Warhammer 40,000 – Battlezone: Fronteris – Vox-Antenna and Auspex Shrine

Next individual review from the Nachmund bundle is the Vox-Antenna and Auspex Shrine.

Like the Fronteris Landing Pad, this is a 28mm scale terrain set has a RRP of 55 EUR or 42,50 GBP (~51 EUR). It covers two large sprues, each covering one of the items shown on the packaging. The assembly instructions don't cover a data sheet for the Vox-Antenna or Auspex Shrine, those rules (suggested terrain traits and additional narrative play abilities) are part of the War Zone Nachmund: Vigilus Alone campaign supplement that is available separately for 42,50 EUR.

And as many terrain pieces for both Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar, this one was designed in the UK but produced in China. The casting quality of the terrain pieces has increased a lot over the last years and we don't have the problems we had 5 years ago, with an okay-ish fit or slightly blurry details. This is a proper production run, with crisp details and good fit. Games Workshop rarely has problems with mould lines and with this not being an organic design, removing the few that are present is not a problem. Yet, as usual with the larger pieces on sprue, the connections towards the sprue itself are present and a lot, so cleaning those takes more time than filing off the mould lines.

Both sprues are proper filled with bits and pieces, not much room for further parts. Minor warpage along the frame itself, but nothing on the parts, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Let's begin with the Auspex shrine, a towering build, that reaches high into the sky of your battlefield.

The first thing to build is the bottom half, which consists out of two sides and floor piece that is partially covering the top of it. This one is already 11,5 cm tall and about 7 cm wide, so it creates cover for units like a dreadnought or similar mid-size monster / walkers (mid-size sounds a bit silly, but with the introduction of Knights and such, the tall units from back in the day are "only" mid-rank nowadays).

As this is realistically designed to a certain degree, it comes with a ladder, railing for the top step and a terminal. I really like the design of the terminal and point of interest, that you use in your missions / scenarios, for your models to interact with. I can see this being used especially in skirmishes, that you have to reach and active to call in an airstrike, reinforcement or some other kind of support.

But the building doesn't stop there. To really make that signal pop, you have another smaller tower on top of it. It is similar designed and adds another 8 cm in heights to it. And even comes with a Adeptus Mechanicus insignia for the front of the building.

And that's not the last part, but an antenna and some smaller bits (double lights and vents) are added for the finishing touches. This brings this piece to a total height of 29 (!) cm. That's impressive and practical as it is just tall enough to still fit in the box of Nachmund. Yet, it will create some trouble if you want to store it on a shelf, but that's a regular problem with terrain pieces.

As we have finished the one part, it is time to move on to the next one, the large satellite dish style piece. Quite a few bits and pieces, we are going through them step by step.

First you build the base of the antenna, which is kept in the design (as well as the Auspex Shrine) of the Sector Mechanicus. But more on that later. The barrel shaped foundation, gets wider on the bottom and is supported by four beams on the sides.

That piece is then put on a larger, slightly raised base, that covers a connection port to the pipelines. The base is then further detailed by the addition of four more side panels. That design is picked up again from the old Warhammer 40,000 bastion, that used to have very similar bit on its sprues.

Next up the "disc" itself. This is one is quite big and you can move it a bit. For after assembling the inner antenna with its support beams and counter weight, you build the mount. The mount has a turning / tipping function and is kept in place by friction. Probably once you have painted it, the thin coat of the paint will keep it in place either way. The cables could be glued just to the base or both parts, depending if you want to be able to move it.

The antenna has a cross on its backside, so you can build it horizontally or vertically, depending on what you prefer more.

And that's it, those are the Auspex Shrine and Vox Antenna.

These interact with the other sets from the Nachmund / Fronteris bundle. For example, the Vox Antenna can be mounted on top of the landing pad and covers the mid-section very neatly. And of course, due to the standardized size, the pipeline connections can be used to directly combine both of the pieces with various other terrain kits by Games Workshop.

Once thing, that especially made the Zone Mortalis and Sector Mechanicus very interesting for terrain building, was the modular system behind it, sharing certain diameters and height. This is true as well with the Vox Antenna, as you can see it has the same diameter than the mid-size toppers and cylinders and could probably be prolonged or converted into a vast variety of others.

You could probably build something even more fancy by combining it with the Thermo Shrine from the Battlezone Vertigus kit.

Unfortunately, they didn't keep the height of the Auspex shrine, at least the lower half in the same dimension as the other second levels of Sector Mechanicus (it is about half a centimetre smaller than the Sector Mechanicus). Then you would have been able to enlarge this by adding these pillars for example. Would have been a nice option.

As you can see, it really fits into the Warhammer 40k aesthetics, even with only a few skulls. I assume if you combine with a few pipelines and a bit of scatter terrain it easily fills up about a half a square foot on the table. And as mentioned further above, the console makes for a great interaction / point of interest for skirmishes. So, that means especially for me that it is Necromunda fitting, and not only the retro one.

Conclusion

Pretty clever design. As mentioned in one of the first paragraphs, the sprues are properly filled, so there went not much room to waste. The Auspex Shrine is a proper centre piece due to its height on an open table. Of course, easily topped by the Sector Imperialis ruins, still for itself quite the point of interest. Especially combined with the Vox-Antenna. That really fits the purpose of a terrain piece, so well done.

The antenna could have been a more delicate piece, as the design is rather bulky. But I am okay with it, it is terrain, it is meant to be played with and as such benefits from a sturdier design. Something they kept in mind with the Auspex Shrine, which has a bit thicker rod than other similar designs, so it is less likely to break off. To be honest, with the Vertigus build, I cut that off after assembly, because it would have broken sooner or later.

Any downsides to this kit? Actually, only the price. Similar to the landing pad, the 55 EUR is a bit steep. If you can grab with the 10-15% off you can get online, it gets closer to reasonable. In my opinion, with it only covering two sprues, a 40 to 45 EUR area, so about 20-ish EUR per frame would be appropriate, 27,50 EUR is a bit high. If they for example added one of the smaller pipeline sprues, they added to a lot of sets, that would have softened the blow, as you have that connection both pieces and it would added to a bigger footprint of the terrain with a cheap addition on their side. If they used the one with the small inserts (if used that one on the plasma reactors) it would be a great additional narrative, as you could have to bring the energy cell or coded message towards the antenna for it to be broad casted.

And as already mentioned in the Landing Pad review, If you're interested in getting your hands on this and one or two of the other Fronteris kits, I highly recommend getting the Nachmund bundle, as then you can get a decent saving. Keep in mind, that due to the fact that these are terrain piece not produced in the UK but imported from their production facilities in China, availability can be an issue. So once the stock is gone, it is usually gone. In some cases - if the demand is high enough - another batch is produced, but that can take its time until it is available and then often only directly from Games Workshop, without the option of further savings by buying from independent retailers.

Warhammer 40,000 is a brand by Games Workshop

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.