In Defense of the Firestrike

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Now I know the rumor that the Firestrike is on the Legends chopping block, so this little ditty may be an ill-timed waste of time and brainpower, but hear me out.

 

It's not bad.  In fact, I think it's better than most people think it is, and 11th Edition has actually made it more valuable.

 

 

So, thesis out of the way, let's get to it.  When the Firestrike first came out, it did not generate much in the way of positive buzz.  It's only been a thing for a few years, and even I largely discounted it.  In part, that was because I was slow on the pick-up of Primaris because I was a warrior on the "this is idiotic lore" front, and am relatively late to adopt anything not Firstborn Marine.  But here's the thing: I've been down this path before.

 

I've been playing 40K since 3rd Edition, started playing Iron Hands in 4th Edition, and been playing primarily Iron Hands since 5th Edition.  Exquisite timing, you know, since the 5th Edition codex has a special character (and associated "Chapter Tactics" rule) for every codex-compliant Chapter except the Iron Hands.  So, to make it clear to one and all that I was not just playing black-armored Ultramarines, I leaned extremely far into the themes of the Chapter.  I had a Master of the Forge leading every army list.  I packed my lists with tanks and Dreadnoughts.  Anything that had even a whiff of a Techmarine?  I wanted to use it.

 

The 5th Edition Marine codex brought us the Thunderfire Cannon.  Initially, it wasn't very popular.  It couldn't fire indirectly, and it counted as an AV10 vehicles that could be destroyed by a single glancing hit so it had absolute trash durability on the battlefield.  But it had a Techmarine, so I bought one and started using it.  And boy, let me tell you: that thing slapped.  Good scatters on the four small blast templates it fired could wipe entire Marine squads.  Tremor shells kept assault units off my first line until I had a chance to grind them down with bolter & plasma fire.  Airburst shells massacred Guard and other light infantry that relied on 5th Edition's easy-to-get 4+ cover saves to survive on the battlefield.  It proved so effective in my armies that I bought a second one, filling two of my Heavy Support slots with simple 100-point gun batteries that were intensely useful against basically any foe.  They won me a tournament against the infamous double-Nob Biker list because the Tremor shells slowed his hammers until I could neuter them.  They gained in popularity later on in 6th and 7th Editions because of changes to their rules, but I still remember teaching my gaming group to fear these humble platforms.

 

I forgot that lesson when the Firestrike came out.  I ignored it, just like 99% of the player did.  I was always interested in getting one just for the kit, because hey -- it's a Techmarine model, right?  Old habits die hard.  When the Iron Hands Combat Patrol came out, my reaction was a sigh of contempt, followed quickly by a shrug of acceptance.  I bought that box set because I needed another Techmarine and more Heavy Intercessors for my army as it was.  Getting the two Firestrikes was just a bonus.

 

But yeah.  First of all?  The models themselves are nothing special.  It's a Techmarine sitting in a seat behind a gun shield with barrels sticking out the front.  There's almost nothing you can change in the pose without incorporating a whole other model of some kind.  It comes with a Tactical Rock, but almost everything does these days.  It has some nifty fine details in the control panel, but that's also kinda par for the course these days.  Even the old-enough-drink-alcohol Falcon kit has buttons on its pilot station.  But once I put the kits together?  Oh man.  Whoever engineered that kit is probably a Techmarine themselves.  Every single part, down to the gun barrels, holds together without glue.  I played multiple games with them just friction-fit and nothing fell off or popped out.  They go together simply and intuitively, and are solid without adhesive.  I loved assembling these things.

 

On to the rules?  Brother.  Overwatch on 4+ in 10th Edition was amazing, especially against an Oath target or in the Ironstorm Detachment -- which I ran religiously because again, the theme! -- and I lost count of the number of times I shellacked a target with 3-4 lastalon blasts.  I killed a slightly wounded Knight on Overwatch in my first game using these things, and that experience blew my mind.  T6 W6 2+ is enough to repel most small arms for a while too, so it doesn't suffer from the 5th Edition Thunderfire's durability problem.  In 11th, you can never reroll hits on Overwatch, but that makes having a 4+ Overwatch even more useful!  I'm going to try running them in 11th Edition until (or unless) they do indeed get Legend-ed and see how they go.  Instead of placing them on my frontline though, I'm considering using them to hold my home objective.  They big bases let them nudge into cover and still have large fields of view, and cover more area to screen out deep strikers.  Armed with the autocannon options, a pair of them also puts out 6 twin-linked shots at D3, which is enough to take the sting out of small squads of deep strikers that like to appear in table corners to threaten a home objective.  Sure, Rapid Ingress.  I'll take two opportunities to kill Terminators or Raptors.  Cool with me.

 

Is a pair worth 150 points in 11th Edition?  I don't know yet.  Like I said, they were murderous overwatch units in 10th, but 11th is a different animal.  For the time I have to run them, I intend to find out though.  I'm swapping out of Ironstorm -- at least to start the edition -- to try Bastion Task Force stocked to the gills with Gravis & Terminator units.  They have the durability stats to hang with HINTs, and they fit the theme, you know?  If you have some Firestrikes, I encourage you to at least try them even if to just tell me how terrible they were for your list.  As I'm fond of telling my seven year-old: "Hey, at least you tried it."

 

 

Picture included because I can.  There's some detailing work and Chapter transfers that still needs to be done, but overall they're coming along quite nicely.