Saturday, August 27, 2022

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Legion Terminator Tartaros Squad

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4/5 stars. Don't fall in to the trap of thinking this is worse that Cataphractii, its just different. 

Background.
Argued by some in the legions to be the greatest armour ever developed, Tartaros provides much better protections as standard compared to any mark of power armour but - critically - do not give up any of the fluid movement of power armour either. 

Strengths.
The main reason to take Tartaros over Cataphractii terminator armour is that these terminators retain the ability to conduct sweeps, as well as having a better movement rate (and can run!). 

To take advantage of the sweeping ability calls for close combat armaments and configurations which I will detail in the builds below.

The second main reason to take Tartaros is that it is mildly cheaper than Cataphractii. 

Weaknesses.
With only a 5+ invulnerable save compared to Cataphractii's 4+, Tartaros armour is strictly worse than Cataphractii in terms of sheer durability. For that, there's a rational transaction of being cheaper and having those movement benefits listed above. My thought here is to put Tartaros terminators safely in a land raider or dread claw (or other transport) to get them to where they need to be in order to conduct an alpha strike of some kind.

Difference to First Edition.
Neutral. The rules are comparable overall.

Builds.
5 Terminators, 1 plasma blaster, 2 chain fists, 2 thunder hammers, vexilla, grenade harness (235 points).
My favoured general set up that provides a little bit of everything. 25 points cheaper than the Cataphractii variant. 

5 Terminators, 1 plasma blaster, 4 combi plasmas, 2 power fists (220 points).
Plasma "termicide" squad. 

10 Terminators, 6 pairs of Lightning Claws, 4 Thunder hammers, 2 Heavy Flamers, vexilla, grenade harness (410 points).
Lightning claws work very well in good numbers here and will go at initiative. The thunder hammers provide back up to this, while the heavy flamers soften up targets before a charge and in turn discourage a counter charge. 

5 Terminators, 5 combi-grenade launchers (175 points).
This is a sneaky option really. The idea here is to use the grenade launchers to cause pinning. You probably don't need all 5 of them, but might as well take them to ensure the job is done. When ready charge in with power axes to finish off as your leisure. Note that minor combi weapons like this are NOT one shot affairs.

10 Terminators, 6 combi-volkite charger, 4 Thunder hammers, vexilla, grenade launcher, nuncio vox (390 points).
Volkites are solid at short range and the assault 2 here is very nice coupled with the fact it is not one shot in this edition. Disembark, shoot and then charge in with the hammers and power axes with the goal to sweep the opponent. Take the odd power sword if desired instead to go at initiative. Potentially switch out the thunder hammers for lightning claw pairs to have these go at initiative if desired. 




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