Solar Auxilia – catch-all thread

[apologist]

I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how I'll tackle organising and painting the Solar Auxilia element in the launch box, so thought I'd create a thread where people can share their knowledge and links, ask questions, show off their pictures and generally discuss/enthuse about the Solar Auxilia.

 

+ Who needs power armour? +

 

+ Who are the Solar Auxilia? +

Quote

According to the measure of the Officio Militaris of Terra, the Solar Auxilia Cohorts are the definitive example of a heavy void infantry formation of the Excertus Imperialis. As such, they are fully trained and equipped to take on void war zones, hazardous planetary environments and operate both as "interface" troops (meaning transitioning from void to ground operations in combat conditions) and fight heavily contested boarding actions.

 

The Horus Heresy sundered all parts of the Imperium – and while much attention goes to the Adeptus Astartes and Titan Legions, regular human troops made up the bulk of humanity's armed forces, collectively known as the Excertus Imperialis – or, in Low Gothic, the Imperial Army. 

 

While elite within the Imperial Army, the Solar Auxilia are far from rare, easily outnumbering the entire Astartes by a factor of ten or more.

 

By the second century of the Great Crusade, Solar Auxilia Pattern forces formed perhaps 20%-25% of the overall human strength of the Imperialis Auxilia 's void-faring first-line armies, with numbers ranging into the tens of millions.

The Solar Auxilia share a general uniform and equipment (with some understandable variety), and are organised into Cohorts of around 120,000 soldiers. There are at least 6633 known cohorts, and likely many, many more.

 

The large Cohorts are divided into Sub-cohorts of around 1,200 soldiers – and it's part of a Sub-cohort that will likely form your army in Legions Imperialis.

 

+++

 

+ I support the Warmaster – will the Solar Auxilia join me? +

Absolutely. Like all elements of the Imperial Fighting Machine, a huge proportion of the Solar Auxilia followed their charismatic Warmaster in his challenge to the Emperor. Whether you are a Loyalist or Traitor, you can incorporate the Solar Auxilia into your Legions Imperialis army.

As shown below, Loyalist formations tended to retain the Raptor Imperialis (eagle head facing left surrounded by lightning bolts) as their symbol, while Traitor Cohorts took on the Eye of the Serpent (a four-pointed steel ring, containing an eight-pointed star that incorporates a slitted pupil as the vertical stripe).

 

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+ How do the Solar Auxilia fight? +

By the time of the Horus Heresy, in terms of deployment [...] about two-thirds of the Solar Auxilia Cohorts stationed permanently within the Imperium's boundaries divided into taskforce and garrison commands, and the other third separated out into various Expeditionary Fleets, Rogue Trader detachments and deep-range pathfinder ships on the ever-expanding and increasingly remote frontier.

 

Unlike post-Heresy organisation, Imperial Forces during the Horus Heresy were mostly organised into Expeditionary Fleets, which combined Naval, Air and Ground forces. The ground forces were divided into five classifications. The Solar Auxilia are part of the first classification, Cohorts and Regiments Primus.

 

Cohort and Regimental Command Structure (Simplified Overview) – The bulk of the Imperial armed forces are made up of independently operating regiments, Militia Legions Minoris and Cohort structured 'sub-armies'. Each of these varies by their internal structure, size, muster and strategic use (and thereby their equipment and training) as well as their world/system of raising and/or origin. These are broadly classified and ranked in order of military power and seniority by the Principia Militaris as follows:

• Cohorts and Regiments Primus – In 40k terms, these are most like the Tempestus Scions, or similar elite-level Guard Regiments.
• Cohorts and Regiments Secundus – In 40k terms, the bulk of Imperial Guard regiments would be this sort of level.
• Militia Legions Minoris – In 40k terms, this encompasses the PDF or poorly-equipped/trained Guard Regiments
• Provender & Labour Auxiliaries
• Penitentiary and Punishment Cohorts and Legions Minoris – In 40k terms, the Imperial equivalent of cults.

 

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+ How do I paint the Solar Auxilia? +

 

As noted above, there are literally thousands of Cohorts, so you are absolutely free to paint them however you like. Horus Heresy book 4 – Conquest details a number of Cohorts, showing just the tip of the iceberg in terms of colour scheme: 

 

(Image from WarCom's preview)

 

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by apologist

[Matcap86]

An addendum I found lying around in one of my "inspiration" folders. A picture of an old warhammer open day art piece with different colour schemes for SA. 

 

As this is a picture sourced from the internet I unfortunately don't have a better version. 

[Gillyfish]

Very nice stuff Matcap, thank you. I am wondering whether to paint mine grey with blue helmets to echo some of the old Epic Guard artwork but then add some bronze armour to fit in with the archaic imagery of the more modern miniatures (and to fit nicely with my Titan Legion colour scheme).

[apologist]

Apparent leak from the new rulebook shows an visual example of a typical Solar Auxilia Sub-Cohort. The text notes 'in these proportions the Lasrifle Sections would most likely be serving in support of the Leman Russ battle tanks rather than the other way around.'

 

I think it's extremely likely that everything pictured here (including the Arvus Lighters) will be available in the first wave, if not simultaneously with release.

[jaxom]

Here's my question: what's worth painting or differentiating for a color scheme? The GW scheme looks like metallic everywhere, colored shoulder pads, and then picking out black and bronze on weapons.

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

My idea is a real for the armour, and then picking out the guns in black and helmets in possibly a different colour. I don't think you should get too crazy since you'll tend to have a lot of infantry (a stock lasrifle tercio is 30 points for 4 bases, and then can add up to 12 more bases for 12 points per 2 bases; 80 little duders for 102 points). 

 

Maybe start with an initial easy finished goal and maybe go back and pick out details once the first wave is done. 

[Spazmolytic]

Can I ask a question to you guy's that are a lot more lore savvy than myself. I've only just heard of this particular group and want to know if the Solar Auxilia are good proxies for them, Lucifer Blacks! 

Guessing the rules will not be lore accurate given their "elite" status but more so their look/equipment. I'm about to dive head first into learning what I can of these dudes and well the name just kinda called to me. Never mind the one titbit I heard about one particular member apparently impressing Omegon/Grammaticus. 

Thanks

[Cactus]

That sounds fine to me. The Lucifer Blacks only appear in Legion and although there's no mention of the Solar Auxilia's void-sealed armour that's easily explained away by them operating on a habitable planet. At the scale of Legions Imperialis any elite human army unit is much the same as any other.

[Pacific81]

This is the description of them on the 40k wiki page, which isn't much to go on - I could see the SA minis being fine for this. This sounds very standard to me:

 

"Lucifer Blacks are typically equipped with jet-black body armour and long Flak Jackets. They don full-visored helmets and often wield crackling Power Glaives while on duty."

 

It will be interesting if there is any capacity for 'veteran companies' in the rules, which would allow you to represent them as something more than just bog-standard guard. From memory previous versions of Epic did not have that? (At least I can't remember fielding any - someone please correct me if I am wrong!) But, there would be nothing to say that something like that won't be introduced here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Urauloth]

On 7/31/2023 at 11:58 AM, matcap86 said:

An addendum I found lying around in one of my "inspiration" folders. A picture of an old warhammer open day art piece with different colour schemes for SA. 

 

As this is a picture sourced from the internet I unfortunately don't have a better version. 

 

Based on this image from Crusade, I think the second scheme in the top row is probably Thramassi Nightwatch:

 

[Burni]

There really isn’t much on SA regiments, heraldry or uniforms is there. Hopefully the LI book and rumoured 30k SA book will give some more insight. 
 

Lucifer Blacks is a great idea though. I keep going back and forth on what Legion and linked support (Legio, SA regiment, Knight House) to do but defenders of Terra is always close to the top. IF or BA with Legio Ignatum and I think the Lucifer Blacks would fit well with that. I’m pretty sure they are mentioned in the Siege books somewhere?

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Solar Auxilia is a white canvas to do your thing without as much constraints as a SM Legion would impose upon a painter. I will probably replicate the paint scheme used for my Iron Empire (Raging Heroes) which are pretty much Prussian girls in space:

 

https://ibb.co/album/CJSHj9

[Urauloth]

42 minutes ago, Burni said:

I’m pretty sure they are mentioned in the Siege books somewhere?

 

Lucifer Blacks? Not that I remember, but they're in the short Blood Games, so they're on Terra during the Heresy.

[Burni]

Yeah I’ve just been looking through a wiki and my brain has mushed Blood Games and War of the Beast into a Siege of Terra scene… 

[Pacific81]

I've been thinking of trying to work in the old Rogue Trader RTB-07 boxset art into the new SA miniatures, to bring things full retro-circle.

 

 

As per the box art like the idea of a Crusade regiment that came from Necromunda (and perhaps then put them alongside Imperial Fists) with their spider motif featuring on heraldry.

A couple of problems though: Painting those little black squiggles on their fatigues, as I don't want to lose my eyesight yet. Also grey/black isn't a particularly exciting colour combo, although I could make them more colourful with some red/mars-type basing perhaps?

 

Looking through the old RT art of Imperial Army (as it was back then), mostly black & white, and what examples there are of painted miniatures it is grey all the way! I guess only the marines got to have use the colour spectrum

[Xanthous]

I think that's a fairly inspired take on Auxilia. The image you linked isn't working for me, but I think I found it online, and I reckon some elements of the box art could be modified for the scale. This is obviously deep in the realm of subjectivity, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

The guardsmen in the art do feature quite a bit of yellow, and a bit less red, in the form of insignia. You could introduce that into the scheme, perhaps on the shoulderpads or helmets; you could even vary it for different tercios, ranks, tank squadrons, etc? This could also tie them into your proposed IF allies.

 

I think those camo squiggles probably aren't worth the pain on basic infantry, but you could still use them as vehicle camo, maybe on the Charonites, as they have more prominent fatigues, or on the commander's greatcoat, just to acknowledge the inspiration.

[Pacific81]

Thanks @xanthous that is a really great idea! I thought camo patterns have always looked good on Epic-scale tanks and fairly easy to implement. And a bit of red and yellow just to break up the grey would make them more interesting visually.

 

I'm just really hoping now that the game launches with some rule profiles for artillery for the SA, even if there aren't the official miniatures for them yet. I think I last collected Guard in the mid-90s and just remember that the 'God of War' artillery was one of the most exciting and emblematic parts of the army - at least until those damned bike squadrons got around your plodding infantry!

[WrathOfTheLion]

There's going to be eight SA regiments on the decal sheet, so that should give a lot available for standalone regiments.

 

I'm not quite sure how I want to do mine yet. I'm thinking of translating my idea for a Caliban-based one to LI, but there's definitely an allure to some Word Bearers auxiliaries as well...

[Xanthous]

On that note of decals, I thought I'd break out the microscope and try and identify/speculate which Cohorts are on the transfer sheet. None of these are 100% certain, it's not a great picture. Apologies for terrible quality, I couldn't find any better, but, from the left:

 

2 Cthonian Headhunters?

3 Manachean Commonwealth

4 almost certainly Saturnyne Rams (one of the 10 original Cohorts)

5 Agathean "Lord Marshall's Own"

6 Ash Scorpions?

 

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on Calth High Guard and the Arkadian Cohorts being here too, but I can't tell which ones. The ones above which I have marked with a ?, are also, in my opinion, likely to be present regardless of if I'm right about their placement.

[jaxom]

If Calth High Guard get some, then I'll be really tempted to go for a Imperium Secundus force of Ultramarines, Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, and High Guard. Saturnyne Rams though... so cool 

[Xanthous]

With the better quality picture posted in the main LI thread, it's confirmed that Arkadians, Cthonian Headhunters, and Ash Scorpions are included.

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Xanthous

[jaxom]

Oh man, I hope the core book has some illustration plates for each cohort.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I only ever bought an Aurox for SA for 30k, as it was all forge world. I'm really looking forward to them here. Thramassi Nightwatch from book 9 could be a fun scheme, I do quite like the red.

[TheHaplessHeretic]

So apart from the Cthonian Headhunters, do we know of any other regiments that mostly went traitor?

[Pacific81]

I'm not sure! Did they give those details in the Age of Darkness black books?

 

I am interested to see what ground transports they give the SA. Am hoping they will go full circle and bring back Rhinos for Imperial Army (as that was always what IF had in Rogue Trader and 1st/2nd edition Epic, as the Chimera wasn't introduced until later) - although I do think that is probably unlikely! Although I may just use Rhinos anyway