Solar Auxilia - Solar Auxilia Las Weaponry: While first the dreaded Volkite, and later the powerful bolter, were the standard tactical armaments favoured by the Space Marine Legions, the serried ranks of the Imperialis Auxilia from the beginning favoured Laser Weapons as the pattern for their standard small arms. Adaptable, environmentally resilient, readily manufactured and, given their technological basis, extremely readily supplied and maintained by Great Crusade forces as they expanded out from Terra, las weapons were patterned to fit every conceivable need, from officer's sidearms to tactical rifles to armour-breaching heavy weapons.Within these broad categories were innumerable variations in patterns and models, from the Mars-Luminal, whose core design predated even the Age of Strife and was replicated to exacting tolerances by the priesthood of the Machine God, who considered it a prayer made solid, to the crude Gethrik "Fireshot" Lascarbine, lacking even the most basic of safety functions or fire selector modes, and furnished in local stonewood for the use of the deeply superstitious and feral savages of Jub'bala after their induction into the Imperial war machine.The Solar Auxilia, in particular, favoured the use of some of the most advanced and adaptable las weapon designs in mass-produced Imperial service, usually sourcing their arms directly from Terra, Mars and latterly also from Voss, Telastoria and Triplex Phall when possible. Such was the elite status of the Solar Auxilia within the wider Excertus Imperialis, and indeed often the personal wealth and political power of their commanders, that the Solar Auxilia commonly employed additional modifications to improve the overall firepower and capability of their standard-issue weaponry.These included, most commonly, Lasrifles fitted with advanced beam collimators to increase their effective range and accuracy, while many Solar Auxilia regiments sanctioned the use of forced-chamber over-compression cells, more commonly known as "blast-chargers".These devices imposed a kind of contained overload on a las gun's firing chamber, resulting in the expulsion of an unstable pulse of energy far more powerful than that of a standard las-discharge. Crude jury-rigged modifications fashioned for this effect had always been known, but at the Lords Solar's request, refined mechanisms of this type were put into production for special issue, particularly where large and deadly xenos species such as the Orks were expected to be encountered.Even so, such a massive increase in firepower on even the best manufactured las gun frame was not without a price and every time it was used, the weapon risked catastrophic overheating, and in the worst case, the total burnout of the weapon. Such risks meant that, in practice, blast-chargers were employed only by express order and in the direst of situations.A similar technology was employed far more reliably in a range of artisan-produced las weapons known commonly as "Blast Pistols." These bespoke weapons were able to fire only a handful of shots before reloading, but their damage output rivalled that of arcane Volkite Weaponry.Produced in the main by master weaponsmiths for the officer class and the Imperial colonial nobility, they promised extreme lethality at short range should the life of their bearer be threatened, either by an enraged predator during a beast hunt in some far-flung alien jungle or by a hulking Ork Skarboy breaking the defensive line amid a pitched battle.Blast Pistols were seen as an emblem of wealth and prestige, and many were works of art in their own right, and thus they also became a widely used form of decoration and reward for extreme gallantry and commendation within the Solar Auxilia regiments.