Horus Heresy 2e Review: Termite Assault Drill

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. Its amazing that the termite comes as a standard fast attack slot in the Sisters army list. 

Background.

Tunnel through the ground and then burst upward with righteous fury! Great for assaulting any fortified positions that the enemy might have going! Great that is can also scatter enemy forces upon emergence without waiting for their cargo to deploy. 

Strengths.

Most of this review is identical to the Legion list, but of course here the Termite comes with the Chamber of Vigilance rules. 

Termites provide an underground alternative to deep striking units in to play. One of the chief advantages here is that the player can cause them to erupt near enemy units and score hits on those units at a significant strength (but AP=4). 

Unlike drop pods, the termite can continue to move after launching its deep strike (subterranean assault move) and fire its weapons and so forth. 

I genuinely like this manner of assaulting and it works well if you have just one of them, and perhaps use it in conjunction with more traditional deep strike units to create an underground and overground pincer movement. Maybe that's just me though (I've had good success with this using my Alpha Legion). 

Weaknesses.

Rear armour is 10, and do carefully read the subterranean assault rules if you have more than one of these units as you will see that the enemy can take control of your deployment on an unlucky roll.

Builds.

There are only 2 upgrades to consider - the replacement of the two sets of twin-linked bolters with either twin-linked volkite chargers, or heavy flamers. Candidly both of them work nicely against nearby enemies - and why wouldn't you have nearby enemies if you've emerged on top of, or close to them! I kind of like the flamers ever so slightly better as I think in some situations you can score more hits, but also they act as a nice defensive arrangement as well. Equally, the volkites have the superior range for after that first turn after emerging I guess. A tough choice really. Points cost effective overall in the main part for me.