Heavy Rifle Team

Template:Retbox This model is playable only in an Unlimited format.

The cannons used by the heavy rifle teams of the houseguard are deadly effective pieces of Iosan ordnance. The heavy rifle crews are adept at picking apart enemies from well across the battlefield, and the heavy bolts fired by their cannons can penetrate thick armor with appalling ease.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Gunner only
  • Template:Man-Sized
  • Template:Mobile Artillery
  • Template:Take Up

• Grunt only
  • The Grunt has +1 SPD than the Gunner, but otherwise is completely uninteresting.

Weapons

• Gunner
  • Heavy Rifle - 14" range, POW 8 gun
    • Template:Armor Piercing
    • Template:Range Finder
  • Sword - 0.5" reach, P+S 7 melee weapon. Pray to Lacyr; this unit's in trouble.
• Grunt
  • Sword - As above

Weapon Attachment

The Rifle Team may have a Soulless Escort added to them. His info has been omitted from this article for brevity.

Theme Forces

• Template:Defenders of Ios

Thoughts on Heavy Rifle Team

Heavy Rifle Team in a nutshell

As awesome as it is with hitting and AP damage, in a nutshell this is a support model. Why? It's because it can only shoot one thing a turn, and against heavies it's going to take a few tries to take one out. But here is the good news: it's great for taking out key targets, like solos and UAs as long as it has line of sight. With the changes they have made from MK 2-3 it only improved, removing every reason not to take them. It's one of the most accurate long range guns in the game. Also don't underestimate its armor cracking ability. All jacks and beasts alike should fear losing an arm, or a leg, or the spirit to keep fighting.

Combos & Synergies

• Thyron has Spellpiercer, making it so they ignore ARM buffs on top of their Armour Piercing.
• Aspis is good if you want to keep your crew alive against range attacks, but sadly inaccurate/high explosive blasts will still get you.
• Snipe on the Rifle Team is scary funny with one of the longest ranges you can get, zapping just about anything from the safety of your table edge. Ravyn provides this.
• Houseguard Thane is a wonderful partner. The Heavy Rifle Team is a Houseguard unit, so he can give them the ability to ignore stealth and fix their speed problem.
• Not a synergy per se, but a pair of Heavy Rifle Teams and a pair of Ghost Snipers can form a strong fire support base with reliable hits (boosted RAT 5 and RAT 7 or better if aiming) and damage output (POW 8 AP vs auto 3 damage) that together, will make a lot of beasts or jacks more than a little worried about the lead they might end up eating. Hit them with the HRTs first, then target the damaged columns/spirals with the Ghost Snipers' shots. Against ARM 19/20 (unbuffed), an average of sixteen damage from RNG 14" can reliably take out an aspect or vital system.

Drawbacks and Downsides

• It's slow.
• It's fragile and doesn't have stealth so be aware of fast solos or other long range weaponry that can take it out.
• As with all the Armour Piercing shots, additional ARM buffs make the damage output plummeting, since the halving of base ARM (rounding up) happens before you add ARM from spells or effects.
  • Against base ARM 18 you roll damage at dice-1. Against ARM 14 Shield Wall'd infantry you roll damage at dice-3.

Tricks and Tips

• It's man-sized so it can hide behind anyone.
• You'd rather be aiming than moving, and you're slow. So figure out where you want to set up shop for the game (preferably somewhere you can run to on turn 1), then deploy near that.
• Never leave the Grunt further than 1" away from the Gunner, so that you can always use Take Up should the Gunner bite the dust. Also, as with every unit with the Take Up rule, watch out for RFP attacks, which counter Take Up altogether.

Other

Trivia

Released in the Warmachine: Wrath expansion (2011)