3.5/5 stars. Rounded Up. Dynat is not quite the same as he was in previous editions.
Background.
A relatively anonymous character who, in other legions, might actually be rather well known and celebrated in my opinion. Dynat is a harrow master for the Alpha Legion. He has been at a number of important engagements before and during the Heresy and likes to lead from the front. Literally.
Strengths.
The stat line here is similar to a Praetor. What makes Dynat stand out a little bit is the combination of equipment and special rules.
For the special rules, his harrow master rule allows him and his (non bulky) unit to gain Infiltrate (12). This is reasonable, but a downgrade from second edition. He is literally going to be out there at the front on his own with another squad. Better make it a good squad. And probably close combat orientated?
The equipment is nice. I'm going to point out both venom spheres and phosphex bombs to begin with - these are easily overlooked but very nice. The Prince and The Prophet have had a work over in this edition as well. The Prince gets Breaching (5+) and if you get three+ hits with it, you get to thunderstrike with the Prophet. Hence there's a bit of a gamble here. You could get lucky, but The Prophet does have a better stat line except for the I-2 and A-1 penalty associated with it. S=7 and AP2 plus Damage=2 is tempting enough to just swing with it. And, to be honest, if I am Alpharius is played, then you will probably go with the Prophet in the first round regardless.
Weaknesses.
Oddly, Dynat's Willpower and Intelligence are a bit lower than a regular Praetor. This is a very peculiar design choice in my opinion.
The lack of infiltrating more units is a downgrade from Second edition as well. To be clear, he is still a very reasonable threat in close combat, but I feel he is now more of a distraction carnifex, and not a very big one either. Strong enough to damage stuff, but not actually over the top deadly like characters from other legions.
Overall.
Not bad. Not entirely amazing either. A leader who goes ahead of the main troops and causes damage in close combat or gets a squad into place to fire on turn one. I might be tempted to take some disintegrator rifles here perhaps? Thinking out loud only in the context of the new weapons in Third Edition. Or perhaps a Rewards of Treachery squad of some sort? Lots of choices and tactics to consider with this one.
Final note, as with Alpharius, Dynat similarly does not have a pre-defined allegiance. This is great touch once more and very welcome.
2 comments:
I think that his change in profile is quite a deliberate one, but it's a drastic change from last ed. Simply put, his weapons plus the legion's special gambit make him the Alpha Legion Challenge sub phrase threat. Just hard to wrap the head around given his role as a force multiplier last edition
The infiltrate is pretty good - I've been using it on vet tacs with a mix of statuses. And I think it might also apply to other characters in the unit? The 12" doesn't matter if he's deployed first, so it's not a big deal, you kinda want to deploy that far away if you're second anyway. Phosphex is also really good, I think that's the other big part of the point of him. And then he's decent in melee/challenges, as a -1 attack hammer praetor mainly. Sword's nice to finish someone off maybe
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