While many battles of the Horus Heresy were fought on great open plains and amidst the ruins of conquered worlds, some of the most brutal took place in the cramped confines of void ships and across rubble-strewn breaches in besieged bastions.
It is here that the legions deployed their most heavily armed shock assault units: heavy Cataphractii Terminators and Breacher Squads with slab-like shields. And in a major win for fans of brutal protracted sieges,* both have been redesigned and thrown back into the fray with brand new multi-part plastic kits!
The Cataphractii pattern of Tactical Dreadnought Armour has been brought screaming up to date so that its prodigious size and bulk matches the scale of the new MkVI, MkIII, and MkII armoured miniatures. Its thick armour plating and powerful shield generator does come at the cost of speed – leading some legions to phase it out in favour of the more nimble Tartaros pattern – but the grim desperation of the Horus Heresy meant none could afford to be picky as casualties mounted.
There are actually TWO new Cataphractii kits coming out. The first is armed with the classic combination of power weapons – in this case, power mauls – and volkite chargers, while the second comes with the more modern pairing of power fists and combi-bolters. These configurations only affect what comes in the box, and you’re free to equip your walking tanks however you wish.
As you may have noticed in the rules, these Terminators can take up to 12 in a squad, so each kit coming with six means it’s easy to max out the unit size.
Breacher Squads are most commonly employed in boarding actions where their interlocking shields are perfect for forcing a path down embattled corridors, but they could also be found wherever durability was more important than speed. Their heavy ablative shields protect against weapons that would otherwise carve right through power armour, and provide a convenient bracing point for specialised close-ranged weapons like graviton guns and lascutters.
Each unit of 10 combines the versatile MkIII power armour bodies with a new Breacher Squad upgrade frame, containing shields, new arms and weapons, and heads. Much like the upgrades found in the Command Squad boxes and various weapon packs, these new parts are fully compatible with both MkVI and MkII Tactical Squad kits as well, so you can represent units from different times and places with ease.
The first place you can get these awesome new kits is in an upcoming Siege Assault Battle Group box, which contains a unit of six Cataphractii Terminators with volkite chargers and power mauls, six with combi-bolters and power fists, ten Breachers, and a brutal Leviathan Dreadnought with a siege claw and siege drill – the perfect linebreaker to create an opening in enemy defences. It also comes with a selection of transfer sheets for the Space Marines and the Dreadnought, so you can give them some lovely intricate details before weathering the stuffing out of them.
Would you believe that’s not all there is to see from the Horus Heresy in this Preview Show? Head back to the hub now and check out the rest.
world championships preview
see al the reveals
* We see you at the back there, Perturabo.
