If you’re a fan of the finest armor, tanks, and weapons available to food soldier of the Imperium, you’ll love playing the Solar Auxilia!
Hi everyone today we march across the battlefields, not as super human Astartes, nor as the giant metal flesh hybrids of the Mechanicum but as the very essence of humanity, the foot soldiers of this Imperium of man the Solar Auxilia.
We will use the finest armour available and the greatest tanks the galaxy has known, will stand resolute and advance forward, commanded by the greatest Generals with death from the land and the sky above raining down as great bombers clutter the sky like giant Ravens, the harbringers of death.
The Solar Auxilia are a cut above the Astra Militarum in 40k so don’t expect them to play the same either. Your basic troops in the Solar Auxilia come with a 4+ save as standard so not the old 5+ armour of the Astra Militarum. Additionally there isn’t a reliance on orders, which lends the army greater stability and flexibility when an army is built in a balanced way, as cutting off the HQ of the force doesn’t dramatically reduce your tactical flexibility. This isn’t to say however that force multipliers aren’t an important part of the Solar Auxilia as HQ units as well as some special rules can dramatically effect how you play and how you win a game.
Like the Astra Militarum you are still going to need a lot of bodies on the field unless you are playing as tank heavy as possible. So the Solar Auxilia will still play and feel like you are the innumerable masses rather than the true Elite of the Astartes.
Strengths
Solar Auxilia have great depth to their army list with lots of units capable of both anti-infantry as well as anti-tank duty, with anti-air being adequately filled if not overflowing. All of your infantry have excellent weapon options with even your basic troop las-rifle section having the option of a 36″ range Heavy 2 firing mode on their guns. You can even fill your troop slot with squads of power axe wielding units, that while not the greatest melee unit will still do excellent damage, particularly when you consider that with your low human initiative you’d probably be striking last anyway.
The elites of your army are an extremely colourful mixed bag of interesting units. This includes crazed drug infused Ogryns that are commanded by trigger words and their hands are now appendages of death covered in all manner of spikey bits (see what I did there?). Perhaps instead of cutting your enemy to pieces with your disposable abhumans, you just want to saturate them with firepower instead? Then you can take a huge amount of rapier gun batteries just like your marine brethren loaded with S8 AP4 shatter shells that will sunder light armour and double out any marines you smash in the face. And this is 30k, you will face A LOT of marines!
But the real juice of a Solar Auxilia army is the armoured tank power that will support your Tercios of elite troops. Not only can you fill your heavy support slot with the usual leman russ variants, as well as some nifty “new” (old..) ones (that can all gain +1BS for firing two at the same target), but you can also fill your fast attack choice in the same way! These are actually fast as well, with the ability to move fast once a game and use that ability to ensure you are in the perfect killzone to blow your enemy up. Other tanks available to you include some Malcador variant that can be equipped with a variety of death, with my personal favourite being an 18″ torrent, 2+poisoned AP2 gout of chemical disgusting.
The solar Auxilia have a tool box of such variety that you can actually build close combat heavy lists that will do very well against marines, though not against a dedicated marine close combat unit it must be said. The world is your Oyster (other 30k clam like life forms are available).
Weaknesses
At the end of the day, you are still reliant on one of two things. Hordes or armour. Your basic troops are still T3 and thus that barrier to double them out is significantly lowered and more readily available to your opponents. Equally AP4 is surprisingly common and though it is a vast improvement over your future generations with there mildly damp cloth 5+ armour, don’t rely on it too much. One of the most glaring weakness as you read through the units available to the Solar Auxilia though is the lack of truly decent anti-air options. The primaris lightning strike fighter and the thunderbolt are the only two flyers worth taking in any offensive capacity and these are VERY fragile, if hard hitting, units. Other than that you are stuck for any decent ability to reliably take down anti-air, and this must be considered.
Further to this, despite the lack of orders as known in 40k, this army requires extremely heavily on co-coordinating your infantry and armour. Yes this is true in 40k, but you have the possibllity of facing up against the greatest warriors ever sent forth by the Emperor including his chosen Primarch sons, essentially this makes the repercussions of a wrong decision all that bit more painful. You will also need a lot, A LOT A LOT of models to make this army work, unless you are going for as tank heavy as you possibly can, but that will still require a very sizeable investment in both cash and time.
Other than that the weakness of the Solar Auxilia are as true as the Astra Militarum on 40k. Your tanks can get 1-shot on a lucky roll and your troops armour and toughness can mean very little. Transports and cover are the keys to their survival.
I would just like to finish this section with a note that unlike the Legiones Astartes and the Mechanicum, I am quite new to Solar Auxilia so please do comment with any criticisms or points of insight regarding this army for others to see, not and share. Remember, these articles are to inform, educate and entertain 🙂
Recommended Purchases
Horus Heresy Book 4: Conquest – this contains all the up to date rules for fielding the Solar Auxilia at the time of writing this article. I do however anticipate that more units and rules will be available in the future and they will release a red book for this army like they have done for the Astartes and Mechanicum.
In terms of unit purchases, Forgeworld have yet to put up any decent bundles that are permanently available, but they do have some pop up now and then. So keep an eye out for them, and then buy either infantry or tanks depending on how you want to play. You can find the whole range through this link.
From the Horus Heresy to Infinity and Beyond
Peace out,
Rob
About the Author: Rob Hill
