Tuesday 27 January 2015

From GregB - 40K/30K Solar Auxilia Lasrifle Section (100 points)



The Solar Auxilia, 28mm figures from GW's Forge World
This submission is a Solar Auxilia Lasrifle section.  These are 28mm resin figures from Forge World, the small subsidiary (or division or whatever it is these days) of Games Workshop. These figures are some of the most recent releases from Forge World's every-expanding (for now, at least) Horus Heresy range of figures.

I call this groundwork combination "Autumn on Rijel 7"
For those folks who are not into the Warhammer 40K/30K setting, the Horus Heresy was essentially a giant interstellar civil war. Horus was a top Imperial Commander, with his own Space Marine Legion, and he was promoted to "Warmaster" by the Emperor, given control of nearly all the Space Marine forces during the tail end of a massive military expansion called the "Great Crusade". This was not a great hire by the Emperor - Horus turned against the Imperium and nearly half the armed forces, including the Marine Legions, followed him into a massive rebellion.  Ooops - maybe Horus was the wrong one to elevate... 

Section command - officer in front, comms trooper at the back on the right, and vexilla at the back on the left
Comms trooper with helmet raised - that doesn't seem like a good idea in the Warhammer 40k universe, but I like to have one or two open helmets when the figure options allow, and you get a couple of these types of head in the package


Still a bit of a bend in a couple of the laser rifles...oh well...
Needless to say this worked out poorly for all sides.  But it is a richly popular setting and it has been interesting to see GW finally exploring it with their 28mm figures in the past few years.  And while "star players" in this setting are still the big, scary, tough, genetically modified, heavily armoured and slightly soulless Space Marines, there are other forces involved. The "Solar Auxilia" is one of them.

Volley fire in the grim darkness of the far future...
Introduced in the most recent Forge World Horus Heresy book, the Solar Auxilia are meant to represent impressive soldiers who are nonetheless still well short of the strength of ability of the Marines.  In this sense they are the precursors to the Imperial Army, the standing force that would represent the bulk of the Imperial armed forces. The Marines would do the rough work, taking out whatever recedivist/alien/heretic/democratically elected regime was in the way, and forces like the Solar Auxilia would follow and take up garrison and patrol duties, and defend in any attack, holding out until Marines came to help. 


The fellow on the front right is reloading his rifle
The Imperial Army/Imperial Guard of Warhammer 40k is a long time favourite collection of mine in this hobby going back to the Rogue Trader days.  As I worked on my Legion project, I was waiting and watching to see when the "army" might appear in Forge World's Horus Heresy efforts. I have to say I was quite excited as soon as I saw these - a total dork about it, in fact. 

I love the bonkers back packs on these figures
The designer, Edgar Skomorowski, hit these out of the park in my opinion.  They seem part Victorian Sci-Fi, part Dr. Who, part Captain Nemo shock troop, and of course part Imperial Guardsman, all in the right balance.  They are armoured and impressive, but still appear slightly awkward.  They are futuristic and baroque. The laser rifles have a flintlock-style cut to the stocks.  The backpacks have some manner of bonkers pulley/bellows/system.  I love these figures!

Another shot of the packs...you can sort of make out the pulley/bellows thing on the back - ridiculous - I love it!
The rules call for them to deploy in sections of 20 models (!), so they are sold in packs of 20.  This submission is a single pack, and is often the case with Forge World the quality of the casting is hit and miss, but fortunately more "hit" than "miss" in this case (I only had to straighten about five of the rifles under hot water).  There is one officer figure (with a sidearm and a sword), a figure with a comms-set on his back pack, and a fellow mounting a "vexilla".
Example of a single trooper - you can hopefully see the grenade dangling from his left hip.  The uniform is a sort of space suit with padded/quilted sections, and armour plates hanging over
You can kind of see the elegant, baroque curves on the laser weapon - very lovely
 
The backpack has some manner of pulley-bellows contraption - I love the look of it.  Respirator maybe? Who knows...


"Hey, those Space Marine guys can't be that tough, right?"
In the actual game these figures will be torn to pieces in no time at all, particularly if they go up against Marines.  But I don't worry much about that. I am very much enjoying painting these and I am planning to have a chunk of them ready to play in some games set during the Horus Heresy.  More have been primed, so I hope to see quite a few more finished during this Challenge.  I think this lot will get me 100 points - hopefully enough to pop back into the top 10, for a few minutes at least!



16 comments:

  1. Lots of detail on these figures and you have done a cracking job on them

    Ian

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  2. Stunning paintwork!
    the figures are very well detailed and you done a great job on them !
    congratulations!

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  3. These are fantastic Greg! I love their whacky baroque armour and weapons (those lasrifles are superb) - sooo much more characterful than GW's standard offerings these days.

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    1. Forgeworld has always been more characterful than GW proper... especially nowadays. They don't shy away from gruesome (see my werewolf as an example) or really creative like these fantastic guard

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  4. Those ar fantastic miniatures and your paint scheme looks great on them.

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  5. Oh those look great. I've been coveting those since the teasers started... but I've not played 40k in about 3 years, so can't quite justify it.

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  6. They are really curious. The metal colour is fantastic!

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  7. Oh, those are splendid! A shame they were not available when I was into 40k.

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  8. Those are lovely models and your paint job has done them proud.

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  9. Thanks for that Greg. Just what I needed to see, wonderful minis with a superb paint job. More temptation... :-)

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  10. Fantastic stuff. I'm a big fan of 30k too and these really hit the spot.

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  11. This is what 40K should look like in my opinion. Nice to see them.

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  12. Fantastic paint job on these, Greg! They are very nice sculpts too, the details on them look like they were a lot of fun to paint!

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  13. Very nice, you do make the Horus Heresy look very appealing.

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  14. Oh man, I really can't praise these highly enough. Wonderful figures and an absolutely fantastic paint job! Truly inspirational stuff.

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