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2Mar/240

Horus Heresy – Solar Auxilia Leman Russ Strike Tank

One of the work horses of the Imperial forces receives an upgrade and proper variant, to distinguish themself from the other departments of the army - the Solar Auxilia Leman Russ Strike Tank!

This is not update or partial sprue swap of the regular Leman Russ Battle Tank but a complete overhaul with the known trim of the Solar Auxilia vehicles and a proper Mars Alpha pattern hull and new vehicle accessories.

Horus Heresy - Solar Auxilia Leman Russ Strike Tank

Similar to the Malcador chassis, the Leman Russ chassis is used within the Imperium for a lot of different vehicles. You have the Leman Russ himself, as a battle tank, with different weapon systems in turret and hull to provide effective service in certain scenarios, split into the Strike Tank and Assault Tank, but further alterations for example as an Artillery vehicle with the Medusa or Basilisk, prior that these were built upon the chimera chassis. Post heresy further variants were added and many sub-classes of the Leman Russ saw service all across the regiments.

1Mar/240

Marvel Crisis Protocol – Earth’s Mightiest Core Set Heroes and Villains

We gave a first introduction on Earth's Mightiest for Marvel Crisis Protocol and now we want to take a closer look on the miniatures that come with the Core Set.

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Earth's Mightiest Core Set
Within the 149 EUR set, that covers rules, terrain and miniatures, you get two large sprues for the heroes and villains, along with 16 bases (4 large ones, 12 small ones).

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Earth's Mightiest Core Set Heroes and Villains

The models have only minor mould lines and proper crisp casting of the details. The space within the sprue was used in a clever way. Really interesting is the aspect, that parts of the mould were slid-moulds, to reduce the undercuts and make them even more detailed.

29Feb/240

Horus Heresy – Cerastus Knight Acheron and Castigator

For this review, we do a double feature! I did something similar a long, long time ago when the Baneblade kits were released, and I build a Baneblade and a Shadowsword simultaneously. Today we once again have that chance, to such a twin-build with the Cerastus Knight Castigator and Cerastus Knights Acheron.

The Cerastus Knights can be used in Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy alike. For 30k they can be used by traitors and loyal forces, via the Lord of War slot and you can find their rules in the Liber Mechanicum (pg. 80 to 82). In 40k, they can be used again either as Imperial or Chaos forces, and the rules can be downloaded for free from Warhammer Community (Chaos Knights and Imperial Knights).

Horus Heresy - Cerastus Knight Acheron and Castigator

If you are not familiar with this kind of unit. Knights are smaller and less powerful versions of Imperial Titans, piloted by a single Knight commander, called Scion, and not by a crew of Princeps and Moderati. With the knights being much smaller than Warhound Scout Titans, they can only to a limited amount carry titan weapon systems into battle. The Knights were introduced to Epic / Space Marine in UK White Dwarf #126 in June 1990, and a few years later in December of 1994 updated as part of the new editions of this game, Epic Titan Legions. Some of the new classes even derivate from the old names and types. There were Paladins, Lancers and Wardens, and those came back in the current variant as well. In addition, knights had tiers, Squire, Knight and Lord, along with Senechal. Something that was picked up in the latest rules for Warhammer 40,000 to a degree.

28Feb/240

Marvel Crisis Protocol – Earth’s Mightiest Core Set

We talked about Super Heroes on the tabletop last year, and now it is time to take a closer look on one of the largest Super Hero miniature games there is - Marvel Crisis Protocol. Asmodee picked up the Marvel license, and within their group Atomic Mass Games is in charge of the super hero skirmish.

Asmodee - Marvel Crisis Protocol Asmodee - Marvel Crisis Protocol

While there were several attempts to bring fighting super heroes to the tabletop, this is one is probably the most professional approach and the one most speaking to classic tabletop wargamers, who at least enjoy multiple pillars of the hobby, as it is not some kind blind bags with pre-painted miniatures.

26Feb/240

Horus Heresy – Preview on the Solar Auxilia

During the Las Vegas Open Air Games Workshop previewed the release of the Solar Auxilia in plastic - in full scale! We had the chance to toy around with them in the Legions Imperialis scale, and I wrote an introduction on mustering the Solar Auxilia.

The new plastics are up against some pretty well done older models, as the resin models are dynamic and you have a lot of different poses (with no doubles, from my understanding), so it is going to be interesting to see, which options the new plastics will cover. But certainly, they will make it more accessible, as the price for an army that uses (or at least can use) such a huge number of infantry will come down. Regarding the Veletari, I am not sure how big the impact will be there, as the previewed set, does not show the axes and they might be a Forge World upgrade, as we saw with the Astartes in some cases and that stacked up the price quite a bit.

Warhammer Horus Heresy - Solar Auxilia Las Rifle Tercio Warhammer Horus Heresy - Solar Auxilia Veletaris

17Feb/240

Legions Imperialis – Solar Auxilia Support

The Solar Auxilia Support adds various Bastion detachments to the army, and is the second non-vehicle box after the Solar Auxilia Infantry kit.

Legions Imperialis - Solar Auxilia Support Legions Imperialis - Solar Auxilia Support

This is your typical side-game boxed set, with two identical sprues and a price band of 40 EURs / 30 GBP RRP. In case of the Solar Auxilia Support you receive 40 miniatures / 28 bases (as Games Workshop counts the crew member individually) for your army.

17Feb/240

Legions Imperialis – Legiones Astartes Support

One of the four boxes that goes on pre-order today is the Legiones Astartes Support, covering Dreadnoughts and guns for the Legiones Astartes to support your Astartes Infantry from the initial release.

Legions Imperialis - Legiones Astartes Support Legions Imperialis - Legiones Astartes Support

As usual these kits comes with two identical sprues and have a price band of 40 EURs / 30 GBP RRP, giving you a total of 16 bases with miniatures split into various units / detachments (the statement of 24 miniatures in this box counts the crew men as individual miniatures adding 8 more models to the 16 bases).

12Feb/240

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.

Horus Heresy Legions Imperialis - The Great Slaughter

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.

10Feb/240

Horus Heresy – Novels and Audiobook Order

The Horus Heresy range is supported by an incredibly rich narrative, which grew since the release of the first book in April 2006 by Dan Abnett to an amazing depth. I read the first few books as paperbacks and switched at some point towards the audiobooks, as they are easier for me to consume, for example while I commute or on (business) travel.

Warhammer The Horus Heresy - The End and The Death Volume III

The audio books were released in 2011 ongoing, and are available through a lot of different services. You can buy them directly from Black Library, but other sources like audible or spotify have them as well. As of February 2024 I am currently on book 20, The Primarchs, listening to it in German (quite well read by Tom Jacobs) on Spotify, I have multiple problems, for example the audiobooks are not divided into proper tracks but just 3 minute segments, regardless of chapter etc., and if you switch between your car, the web and mobile app, they often "forget" (or better said don't save) where you left off with the addition of not guiding properly to the next book. For that reason I ended up looking up the order of the Horus Heresy novels / audiobooks multiple times and to save me (and others) time the next few times that happens, this is article is meant as a list to provide a time saving overview. While it may look a bit redundant in English, the added value is the German translation as due to changing publishers some book titles have been changed (and swapped) causing a bit of trouble keeping track.

6Feb/240

Warhammer 40,000 – Dark Angels Grand Master of the Deathwing Belial

Last year Supreme Grand Master Azrael got the Primaris update and Lion El'Jonson returned to the 40th millenium as well. This year with the new Dark Angels codex and a fitting Deathwing themed box, Deathwing Assault, the Grand Master of the Deathwing, Belial returns with an updated model.

The old model was released in 2013 as a finecast (a spin cast resin used by Games Workshop to substitute metal, when the raw material gow more expensive and the updated their process in production) kit and among the taller heroes when it was released. Now it is time for another increase in size, to fit with the new larger Indomitus Terminators.

Warhammer 40,000 - Grand Master of the Deathwing Belial