Epic: Ten thousand of us will hand you the wrath of Heaven

This noble king was cleped Cambinskan,

Which in his tyme was of so greet renoun

That ther nas no-wher in no regioun

So excellent a lord in alle thing;

Him lakked noght that longeth to a king.

 - Geoffrey Chaucer, the Squire's Tale

Earlier, the new Dune movie made me meditate on the relationship between Dune and Warhammer. Which I suppose can be most concisely described as Warhammer stealing everything from Dune that wasn't nailed down, and then some. Now, though, with the return of Epic, I have cause to revisit the subject, because the Legions Imperialis box comes with a whole pile of Solar Auxilia. I painted the tanks earlier, and now it's time to get to the infantry.

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Once I started thinking about Dune-themed Horus Heresy things, it struck me as fairly obvious that the Solar Auxilia in their void armor were a perfect match for the Sardaukar. I wasn't really interested in trying to collect any in 28mm, but now that I have a pile of Epic Solar Auxilia, I'm definitely turning them into the Padishah Emperor's fanatical shock troops. Canonically, Sardaukar armor was grey with black details, but the movie armor looks more white than grey and I prefer painting off-white anyway, so that's what I'll go with.

One of the innovations of the 2021 Dune movie was Sardaukar throat singing. I've been exposed to a fusion of throat singing and popular music at a sensitive age, when my girlfriend at the time played me some Yat-Kha.

So based on that, my Sardaukar are going to be the 337th Yat-Kha Shock Cohort of the Solar Auxilia. 

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Clearly, the most Sardaukar auxilia unit is the Veletarii Storm Section, so that's where I'll start. The uniforms are Ivory, the axe handles Black Brown, and they have Luftwaffe Camo Green shoulder insignia.

I like the models, but I defy anyone to explain why the presumably far more numerous Solar Auxilia troops get power axes as standard equipment while space marines have to make do with chainswords.

The Auxilia infantry sprue also comes with some Charonite Ogryns. Sadly, I misplaced one of the torsos somehow, so I took the tactical command guy and had them take charge of the Ogryns.

I kinda struggled to figure out a good color scheme for the Ogryns. I ended up painting the harness thing they're wearing Gunmetal Grey, as well as the weapons, with Ivory for the uniform. I don't know if I like the result.

I also painted the flamer infantry.

For the lasrifle squads, I did a very simple paint scheme: Ivory uniform, Luftwaffe Green shoulder pads and a Black rifle. The HQ stands aren't much more complicated.

Here they all are.

I think I'll be trying them out in a future game of Legions!