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What is the feeling about the upcoming SA release?
I'm looking forward to hopefully putting a decent force out in an upcoming campaign our group is planning for a few months time.
Here's hoping they release these better than the drip feed for LI.

If I didn't already have a metric tonne of Militia I'd be interested but I'm happy that HH is becoming more accessible as we move forward, especially for the non-Legion forces.

 Gert wrote:
If I didn't already have a metric tonne of Militia I'd be interested but I'm happy that HH is becoming more accessible as we move forward, especially for the non-Legion forces.

I also have a lot of Militia in various stages of completion, and buying a bunch of SA kits would likely be a fatal to that project. I want the Dracosan because it looks cool, but the main focus for me is the Malcador, which I intend to add to my Militia (when it eventually appears). So hopefully I won't succumb and place an order for the SA box. Hopefully...

Really liking the incoming SA. Glad to see that were so faithfully recreated in plastic.

Were it not for the fact that I've not made any headway on my current 1st Legion force in months, or that I've got my own ideas for a SA regiment i'd like to try out, I'd happily hop into a battlegroup box. 2 probably were I able to afford it.
Still... those wee babby sentinals might just be the nudge I need to do it anyway...

It's great, but I too already committed to a massive Militia force.

I Love the look but to me the issue is SA will be too pricey to actually increase non marine representation nvm rules Systemic issues.

So i'll just Quote myself in regards to the bb.

The problem is the relative part. The 5 inf are the sentinel. (Funnily enough in pts it's even exactly that unless this thing is superior to a normal sentinel with the price in pts too.)

In regards to slots the bb for marines had realistically atleast 2 troopslots filled with ease and extra frills with special weapons. So atleast 2 at maximum all your troop slots.

It had dedicated AA/AT with the deredeo and a proetus.

This box has barely 2 troops. More realistically it has a singular troop since you'd want to take advantage of the tercio rule and even then it's a massivly understrength tercio in a game where ap4 is the single most common AP value... That is not a winning recipie for holding any objective at all so you'd require another 25 sa infantry to Form a serious troopslot.

In pts, this box is about 650 pts +-. The marine box had 750 +-

It has a transport which is overpriced in points by about 75 pts, (40%) ignoring the demolisher for now because we are talking about ordnance on a transport and it flat out sucking.

So in pts it can't compete. In Models it has less than marines, with an bonus tank but it also has a worse tactical spread and listbuilding spread.

Don't get me wrong the looks are awesome and i am a sucker for the malcador chassis in all it's forms but from a getting started in HH with sa, this box is a comparativly worse offering. For an allready weaker and more modell requiring army and more expensive at the Same time.
Also you will require 2 books to play the army ontop of the issues here and without even going any further into the systemic issues that SA has.

Not good.

1) I’ve got too many projects on to dabble in a Solar Auxilia project. Nice as the models and tanks are.

2) Very expensive army to commit to.

3) I am not sure I like Heresy 2.0 rules and they really hurt Solar Auxilia. Tanks being rubbish, AT being so good and templates being unable to kill marines. If I fork out for all these tanks that can all be one shot by a single lascannon it’s not a good feeling.

4) I feel the list pushes you towards taking slightly odd units like Ogres or the close combat units when Id just want to take my mechanised horde of Tercios.

5) Krieg is on the cards so I might just wait for that.

6) An entire army that barely appears in the books apart from a few inconsistent mentions in Siege of Terra. It’s not exactly selling the army. You know it’s bad when they use Cadian artwork for the covers instead of their only Heresy era human troops with models.

They’re very cool models but I just can’t justify it when there’s other stuff to focus on.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I Love the look but to me the issue is SA will be too pricey to actually increase non marine representation nvm rules Systemic issues.

So i'll just Quote myself in regards to the bb.

The problem is the relative part. The 5 inf are the sentinel. (Funnily enough in pts it's even exactly that unless this thing is superior to a normal sentinel with the price in pts too.)

In regards to slots the bb for marines had realistically atleast 2 troopslots filled with ease and extra frills with special weapons. So atleast 2 at maximum all your troop slots.

It had dedicated AA/AT with the deredeo and a proetus.

This box has barely 2 troops. More realistically it has a singular troop since you'd want to take advantage of the tercio rule and even then it's a massivly understrength tercio in a game where ap4 is the single most common AP value... That is not a winning recipie for holding any objective at all so you'd require another 25 sa infantry to Form a serious troopslot.

In pts, this box is about 650 pts +-. The marine box had 750 +-

It has a transport which is overpriced in points by about 75 pts, (40%) ignoring the demolisher for now because we are talking about ordnance on a transport and it flat out sucking.

So in pts it can't compete. In Models it has less than marines, with an bonus tank but it also has a worse tactical spread and listbuilding spread.

Don't get me wrong the looks are awesome and i am a sucker for the malcador chassis in all it's forms but from a getting started in HH with sa, this box is a comparativly worse offering. For an allready weaker and more modell requiring army and more expensive at the Same time.
Also you will require 2 books to play the army ontop of the issues here and without even going any further into the systemic issues that SA has.

As someone who hasn't been playing 2.0, why is AP4 the most common? Are boltguns not AP5 anymore?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's great, but I too already committed to a massive Militia force.

Aaand I've preordered 2 boxen.

 Haighus wrote:

As someone who hasn't been playing 2.0, why is AP4 the most common? Are boltguns not AP5 anymore?

Because GW reduced Ap by 1-2 pips for a slew of weaponry. Most special issue bolters f.e. are AP 4. All autocannons, plasma guns, in essence. Boltguns etc etc. Yes normal boltguns are only AP 5 but for one, tacticals the most common source of boltguns have more shots due to a special rule and two most special and heavy weaponry allready breaches the AP 4 mark easily however not the AP 3 mark. All flamers bigger than a normal one are AP 4, Volkite is AP 5 but every wound triggers another one and it has always atleast S5 etc etc. And Volkite is really common, special issue boltguns are really common.
That combined with T3 and it get's you an army that is exceedingly lacking armor values and the toughness to reduce incoming pain. Otoh Solar auxilia and Milita are both Artillery and Tank reliant to kill things on the list composition side of things... and suffer from or Ruledependant Lackluster Artillery and Tank Issues. Or BDS Big gun Dependency Syndrom.

Basically HH 1 artillery was often too strong, plasma and other typical anti marine and terminator weaponry. GW overcompensated by lowering AP, hiking artillery prices, increasing wounds for Terminators and Marineveterans

All artillery like Earthshakers and medusas are flat AP4. Those guns have rarely breaching or rending on a value like 6 + which makes the occaisional wound AP 2. (medusa has a 1 in 6 chance to do so.) The other times it has AP4 so marines shrugg often off a shell completely (mind a 200 pts arti shooting at 10 pts tacs)

Artillery which was the main killer for solar and militia has therefore been massivly reduced in effectiveness but pays as if it still was as effective. F.e. a Basilisk is just flat out 200 pts for solar aux. Artillery in general is in this state. The only decent artillery is the scorpious, because it is a 120 pts S8 AP 4 tank that has Rending 4+ so it actually is dangerous to marines and everything else. So all these weapons that lowered in AP from 2,3 -->4 are still just as deadly for solar, whilest beeing flat out noodles in many a case for marines.
Then there's the fact that tanks with Hull points in an era where lascannons are far too cheap don't last long and normal tank based firepower conversly often has severly reduced AP (3-->4 2-->3 for the demolisher) and massivly reduced firepower through shrinkage of template size (demolisher again f.e. from 5" to 3" ) and the only really killy thing left is a Vanquisher Leman russes for milita and solar aux and ogryns.

IF your group is open to houseruling then an easy fix for artillery and tank guns is to grant it breaching starting from the thunderblast on 5+ to the battlecannon and earthshaker on 4+ rending and the medusa on 3+ and you get an actual workable artillery and tank weaponry ballpark whilest still having lower lethality from big guns compared to HH 1. It also works due to gw completely overpricing the artillery from the get go so at most you merely add in what was cut and forgotten to be reimplemented imo.
But if your group is not open to do so well, there's quite literally no point in fielding either anything but vanquisher leman russes preferably militia vanquishers for maximum competitiveness or so many infantry models that the enemy simply can't kill em all, which solar auxilia also loses to militia of all armies because solar aux has the "tight formation" sub type which means that you have a coherency of 1" instead of 2. Combine that with templates also tending to be AP 4 and i let you do the math.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

As someone who hasn't been playing 2.0, why is AP4 the most common? Are boltguns not AP5 anymore?

Because GW reduced Ap by 1-2 pips for a slew of weaponry. Most special issue bolters f.e. are AP 4. All autocannons, plasma guns, in essence. Boltguns etc etc. Yes normal boltguns are only AP 5 but for one, tacticals the most common source of boltguns have more shots due to a special rule and two most special and heavy weaponry allready breaches the AP 4 mark easily however not the AP 3 mark. All flamers bigger than a normal one are AP 4, Volkite is AP 5 but every wound triggers another one and it has always atleast S5 etc etc. And Volkite is really common, special issue boltguns are really common.
That combined with T3 and it get's you an army that is exceedingly lacking armor values and the toughness to reduce incoming pain. Otoh Solar auxilia and Milita are both Artillery and Tank reliant to kill things on the list composition side of things... and suffer from or Ruledependant Lackluster Artillery and Tank Issues. Or BDS Big gun Dependency Syndrom.

Basically HH 1 artillery was often too strong, plasma and other typical anti marine and terminator weaponry. GW overcompensated by lowering AP, hiking artillery prices, increasing wounds for Terminators and Marineveterans

All artillery like Earthshakers and medusas are flat AP4. Those guns have rarely breaching or rending on a value like 6 + which makes the occaisional wound AP 2. (medusa has a 1 in 6 chance to do so.) The other times it has AP4 so marines shrugg often off a shell completely (mind a 200 pts arti shooting at 10 pts tacs)

Artillery which was the main killer for solar and militia has therefore been massivly reduced in effectiveness but pays as if it still was as effective. F.e. a Basilisk is just flat out 200 pts for solar aux. Artillery in general is in this state. The only decent artillery is the scorpious, because it is a 120 pts S8 AP 4 tank that has Rending 4+ so it actually is dangerous to marines and everything else. So all these weapons that lowered in AP from 2,3 -->4 are still just as deadly for solar, whilest beeing flat out noodles in many a case for marines.
Then there's the fact that tanks with Hull points in an era where lascannons are far too cheap don't last long and normal tank based firepower conversly often has severly reduced AP (3-->4 2-->3 for the demolisher) and massivly reduced firepower through shrinkage of template size (demolisher again f.e. from 5" to 3" ) and the only really killy thing left is a Vanquisher Leman russes for milita and solar aux and ogryns.

IF your group is open to houseruling then an easy fix for artillery and tank guns is to grant it breaching starting from the thunderblast on 5+ to the battlecannon and earthshaker on 4+ rending and the medusa on 3+ and you get an actual workable artillery and tank weaponry ballpark whilest still having lower lethality from big guns compared to HH 1. It also works due to gw completely overpricing the artillery from the get go so at most you merely add in what was cut and forgotten to be reimplemented imo.
But if your group is not open to do so well, there's quite literally no point in fielding either anything but vanquisher leman russes preferably militia vanquishers for maximum competitiveness or so many infantry models that the enemy simply can't kill em all, which solar auxilia also loses to militia of all armies because solar aux has the "tight formation" sub type which means that you have a coherency of 1" instead of 2. Combine that with templates also tending to be AP 4 and i let you do the math.

To be honest, these all feel like really weird changes to me. Marines are supposed to be vulnerable to heavy artillery, which is why they tend to avoid stand-up artillery duels even during the Great Crusade. If your forces are struggling against pie plates, the answer was to use cover or to use transport vehicles to close rapidly. It was also possible to be entirely immune to barrages by sheltering below floors in ruins, necessitating direct fire to hit.

Can Solar Auxilia still take defence lines?

Well, hillariously Cover is also worse often being 5+ or even worse but you can still take shelter...

You got a single slot in your plan to bring some defensive works that are afaik in the BRB... but you are allready playing an army that is best described as a struggle session, why make that worse by bringing something even less effective?

Tbh I find the decision to make plasma ap4 to be bewildering.

Plasma is AP4?!

I see they have gone to great efforts to allow blobs of Marines to march up to each other in the open and hit each other. AP is worse, vehicles are worse, cover is worse. Sounds like a caricature of the game that is designed to play like the tactics displayed on a HH book cover. Non-Marines are NPCs to be reaped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Well, hillariously Cover is also worse often being 5+ or even worse but you can still take shelter...

You got a single slot in your plan to bring some defensive works that are afaik in the BRB... but you are allready playing an army that is best described as a struggle session, why make that worse by bringing something even less effective?

When SA first came out, they could purchase an aegis line instead of a dedicated transport. If your squad was intending to hold ground, getting a 4+ cover save with 2+ save if going to ground was pretty good defensively. Sounds like that is no longer the case.

Range wise what we’ve seen so far is a decent start.

You’ve got Main Battle Tanks, Transport, Artillery, Support/Scout Walkers, and of course infantry.

But it is just a start, and I fully expect more to come. For instance, as arguably the force’s iconic tank? Plastic Stormhammer seems a must. We also need to see the Veletaris Flamer section.

I also wouldn’t say not to Tarantulas and Rapiers in plastic for that point defence support and extra firepower for the Infantry Tercios.

But as I said. A solid start, and one entirely decent armies can be made from.

Yes it's ap4, but it has breaching 4+ which makes it ap2 on a to-wound roll of 4+, so it's not totally nerfed but it is toned down.

Plasma is half the time when it wounds ap 2 though. So plasma isn't inneffective against marines and even terminators. I have other issues with SA and to highlight those i'll give you all a scenario:

Assaume the existence of Paul. Paul as a hobbyist has had an army of 40k miniatures in his local high school equivalent days, mostly centered around heavy infantry because monetary restraints were a thing and space a concern. Paul now has a decently paying job, space is not an issue and he looks at HH because from a rules standpoint it's more enticing to him than what 40k has turned into and the 9th -10 th edition has unfortunatly made his former chaos marine army with some painstaikingly converted models rather unpleasant to him not least due to having his converted HQs banished to the shadow realm, sorry legends.


So he looks at HH and he also kinda wants something diffrent than infantry and marines. NVM that some of his former mates have HH marine armies, enjoy themselves overall in a casual setting with rather thematic lists.

Understandably he adores the new SA BB even if it is a worse deal than the marine one though that is not initially something he realises. Afterall SA are known for their lineinfantry and their big guns and tanks.

Paul therefore buys 2 of the BB another dracosan and 2 basilisks because Artillery and Tanks are awesome he never had those in his 40k armies or in a rather limited fashion. Of course beeing not really new he also buys the Liber imperium and promptly gets informed that he needs another book due to the sentinel that will come out later... ok annoying... only to also beeing told, that maybee it won't even come out where he lives because that allready happened with other books for HH... Now since he doesn't go in completely blind and has in essence a group of private players allready with his former mates that doesn't really hurt as much but getting the profile of the new sentinel will be mildly annoying...

Good anyways, Paul goes home and makes his list with what he now got.
2 BB's (he got really lucky or so he thinks), 2 basiliks, another dracosan and a malcador because he want's to do tanks.He guesstimated that force will be about 1200-1500 pts from some test games with a mates marine army, a good place to start for any army really. (40 riflemen, 10 command, 3 dracosans, 2 basilisks and a malcador aswell as 2 sentinels.)

so he makes a list:

Siege cohort, because big guns are stylish and he has a tad too much heavy support slots and he couldn't for some reason turn the malcador in a tank commander, he also remembers MSU even applies to tanks and especially squadrons having read the BRB somewhat beforehand because he isn't entirely naive.

Legate, Invul improvements 120 pts.

Command tercio, Command vox, Cohort banner, 4 additional members 178 pts.
Dracosan with a Demolisher because Ap3 sounds decent and he can reroll the direction dice. 225 pts.

Then he fills his troops:

Rifle section, Vexilia, vox up to 20 120 pts
Dracosan 175 pts.


Rifle section, Vexilia, vox up to 20 120 pts
Dracosan 175 pts.

the Elites he fills with 2 x 1 Basilisks thanks to the siege cohort
Basilisk 200 pts.

Basilisk 200 pts.

Heavy support:

Malcador, Reflexion shield, vanquisher cannon in the turret, demolisher in the front and autocannons in the side for 310 pts. Pricey but he the malcador tanks can shoot with all it's guns so that can't be bad right?

Leman Russ attack squadron 2 with Gravis lascannons and lascannon. 305 pts.


The last slot he keeps free for the sentinels he also has.
Now that list is worth FAR above his estimations 2128 pts to be exact, yeah not as problematic 3000 pts is afterall the end aim maybee more because he found he had fun building the army afterall tanks in such an ammount were allways his aim.


And then he get's his first match in against a tank list off a friend that plays salamanders. And his tanks not only get outnumbered 2x1 by predators (so 6 predators with autocannons and volkite sponsons for 720 pts). Said predators also perform better due to their BS. And they are mostly normal ones with volkite sponsons and a pred autocannon. But really painfull it get's when he wittnesses first hand what the scorpius does compared to his basilisks which are merely 66.666% more expensive a pop without the discount marines get for the next vehicle in a squadron. Predictably miffed that he get's outnumbered by marines in tank warfare and out performed in the artillery match up he does another match against an infantry centric alpha legion list. That list has a single lascannon HSS in it which in one turn shreds his malcador and in his own turn his Russes because he made the mistake to shoot infantry and got reacted too and loses for that both leman russes.
Whilest his demolisher bounces off harmlessly on lernaen terminators.

At this point Paul is done, not even beeing able to remove a single lerna with a demolisher cannon that is more expensive then said lerna.

_________________________________________________________________

so what happened here? He made some list building mistakes but he is in a casual community which values theme over performance so that shouldn't happen so decisivly right? Especially as he literally went with the corresponding type of cohort AND fielded the correct list for that no?

Now neither 2 scorpious nor a single HSS lascannon squad are overly competitive. Both are great units but don't even come close to the pinacle of competitive power play especially either as a sole choice. Predators are also Worse then either of these choices and lernaen terminators are probably some of the worst terminators in all of HH to the point were normal terminators are realistically speaking a better choice.

So what were his mistakes in the list above? He didn't go for the vanquisher leman russes, nor for laser destroyer rapiers. The malcador is overpriced by about 40-50%, the basilisks don't perform at all managing over the game to kill 5-6 marines (and that is above average rolling and under average save rolls and pin twice). The fact that he chose to field dracosans at all was a mistake period currently.

Basically if he goes for tanks at ALL other than vanquisher russes his list can not perform through no fault of his own.
If he goes for dracosans at all his list can't perform at a casual level.
If he goes for a malcador with demolisher cannon his list can't perform, even skipping the demolisher on the malcador and upgrading 2 dracosans with reflexion shields the tank doesn't do anything.
200 pts for an earthshaker that is lucky to kill a single marine in power armor per turn with rerolling of direction dice and therfore always hitting about 4-5 marines per template is insansly low on the performance bar and by consequence he can't perform in a casual setting with a siege army with siege units.

This list in this state should not be 2000 pts it should be at most 1400 with the current performance of tanks. You litterally could flat cut out 100pts on every single tank, dracosan and basilisk in this list with exception to the 2 leman russes and you'd still have a bad 1400-1500 pts list that would get folded by marine lists NVM actually good lists from the top legions or god forbid custodes.

For anyone curious to see a 360 view of the model they're using as Legate Marshals, there's the painting video.

Speaking as someone who was waiting for the Solar Auxilia or Mechannicum to get in...I like the models? Not a huge fan of the box being a limited quantity item as going into the game cold for Solar Auxilia seems like it's going to be rough, even with this box present.

How limited is limited? Theres still dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of copies of the Legiones Astartes Battle Group still available on shelves and online (at least in the US, anyway - I hear there are none to be found in the UK and EU). Unless GW scales down their production numbers (a distinct possibility, lots of underlying logic and rationalization to justify doing so), there may be more than enough copies of the box to go around.

As for me... the models are okay. There was something of their charm lost in the translation from resin to plastic. The lack of the quilted padding on their uniforms for one - its a detail that communicated that they weren't just wearing a standard set of fatigues or a one-piece flight suit, but rather a rugged void-capable suit. It also gave them a more "industrial" look. Likewise the changes to the rebreather apparatus or whatever it is on their backs makes them look more sleek and less industrial, as do some of the changes made to the helmet design (the resin minis have the bare heads wearing a cowl ala an apollo astronaut, that detail seems to be gone from the new plastics). The plain-ness of the command squad and the legate marshal mini is also... stark... compared to the very fancy and archaic stylings of the resin minis.

The SA sculpts just feel kinda lazy and phoned-in on GWs part, I believe they probably could have done better.

chaos0xomega wrote:
How limited is limited? Theres still dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of copies of the Legiones Astartes Battle Group still available on shelves and online (at least in the US, anyway - I hear there are none to be found in the UK and EU). Unless GW scales down their production numbers (a distinct possibility, lots of underlying logic and rationalization to justify doing so), there may be more than enough copies of the box to go around.

I'll admit, I don't know how limited is limited and it might just be a doomsaying phase for me. But I think it's important to make a distinction:
The Legiones Astartes Battle Group is still available in the US...but it also released at the same time as the individual components within the box, and was effectively just different skins for the core component(the Mark IIIs).

The Solar Auxilia box is a different beast in that this is the first time these things are available in plastic, with a new unit that existing SA players don't have(the Aethon) to boot, and the individual components aren't for sale in either resin or plastic.

I haven't checked yet but do you know if the superior resin Solar Auxilia are still available in a way or another ?

The answer to that depends on how you feel about recasts lol. For the most part it looks like they're out of stock or removed from the GW webstore, so I dont expect most of the range to be available outside of the forthcoming plastic range.

Personally, I contemplated skipping the plastic infantry kits and just going after the vehicles and the like in plastic, and going resin for the infantry instead but... the cost (not to mention the time spent cleaning and repairing resin) makes it more advantageous to suck it up and take the plastic kits. My current thinking is that it might not be too difficult to use greenstuff to sculpt back the quilting details onto the sleeves of the infantry (at least the standard infantry, probably not the veletaris infantry), once I can get my hands on one of the kits and take a closer look at the parts I'll determine if its feasible, then it becomes a question of how to do so across potentially several hundred minis in a manner that is quick, efficient, and consistent.

 godardc wrote:
I haven't checked yet but do you know if the superior resin Solar Auxilia are still available in a way or another ?

I mean, they are available in one way. Presuming you don't mind forgery world models.

I really like the sculpts, they are exactly the right amount of bling to look great and not be annoying to paint.

I was really on the fence about buying the box but after seeing some pictures of how the infantry build they just look like an awesome kit so I'll probably get one.
The Leman Russ is also pretty cool, and even if bad (or so I've heard), the Dracosan also looks neat.

If anyone was wanting the boxed set and missed out, and you happen to be in South East Kent?

Upgrade Gaming of Dover have one in-stock. I’ve seen it with mine own eyes. Give them a ring, and I’m sure Matt will put it aside for you when it comes time for release.

He may be able to get extras as well, but don’t quote me on that.

I got greedy and got two. Copied Doc and have production line set up. Gave kids my painted marines as I'll concentrate on these.
Enjoying using my limited SA in LI.
I'm aiming to have roughly matching forces on both systems but that depends on releases and I assume the LI force will end up bigger.

Are they out today? Assumed it was a two week preorder.

Wait?

People are copying me?

I’m wildly uncomfortable with this development, having previously been used as a warning/example.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Are they out today? Assumed it was a two week preorder.

It is. Independent shops have been getting stock early in some regions to get ahead of warehousing/logistics issues.