Rules in the Age of Darkness – the Saturnine Dreadnought

There is no shortage of options for a Space Marine player building an army in the Horus Heresy, so let’s find out why you would make space in your force for a Saturnine Dreadnought, and how to get the best out of it in your games.

Beginning with the statline, we can already tell how impressive this Dreadnought is. With T8 and W8, it’ll be hard for all but the most specialised infantry to drop it, but the tradeoff is speed, at a lumbering M6. Its mental stats are equally impressive – as they are for all Dreadnoughts.

You can see there are a lot of similarities to the Leviathan Dreadnought in particular, though the Saturnine has the edge in terms of durability, with an extra Wound and a 4+ Invulnerable Save. 

What’s more, the Saturnine boasts a thermal diffraction field that reduces the strength of weapons with the Las, Plasma, Melta and Flame traits. 

Together, these account for a majority of the better ranged anti-armour weapons that might be taking shots at your Dreadnought. The thermal diffraction field also grants the Saturnine a measure of protection against overload damage from its own plasma weapons if you're firing on full power.

You can see that the Leviathan still wins out in melee, with better Initiative and Attacks – if the task at hand calls for close-combat carnage, the Leviathan still dominates.

At the other end of the spectrum, the reliable but comparatively fragile Deredeo still has its place, offering both longer range and anti-flyer capabilities.

It’s in those bruising middle-ranged firefights that typify many Horus Heresy battles where the Saturnine Dreadnought reigns supreme. Each one comes with two very big guns – from a choice of four – with a couple of smaller (but still scary) point defense weapons.

Weapon options

The disintegrator cannon and the heavy plasma bombard are the options available in the Saturnine box at launch. The former is an armour-buster, delivering a pair of S9, D3 shots from across the battlefield. Its Overload (2) trait does make it a slightly risky choice, but the risk will (usually) be worth it. While it lacks the dedicated anti-tank Armourbane of a lascannon, its Damage output makes it better than almost any other weapon in its size class at killing enemy Dreadnoughts, big automata or enemy Saturnine Terminators.

The heavy plasma bombard, on the other hand, is an infantry-killer. It can fire on targets out of line of sight, using the satisfyingly lethal 5” blast template, any enemy squads within 36” are in for a bad day. The sheer size of the blast marker makes it surprisingly accurate – the explosion is so big, you barely have to aim…

The graviton pulveriser and inversion beamer will be released a little later both as an upgrade kit and as a complete Dreadnought – and the guns are fairly easily swapped out or magnetised to suit your needs during each game. 

The inversion beamer also uses a large blast template and dishes out three Damage with AP2 at short range, while the Graviton pulveriser dishes out an eyewatering four Damage if fired while stationary.

There are then a choice of three smaller weapon pairs, all of which are some manner of template weapon. They are there to dissuade enemy infantry from getting too close.

The concussive resonator and photonic incinerator both come with the Dreadnought in the Saturnine box:

The Saturnine Dreadnought clocks in at a meaty 340 points base, which is a significant proportion of your army. You will want yours in the thick of the fighting, but out of melee if possible. Expect to see them forming the anchor of advancing battlelines, staying just behind the front line and lending their formidable firepower before battle is fully joined.

There’s more Horus Heresy goodness to come tomorrow. Stay up to date on all the Horus Heresy news with the Warhammer Newsletter – if you are signed up before the 29th of June, you’ll be entered into a competition to win a Horus Heresy prize bundle, including the Primarch miniature of your choice. Find out more here, and sign up here. Terms and conditions apply