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These are my new favorite unit and a must have in most of my lists (especially Mech Eldar).

Vengeance Weapon Batteries are my new favorite army addition!
They are cheap and you can have up to 2 of them per Fortification slot), Land Raider AV with one less HP(small building), emplaced weapon (choice of: Punisher Gatling, BattleCannon, Quad-Icarus Lascannon).
Now the weapons are only BS2, but that is not why I love them. Bummer is that automated weapons still have to fire at the closest enemy, so those Quad-Icarus Skyfire lascannons can be nurfed if a non-flyer unit is closer (unless using Interceptor and the Flyer is closer than any other reserves unit).

They are buildings that have no occupancy capacity and can thus never be claimed by your opponent. They are always yours and are scoring units! This is what I love about them!
For less than a 5man Tactical Sqd you get a tough scoring weaponized building! I have been taking two and just deploying them right next to 1-2 objectives!
They have no Faction and my Eldar love to cast Guide on the Punisher Gatling gun.
Having them hold even just a single objective allows the rest of my army to move about and not worry about running back when/if I need to capture that one. Our group pretty much exclusively plays Maelstrom missions.

Because some of my recent opponents have been surprised that they are scoring here are page ref.
p112 Claiming Buildings - All buildings taken as part of your army are claimed by you and will remain so until an enemy unit enters it.
p134 Scoring Units - Claimed buildings count as a scoring unit from the claiming player's army.

It is interesting to note that in Stronhold Assault there are more Scoring fortifications than not (8 scoring, 6 non-scoring).

Here's the thing. If you take the gatling gun, the enemy could drive up an ObSec Chimera (or other AV12 vehicle), park it on the objective and not onyl take it from you, but also make your gun useless.

True, but that's why you keep that from happening.

He's just stating that this costs a little less than 100 points each, and they're far more durable than most things you can get for that cost.

I mean if you think about it, a squad of dark reapers that you also planned to hang back and claim an objective could have the exact same thing happen to them. S5 AP3 isn't enough to punch chimera armor, and reapers aren't objective secured.

 Spellbound wrote:
True, but that's why you keep that from happening.

He's just stating that this costs a little less than 100 points each, and they're far more durable than most things you can get for that cost.

I mean if you think about it, a squad of dark reapers that you also planned to hang back and claim an objective could have the exact same thing happen to them. S5 AP3 isn't enough to punch chimera armor, and reapers aren't objective secured.

exactly, its also a very cool way of making your troops more useful than an anchor designed to sit on objectives all day, now they can be mobile. lets look at your standard marine non biker/Crimons fists net deck where your going to need at least two troops choices. the instant choice is sniper scouts because their 60 points but now all they do is camp backfields all day like babbling idiots and are relatively useless the rest of the game, with two turrets now your scouts arent required anymore to sit on those objectives, they can move up, they can conttest objctives closer to midfield, they might actually be productive after the game has shifted away from your backfield or even late game you can now feed them to a deathstar without worrying about losing those objectives. or.. or now tacticals are a little more tempting because their more mobile thanks to DT's and better statlines which makes them more valulable in a fashion beyond standing in fields.

if you could take these without imperial armor they would change the way we approach more traditional marine lists simply because they do several jobs better than the things we used to give those positions. imo they are a natural thing to transfer to 40k as a dark angel only thing, you could even make an army specific one for the plasma storm battery and then you actually have a purpose to your magnetized LSV/darkshroud because the plasma storm battery is an awesome gun on a bad chassis, making it a sentry turret, now your cooking with gas, especially if you could pod one in, 135 points for a way to obliterate meganobs in a single blast? yes please! this would also be the solution to dark angels having no anti-air without using imperial armor. it just makes sense.

Why would you camp backfield objectives with troops?

That's what Predators, TFCs, Exorcists, (insert your army's 36"-48" shooting unit of choice here) are for.

I equip them with the Quad Icarus (or sometimes Battlecannon) most of the time. At least some interceptor AA, especially when I play my Sisters.
I do have to say they work great at just holding the objectives! I may even park my Exorcist behind them to get cover saves.

Is it better than an equal points value of your troops?

I like the idea, but I think I'd spring for the Icarus or Battle cannon just to get a little extra punch.

With the battlecannon, I'm always concerned my opponent will bring his guys close to mine and just hope for bad scatter. The lack of control over targets is painful.

Thats not big enough of a problem to effect your decision.

Battle cannon to nullify bad BS with a 1 in 3 chance to directly hit

Yeah, its actually really bad odds for the enemy if they're hoping for a bad scatter.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, its actually really bad odds for the enemy if they're hoping for a bad scatter.

Depends on how clumped your own units are. If his closest unit drives into your army hoping you'll lose one to your own battlecannon suddenly you're having your positioning restricted by your own fortifications.

Problem with the Iccarus, is that it lacks the Target Priority rule of the Firestorm.

So there might be a Aircraft nearby, but it will shoot the Troops that are an inch closer. And at BS1 due to Skyfire.

 grendel083 wrote:
Problem with the Iccarus, is that it lacks the Target Priority rule of the Firestorm.

So there might be a Aircraft nearby, but it will shoot the Troops that are an inch closer. And at BS1 due to Skyfire.

While this is true, the interceptor rule lets you shoot at units arriving from reserves which means you have a good chance of getting a shot off at full BS against an aircraft arriving turn 2 (only time you couldn't would be if opponent had outflankers arrive at same time or something.


Id go with the battle cannon myself though.