Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Solar Auxilia (30k)

Behold, Solar Auxilia!!

The Imperial Army now takes to the field with the addition of the Solar Auxilia rules for the Horus Heresy.

The Solar Auxilia are a shooting army, relying on weight of fire to counter the Legiones Astartes and the Mechanicum.

Special Rules

• Disciplined Fire - All pistols, assault and rapid-fire weapons models have with this special rule can fire Overwatch at BS2. Handy considering how much they'll be needing it.
• Close Formation Fighting - 2+ Models with this rule in base contact during an assault phase gain +1 WS. It'll at least sorta help stall those killer marines.
• Hold the Line - If you have a squad within 12" of another squad from the same Tercio (platoon), you can re-roll morale rolls of 6. Sweet.
• Structured Command - It's like the 40K Militarum's Chain of Command...to an extent.
  • Lord Marshal is always Warlord unless there's a named character who can override. If you lack any Lord Marshals, you can still use a Legate Commander.
  • If all you have are Tactical Command Sections, then they must be Warlords. If you absolutely have nobody to use, then make a Tank Commander with the priciest tank the Warlord. He just won't use a WT.

Wargear

Guns

• Archaeotech Pistols - S6 AP3 MC pistols. Aw yeah.
• Graviton Weapons - Same as the Legions; roll against S to score wounds, 6 is auto-fail. For the next turn, the land under the template becomes difficult/dangerous terrain. Comes in an 18" gun variety with Blast or a 36" Cannon variety with Large Blast.
• Rotor Cannons - Largely similar to heavy stubbers, but for militants. They're 30" S3 AP6, so they suck only slightly less than normal.
• Volkite Weapons - Frightening weapons that can deal extra hits based on how many wounds are lost in the shot. You'll only grab access to the Serpenta and charger variants here, both S5 AP5.
• Needle Pistol - Decently useful, as it's S2 AP5 4+ Poisoned with Rending. Other than that, it's a pretty cheap buy.
• Las Weaponry - Yeah, this is the bread and butter to your army right here. Lots of variety, as the lasrifle your basic tercios get come with special attachments and whatnot.
  • Laspistol - It's a fucking laspistol. What'd you expect?
  • Blast Pistol - A predecessor to the Hot-Shot weaponry, this has half the range of a laspistol, but gains TL and Gets Hot instead of any AP value. Usually the cheapest upgrade you can grab for more reliable shots.
  • Lasrifle - A 30" lasgun with a fancy name.
    • Collimator - The first of two attachments, this is a 36" Heavy 1 lasgun shot. Really only useful for sniping someone.
    • Blast-Charger - An 18" S6 AP6 Heavy 1 shot that runs a bit of a risk: After shooting, the gun can't be used again for the next turn as it cools down, and if you roll a 6, the charger becomes utterly useless. If you plan on some violent Overwatch, it can probably be useful.
• Grenade Launcher - Comes with 3 different grenades: The basic Kraks, S4 AP5 blasts (so kinda like Frags), and an AP6 Haywire hit. Pretty handy uses for each.

Armor

• Void Armor - Essentially Carapace Armor, with the 4+ save being stock for the Solar Auxilia. Pretty sweet.
• Reinforced Void Armor - Void Armor that can re-roll failed saves against templates and blasts. This is invaluable and awesome.
• Artificer Armor - The classic 2+ save Marine Commanders (and Inquisitors) usually get, accessible to a commanders.
• Refeactor Field - the Guard Commander's familiar 5++ Invul.
• Iron Halo - The Chapter Master's familiar 4++ Invul.
• Displacer Matrix - a 3++ Invul save that, if any 1's are rolled, boot the wielder to Ongoing Reserves. The player must then Deep-Strike this guy anywhere he likes, meaning boot him to another wherever he's needed most (like behind a big squad). Only warning here is that he'll die if any mishaps happen.

Warlord Traits

1. Uncanny Survivor - Eternal Warrior. Would be awesome on a Praetor but on a squishy human?
2. Shattering Bombardment - Warlord can give a single Ordnance weapon within 6" Twin-Linked.
3. Bitter Blood - Hatred but only in challenges
4. Blind Barrage - At the start of the game you can give all friendly SA units the Shrouded USR, there is no reason not to use this.
5. Void Master - Stubborn and give any unit joined Move Through Cover.
6. Siege Master - Because Shatter Defenses and Digestive Denial were so great FW saw fit to re-re-use this decent Warlord Trait.

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Legate Commander - A basic Company Commander with Carapace armor for only 45, he comes with all the basics of the army and can upgrade his pistol and buy a Charnabal Sabre. For extra survival, he can also buy an Iron Halo or Artificer Armor for survivability. He can let anyone in his army use his Ld for Morale and Pinning so long as he's not Falling Back or in combat, so he's a bit better with his Ld, but not as breakingly powerful as his 40K equivalent's orders.
  • Lord Marshal - For 35 points more, you boost your commander's I/A/Ld by 1. This is also a lot more badass as it not only gives him a special retinue, but it also allows him to CHOOSE his WT, which absolutely nobody but Fulgrim can do, and here's a squishy humie who can do so. Along with all the other upgrades, the Lord Marshal can now buy a Paragon Blade and Archaeotech Pistol, a Grav-Wave generator, and a Displacer matrix.

• Lord Marshall Ireton MaSade - He may only look like an average humie with a badass BS 5, but there's more to this badass. As warlord, he gets the Grand Strategy that allows him to place d3 units in reserve or vice versa. He comes stock with Artificer Armor with IWND, an Iron Halo, and AW, making him tough to remove, short of plasma. Aside from that, he's identical to the Legate Commander as a leader, but also gains a rule like the Tyranid formations: The first time a unit that isn't a Unique, Transport, or Lord of War dies, roll a d6; on a 5+, that unit returns to ongoing reserves. As for weapons, he has an MC power sword, an archaeotech pistol, and grenades, so he's about as good as an average guard commander, but with a better pistol by far.

• Auxilia Tactical Command Section - The classic CCS that Guard Players love. For 75, you get the Stratego (Commander), Proclamator (With Nuncio-Vox, so treat him like a walking Homing Beacon), and Vexilarus (Standard Bearer) with 2-7 vets as bodyguards. The Stratego gets a Chapter Master's bombardment, which is S9 AP2 here with Barrage, Blast, and Pinning. Stratego can buy Charnabal Sabres, power weapons, or pistols, 0-2 guards can buy flamers, plasma, melta, volkite, or grenade launchers.

• Auxilia Tank Commander - Fun note, these guys give anyone within 12" re-rolls on morale for being on a huge tank of win. For 55 more points, you can make a Russ, Malcador, Valdor, or Baneblade become a Command Tank with BS4, but he can never be the mandatory HQ. His tank can now overwatch with any weapon available and can choose either Tank Hunter, Monster Hunter, IWND, Scout + Move Through Cover, or Precision Shots (on all non-Template and non-Blast weapons). Select based on how the tank works.

Elites

• Auxilia Medicae Detachment - They work essentially like Legio Apothecaries, they have to split up into multiple squads, conferring FNP to that new squad. These squads can either be Tercio squads or Command Sections. They are strangely priced at 60 for three and then 15 for each successive one, and they can only buy Needle Pistols.

• Auxilia Rapier Battery - The same rapier from legions, crewed by auxillia, squad size 1-3 guns with 2 crew members a piece and with slightly different weapon options. Comes with a quad multi-laser, can be upgraded to laser destroyer, quad mortar, or graviton cannon

• Auxilia Ogryn Charonite Squad - These are essentially Ogryns if they became Arco-Flagellants. They get the basic 4+ and have no guns, but instead get S+1 AP3 melee weapons that, if they score a 6 to-hit, become AP2 ID, meaning utter RAPE. Issue is that they're never scoring, they can't go to ground, and always have to make sweeping advances or consolidate towards the nearest enemy. If they ever fail morale, then an unengaged HQ can *BLAM* d3 of the mindless brutes, automatically ignoring the test. If you need walking shields, then you can do worse.

• Enginseer Auxilia - Another strangely priced unit with 1 Enginseer and 4 servo-automata normally costing 40 (20 for Enginseer, 20 for the automata) as opposed to the 65 mentioned. 15 points allows the Enginseer to grab other automata, Servo-automata with servo-arms (for 5 points) boost their Enginseer's Battlesmith roll by +1 each.

• Household Retinue (Lord Marshal only) - If you bring a Lord Marshal in the army, then he can purchase Veletaris Storm Sections as Elites, boost them to BS4, and let them grab a Dracosan or Arvus as transports, but sacrifice Hold the Line. While the Lord Marshal who bought them's still alive and not falling back, they'll also have PE (Infantry), which is handy.

Troops

• Auxilia Infantry Tercio - Basic core of the army. Consists of three separate slots, with three possible choices for each. One lasrifle commander in the three slots can become the Troop Master (Basically a 15-point upgrade to Vet Sarge), they all can buy Dracosans, and each section can take their own ADL if they aren't in Dracosans.
  • Auxilia Lasrifle Section - A 100-point 20-strong infantry squad with mandatory sarge, vox-operator, and troop-vexilla. 25 points gives the team Blast-Chargers for their lasrifles, while sarge gets all the basic goodies.
  • Veletaris Storm Section - a 115-point 10-man squad of storm troopers, armed with Volkite Chargers, or start off with Rotor Cannons (for free) or Power Axes (for 5 points). Once you've settled on that, you can then grab a Nuncio-vox and Shroud Bombs.
  • Auxilia Flamer Section - 125 points for 10 guys with flamers, which need a Lasrifle Section in order to become available. Considering how pricy this is, it does kinda discourage bringing lots along, considering all the templates you could be laying down.
  • Aegis Defense Line - Yeah, ignoring transports lets you take a non-FOC ADL. 50 points lets you grab a small bite of 0-4 long bits and 0-4 short bits of a wall to give your men a small bit of cover. You can then buy an Icarus Lascannon or Quadgun, the ability to re-roll 1's to hit while shooting (though this drops cover to 5+), or a re-rolling reserves base so long as any player (including your enemy) is within 2" of it (But also drops cover to 5+).
    • note that an adl may ONLY be taken in this manner if you are playing with the age of darkness force org (aka playing a bound list without any of the actual benefits

Dedicated Transports

• Dracosan Armoured Transport - If Space Marines can grab Land Raiders en masse in the old days, so can we! This is a 5HP 13/12/12 tank with only a TL Lascannon for a weapon with lights and a re-rollable 6+ invul against blasts and templates (and re-rolls on Dangerous Terrain). It can buy two HKs, a pintle-mounted heavy flamer/multilaser ceramite to make it anti-melta, flare shields to drop shooting by 1 (-2 for templates and blasts), or an auxiliary drive. This beast can comfortably carry 20 models (no bulky or anything), but if you replace the lascannon with a Demolisher cannon, you only get room for 10 models.

• Auxilia Arvus Lighter - The Arvus is a flittery little thing, holding 12 models, but nothing else at a bone-stock price of 75 points. It does get a rather broad list of upgrades and weapons, which might give it survivability, but its not going to really go that much once it unloads its squad.

Fast Attack

• Auxilia Tarantula Sentry Gun Battery - It's 1-3 sentries, same as the ones used in 40K. Each one can choose between firing up to 36" in a 90 degree arc or going 360 degrees up to 18" range. Heavy flamers, heavy bolters and rotor cannons must fire at non-vehicles and all lascannons and multi-meltas shoot vehicles. They can be deployed in one of three ways: They can be deployed out using Scout, they can be set up like normal and gain shrouded until they start firing, where it wears off, or they can be Deep Striked, each turret rolling individually.

• Auxilia Leman Russ Strike Squadron - The world was truly strange in 30k, where Leman Russes were actually able to go FAST. (well, once a game, they can get Fast. They'll move like ordinary tanks normally) You can only grab the main, Exterminator, Annihilator, and Vanquisher variations, and they can all get Outflank and a 6+ invul against Blasts and Templates. Their hull guns are the same, they can mount a multilaser or heavy flamer on the pintle, and can grab an HK, Ceramite, extra armor, and dozers. Oh, and you lose sponsons, but that's a minor matter since you also lack PotMS.

• Auxilia Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter - This is an interesting, if somewhat fragile, fighter. It's BS4 with 11/11/10 and 3 HP with 2 TL lascannons and a multilaser, and has 4 special 48" S6 AP2 Armourbane Heat-Seeking missiles that make it ideal against other flyers (It even gets a re-roll on reserves if there's an enemy flyer on the field!). It has an armored cockpit and chaff launchers, so stunlocking it's pointless, and glances can even be ignored if it rolls a 6 after getting the hit.

• Auxilia Primaris Lightning Strike Fighter - A cheaper alternative to the Thunderbolt for your Aerial needs, with an extra +1 to all jink. It starts off with a TL lascannon, chaff launcher and armored cockpit, so it can always be on the move, but then it gets better. It gets 3 hardpoints it can equip for TL autocannons, TL lascannons, TL missile launchers (which can be upgraded to buy fucking RAD missiles) and any of two special sets of bombs and missiles. It can also buy Tank Hunters, Strafing Run, and a Ramjet Diffraction Grid.
  • The Missiles can either be S6 AP3 Large Blasts with Blind and Gets Hot or S8 AP1 Armorbane missiles. One's meant for blasting up blobs, the other's for totaling vehicles (Especially with Tank Hunters). The bombs can either really risky S5 AP2 two-hit bomb cluster barrages which can move again after scattering to hit a few more models and forces the area that's blasted to remain dangerous terrain for anything open-topped or with a toughness value, or a simpler S3 AP4 Large Blast with Haywire and Concussive. A warning about the former bombs: if the flyer gets hit while carting these around and suffers damage, it has to roll a d6. If it rolls 6, the thing instantly blows up.

Heavy Support

• Auxilia Leman Russ Assault Squadron - The other half of the russes, the Demolisher, Eradicator, and Executioner are all present in this force and are slightly cheaper. They're essentially the same as their cousins above, but with two distinctions: they can't choose to be Fast for a turn, and if they hit a target another member of the squad was targeting then they gain +1 BS.

• Auxilia Artillery Tank Battery - 1-3 Medusas, Basilisks, or Bombards are grouped here. They all can grab pintle weapons if they feel the need to defend themselves and can buy some extra survival gear too. Bombards can also fork over 25 points to gain Sunder and Concussive on their blasts.

• Auxilia Malcador Heavy Tank -

• Auxilia Malcador Infernus Special Weapons Tank

• Auxilia Valdor Tank Hunter - A frightening motherfucker with a Neutron Beam Projector, a 36" S10 AP1 Ordinance 2 gun that has Concussive and force Superheavies that get a pen to only fire snap-shots for the next turn. It also has a SINGLE sponson-mounted autocannon (which can become a Multilaser, Heavy Flamer, or Lascannon), making for a very weird dead zone on one side of the Valdor. Being an insanely expensive dip, you need to keep this side covered at all costs if you want to total tanks. Not only because you want it to live, but because if you ever suffer a pen, you need to re-roll all results of 1 on vehicle damage and if it explodes, it adds +d3" to the explosion radius.

• 0-1 Cyclops Remote Demolitions Unit - Nobody really likes these things, and the only reason D-99 makes use of them is to give them more room to land more Valkyries Turn 1. Sure, you can buy 1-5 of the little doom-tanks, but they all need to be the same payload: an S9 AP3 Large Blast, an S5 AP4 Cover Ignoring Massive Blast, or a D Blast with Blind and ID (Which can only be purchased if a Lord Marshal's in the army). All's said and done, use only if you want to troll with deathly bombs.

Lords of War

• Auxilia Baneblade: - Though outclassed by the Legion Fellblade, the Baneblade is still a nasty proposition to face. Sporting a Baneblade cannon, co-axial Autocannon, Demolisher Cannon, two Lascannons, three twin-linked heavy bolters, optional pintle mounts, AND optional Hunter-killer missile, it is a rolling fortress of death.

• Auxilia Stormlord: -

• Auxilia Shadowsword: - for hunting Titans and enemy Superheavies.

• Auxilia Stormsword: Best at street fighting and siege warfare (and there was a lot of that in the Heresy), what it lacks in range is is made up for in firepower, and in 30k firepower is everything.

• Auxilia Stormblade: - Taking the Shadowsword chassis and sticking the Plasma Cannon from a Titan on it. Allows for two firing modes: Rapid and Overload. Rapid gives you 2 shots at 72", S8 AP2 with a 7" Blast and Overload drops it down to 1 shot with 96" range S10 AP2 Apocalyptic Blast. So if you need to clear out a horde of non-super heavy tanks or massed Astartes at range, this'll be high on your list.

• Auxilia Stormhammer: - Taking Dakka to a logical extreme, the Stormhammer is less a superheavy and more a rolling fortress bristling with guns.