Horus Heresy Review: Legion Caestus Assault Ram

At first glance, it may not be too obvious that this craft is a bit of a beast, given its poor rear armour value. But this is simply not true. The best way to think about the Caestus Assault Ram is as a flying land raider. The sheer amount of shielding (which includes armoured ceramite, extra armour and an invulnerable save) on the front of the ram is impressive and means that you won't be worrying very much about opposing auto cannons, and the occasional lascannon or Tau railgun.

The broad battle plan is going to be simple: fly to where you need to be and do one of two things: unload your contents, or ram something! Or preferably, do both on sequential turns (unloading first probably…!).

The weaponry of the tank is solid, if not outstanding. The twin-linked magna-melta means that the ram is perfectly capable of scouring a landing zone for the transported marines. The pair of  twin-linked havoc launchers are solid, if not great on the ram. The fact that the ram is an assault vehicle is good for the transported marines. Speaking of which, the ram can transport 10 of any marine type, including 10 terminators (because it ignores the bulky rule!), makes it something of a good choice for an assault orientated command squad or terminator squad.

The ability to successfully ram most things with AV12 or lower cannot be ignored here either, as this was the original design purpose of the ram. The ram will undoubtably be able to take out some rhinos and the like if it positions itself well and has room for a good run up (18"!). One thing I'm a little unclear on is in the event of tank-shocking a squad (another very viable tactic here!) whether they can use a death or glory attack in response -- can you hit a zooming flyer with such an attack? I need to re-re-re-read the rules on this once more, but opinions welcome.

The major (and I mean: MAJOR) negative feature about the ram is the price tag. Costing more than a base-line land raider really makes me hesitate about including it in a Legion (or indeed: 40k) list at all. Sure, its a great flyer, but the weapons, price and limited role (e.g., not particularly firing well at opposing flyers!) is a big negative. I think I prefer land raiders to be honest.

I only have one build beyond the "naked" version, as follows:
Legion Caestus Assault Ram, with frag assault launchers (315 points)
This is what you will probably take if you want to fly in and deposit a melee squad in to position. Otherwise, use it as a mobile last turn objective grabber if necessary for the troops inside.