Volkite weapons incoming

[Marshal Loss]

Article here, N&R topic here

 

Rules:

 

 

What Do They Do?

Basically, volkite weapons destroy void shields at close ranges. Both the eradicator and the destructor use three dice per attack, with a range of 20” for the former and 24” for the latter. They have the Voidbreaker (2) trait, meaning that for every hit, the target has to roll an additional 2 shield saves. Even a formidably shielded Warmaster Heavy Battle Titan could potentially be stripped of all its protection by a single volley.

 

Of course, volkite weapons also have their uses against the cold metal skins of Titans and – especially – Knights. At Strength 5 for the eradicator and 6 for the destructor, they’re not going to be making the Princeps of a Warlord sweat, but concentrated fire can definitely threaten Warhounds and give Knight banners a very bad day indeed.

 

The Warlord’s volkite destructor can also be fired as a Beam (1) weapon, at the cost of Draining the Titan’s reactor. This allows it to potentially hit up to three models in a single direct line of fire. Each target has to be destroyed to allow the beam to move on to another, making this the perfect attack against already weakened Knight banners.

 

 

Thoughts?

[SkimaskMohawk]

They suck!

 

But that's because whoever's making volkite rules refuses to read voidbreaker properly. If they worked the way the article thinks it does, then they'd be the best shield stripping weapon in the game with a consistent 6 saves on average in the open and spiking to 9.

[Gillyfish]

I think a key question for me are the range to hit modifiers and cost, especially compared to a VMB which is often used as the premier shield stripper on Warhounds and Reavers. Excluding the Warlord arm weapon iteration for the moment, the VMB has more dice but lower strength, the same range, but, crucially, doesn't lose those dice once the shields are down, allowing you the option of chewing through armour, especially if you can gain a flank or rear bonus or hit an already damaged section. 

 

The Volkite will cause more shield saves with every hit, but we don't know how likely it is to hit compared to the VMB or cost. The VMB seems the better all-rounder, but I can see a potential place for the volkite, especially if it gets a to hit bonus. Once the shields are down it is perhaps less useful that the VMB for killing, but might allow for a lightly higher initial armour pen chance if you can get round to the flank or rear. As such I would certainly try it on a Warhound, perhaps in combo with a blastgun or even with a VMB for the sheer anti-shield options!

[SkimaskMohawk]

The volkite doesn't cause more shield saves with every hit. It causes more shield saves as long as you hit with the weapon, meaning you get 3-5 saves total. It'd need an aggressive bonus to hit to make it compete against the vmc, but considering the person fundamentally misunderstood voidbreaker, I doubt that'll happen.

[Gryphonicus Walks]

This was unexpected to say the least.

[Sherrypie]

Sexy guns, bad rules, even worse marketing from the intern with reading comprehension problems. Also, lol at the idea that you kill knights through weight of piddly Str 5 fire.

 

The smaller guns are pretty dead in the water at the moment unless remedied through some legio rules which I'm sure would pop up if one had a longer thought on the subject, but at the moment VMB simply outperforms them in all realistic scenarios. The Warlord version, on the other hand, is actually interesting. With the Beam option, you can just make it autohit for 5 shield saves. That's not the worst thing ever in combination with something like Extermigus Sunfury coming in hot on its heels, but only if the price is aggressively costed low over taking a Macro-Gatling which is, you know, a real gun.

 

Volkite is one of those things that is cool as hell, but really requires infantry targets to make much sense.

[Gillyfish]

Fair point Skimas. Shows how many weapons I use with that trait...

 

I think that it then all comes down to cost and to hit bonuses. It may have a place, but I am not completely convinced.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Gillyfish

[Noserenda]

Like i said in N&R, they look pretty but the rules are garbage. Volkites can totally be scary, i mean try telling me the Glaive's version is antipersonnel only  :P but yeah id guess whoever wrote it misread the rules. 

Ironically ofc i had also done that and missed that beam automatically hits and apparently ignores LOS which does make it a little better at least. I mean RAW even if you are using destructible terrain (and you should!)it hits the first unit specifically :D  

[Sherrypie]

Like i said in N&R, they look pretty but the rules are garbage. Volkites can totally be scary, i mean try telling me the Glaive's version is antipersonnel only  but yeah id guess whoever wrote it misread the rules. 

 

Ironically ofc i had also done that and missed that beam automatically hits and apparently ignores LOS which does make it a little better at least. I mean RAW even if you are using destructible terrain (and you should!)it hits the first unit specifically   

Incorrect, actually. The full rule for Beam specifically calls for destructible terrain to be the first one being hit, WarCom site sometimes uses shorter snippets but the longer bit in the books does cover this case.

[Noserenda]

HA, that'll teach me to trust even apparent quotes from Warcom :D 

[Uberlord Gendo]

Hold up. Are there any other weapons with Voidbreaker in the game? If it's new, I'm inclined to take the article as expressing intent and the rules as written as typical forgeworld writing.

[1ncarnadine]

The Knight Styrix also has a Dice 3 Volkite Chieorovile, with S4 and 8/16" range, and Voidbreaker(1).

I think there's a strat or two that inflicts Voidbreaker attacks, too. Can't remember.

 

FWIW, when the Styrix came out, I'm pretty sure the article implied the Voidbreaker rule was proccing on each hit and we had a very similar discussion on WarCom not knowing their own rules. Based on the stats of the new Volkites and the way this article talks about them, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets FAQ'd to work on each hit.

Edited March 25, 2021 by LetsYouDown

[Sherrypie]

Hold up. Are there any other weapons with Voidbreaker in the game? If it's new, I'm inclined to take the article as expressing intent and the rules as written as typical forgeworld writing.

Mechanicum knights released recently, they had some.

 

But no, never take those articles either seriously or as commentary on the rules text. The team writing them is separate from the rules guys and rather prone to error. Thus far they've pretty reliably cocked something up in every AT article they've published. From the scale debacle to Charge bonuses to not getting how shields are broken to Cerastus gauntlets to Voidbreakers to misrepresenting orders in general, the list goes on. Sometimes they've even acknowledged this on WarCom streams, usually with a shrug and "whoops". Trust only the books.

[SkimaskMohawk]

That being said, the volkite weapons need the misinterpretation to be functional. I'm going to test the efficacy of the wrong way and see how it pans out when the weapons are fully released. My gut reaction is the reaver turret will be the most effective as its not replacing a traditional power weapon like the vmc or warlord arms.

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, playing it that way would certainly give it an actual role as a shield stripper worth considering. I'd be inclined to believe in Reavers as well, since they desperately want to have good shield-busters to go with their tremendous Meltas. Six hits on average ain't nothing to be sniffed at.

[Gore Crow]

My venator maniple would like to know more

[Sherrypie]

My venator maniple would like to know more

Yeah, singular Volkites could be nice on Venator Warhounds if they had the potential to force nine saves.

[Mandragola]

The rules are clear and WHC are wrong about them, as they very often are. It's two extra saves from an attack, not two per hit you score.

 

They're also wrong on the actual use of the guns. They waste a load of the article talking complete nonsense about using S5/6 weapons to take on knights, which is idiotic.

 

Anyway it's nice to get some new guns and more content for AT. Tbh it's also kind of nice that - for now at least - these resin upgrades look extremely "optional", rather than a boost in power above what we already have.

 

For what it's worth, and from what we know so far, I think they aren't terrible on Warhounds and Reavers. It's probably a bit worse than a VMB, but not all that much worse. The extra point of strength will sometimes help when firing against armour. I guess they might have another rule like shieldbane too, but we'll have to wait to see.

 

On the other hand I think the Warlord gun probably is terrible. Compared to a macro gatling you get half as many shots and at less strength instead of more. I'm struggling to see how to rate that as anything but trash tier. Giving a gun like this "beam" is kind of a joke because it isn't going to get any engine kills - and most especially not when you're firing it asa a beam that can't even target a damaged location.

 

Naturally I'll get some, eventually. They look cool.

[RipOffProductions]

hopefully the "intended function" and "actual text of the rules" conflict will be resolved at some point...

 

on the other hand, the actual models for them look great.

 

if they were a competitive alternative to mega bolters, I'd definitely want them for my homebrew Legio, since my lore for them involves a preference for energy weapons rather then ones that depend on finite munitions, due to limited access to sufficiently scaled manufactory of said munitions for much of their history.

[1ncarnadine]

On the other hand I think the Warlord gun probably is terrible. Compared to a macro gatling you get half as many shots and at less strength instead of more. I'm struggling to see how to rate that as anything but trash tier. Giving a gun like this "beam" is kind of a joke because it isn't going to get any engine kills - and most especially not when you're firing it asa a beam that can't even target a damaged location.

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by LetsYouDown

[mycelium guy]

and most especially not when you're firing it asa a beam that can't even target a damaged location.

 

 

I'm actually interested in the warlord beam version because you can select the location your attacks hit on the first unit the beam weapon hits and it will auto hit for the dice value.

 

The rules for beam say that you can only make targeted attacks against the first unit hit, and it auto hits units in a line from the gun so you can just choose the location you want and it is hit for 3 dice.

 

I remember this being exactly how the rule was played in their show game for the warlord sinister on WC, and I'm pretty sure it was some of the rules developers for AT playing that game.

 

You just need to make sure you arent clipping any scenery (as terrain counts as a unit for determining the first model hit) and you will get 3 str6 attacks auto hitting any location you desire. Not crazy, but at the cost of draining it sounds like it could be a good finisher in the right situation.

[Mandragola]

I’ve just re-read the beam rule abs you’re right. You get to pick the location type hit, though only for the first target. That’s certainly quite a cool thing for the warlord version of the weapon. 3 S6 shots landing on a compromised location actually will result in kills fairly often, so the beam will continue.

 

You can’t glean any insight into the intent of the voidbreaker rule from WHC articles. The guys writing them are not the developers, they’re content writers with little or no experience of playing the game (as demonstrated by their thoughts on using these guns against knights). They routinely get the rules wrong even for the main games like 40K, so don’t expect them to know anything about AT.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Mandragola

[The boater]

There might be a case to be made that the warcom folks are right about this (unless the game devs have already said otherwise). Hits happen within attack, and Ive always read RAW like each hit is it’s own thing that happens simultaneously with the others to make an attack. If the action was tied to the whole attack it would read like the Concussive trait “if an attack... scores any hits.” On void breaker, it’s “if a... weapon hits” which I read like the individual hit from the weapon triggers the effect not a successful attack. The rule needs to be clarified, but I really think the intent behind it is a stacking benefit for each hits.

 

I understand that the warcom guys mess stuff up, but I can’t imagine that they would mess up an interpretation once and then not have known to get it right the second time. If they messed it up so bad with the Stryx article, the devs would have mentioned something this time.

Edited March 26, 2021 by The boater

[SkimaskMohawk]

I love the people on Facebook or wherever saying "you get 2 bonus per hit". No, it's really obvious,

[The boater]

I love the people on Facebook or wherever saying "you get 2 bonus per hit". No, it's really obvious,

I really don’t think it’s that obvious. “Hits” and “attacks” are different things and the void breaker rules don’t mention “attacks” at all. The problem with the rule is the ambiguity of “if a... weapon hits.” They took a noun (hit) with clear context in the rest of the rules and used it as a verb (hits), which creates two possible interpretations of the word as a noun: 1) when any hits are scored or 2) when a hit is scored. The first is the interpretation that most of the community read and would result in additional saves per successful attack. The second is how warcom interpreted it and would result additional saves per successful hit. I think the intent of the rule is the second, as they would have specified an attack (the overall action) instead of just hits, and it’s obvious that the person developing the rules for the individual weapons thinks it’s interpretation number 2 as well... it needs clarification in an FAQ

Edited March 26, 2021 by The boater