Arquitor Bombard: Effective tool or painfully redundant?

[mega_marines]

So now that the Arquitor Bombard has been out for a few months, how are we feeling about it?

 

It feels like something between a Sicaran and Medusa but not entirely sure what to do with itself. It feels like a waste to take the sponson Autocannons because of the main weapon’s Ordnance rule, and Heavy Bolters are already great for target saturation anyway. No point in pintle mounted weaponry because of the Ordnance, and for whatever reason it doesn’t have the option for Power of the Machine Spirit.

 

The Grav weapon is...good...for armor spam and armored parking lots, but has little use elsewhere. The only thing that can be said is armored squadrons beware.

 

The Spicula is the most bizarre but amazing for chewing through power armor and light armor at all times, and can even bypass jink saves since it doesn’t target a model specifically. For some reason it’s not Barrage, despite appearances, and it’s the best for hitting multiple units.

 

The Bombard is just the Medusa’s gun with an extra weapon profile and eats base humans in cover for breakfast, but this gun is the best for parking/hiding behind something and letting loose since it’s Barrage. A Vindicator/Medusa with extra steps perhaps.

 

I’m not really sure where to go with this tank. It’s Heavy so it’s not moving more than 6” a turn, fills a precious Heavy Support spot, three cost as much as a Predator squad, and that it’s beefy with 4 HP.

 

Thoughts?

Edited July 30, 2020 by mega_marines

[The Ironic Warrior]

I think the best applications of it will be using the Spicula Rocket armaments in these three lists:

• Sons of Horus (with Horus)
• Iron Hands (Head of the Gorgon)
• Sacrifical Offering

Because all 3 of those give it Outflank, which fixes the speed issue and gets it where it needs to go. I plan on buying a pair of my Sons to use for exactly that reason; clearing out enemy car parks and power armour blobs with little to no warning.

Aside from that, I prefer the idea of a Medusa for the Morbus variant, and the Grav Cannon is garbage. Lovely model though

[Canadian_F_H]

can confirm it is amazing with Iron Warriors Iron Fire.  especially in a squadron of 3 next to a squadron of 3 medusas.  you will lose friends until they figure out how to hard counter a list with that many points sunk into artillery tanks.  i don't know if i would have ever looked at them if the regular artillery tank squadrons were not hard limited to 0-1 per detachment tho...

 

their better side armour does make them more resilient to counter fire by enemy barrage weapons.  and the extra HP helps too.  and while the autocannons arent very important they do reduce the odds that the important main gun is lost to weapon destroyed results.  

 

and since i love medusas so much but earthshakers are really handy and i am limited to 0-1 squadrons, i ran a squadron of 3 arquitars and a squadron of 3 earthshakers to approximate what i was looking for.  worked well enough for sure.  

 

the main thing i wish they had tho was access to the Squadron Leader upgrade.  gaining tank hunters within 24" and ignoring crew shaken on a 4+ is nasty on my medusas, and would go just as well on the arquitar bombards.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Canadian_F_H

[SkimaskMohawk]

I've said this stuff elsewhere, but the spicula rockets are hilariously over-the-toply broken. Three shooting at full spread will kill anything at av 13 and everything in the radius. The solid shell is good too, especially since the hull is so cheap and decently survivable and you're can spam this thing way more than medusas. The grav option is completely garbage.

[Lovecraft0110]

Don't forget the Carcass Shells!

[Scammel]

Self-plagiarising my thoughts on the spicula:

 

I'll confess to having only played a single game, but it's completely feasible to start tagging multiple units from T1 and it does horrible things to all unit types within a really wide bracket - snapping a few bodies off blobs, gutting MEQs, obliterating light vehicles and knocking points off AV13.

 

I think you'd be right at another price point, the range isn't long and the chassis suffers against particular weapons, but three of these take up less than 25% of a moderately-sized army and cover all your AP3 and anti-light/medium armour needs while providing 12HP for armour saturation. The number of targets just one of these can touch in a turn is daft for the same price as a Tac squad.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Scammel

[SkimaskMohawk]

Keep in mind the targeting gimmick of the spicula also disallows jink as the units are never targeted. In the same vein, it's other weapons can never fire as you never target a unit.

[Gederas]

My question is this guys:

From a Rule of Cool perspective, which is the best version of the Arquitor Bombard? I'm not a competitive player, I like the modelling and fluff aspects of 30k more than the competitive aspect.

 

Note: This is for Dark Angels

Edited August 16, 2020 by Gederas

[Canadian_F_H]

 

Self-plagiarising my thoughts on the spicula:

 

I'll confess to having only played a single game, but it's completely feasible to start tagging multiple units from T1 and it does horrible things to all unit types within a really wide bracket - snapping a few bodies off blobs, gutting MEQs, obliterating light vehicles and knocking points off AV13.

I think you'd be right at another price point, the range isn't long and the chassis suffers against particular weapons, but three of these take up less than 25% of a moderately-sized army and cover all your AP3 and anti-light/medium armour needs while providing 12HP for armour saturation. The number of targets just one of these can touch in a turn is daft for the same price as a Tac squad.

And as I said earlier. They are deceptively durable.

 

Because their main weapon is a barrage, it can hide out of LOS which automatically good for their survival. Which means without maneuvering a lot the only weapons that can hit then are mostly barrage weapons. So they get hit on side armour, which is 12. Which is significantly better than the Medusas side armour of 10.

 

I really cannot stress that enough. Especially since I have caused the entire local meta to invest in deredeos with borealis missiles that auto hit side armour and don't require LOS. they eat Medusa batteries for breakfast.

[Lovecraft0110]

My question is this guys:

From a Rule of Cool perspective, which is the best version of the Arquitor Bombard? I'm not a competitive player, I like the modelling and fluff aspects of 30k more than the competitive aspect.

 

Note: This is for Dark Angels

For me, there was only one choice:

 

ArquitorWIP7HD by , on Flickr (STILL WIP)

 

With Carcass Shells, the Morbus Heavy Bombard gives you a Fleshbane, Ignores Cover, Pinning template. It is only AP 4, so it's clearly inferior to a Phosphex Medusa, but...nothing to be sniffed at. That name is what gave me the idea to get this and make it a Death Guard tank - I play World Eaters and Ordo Reductor. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Lovecraft0110

[The Scorpion]

My question is this guys:

 

From a Rule of Cool perspective, which is the best version of the Arquitor Bombard? I'm not a competitive player, I like the modelling and fluff aspects of 30k more than the competitive aspect.

 

Note: This is for Dark Angels

 

Grav. It's the most archeotech of the 3 versions, and the most fitting with the aesthetics of the First.

[The Scorpion]

I've said this stuff elsewhere, but the spicula rockets are hilariously over-the-toply broken. Three shooting at full spread will kill anything at av 13 and everything in the radius. The solid shell is good too, especially since the hull is so cheap and decently survivable and you're can spam this thing way more than medusas. The grav option is completely garbage.

 

Are speed and missiles better than just throwing a basilisk shot from the other side of the table?

 

I feel like everything the Arquitor does, the legion artillery tank does it best. Even the fluff part of being an ordinance weapon that showcases how legions were organized differently than 40k Chapters.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The answer is unequivocally yes. A basilisk shot is only good at killing marines and lower quality troops. That pie plate can't even kill a landspeeder, or a myrmidon. Range is good, but not at the expense of any killing ability. What are you actually paying for in that case?

 

The rockets have a shorter range, true. But here's the math and general advantages;

-unlike the 5" basilisk template, you're encouraged to maximise units with your template, allowing to saturate either 5 or d6+4 hits per unit.

-an average roll on the maximum blast is 7.5 hits compared to whatever you can squeeze under a large blast these days with the bigger bases.

-you ignore jink due to the targeting method.

-between ordnance and sunder, the average maximum blast shot of 7.5 results in 4.66 hull points against av13.

-Two of these will kill any standard av 13 vehicle in a 7" diamater regardless of cover. They will kill a leviathan.

-you will be simultaneously be doing 7.5 (or 15 with two) of those same hits to every other unit in that 7" diameter.

 

The basilisk in comparison can do 1 hull point against a vehicle. Or it can target a unit where it'll get the most favorable position of what, 8 hits tops?. It's demonstrably worse at either anti tank or anti-infantry.

Edited August 18, 2020 by SkimaskMohawk

[Canadian_F_H]

The basalisks in 30k is a nuisance weapon. A battery of 3 tucked out of LOS in a corner will probably survive most of the game since your other threats will take most of the focus. They can punish marines behind barricades where barrage denies their cover save when the blast center is on the same side as the model. They can wittle down enemy tanks with poor side armour.

 

They usually don't amaze me every single turn, but usually once a game they really help out. I've destroyed annoying heavy support squads and rapier batteries. They have done serious damage to vehicle squadrons when the templates lap over multiple tanks in the squadron.

 

And sometimes a bitter opponent will over commit to getting rid of the basalisks that stung then good last game.

 

All that said, I usually use them as Medusas, but when I bring the arquitors I swap them to basalisks. 3 morbus bombard arquitors, 3 Medusas and 3 vindicators is just too much short range firepower, competing for proximity to the enemy on some tables. Tho to be fair most people panic and make mistakes when faced with potentially 9 S10 AP2 pieplates in a shooting phase. Really nasty since they are all ordinance. 3 are barrage, 3 are barrage with tank hunters, and 3 are POTMS with tank hunters.

 

All that said. The arquitor is more useful in my army since I usually run Iron Fire for scatter mitigation.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Canadian_F_H

[SkimaskMohawk]

I'll just go ahead and say that barrage weapons are the strongest of all the non-superheavy types; saturating a list with them tends to give exponential results. Adding iron fire and squadron commanders on to that skews it even more. Basilisks thrown into that mix will never be giving you bad results because you're basically the easiest and least interactive list outside of the old super-magnus list. But that doesn't mean they're the better choice over medusas, or spicula bombards. 140 per in a 0-1 unit needs to be better than "nuisance" . Edited August 18, 2020 by SkimaskMohawk

[Canadian_F_H]

Well. Like I said, it depends on what else I am bringing. Also we always play 3000 points per player here, so I've got a fair bit of room in the list for different things. I know some folks don't usually play games that high in points.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well. Like I said, it depends on what else I am bringing. Also we always play 3000 points per player here, so I've got a fair bit of room in the list for different things. I know some folks don't usually play games that high in points.

I get what you're saying but larger points don't make the basilisk any better unless you play on 8 or 10x4s. It's competition are all able to form squadrons, so they're all equally slot efficient unlike say a scorpius. And it's extremely inefficient for its points, so it doesn't have anything else going for it but range. The problem is that they never got rebalanced going from 6th to 7th when any pen could result in an explodes. Or 5th, where the core game was designed during, where a pen let you kill a vehicle on a 5 or 6.

 

It's not good for any role compared to all the other barrage options.

[Gorgoff]

I agree with SkimaskMohawk and may add that a Basilisk has a 36" minimum range which means you seldom can put them behind LOS blocking terrain. Of course I have one myself but let's face it. There are plenty of other options which give you litteraly more bang for your buck.

[The Scorpion]

Maybe the Basilisk was the wrong comparaison, given how ludicrously underpowered it is compared to the Medusa in the Heresy (medusa has no barrage in 7th if I'm not mistaken).

 

So I ask again: are missiles and speed better than just dropping a S10 AP2 pie plate?

[SkimaskMohawk]

Thats a more nuanced one. The answer is basically, how much 2+ armour, t5 and av 14 does your opponent use? The math shows a spicula will kill any av 13 vehicle in a volley and will eat through 3+. So I'd say against most marine and daemon lists the spicula is better, but the medusa is better against mechanicum and custodes. I don't remember enough about milita and solar aux to comment, but I feel like they have a lot of av14 as well.

[Canadian_F_H]

Militia and solar Aux have a fair bit of AV14... But almost only on front armour facings. Arquitor morbus bombards and legion Medusas are both ordinance and barrage. So roll 2d6 pick highest and hits side AV. they will both be fairly effective against militia and solar Aux tanks which are mostly leman russ, malcadors, Macharius and baneblades and similar hulls. So mostly ... AV14 front and AV13 sides. So that would glance on a 3, pen on a 4. that's a pen for 75% of hits thanks to ordinance with a chance to explode.

 

I think the only AV14 side armour for either army is the militia Gorgon, and with a certain "muster of worlds" choice they can also have the land raider Proteus.

 

I don't recall the full rules for the spicula rockets. Are they also barrage or ordinance? I'll have to read up on them more soon-ish.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The spicula thankfully isn't barrage, so they always hit front armour. They are ordnance and sunder, so you get 2 dice pick the highest, rerolling; av 13 gets pasted as a result.

 

I'll stand by my earlier assessment of spicula for marines and daemons, morbus/medusa for the rest.

[Brofist]

This is wish listing, but boy I'd love to see the arquitor bombard autocanon sponsons available to other tanks, like ye old predator tanks

[SkimaskMohawk]

This is wish listing, but boy I'd love to see the arquitor bombard autocanon sponsons available to other tanks, like ye old predator tanks

Imagine how cool they'd be on a sicaran!