Horus Heresy – Building the Solar Auxilia Battle Group
Here we are, I did the reviews on the contents of the Solar Auxilia Battle Group as you have seen, and now used some of the spare hobby time to assemble the remaining miniatures.
It is a bit bland, as there are some issues with the assembly instructions and limitation of options. You simply build them as they come, so I finished up the remaining regular rank & file troops, along with a second trio for the command, so I can use them as two sections (and will probably need some spares in case I want to play them as larger units).
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.
Horus Heresy – Solar Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel
With the Aethon Heavy Sentinel an entire new unit comes to the army list of the Solar Auxilia with the release of the new Solar Auxilia Battlegroup. We've seen this unit already with Legions Imperialis, where it is part of both, the starter set as well as the Solar Auxilia Infantry boxed set.
The Aethon is a heavy variant of the regular sentinel class bi-pod walkers and will later be accompanied by further lighters variants, like the Hermes Light Sentinel, including the up-armoured Veletarii variant.
Horus Heresy – Solar Auxilia Dracosan Armoured Transporter
While we had Leman Russ chassis for quite some time and even in the prior edition of Horus Heresy hybrid kits using the plastics with resin parts, the full resin kits based upon the Malcador chassis are getting replaced by complete plastic kit and various variants right from the start. One of these Malcador based vehicles is the Dracosan Armoured Transporter, which we will covered in today's review as part of the Solar Auxilia Battle Group.
The bulky transport can carry up to 22 models, depending on the weapon configuration, and drops down to 10 when you choose the demolisher cannon. There is a smaller alternative for the Solar Auxilia for transport, roughly Rhino sized, the Aurox, but that one has lighter armour and wasn't announced so far to be moved from resin to plastic.
Horus Heresy – Solar Auxilia Lasrifle Section Infantry
A completely new release and new design is the Solar Auxilia Infantry from plastic. They are part of the Solar Auxilia Battle Group with a Lasrifle Section (either a single big one of 20, or two of 10 each) and Tactical Command Section covering 5 soldiers.
We covered a bit of introduction on the Solar Auxilia in our article about them in Legions Imperialis. Among the endless regiments and battalions of the Imperial Forces, mostly known as the Imperial Army (that's how the Guard was called during the Horus Heresy), the Solar Auxilia were among the most elite and well-equipped fighting forces of mankind, second only to the Legiones Astartes.
The lore on these is a bit light yet, as even in the first edition of the Horus Heresy, they are covered in only two books and in the new edition they share a complete book with the Sisters of Silence and Adeptus Custodes, without going deeper or providing information on the lore beyond Manachean Commonwealth, with minor side notes on the Cthonian Headhunters and Agathon Cohort.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Legions Imperialis – Point values of the 1st wave
As this question was asked more often, a quick overview, where you land with the items from the first wave.
A few things up front
- No, the starter set can not be combined into one large legal army as they Primary and Ally army split is 70/30 of points. There is a special formation for quick starter games, that is not meant for matched play.
- You can mix multiple Astartes Legions into one army, as they don't count into the allied contingent if your primary list is Astartes
- The 30% allied contingent count against anything that is not your primary army list. The Aeronautica units of your primary army are usually air support and don't count against the allied contingent.
Legions Imperialis – Mustering the Solar Auxilia
We showed you how the army building in Legions Imperialis works with the example of an Astartes army. And we want to pick up the idea and build and extend the other half of the starter kit, the Solar Auxilia.
The four steps are the same:
- Declare Allegiance
- Choose Primary Army List
- Assemble Compulsory Formations
- Complete the Army
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