Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Triaros Armoured Conveyor
And last but not least, we want to take a look upon the Triaros Armoured Conveyor. The largest model from the newly released Mechanicum Battle Group and another huge improvement for the range, as the former resin kits of this size provide a serious challenge for the hobbyist.
Among the vast range of walkers and robots within the Mechanicum, there are still tanks and tracked vehicles available for roles like tanks, self-propelled guns or transporters. There are multiple patterns and vehicles, where the Triaros Armoured Conveyor with its transport capacity of up to 22 models (for example tech thralls or light automata) shares his chassis with the Karacnos Assault Tank. Other tracked vehicles, like the Krios use a different chassis, but a similar design.
Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Castellax Battle-automata
The third infantry unit from the new Mechanicum Battle Group are the Castellax Battle-Automata. Another former resin kit, recreated in hard plastic.
While being quite bigger and carrying a heavier punch than the tech-thralls and thallax cohort, these still count as a troop choice and you can use a single miniature as a maniple of its own and add up to 4 further Castellax Battle-Automata to that unit.
Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Thallax Cohort
The next bigger unit from the Mechanicum Battle Group after the Adsecularis Tech-thralls are the Thallax Cohort.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Mechanicum or the individual units, these are no robots, but heavily augmented cyborgs. While the Tech-thralls are almost lobotomized in the process of their creation, the Thallax retain a degree of their independent human thought. The Lorica Thallax which encases their major organs and nervous system, replaces the skeleton and limbs entirely, with an armoured mechanical system.
Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Adsecularis Tech-thralls
Let's start with the individual reviews of the content of the Mechanicum Battle Group for Horus Heresy. You saw the unboxing of the entire boxed set, and we will go through the individual kits one by one, begining with the Mechanicum Adsecularis Tech-thralls.
The Tech-thralls form the core of the infantry, as an expendable mass, as these cyborgs are armed with basic weapon systems and often created from prisoners or criminals.
Legions Imperialis – Solar Auxilia Leman Russ Executioner and Demolisher Squad
Along with Shadowsword and Sicaran, the second of three Leman Russ tank kits for Legions Imperialis is available for pre-order as well. While we have the regular Leman Russ Battle Tank and Vanquisher since the starter set, we now have access to the Executioner and Demolisher, with an further upcoming release of the Annihilator and Exterminator later this year.
The Leman Russ is one of, if not the work horse of the Imperial war machine. The chassis is used for multiple variants, mostly the Leman Russ battle tank with various turrets (And even beyond the 6 mentioned above, there are still further variants to explore) and before the chimera chassis was developed used for artillery and self-propelled guns.
Legions Imperialis – Legiones Astartes Sicaran Arcus and Punisher Squadron
The only release for the Legiones Astartes among this weeks pre-orders for Legions Imperialis are the Sicaran Arcus and Punisher tanks.
With the starter set, we already have the regular Sicaran and Omega variant of the tank, now adding the missile launcher of the Arcus and rotary cannon of the Punisher to the Astartes battle tank. Thus covering all known variants, beside the Venator, who replaced the turret mounted weapon systems for a hull-mounted neutron-laser.
Horus Heresy – Mechanicum Battle Group
After the Solar Auxilia Battle Group and Legiones Astartes Battle Group, we now have a third Battle Group covering the core of the next faction in plastic - the Mechanicum!
This is a huge step for this army, while Solar Auxilia could re-purpose plastic kits for tanks, the Mechanicum only had the Scitarii as a plastic kit, the entire remaining range was resin. And they did not just add a kit or two, but a whole bunch and put them together right for the start of this impressive Battle Group.
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.
July 2024 review
Welcome to August, and let us look back to July.
While I even managed to squeeze in a paint-meetup with my buddy Lukas, to get some progress on my Caledor Dragons, I unfortunately have to throw in the towel regarding the 18 miniatures in 3 month competition, as I really didn't get that much done on that Blood Bowl Team this month.