A REAL Chainsword!

Man at Arms makes a real-life chainsword!

Custom Mastodon!

What you really want is a custom Mastodon!

Horus Heresy Review: Deredeo Dreanought

A guest blog by Rob Hill of 30Kplus40K

Space Wolves Upgrades are here.

Forge World has released Space Wolves upgrades for 30K.

Horus Heresy Review: Legion Mastodon Heavy Assault Transport

A guest blog by Rob Hill of 30K Plus 40K.

Today I'm going to delve into one of the newer offerings from forge world for the Legiones Astartes, the giant delivery truck of death that is the Mastodon Heavy Assault Transport. This is a delivery truck of death in both the sense that its occupants are likely to be a bundle of death but also the vehicle itself has serious offensive capabilities. And for the princely base price of 700 points you would bloody hope so!

Unit Stats

Ok so the Mastodon comes with the following profile:

BS  Front   Side   Rear   HP

 4      14        14      14    10

This is, in and of itself, impressive! Especially as it is a super-heavy transport so it cannot be one shot exploded by a lucky gunner. It needs to have all of those HP's ground down to zero. It has no fire points, but it can carry up to 40 regular models, though as part of this complement it can also carry up to 2 contemptor dreadnoughts with each counting as 10 models for the purpose of carrying capacity.

Additionally the Mastodon has two access points which are at the front and the rear of the vehicle.

Overview - even before you delve into the equipment and special rules of the Mastodon it has a fearsome presence on the table and this only improves the more you look at it.

Special Rules

The Mastodon, as one might expect, has a plethora of special rules to compliment its hulking exterior. These are Assault Vehicle, Enhanced Defensive Fire, Reinforced Shell and Void Shields (2).

Assault Vehicle - lets start with the simple one first, this vehicle is obviously designed to deliver a deadly payload and there wouldn't be much point to the bloody thing if you had to stand around scratching your arse (or ass for our West Atlantic cousins) for a turn!

Void Shields (2) - That is right! This AV14, 10HP monstrosity also has TWO AV12 void shields. Collapsed by glancing, penetrating and D hits, these can be returned on a roll of a 5+ at the end of each of your turns. Dear Throne this thing is surviviable.

Enhanced Defensive Fire - As long as one unit still occupies the Mastodon it can use its sponsons to fire overwatch, thus removing the negative of having zero fire ports. This overwatch is fired at BS2 for the standard weapons, whereas template weapons inflict D3+1 automatic hits. So its overwatch fire is better than normal! The most effective way to deal with this machine, close combat, just became a less friendly prospect... These can fire only once but at separate units as long as the unit is in their arc of fire.

Reinforced Shell - A lovely rule in a game where often bigger and badder is better. The armoured shell of the Mastodon is so secure that it contain and blast that occurs. Therefore you apply a -2 modifier to the catastrophic damage table when rolling for the Mastodon's destruction. Should a 0 or -1 occur then the Mastodon remains in play but functions as a ruined building, with both doors acting as free access points. Very fluffy and cool.

Equipment

As you would expect this beast is loaded with weapons and other equipment, lets just start with the standard equipped offensive battery shall we:

Two Sponson Mounted Lascannons - The standard lascannon that can fire overwatch (only its arc of fire) at BS2.

Two Sponson Mounted Heavy Flamers - Standard Heavy flamers with D3+1 overwatch

One Fixed Forward Siege Melta Array - 12", S9, AP1, Heavy 4, Small Blast, Melta, Stone Burner

Stone Burner - if this weapon inflicts a penetrating hit against a fortification or building then it instead causes D3 penetrating hits.

One Turret-mounted Skyreaper Battery - 48", S7, AP4, Heavy 5, Twin-linked, Skyfire, Interceptor

OK so the Mastodon has pretty much everything covered here! Flamers for hordes, lascannons for armour, skyfire and interceptor for flyers and then magma death cannon for anything stupid enough to sit within 12 inches in front of its face! Blimey oh riley!

In addition to its offensive arsenal the Mastodon also has a searchlight, smoke launchers AND armoured ceramite to boot. So you not only have 10 AV14 hull points nestled behind two AV12 void shield, but it also isn't vulnerable to ranged melta!!

Options

Optional extras with this beast include the following: 4 hunter killer missiles, an upgrade to be a super heavy command vehicle, an upgrade to have command vox relay.

Command Vox Relay - While the Mastodon is in play this allows you to add or subtract 1 to your reserve rolls. In addition any deep striking enemy units that suffer a mishap will have -1 applied to the deep strike mishap table as long as the Mastodon is in play.

Super Heavy Command Vehicle - As far as I am aware this allows re-roll of morale within 24 inches. Any one care to correct me if that is wrong?

Utilization

This will be a short section as this is a pretty self explanatory! You pack it full of death and drive it at the heart of the enemy. There is no room for being timid with this UNLESS you are facing something packing  shit tonne of destroyer weaponry. D weapons are pretty much the only serious threat to this other than a Primarch in close combat with retinue. But you shouldn't be letting yourself get charged really, but dictating the charges.

I would recommend the command vox relay if you have any reserve support coming in like flyers, but otherwise give it a miss. In terms of the command vehicle, that could be very very useful in 30k given that Astartes are not fearless, but again that really depends on what you have put inside of it!

So much of how you use this depends on the rest of your force that I will leave that up to you :)

Peace out,

Rob

Check our Rob's blog at 30K Plus 40K Equals Infinity.

Horus Heresy Weekender Photos Part IV - Heavy Weapons

Hours Heresy Heavy Weapons

Horus Heresy Weekender Photos Part III - Stormbird!

The Stormbird is coming!

Forge World Previews

The Games Workshop 40th Birthday event at Warhammer World had some Forge World goodness!

Forge World New Releases and New Bundles!

Forge World has a major release and some new bundles.

40K - Space Marines Coming!

Space Marines are coming back again!

Forge World Releases New Dreadnought!

Forge World has released a new Space Marine Dread!

New Space Marine Terminator Captain Revelead.

The new Terminator Captain is revealed!

And new releases in the form of a Space Marine Strike Force and Militarum Tempestus Storm Scions.  All in the new White Dwarf.

 

 

Photos courtesy of Millest's Medicore Meanderings.

 

Nykona

 

 

Sentinels of Terra & Tyranid Invasion II Released

Imperial Fists finally get their Sentinels of Terra this week.

Forge World Releases Heresy Era Land Raider Achilles

Forge World has released their Heresy-era version of the durable Achilles Land Raider.

Codex Space Marines: Ultima Edition Released

Got $ 250 to burn?  Well, Games Workshop has figured out another way to take your cash!

War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes Released

Forge World has released the second edition of their second Imperial Amrour book "War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes".

Forge World Releases Castellum Stronghold

Forge World has released the Castellum Stronghold.

Sentinels of Terra Supplement Released

The first Space Marine Supplment, "Sentinels of Terra" is here.

Fire Raptor Get Rules!

The Fire Raptor is here and bad ass!  Good for both the Horus Heresy and 40K.

You can find Experimental Rules here.  I want a couple.  Not only do they look awesome, but the rules are pretty damn good.

 

Rules Summary

Heavy Support Flyer with Hover mode   

220 points for loyalists (All chapters, including BA, and the Tyrant's Legion list from IA9), 200 for chaos
Armour 12/12/12, 4 HP
Avenger Bolt Cannon - S6 AP3 Heavy 7
2 Independent Turret-mounted quad heavy bolters - S5 AP4 Heavy 6 Twin-Linked
4 Hellstrike missles - no profile given
Machine Spirit (Loyalist only)
extra armor

Special rules:
 
Deep Strike
Strafing Run
Independent Turret Fire (described below)
Relic of the Armoury (Non-HH Legion lists only)

Can take Armoured Ceramite 

Chaos and Horus Heresy Legion armies can replace quad bolters with Reaper battery - S7 AP4 Heavy 4 twin-linked - 10 points

Blood Angels can replace Hellstrike Missiles with Large Blast blind/locator beacon missles for free

Non-Chaos(Marines, Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Vangaurd assault armies and Tyrant's Legion) can replace the quad bolters with twin linked autocannons for free

As long as you're normally able to shoot, the turret weapons (quad bolters, reaper battery or autocannons depending what you take) can each fire at their own target independently, and don't count against the number of weapons the Fire Raptor is able to fire in the shooting phase(hence why having Machine spirit, and paying 20 points for it seems sort of pointless).

Chaos raptor can take daemonic possession for 20
 
'Relic of the Armoury'   A primary detachment can have one model with that rule normally. If you wish to take a second model with 'Relic of the Armoury' in your primary detachment, the detachment must include a Master of the Forge, Interrogator-Chaplain, Recluisarch, Rune Priest with Beastslayer, or Warpsmith, specific codex dependant, obviously. This represents the rarity of the vehicle requiring the blessing of some 'keeper of relics' to oversee their use.

Jim Wappel's Storm Eagle

If you don't know Jim Wappel, he is one of the top painters in the country and a super nice guy.   And while everything he tends to do is amazing, 

Check out Jim's blog here. 

Nykona