Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Astra Militarum Hellhound
Let’s take a deep dive into a hot mess of a 40K unit and some thoughts in how we can fix them up. What can we do to make the Hellhound better?
I remember dealing with these during the Leaf Blower heyday. They were fast, annoying, and burned you good with a template. I always hated these guys and when they got a decent new model I wasn’t too happy. Of course, those days are long gone and this thing sits in cases, on shelves, and in unbuilt cardboard boxes. Even though I hated them I thought there has to be a cooler way to make these things awesome. Some kind of suicide murder box running you down while on fire. I know that sounds Orky but it makes sense for the Grimdark Universe to have a fireball of death available to the AM.
Hellhound Basics
This is all about a flaming tank and how it should be driving around raining melting death on hapless individuals. You have 3 versions to choose from. A Poison based one, a Meltagun like one, and the Hellhound. the Banewolf and Hellhound both work the same where they shoot out a blast while the aptly named Devildog is like a fatter tank with a random assault Meltagun cannon thing. All of these just feel a bit off with the Hellhound only being decent by having a 2d6 flame gun. There are better Melta options in the AM book and the Banewolf just doesn’t throw out enough flamer death to make it interesting.
How Can We Make Hellhounds and Friends Good?
Make Their Guns Good!
A D3 shot Melta cannon is just not good. Make it 2 shots or at least make it act like a super heated flamer. Give it a d6 blast shot or just give it 3 shots. The idea is that the Devildog can shoot up fast and still hit things due to being Assault. The Hellhound Flamer should just be a flat 3d6 Assault Heavy Flamer because while that could be a lot of shots it is supposed to murder hordes. The Banewolf should just go to 2d6 shots as well as it spits out that hot poison death.
Stratagems!
This needs some cool Stratagems like something that lets it light its Dozer Blade on fire and rush in. Have it get lit on fire and when it assaults it causes X amount of mortal wounds based on the charge distance to the enemy unit it targets and itself at the end of the Combat phase. Then if it kills itself I can use an auto explode option to get the max explosion distance for d6 Mortal wounds. This thing needs to come in hot and be scary as heck for a tank driving around with a ton of fuel tanks on its back.
Faster!
You know what would this better? Give it a free scout move. It should be rushing up the central, spitting out hot fire, and saying bad things about your momma. These vehicles have been Fast Attack and had the FAST USR in past editions.
Explosions!
It really needs to explode GOOD. Like super good and they should all be scary if they get too close. It also needs to hurt you as well if someone blows it up good in your lines. These guys are supposed to be nuts driving around an offroad gas bomb. As close to Orky dangerous as the Imperium gets.
Formidable Opponents
The new AM book doesn’t look to be coming for a while so these guys are gonna sit in the same spot. Still, it would be neat to see some crazy AM troops shooting over a hill while their tank is on fire as they yell about the glory of the Emperor.
Let us know how you would fix the unit, down in the comments!
