Legions Imperialis – Solar Auxilia Shadowswords, Stormblades and Stormswords Squadron

On this day three new plastic kits are going for pre-order for Legions Imperialis, for Astartes the Sicaran Arcus and Punisher, for Solar Auxilia a new Leman Russ kit with the Executioner and Demolisher and a Shadowsswords, Stormblades and Stormswords kit. The last one is the one, which we are going to cover today.

The Shadowsword multi-kit is the third super heavy set for the Solar Auxilia in Legions Imperialis, after the Baneblade/Hellhammer and Stormhammer kits.

With the last price raise, these kits went up from 40 to 41 EUR, or 31,50 GBP from 30 GBP, covering two identical sprues, an instruction leaflet and a black and white decal sheet.

These vehicles are tank destroyers build upon the Baneblade chassis, where as "tank" destroyer isn't the proper name for those, as they are clearly can be used against them but are uparmoured to fight against knights, titans and fortifications. The chassis is very versatile and depending on what they are intended to fight, there are different variants using different weapon systems, some of which are even mounted on titans.

The sprues are filled to the brim and cover crisp casted details. There are minor to none mould lines on this cast. And as you can see, there are multiple weapon options for this super heavy tank destroyer kit.

Games Workshop stretches the actual content of the decal sheet a bit, as they always give the number of each individual decal, and due to the scale summing up to 3-digit numbers, 288 in this case. It covers 8 different Cohorts of the Solar Auxilia: Arkadian Janissaries, Cthonian Headhunters, Manachean Bulls, Saturnyne Rams, Lord Marshal's Own, Ash Scorpions, Bormanite Devils and The Deathless. All of these are black and white, not additional colours, yet we have all insignia in both variants, so you can use them on darker as well as lighter colour schemes you come up with.

As usual with our tank builds, we start from the bottom up, beginning with the tracks. The fit on these Legions Imperialis (and other epic/small scale ranges like Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis) is superb. And as mentioned above, due to a very clean cast, the only areas you actually need to clean are those where the pieces are connected to the sprue, as there are close to no mould lines on the pieces.

The design team divided the details on this kit into multiple pieces for a proper representation. And while these are small, they are not fiddly, so still manageable to build without hassle. The weapon mount is designed with groves, so you can elevate the main weapon to your needs. And as we might encounter titans, it makes sense to have some weapons elevated towards higher targets.

While I looked into the sprue, I saw that each of the three weapon systems comes with a gun mantlet of their own, which would mean it could be magnetised, which I tried. I marked the middle of the gun mount, drilled a hole with a 3mm drill bit and put a small round magnet in there.

This kit gives you three different weapon options per sprue, Volcano Cannon to build a Shadowsword, a Plasma Blastgun to build a Stormblade and a Siege Cannon to build a Stormsword. I trilled an insert on the back of the gun mantlets to create a flush finish for the magnets and voila! I had swappable gun options. A really quick and easy job, that adds some value to this kit. It would have been great, if they had done this right away, just like with the Titanicus range, but as it is an easy mod, I can live with that (and thanks for adding the additional mantlets to giving this option to begin with!).

Now for the sponsons and turrets, unlike the Baneblade/Hellhammer, we don't have options here. Turrets with lasers, and heavy bolters for the side sponsons.

There are a few crew options, yet only a single hatch to place them in. You can have the hatch closed, or opened with four different poses (a pintle mounted weapon, two tank commanders signing and one using binoculars).

A brief comparison in scale and size. The Stormblade next to a Baneblade, along with the super heavies next to a Malcador and Leman Russ tank.

It is interesting to see how these tanks have the armament of the Warhound Scout Titans as a single main weapon, and I like the Solar Auxilia design pattern of these tanks, and how it differentiates it from the Imperial Guard / Adeptus Militarum one. This gives you additional details in this scale and something less blunt, than the cleaner variants of the 40k range.

Conclusion

I always have a blast building these kits, and again with this one, as they have a very proper fit and good amount of details. With the addition that I could do the small conversion into swappable weapon mounts, it was a great pleasure. My only concern about the super heavies is the price, as 41 EUR RRP makes them rather expensive per model, even with a discount that is still hefty per tank roughly the volume of a Terminator. I felt much more comfortable with the value, if the boxes were closer to the 30ish price range (just to give you a perspective on the pricing - the price band of these boxes, the double identical sprue kits for the side games was 25 EUR in 2018, raised to 32,50 EUR with 2019/2020, to 40 EUR in 2022 and now 41 EUR -  that's a 60+% increase over 6 years - and as Inflation is commonly used as an argument, if the price would have been adjusted just for that we would be at ~30 EUR with a cumulated inflation over that time period for euro prices). If you go for an independent trader, you can get pretty close to that pricing, which works for me.

Regarding what is next, this is a bit difficult to delimit the missing options, as the 2nd edition of the Horus Heresy only covers the Stormhammer in the Liber Imperium. Not even the Baneblade or Hellhammer are listed in that army list. And I am aware, that not all options from the 40k Baneblade kits are / were available in the Horus Heresy (Banesword, Doomhammer, Banehammer and Hellhammer were - temporarily ? - limited to the 40th millennia). But as we already have three different sets for the Leman Russ on the schedule for Legions Imperialis, I don't see a reason why we wouldn't see another tank destroyer kit, adding the "missing" options to Shadowswords, Stormblades and Stormswords, as for example the Stormlord uses the same Vulcan Mega Bolter we know from the Warhound (you could probably pretty easily convert that one from a spare weapon arm and these sprues).

But as for super heavy options, I am keen to see, when we will see the ones serving with the Astartes as the Fellblade, Glaive and Falchion, will surely be an interesting addition and work out pretty close to these with one tank per sprue and two sprues per set.

The Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.