the Caestus Assault Rams for my Breachers, Spartans for the Terminators, and Land Raiders in favour of Kratos (in direct comparison I simply like them more). And as Knights and Titans will be part of the confrontation, we will need some super-heavy support, and as I saw this Falchion in the Horus Heresy Modelling Masterclass, I am in certain need of these, along with Typhon and Cerberus class tanks.

But Dennis, I don't see any assault troops, bikes and such in this vision of yours. Yes, that is right. While there were obviously among the 100k Sons of Dorn, those who rode bikes into battle, I would like to make use of the mixed legion armies for various reasons:

• It is a perfect excuse to paint something not in yellow
• Simply from the point of themed army, those units fit better with other Legiones Astartes
• I wanted to have smaller allied contingents (on both sides, the Cthonian Headhunters will make use of this as well) for the armies, as the scale of Legions Imperialis makes this far mor plausible than the full scale of Horus Heresy.

Who are fitting Allies of the Imperial Fists? The four Sworn Brothers are the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Salamanders. And among those the Space Wolves and Blood Angels would probably be a good fit, for taking care of the assault units, there are more true to the lore options. During the Siege of Terra, the Imperial Fists defended the emperors palace side by side with the Blood Angels and White Scars, even if the later are just Distrusted Allies. But after listening to the Deliverance Lost audiobook, I thought a formation of Raven Guard ("just" Fellow Warriors) could be a plausible choice for this, and would certainly look great on the new units of the Legion Fast Attack boxed set. Anyhow, the White Scars made the cut for lore reasons.

With the release of Siege of Cthonia, we even have a very exotic addition for Allies - loyalist Thousand Sons, along with Inductii. But that is something for further down the road, as we don't have units for those, yet would give me an interesting option to cover more armour marks (Mark IV and Tartaros for Thousand Sons, Mk VI for Inductii Imperial Fists).

This is just the Astartes part of this project, but what about the non-Transhuman allies?

Currently available are the Solar Auxilia, which can be used among the 30% treshhold for allies. I covered the few known Cohorts of the Solar Auxilia in this article and build a sample army. As Rogal Dorn was issued the order to defend Terra, you would have absolute no problem using various cohorts from the Segmentum Solar as allies for the Imperial Fists, among those for example the Saturnyne Rams (Who would make a great Traitor Auxilia for the Alpha Legions as well). And in the lore are further noted, like the 789th "Ice Bears" Solar Auxilia Cohort from the Imperial Fists homeplanet of Inwit. Another fitting ally to fill this slot.

But as I already have Solar Auxilia, yet as traitors, with the Cthonian Headhunters (and their Astartes support of Sons of Horus), I want to go with the Imperial Army. We don't have rules for them so far, so this has to be post-poned. With the Imperial Fists there would be reasonable design choices, for example with the Iceplanet of Inwit, something in the aesthetics of the Valhallans would be fitting, or picking up the siege theme, Death Korps or Steel Legion. But as said, we don't have rules for them - yet. So we will have to wait until that is the case or use the Solar Auxilia lists in the meantime. With the tanks and non-specific rules, this should be a viable option in the meantime.

We have the Mechanicum as a faction from the supplements. I don't think they are a fitting ally for the Imperial Fists, but surely for the Warmaster. So these will be Dark Mechanicum allies of the Cthonian traitors. As for Custodes, those would be fitting for Imperial Fists, but I think they are very elite and I would rather use them as mission objectives or certain scenarios.

As for Titan Legions and Knight Households. The major Titan Legions the Imperial Fists fought with, are the Legio Astorum, Gryphonicus and Ignatum. I did an overview for the Loyalists on here. Less known are the Legio Invigilata, during the Siege of Terra. As well as the Knight Households Hermetika and Megron. Of course, you could create allies per proxy, for example if the Imperial Fists with Knight Household A or Solar Auxilia B, all allied Legios of that Household or Cohort would be viable per lore (limited due conflicts maybe).

I however went with Legio Astraman in 2021, due to rule of cool, and I liked the colours. But my efforts were retcon'd with the Siege of Cthonia supplement, and now the Legio Astraman supplied 18 titans to the Imperial Fists lead garrison forces on Cthonia. I haven't looked that deep into this supplement, but it provides a lot of content for this army project, with suggesting Allies (for example stating Solar Auxilia and Imperial Army regiments, and further would have confirmed my idea of Raven Guard as allies) and characters. But it would make for a great campaign weekend!

The Legio Astraman is still growing, as I have a Warbringer, a Warmaster, a Psi-Titan, an additional Reaver, two Warhounds and a Dire Wolf in the works.

As for the Knight Household, I intend to go with House Moritain. Not part of the Siege of Cthonia, but an allied household to Legio Astraman. They have strong Baratheon vibes, but I intend to go with a variant of their narrative, swapping the Stag for a Wolf and using Space Wolves decals and insignia on the models, along with moving the colour scheme closer to the old colours of the 2nd edition. And I managed to achieve that.

So, that is the idea for the Imperial Fists and will be added / modified over the release of the supplements and availability of new units and products.