Getting Started with Solar Auxilia

[jaxom]

Welcome to the Solar Auxilia!
 

If you are reading this circa 2024 then there's a decent chance you bought the boxset and have the following models:

- 2x Solar Auxilia Legate Commander Squads (can also be built as Auxilia Tactical Command Squads)
- 8x Auxilia Lasrifle Squads
- 4x Auxiliaries with Flamers Squads
- 4x Veletarii Squads
- 4x Charonite Ogryns Squads
- 4x Aethon Heavy Sentinels
- 4x Leman Russ Tanks
- 2x Malcador Tanks

 

Models are organized into detachments or used to upgrade detachments.

 

Quote

Detachment: The Legions Imperialis infantry version of a squad in 40k. Vehicles may instead be in a squadron or talon. A detachment consists of one type of model. Upgrades can add different, other models to the detachment.

 

The models, when organized into detachments give you the following:

- 2x Solar Auxilia Legate Commander Squads (can also be built as Auxilia Tactical Command   Squads)
- 2x Auxilia Lasrifle Tercios
- 2x Auxiliaries with Flamers Squad Upgrades
- 1x Auxilia Veletarii Storm Section
- 1x Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section
- 2x Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol
- 1x Leman Russ Strike Squadron
- 1x Malcador Tank Squadron

Note how the Flamers are Upgrades. Upgrades are added to existing detachments. For example, an Auxilia Lasrifle Terciol Detachment can be upgraded to include 2 or 4 Auxiliaries with Flamer Squad models (every two models taking up one upgrade slot of the Tercio’s six upgrade slots). You can choose to use certain models as upgrades rather than use them as a single detachment or two detachments. You could split the Veletarii (or the Ogryns) into two upgrades of 2 models each. You could make a single Aethon detachment with an Aethon upgrade, for a total of four models in the detachment.

 

Detachments are organized into formations, you cannot just make a list out of the units you like.

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Formation: A game legal combination of detachments. Each formation has required detachments and optional detachments. 

The core box models are (according to Designer Commentary) meant to be used as an introductory, mixed formation - Legion Astranii Class Augmented Spearhead - to expose players to different unit types, rules, and interactions. The formation is not meant for matched play without your opponents permission. There are enough detachments to build all the compulsory detachments for two Legion Astranii Class Augmented Spearhead. The optional detachments and upgrades can be distributed to balance out points. Here are examples:

Spoiler

Detachment Type	Fulfilled By...
Compulsory Legion Headquarters	Legion Command Squad
Compulsory Legion Core	Legion Tactical Detachment w/Two Upgrades
Compulsory Legion Battle Tank	Legion Predator Squadron
Compulsory Solar Headquarters	Auxilia Tactical Command
Compulsory Solar Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio w/Veletarii Upgrade (2 models), Charonite Ogryns Upgrade (2 models), and Auxiliaries with Flamers Upgrade (2 models)
Compulsory Solar Battle Tank	Malcador Tank Squadron
Optional Legion Support	Legion Dreadnought Talon
Optional Solar Vanguard	None

 

Total: 516 points

Spoiler

Detachment Type	Fulfilled By...
Compulsory Legion Headquarters	Legion Command Squad
Compulsory Legion Core	Legion Tactical Detachment w/Two Upgrades
Compulsory Legion Battle Tank	Legion Sicaran Squadron
Compulsory Solar Headquarters	Legate Commander Detachment
Compulsory Solar Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio w/Veletarii Upgrade (2 models), Charonite Ogryns Upgrade (2 models), and Auxiliaries with Flamers Upgrade (2 models)
Compulsory Solar Battle Tank	Leman Russ Tank Squadron
Optional Legion Support	None
Optional Solar Vanguard	Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol with Aethon Heavy Sentinel Upgrade (2 models)

Total Points: 515

 

Each army list has the same basic layout. You get to play with all the infantry options, you get one set of smaller tanks and one set of larger tanks, and you get one of the walkers. You could play around with the upgrades, put all the Auxilia upgrades into one list and then put both sets of walkers in the other list; you’ve got options. Add a Warhound to both lists to experiment with titans. They may skew the gameplay experience, being about 40% of the points per side at this point. 

 

But what if you want to do matched play, or off-loaded the Astartes, or vice-versa, on-loaded the Solar Auxilia?
 
The good news is that the core box does give such a matched play legal combination; the ubiquitous Solar Auxilia Sub-Cohort. The Solar Auxilia Sub-Cohort requires 1 Headquarters, 2 Core, and 1 Support detachments. 

 

Requirement	Fulfilled By...
Headquarter	Legate Commander Detachment or Auxilia Tactical Command
Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio
Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio
Support	Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section or Auxilia Veletarii Storm Section

 

This leaves the following leftovers:
- 2x Auxiliaries with Flamers Squad Upgrades
- 1x Auxilia Veletarii Storm Section or 1x Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section
- 2x Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol
- 1x Leman Russ Strike Squadron
- 1x Malcador Tank Squadron

 

The Solar Auxilia Sub-Cohort has a lot of optional detachment slots. You can fill one of the support slots with the Veletarii or the Ogryns (whichever isn’t in the compulsory support slot). The Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol can go in the single vanguard slot; taking the additional 2 Aethon Heavy Sentinel models as an upgrade. You have two battletank slots; in go the Leman Russ Strike Squadron and the Malcador Tank Squadron. The Flamer Squad upgrades can be distributed however you’d like, feel free to experiment!

 

At this point, you’re using all the Solar Auxilia models in the core box set in legal matchplay formation. The points total up to 590. That’s a bit of an awkward turtle because you want 700 points of Solar Auxilia to make a 1,000 point list with 300 points of allies. You do have some options. You can aim for a game around 750 points and ally in a bare bones Legion Demi-company (Legion Command, 2x Tactical Detachments, Dreadnought Talon); this will put you at 755 points (743 if you drop one Flamer upgrade).

 

You can bend the rules by loading up your Astartes with all the upgrades and one battle tank detachment to get to about 917-927 points, depending on the tank choice. Another way you can bend the rules is by taking a Warhound titan for a total of 920 points. The second Warhound puts you at 1250 points, but at that point you’re playing a Titan Legion with Auxilia allies.

 

Let’s take a look at what you can do when you’re ready to expand your collection. You can add a second Solar Auxilia Sub-Cohort by picking up a Solar Auxilia Infantry box. This gets you to 840 points and then you can get to 1,000 points with bare bones allied Astartes and having a Legate Commander in one Sub-Cohort and an Auxilia Tactical Command in the other (puts you at 999 points).

 

Or, you could pick up a Baneblade box. This lets you use all your tanks in a Solar Auxilia Armoured Company. It also puts you at 780 points of Solar Auxilia; you can get to 1,000 with the Legion Demi-company with all the infantry upgrades and dropping your Cohort Legate to an Auxilia  Tactical Detachment (actually will end up at 996 points). If you don’t have the Astartes from the core box set, but swapped them for someone else’s Solar Auxilia half, and you picked up a Baneblade box then you’ll have 1364 points. A Warhound boosts that up to the awkward 1694 range. 

Basically, at this point you have a lot of ways you can go. You can pick up more infantry, more tanks, air assets, titans and/or knights. Experiment, have fun with it!
 

Edited November 29, 2023 by jaxom
Fixing tables

[apologist]

A very useful little rundown, thank-you. (As is the Marine equivalent you've done.)

 

If you've the time and energy, I'd be interested to see your suggested list using the core box and one additional Solar Auxilia Infantry box. At that point would you break off (say) Flamer stands into their own detachment, or continue with them as upgrades on others?

[jaxom]

I want to see if I can find a way to do tables other than BBCode before I put up the two Cohort list (but I'll definitely have it up within 12 hours regardless).

 

As far as I can tell, the Flamers are the only (first wave) release that doesn't have it's own detachment. I can only find them as an upgrade option for Tercios. A Tercio can take up to six upgrades; you could have 4 Lasrifle models and up to 12  Flamer models and create a "Flamer detachment" with Lasrifle meat shields. Flamers are interesting because they're shorter range (6" vs 10"), better (4+ ignores cover vs 5+) lasrifles. Infantry aren't very hardy, so I'd lean to spreading the Flamers out among different Tercios to supplement the lasrifles rather than try to create a single target. Caveat being, I didn't play Epic and haven't played any LI yet, this is just theory. It's a big reason why I didn't go into more details about expanding past the core box sets and the most basic of the other boxes. SA has a number of air assets, but I personally don't grok how they'd work with the rest of the army.

[jaxom]

17 hours ago, apologist said:

If you've the time and energy, I'd be interested to see your suggested list using the core box and one additional Solar Auxilia Infantry box. At that point would you break off (say) Flamer stands into their own detachment, or continue with them as upgrades on others?

The Flamers do mirror their HH counterparts and can only be taken to supplement the Lasrifle sections of the Tercio. I think they'd work better spread out, or perhaps split among two Tercios to create 8 model detachments dedicated to backing up the Ogryns and the Veletarii. Meanwhile the Tercios without upgrades hang out on objectives and you're not wasting Flamers with them. Perhaps having backline Flamers will be more important when/if Drop Pods, Arvus Lighters, and Thunderhawks make direct assaults to the rear more likely?

 

Each Infantry box can be built as the same Sub-cohort as the core box, but without tanks, for 244 points (with Auxilia Tactical Command instead of a Legate). The upgrades can be moved wherever, it won't change the overall points of the list. As it is, here's what I'd do with the core box and one Infantry Box:

 

Sub-Cohort 1

Detachment	Fulfilled By...
Compulsory Headquarter	Legate Commander Detachment
Compulsory Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio w/Auxiliaries with Flamers Upgrade (4 models)
Compulsory Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio w/Auxiliaries with Flamers Upgrade (4 models)
Compulsory Support	Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section
Optional Support	Auxilia Veletarii Storm Section
Optional Vanguard	Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol with Aethon Heavy Sentinel Upgrade (2 models)
Optional Battle Tank	Leman Russ Strike Squadron
Optional Battle Tank	Malcador Tank Squadron

Sub-Cohort 2

Detachment	Fulfilled By...
Compulsory Headquarter	Auxilia Tactical Command
Compulsory Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio
Compulsory Core	Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio
Compulsory Support	Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section
Optional Support	Auxilia Veletarii Storm Section
Optional Vanguard	Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol with Aethon Heavy Sentinel Upgrade (2 models)

There is room to swap around the support detachments. Each sub-cohort has two optional support slots. You could load both Ogryn Charonite or both Veletarii into one formation (i.e. putting three of your assault detachments in one formation and the fourth into the other formation). At the moment I am unaware of any formation coherency rules. If those exist, then I'd definitely do that.

 

Regardless, the points cost is 854. If you have a Knight laying around, you could drop some of the Flamer upgrades to make room for it and get to between 990-1000 points. Personally, that's what I'd do because I think one Knight at a 1,000 points is worth only having two Flamer upgrades (4 models) to work with.

 

The other thing to consider is Chain of Command. If it ends up being more of a pain than you want to deal with then it may be worthwhile to run fewer detachments, but with larger footprints to keep around your Legate and/or Tactical Command. Similarly, it's probably worth picking up enough tanks to move them all into an Armoured Company so one can be upgraded to a Tank Commander because Russes and Malcadors both are impacted by CoC. I'll play around with all that tomorrow.

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by jaxom

[apologist]

Building on this excellent thread, I imagine that the new Battle Groups previewed on Sunday might have a few people re-considering Solar Auxilia.

 

If you've got the core set already, then the Solar Auxilia Battleforce is an absolutely brilliant way to get a 2,000pt army on the table.

 

What's in the Battle Group

 

 

The problem with both the starter box, and these battleforces in isolation, is that in a number of cases they give you half of a Detachment – so as an example, the starter box will give you two stands of Assault Marines, rather than the four stands you need for a standalone Detachment. (There are ways round that, with weird upgrades and awkward Formations, but they always felt like a sticking plaster solution).

 

In general, the Solar Auxilia are less affected by this because their sprues tally up better with the army list. Having both the starter box and battleforces will give you a nice simple, well-rounded army of Solar Auxilia.

You'll end up with:

 

Models

- 2 Baneblade super-heavy tanks that can alternately be built as Hellhammers,
- 12 Rapier batteries,
- 4 Cyclops remote bombs,
- 4 Tarantula sentry guns,
- 4 Legate Commander bases,
- 16 Auxiliary bases,
- 8 Veletarii bases,
- 8 Auxiliary bases with flamers,
- 8 Charonite Ogryn bases,
- 8 Aethon Heavy Sentinels,
- 6 Dracosan transport tanks,
- 12 Leman Russ Strike tanks outfitted with battle cannons or Vanquisher cannons.
- 2 Malcador Tanks

 

+++

As an example of what you'd be able to field, here's a 1903pt Solar Auxilia list with four formations:

 

Solar Auxilia Armoured Company, 895pts
Formation Strength: 16

Break Point: 8

Compulsory

• HQ: Tank Commander (1), 10pts
• Battle Tank: Leman Russ Strike Squadron (6), 260pts
  • 2 Additional Leman Russ 85pts 
• Battle Tank: Leman Russ Strike Squadron (6), 260pts
  • 2 Additional Leman Russ 85pts
     
• Heavy Armour: Auxilia Super-Heavy Tank Squadron (1), 100pts

Optional

• Battle Tank: Malcador Tank Squadron (2), 165pts
• Heavy Armour: Auxilia Super-Heavy Tank Squadron (1), 100pts

 

Solar Auxilia Mechanised Infantry Sub-cohort, 626pts

Formation Strength: 37

Break Point: 19

Compulsory

• HQ: Legate Commander Detachment (1), 16pts
• Core: Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio (8), 54pts
  • 4 Additional Auxiliaries 24pts
• Core: Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio (8), 54pts
  • 4 Additional Auxiliaries 24pts
• Support: Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Section (8), 80pts
  • 4 Additional Charonite Ogryn 30pts

Optional

• Vanguard: Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol (4), 60pts
  • 2 Additional Sentinel 25pts
• Vanguard: Auxilia Aethon Heavy Sentinel Patrol (4), 60pts
  • 2 Additional Sentinel 25pts
• Support: Auxilia Cyclops Detachment (4), 80pts
  • 2 Additional Cyclops 40pts
• Dedicated: Auxilia Dracosan Detachment (6), 222pts
  • 5 Additional Dracosan 185pts

 

Solar Auxilia Pioneer Company, 191pts
Formation Strength: 11

Break Point: 6

Compulsory

• HQ: Auxilia Tactical Command (1), 10pts
• Core: Auxilia Veletaris Storm Section (4), 40pts
• Bastion: Auxilia Tarantula Battery (6), 51pts
  • 2 Additional Tarantula 15pts
  • x6 Hyperios air-defence missile launcher
• Bastion: Auxilia Rapier Battery (6), 90pts
  • 3 Additional Rapier 40pts
  • x4 Quad-launcher
  • x2 Mole mortar

 

Solar Auxilia Pioneer Company, 191pts
Formation Strength: 11

Break Point: 6

Compulsory

• HQ: Auxilia Tactical Command (1), 10pts
• Core: Auxilia Veletaris Storm Section (4), 40pts
• Bastion: Auxilia Tarantula Battery (6), 51pts
  • 2 Additional Tarantula 15pts
  • x6 Tarantula lascannon battery
• Bastion: Auxilia Rapier Battery (6), 90pts
  • 3 Additional Rapier 40pts
  • x4 Laser destroyer array
  • x2 Mole mortar

+++

 

It's not highly optimised or anything, but should be a great way to explore the game. With four formations, it's also ideal for you to explore adding allies like Titans, Knight or Legion forces to expand up to 3,000pts, should you decide to do so.