Tyrant Siege Terminators

Hi all,

Today I wanted to take some time to talk about my favourite Iron Warriors Legion specific unit, the Tyrant Siege Terminators. Though they have to compete for one of the hotly-contested Heavy Support slots in an Iron Warriors list, I feel that these chaps provide a degree of flexibility that’s hard to come across with most of the other Heavy choices available. Sadly they’ve gone a very long time without having official models so I decided to convert my own ones which I finished painting last week – I’ve since been gently advised by one of the Bunnies to post up about them sooner rather than later as we could be seeing models for them in the near future!

I took seven Tyrants to the Heresy Doubles weekend, which was the first time that I’ve fielded them. I was pleasantly surprised by the firepower they provided and the psychological impact they had on our opponents – people were often committing disproportionate sections of their army to trying to bring these chaps down. Their ability to fire on the move at long range means that they’re almost always in position to shoot at something, and the choice of the two missile types gives them a lot of flexibility in their choice of targets.

They tended to survive most games, but were always subject to a lot of enemy attention so casualties were inevitable. They’re quite a resilient unit as they’ve got Cataphractii Terminator Armour, but AP 2 large blasts and volume of fire still give them headaches! I found that I was generally able to deploy them quite defensively and make use of their ability to fire on the move to make sure they were ideally placed to start hitting opposing Heavy Support units (or pesky Quad Mortars!). I think my teammate was impressed with how they performed over the whole weekend as they made good account of themselves over the five games.

For two of the missions I rolled World Burner and Void Walker for my Warlord Traits. Tyrants benefit substantially from both of these traits, as the Shred on their templates makes them very threatening against massed infantry and Deep Strike grants them huge versatility in choice of target. We played against a Malcador tank over the weekend with a Flare Shield and Armoured Ceramite. As we were deploying, we realised that we didn’t have anything that could glance or penetrate this behemoth’s front armour! Thankfully, I rolled Void Walker for this mission and was very lucky with my Deep Strike meaning that I was able to strip the majority of its Hull Points by hitting the rear armour before a final lucky shot to the side took it out. My Tyrants then died in a horrific Phosphex-related incident soon afterwards, but they’d gotten the job done! Of course, Perturabo also grants them Deep Strike when fielded in the same army.

Naturally, such a versatile unit has to have some drawbacks. Firstly, they compete for one of the all-important Heavy Support slots in an Iron Warriors list – which pits them directly against another of our Legion Specific units; Iron Havocs. Though the Tyrants can move and fire their Cyclone Missile Launchers to full effect, their Slow and Purposeful nature means that you’ve got to plan each of their movement phases carefully to ensure that they can shoot at a choice target every turn. You also don’t want to be caught out of position by an assault unit, as the Tyrants’ ability to Overwatch consists of shouted curses and dirty looks! You won’t be getting any ‘Explodes’ results on vehicles with their AP3 missiles, however, their volume of fire tends to make up for this.

My Tyrants were converted from the Betrayal at Calth Cataphractii Terminators; the kit comes with enough Combi-Bolters and Power Fists to equip every model. I then had to begin the long hunt of sourcing Cyclone Missile Launchers for them all. Most of these were found in my bitz box; I used to run a Deathwing army many years ago so had a fair few Cyclones from the Space Marine Terminator kit floating about. The rest were sourced from bitz sellers and eBay. Unfortunately, the part can sometimes be quite pricey so I’d recommend picking them up slowly over time to ensure you’re getting them for the best possible price rather than shelling out lots of your hard-earned cash for them! One point to note if you’re going to start picking up Cyclone Missile Launchers is you need to check if they’re Space Marine Cyclones or Dark Angel Deathwing Cyclones. The Dark Angel ones have a pair of stylised wings on the top which I don’t personally think goes well with the Iron Warriors aesthetic. Finally, I added the Iron Warriors Cataphractii shoulder pads from Forgeworld to them as they are a Legion Specific Unit after all!