"The Lesser Spotted" is a series of short articles highlighting some of the less frequently used units in Warhammer 40,000.
The parts of the Techmarine that accompanies the Thunderfire Cannon as painted by Matt[2].
The relatively cheap Thunderfire Cannon costs the same as a bare bones Space Marines Librarian. For your points you use up a Heavy Support slot and gain a fragile but versatile unit. The unit is comprised of the Thunderfire Cannon and its Techmarine operator. So apart from operating the weapon what does the Techmarine bring to the unit:
- A 2+ Armour Save
- A Servo Harness giving him two S8 I1 attacks in close combat, a flamer and a twin linked plasma pistol.
- Bolster Defences
Having Bolster Defences is really handy, especially on tables that may not have much terrain. Bolster Defences is a rule that can benefit your army if you take a Master of the Forge, Techmarine or Darnath Lysander in your army but which you also get if you take a Thunderfire Cannon. Bolster Defences allows the controlling player to pick a ruin in their deployment zone and add +1 to its cover save. It may not sound like much but in objective scenarios it's easy to pick a ruin, place an objective in it and give it a 3+ cover save and then stick some Space Marine Scouts in there with camo cloaks, giving your cheap scoring unit a 2+ cover save while babysitting an objective! Seven scouts is a good number since your opponent will have to kill three of them just to force a morale check...
Also note that the Techmarine has the Independent Character Universal Special Rule and the Blessings of the Omnissiah special rule but these are only usable once the Thunderfire Cannon has been destroyed. This actually makes it really nifty in Annihilation missions. If the opponent wipes out the Thunderfire Cannon and the Techmarine is left alive he can run off and join another unit, denying that vital Kill Point to your opponent! He can also repair weapon destroyed and immobilised results of nearby vehicles (after the cannon has been destroyed), hence potentially saving you some victory points since damaged vehicles give up a significant number of victory points.
Brother-Techmarine Artesian of the Iron Lords Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.There are some things that should be remembered about Artillery:
- The gun is treated as an AV10 vehicle, however any glancing or penetrating hit will destroy it!
- When firing at an artillery unit roll a dice for each hit inflicted, on a 1-4 the gun is hit, on a 5-6 the crewman is hit.
When firing the Thunderfire Cannon there are three different types of ammunition available to you and you must declare which type of round the gun will use before firing it each time.
#1 The Surface Detonation
Range 60"
Strength 6
AP 5
Type: Heavy 4, Blast
How to use it:
With four blast markers this weapon is a potential threat to quite a few things. While this is not the first firing mode I would use for the Thunderfire it's not to be discounted and could see frequent use when the more specialised rounds run out of targets. Trukks, Land Speeders, vehicles with armour values of 10 or even vehicles with armour values of 11 that have already been immobilised as a result of the Subterranean Blast firing mode (see later) making that bit easier to kill. Units with good armour saves that are hugging cover or crowding an objective or have just been forced to disembark from a destroyed transport are also prime targets for this S6 weapon, wounding marines on a 2+ with 4 blast markers might not be as much as a S8 AP3 blast but this weapon will still stack those critical wounds on scoring units.
High toughness units are becoming more common on the tournament scene in Ireland, Tyranid monstrous creatures, daemon princes, chaos daemons, thunderwolf cavalry, Ork Biker Nobz to name a few. This S6 weapon, smartly placed can wound two independent units at a time and with 4 blasts you're bound to cause some crucial wounds.
My thanks to Shem[1] and Matt[2] for the use of their Thunderfire Cannon pictures!
[1] http://ironlordsspacemarines.blogspot.com/
[2] http://thedragonstears.com/
All the best,
Joe
Labels: Maynard, Space Marines, Tactics, Thunderfire Cannon, Warhammer 40K
Brother-Techmarine Artesian of the Iron Lords Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.There are some things that should be remembered about Artillery: