40k Tactics: Cerastus Knight-Atrapos
Forge World dropped something big on us last week – the impressive Mechanicum Cerastus Knight-Atrapos. I’m going to break down the beast.
The rules are up for free over on the Forge World site and they are worth checking out. Points wise, it is more expensive than the other Knight variants available.
You should notice that it has one more hull point than the other knights, bringing the total to 7 but we’ll talk more about that later.
The wargear for the Atrapos doesn’t just look cool, it is cool. Let’s talk about it!
Graviton Singularity Cannon
Str8, Ap2, Heavy 1. Large Blast. Armorbane. Concussive. Collapsing Singularity.
This weapon has a 36 inch range or an effective 48 inch range when you factor in the Knight’s base movement. The high Strength and the low AP is nice. You will be able to double out a lot of walking character models and force people to make a good amount of Invulnerable or Cover Saves.
The Armorbane gives you reliable tank busting and the AP2 helps.
The Concussive rule has some decent applications with the plethora of large creatures with wounds and toughness we are seeing on the table.
Collapsing Singularity is where we start to see some ‘new’ stuff with this Knight. Before firing the weapon you have to roll a d6. On a 1 the Knight suffers a hull point BEFORE the attack happens. This means that it is possible that firing this weapon when you’re on your last hull point could be problematic. It is unlikely, sure, but the fact that it can happen adds an interesting choice to the game.
The other side of this is that on the roll of a 6, the attack is carried out with the Vortex special rule. This changes the attack to a blast effect with the Destroyer special rule as well. This is the gift that keeps on giving as you place a blast template on the table that doesn’t go away. It just keeps inflicting roving D hits until you roll a double on 2d6. Wounds are resolved as if coming from the center of the blast marker (due to the Vortex Rule) so it is possible that you can put your opponent in some very important Look Out Sir check situations.
I’m stating the obvious here but this is a good weapon. The Atrapos has the 7th hull point and the built in It Will Not Die like effect (Blessed Autosimulacra) to mitigate you removing yourself from the table.
Atrapos Lascutter
The Atrapos Lascutter sounds somewhat innocuous but it can be pretty devastating. This weapon is a Str D Ap2 Heavy 1 Beam weapon. The beam is pretty exciting here when you think about the movement range of the Knight. This essentially extends the ‘threat’ range on this to 20 inches and you can threaten multiple targets with a D weapon.
In close combat it is a Str D Ap1 weapon with the Wrecker effect. The Wrecker effect is a bit of an ‘add on’ that won’t do much unless you’re fighting against someone using buildings but it’s still nice to have.
The Wrecker ability allows you to add +1 to the damage result against Buildings and Immobile Structures. I the attack damages a bulkhead or wall sections of terrain and destroys it you remove the section from play. So kind of neat right? The Str D and Ap 1 is great and exactly what you’d expect from a ‘good’ Knight.
Macro-extinction Targeting Protocols
Along the lines of being a super face wrecker this Knight comes standard with Macro-extinction Targeting Protocols. When making shooting attacks against Super Heavy or Gargantuan Creatures the Knight’s weapons count as being twin linked. Wow.
This is very nice. I see this coming into play a LOT and this rule shouldn’t be discounted or ignored. It adds reliability to this model. With all the re-rolls in the game right now it is easy to take this for granted or to even expect it but for what its worth, this isn’t something that comes standard on most other knights and certainly not with D weapons.
Blessed Autosimulacra
If the Knight suffers a hull point, at the end of the controlling players turn roll a d6. On the result of a 6, a hull point is restored. This is very nice. It won’t happen all the time, but when it does I can see it swinging the tide of battle. We all know how hard Knights are to put down, any ability to rescue their hull points could end up being back breaking.
Ionic Flare Shield
Whoa.. The Flare Shield component to the standard Ion Shield reduces the Str of shooting attacks against the Knight by 1. It decreases the Str of blast/template weapons by 2. This is powerful. I am curious how organizers will rule on this flare shield in formations like The Baronial Court where you can take ‘any Knight’ in a formation that gives +1 to any invul save made with an ION shield. Is the name of the Ionic Flare Shield similar enough or not to build a case? I imagine we are going to see some differences of opinion here. My opinion is no, but we live in a world where regions and organizers are getting a lot more interpretive with the rules.
Even without any modifiers this ability is strong and further adds to the survivability of this Knight.
Occular Augmetics for 10 points!
The Occular Augmetics is huge here allowing the Knight to re-roll 1’s on the damage table or the destroyer table with shooting attacks as long as the target is within 12 inches. It also gives Night Vision, which is cool when you need it. The low points value on this makes it basically free and what I consider an auto include.
Flank Speed
This is a Knight you are going to want in action either firing their weapons or assaulting so I don’t know how often you’re going to use the Flank Speed rule. With that said, being able to run 3d6 in the shooting phase can be great late game when you’re going for an objective. I can definitely see this monster making it to the late game.
To Sum Up
This is a great Knight. It looks intimidating and has impressive rules. We know there is no stopping this admech train and we can expect to see the whole line available for 40k games soon.
7 Hull Points, 4 base attacks, two possible Str D shooting attacks, Str D melee attacks and a reliable invulnerable save vs shooting attacks AND it lowers their strength. This thing is a beast! Forge World is really tempting me with this one by offering this super cool scion model for free with every knight purchase.
What do you think?
