I started off this year working on Tyranids and World Eaters - so much backlog! - but lately the focus has been on getting all the marine units I've accumulated the last few years built and primed. I have occasional flare-ups of "it's stupid to have units sitting around on sprues in an un-useable form when I could at least put them together for a potential test drive" and this is the latest outbreak of that sentiment.
With the new terminators built - more on that in another post - I wanted to get to work on another squad that I consider a signature unit for my Crimson Fists army: Heavy Intercessors. Over the last few editions of the game the Fists have been portrayed as bolter specialists and that suits me fine for my core marine force. This edition is not hitting that as hard but theming them around "lots of bolt guns" is still perfectly thematic in my eyes. So, as you can imagine, adding a big squad of bulky, heavy, bigger bolter marines in Gravis armor has been an important goal for a while now. Also, I just like then way they look. I've had the miniatures for some time but it was time to get them out of the box and into some kind of usable form.
One nice change with this edition is that it has rid us of the "3 slightly different gun profiles" situation we had before with several marine units from intercessor types to hellblasters. Now it's just one profile that incorporates the best of all three variants. The sprues still have all of the options so you can make them look however you want. I went with the drum magazine look for these.
This is not a unit with a lot of options compared to a Tactical Squad or other older marine units. The only decision is whether to include a heavy bolter at 1/5 troopers and since it is an upgrade in every way over their normal gun and upgrade points are n longer an issue it is a no-brainer. Unlike intercessor squads there is no option to give the sergeant a melee weapon of any kind so it's 8 guys with Heavy Bolt Rifles and 2 with Heavy Bolters, all with a "Close Combat Weapon" for melee.
One note here - the mold lines on this kit are very noticeable as they are in some very prominent places like right up the front of the otherwise smooth legs, right up the front of the guns, right along the front/back division of the helmets ... GW is usually better at hiding these, especially on newer kits, but I kept finding more as I was putting them together. Other than that it's a solid kit.
So it's a big block of marines with decent range (30"), Strength 5, AP -1 2-shot guns + a pair of heavy bolters, all at Toughness 6 with 3 wounds. They are considered Battleline so they are OC2 which means they can hold and objective just fine. They do fall into the terminator niche a bit just with more range, less melee potential, and no deep strike so they are a bit more specialized. They are also almost half the points cost per marine so I definitely think there is a place for them. At only 40 points more than a 10-man normal Intercessor squad I am somewhat tempted to pick up more of these but I should probably get them on the table first.
Are they Meta? Probably not but when building armies I am more concerned about what fits into the theme and the approach than I am what is this month's hot unit.
As far as what's next in the construction zone, well, a lot of my units are built but my new-style Sternguard are not and they are another Crimson Fists-associated squad so they are due to join up soon.
