Warhammer 40K: Some Thoughts on Guard Heavy Weapon Teams

OK, so you can’t have heavy weapons in guard squads any more. This likely means that if you had a guard army prior to the 10th edition Astra Militarum codex, you now have a bunch of spare big guns to form into dedicated units. Here’s some ramblings on how you might do that.

I've written about this topic before, during the index era when there was only one type of  heavy weapon team, and they cost a bargain basement 50 points for three. Under the codex we now have three variants, and following some patching-the-patch shenanigans, cost 65 -75 each. This means its possible, if not especially wise, to spam 27 heavy weapons for 615 points. The specifics of each variant is something I will discuss below, but their basic functions see a lot of overlap with each-other and the now retired Index version. The argument against Heavy Weapon Teams is the same as it always was: fragility. These units are directly comparable to 6 guardsmen in terms of durability, arguably worse as damage 2+ weapons have use against them, and only need to suffer two wounds to see a loss in output. Placing them in a transport for protection is also discouraged in the codex, as each base now uses two firing port slots, which would be annoying if the idea of two of these poking these out of the top of a Chimera wasn't a frankly daft mental image. Previously, this dynamic favoured the Infantry Squad, which could protect those same weapons with numerous ablative wounds, but that unit no-longer exists. The argument for heavy weapon teams is now their density and availability of firepower at the infantry scale, and the potential to force dilemmas by their presence. If you need more of a specific kind of dakka in a list, this is likely the cheapest way to do it, and its very easy to get Orders for them. Take Aim! is so obviously a gimme I nearly forgot to mention it. Heavy weapon teams obviously do well in the more infantry centric detachments like Siege Regiment (Incendiary), Bridgehead Assault (reroll 1s) and Recon Element (Cover bonus), although Combined Arms is awkward as its it creates a nombo-combo. At the risk of spoiling the article, the overall balance between the three options is to place Catachans first, Krieg second, and Cadia last, but there's there's not much in it. At time of writing, a change of 5 points in either direction could totally rearrange that pecking order. The current price of 65+ also seems rather high due to, again, the durability issue. An opponent would have to wiff pretty hard not to wipe out one of these on the first attempt, and if you're honestly scared of mortars I want to know who hurt you.

Let me start breaking down the specifics. Cadian and Catachan heavy weapon units are very similar, and this will likely remain the case until such time as the latter gets a range refresh. They have the same basic statline, that same habit of dying to any amount of direct attention, and the same weapon options. There is a somewhat incidental difference, in that Catachans have lasguns as secondary weapons rather than laspistols, and can thus fire those weapons along their big guns, but I feel thats an edge case. The difference comes from their special rules, Cadians being rather niche, and Catachans having two rules likely to be useful in every game. Cadians get the rule from the Index HWTs, they are that unit reskinned, and thus get a buff when using the Fire Overwatch stratagem. As this scales up to a 4+ to hit when a Platoon unit is close, it looks useful on first impression, but in the wider context it's hard to get use of. The Catachans meanwhile have a Scout move, and a reroll 1s ability against vehicles/monsters. The Scout move is great as mobility wins games, you can use them as screens if need be, and Bring it Down! just makes them better with a majority of the things you'd want heavy weapons for, although obviously not all targets. Oh, and it does work in Overwatch too. So, assuming points costs remain comparable, and in the absence of other factors, you'll be taking Catachans over Cadians almost every time. Or you'd take Cadians as you'd maxed out on the Space Australians.

Now, there is a temptation at this point to break down each heavy weapon and what they do. Practically however, there's two main options, and a number of niche tools you would likely decide against. That's how it goes with 10th ed units; in the absence of granular points costs, you are doing well if there's two workable choices. With heavy weapon teams, those choices are the lascannon, the anti-tank option and the mortar, providing light artillery. Neither of these options are necessarily spectacular at what they do, but they do offer capabilities otherwise lacking in Guard infantry. I acknowledge that there are usage cases for autocannons and heavy bolters for either Cadians or Catachans, mainly in the context of the Combined Arms detachment, but they are fairly niche. Missile Launchers need a complete revamp though. The lascannon makes it possible to significantly damage, and occasionally destroy outright, a tank at 48 inch range. Mortars are much less damaging weapons by comparison, you're looking at a lot of inaccurate strength 5 shots with the benefit of cover, but it allows you to sidestep the durability of such units through indirect fire.  Please note: neither plays nice with Born Soldiers, that’s why I was down on Combined Regiment above. You take the lascannons to add more anti-tank, and to force dilemmas onto your foe. You take the mortars to annoy your foe with weak attacks they can't hide from. Lascannons are the active choice, a foe has to respond if their force has tanks and such in it. Mortars let you do passive things like screen out your deployment zone as they don't need a good firing position. Neither the Cadian or Catachan options really benefit the mortar, not really. You could try mortaring a tank with the Catachans, in that you do get reroll ones, but you'd be at that all day. Cadians are even less suited, as indirect attacks don't work with their Overwatch ability, and mortars make it far less likely they'll be placed to use it anyway. The Lascannons? Well, Catachans are the unambiguous winners there, although the Cadians could get to use their ability with them. 

Krieg Heavy Weapon Teams, meanwhile are different.  Almost so different they could be an article by themselves, but the contrast between them and the above is important to make. With respects to the more subtle differences, these teams have a slightly better save, worse movement, and a forth member whom enables their party piece while he is present. There's a few edge cases where this matters, they do get up to a 3+ save in cover for example but its something easily glossed over.  The practical differences come from their weapon choice, and their fire on death mechanic. Kriegers have no indirect fire option, they have actual artillery elsewhere, so by default they can't avoid taking casualties. However when they do, and this is another dilemma for your foe, they have a 50/50 chance of shooting in revenge. Consider this to be akin to a posthumous Fire Overwatch; its not something you can control, but it otherwise functions as a regular ranged attack in the enemy turn. Orders do apply, it doesn't work in melee, but you don't have to target the murderer. The complications for you as the player is that these Krieg teams are a touch too expensive to be truly disposable, and then there's the weapons. Krieg teams have access to the basic lascannon, and rank behind the Catachan option as they aren't notably good with them. Its much harder for a foe to stop them from firing of course, which is handy, but for direct fire purposes, you're paying more for the same gun. The other two options are where it gets complicated. The heavy flamer option is very much THE unique selling point, rivalling the Hellhound tank, and quite capable of killing 4 or 5 marines outright in a single roasting. There is no direct equivalent, but the range of 18 makes it tricky to use. Its an ambush unit, not a fire support unit, so you'd need to keep it safe until it can be useful, whereupon it becomes an unholy terror. Burn on your turn, burn on Overwatch, then burn in death. That's not something a foe lets happen twice. Or once if they are actually paying attention. So they need transports or placing in reserve, unlike every other variation discussed here. The heavy stubber option meanwhile, seems to be made for a metagame that doesn't exist, as thematic as it is. While that weapon is great at killing chaff units at long range, that’s not something you usually need. There is a fascinating comparison to make with heavy bolters though.


Conclusions? Well, like I said, its probably Catachans first, Krieg second, and Cadians third. Catachans are just generally good on their own terms, and when running Jungle Fighter themed list. Krieg are much less flexible, but have some interesting gimmics that make them worthy of consideration. Cadians are painfully generic by comparison, but force no strong preference on the player and do the job. All have the life expectancy of a wet paper bag in a thunder storm, which places some limitations on their use. In big picture terms, there’s not that much between them however. So field them however you please, but I’d recommend the Catachans option in the absence of a specific need or preference.

Watch ‘em get nerfed in the next balance patch...

Plamo: Rogal Dorn Battle Tank (Games Workshop)

 

Its been a hot minute since Project Draftdodger concluded, so a brief retrospective is called for. That ended up being one half modernization, and one half new shit, but all of it basically being infantry. I spent a bit of time trying various new units, and the Siege Regiment rules, although truthfully I am now defaulting back to my pre-codex ways. Ratlings and Combat Engineers haven't made it into regular rotation, for example. However, with the infantry done, and I can now do the fun stuff. Hence today's subject.

As a ninth ed addition to the Guard, the Rogal Dorn exists in something of a blind spot for me, and I did briefly go and look the thing up for this article. Given the depth of its lexicanicum page, I needn't have bothered. Seriously, there's a brief two sentence description in the codex, but basically nothing else has written about it that I have found. I mean, I continue not to care about the solar horse lord, but at least he had 4 paragraphs and a recent novel. This feels a bit light for something that's obviously a centrepiece for your force, not that guard players strictly speaking need any justification for fielding big tanks. No justification whatsoever. So, in a bid to pad the word count, I'm gonna talk about some design elements and gameplay mechanics. Seemingly based off the M26 Pershing, the Rogal Dorn is a rather big tank named for one of the less fun space marine demigods. While a battle tank, its overall size places it in a previously undefined category between the already somewhat heavy Leman Russ, and the aptly termed super-heavies such as the Baneblade. GW seems to want to phase out super-heavies though, along with the entire ForgeWorld stable, so this makes the Dorn the biggest guard tank you are likely see in every day 40k. It's tactical function seems to be as a bullet sponge. Its not lacking in firepower by any means, its got 7 guns on it, but it does tend towards being a generalist that outlasts rivals rather than one-shotting them. Its also such a fattie than it can survive a prolonged melee while firing the whole time. Its a vehicle that rolls up the mid board, not actually invincible, but like a Land Raider, it demands a response from your foe.

As a kit, the Rogal Dorn is pretty nice, if having one well-known flaw. It goes together nicely, and has a variety of build options. Neither of those qualities are necessarily a given in GW kits these days. It's never a deficit in detail or even ambition with their stuff, they are good at what they do. But I find myself with greater freedom and less irritation of than say an Ork buggy or those marines I made last year. If you built three of these, you wouldn't struggle making them different out of the box by shuffling around optional bits like crew and stowage. The main problem is the underside, which in a rather meme-tastic move, lacks a panel making the hollowness of the affair very obvious. Its a crying shame, as the kit doesn't seem to cut corners elsewhere, so I filled that gap with scrap plastic at the first opportunity. I also kitbashed a heavy stubber to resemble a remote operated example, facing rearward on the turret, modded a hatch slightly, and added a small resin box for additional character. I opted for a generalist weapon fit for this one, with an eye towards the Combined Arms detachment. That meant three stubbers for crowd control, two multimeltas as close anti-tank, a hull pulverizer cannon for heavy infantry, and the oppressor turret for long range ordnance. Like so many units, there's a few options that don't really shine with the Dorn, and had the twin battlecannon had more punch to it, I would likely opted for that and relived Command & Conquer.

Painting this was mainly achieved via the spraycan method and weathering techniques. I did everything in Color Forge Trench Brown first, masked a few bits like weapons and treads, before spraying Deathrattle green. I mixed up some blue-grey metal for the treads, but otherwise this was simple applications of vallejo paints and such. It was a relief to discover that there was little need for transfers with so many winged skulls on the sculpt. The main difficulty I had was with the assorted vision slits, especially the four massive ones on the hull. I initially tried to paint these with Soulstone technical as a cheat, but this proved to be impractical. Regretting it, I painted the areas black and added some Ardcoat to help it shine. I know the box photos want these to be blue, but in my defence, that's mainly to suggest that there's glass as per the house style. I did manage to find some images of military vehicles with black tinted bulletproof glass, and no blue glass, and that's the story I'm sticking with.


Minor mishaps and the occasional seam line aside, this came out pretty well.

Gaslands: The Bumblebee

 

Here we are, another Gaslands project made for therapeutic and practice purposes.

The base toy here is a Hot Wheels Volkswagon Beetle, specifically the one sold as the Transformers character Bumblebee. There's a few of these tie-ins knocking about, if very quick to sell out, but I am keeping an eye out for them at retail. Mine seems to have been a later gold variant, but features Bumblebee's face moulded on the underside. The car in general seems to be a pre-existing mould, and probably is the easiest time Mattel had with this little collaboration; Hasbro has had a much worse time historically licencing the car. Volkswagen is famously reluctant to be associated with war toys. Funny story: while beloved by stereotype hippies for its iconic cuddly appearance, the Beetle started out as a Nazi project that ended up in military use. Its like that one time the Pope turned out to have been in the Hitler Youth, but I digress. I suppose Volkswagen would prefer that people didn't bring this up, hence the Hasbro's difficulty in using the altmode at various points. Mattel doesn’t have that problem with Hot Wheels. The VW Beetle is of course bigger than Bumblebee, far bigger than Gaslands, and indeed bigger than Herby and Mad Max. Its a car I had to do eventually.

Anyways, I didn't have a specific plan going into this, and myself bedazzling the car. I have loads of adhesive gems and such for use as 28mm details, and after applying a few I opted for a studded roof type effect. Is this punk? I don't know, fashion is something that happens to other people. I also applied larger examples to the wheels as hubcaps. The gun meanwhile was a Bulldogs leftover, and sculpting work was relatively minor. Painting was achieved in much the same manner as my usual, but this time I dared to try yellow because of Bumblebee. A tan yellow, which looks a bit crap, but suitably so given the weathering.

There’s not a huge amount for me to say about this one, and I think I’m gonna need something more substantial to do soon. Mind you, it did come out quite well.

 

Not-Transformers: Dr.Wu Evil Dragon is Something that Exists

I suppose I should preface this by stating my stance on the whole "Third Party" Transformers scene. Mostly, I don't like it. There's the obvious legal issues to start with. Third party is a euphemism, a better term would be unlicensed, and while we can argue about the details and relevant national IP law, a lot of this stuff lacks clean hands as it were. There's also the matter of price, these things being much more expensive than actual Transformers, although there's often a quality justification/argument for that. Finally, the whole Third Party sphere is characterised by a massive Geewunner bias and a terrible follow-the-leader mentality which makes it utterly boring to me. How many third party Devastator teams do we need, for example? There are however always exceptions, and these exceptions usually occur at toy events where I find myself seeing something odd or otherwise noteworthy in person. Evil Dragon is one such indulgence.

 

Evil Dragon is made by Dr.Wu, an enterprise known for making very small not-transformers of a collector's nature. It is based off a Transformer, if an obscure repaint of one in this case, a lad called Gigastorm whom was a japanese exclusive re-release of Trypticon, the Decepticon cityformer. Japanese Beast Wars did that sort of thing a lot, but that is kinda interesting. And lets be honest, having a small version of something famous for being massive is also interesting. But that’s not all that it is. In truth, this and its kin takes a lot from 52Toys' BeastBox line. Its got a box mode, a 5cm cube, the whole repaint/remould release pattern here is very beastboxy. Evil Dragon is (obviously) a repaint/retool of an initial Trypticon based release called Energy Dragon, and there's a few other repaints knocking about. Meanwhile the actual toy feels like a modern and refined BeastBox, with similar build quality and engineering. So it seems my third party preference is for it to rip off two things at once, OK. Something to be aware of. But, I went in this expecting curate's egg, a curiosity, something expensive, largely OK, that I could justify to myself as a bit of fun. I did not expect it to be this good. 

Evil Dragon has a total of 4 modes, but the battlestation mode is undocumented in the instructions. A little odd, given as it comes in box largely in that mode, but my research indicates that Gigastorm never used that mode anyway, so OK I suppose?. The transformation scheme hits the same notes as the 80's toy, perhaps not the biggest challenge, but its very well executed. Its size does work against it in a few places, like the side struts on the feet which will require a toothpick or similar to lever out, but that's the only actual criticism I have of the set. Otherwise your alternating between efficient design and characterful touches. The shoulder guns are spring loaded, and fiercely so. The little car chest plate has functional and separate wheels, and a robot mode on the underside. It helps sell the city and battlestation modes, rolling well, and just adding some sense of scale. It and the shoulder accessories play into the box mode so naturally you'd think it was always there. The dino mode is nicely articulated for its size and cutesy proportions; it's not as good in the neck as say Dio is, but I honestly can't say its lacking giving how much the head has going on. The mouth opens, the tongue guns are there, and the head has a very spikey horn on it. Its teeth are a bit sharp too, so don't consider this a child's toy. It's city and battlestation modes meanwhile are faithful to a fault; they are solid and nicely presented interpretations of the source material, but they unavoidably aren't as fun as a mechagodzilla type going stompy time. But, as I said, the little chest car helps.

Overall, Energy Dragon is very much the best version of what its trying to be. Its expensive by both the standards of Transformers and Beastbox, and its one legal challenge away from not existing any more. But it is shockingly good at what it does. I don’t know if I’d get another, and I don’t know if anyone else would like this, but this hit me right.