Goatboy’s 40k: YAY New Primaris & Ad-Mech Tank Rules
Oh, my gawds – this has been a long wait to get some new 40k rules. Let’s talk all about the new Marine and Ad-Mech tanks!
Of course, they are not the rules I really want (CHAOS KNIGHTS!!!), but they’re still new rules, and I think they are pretty interesting. One of them will show up in specific armies while the other will depend on if someone wants to build a full army instead of just having a rusty 17. I do question the release of these because they feel like weird add-ons to armies. It makes me wonder if transports get better in the next edition or something. Either way – let’s get into the review.
Repulsor Executioner
Let’s start with the one I expect to be more useful. The new Repulsor seems pretty good. As we know most of the time in Primaris, the only marine armies that use 5 man squads of marines, so this tank only having a transport capacity of 6 is pretty good. I do think that the only Marine army this tank works in is the current build that uses Roboute to bring so much insane advantage to the table top. In fact, this army alone will be a nail in the coffin of these new Purge Dreadnought armies as each tank will murder a dread a turn. I also expect some return for Castellans because while they will take some damage from these new tanks, they will murder things in return.
Let’s see what you get for 300 or so points.
A Heavy Transport – and you will most likely take the Strength 10, -4, D6 damage gun. The extra rule of shooting twice with the big gun if you don’t move or move less than half is enormous. The tank is full of 36″ range guns, so moving 5 inches still means it is in range of all of its guns. That’s the big thing for this vehicle – it has the majority of the Repulsor guns missing, only the Krakstorm grenade launcher. It has all the anti-personnel weapons, the -2 to charge, power of the Machine Spirit, and it can part of any Space Marine army. Depending on what happens to the Beta Custodes codex and their pretty awesome flying tanks – this might be the truly good one for one specific Space Marine Chapter.
It is a shame as we can’t really make this any cheaper – the Lord of War for one Chapter brings this unit to a level of power that just can’t show up in any of the other chapters. It makes all its guns deadly. Just the sheer weight of fire it can throw out, protecting their troop goodness inside, and make walls for the Lord of War to hide/move behind is going to be a thing. Expect a lot of blue version of these to show up if people want to play and win with regular Space Marines. Just be thankful it can’t fit a dreadnought on its back like that dang flying box.
Ad-mech Skorpius
From there we have the other new vehicle – the Admech Skorpius in two flavors – the heavier one and the other one full of candies. I am confused about the Dunerider troop transport as Admech sorta needs it. The army still feels weird with a ton of options stuck in Forgeworld limbo, so taking full advantage of a hovercraft that can carry murder machines isn’t nearly as interesting. A lot of people talked about throwing those priests in there, but when they lost the ability to show up within 9 inches, they also lost their power for the game. The big issue with the Transport is you can’t carry around Cawl or the Breacher/Destroyers. I guess the tracks on the destroyers can bring in all kinds of mud. The load out of the transport is weird as it is full of Cognis stubbers. Or as I call them Chubbers. It’s just weird; it feels odd to have separate styles of the same gun when they could have just said it has 4 Cognis Stubbers. It’s an odd feeling as the transport can’t get any upgrades or changes, so it isn’t like they can hot swap that gun to bring something different.
But enough chat on the transport – let’s talk about the Disintegrator heavy tank. I think this one is a lot more interesting as it gives access to a no LOS gun. Without taking allies, Admech doesn’t have a ton of no LOS guns. I mean the FW 30k ones do, but the rules for 40k are barren for that special ability. This gets me thinking – it might be useful as a Heavy 3d3, AP -1, 2 damage gun could be spicy when used in the right army. Plus this tank has a decent amount of wounds where you need to pump legit firepower in there.
On top of that gun, you also get a decent missile launcher and some more Heavy Chubbers. It sits a bit above 100 points, so it feels alright. It isn’t going to break the bank (beyond just buying the dang thing at 75 bucks USA). I think once we see the FW units show up and maybe the rumored reworked Admech book will see if these tanks are the bee’s knees.
The Verdict
Overall this is a weird release. Yes, they bring something new to their respective armies – the question comes in do they really need it? I think for Marines we need a decent assault unit mixed with some rules tweaks. For Admech, we just need to get rules for the rest of their army with a better sense of identity. Both of these were up for pre-order, and while interesting, they just feel odd. On the model front, they still made this Repulsor a pain in the butt to build with all those separate skid plates on the bottom.
List for the week is looking at the Marine build of the Tank murder machine army I sorta talked about. It basically writes itself because you fit in a Battalion + Roboute and maybe some assassins. I will point it out and control c and control v a few troop choices to the amusement of everyone.
What do you think of the new tanks, too hot, too cold, or just right?
