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.
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