The Ruin of the Salamanders is a dark chapter in the history of the Horus Heresy. At the very dawn of the war, The Salamanders were a pawn in the now legendary Dropsite Massacre, an event that would almost push the legion to extinction. In the first Journal Stategia for Legions Imperialis, The Ruin of the Salamanders takes us through the lore and background of this moment, while also including rules for some awesome new units for games of Legions Imperialis.

In this full review, we’ll be taking a look at the new supplement, seeing how it differs from the hardback books that came previously, and checking out the new kits that are being released alongside this book such as the Saturnine Battle Group and the new Super Heavy tanks for the Legions Asatartes

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

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the new kits which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado, let’s jump into the review!

The Ruin of the Salamanders Review

Legions Imperialis has had a pretty decent year for fans of Epic scale combat. Not only have all the army lists been updated into the new Liber Strategica, we’ve also had a lot of kits rounding out the releases for the range. Since then however, we’ve had the new edition of Warhammer The Horus Heresy and with it some amazing new Saturnine kits that were not reflected in Imperialis. We’ve also had the Fellblade roll onto the battlefields of the Horus Heresy, and again the Marine Super Heavy tanks were missing in Epic scale.

The Ruin of the Salamanders brings all of these to Imperialis, and with them a new format for suppliments.

Previously for most of the Specialist Games systems we would have a handful of hardback suppliments a year, each offering new lore, gaming material and rules for new models. This was cool, and the books were very nice, but this lead to a slower paced release of models as those kits would normally need to be timed around a large supplement. They also tended to have a higher price tag, which some people may have grumbled at in order to gain access to a couple of profiles.

Since Warhammer the Old World, Games Workshop have taken a different route and instead offered smaller softback books at a cheaper price point that contain a smaller page count, but the ability to release these kind of books more often, leading to more releases throughout the year with each book focusing on a smaller slice of the narative.

In The Ruin of the Salamanders we focus on the Dropsite Massacre and the new Saturnine units deployed during that conflict.

The first 29 pages of this 56 page book focus on this background in a similar way to the old Horus Heresy black books – looking at the key battles that took place along with the forces that were present during the conflict. There’s some cool stuff here such as page spreads showing some of the formations that made up the battlegroups of the conflict, and some nice background digging into the doom that befell the Salamanders during the Massacre. My only complaint from someone who also plays Horus Heresy is that this is the same conflict that was covered in the first Horus Heresy Journal too, making it feel a little samey at times. I understand why, given they want to get the Saturnine kits into Imperialis, but I hope future volumes cover different conflicts and forces to those getting covered by the Heresy books – or at least to stagger them a bit more so we’re not getting the same event across both games at the same time.

The book includes one historical mission that recreates the moment in the Massacre where the Salamanders are fighting the Death Guard to their front while also realising that the Iron Warriors who they thought were covering their retreat had infact also turned traitor. This is a cool mission that has the Salamanders deployed towards the centre of the battlefield, with a force of Death Guard and Iron Warriors trapping them in either side.

I’m a sucker for narrative scenarios, so I hope that this is something that continues in future volumes, each covering different battles during the Horus Heresy.

The main focus of The Ruin of the Salamanders for a lot of people will be the new rules however, with a focus on all the new units out of the heresy Saturnine box

First up we get 3 new detachments.

Legion Saturnine Heavy Assault Cadre consists of a Saturnine Command Squad, 2 Compusary Saturnine Terminator detachments, 2 options Saturnine Terminator Detachments and 2 optional Saturnine Dread Detachments.

This is a really cool force that allows everything except the Dreads to gain the deep strike rule. They all have to placed within 6″ of the HQ (Who deep strikes first) and is a really nice way of getting these units deployed deep into the battlefield.

Next up is the Legion Super-heavy Spearhead – this leans into the new tanks included in the book and has 3 compulsory Super-Heavy detachments, plus another optional 2 and a flyer. This really wants big units of tanks, as everything in the formation gets a new Crushing Treads attack with the Wrecker rule.

Finally we get the Legion Argis Defence Stongpoint. This has a required HQ, Core and 2 Araknae (or Tarantula) detachments, with an optional 2 extra Araknae or Tarantula, a support and an artillery detachment. All Araknae in the detachment gain Point Defense, making this a pretty good pick if you want to go heavy into these platforms.

The first new unit in the book is the Saturnine Command – this is pretty cool, a command base with 2 wounds, 4+ save and a 5+ inv, making this is most durable command unit so far

Saturnine Terminators are a new Support Detachment, and just like with the Commanders they have 2 wounds a base and a 5+ inv, with a detchament having 3 bases makes these guys pretty survivable. You get a range of different weapon options from Disintergrators (a short range AP2 gun with Power Capacitor) and fists (These have a cool rule that causes you to do 2 damage if you win a fight by 4 or more), duel Disintergrators (gains accurate), Plasma Bombards (a longer range barage Light AT gun) and fists, or duel plasma (gains accurate) – this gives you a range of different roles and a good reason to have a mix in your force. If you’re taking these then you’re probably taking the formation to deep strike them too, making the short range a non-issue here.

Next up we have Saturnine Dreads. These also have 2 wounds and a 5+ inv, but also have the Armoured rule too. From a weapon point of view you can take plasma and disintergrators (which basically have better stats compared to the terminator mounted guns) or swap them out for a Graviton Pulveriser (which has the graviton pulse rule) and an Inversion Beamer, which gets stronger the close you get to the target.

The final of the new Saturnine kits is the Araknae weapons platform – these have a 5+ inv too, and have a choice of 3 different weapons. Frag Missiles are a long range Barrage weapon with blast and Light, but only 2 shots per game, the autocannon has a lot of inaccurate shots with Tracking, and finally the punisher has the shortest range but boasts a lot of dice, accurate, light AT, rapid fire and skyfire. There’s reasons for taking all 3, and I opted to build a selection of them all for my games.

All of these come in the new Saturnine Battle Group box alongisde a set of Masterdons, a box of Vindicators and a pair of Fire Raptors. This is essentially a big bundle box of 6 kits (you get two boxes worth of Saturnine units) for £129 – if you picked up those kits separately it would set you back £195, so you’re basically getting a couple of kits for free, which is especially a good buy if you can get it below RRP from somewhere like Element Games.

The Ruin of the Salamanders also has rules for the 4 new Legions Astartes Super Heavy tanks

The Falchion sports a Neutron wave cannon, packing a long range, AP3, Shock Pulse and Accurate all housed in a sturdy 3 wound 2+ save chassis, basically making this a cheap mobile titan scale gun.

Next up, based on the same chassis we also have the Ascalon. This is a new tank introduced to the Horus Heresy and it essentially has a Warhound Titan flamer strapped to the top. AP2 and Firestorm makes this an infantry killing monster.

For when you need to Choom something off the board, the Glaive packs a Volkite Carronade, 3 dice with AP 2 and Deflaglate makes this one pretty tasty

Finally we have the trusty old Fellblade. This one I feel is one of the best picks out of the super heavies. It has an accelerator cannon that has 2 firing modes – 2 shots at AP3 with anti tank and armourbane for blowing up vehicles, or you can tone down the power to get extra range and an extra shot and light AT – this makes this really good as you’ve got a mixture of targets, compared to the sole targets for the other tanks above.

These kits are each split across two new kits, with each box being able to build any 2 out of the models in the box – so for example with the Fellblade kit you could build 2 of either the Fellblade or the Glaive, or one of each.

Finally, The Ruin of the Salamanders has a couple of Iconic Formations that represent specific forces present at the conflict. As usual these have set loadouts for the units represented, however have some additional benefits. For example there’s a really cool one that has units of Saturnine Terminators pouring out of Masterdons, with the Termies gaining shred on the turn they disembark. There’s 3 of these covering the Salamanders, the Iron Warriors and the Solar Auxilia.

Summary

So what do I think of The Ruin of the Salamanders and the new kits?

Well first up I’m a fan of using the Journal format for these books. While only being a 48 page book, we get 8 new profiles, which equates to 4 new boxes of miniatures. This shows that even with a smaller page count, we can still have a nice way of adding new units to the game without having to buy a £30-£40 hardback each time. I do feel that it’s a miss-step covering the same events of the Heresy Journal however, but hopefully going forward we see some variety in the conflicts covered in each game system. When we did have the same conflicts covered in the hard backs, there was enough page count for the lore to feel different, so hopefully we’ll see the same here with different slices covered even if it is the same conflict represented.

From a model point of view I absolutely love the new kits. I have a large tank based Sons of Horus army, so the new tanks are jumping straight into my lists, with enough variation of roles to make them all worth taking in some way. The new Saturnine stuff is very tanky, and easy to get deep into the battlefield with the new Formation, meaning these will be a good pick who want some sturdy units in the thick of things asap.

If you’re looking to get started with Legions Imperialis the new Battle Group is a nice set to pick up too, as you can easily put together a couple of formations with the contents of the box, and maybe just another box or two to have a small force ready to go

The Ruin of the Salamanders is up for pre order today, and is released Saturday 20th December

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