Ryan's Hobby Hangout 30k Horus Heresy Solar Auxilia April 2024

Hey there, Battle Foam fans! My name’s Ryan and I’ve been a miniatures/wargaming nerd since I was 12 years old. One of my many roles here at Battle Foam, the best miniatures storage company in the world, is building all the new releases from Games Workshop, Asmodee and many other gaming companies. Every week I’m building some new release, and thought I’d add my two cents out into the community. Here I’d like to highlight some of my favorite aspects of building, maybe some things that grind my gears as well as some hobby tips for building each release.

This week we’re building the new Horus Heresy release for the Solar Auxilia! I’m a huge Heresy fan, so I was super excited for this box. I would assume anyone who would be serious in starting a pure Solar army would want 3 boxes minimum, and from the sound of it, it seems the new Beta Garmon campaign book might have rules to take small detachments of other armies like Solar along side your main force of Astartes. With this release, along with the announcement of Mechanicus at AdeptiCon, it seems to me like Heresy might be ready to explode in popularity.

Well, after putting the kit together, there are very few good things I can say about it, other than I’m excited to run some human chaff with my Word Bearers Legion. The other good thing I can say is whoever oversaw the Dracosan and Leman Russ, good job. The two tanks were easy kits, there might have been one instance of two parts having their numbers swapped, but other than that, well-built and thought-out kits.

Strap yourselves in, cause this pit-fall section for the troops is going to be a doozy. First and foremost, the layout of the build guide. As someone who is constantly thinking of how kits are perceived to new players and hobbyists, the way the actual Solar Aux section (the human humans) was laid out, was terrible. For a refresher, the kit comes with five, 5-man sprues, four meant for the 20-man squad and five for the command squad with an additional sprue for extra bits. The build guide starts with the 20-man rather than the 5-man command and doesn’t bother to tell you that you should only make 4 models out of a single pose. So, if a newbie were to pick this set up and start building, they’d most likely see the multiple sprues, and correctly assume they need to make that model multiple times since there are multiples of the same sprue. Then once they flip to the command section, whoops, now they have no bodies to use, and 25 dudes. Now that’s assuming they don’t get lost on the treasure hunt they get sent on first…

The way the build guide is structured, the very first model in the build guide sends you on a treasure hunt for the 4^th piece you need for the model. The build guide tells you to use the right arm labeled 45. However, you’re never going to find an arm labeled 45, one of the las-guns is 45. Oh wait, throughout the build guide, none of the guns are labeled 45, cross all the guns on the sprue with all the guns in the book oh, it looks like one gun should have been labeled 40. Let’s go find part number 40. Hmmm, it looks like it’s a shoulder pad, similar to all the others labeled 6 and 7, seems we hit a dead end. On top of that, the injection point on the bottom almost completely covers the part number for another arm, you can see it’s a 20 something, but not much else. Let’s hope that isn’t also mislabeled. The number of mistakes on this sprue, considering you get five in a box, also considering anyone serious in collecting as a whole army would have gotten 3 boxes minimum, for 15 total sprues, with this many issues!? I’m completely dumbfounded. Whoever oversaw this sprue’s design, I have no words. Horrible… Horrible job.

Well, all that venting over with, how about I give you some tips to avoid the issues of the worst sprue ever produced, eh? So, when you’re building the Auxilia Sargeant (AFTER THE 5- MAN COMMAND SQUAD IS DONE), when it tells you part number 45 in book, what you’re actually looking for is part number 58 on sprue. When you’re told to find the las-gun labeled 40 in book, you’ll need 45 on sprue, where the corresponding arm 41 is already correct. Lastly, that part number that’s covered by the injection point, I believe is part number 23, or at least it fits, and I didn’t have issues with it. Other than that, you’ll most likely need to use that shoulder pad labeled 40, in place of one 6 or 7.

By the end of this, we should have plenty of Foam Tray options to store your new Solar Auxilia vehicles, and we will continue to make them if we think of better solutions.

Well, that’s all this week, come by next week for the new Kroot box for T’au, where there should be considerably less gear-grinding!