Horus Heresy 3e Review: Warsmith

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. A perfectly good high command choice. 

Background.

The Iron Warriors had a lot of men that were very capable in the siege department. The Warsmiths were at the front of this skill set. Equally adept with robots or war machines, their skills rivalled the mechanicum. Perturabo himself bestowed the rank of warsmith on the most skilled practitioners. 

Strengths. 

The stat line itself is attractive with WS=6 and 5's in many other places short of Strength. Naturally, Intelligence here is also high. This helps tremendously with the Battlesmith rule to repair the kit on the move.

The equipment is attractive with a cognis signum (also intelligence based) to help with barrages. The cortex controller allows reactions where they might not otherwise be (hello robots). The servo arm is nice as it provides an extra hull point or wound back again. And the graviton crusher is very cool and appropriate for close up work. 

Weaknesses. 

There are hardly any options here in comparison to the regular praetor. Hence this is why I'm not giving 5/5 stars to the warsmith. It would also be nice to have a dedicated way to take robots alongside the warsmith (i.e., Lord of Automata) which almost makes the Iron Hands Iron Father a superior choice despite the strong similarities otherwise. 

This said, I am also reviewing the Warsmith in Power Armour option here as well which DOES have more build options [Legacies unit] at the price of a slightly worse stat line.

Builds.

Warsmith (165 points). 

The naked terminator option is strong. I'd place him with some barrage weapons if possible. But otherwise some Tyrants Siege terminators is also an option. 

Warsmith in Power Armour, Paragon Blade, Shrapnel Bolter (158 points). 

A nice build, and the shrapnel bolt rounds are very attractive.