Raumjager vs Steel Legion vs Cadian Shock Troops – Kit Review
| Imperial Guard Steel Legion - A Hobby Project |
| Steel Legion - First Army List |
| Kitbashing Steel Legion Special Weapons - The Options |
| Raumjager vs Steel Legion vs Cadian Shock Troops - Kit Review |
In this article we will compare Raumjager from Wargames Atlantic with both the old metal Steel Legion infantry and Games Workshop’s Cadian Shock Troops.
The Raumjager kit does seem to be designed to fit reasonably well as alternative Astra Militarum infantry, especially as Steel Legion. So we will compare the aesthetics with the original Steel Legion infantry miniatures.
Other kits by Wargames Atlantic such as the Bulldogs and Grognards too look very much like some of Games Workshop’s other iconic regiments, the Praetorians and Vostroyans respectively. All these iconic regiments: Steel Legion, Vostroyan and Praetorian no longer have any official miniatures available new. Although they will live forever on ebay.
The Raumjager could potentially find use in other games such as Gates of Antares or Konflict ’47, but likely most hobbyists will be looking at these as alternative Imperial Guard for Warhammer 40000. So this will be the use for which we will consider their suitability.
It is not really enough to compare the Raumjager with old (mostly out of production) Imperial Guard such as the Steel Legion infantry. A guard player today is most likely going to be looking for plastic kits still in production. Thus we will also compare the Raumjager kit with the Cadian Shock Troopers, which is also a multi-part plastic kit and the primary source for Astra Militarum models now.
Examining The Raumjager
As you can see from the Raumjager box the kit can make 24 miniatures. The retail price is around £25 which is already cheaper than the Cadian Shock Troopers kit which is priced at £30 (at the time of writing). When you compare the body count though, they are even more of a bargain because the Cadian box only makes 10 miniatures.
- Raumjager price per man: £1.05
- Cadian price per man: £3
We can see that the Raumjager kit offers two different value propositions. The first is as Steel Legion proxies with in production availability and in plastic. The other is as any guard alternatives for a much lower price than official guard miniatures such as the Cadian or Catachan plastic kits.
Raumjager Box Contents
The contents of the box are 6 identical small sprues. There are no instructions, decals or bases included. There is no real need for instructions as assembly is obvious.
The lack of bases is not too much of an issue. Most hobbyists will have bases to spare. It is also not too costly to source bases sold separately. It is something to be aware of though.
The Raumjager Sprue
Below is a picture of two Raumjager sprues to show the front and back.
Each sprue can make a maximum of four men. The limiting parts are legs and torsos. The kneeling legs have two variants but share a right leg.
The kneeling legs could be useful for creating imperial guard heavy weapon teams, although the heavy weapons themselves would have to be sourced from elsewhere.
Right arm options
There are enough right arms on each sprue for eight men and enough left arms for six.
- Three holding a rifle like weapon that could pass for a imperial guard lasgun
- One holding a flamer like weapon
- One holding a drum-fed machinegun
- One holding an energy weapon very like an imperial guard plasma gun
- One holding an object looking like a stick bomb
- One pointing
All the weapon options, except the machine gun, are fairly useful for making proxy imperial guard, but it is quite a limited selection. In particular, while there is a pistol that could serve as laspistol, there is no chainsword for making a classic imperial guard sergeant.
Left arm options
- Four hand-less arms for pairing with the rifles, plasma and machine gun weapons
- One for pairing with the flamer
- One holding a pistol (to pair with the pointing or stick bomb arms)
Head Options
Each sprue has nine different head options.
- Three, virtually identical, helmeted heads with full face mask.
- One helmeted head with goggles down but otherwise open face (shouting)
- One helmeted head with open face and goggles up
- One wearing a soft cap, openface with goggles up
- One bare headed
- One bare headed female head
- One female head wearing a soft cap
Since only three heads per sprue are full face mask that does place a limit on how well these can serve as Steel Legion proxies, if one is fussy about the gas mask look.
I feel compelled to grumble about another issue with the head options. That is the inclusion of the two female heads. Besides the dubious ethics of pushing the fairer sex in front of bullets for the sake of “equality”, all the bodies on the sprue are chonky male looking. The dainty female heads look weird on them.
For a thoughtful look at the ethics of the portrayal of fictional woman warriors read my article: Chivalry VS Equality, Woman Warriors in Fiction
Or indeed you could check out my article on the issue of “female representiation” in the Warhammer 40k universe.
Given how small the sprue is, and how limited the options are, those two female heads are taking up valuable sprue space that could otherwise have been for something more useable like weapon options or pouches.
Other Bits
There is not much else on the sprue, just a radio, an extra belt pouch and a holstered pistol.
A Quick Look at the Cadian Shock Troops for Comparison
The Raumjager are plausibly designed to work as proxy Steel Legion. However it is more fair to compare the kit with the Cadian Shock Troops kit.
The Steel Legion were exclusively monopose metal and no longer available except for mad prices on ebay. See here for a look at the crazy prices at which they are offered.
Actually the Cadian kit that I have is itself a little out of date. The entire Cadian line has been refreshed in truescale in 2023. See here for my article on Games Workshops’s shift from heroic scale to true scale.
The kit I have here for comparison is the original Cadian Shock Troopers (2005) but with the additional upgrade sprue released in 2021.
The Cadian kit seems like a closer comparison. Both the Raumjager and the Cadian kit are multi-part plastic kits for making human sci-fi infantry. However they are really very different kits and not just in terms of price per body.
The Cadian kit may only make 10 infantry men but it has vastly more weapon options, head options and other extra bits. Where the Raumjager comes from just one small sprue repeated six times, the Cadian kit has three different and larger sprues with only two of them repeated just once each.
In fairness though, if we remove the extra options sprue added in 2021, the actual range of options in the Cadian kit is not really much more than the Raumjager.
The Cadian kit, minus the 2021 sprue, has only seven head variants per five bodies (which all look much the same anyway) and the same range of weapon options except there are a total of five lasguns per sprue so all ten men can be given lasguns. Compare with the Raumjager where only three out of four men can be given lasgun equivalents.
The extra 2021 sprue adds another seven weapons and another 25 head options.
Raumjager as Alternative Steel Legion
It is of special importance to me to consider the Raumjager as alternative Steel Legion given my own project to create a Steel Legion imperial guard regiment.
The Aesthetic Fit as Steel Legion
I have noted this before but the Raumjager are a near miss at capturing the Steel Legion look. I suppose they could not be too close or Wargames Atlantic could run into trademark or copyright issues.
Moreover, physically they are bigger, both taller and chonkier.
I think for using them as alternative Steel Legion it is a matter of “go large or go home”. By which I mean that they do not really work mixing and matching with the originals. You can go all Raumjager or all original Steel Legion but not a bit of both.
If you wanted Steel Legion and had none of the original models then you could very easily go full Raumjager and save yourself a fortune. The missing weapon options can easily remedied with Cadian bits sourced from ebay as we shall see later.
For myself I was lucky enough to order in all the original Steel Legion infantry I need before they went out of production. All I need is four more to fill out a command squad and optionally a few more to convert to special weapon caddies. If I am patient I may yet get them off ebay without too much pain.
How to Use Raumjager as Imperial Guard
If you do decide to use Raumjager as Imperial Guard, either as alternative Steel Legion or as something else, then you will want a few extra bits to make it work.
As we can see in the picture below, the Raumjager take Cadian weapon arms very well.
The Raumjager kit provides many cheap bodies, while the Cadian kit provides many weapon options. The extra weapon options tends to mean that guard players buying the official kits have many bits left over. Often those bits get resold on ebay.
Supply vs demand being what it is, official cadian bodies tend to be expensive while the surplus weapons can go very cheap. So one option is get your extra weapons from ebay.
Another option is to buy the full Cadian kits, alongside your Raumjager, and then resell the precious Cadian bodies for a markup. Keep the weapons for your Raumjager.
Issues with Kitbashing Across Cadian and Raumjager Kits
There are two issues to be aware of when kitbashing Cadians with Raumjager.
The first goes for any kitbash using bits or models not produced by Games Workshop or Forgeworld. Games Workshop provides free gaming spaces at their stores and hosts some gaming events too. If you frequent such places you will find yourself unwelcome if using models or bits that Games Workshop does not produce.
The other issue is that the Cadian line has been completely refreshed in truescale since 2023. The new Cadians bits probably will not fit as well with Raumjager. This is not too much of a bother as the old Cadian bits will be traded through secondary markets for years to come. The old bits may even be a bit cheaper now that newer more desirable kits are out.
Where to Find These Kits and Bits
Raumjager can be found all over the world most easily through Ebay.
You many also find a limited amount at Element Games for a discount.
Pre 2023 Cadian bits and kits are best sourced from ebay as the discount retailers will only be stocking new Cadians.
Original Steel Legion can now only be reliably sourced, at great expense, from Ebay.
Final Thoughts
There we go, a detailed review of the Raumjager kit from Wargames Atlantic for the purpose of making alternative Imperial Guard.
Would you use them as Steel Legion? Leave a comment or..
Share this article to my twitter @SolarCrossGames or my reddit community r/SolarCrossGames and let’s chat about it.
| Imperial Guard Steel Legion - A Hobby Project |
| Steel Legion - First Army List |
| Kitbashing Steel Legion Special Weapons - The Options |
| Raumjager vs Steel Legion vs Cadian Shock Troops - Kit Review |