40K: Redemptor Dreadnought and Ultramarines In Action
Take a look inside the Codex Space Marines, where you’ll find the Redemptor Dreadnought waiting.
Today we’ve got a look at everyone’s favorite defenders of humanity, the Eldar. Er. Sorry, the Space Marines. I mean, sure, the Ynnari helped bring about the greatest Champion of Humanity–but they were probably just excited to help the Imperium get back on its feet and don’t have an agenda of their own.
At any rate, with the release of the Codex: Space Marines around the corner, GW has a look inside the Codex for us, showing off the massive Redemptor Dreadnought as well as some of the tactics of the Ultramarines. But wait! There’s more–over at Warhammer Live they took these guys for a test drive, so there’s an extra couple of peeks inside the Codex for you.
via Warhammer Community
First up we’ve got a look at the big bad Redemptor Dreadnought.
Redemptor Dreadnoughts are the apex of Space Marine warfare, combining the ancient expertise of a renowned hero with new developments in Adeptus Mechanicus technology. Redemptor Dreadnoughts are the largest and most powerful of their brethren, rivalling even the venerable Leviathan pattern and trading out its older cousin’s atomantic shielding for more weapons. Colossal bulk indicates prodigious strength and belies a surprising turn of speed, outpacing their smaller brethren and capable of tearing apart even daemons and bio-titans with one enormous powered fist. This is combined with vast array of weapons designed to allow the Redemptor to focus on a specific target or remain terrifyingly versatile, from the anti-flyer Icarus rocket pod to the armour-melting macro plasma incinerator to the rolling thunder of the heavy onslaught gatling cannon. The Redemptor, like all Dreadnoughts, can also make use of Chapter Tactics, meaning an Ultramarines Redemptor is going to be very very dangerous – over two turns you could shoot, charge, fall back and shoot again. Nasty!
So as you can see, this is a pretty beefy boy, with 5 wounds over the average Dreadnought and even 3 wounds on top of the Contemptor Dreadnought, though they aren’t quite as fast. The degrading wound profile means that after taking 7 wounds (so almost an entire Dreadnoughts’ worth) they do become worse in combat than a normal dreadnought, but they still have 3/4s of a Dreadnought left, so, these guys are tough is what I’m trying to say.
BUT–we also learned from the Live Game that they’ll be packing a beating in there. They mention an Ultramarine Redemptor’s ability to shoot, charge, fall back, and shoot again–and having had a look at this thing in action this is a particularly brutal combination. The Redemptor’s shooting makes an impact–they have a ton of shots, we saw a 12 shot heavy gatling cannon in action, and that’s just one of the myriad weapons that this big boxy boy brings.
You’ll note the smaller gatling cannon on the massive mechanical fist up there–while not as rapid-firing as the heavy version, it does come mounted on the Redemptor Fist, which hits like a regular Dreadnought Fist but deals a d6 damage instead of the normal d3.
And that’s just the Redemptor. Let’s take a look at the most ultra marines out there, the Ultramarines.
As implied by the text up there, all Space Marines will have access to their Chapter Tactics (which Dreadnoughts will get to use), and the Ultramarines Tactic is all about being able to fall back and still shoot.
This is massive. In the Live Game, the Ultramarines faced down an army of Ynnari, featuring a troupe of Harlequins who were basically undercut the entire time by their inability to tie units up in close combat–so many of the casualties came from units of Marines who fell back and fired. Codex Discipline indeed.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!!!
We also got to see some of the new Stratagems and Warlord Tactics in action! Let’s start with the new Stratagem on display–which I believe is available to all Space Marines in general:
For 3 CP at the start of the game, you can upgrade one of your Space Marine Captains to a Chapter Master, which changes their rites of battle from rerolling 1s to rerolling failed to-hit rolls (for friendly <CHAPTER> units within 6″ of this model).
What a delicious buff that is–now mind you it is 3 CP, and depending on how big your game is (and how battle forged your armies are) that could be a sizable chunk of your CP. Buuuut–if you’re playing Ultramarines, who are all about strategy and are the most Codexy of any Marines, you can regain your spent CP.
That’s right! We saw the Ultramarine-specific Warlord trait in action–when you spend a CP to use a Stratagem you can regain it if you roll a 5+. So… if you’re facing down Ultramarines, you can be sure to see more than the usual share of Stratagems. At least, depending on their Warlord, I don’t know, maybe they take the Feel No Pain one, or maybe there are other better ones in the book–but this one seems pretty spicy.
Anyway that’s it for now. The book will be out soon, so we’ll doubtless have more information for you then.
In the meantime, remember: you can’t spell Codex Space Marines without Escaped Macaronies.
