Introducing you to the Legio Solaria Reaver Titan Manibus Ignum. My latest delve into the manifold. I added this into the battlegroup in a support role. By that I mean it isn’t part of the Mandatum maniple as the full complement is four Warhounds and a Warlord.
Although it doesn’t benefit from the Warlord’s bonus ‘to hit’ and command modifiers, it’s still a handy engine to have in a support role. The mix of Gatling and Melta is a tried and trusted combo. But for a bit of “choom!” I swapped out the apocalypse launcher for a Volkite Eradicator. I know it’s not a popular points choice. In retrospect if I had just taken the launcher I could have afforded to fit a second Warhound with ‘cameleoline shroud’. But volkite is just so darned cool and heresy! I’ll paint up the spare launcher from the kit in Solaria colours for some extra loadout options.
Worth calling out with the Reaver are the base and banner. As the rest of the painting and weathering I already covered in previous posts. I wanted the base to continue the ‘defenders of terra’ theme from the siege, Mercury Wall in particular. But also Solaria buying time for the defenders falling back from the outer defences to the inner palatine, the events portrayed in book two.
The base
The open stance of the Reaver is a classic pose. So the idea of including mounted Rough Riders was a nod to the ‘Imperial Hunters’ heritage described at the start of ‘Titandeath’. Sharp eyed readers will have noticed some of the models go right back to the original ‘Epic’ Guard set from the early 90’s. Back when they came in boxes of 300 figures. Ahh the nostalgia.
Perfidi Pergendi!
A ridiculously over-sized ‘Divisio Militaris’ banner was supposed to be a second banner for the Warlord. However I switched it for the Reaver at the last minute, deciding it looked better in the battlegroup. I’m not sure I’ll go quite as big as this for future engines in a single banner, but I was super-pleased how nicely it came out. The result was exactly as I had envisioned when considering how I wanted Solaria to look and feel on the tabletop, and that rarely happens!
Future plans
Planned reinforcement include a second Reaver. But only because when I painted the test carapaces it turned out as one of the nicer ones, yet in the end wasn’t the one I selected for the final assembly. Instead I opted instead for a variant with aquila and scrollwork (yes those are decals for the writing and no I probably won’t do it again!). I hate to see it go to waste as it includes one of the larger legio icons across the front. So I feel a second reaver will balance the group out and let me run a few other maniple options. There are no plans to do this anytime soon, so please don’t hold your breath or anything. Next according to plan is a banner of Vyronii Cerastus knights and the start of my next maniple, which will be for …
Legio Astraman – “The Morning Stars”
I hope you liked my take on Solaria, these miniatures have been a genuine pleasure to work on.
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