Best Forgeworld Super-heavies without a HH era equivalent?

[N1SB]

Hi Bethren, INB4 "there is no best", I'm just trying to evaluate some options here.  My question to you please:

 

 

What are the best Imperial Super-heavies (particularly Tanks) which do not already have an era-specific counterpart listed in a Horus Heresy supplement please?

 

 

The context, in my case, is that I'm looking for a cool Lord of War to put in my Ordo Reductor army list.  After painting 2 Krios Venators and converting a simple but charming Macrocarid Explorator, I got an itch for more big tanks...especially if I can convert them a bit.  From a sidebar in the red book, we can use Imperial Super-heavies from other books, as long as they don't have an HH-era equivalent.

 

But it's not just for me, I simply wanted to create a space for you to share experiences to other players for more exotic choices, especially for Mechanicum players.  At least in my meta, people look to us to bring the really weird stuff to the tabletop.  Thanks in advance.

 

 

EDIT - in appreciation for you guys, I just took a moment to compile what I -think- is a relatively up to date list of Lords of War which do not already have a Heresy-era counterpart, thanks to Brother Hesh Kadesh's thread at http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/302242-resource-heresy-era-lords-of-war/ .  What I've done is taken his compiled list and filtered out anything with a similar equivalent in a Horus Heresy book.

 

 

FURTHER EDIT - More importantly, in addition to the below list, it looks like Forgeworld will likely open up the options for Mechanicum to take the Baneblade, Banehammer, Stormlord, Shadowsword, Stormsword.  In their most recent Army List book, which happened to deal with Legion Astartes, there was a sidebar regarding the general Age of Darkness rules that looks like those options will be (or already are) opened up to all Age of Darkness armies (pg 10 in LA: AoDAL in case you want to have a look).  That revision hasn't come to the Mechanicum in a clear Rules As Written way, so personally I'm going to wait, but that change seems to be coming.

 

 

Imperial Armour Aeronautica

Aquila Lander (page 13)

Vulture Gunship (page 14)

Valkyrie Sky Talon Transport (page 16)

Marauder Destroyer (page 18)

 

Imperial Armour; Apocalypse

Crassus Armoured Assault Transport (page 28)

Praetor Armoured Assault Launcher (page 29)

Macharius Heavy Tank (page 32)

Macharius 'Vulkan' (page 33)

Macharius 'Vanquisher' (page 34)

Macharius 'Omega' (page 35)

Marauder Bomber (page 47)

Marauder Destroyer (page 48)

 

Imperial Armour; Volume 1 - 2nd Edition; Imperial Guard

Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard (page 130)

 

Imperial Armour; Volume 2 - 2nd Edition; War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes

Inquisitorial Valkyrie Assault Carrier Squadron (page 230, note that Sub-orbital Wings refer to "Flyers", and not "units", so even though a squadron may take up to 3 vehicles, each vehicle counts towards the Wing's limit of vehicles)

 

Imperial Armour; Volume 3 - 2nd Edition; The Taros Campaign

Valkyrie Airborne Carrier (page X)

Valkyrie Sky Talon (page X)

Vulture Gunship Squadron (page X, note that Sub-orbital Wings refer to "Flyers", and not "units", so even though a squadron may take up to 3 vehicles, each vehicle counts towards the Wing's limit of vehicles)

Vendetta Gunship Squadron (page X, note that Sub-orbital Wings refer to "Flyers", and not "units", so even though a squadron may take up to 3 vehicles, each vehicle counts towards the Wing's limit of vehicles)

Lightning (page 12)

 

Imperial Armour; Volume 4 - 2nd Edition; The Anphelion Project

D-99 Valkyrie Airborne Assault Carrier

D-99 Valkyrie Sky Talon

D-99 Vulture Squadron

[DuskRaider]

Valdor Tank Hunter... as far as I know, it's still not been given 30K rules and it's awesome.

[Phatsquirre1]

@Duskraider- I believe that the Valdor has rules in the Solar Auxilia Army List as a heavy support choice.

[Sol_Invictus]

I'm glad you asked because I have also been wondering about LoWs for Ordo Reductor. Been looking at the Macharius variants myself.

[N1SB]

I really appreciate Dusk Raider's feedback, it's exactly the type of thing I was looking for.  He's got a great army, and he had experience with that Forgeworld Tank, but precisely because there's so many different things now, I honestly don't know what's good or decent at least in Forgeworld products.

 

But as Ninjaman correctly pointed out, due to the weird wording of Forgeworld stuff, there's a bunch of very, very minor variants, like the above examples.  I'm going to edit my original post with a list of completely different Lords of War from what's native to the Heresy-era.  Just my share of due diligence, in appreciation of everyone's advice.

 

Sol Invictus, I hear you, fellow son of the Omnissiah.  THIS sort of thing is kind of why I'm glad I went with Mechanicum!

[Reyner]

The Macharius Vulkan. Not the best rules but hot damn looks amazing!

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

The Macharius variants.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/1ESHcA6.png

[Sol_Invictus]

The Macharius Vulkan. Not the best rules but hot damn looks amazing!

 

 

The Macharius variants.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/1ESHcA6.png

 

The Vulcan is definitely the variant I'm most drawn to. What a sexy beast!

 

Not 1 Step Backwards, thanks for throwing the list up there.

 

The Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard also sounds like fun. Too bad it doesn't have a model. :(

[N1SB]

Thanks to everyone thus far for their feedback.

Based on your feedback on the Macharius template, I started taking a look at its fluff. Although it's named after a relatively recent saint, the STC itself dates back to the Great Crusade itself, thus would have been known during the Heresy era, which I find hilarious. It's like what was considered a great tank to honour a mighty hero in the 40th millennium was, in the 30k era, just a minor stop-gap design between the Malcador and the Baneblade. A Mechanicum Magos'd be like, "I just threw it together, as a weekend job, just fun to take out for a spin."

Not 1 Step Backwards, thanks for throwing the list up there.

The Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard also sounds like fun. Too bad it doesn't have a model.

Thanks to Brother Hesh, filtering out his list made it a lot easier for me, too.

Regarding the Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard, I totally hear you, as that's what I felt about the Macrocarid Explorator...until I actually converted my own. Took a Land Raider kit that I bartered for long ago, which I wasn't going to use anymore, and made this humble thing as a stand-in previously:

http://oi67.tinypic.com/28w2h34.jpg

The main goal was to convey to my opponents this was Armour Value 14 all around, like a Land Raider, BUT it's not an Assault Vehicle. The main converted part was to replace the assault ramp with a front like a 1st World War tank, which ended up looking a bit like a bird's beak. I call this land transport design the Platypus pattern.

Now I'm actually looking for excuses to convert more things, that are as representative of the rules as possible, partly why I started this thread. The Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard would actually be a great thing to work on precisely because there's no official model yet. In fact, the only thing that's holding me back is I don't need any more AP3, which I think is what the Dominus does. If anything, I need some sort of AP2 pie plates, I think.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

 

 

The Macharius Vulkan. Not the best rules but hot damn looks amazing!

The Macharius variants.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/1ESHcA6.png

The Vulcan is definitely the variant I'm most drawn to. What a sexy beast!

 

Not 1 Step Backwards, thanks for throwing the list up there.

 

The Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard also sounds like fun. Too bad it doesn't have a model. :(

Some kf the list shouldn't have heresy rules according to fluff.

 

The Macharius was not put into production until after the events of Kreig in M39 I beleive. It was used as a replacement for baneblades which have a much longer production time.

 

 

I also beleive the Maruader Destroyer was not developed until the second or thrid war for Armageddon. It was modified from the Marauder bomber to conduct night missions.

 

Please correct me if i am wrong.

[N1SB]

 

The Macharius was not put into production until after the events of Kreig in M39 I beleive. It was used as a replacement for baneblades which have a much longer production time.

 

I also beleive the Maruader Destroyer was not developed until the second or thrid war for Armageddon. It was modified from the Marauder bomber to conduct night missions.

 

Please correct me if i am wrong.

 

 

It's a good point, and you're not wrong, but you overlooked a caveat.  It's clearer in the case of the Macharius, but for the Marauder it might be up to interpretation.

 

 

The Macharius WAS indeed produced during the Siege of Vraks, BUT that was clearly NOT when it was designed, and it says so right in its original blurb.  Just a few paragraphs before talking about their production in the Siege of Vraks, it was described that a Magos Nalax discovered their fragments of their blueprints that dated back to the Great Crusade (thus precedes even the Heresy); there is a detail that the design was so old and the data so incomplete that no one even knew its name.  It was only after a forgeworld got approval to produce it, long after even Magos Nalax's death, that they named it Macharius.

 

Result - for the Macharius, it was definitely a design that would have existed in 30k, that was re-discovered, re-worked, and re-named.  It even says so.

 

 

The Marauder, on the other hand, is a much murkier issue.  What justifies it in 30k is that the Cult Mechanicus never invented anything new, for that would be heretechal.  This is a theme throughout the lore, that the techpriesthood is not a scientific community, but a religious one.  Thus, even though the Marauder came about at that time, the initial design would have floated around somewhere from long before.  HOWEVER, where it came from was not described.

 

Result - one can argue the Marauder planes existed during the Heresy based on general Mechanicus/um fluff where innovation basically froze, but that's definitely not as clear-cut a case as with the Macharius.

 

 

-----

 

 

While I think it's clearly stated for the Macharius and murkier for the Marauder, I also believe the 30k equivalent may NOT look exactly like their later counterparts.  Techpriests re-discovering the STC designs would be piecing them with other known ones to try to put them together, as was stated in the case of the Macharius, where they mention they had to throw in bits from the Baneblade STC for the design.  Very fun for Mechanicum players in general, but I honestly feel this can apply to all HH-era armies, as there was a lot more variety in 30k than 40k even for vehicles.

[Commissar Ibram Gaunt]

 

 

The Macharius was not put into production until after the events of Kreig in M39 I beleive. It was used as a replacement for baneblades which have a much longer production time.

 

I also beleive the Maruader Destroyer was not developed until the second or thrid war for Armageddon. It was modified from the Marauder bomber to conduct night missions.

 

Please correct me if i am wrong.

 

It's a good point, and you're not wrong, but you overlooked a caveat. It's clearer in the case of the Macharius, but for the Marauder it might be up to interpretation.

 

 

The Macharius WAS indeed produced during the Siege of Vraks, BUT that was clearly NOT when it was designed, and it says so right in its original blurb. Just a few paragraphs before talking about their production in the Siege of Vraks, it was described that a Magos Nalax discovered their fragments of their blueprints that dated back to the Great Crusade (thus precedes even the Heresy); there is a detail that the design was so old and the data so incomplete that no one even knew its name. It was only after a forgeworld got approval to produce it, long after even Magos Nalax's death, that they named it Macharius.

 

Result - for the Macharius, it was definitely a design that would have existed in 30k, that was re-discovered, re-worked, and re-named. It even says so.

 

 

The Marauder, on the other hand, is a much murkier issue. What justifies it in 30k is that the Cult Mechanicus never invented anything new, for that would be heretechal. This is a theme throughout the lore, that the techpriesthood is not a scientific community, but a religious one. Thus, even though the Marauder came about at that time, the initial design would have floated around somewhere from long before. HOWEVER, where it came from was not described.

 

Result - one can argue the Marauder planes existed during the Heresy based on general Mechanicus/um fluff where innovation basically froze, but that's definitely not as clear-cut a case as with the Macharius.

 

 

-----

 

 

While I think it's clearly stated for the Macharius and murkier for the Marauder, I also believe the 30k equivalent may NOT look exactly like their later counterparts. Techpriests re-discovering the STC designs would be piecing them with other known ones to try to put them together, as was stated in the case of the Macharius, where they mention they had to throw in bits from the Baneblade STC for the design. Very fun for Mechanicum players in general, but I honestly feel this can apply to all HH-era armies, as there was a lot more variety in 30k than 40k even for vehicles.

Oh of course you are correct in your statements and mine were off the mark in their wording. Rediscovering and piecing together is what happened with these two. I don't believe the macharius would of been around with the above evidence. And with the number of forgeworlds and different patterns of armour their would be a great variety of the same vechiles in use.

 

I am hoping that the tank battle of Tallarn will be covered in a black book and really drill down on tanks for the Solar Axulia/militia and introduce some new tanks but this is just wishlisting.

[N1SB]

Actually, I very much appreciated the points you raised, because I had missed something, too.  In double-checking the information, the actual Macharius design itself was probably modified from whatever it used to be in 30k.  The wikis like Lexicanum mentioned the STC was dated back to the Great Crusade, but not details like it was in pieces and they had to stitch Baneblade designs to fill in the missing pieces of information.  Or, in other words:

 

An Unknown 30k Tank + Baneblade = Macharius

 

And now we, as players, can try to figure out what that Unknown 30k Tank was by making it ourselves.  In-game, it would count as a Macharius, but for a Mechanicum player like me, it's like wow!  This is like studying Archeotech, reverse-engineering something.  I'm actually more excited for this project as a result of your post!

[Sol_Invictus]

And I believe the idea of allowing the Ordo Reductor to take them is to represent their access to unique, experimental, or heretofore unknown designs not to actually represent a Macharius or Marauder per se.