The Twin Turbolaser
This is the big boy of the Scout class weapons, but is it all that and a bag of chips?
Strength D
The TTL is a Destroyer. It auto wounds (inflicting Instant Death), auto pens (with a +1 on the chart) and is AP2 ignoring cover. And it does this for the whole template, not just under the centre. It will instantly kill anything it hits unless it has an invulnerable save. Sounds great right?
The downside is, like any gun - don't point it at anything you don't want to die. For close fire support it can be risky as one bad scatter can really help your opponent out. Also close range fire is a potential trouble as having your titan shoot its own foot off would be rather embarrasing.
There is also the slight contradiction in the rules regarding GCs. The GC entry states that if they are hit by a weapon that would kill them outright (ie Instant Death, D-Cannons etc) they take D3 wounds instead. Not too shabby, what's the catch?
Well the StrD rules entry explicitly states that if the target is immune to instant death, StrD "inflicts one wound as normal". Another reason to hate GCs for your titan. Bummer.
But all is not lost! It's just a matter of support and mission priority. Get your foot sloggers and allied armour to deal with the Heirodule, use those TTLs to smash their monolith phalanx to pieces (living metal this!) or nuke his Skullhamma.
Another point to note is that should you get a Chain Reaction damage result the second roll gets all the same modifiers. So each roll has a one in three chance of a further chain reaction! My Reaver, Igneus Angelus, felt this personally by loosing five structure points to a single D hit.
So, about those Turbolasers...
On a Warhound, one set is pretty much a no-brainer. It's Apoc, so there will be something you want to hit with StrD. The TTL has the extra T for a reason - two 5" StrD templates a turn. It is one of the most deadly weapon systems out there. The downside, if there is one, is the comparatively small blast - but we can't have everything.
It's not a weapon for going up against a mass horde of infantry. It will take out the big boys supporting them very nicely though. Against Guard, Marines, Tau and Eldar it is great. These armies can be relied upon to have lots of transports who won't like being shot up. On an Apoc board they will usually be bunched up so the lack of Str modification for the main section of a blast is especially deadly here. If they're packed close enough you can hit three or even four vehicles with one template. Add in a second template and it can be a massace. But that's life on an Apoc table!
StrD is also very addictive: just roll the scatter and take squads off the board - firing a demolisher cannon will never seem as powerful ever again ;)
39 minutes ago
.jpg)
