Imperial Armor Apocalypse is a game changer. Frontline Gaming digs into the book to find the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We here at Frontline Gaming are juiced about the new Imperial Armor book (we FINALLY got our copy). Why so excited? Well, we really enjoy Apocalypse games, but more important than that to the average gamer, units in the book marked with a Warhammer 40,000 stamp are approved for regular play.
About time.
There are a plethora of beautiful Forgeworld models that have gathered dust on gaming shelves around the world because they have not been usable in normal games of 40K. Well, now they are, and we are extremely pleased with the results as almost to a unit, everything is fun, unique and appropriately priced. The best thing about all of this is that most of armies that got new units, needed them. This really helps to bring balance to the meta as it boosts armies that would otherwise suffer.
GW scores a triple play here by increasing the market for Forgeworld models, reinvigorating the game with new units, and by making armies that were lagging behind, better. Well done!
So what about the nuts and bolts of the book itself?
It has a slew of new super heavy vehicles, formations and 40K legal units. It is typical FW quality: beautiful, over priced with a few typos. But hey, I can live with that for how much variety this will bring to 40K table tops the world over.
So let’s jump in!
We’ll cover Imperial Guard today, and work our way through the other forces as we go.
For Imperial Guard, the only 40K legal choices we get, are not uber competitive. Cool and awesome looking? Yes! But probably not likely to see the table top as often only because of the criminally under-priced Vendetta that competes with the same slot.
The Tauros/Venator is a great model. It comes in at 40pts, and has some cool abilities, such as rerolling difficult terrain checks if it moves at combat speed (6″). It also ignores immobilized results on a 4+ which is very useful, particularly if you take them in a squadron. It is a fast, open topped AV10 vehicle with scouts, so it is very mobile, but very vulnerable. The standard Heavy Flamer means that with scouts, it could torch a vulnerable unit like Lootas turn 1. However, I would go with the very cool grenade launcher for 5 points. A heavy 2, str6, ap4, 36″ gun that can fire on the move is nice. With scouts and a fast platform, you can quite easily get side shots turn 1. The frag templates also make it effective in an anti-infantry roll.
Another cool use for the vehicle is to use its Searchlight to light up a key enemy unit turn 1. As we have seen with the very brutal Scarab Farm Necron list, having a fast, scouting searchlight that can illuminate the Scarab unit (or something similar) before it has a chance to hit critical mass in numbers, can be game winning.
It also can outflank due to scouts, and in a reserve IG army, this could be good fun as it is yet another unit that can come in from an unexpected axis.
Lastly, with a Homing Beacon, you could take squads of Storm Troopers and have them deep strike off of the Tauros with no scatter and deliver some hot melta death right where you want! Or, you could have conventional units bail out of the back of a Vendetta/Valkyrie to the same effect.
Very cool! I would love to use these units in a themed game and maybe even in a smaller tournament, just to try and pull off some fun combinations. But in a pure power list? Probably not. Nevertheless, a very fun, characterful unit.
The Venator is an upgrade to the Tauros, and grants you 11av front arc, and a twin linked multi-laser. For 20 points, not too shabby.
The Multi Laser is not bad, and twin linking it increases its damage output by 50%. That combined with scouts and being fast means that like its little brother the Tauros, it will be great for light mech, small unit hunting. However, I think most people will take it with a twin-linked las cannon.
for 75pts with the las, you get a solid anti-tank unit that has a lot of benefits, scouts, fast, easy to get a cover save, decent armor. However, you just can’t beat the Vendetta. For 130 points, you get 3 twin linked las cannons on a platform that is av12, closed top, scouts, is still fast and can take heavy bolters. The Vendetta really should cost 160pts, but hey, they had to sell those kits, I guess.
The Venator is a cool unit that like the Sentinel, isn’t bad, it just competes with a stupidly under-priced unit and suffers as such. I think that again, it is a very characterful unit that is not at all a bad choice, but probably won’t be meta-changing for IG players.
That’s it for IG, but hey, IG didn’t need much, did they! They are still easily top tier.
What I was really surprised not to see, was the Vulcher. We did get the Valkyrie Sky-Talon (which we’ll cover later), but no Vulture? That is a beautiful model and with the Twin-Punisher cannons, would sell on awesome factor alone. The quad missile pod load out is amazingly good too, but oh well. Maybe we will see it in part two of the Imperial Apocalypse books, which I hope comes out soon.
What units did you all like in the IA book?
I find myself staring at that Land Raider Achilles more and more. Might have to order one soon. 🙂
Yeah, that thing is a beast! I am glad they reigned it in enough to make it less overpowering. It is still fantastic, but reasonable, especially for it’s monstrous price tag.
Hmm Im not sure of allowing IA is that great at tournaments.
It is another book and hell of expensive models. I don’t like to see people not being able to afford something special in order to play this hobby is already expensive !
Cool models for sure though.
The models are expensive, no doubt. But they are cool, and the flip side of that argument is that it would be awesome to see them on the table top.
I don’t think anything in the book we are talking about is overpowering though, to be honest.
I think the new Ork stuff is awesome, especially the liftadropa! However, I had one question. I suppose the Meka dread won’t be usable in the BAO then? The problem is that according to IA:SE you need to take a MEGA dread before you can take the Meka dread that is in the book and the Mega dread isn’t in there. What does this mean for people who are considering picking up one of those awesome kits?
That’s a good point, and one we will address if the IA units get voted into the tournament.