Warmachine: Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Rails
The Railless Interceptor has arrived and is ready to take the battlefield by storm! We’re taking a look at the new Battle Engine now available for the Crucible Guard.
The crazy alchemists of the Crucible Guard have a new toy that brings more terrifying chemical based shooting to the table. First check out what you get in the box, this is a Battle Engine which means it’s on a huge 120mm base.
Now onto then cards, then let’s review!
Sprays for Days
The Railless Interceptor brings 3 great sprays attacks; the 8″ Flamethrower spray and a 10″ cold type spray for each arc. With these 3 attacks the Railless is going to be able to clear tons of single wound and medium armor infantry and even chip in damage on some harder targets. Unfortunately this Battle Engine doesn’t have the innate ability to boost hit or damage, but luckily there are ways to fix that in Crucible Guard.
Sprays are one of the best types of ranged attacks in the game as they naturally ignore concealment, cover and stealth, so unboosted RAT 6 isn’t horrible. With Dual Attack the Railless can charge in and get those 10 inch sprays deep into enemy lines.
Alchemical Cannon
The main cannon comes in at a nice, RNG 14, POW 15 attack that leaves behind a scather template on it’s 4 inch AOE. As most tables will have 1 or 2 buildings/forests centrally located on the board, you’ll have some good opportunities to block of choke points on the battlefield. This is a great way to deal with single wound models like Dawnguard Sentinels, or kill any support models that might be hanging out too close to a heavy warjack/warbeasts.
Vengeance isn’t triggered if they die from Scather!
Melee Abilities
While the Railless Interceptor isn’t a melee powerhouse, it has some melee abilities that shouldn’t be overlooked. With Dual Attack these attacks are going to come up more often than your opponent might initially expect. Bulldoze lets the Railless push a model up to 2 inches just by getting base to base and the Ram rule on the Bash attack knocks down and pushes an enemy 1 inch away. Being able to push models out of zones is excellent and knocked down models are easy targets for the ranged attacks.
Caster Combos
The Railless Interceptor doesn’t take to the field alone, the caster you bring can have a big impact on how the Railless performs.
Gearheart
It’s been said many times, but Gearheart makes everything with a gun better. Unfortunately Hot Shot can’t be used as it’s battlegroup only, but the Feat, Boundless Charge and Deceleration are great for the Railless Interceptor. Snipe is probably best somewhere else as it doesn’t affect the sprays, but the Alchemical Cannon is great with an 18 inch range.
Syvestro
Super Fuel makes the Railless an impressive SPD 8, letting it run 16 inches! What’s better is that this affects all construct models with 5 inches of Syvestro so he isn’t having to choose the Railless over other models in his battlegroup.
Explosivo on the sprays is a potent combo. Giving magic weapons and remove from play to all those sprays attacks is game changing in certain matchups. If your opponent is running mass incorporeal or recursion the Railless Interceptor with Explosivo is the perfect tool for the job.
Eira Mackay
The majority of Mackay’s spell list doesn’t affect the Railless which is kinda surprising, given that she is riding around in one herself. However her Feat is great, giving much desired boosted damage rolls and end of activation movement. She can also help a little bit with accuracy as one of her shot types lowers DEF by 2.
Athanor Locke
Locke is primarily battlegroup focused, but the Railless Interceptor is good at triggering Road to War. In addition the Alchemical Cannon is a decent weapon choice for the Sentry shot.
Wrap Up
Often times if a Battle Engine doesn’t have a build in boost mechanic it’s not thought highly of. The Railless Interceptor proves that this isn’t always the case, bringing a high volume of good shooting and utility to whatever list it’s in. We didn’t even mention the Exhaust Fumes ability yet, which helps protect the rest of your army by providing concealment to a huge portion of the table.
What do you think of the Railless Interceptor?
