40K: Phobos Armor – Questions Answered
With Shadowspear comes the vaunted Phobos armor, first seen equipped by Primaris Reivers. This stealth-centered armor is a boon to everyone–Reivers included. Here’s a look at what it does.
Many of you might have noticed the new Phobos Armour lurking in the leaks, previews, reveals, teasers, unboxings, lifetime achievement specials, ponderous biopics, and gritty reboots of the contents of the Shadowspear box. And in point of fact, it’s the newest toy for the Primaris–but it turns out it’s one that’s been around since the days when Reivers were first announced and compared to Night Lords.
Reivers get it now–although more accurately they’ve always had it. But what, exactly, does it do? It’s functionally identical to normal Mk X armour, but it has the added effect of letting you be affected by things that work off of the Phobos keyword. Right now, this means extra stealth powers, as seen in Shrouding:
Which you can theoretically use on your Reivers to keep them from getting shot–or any of the other Phobos equipped marines you might have. Or if you’re looking to buff your units and give them rerolls without the benefit of a Captain around, then Scryer’s gaze has got you covered.
Or there’s Temporal Corridor, which is basically Warp time but now the Imperium has it.
And the long and the short of it is not really so much about Phobos armor–I mean there’s some interesting stuff there, Phobos equipped units are a little more mobile and can be more resilient/killy than you’d think–but the big part is the precedent that GW sets with this. Retroactively granting units a keyword, using something like armor as the source of a Keyword is an interesting way of doing it. Having the option to go back in and say “here’s more buff-abilities” or what have you feels like a good move for the game.
But we’ll have to wait and see if any more comes of this. In the meantime, what do you think of the new Phobos armo(u)r?
Let us know in the comments!
