Our Faction Focus series continues, which means it’s time to see some new rules and detachments for the Astra Militarum.
This new detachment matches the ingenuity and durability of the Astra Militarum’s abhuman auxiliaries with the brass lungs of the Commissariat – letting these inspirational figures, often the only ones who can keep the abhumans’ attention for any amount of time, issue them effective orders on the battlefield.
ABSOLUTIST PRINCIPLES
Commissars with experience overseeing auxiliary platoons display the ferocious strength of will and fearsome levels of scrutiny needed to ensure the most thick-skulled or rebelliously larcenous of soldiers – no matter what their size or shape – do their duty.
Friendly BULLGRYN SQUAD/OGRYN SQUAD/RATLINGS units have ABHUMAN.
Friendly COMMISSAR models can:
Issue the Take Aim! Order.
Issue 1 Order to a friendly ABHUMAN unit.
This detachment has the ABHUMAN tag and cannot be taken with another ABHUMAN detachment.
A solid wall of Bullgryn shields is now an even more terrifying prospect as they can fight better under Fix Bayonets!, while Ratlings zero in on enemy commanders with Take Aim!, boosting their accuracy. The Commissar’s hard-won experience keeping troops focused allows them to give regular REGIMENT units the Take Aim! Order too, so the Guardsmen accompanying your Ogryn muscle can also shoot more reliably.
Only the most grizzled of Commissars survive in the company of dangerous frontline troops like Ogryns for long, and the Exemplar of Duty upgrade enhancement lets you show it with the potent Feel No Pain 4+ ability. Not much will be able to kill them in a hurry.
EXEMPLAR OF DUTY (Upgrade)
The whine of hidden bionics, webs of ugly scars, or the rattle of abraded lungs with every barked order signals a grizzled veteran whose devotion to duty has seen them survive not only the enemy but also proximity to the most overly muscled soldiers.
COMMISSAR model only. This model has Feel No Pain 4+.
On the decidedly less durable end of the spectrum, Ratlings are far happier staying hidden and not getting shot at in the first place. Their stature and natural inclination towards stealth means they can keep up a steady rate of fire without ever giving away their position, keeping a Low Profile amidst ruins and rocky landscapes.
LOW PROFILE (1CP)
ABHUMAN AUXILIARIES STRATAGEM
Ratling snipers carefully scout out the most advantageous vantage points from which to unleash their kill shots, positions in which their eerie stillness and diminutive silhouette are hard to spot.
WHEN: Your Shooting phase, when a friendly RATLINGS unit has shot.
TARGET: That RATLINGS unit.
EFFECT: Those ranged attacks do not prevent your unit from being hidden.
Bridgehead Strike
As some of the most elite warriors in the Astra Militarum, the expert drop troopers of the Militarum Tempestus are well drilled in brutal landing actions and airborne assaults into heavy enemy resistance. Their preferred strategy is to hit key positions quickly and unleash a storm of firepower without warning, executing a Fire Zone Purge that decimates enemy forces with ruthless efficiency.
FIRE ZONE PURGE
Key to this force’s mission is the swift purgation of local enemy forces through sudden deployment and focused firefights. As such, whether they hit the ground from a low-altitude drop or deploy from armoured transports, the soldiers of this formation are trained to find targets and start shooting the instant the foe is in sight.
If a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS OFFICER model is your WARLORD, friendly TEMPESTUS SCIONS units have:
BATTLELINE.
+1 OC.
When a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS unit is selected to shoot, if that unit was set up this turn, that unit’s ranged attacks have +1 to hit rolls.
This detachment is for all fans of the Militarum Tempestus, as it allows you to run Tempestus Scions as your infantry core thanks to the BATTLELINE keyword and a boosted Objective Control stat. Having objective-scorers and action-takers with the Deep Strike rule opens your opponent up to massed strikes from behind, or sudden objective reversals.
One of the drawbacks of a Deep Strike assault is that they normally have to wait until the second turn to join the fight, but not so for an officer with a Priority Drop Beacon. This handy enhancement lets them dive in as soon as possible, whether it’s to blast a key target to smithereens or threaten a poorly defended table quarter.
PRIORITY DROP BEACON
Locked to the designator runes of this officer’s dropship and heavily warded against interference, this predeployed beacon ensures they and their elite soldiers land swiftly and on target.
MILITARUM TEMPESTUS OFFICER model only. In your first Movement phase, this unit can make an ingress move.
The hot-shot weapons carried by Militarum Tempestus soldiers are a much more dangerous version of the common Guardsman’s lasgun, but even they can struggle to penetrate heretic power armour or thick alien hides from time to time. Experienced Scions (and Kasrkin elite) rapidly learn that by overloading their power packs and Firing Hot, their weapons can punch far above their weight, taking down powerful foes with disciplined volleys.
FIRING HOT (2CP)
BRIDGEHEAD STRIKE STRATAGEM
At the risk of permanently burning out power packs, hot‑shot weaponry can be temporarily overcharged to provide additional punch at the crucial moment.
WHEN: Your Shooting phase, when a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS/KASRKIN unit is selected to shoot.
TARGET: That MILITARUM TEMPESTUS/KASRKIN unit.
EFFECT: Your unit’s Hot-shot Lascarbines, Hot-shot Lasguns, Hot-shot Laspistols, Hot-shot Marksman Rifles, Hot-shot Volley Guns and Sentry Hot-shot Volley Guns weapons that targeted an enemy unit within 12" have +1 S and AP.
Designation Force
All the firepower in the galaxy isn’t any good if you can’t find your enemy, and even the most stubborn of Astra Militarum commanders keep a regiment of scouts and woodsmen on hand to keep tabs on enemy movements.
DESIGNATED TARGETS
A regiment’s resilient and often unconventional scouts are deployed to provide forward intelligence on enemy dispositions. With a combination of regimental issue scopes and guerrilla instincts hard-won through survival at the forefronts of war zones, they can draw massed firepower down on lurking threats.
Friendly SCOUT SENTINEL/ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY SMOKE units have the following ability:
Signal Flares: In your Shooting phase, this unit can select one visible enemy unit within 12". That enemy unit is designated:
While a unit is designated, that unit has +3" detection range.
This detachment has the RECON tag and cannot be taken with another RECON detachment.
The new Hidden rules can make it a real pain to pin down enemies who would rather not be shot, and with so many guns at their command, the Astra Militarum needs to shoot. Designating targets is a vital step in drawing a bead on the little blighters, allowing you to call in a strike from units further away.
Of course, you’ll still want to be near enough to shoot them. Scout Sentinels can infiltrate close to your opponents with the Long-Range Scout upgrade enhancement, before blasting them to bits.
LONG-RANGE SCOUT (Upgrade)
Veteran pilots of Scout Sentinels have a reputation as insubordinate mavericks or taciturn loners, but their skill in manoeuvring their often-camouflaged walker unseen into hostile territory is second to none.
SCOUT SENTINEL unit only. This unit has Infiltrators.
Unfortunately, stealth and speed come at a price, and those in a scouting regiment aren’t expected to weather enemy fire for very long at all. Luckily, they carry great stores of suffocating sump-smog grenades with them, which simultaneously choke and blind pursuers enough that hitting your scouts is a royal pain.
SUMP‑SMOG SCREEN (1CP)
DESIGNATION FORCE STRATAGEM
Named for the density and reek of their concealing smoke, varied packs of foul chemicals are carried by elite scouts that can be ignited to foul the enemy’s aim.
WHEN: Start of your opponent’s Shooting phase.
TARGET: One friendly ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY unit.
EFFECT: When an attack targets either your unit, or a unit that is not fully visible to the attacking model because of one or more models in your unit, the target has the benefit of cover against that attack.
This also gives your other units behind them the benefit of cover, as the smoke is so thick your enemy just can’t see through it. Nasty stuff.
With these new specialists in your operational reserve, you should have no problem rallying the defenders of Armageddon and striking back against the Orks – no matter what new tricks they’re bringing to the game. Come back tomorrow as we face down another monstrous xenos threat that knows only slaughter and the gathering of tasty, tasty biomass: the Tyranids.
