Liber Strategia is the latest supplement for Legions Imperialis, taking the army lists that were introduced in the core rulebook and the suppliments The Devestation of Tallarn, The Great Slaughter and The Rise of the Dark Mechanicum, expanding and updating them to make volumes consolidating the first year of content into full army lists for all factions.

In this full review we’ll be checking out Liber Strategia and taking a look at what has changed, what’s been updated and also building and painting the new kits that are released alongside this wave.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us free review copies over to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Legions Imperialis goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing and review checking out the new Legions Imperialis kits getting released alongside the book – Masterdons, Whirlwinds, Vindicators, Typhons, Cerberus and Objective Tokens. You can check it out just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado, let’s dive straight into Liber Strategia and check out what’s new!

Liber Strategia Review

So first things first, what exactly is this book? Well this is essentially a book containing the current full army lists for each faction. While we had a small assortment in the core Legions Imperialis book at launch, we’ve gotten quite a lot of new detachments, formations and even army lists added since then. This is a model we often see from Specialist Games, which while cool in regards of always making sure there’s cool new kits on the horizon, does sometimes mean that you need a small library in order to play a game. Liber Strategia solves this by taking all those rules and consolidating them along with some new options – but on top of that some profiles and points a refresh to bring everything up to date and make sure that every unit is now a more viable choice. This is great to see, as not only does it being everything into one place, it also means that some detachments you may have overlooked in the past get some new love.

To be clear, this book contains just the army lists – so all the lore and scenarios in those older suppliments are still very much valid, this just updates the army lists themselves and crams them into 240 pages, making this book as big as the core rules itself!

Now, there’s a lot to cover here, so I’m not going to be going through every change – you’ll want to dig into the book itself to get all that, but I will be going over the big changes and some of the more noteworthy additions. We’ll also be taking a look at the new detachments that have been added, along with a look at those kits too!

So let’s start with the first of the six army lists in the book, the Legiones Astartes…

Legiones Astartes Army List

The biggest army list in the book are the Legiones Astartes, and Liber Strategia brings quite a few changes over the first army list seen in the Legions Imperialis rulebook.

All of the Formations from across the supplements are included here, and no major changes made – so if you have an existing army there’s nothing to worry about from a force formation point of view. One big change that comes into play with the Legion Armoured Company is that there are now 3 new commanders added to the Astartes lists – A Predator Commander, Sicaran Commander and Kratos Commander. These are basically each a single tank with Commander, Inspire (8″), Master Tactician and Invulnerable Save 6+. I really like these as not only do they give you a nice commander to lead your Armoured Company formations, but they can also be taken in any of the other Formations too. I think this would look particularly cool with something like a Kratos leading a Garrison Force.

Moving onto the Core Detachments, you might want to paint a couple of helmets white in your units, as one in 4 tactical bases can now be upgraded to have an Apothecary for 10 points – this gives the unit the Medicae rule, and is a great use for all those spare command squad bits we have! Thankfully, at the scale, it’s easy enough to just paint some helmets. As expected, upgrades for Missile and Terminator bases are more expensive, as they were very good for their points.

Next up is the support slot, and Plasma guns see a drop in range but get given Assault, making them a little more punch up close. As mentioned under the Tactical upgrades, Missile and Terminator squads go up in points too. I feel this is fair as they punched above their weight for the points previously.

Dreadnought Talons have some tweaks with them now being “Contemptor Talons” without the ability to take Leviathans as part of the same detachment any more. We see quite a lot of this in Liber Strategica, and honestly detachments with less in the way of mixed models are easier to track in game.

Palisade Drop Pods are now a Support Detachment rather than an upgrade, and they get a nice points cut too!

Moving onto Vanguard, Outriders get points cuts, with Jetbikes and land Speeders now getting discounts for bigger units.

We see a couple of changes in Bastion with Taratula lascannons getting less shots now, but in exchange get the accurate keyword

We see some bigger changes in the Battle Tanks, with most tanks getting points cuts, and the Sicaran split into two profiles to split out the Omega option. It’s here we see our first new unit too – the Vindicator Squadron. These are quite expensive, costing the same as a Kratos, but have a nasty 12″ weapon. Boasting AP -3 and Demolisher it gives you some options that previously only sat under the Solar Auxilia.

These are pretty quick to build if you have built any Rhino chassis tanks, and look ace when finished!

In Heavy Armour, we see points cuts to the Kratos and also a trio of new kits in the Cerberus, Typhon and Masterdon.

We get a nice mix of stuff here – starting with the Cerberus we get void shield stripping with the main gun having 3 shtots, AP 3 and Shock Pulse, which is nice. The Typhon clocks in a little cheaper and basically has a demolisher on steroids with its Dreadhammer Cannon offering a longer range of 16″, AP 4 and Demolisher.

Finally the Mastodon is a nice Large Assualt Transport (8) vehicle with 3 wounds and 2 void shields, basically making it a slightly tougher ground based Thunderhawk. It also hides a very nasty short ranged weapon with its Ap-4, anti-tank, Demolisher, Engine Killer (2) Melta Array – though it’s only got a range of 6 inches.

Moving onto Artillery we get the last new kits for the Astartes with the Scorpius and Whirlwind both being in different detachments. You get 4 of each in the box, so you’re probably going to have to take both unless you have a friend to swap spare models with. Both have slightly different roles with the Scorpius being a light AT platform, while the Whirlwind is more suited to targeting infantry in cover, and with rapid fire has a higher rate of fire too. Both have barrage, but this is more useful on the Whirlwind with its longer range.

In transports, Drop Pods of all flavours get some points increases, which again seems fair.

Finally in Air Support, Storm Eagles get a nice discount, with everything getting a points discount for each additional model in the Detachment too.

All of the Legion Rules from the core book are also duplicated in Liber Strategica for completion too, which is handy.

While there’s not sweeping changes to the Astartes, I do like the updates here – in particular the new tank commanders and option to add Apothecaries to your units.

Solar Auxilia

Interestingly, the Solar Auxilia list in Liber Strategica sees less changes than the Astates list. After seeing the Marine Tank Commanders I was expecting some dedicated HQ choices for them, but they keep the rules they had in the core book where a tank can be simply upgrade to a commander for a points cost. like with the marines they keep all their Formations with no changes to what came previously.

The first big change we see is with Ogryns who see a big points hike as a support slot, and the points doubling in the case of taking them as an upgrade to a Lasrifle Tercio, which again seems a fair increase as you did get a lot for your points previously. They are now Bulky too, making them harder to cram into transports.

Leman Russ Battle Tanks have been split further, and have had points cuts across the board in Liber Strategica on everything other than the Vanquisher. While there’s been now stat adjustments, this should make other types of Leman Russ a little more appealing compared to the Vanquisher, which was far Superior to the Battle Cannon.

We see a similar split with the Malcadors too with all three different main turret weapons now being a different detachment option, and points cuts across all varieties too. The discounts keep coming with Infernus and Valdor variations also getting a decent discount too.

The splitting of profiles goes further with the Super Heavies also getting split into seperate profiles. While we saw this for all the later models, the initial profile in the core book was a consolidated list that was much messier to read than the new ones split by Super Heavy type.

Like with a lot of the units in this list, all of the Artillary Detachments have had points cuts – interestingly though when we get to transports we see the Dracosan get a points increase!

Mechanicum

The Mechanicum are one of the newest lists added to the game, and outside of some points changes (some up and some down) we don’t really see many changes. The main change being that any unit that didn’t get a discount for adding additional models now gets one.

We do get a new Formation for the Mechanicum however, the Myrmidax Conclave with has a Compulsory HQ and 3 Compulsory Myrmidon slots, then an optional transport, optional HQ and another two optional Myrmidon slots. If you’re wanting to spam Myrmidons then this is the detachment for you!

Dark Mechanicum

Like with the Mechanicum, the Dark Mechanicum are another new list – and in Liber Strategia we don’t see any changes to their list, all points remain the same and I didn’t spot any profile changes. If you’re a Dark Mechanicum player then you’ll probably be content (Though you do get access to some tasty points cuts on Knights and Titans…)

Collegia Titanicus

Armies of Titans are really cool, but realistically in a game of Imperialis they have been not the best choice to take as an army as they struggled claiming objectives and it was possible to focus them down with the right units. In Liber Strategia, Games Workshop have taken the opportunity to give Titans another pass and make them more viable.

Just like in Rise of the Dark Mechanicum you can still take them as an entire army, or still field them as a Strategic Asset allowing you to take a single one alongside another army. The Mechanicum and Dark Mechanicum still have Titan and Knight slots in their detachments too, allowing them to take more than you would normally be able to take as allies (The Titan list itself cannot be taken as an allied force outside of Strategic Assets)

Most of the Titans have had some substantial points drops, and every single Titan gets an additional wound on their profiles too, which is really cool.

You’re still going to struggle for controlling objectives, but now it’s easier to fit an entire Titan army with some of the excess points shaved off, which makes life much easier.

At the top end of the scale, the terrifying Warmaster Titans do get a big points increase, but if you field a Titan army then this should be soaked up by the points cuts on the smaller Engines.

Knight Households

Like with the Titans, Knights also stuggled to compete on the table – they were simply too many points for their power compared to other units in the game. This has been fixed big time in this book with some substantial points cuts on all types of Knight – for example your vanilla Questoris Knight banner has dropped a massive 50 points, and Cerastus Knights have dropped by 55 points! This is huge and means you’ll be able to take a lot more Knights than you did previously!

But that’s not all – each and every Knight (other than Armigers) has had it’s saves and Ion Shields adjusted too. All Knights now have a 2+ save and a 3+ ion shield, and Knight Lancers now boast 2+ Ion Shields! the Acastus Knights also get an extra wound each too! This is a great change in Liber Strategia and goes a long way to make Knight armies much more viable than they used to be – which is a massive plus to me! I recently painted up a load of Knights for Warhammer Community, and found I stuggled to actually fit them all in an army – something which is much easier to do now, plus it looks ace on the tabletop!

Iconic Formations

Liber Strategia takes the concept of “Formations of Legend” and updates them with some new options which include formations that are no longer tied to a specific sub-faction. This is nice as it gives all players some fun stuff to use in their armies that wouldn’t be possible within standard Detachments. I suspect there will be more of these to come in future suppliments and while a little more restrictive in that they have fixed detachment sizes, they all offer you additional special rules and nice combinations of units. There’s 18 here which includes a mixture of all the ones previously published, plus a couple of brand new ones.

Bonded Cybernetica Support Formations

The final section of Liber Strategia covers Bonded Cybernetica Support Formations, these are special formations that can be taken for each standard formation you take in your army – all themed around the Cybernetica. What’s nice with these is that a great number of them revolve around mixed factions – So for example the Brethren of Iron is a formation that can be taken by Astartes armies that allows them to take an Astartes HQ and 2 core choices that can be filled with Tacticals or Thallax, and then support, bastion or core vanguard slots that can be filled with Mechanicum units. This makes it really easy to include Mechanicum units in your army without having to take them as an allied force. There’s options here for every faction, and offer a nice way for picking up a box or two of Mechanicum and sprinkling them into your force.

Liber Strategia Summary

So what do I think of Liber Strategia. Well, first up I feared that we’d see many more changes in this book, and while lots of points and some profiles have been tweaked, it’s not the massive overhaul that some people feared. I am always a big fan of a consolidated list for Specialist Games systems rather than having the rules scattered across 4 or 5 different books, so this is a must buy for me – if only for the quality of life update of having it all in a single book.

If you collect Dark Mechanicum you’re not going to see as many changes for your army, but there’s still some fun stuff here for you such as the new support formations and the nice updates on Knight or Titans. For any other player, you’re probably going to want to pick this up so you’ve got the most recent points and profiles for everything.

Yes, some people will argue that a lot of this could be an FAQ and points adjustment on WarCom, but I’m in the camp that for ease of play I’d rather a single volume with everything in it.

With this book we now have a full set of army lists for Legions Imperialis – but don’t listen to some of the fear mongering we have seen on the internet about this book. I don;t believe this is the end of Imperialis, more so this is the consolidated rules for the first year, setting a clear slate for the next year of content. There’s lots of new stuff we’ve gotten for Warhammer The Horus Heresy that I think we’ll see in Imperialis, and I bet we’ll still get Primarchs, Daemons and Talons of the Emperor at some point too. If you’re an existing player then this is a great book to level the playing field, and if you’re a new player then with this and the core book its never been a better time to get into the game.

Liber Strategia is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 6th September

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