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Greetings!

Another set of home brew rules for the Skitarii and probably my last one. Here is a proposed heavy support unit.

These are all experimental rules so please do give feedback if you think its too powerful/weak. The model is originally from Dust Tactics, which from my understanding is going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment.

I am not entirely happy with how it is painted, so that should be changed soon.

If anyone knows why I named it the Harkonnen, I would be very impressed.

HARKONNEN (80 points)



The Harkonnen is a unique walker which specialises in defensive positions. They were used exclusively on the home planet of the Adeptus Mechanicus -Mars- due to their permanent fixtures. Once the Harkonnen has entrenched its position it becomes a deadly immobile gun platform. However due to the risk of this valuable machine falling into Chaos hands, it has only ever been used on Mars till now.

The looming threat of the Tyranid Swarm has increase the alert level of all Imperium worlds. The Adeptus Mechanicus were coaxed into mass producing and distributing the Harkonnen in exchange for all future STCs discovered by the Imperium.

Harkonnen walkers are a Heavy Support Choice for a Adeptus Mechanicus Army List.

WS: 3
BS: 4
S: 5

Armour
Front: 12
Side: 12
Rear: 11

I: 3
A: 2
HP: 2

Unit Type:
-Vehicle (Walker)
-May include 1 additional Harkonnen walker

Special Rules:
-Doctrine Imperatives
-Dunestrider
-Entrench
-Interceptor (only when Entrenched)

War Gear
-Broad Spectrum data-tether
-Search light
-Twin-linked Konnen
Range: 48"
S: 7
AP: 4
Type: Heavy 1

Entrench
At the end of the turn the Harkonnen can choose to entrench itself, which greatly boosts its ranged fire power. Once the Harkonnen has entrenched itself, it is immobilised for the rest of the game and changes its weapon profile to:
-Entrenched Twin-linked Konnen
Range: 48"
S: 7
AP: 4
Type: Heavy 4. Cognis
Once entrenched, assume the walker has a 90degree gun arc on the front; 45 degrees on each side.

You have some neat ideas here! My biggest concern is that you don't really have a reason not to entrench right away (just park somewhere likely to give you cover or on the nearest objective and shoot your 48" guns), and you don't have enough firepower when unentrenched to accomplish much. So the entrench rule pretty much just prevents you from firing on the first turn rather than being a tough decision throughout the game. I think everyone's de facto approach to this unit would be to move up and run onto an objective or good patch of cover turn 1, then spend the rest of the game making up for the first turn's lack of shooting with solid shooting through the rest of the game.

A couple other of nitpicks include precisioin shots probably being too good on a 4 shot weapon that's also twin-linkedand strength 7 (chances aren't terrible that you'll get at least one precision shot each turn) as it makes it rather easy to snipe models out of a unit. This seems like less of a precision sniping weapon than just a really big machine gun with some targeting systems built in.

Also, you specify rules for side weapons, but you only list a single weapon in its wargear (unless the data-tether is a weapon and I simply don't know skitarii well).

Overall, I give it a pretty good grade. I like the concept quite a bit. I just think it needs a few tweaks. I feel like its fire power is comparable to a war walker (less shots, but twin-linked and higher strength/range plus cognis). You have better armor, but way less mobility.

I agree with Wyldhunt. As it is now, the entrenching is a non-decision. Why would you ever not do it?

Fluffwise, I wanted the walker to rush forwards to some where important and just have it on lock down. So the idea is to have it entrenched as soon as possible. The drawback of entrenching is the limited gun arc and being immobile. So as soon as it is entrenched, enemy units can easily flank it. That was the idea at least.

I used the ironstrider rules to help me start writing the rule so the precision shots followed from that. But you are right, having a giant machine gun shouldn't have precision shot, will remove that.

The data-tether is a Skitarii vehicle thing, it gives a Ld bubble when a doctrine is used.

Thanks for the feedback!