Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Heavy Support Force

Early in february we saw the teaser for the next Horus Heresy boxed set - the Mechanicum Heavy Support Force! A bit as a surprise, because we mostly saw regular battle groups so far with Legiones Astartes or Solar Auxilia, now the Mechanicum even gets some tactical reinforcement.

Interesting combination regarding the content, as we get variants of existing kits with the Karacnos and Thanatar, and an entire new plastic kit with the Krios Battle Tank / Venator, for a price of 110 GBP/ 145 EUR.

The set will be available for pre-order as of today, February 22nd, and will be delivered on March 8th. Combined with the already available Mechanicum Battle Group, this surely is a rounded battle force.

This boxed is filled to the rim with large plastic sprues. Unlike the other boxes, we don't see painted example around the edge of the lower box half, "just" the Horus Heresy logo. But that makes sense, as we have mostly a uniform design of the Mechanicum and there is "only" three, but very large, models in there.

Beneath the huge pile of plastic, we find the instructions, an oval base for the Thanatar Calix and three of the large Mechanicum decal sheets.

Unlike the other Battle Group boxes, this does not have a dedicated instruction leaflet for the Heavy Support Force, but rather three individual booklets of the kits, that will be released as singles later. So far the instructions look detailled, it is going to be interesting if they brought some clarity with the updated Thanatar instructions.

And to give you an idea of the stack of sprues, here you can see the entire content next to a Mk 6 Astartes and Mechanicum Tech-Thrall.

In my opinion the kit that is the most exciting is the new Krios Battle Tank / Venator plastic kit, as this is a novelty release in plastic and formerly only available in resin.

This kit gives you the opportunity to build either the regular Krios Battle Tank (either with Lightning Cannon or Irradiation Blaster) or Krios Venator, both are Heavy Support choices and weigh in at 125 to 150 points, without further upgrades. The kit is spread across three sprues, and while it covers the option for the two Volkite Calivers, the parts do not cover the hunter-killer missiles.

You can find the rules for the tanks in the Liber Mechanicum, yet the Irradiation Blaster is only covered in the Martian Civil War campaign supplement.

With the Karacnos Assault Tank we see a variant of the Triarios Armoured Conveyor, as they added a fourth sprue to the kit, turning the transporter into an assault tank.

The Karacnos Assault Tank does not have any options, beside the Hunter Killer Missiles, but it can be build either with an open or closed Karacnos Mortar Battery. The Karacnos is another Heavy Support choice for the Mechanicum and starts at 225 points.

The rules are covered in the Liber Mechanicum.

Thanatar Calix Siege-automata, was already previewed at the Las Vegas Open and is no big surprise, as it is a known variant of the Thanatar Cavas Siege Automata, and was a logical addition to the range.

One sprue was swapped from the Cavas variant, to cover the needed parts for the Sollex Heavy-Las and Graviton Ram. This marks the third Heavy Support choice for the Mechanicum and another unit, that is covered in the Liber Mechanicum, with 255 points

I will cover the units and models from this boxed set in individual reviews, to give you a deeper insight on what you can build from these sprues and what to expect.

Conclusion

At around 630+ points, this gives you quite the bang for your bucks. Along with the aspect, that 145 EUR RRP is not bad either. We don't have individual prices yet, but the Calix will very likely be 82,50 EUR like the Cavas, the Karacnos will be more expensive than the Triaros and possibly be 82,50 EUR as well, which would already add up to 165 EUR for those two alone, and the Kritos somewhere between 55 to 62,50 EUR, moving the added value of this box to the 200+ EUR range.

With the points value, we're in the range of the regular Battle Groups, so basically two battle groups and one of this would conveniently bring you two 2.000 points for Horus Heresy - and that is without any character models. The complexity of the kits will keep you entertained, probably more towards a painter than a pure gamer, as they are not the easiest kits to build and will take some time. But the amount of detail is impressive and as mentioned above, detailed reviews of the items will be posted on this blog.

Warhammer 40,000 and The Horus Heresy are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.