Horus Heresy Review: Legion Stormblade Super-heavy Tank

The primary weapon of this super heavy tank is the plasma blast gun. Its worth just going over what this primary weapon can do since there are two firing modes. The first is a rapid mode what provides 2 massive (7 inch) blasts at S8. The second is an overloaded mode that gives but a single 10 inch blast at S10. Let's do a little maths at this point. How much of an area can each of these blasts cover? Well, the area of a circle is pi r-squared. For the 7 inch blast, this is two lots of 154 sq inches (rounded), for a total of 308 sq inches. For the 10 inch blast, we're looking at 314 sq inches. Hence they're about the same in terms of the sheer area covered. But the strength of the blasts is clearly rather different! Ultimately how this weapon is fired will come down to how the enemy is arrayed in front of the Stormblade, but I thought it was useful to point out that the areas of both (summed) is very comparable. Yet, there is no way around a cover save, despite the high strength and low AP of the weapon.

Other than that, it has AV14 on the front, decreasing around the side and back, and 9 whole hull points. It is broadly survivable and will certainly cause a headache for anything that is footslogging or otherwise out in the open. It can be upgraded with a number of weapons which would provide alternatives for weapon destroyed results if needed. To some extent the choice of whether to go for sponsons or other tools is down to personal taste.

Here are a pair of builds to consider.

Stormblade with armoured ceramite and space marine legion crew (495 points)
Probably the base line that players of this unit will take. The marine crew improve the BS (if needed in the first place with blast templates) and the armoured ceramite is almost a given against melta opponents.

Stormblade with lascannon/heavy bolter sponsons, armoured ceramite, space marine legion crew, havoc launcher pintle, command tank (585 points)
A truly upgraded tank that provides the core of a legion's tactics with the command tank status and the range of weaponry available. Although other options like hunter killer missiles could be added, they are really overkill at this stage. As would be a second pair of sponsons, but I could see that being played as well. Just consider how many points the total army is at this point and figure out what fraction we are spending on the tank is. How many points are you willing to sink in to a super heavy?