What is the Rhino Primaris? Today we’re talking about one of the units you have probably never played in 40k, but perhaps should?
The Rhino Primaris is an interesting vehicle. It acts as a back-field home base for your units to camp by.
Rhino Primaris Statline
Looking at the statline, the Rhino Primaris looks exactly like a run in the mill Rhino. It’s T7 with 10 wounds, 3+ armor save and no invuln. This unit takes up an HQ slot as well. So it has 10 wounds and no invulnerable, which in theory means it can be targetted and is just asking to get Lascannoned. This is definitely a vehicle you’d want to run out of LOS and behind a gunline army.
In each of your shooting phases, it can:
- make a unit +1 to hit
- heal a lost wound from a vehicle
- subtract 1 from the dice roll on morale tests of a unit.
The Rhino Primaris can also call in a D3 shot orbital strike once per game. Heavy D6 shots if you target something with 10 or more models in it. That’s possibly 6 shots at S10, -4AP D6 damage a pop. You don’t need LOS for calling in the bombardment either, which is nice.
Is the Rhino Primaris a Competitive Option?
No invulnerable save and being a valuable vehicle is kind of rough. But at 170 points, it’s not the worst option out there. as long as you keep out of LOS, this can make an entire unit within 12″ +1 to hit. Who knew space marines could get a “My will be done” effect.
It’s got some decent defense too. 4 Plasma gunshots in rapid-fire can really make it annoying for your opponent to get to it if you’re hugging corners.
You could argue that taking a Captain and a Lieutenant would give about the same effect and would be harder for the enemy to target. However, Putting this unit near a devastator squad gunline can really be scary. But you’ll be forced to play more passive with it 9 out of 10 times just because of its vulnerability.
Rhino Primaris Tactica
Don’t even think about taking a Rhino in an assault army. You may think your opponent will have too much to deal with in his face but It’s just asking to get deepstruck on if you leave it defenseless.
You’ll want to have a nice group of units around it to allow it buff things and for those things to protect it. I.E the gunline that we were talking about earlier. The only drawback to this is probably half of your army won’t be very mobile.
Objective-based games may be more tricky to pull off.
What do you think about the Rhino Primaris? Have you tried using one yet? What way worked for you? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials:@RealmbrushPainting
Bio: Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4.
If you like what he writes and want to reach out or get your models painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
