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.
Warcry – Briar and Bone
It is time to take a look upon the next Warcry boxed set, Briar and Bone. It was previewed on Adepticon in March of this year, and is a new set with two warbands and a larger piece of terrain, picking up the Gnarlwood theme again.
In our last review, Hunter and Hunted, a Gorger Mawpack and Wildercorps Hunters fought each other, in Briar and Bone it is the Sylvaneth and Ossiarch Bonereapers, who are the opposing forces.
Re-Enter the Space Hulk – In Space No One Can Hear You Scream
Back in 2009 I reviewed the third edition of Space Hulk, and it was a "limited" release back then and Games Workshop really took that seriously, that the reprinted the boxed set for a limited amount of boxes multiple times over the following years, as the 4th edition in 2014, and another print run in 2016. The actual limitation was that the translations didn't receive a reprint, and the releases in the 2010s were just available in English.
Yet, we want to re-enter the Space Hulk, as I own the third edition and got a bunch of new designed Indomitus Terminators from the individual kit and Deathwing Assault, and I want to do a retro-mod using these new, upscaled sculpts and move away from the Blood Angels in the same step.
WarCry – Gloomspite Gitz Part 1
It's been a while since I tried my hand at a WarCry project. I've actually had several attempts, but I always ran out of steam halfway through, which was partly due to the constellation of the warbands I chose.
Since we arranged a cooperation with Stormbringer magazine, which is distributed by Hachette, at the beginning of the year, the idea of using the contents to set up a WarCry warband or two came up at the same time.