Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to share a guide to the very cool Forge World Legacies of Glory. In part 2 of this series, we’ll look at the Chaos Space marine versions. Check out the Tactics Corner for more great reviews!
First of all, how do these work? The rules are found in IA 2, 2nd Edition. These are unique vehicle upgrades that can be purchased for any Space Marine faction vehicles. You can give 1 vehicle 1 or more Legacies per full 1,000pts. So for most games, this means 1 upgraded vehicle. If you play 2k, then 2, etc. You may only ever have 1 of any specific legacy in an army.
Let’s hop in there! We’ll stick to our traditional Good, Bad and Ugly review format to give you not just an idea of what they do but how to use them and their relative power level in the opinion of myself. As always, feel free to disagree as some of these may be awesome for your local meta even if they may not be the coolest thing for a general tournament.
The Good
Battle of Keylek: May be taken by any vehicle with a blast weapon, and gives the vehicle’s blast weapons Ignores Cover. WOW! This is one of the best, if not the best, LoG. Let your imagination run wild with this: Vindicators with Ignores Cover jump out in most minds right away, but don’t forget the FW Scorpius which is absolutely lethal with this upgrade. And the Relic Predators with the Magna-Melta (Large Blast Melta weapon), Plasma Destroyer (3 shot Plasma Cannon), or Heavy Conversion Beamer all become just brutal with the ability to ignore cover. For 35pts, this is a great choice. You can also take in on a Super Heavy for 75pts, and is obviously even better, but we don’t allow this upgrade in our events as we have found it is just too much with 10″ blast weapons that have AP2 and 3. YMMV though, and it would be a lot of fun in an Apoc game.
The War of Murder: Once you get past the incredibly silly name, this is a great piece of kit. It gives the tank Monster Hunter which in 7th edition is solid gold. On top of this, it makes all friendly Space Marine units within 6″ Fearless which is nice when it comes into play. For 20/40pts (standard/super heavy), it is a cheap upgrade that can really give you a solid boost. The Sicaran with its high rate of fire and rending weaponry is a great choice for this upgrade. A Land Raider Crusader would also be a solid choice.
Battle of Sarosh: 30/60pts, that allows you to once per game give the vehicle with it Skyfire, Interceptor, Tank Hunter and Night Vision. Nice one! This makes a vehicle a powerful threat to Deep Striking and Flying targets that would otherwise not be. It’s pricey and only works on a single weapon on the tank, but, on the right tank (again a Sicaran jumps to mind with a 6 shot, twin linked, rending Auto Cannon that ignores Jink), you can take down an enemy flyer reliably before it even fires, or take a nasty chunk out of a ground unit that comes out of reserves. If you play in a meta with a lot of armies that sport 1-2 flyers, this is a great choice and you can even get away with taking this and no other AA units if you’re feeling risky. When you hit the 3 and higher number of flyers, this won’t suffice as an AA solution but will compliment your AA strategy quite nicely.
Schism of Mars: This is an absolutely outstanding piece of kit. Possibly the best of the bunch depending on your meta and what your list needs. It gives the vehicle with it Tank Hunters, +1BS vs. enemy units with the Deamonforge rule, and ignores Haywire attacks on a 4+. WOW! For only 25/50pts, this is an absolute steal. This does a lot, it gives you a deadly tank hunter AND defense vs. one of the deadliest tank hunting weapons: Haywire. A great tank for this is, again, the fantastic Sicaran. With the ability to ignore Jink, and Tank Hunting on the sweet Accelerator Auto Cannon, this here is a Wave Serpent killer. It will routinely drop them in a single shot, while remaining pretty dang durable to return fire. Things like Necron Voltaic Staves or Tyranid Electro Shock Grubs are greatly reduced vs. a vehicle with this upgrade, too, which is great. This also gives you a big boost vs. Knights, which is always welcome. In all, two huge thumbs up for this LoG!
The Bad
Ullanor Crusade: Preferred Enemy (Orks). Meh. Ultra specializeds, and at 25pts, a bit pricey. However, if you are playing in a campaign or league and know you will be playing Orks, awesome! Any high rate of fire tank will love this bad boy. Models attacking the vehicle also have to reroll successful hits in the first round of combat, which is pretty cool as a bonus. For general purpose events with unknown opponents, it is too specific a piece of kit.
Isstvan III: Preferred Enemy (Chaos Space marines) and automatically pass Dangerous Terrain in ruins. As with the Ullanor Crusade, this is great for campaign play where you know who you will be playing against. But in general format play or pick-up games, it is too specialized.
Battle of Calth: Preferred Enemy (Chaos Space Marines) and enemy Warlords within 12″ suffer -1 Ld. Meh. Same strengths and weaknesses as above.
Battle of the Phall System: 40pts, gives a Storm Eagle a +1 Jink, and a Thunderhawk a 6+ Jink. Too specialized, too expensive.
Thramas Crusade: 40/80pts, gives a 12″ Fearless bubble from the vehicle. Chaos would kill for this piece of kit, Space Marines have ATSKNF which is better so there is not much reason for this expensive piece of kit in most lists.
Battle of Terra: 40/80pts for IWND. Wow, way, way too many points for this upgrade. At 1/2 to 1/3 the price, it’d be worth looking at.
Icon of Glory: 50/100pts that grants the vehicle either +1WS or BS, if your Warlord is within 2″, he extends his Command Trait Warlord Trait by 6″. If this vehicle is destroyed, the opposing player gains and extra +1 VP. You pay a ton of points for a marginal gain and a potentially game losing penalty.
The Ugly
Burning of Prospero: 20/40pts, the vehicle gains Adamantium will, and a further +1 to DtW if targeted by a Witchfire. Not bad, some of the maledictions out there can be really nasty vs. vehicles, but, for the cost, unless you play against lots of psychic debuffs or shooting attacks from armies like Daemons for example, this upgrade won’t be worth the price cost.
Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre: 20pts, a vehicle that can Deep Strike does not scatter when it does so. Really, only Drop Pods gain a ton of benefit from this and while yes, a Drop Pod that you simply place wherever you want it on the table is pretty cool, Drop Pods are already really accurate and so the points cost is a bit of a put off. If you had a dual Multi-Melta Land Speeder with this upgrade he turns into a solid little tank buster for only 100pts. It could be useful on a Deep Striking Flyer too, to get your choice of armor facing. Again, not a bad choice, but not incredible, either.
Battle of Signus Prime: 35/70pts, grants the vehicle Preferred Enemy (Chaos Daemons) and all friendly Space Marine units that begin the turn within 6″ gain the Furious Charge USR. You take it for the Furious Charge bonus if you take it at all, and the Preferred Enemy vs. Daemons is a bonus when it applies. A transport vehicle like a Land Raider with an assault unit inside is a solid choice here, or get crafty and stick it on a Drop Pod that lands in the middle of Assault Units before they go in for the assault. Still, you can get FC much easier with various Chapter Tactics, but, there is room for some cool combos with this piece of kit.
Shrouded Provenance: 30/60pts, grants the vehicle the Venerable rule, but, is treated as an Ally of Convenience by your own army, or as a Desperate Ally by other allies in your army. It’s OK, on the right vehicle such as a Super Heavy where it means you will rarely get an Explodes! result and really preserve your investment which is awesome. It does mean, unfortunately, that it can’t function as a transport vehicle due to the allies rule, and you can’t cast and psychic powers on it. So, really only good for a gun platform Super Heavy, IMO, but great in that role.
And there you have it! These are some fun upgrades to give vehicles a much needed boost in 7th ed. Which is your favorite?
Battle of Phall is useless since they changed standard jink to 4+
It’s +1, not 4+. I wrote it incorrectly. It would boost you to a 3+.
Good read. I haven’t paid much attention to these beyond Schism. Seems like they are all expensive and I’m usually short on points for what I want to do anyways. I like the Chaos ones better too. They just seem to have more character to them, even if most of them aren’t all that great.
Why is schism of maars on here twice?
Typo, thanks for pointing that out.
Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre works well with aircraft that deep strike. Like say… the fire raptor? Guaranteed rear shots or just guaranteed to get the precise lineup with all your gun arcs, especially since the fire raptor can fire so many.
Very good point, I forgot that a lot of FW flyers still have Deep Strike for some reason.
Also note that it’s one VEHICLE per 1000 points.
That vehicle can have multiple legacies on it.
Good point, I clarified the language in the article to illustrate that. Thanks for pointing that out.
Yeah that’s my solution to the 5 flyrant meta I’m anticipating for LVO, fire raptor with MH legacy and perfect deep strike.
Statistically it should be able to down about 2 the turn it arrives. Course that math assumes said flyrants big toe left the ruins/malanthrope bubble, and the other 3 then kill it/force it to jink in return, but hey, still effective.
LVO will certainly be interesting, esp if we get mechanicus before. If the new cron dex drops down the 31st like suggested would it be legal for LVO? I really dont like the mess that is CCBs lol.
Sicaran + TH though is definitely one of the stronger options you can do right now, just so nasty. It really comes down to whether Nids or Serpent spam is more dominent for LVO. My money is on nids buuut we’ll see.
Yeah, I tend to agree. So far in our tests, the 5 Flyrants is just ridiculously strong. Necrons have beaten them in our games, so far, but most other armies just get steamrolled.
We’ll see how things shake down, but we usually have a pretty diverse field. I hope for a non Knight/Eldar/Nid suprise in the top =)
I certainly hope so! I be running SM/IG.
When in doubt. more troops. 10 OS things baby! and amix of DS/transports/scout and infiltrate.
That’s definitely my style list, too! I love swarming the table with ObSec units, you win through attrition and movement.
I got into a discussion on another site about the Dropsite Massacre Legacy. Wondering about how it would work if taken for one of a Squadron of Land Speeders. Seems to me like if the Legacy Speeder was the first one placed when DSing, it wouldn’t scatter and then the others would just get placed in coherency.
Hmm, that’s interesting. I would say off the cuff that they’d all have to have it as it specifies one vehicle, but it’s certainly worth looking into.
Indeed – give the upgrade to one Land Speeder, place it first so it doesn’t scatter, then the others in the squadron get placed around it.
Thanks for the great article Reese. I plan on using the Battle of Signus Prime LoG on a Damocles Command Rhino to support my two squads of assault marines with jump packs. I think that Furious Charge will pair nicely with the Raven Guard’s ability to utilize their jump packs in both the movement and assault phases of the game. Add re rolling failed hammer of wrath wounds and you have a pretty powerful combination that most opponents don’t see coming.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! And yeah, anything that helps to get Assault marines on the table is a plus, IMO. I love them but they can be a challenge to use. Raven guard definitely have some powerful supporting units/rules. I hope you do well with them! I have always wanted to try massed Assault Marines as a list strategy, so I will be curious to see if you can pull it off.
So many cool upgrades.. makes me miss the old nid codexes where you could mutate your MC’s big time
two of the upgrades in the “bad” section. are not in fact bad, I’ve played with one, and the other is worth a look.
the ullanor crusade ability vs orcs doesn’t matter. what it does give the vehicle though is either a 5+ or 4+ invulnerable save in the first round of combat. the reroll to miss is amazingly good.
“try putting that melta bomb or haywire grenade on my tank/walker…oops.. try again:P”
It’s just mean on a LOW knight, you could put it on a lancer seneschal, it’d have it’s basic 4++ in combat, ws5 and rerolls to miss it in the first round of combat….probably enough to keep it alive vs pretty much anything. I played with a fell blade vs Nids and it, combined with a power field, saved the tank from 3 charging carnifex and a hive tyrant.
the other one is Istvann III. Again, the stuff vs chaos is unimportant.
the lovely meat is you can effectively buy a siege shield for a Land Raider. most Raiders can’t even get dozer blades so that 1 in 6 chance of immobilising while moving through terrain is awful.
It can work on other vehicles as well, and is worth it for things you can’t buy a dozer blade for.
Awesome article Reece.
I am curious about the Battle of the Phall System LOG. Does it give a stock +1 to jink saves or does it say it gives a jink save of a certain value?
For the Storm Eagle, it improves the Jink save by +1. For the Thunderhawk, which normally is not allowed to Jink, it gives it a 6+ Jink save. Sadly, the latter is a complete non-option because snapfiring with your 700+pt superheavy in order to get the worst possible cover save is not something you’re gonna do.
Well when I have a dreadnaught with a 3+ invul on the front and a 5+ on every other side,and rerolls to hits in close combat at strength 10 ap 2 WS 5 and i 4, then on top of that it has IWND because of battle for terra, thats pretty mean