On today’s post I add two light armour detachments of Sabres to my Iron Warriors’ Armoured Company detachment. We check out my entire army list and I share an updated painting guide recipe card.
Models were kindly supplied to me by Games Workshop. My thoughts and opinions are my own.
The number of models in each Legions Imperialis set is so arbitrary. Here we have a box of 8 Sabre tanks. Land Raiders come in a box 6, Rhinos come in a box of 10… I can only guess that it’s down to the number of models they can fit on the sprues. These tanks are roughly the size of a rhino but I guess the extra choice in weaponry takes up space on the sprue.
The Sabre is a light vehicle that can move 11″. To put that into context a Leman Russ Battle Tank moves 8″ and a Rhino moves 9″. It has the same Save (Sv) as a Rhino at 4+, it’s not as good a save as Battle Tanks like Sicarans and Predators who get Sv 3+. It also has the Nimble special rule that means it suffers no movement penalty for moving through difficult terrain. It makes this detachment pretty useful for out flanking.
The Sabre has a choice of weapons, a Hull Mounted Anvilus autocannon or a Hull Mounted neutron blaster. The Anvilus has a longer range, more dice but only hits on 5+, where as the neutron blaster is a shorter range, only a single dice but it hits on a 4+ with a whopping -3 Armour Penetration. These main weapons are supplemented by further Hull Mounted weapons, a heavy bolted or a multi melta. You’ll want to pair the autocannon with heavy bolter for anti infantry duties and the multi melta with the neutron blaster for anti tank duties.
I’ve added my Sabres to my Armoured Company. In the main rulebook, there are 4 Legiones Astartes formations and only two of those have Light Armour detachment slots. I can’t add them to my Demi-Company, because the Light Armour option is in the ‘One of the following’ section and I chose Air Support (Thunderhawk). So the only other Light Armour is the Armoured Company and they have a single slot, so I have to run my Sabres a single detachment of 8. It’s annoying, because I built them with a mix of weaponry.
How to Paint Iron Warriors
I’ve been painting Iron Warriors for about a year now and my paint recipe has changed a little. I’ve updated my recipe card with the new additional steps. Most notable addition is I’ve remembered to add rusty tracks to the guide. It also includes the undercoat colour and a couple more new steps like an Agrax wash and some new highlights.
A while ago on the blog, I said my ambition for this force was to hit 3500pts, this would allow me to add a Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan (Titans are allies and you have a 30% limit). As you can see from my army list above I’ve pretty much hit my goal with 3455pts. So I guess I need to paint another titan. You can check out my other titans below.
