Have to agree with all the points made here. As someone who is building a solar aux army the lack of viable fast attack options was disappointing. There is some hope though; the Solar Auxilia legacies pdf contains two extra fast attack options in the Carnodon strike squadron and the termite drill. The termite is a great way of delivering melta/plasma companions IMO, while the Carnodon is just flat out good. A M15 tank with 3 lascannons (one of them twin linked) and a searchlight for 115 points. Even cheaper if you go down the choom tank route
The rules writers must have had a primarch spartan death star wiped by a single lightning last edition because lord it’s terrible now. Frankly the whole Solar Auxilia feels beaten to a pulp because of how good they were last edition. They were closest thing to a hard counter to Custodes, and now they can barely deal with a 20 man tactical squad. Only notable unit being the stormhammer now, and Veletaris spam (if you think that fielding 140 of them is fun, and good luck with that cost unless you’re printing them).
The biggest nerve are the tanks. Solar aux used to be a tank heavy assault army with big scary templates. The infantry was there to defend the tanks and mop up what was left. Now with the template guns become useless against astartes the army is toothless. And like you said infantry spam will work but not very interesting... to collect, paint or play.
I’ve never seen how big the Arvus is in comparison, but I feel like an unarmed transport should have a bigger capacity, but I guess it’s pointed right.
Mechanicum was his pet project, right? Also someone asked him why a Justeran squad (I think, it was) can’t use a Spartan at an open day, and he was like “wait, they can’t? Why not?” And I don’t think they’ve ever added that ability to this day
The Arvus Transport being a deep strike transport allows the Solar Auxilia to hide a Command Vox off board and potentially their warlord. Deep Strike specifically allows you to reject successful rolls allowing you to prevent your troops from coming in. (this does however limit you from deep striking unless you plan to bring all Deep strike options in t4) I'd recommend looking at the Solar Auxilia Legacies Document as it gives access to Carns and Assault Drills.
It sucks because previously you could give your Arvus guns and so I've got a lovingly converted fleet for my veletaris drop army that GW's "only rules for what's in the box" approach has made unplayable.
A very easy fix would be to swap the points values around for the Lightning and the Thunderbolt. In most cases I imagine most would still take Thunderbolts, but an objectively worse plane should cost at least a little bit less
I'd love a video on how to deal with primarchs when you are without, I'm making a istvaan 3 loyalist army so primarchs are way out but literally every heresy player in my zip code never leaves the house with out their big man in charge.
THe Arvus used to have weapons, but FW stop making them so they probably didnt bother giving it something they don't make anymore (they like killing units like that)
Im still here, just not actively making content for Heresy atm. Ita difficult to make content without coming actoss negative when the rules are someone’s side project :)
@@HearesyCompletely understandable! Are you still playing though? Maybe a video on what has shifted in what people play or something like that could be cool? Like what you said about HSS but condensed in one video? Or what space marine units have gained in value e.g. Vs custodes or solar and mechanicum and so on?