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I've seen some people state that superheavy transports let heavy weapons fire at normal BS. However the rulebook doesn't have anything to support this. Can anyone support the argument for heavy weapons firing at full ballistic skill in a superheavy transport?

To start, I'm assuming that you're referring heavy weapons being fired by a unit inside a super heavy transport. If that's the case, see the below. If you're referring to heavy weapons ON a super heavy, than all weapons fired by a super heavy vehicle ignore all penalties to shooting based on vehicle movement or ordnance rules.

To my knowledge, the only possible argument for this is for super heavy transports that are also a walker (i.e., stompas)

Non-walker SH transport follow the exact same rules for movement affecting transported units as any other vehicle - it's based on staying stationary, moving combat speed, and moving cruising speed (no penalty, transported units counts as moving, snap fire only, respectively).

For stompas, as lets call it that since I'm unaware of any other superheavy walker transport, the problem becomes that for walkers, there is no defined combat or cruising speed.

So, for example, the RAW says that if a transport travels at cruising speed, occupants snap fire. But walkers have no defined combat or cruising speed.

The argument is that, consequently, because walkers have no defined combat or cruising speed, their occupants are not affected by the transport moving at all, because it's not moving at either combat or cruising speed, therefore there is no RAW affect on occupants.

When faced with ambiguous rules, I like to side on fair and reasonable. And I think it is neither fair nor reasonable for occupants of, say, a kustom battle fortress (a super-heavy transport vehicle) to count as having moved if their transport moves 1", whereas occupants of a stompa are not affected whatsoever if it moves 12". Consequently, I'd say that units being transported in a stompa should be affected the same as any other vehicle - up to 6" movement, count as having moved, 6" - 12", snap fire only.

Personally, I'd love it if any super heavy vehicle could move 12" and its occupants could fire as if they hadn't moved. And it kind of makes sense, as you'd think SHVs would be pretty stable firing platforms, seeing as how the vehicle itself is immune to any penalty to firing based on movement. But there's no rule that allows this for normal SHV transports, and I think it's fair to place the same restrictions on all SHV transports, walker or not.

And I'm aware it's a contentious topic, but ITC rules also clarify that units being transported by gargantuan squiggoths are treated like super-heavy transport vehicles for firing penalties based on movement, even though there is no combat/cruising speed defined for GMCs either. I feel as if that same logic can and should be applied to stompas as well.

Don't Super Heavy vehicles always count as stationary for firing purposes? If so, that is clearly meant for firing the Super Heavies weapons, not for embarked passengers.

This might be where people are getting the idea.

Well, the OP specifically mentioned super heavy transports, which made me think he was referring to passengers.

If it for the SHV itself, than you're absolutely right.

Sorry, that was my meaning. I knew he meant passengers. I was just pointing out where I think people get the ruling, i.e. by misreading the "always stationary" to extent to passengers.

Oh, I see. that's a good point, actually, I can see how people could misread that rule.

In old apoc sht did have a rule called "stable firing platform" it let troops inside ignore any "counts as having moved".

This combined with the multiple units per tranports rule made the stormlord an awesome tank: load it with 15 heavy weapons teams(5 squads from your platoons) and fire all of them at up to 5 targets counting the tank as open topped for targeting.

Yeah, you could also put artillery in super heavies, I think they counted as 5 models in a transport. That would have been pretty awesome too. Load up the thing with rapier laser platforms, or go bananas with quad mortars.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
Yeah, you could also put artillery in super heavies, I think they counted as 5 models in a transport. That would have been pretty awesome too. Load up the thing with rapier laser platforms, or go bananas with quad mortars.

Oh gak... mortars in a stormlord... EW