The smaller creatures of the big bad future are often forgotten. By which I mean, you know, humans. But in 30k, humans are actually pretty bad ass, come see!
The Solar Auxilia have some unbelievable weapons granted to them to bring the Emperor’s retribution down on the Xenos and bring clarity and sanity to the stars. My personal favourite (by which I mean I have one and will own three) is the Malcador Infernus.
Unit Stats
The Malcador Infernus is a Super Heavy tank which for a simple heavy support slot gives it a huge amount of survivability. Its stat line is:
BS Front Side Rear HP
3 13 12 11 6
Overview – So for a simple heavy support that starts at 265 points you have excellent armour and an Imperial Knights worth of hull points! Guard standard BS but that really isn’t an issue on this beast.
Special Rules
The special rules make this unit a characterful one but they are not the unit multiplying rules that push you to take it. That is the wargear of the beast. Special rules are:
Highly Flammable – A +1 to the catastrophic damage table due to it hauling a massive tank of promethium around… Keep yourself backed away from it if you think it going to go down in a turn.
Explorator Adaptation – Awesomeness for a vehicle and comes as standard for almost all auxilia ground vehicles! A 6++ against blasts and templates AND means you can re-roll dangerous terrain tests.
Chemical Ammunition – An alternative profile for the main weapon which I will explain in the wargear section.
Equipment
INFERNUS!
Hull mounted Inferno Gun – S7, AP3, Heavy 1, Hellstorm, Torrent (18″).
Obscene. And delicious. This weapon has a fantastic range with both the hellstorm template and 18″ of torrent! 18!!! Thats insane. Plus its coupled to a super heavy with good durability and movement. This will toast any marine unit without FNP, an invulnerable, or a tanking IC.
Two Sponson Autocannon – Decent enough additional firepower but can be upgraded for several options.
Also has a search light and smoke launchers as standard.
Overview – Even taken stock for 265 points, this thing will do you proud, it really will. It can take on light vehicles with that S7 and it will kill anything in an open topped vehicle or any 3+ save unit lacking additional extras for durability.
Options
Juicy juicy options indeed! First offensively you can take several upgrades, an important one is the Chemical Ammunition option you can take for 25 points as an upgrade for the inferno gun.
Chem Inferno Gun – S3, AP2, Hellstorm, poisoned (2+), armourbane, pinning, torrent (18″)
So all those 2+ saves that didn’t fear your gun are now collectively wishing they had packed a spare set of tactical dreadnought armour legs… This will chew through terminators even with their 4/5++ saves and has the chance to pin them afterwards! Additionally even at S3, with armourbane your should on average glance AV10/11 (rolling a 7/8) so it isn’t completely useless against vehicles either.
Your sponson weapons can be swapped for one of: Multi-lasers, heavy flamers and lascannons. Lascannons seem a natural choice to go with the AP2 of the chem rounds, as well as allow you to take out vehicles as well. with the basic inferno gun though I’d be tempted by the rate of fire of the multi lasers if you didn’t want to pay the 40 points for 2 lascannons. The lasers and flamers are free. Leave the flamers at home, too short ranged by far and you want assaulting things to stay away!
Defensively you have the option to take armoured ceramite, an auxiliary drive and a pintle mounted multi laser or heavy flamer. I’d leave the auxiliary drive and weapon at home but armoured ceramite is a good investment on this beast to up its survivability. AC coupled with the explorator adaptations means a knights thermal gun will have no melta against you and you’ll have a 6++ against it too.
Utilisation
The Malcador Infernus is a beast of great proportion and will do well against any armies ground troops. it will struggle with AV14 particularly if its flare shielded but other than that its only main weakness is against flyers.
The two main options I see for it are A) keeping your distance to really make use of that 18″ torrent or B) bubble wrapping it with infantry (a 20 man tercio squad for example) to give it a cover save and prevent melta bomb/power fist assaults.
Its important to have a balanced list with the infernus as you are relying on other aspects of your army to effectively deal with high AV and crack troops out of transports for a toasting OR to effectively deal with flyers that can get around your side armour to shoot you in the rear.
Personally I advocate playing very aggressively with these but it does depend on your opponent of course.
Overall – A super cool looking vehicle that for a mere 300-320 points thereabouts gives you a very durable tank that can lay down some absolutely brutal ignores cover death along with other pot shots thrown in to the mix. Providing you’ve thought through how this will work with other aspects of your army it should make its points back extremely quickly. Suffers most against high AV, flyers and elite armies with multiple wounds (mechanicum).
30Kplus40K
Peace out,
Rob
