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So, I've recently decided to start converting my Guard over to become a 30k force. While my Guard will still retain some Cadian aesthetics (particularly what will become my Veletarii), I intend to do enough conversion work to make them appropriate for Horus Heresy. I also Intend to get the appropriate vehicles (dracosans mainly).

I have a small force of Raven Guard, and I have 3 Knights which I can run as allies to my force of solar auxilia.

I was wondering though, is it worth it to run Catellax Automata, or Thallax Cohorts as my heavy support with the Enginseer Auxilia? I really like the models, and I really like stompy robots (Hence 3 knights).

What I plan to field eventually is this

Command Section
Lord Marshal
Tank Commander

Household Retinue (with Rotor Cannons) w/Arvus

Tercio with 2 dracosans and 2 squads of valetarii
Tercio with a Lasrifle Section and Aegis line

2 Thunderbolts
1 Vanquisher

2 Exterminators(which I may do some conversion on to make them Incinerators)
2 Demolishers

That's all I can really field right now, and it involves a lot of proxying (for now). I was thinking about getting 2 Castellax, to either take independently or as a unit, depending on if/how I field my tanks. Would the Castellax add anything to my army aside from some cool flavor (which, for me, is almost enough reason)?

Out of interest, why Solar Auxilia? Seems like the Cadian models would fit Imperialis Militia much better. Plus, everything you currently have would work in a Militia army.

Solar Auxilia would probably require a fair amount of conversion to be believable...

I like the rules for Solar Auxilia, as well as liking their status as the elite of the Imperial Army. I tend to like elite armies, and Solar Auxilia has access to Volkite Weapons, which I have come to adore. As for the Cadians, The Bulk of my Infantry are actually old kasrkin models, which are wearing fully sealed suits of armor, so treating it as void armor isn't too much of a stretch.

I do plan on modifying the hotshot lasguns into volkite chargers by adding some green stuff and sculpting it to look like the muzzle of a volkite weapon.

The Lasrifle section will be made up of regular plastic cadians. They will just be stand ins, until I can build up some appropriate models (hazard environment cadians probably). Eventually my current Plastic Cadians will become a small allied detachment of imperial militia auxiliaries, which will give me access to some regular ogryn.

I like the Solar Auxilia Leman Russes better, because I like Vanquishers, and the access to BS4 for those vanquishers doesn't exist in the Imperial Militia list. I do still want to be effective in 30k. Also the lack of the Heavy rule for the leman russ tanks allows them to move faster, which is very nice for my way of tactical thinking. It does require some forethought, in that I'll usually end up sacrificing a shooting phase to get my tanks to optimal position, but having an extra 6 inches of movement makes the Russ more tactically flexible.

All in all it's the tactical flexibility and access to Volkite that drew me to the Solar Auxilia over the Imperial Militia. That and their really cool transport, the Dracosan.