Goatboy 40K: Astra Militarum Loves The Greater Good
Goatboy here again to talk about the Astra Militarum side of the Greater Good. Get ready for more tanks!
The book gave some nice rules for your Tau friends and while the AM got some nice rules too I don’t think it’s nearly as ground breaking as the Tau side. Still it is neat and gives more rules to things you already saw on the tabletop – ie Tank Commanders and their friends. Of course if we see more Tanks showing up will see more Imperial Fists showing up as well so will see how the delicate balance of the middle tables hold thru with the return of the treadheads.
Regimental Doctrines
The AM get the new set of “customizable” rules we have seen in a ton of other Warhammer 40k armies. I don’t think we’ll see them a ton as while interesting they are not breaking the game like those Sneaky Sandwich Artists for your Marine friends. I think the AM still work well as a Tank Commander force so some of the vehicle upgrade options sound good like the Healing ability of Jury-Rigger Repairs and then adding Gunnery Experts to get a Reroll of one of the random type dices for vehicle guns. Like we’ve seen before the book gave more rules for the stuff getting used currently and wasn’t really “reinventing” AM. Thanks Marines for pulling the Meta in weird directions.
Tank Aces
After that we get the meat of the “new” rules I like. Tank Aces is a new set of rules that lets you pull in an ability for your tanks based on the type of tank it is. Instead of taking a Warlord Trait you can throw one of these on the tank and there is even a 1CP strat you can use to give another tank a Tank Ace rule. The ones I like are the abilities to make your tank better. The Leman Russ ones that look good are the Up-Armor which gives a 2+ to the tank. It appears you can have two tanks with the same Tank Ace so you can easily set up 3 Tank Commanders that have two with a 2+ armor save, healing up to D3 wounds a turn and Reroll’s the number of shots form its Battle Cannon or Demolisher cannon. Or just their plethora of Plasma options. There are even Tank Aces for Support tanks that range from things like Full Payload that maximizes the damage of your shots and one to let you Reroll the amount of hits you can throw down. Heck there is even ones for your Super Heavies that are there. Thankfully they are not crazy so while neat you probably won’t be seeing one. I like these rules as they remind me of the Prototype Weapons for the Tau as they give neat extra abilities that are cool and hopefully not completely broken for the game.
Stratagems
Next up we got 2 pages of Stratagems that are neat. I like the 1 CP that lets your tank act like the top level on their damage chart. Notice how a lot of these are helping Tanks? Maybe GW wants to move more Leman Russ tanks? I also like the new 1 CP one to let your Master of Ordinance have 6 shots instead of d6. Hail of fire looks fun if we see more Vehicles showing up as 2CP to get maximum number of shots from your Leman Russ seems pretty good. I hear that Relic Battle Cannon loves punching holes through your opponents metal boxes. Overall they are fine and depending on your army you could see using them. The Bullgryn rush is there but while neat I still think they have problems dealing with the “new” bullgryns that are strat’d up Centurions coming in hard and fast.
Ordo Tempestus
Next up we get new rules for the Ordo Tempestus instead of additional Relics and Warlord traits for regular AM. This is pretty neat as we get an intensive set of rules and options for your favorite Storm Trooper. 6 new Regiments are brought to the table and they range from being a “Rework” of their old regiment rules or just new additions for crack infantry. Adding range to their guns, upping their Weapons AP, move and shoot heavy weapons, and even a set of rules that make Night Lords sad are some of the new Regimental abilities they got. All seem neat and while I don’t think will see Tempestus armies coming to the tabletop it does give a nice set of rules for a surgical strike style detachment.
This army also got a new set of Relics/Warlord traits so you feel like a true detachment of elite AM officers. The relics are kind of odd with a bunch of weapon and a few neat ones. The halving the charge range if Overwatch hits them and an aura of 5++ save both seem good. I don’t know how much it is worth it to burn your Relic on one of these – but will see as the meta continues to evolve and grow. The Warlord traits are ok with some interesting “order giving” options out of a Vehicle, Perils on a Double, redeploy option, and even a flat reroll 1’s to hit (Saving an order). Overall they are ok and its just cool to see more rules for neat models.
Tempestus Strats
The Tempestus got a whole 2 pages of stratagems with one of the pages being specific for their separate regiments. We get another 1CP get an extra Warlord trait option which is always useful as well as some interesting precision drops out of Valkyries. This army is designed to come in, hopefully kill things in range and then most likely get kicked off the objective as you opponent throws a plethora of wounds at this set of units. A single CP power that adds 1 to the strength of your hot-shot guns when you are within half range (combos with some of the new regiment rules of additional gun range) seems good as well as some neat “suppression” options if you had some Aeronautica units in your army. Overall they are ok and its just more rules for a niche set of models – so if you like playing these guys then this book lets you play them better then you did before.
The Verdict
Overall this has some good stuff for the current units played heavily in AM armies. They didn’t lock you into only having AM armies to be useful so its good for those tread heads who would like to throw some Custodes and other bits and pieces into a list. Is this needed if you play AM? Most likely just as the Tank Aces rules seem useful. Next up we got GSC so get ready for those crazy fanatics.
~ For the Emperor!
