Last year the amazing Age of Darkness box for Warhammer The Horus Heresy was released to the world, and Horus Heresy players full in love with the new MK 6 marines and plastic Spartan. We knew that we would get new marines in other armour marks come to plastic, but I think it was a bit of a surprise when we found out the MK3 marines would be redone before some other armour marks.

Today the Legiones Astartes Battle Group box is up for pre order featuring not only the new MKIII Marines, but also a new plastic Deredeo Dreadnought in an awesome box also containing a plastic Land Raider Proteus.

In this review we will be unboxing the new set and checking out the new kits inside, along with putting some paint on them and seeing how they look in the flesh! We’ll also be talking about some of the cool stuff that isn’t explained in the instruction manual such as being able to swap out the dread weapons with or without magnets!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us the new Legiones Astartes Battle Group for free to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We have also filmed a full unboxing video of the set so you can see the contents built up and painted! Check it out just below or over on YouTube

We also have a full review of the new Exemplary Battles Volume 1 which you can read here

So what do we get in the new box? Let’s take a look!

Legiones Astartes Battle Group Unboxing and Review

So in a bit of a surprise move, the new MKIII marines and plastic Deredeo Dreadnought are actually bundled together with a Land Raider Proteus and a Special Weapon upgrade frame in a discount box. Now before we continue I believe this is a limited release, so if you want one at a discount you’ll probably want to pick it up sooner than later. However, all the separate parts of this set are also on sale the same day, so don’t feel you are missing out if the big box sells out, you’ll be able to get all the parts individually.

That said, you do get a considerable discount for picking up this box! Let’s take a look at what the different kits inside would cost:

MKIII Marines x 30 – £67.50 (These come 20 in a box at £45)

Deredeo Dread – £50

Special Weapons (One Sprue) – £14 (These come boxed as 2 sets of sprues, just one is included in this box)

Land Raider Proteus – £55

Total cost £186.50 Cost of Box £125 Total Saving £61.50

Pick this up from a independent retailer like Element Games and you are basically paying for the Dread and Land Raider and getting 30 marines and the special weapon frame for free!

First up in the box is the plastic Proteus – we’ve looked at this one previously, but it is still a great kit and is an impressive recreation of the original classic Rogue Trader Land Raider!

Painted up here in World Eater colours, I’m looking forward to picking up another one to add to my Sons of Horus

Next up we have the Deredeo Dreadnought – this contains the parts to build the Anvilus Autocannon, the Hellfire Plasma Cannonade and the Aiolos Missile Launcher. Parts for the Boreas Air Defense Missiles, the Arachnus Heavy Lascannon Battery and the Volkite Falconet are not included in the kit, suggesting that this will be a separate box at some point in much the way the Predator variants have been split across multiple boxes.

What’s really nice about this kit that isn’t actually mentioned in the instructions is that there are pre drilled holes for 3mm x 1mm magnets allowing you to build both variants and switch them out as you please. What’s really cool is that you don’t actually need to use magnets either – simply build each weapon and there’s enough resistance once built and painted to hold the weapons in place! This is great as it means if they do eventually sell the other weapon options by them selves you can simply pick up a set and add them to this model!

Finally in the box we get the new MKIII Marines – these are split out in much the same way as the MKVI marines, with each sprue containing 5 marines with the same basic pose, and then the same upgrade sprue with command parts and extras such as bayonets. I know some poeple didn’t like the fixed poses of the MK6 marines, but personally I felt it made building these easier, especially when you can have a large volume of Space Marines in a Heresy army, getting them on the battlefield asap seems more important to me that having each and every Marine looking different.

One thing to watch out for that is easily missed is that each body actually has guide plus for fitting the arms – For the first couple I cut this off entirely thinking it was part of the sprue – if you cut them off it makes fitting the arms much harder than it actually needs to be, so don’t be like me and make sure you spot them first! I do feel this could be clearer on the instructions to call it out, as its not obvious from the other side of the frame with the part numbers as you are cutting them out

The models look gorgeous painted up however and are fully compatible with all the existing MK upgrade kits such as the Special and Heavy weapons – for the Heavy weapons there’s actually some additional parts on the sprue that stick onto the arms in the heavy kits to ensure the styling matches the rest of the armour, which is a really nice touch.

This is an amazing set and a worthy addition to your Horus Heresy army. In fact, if you have picked up the Age of Darkness box then this set accompanies it quite nicely as you get around 700-900 points of models depending on how you arm your support squads, and this expands on the contents of the original box really well with a couple of heavy options plus a mix of tactical squads

The new edition of The Horus Heresy has been great fun, and this set finally starts expanding out the infantry options. This box in particular gives people these new kits at a discount price, which is a great thing! I really hope that we see something like this with a fast attack theme (Plastic speeders and a sprue of jetbikes maybe?) when the assault marines arrive later this year,

The Legiones Astartes Battle Group box is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 28th October

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes.

If you are a Horus Heresy fan then make sure you also check out our full review of the new Exemplary Battles Volume 1 containing the rules for Daemon Fulgrim!

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther