Sunday, November 19, 2023

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Questoris Acastus Knight Asterius

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
3/5 stars. The rules are average.

Background.
The machine spirit is said to be all consuming fire and rage. It is therefore of no surprise that only the veteran pilots in a household will bond with this type of knight. Doubly so given that it is a very long range knight and lacks any glory in melee given its armaments. It remains exceedingly rare in any given household. 

Strengths.
I'm going to talk about the secondary armaments first here. The volkite culverins on the front are a reasonably good weapon for finishing troops off. But to do that, the knight probably wants to opt for the Karacnos mortar battery to fire first. This beast might only be AP4, but with S=6 and a range a special rules that most notably include fleshbane and radphage (let alone shell shock and pinning, plus it ignores cover), this has the potential to be a squad killer overall. 

The main weapons here are the two twin linked heavy conversion beam cannons. At maximum range, these weapons have an eye watering S=12 and AP=1 coupled with a large blast. Truthfully, this is an anti-titan (and anti-knight) weapon at long range. As such, you will want to be targeting enemies at the longest range possible. But the issue here is the minimum firing range to obtain S=12 is 42 inches. The strength decreases as you go below. Still above 18 inches, it is a S=9 cannon, but the AP of 4 is an issue. Up to 18 inches is a paltry S=7 which just doesn't justify the points cost. 

Weaknesses.
I will freely confess to being a fan of the conversion beamer. The main issue with it is that it is most suitable to big game boards. i.e., Apocalypse game boards. Therefore this knight is not really recommended outside of such games. More than this, the points cost of this knight is within shouting distance of a scout titan which might serve you better depending on the scenario.
 
Builds.
There are no builds to speak of here. The points cost is probably just about worth it, but only when you know you will be firing at long range for most of a game. 


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