Horus Heresy - Party Bus Hype
'The Vengabus is coming; And everybody's jumping...' - dirge from Emperor's Children vehicles during the Siege of Terra
Well that’s a big Yellow1 party bus. Let’s take a quick look at the model and then talk about it.
The Spartan is, like the Sicaran, one of the iconic vehicles of the Horus Heresy game. Yes it is just a Land Raider but ‘bigger’.
And yet it’s also a statement to match being that chunky block of resin. This was the armoured transport of the elite Legionnary units, the Land Raider being common in comparison. I’d even argue that with the way it was presented in fiction and rules options, especially with certain Rites of War that gave access to the Land raider to so many units, that the Land Raider was only slight less common than the Rhino and used just as often. It wasn’t a relic or ancient piece of armour lovingly preserved from the glory days of the Crusade, it was a workhorse used by all.
And the Spartan was the larger variant (it is referred to as a ‘Land Raider Spartan after-all). More space for carrying troops and more guns strapped to the sides to help deliver them right into the thickest fighting. We’ll come back to the guns in a moment, but it would be remiss of me not to mention that the Spartan is one of those tanks that most Heresy players have. It’s seen play in games from day of release, delivering Primarchs and Terminators onto an opponents doorstep before acting like a semi-mobile bunker that was not easy to scratch, let alone remove. The ever-effective ‘Death-Star’ that we all do at least once.
And now it’s in plastic. Hoo boy, this thing is going to be everywhere. You’re going to see this in so many games and with an increased capacity to 26 (from 25) standard Marines that gives the lovely number of 13 Terminators.
- Primarch & Terminator bodyguard
- Praetor, 20 ‘Tactical’ marines, Apothecary, Chaplain
Those were both options we currently had anyway but, and I really want to stress this, the model being plastic opens this up to many more players and collectors that weren’t comfortable dealing with thick blocks of resin that may be warped and bent just slightly out of shape so they don’t line up correctly. That and they’ll be easier (and lighter) to carry around so you can have more of them on the table.
As for weapons the WarCom2 article drops some nice nuggets. 8 Lascannons or 2 pairs of Quad-Lascannons as we currently know them, one on each side of the hull, are going to make a serious dent in what they shoot at. Pretty standard for an up-gunned Land Raider and what we already have, really. The interesting thing, and this is a mark against the preview article, is that we can swap out the hull mounted Heavy Bolter for another pair of Lascannons or a Heavy Flamer. But they don’t show us a picture of those components on the model. Part of me is thinking ‘well if you’re telling me I can have those parts they must be in the kit, right’ whilst my eyes are sitting here with a ‘I can’t see them’. So are they in the kit or not, because frankly I will absolutely be putting another pair of these on my future builds but also because those parts have been options for other Land Raider choices but they didn’t sell bits to do that without having to cut up multiple other kits to do so. Converting is good, but come on GW - just give me the options instead of making me have to cut and snip and breath in resin dust because I want more Laser Cannons on my tanks.
But I’m just focusing on the weaponry here, and having a minor grumble about parts. What about the rest of the model and, importantly, does it have enough rivets? A quick look at the flat sides of this metal-box and I can count at least… 25 on the forward half around the sponson. Joy of joys, it’s going to have enough rivets. You could even say that’s quite riveting3.
Enough about rivets? Look the model looks good. It’s what we expect - the Spartan but in plastic, with all the little extra details and the crisper parts that are much less likely to break or warp. It’s going to be so much easier to build and an absolute joy to paint in either Dark Angel or Death Guard colours. It has a place in every Legion, yes including you out there that seem to think certain Legions only had half the number of choices as others because they’re so narrowly focussed around a theme.
It even has a mark 2 crewman poking out the top which is going to make so many people happy4.
We only have one more week of April left and so far we’ve seen the Praetors, Tactical marines and now the Spartan. The Terminators that are floating around in the WarCom video are current models, so I think it’s safe to say that what we’re seeing here is some kind of Launch box like Indomitus and Dominion. Maybe next week we’ll see what else is in the box before the Open Day on May 7th (which a few of us here will be going down to).
Until then I’d best get some more paint on these models. And another cup of tea.
