Heavy Intercessors

[Blindhamster]

Gravis armour is much better than the terminator armour design IMO. Much like some peoples view in the other direction, its just my opinion of course. But I find the more upright stance and proper placement of the shoulders to be better. I like the way its essentially up armoured tacticus armour. The idea that the cowl can retract is a good one, and something seen in the more recent gravis units (garaddon, iron hand guy and eradicators).

The models don't necessarily need belts, although when they do have belts it can look good albeit reduces the visual appearance of being up armoured. I like my gravis captain for example, and he doesn't have a belt.

Removing the reliquiries does help to be fair, they are indeed a weird visual.

My gravis captain for reference

Edited August 3, 2020 by Blindhamster

[Lemondish]

That Gravis captain of yours has definitely been working out.

[Blindhamster]

That Gravis captain of yours has definitely been working out.

haha, wanted to copy the general design of the blood angel gravis captain art in the new codex. I did slim down the abdomen a bit compared to the standard ones, but not overly so.

[9x19 Parabellum]

 

I admit I'm also confused what Heavy Intercessors are supposed to be for. Bolt rifles and stalker rifles already like to stand still and shoot, and are already quite good. Armor-wise, Intercessors are already heavier than most other Troops out there. So unless they're just one-upping the existing Intercessor kit, I don't really understand what niche these guys will fill.

Bruh. They’re suppose to look cool. That is all. And those of us who are idiots, cuz I absolutely am, are willing to pay just for cool models.

 

 

Tangoalphatwo totally understands what this game is all about.

[chapter master 454]

They look cool and offer (theoretically) a form of heavy Infantry that has troop which means ObSec. The main concern will be squad sizes, I certainly would like to see these boys come in groups of 5-10. Imagine trying to shift THAT from an objective with iron hands and father of the future!

[WrathOfTheLion]

GW is filling out the range in a little more over the top way so that you can do something like Rights of War in Horus Heresy. If you want to play a heavily armored crew, almost for Zone Mortalis, then you have Gravis. If you want to play in a stealth way, then there's the phobos. And so on.

[UnkyHamHam]

They look cool and offer (theoretically) a form of heavy Infantry that has troop which means ObSec. The main concern will be squad sizes, I certainly would like to see these boys come in groups of 5-10. Imagine trying to shift THAT from an objective with iron hands and father of the future!

Seems almost destined to be in units of 3-6 sadly. Much to my annoyance. I hated it with Centurions, and with all the Primaris specialists too. My "OCD" makes me field them in groups of 5. Except Eliminators. I can justify their small units.

[Riddlesworth]

 

Seems almost destined to be in units of 3-6 sadly. Much to my annoyance. I hated it with Centurions, and with all the Primaris specialists too. My "OCD" makes me field them in groups of 5. Except Eliminators. I can justify their small units.

 

 

I'm cool with 3-6. if i want a big unit, im taking them in 5s for blast, or 6 to combat squad.

I use intercessors to push into midfield, so holding any home objectives goes to eliminators. stalker bolter intercessors at worse. those are the units heavy intercessors will compete against for me. unless they're heavy support and then they're competing against eradicators...

[Khornestar]

I’m saving up for these guys now for my IH, along with the captain. Somewhat blurry but I love gravis armor, really looking forward to seeing them released. Iron Hands are going to love them.

[Lemondish]

 

 

Seems almost destined to be in units of 3-6 sadly. Much to my annoyance. I hated it with Centurions, and with all the Primaris specialists too. My "OCD" makes me field them in groups of 5. Except Eliminators. I can justify their small units.

 

 

I'm cool with 3-6. if i want a big unit, im taking them in 5s for blast, or 6 to combat squad.

I use intercessors to push into midfield, so holding any home objectives goes to eliminators. stalker bolter intercessors at worse. those are the units heavy intercessors will compete against for me. unless they're heavy support and then they're competing against eradicators...

 

 

Their placement in the Table of Contents all but confirms they will be Troops. 

 

What they will do, and how they behave, will be really up to any special unit rules and the weapon profile. Up until the Eradicators, Gravis units were all limited to 18" range, and even with the new tank hunters hitting the stage, that max range band didn't grow too much - they're only 24". I wonder if the point of Gravis is to always be in the thick of it, which might mean their rules and weapon profiles encourage close range, breacher style combat.

 

Or they could be the first long range Gravis unit...totally no idea how they're going to go here lol

[Cruor Vault]

 

 

 

Seems almost destined to be in units of 3-6 sadly. Much to my annoyance. I hated it with Centurions, and with all the Primaris specialists too. My "OCD" makes me field them in groups of 5. Except Eliminators. I can justify their small units.

 

 

I'm cool with 3-6. if i want a big unit, im taking them in 5s for blast, or 6 to combat squad.

I use intercessors to push into midfield, so holding any home objectives goes to eliminators. stalker bolter intercessors at worse. those are the units heavy intercessors will compete against for me. unless they're heavy support and then they're competing against eradicators...

 

 

Their placement in the Table of Contents all but confirms they will be Troops. 

 

What they will do, and how they behave, will be really up to any special unit rules and the weapon profile. Up until the Eradicators, Gravis units were all limited to 18" range, and even with the new tank hunters hitting the stage, that max range band didn't grow too much - they're only 24". I wonder if the point of Gravis is to always be in the thick of it, which might mean their rules and weapon profiles encourage close range, breacher style combat.

 

Or they could be the first long range Gravis unit...totally no idea how they're going to go here lol

 

 

With the changes to Heavy Bolters inbound it's not unreasonable to assume the Heavy Bolt rifle will take the place of the existing heavy bolter profile.

 

I'd lay good odds they're packing Heavy 3 S5 AP-1 D1 rifles, possibly with some form of shoot 2x if they fulfill xyz requirement.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

If the heavy bolt rifle is three shots they’ll be the new hotness .

[Dracos]

I don't spam, but I love Intercessors. Even without rules I will be buying 10

[Mandragola]

If these guys carry any kind of multi-shot heavy bolt weapon, my Crimson Fists will be in the market for loads of them.

 

Fluff-wise, I'm not sure I see the point of gravis armour for a long-ranged unit. Surely the extra protection is mainly required for units engaging at close range. Never mind though, they look quite good and they will do work.

 

These guys are actually a major factor in holding back what any work on my marines till the codex. If I get a new troop unit that can perform a heavy support function for my army, that fundamentally changes what other units I need to bring. These guys could easily be my best troop option in future, which is slightly annoying given that I've got ~60 intercessors, infiltators and incursors already. I could be spoiled for choice.

[WrathOfTheLion]

There isn't any point to having long-ranged Gravis IMO. Gravis to me is essentially meant for boarding operations, kind of like MK III in the fluff.

 

I'm not quite certain how useful they would be compared to normal intercessors for taking objectives. They'll probably have some bespoke rule.

I think they'll look quite cool though, so regardless I will end up getting some later. I have some other projects to finish right now, so I'll probably hold off on any initial release of these. They're kind of on the bottom of my list of the new kits though, Gravis is a bit of a miss to me as a whole of the Primaris range compared to the main MK X armor.

Edited August 19, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Riddlesworth]

The other two walking gravis units have had some kind of shoot twice option. Be interesting to see what heavy intercessors get.

 

There are a lot less "home" objectives now but they still exist. And tbh, once I've packed in my aggressors, outriders, inceptors and eradicators, I dont have many slots left other than troops so some variety would be ideal

[Boyadventurer]

The other two walking gravis units have had some kind of shoot twice option. Be interesting to see what heavy intercessors get.

Not only that, but Inceptors have 2 guns anyway, so your logic checks out. Now, you better be right!

[Vermintide]

Kinda perplexed what we'll see for these guys considering the recent change to Hellblasters giving them some mean anti-infantry potential.

 

I'm guessing more or less just a Primaris answer to heavy bolters, really. Which would be cool, although the picture doesn't make it look like they are carrying a "heavy" weapon of that type, more just a beefy bolt rifle.

 

Wierd. Maybe we're overthinking the offensive side, and in reality it's as simple as a Gravis-armoured troop choice?

[Argonte]

Maybe is some kind of bolter shotgun or a rule that improve strenght in close range? Edited August 21, 2020 by Argonte

[Minsc]

If we assume that Gravis-armor will be involved in some fashion, then between Aggressors, Eradicators and Hellblasters I'm not really sure what the point of these guys will be, or how they will avoid stepping on the toes of said units. 

Give them too much dakka and they will render Aggressors redundant.
Give them too much heavy firepower and they will render Hellblasters and/or Eradicators redundant.

Maybe they'll end up being cheap:ish Gravis-troops with some funky variant of Bolt Rifles or Astartes Shotguns. 


 

[Karhedron]

Kinda perplexed what we'll see for these guys considering the recent change to Hellblasters giving them some mean anti-infantry potential.

 

I'm guessing more or less just a Primaris answer to heavy bolters, really. Which would be cool, although the picture doesn't make it look like they are carrying a "heavy" weapon of that type, more just a beefy bolt rifle.

 

Wierd. Maybe we're overthinking the offensive side, and in reality it's as simple as a Gravis-armoured troop choice?

I think you are probably on the money. I think these guys' "gimmick" is that they are a T5 3W Troop unit with ObjSec. I am guessing their weapons will be something like S5 D2 Ap-1. Not sure about range and ROF but I guess both will be significantly less than the traditional heavy bolter.

 

So what about points? GW seem to value wound at around 3 points. So given that an intercessor is 20 points, a Heavy Intercessor will be 23 points plus whatever T5 and a beefy gun is worth. I am guessing they will probably weigh in around 27-28 points.

[Vermintide]

If we assume that Gravis-armor will be involved in some fashion, then between Aggressors, Eradicators and Hellblasters I'm not really sure what the point of these guys will be, or how they will avoid stepping on the toes of said units. 

 

Give them too much dakka and they will render Aggressors redundant.

Give them too much heavy firepower and they will render Hellblasters and/or Eradicators redundant.

 

Maybe they'll end up being cheap:ish Gravis-troops with some funky variant of Bolt Rifles or Astartes Shotguns.

 

That's exactly my line of thinking, which leads me to conclude it will be pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Same thing as Intercessors, but Gravis- i.e nothing too scary in terms of damage, like any Troop, but more durable instead.

 

I'm gonna go a step further in blind guessing and theorise we'll see Primaris drop pods that take 6 Tacticus bodies or 3 Gravis bodies. Then the only thing that's left is a deep striking variant, perhaps a veteran elites choice with capability in melee... We'd need to name them according to the convention, of course. Teleccessors... Telenators... Ah! Terminators!

 

I think you are probably on the money. I think these guys' "gimmick" is that they are a T5 3W Troop unit with ObjSec. I am guessing their weapons will be something like S5 D2 Ap-1. Not sure about range and ROF but I guess both will be significantly less than the traditional heavy bolter.

 

So what about points? GW seem to value wound at around 3 points. So given that an intercessor is 20 points, a Heavy Intercessor will be 23 points plus whatever T5 and a beefy gun is worth. I am guessing they will probably weigh in around 27-28 points.

I feel like the GW points/balance logic is more in terms of overall squads, rather than individual models/wounds. If the baseline for a Marine troop unit with no special gimmicks is Intercessors at ~100 points, something like 105-120 seems appropriate for a tougher variant- 35-40 points each.

 

From a design perspective I can't see them making Heavy Intercessors just straight up more points efficient than regular Intercessors, if they're meant to fill the same role. It would only make sense to have their toughness cost a premium so that you use them to fill the niche of "I need tough troops here" instead of just "well I'm going to spam hard bois."

 

Eradicators are only 120 (although I'm sure we all expect them to go up), so I'd theorise a similar cost, assuming ObSec is considered equally as valuable a factor in balance terms as offensive capability.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Vermintide

[Khornestar]

Yeah it’s a pretty exciting unit to consider. Survivability is a strength for sure given the Gravis statline, and that much we can say we more or less know for sure.

 

That gun, though! Looks like a small scope and some sort of drum mag. One assumes, given the way they’ve differentiated between bolt rifles (auto-correct wanted to say “holy” rifles, which is also accurate) and plasma incinerators, that this heavy bolt rifle will cover a unique/specific role.

 

S4 Bullet spray is already covered, individual S4 heavy shots already covered and unlikely given the drum. I think the aforementioned heavy bolter analog sounds pretty reasonable, though who knows re: stats? Could just be straight up heavy bolters, but for the whole unit? Maybe only 1 damage to maintain the different profiles, and perhaps be cheaper?

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

 

 

I'm gonna go a step further in blind guessing and theorise we'll see Primaris drop pods that take 6 Tacticus bodies or 3 Gravis bodies. Then the only thing that's left is a deep striking variant, perhaps a veteran elites choice with capability in melee... We'd need to name them according to the convention, of course. Teleccessors... Telenators... Ah! Terminators!

 

I'm sure we'll see a Primaris drop pod eventually... but not this year. There's nothing new and noteworthy listed in the "Dedicated Transports" section of Table of Contents.

 

But we still don't know exactly how the "Veteran Intercessor Squad" is going to be equipped. I really think that's going to be a new kit and not simply an up-statted version of the Intercessor kit (in keeping with the effects of the old "Veteran Intercessors" stratagem). Maybe they'll be melee-oriented, maybe they'll be running around with Bolt Shotguns.

 

But a true Terminator equivalent, yeah I think we'll see THAT next year as well. Along with a true equivalent of the Assault Marines, that's the big thing missing now aside from updates to flyers and drop pods.

[Dracos]

They have Suppressors (autocannon) in Fast Attack, Eliminators (sniper rifle) in Heavy why not Heavy Intercessors (heavy bolter?) in Troops lol.

 

 

Not sure what the deal with assault marine as Intercessor love is for? They're a poor Firstborn unit why would Primaris want another S4 unit when Outriders fill that function now? S5 D2 Inceptor version of an Assault Marine I could get behind.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Dracos