Hey folks, sorry about the delay, here’s the rules for the Dust Rat vehicles, as promised. You can find the rest of the mob listing here.

Dust Rat Vehicles

Bike

There is a list of standard deployment gear given for all kinds of scenarios that the Imperium has built up over years of computer simulations and accumulated tactical data. As a result, when the original deployment to Angelis was undertaken, previous data suggested that in order to facilitate rapid reconnaissance a particular bike-type was ideal for the environment. The DR-170C or "Dust Rat" motorcycle, manufactured on Tigrus, a forge world several systems away is a light, durable and exceptionally fast motorcycle designed to cope with harsh desert landscapes and shifting sand dunes. Given adequate training, a Rat can cover a massive amount of ground solo without compromising his ability to escape danger should he happen across it. Coveted by many of the younger members of the military corps, officers have been known to keep these bikes for the entirety of their active service life, giving them loving maintenance and care.

This bike also inspired the informal nickname that the units have for themselves as whole. Given the feeling that many soldiers spend their lives speeding around the desert, being hunted like vermin by the greenskins, it seemed like the natural choice to describe anyone who headed out into the field.

Bike movement works in precisely the same way as an Ork bike, i.e. 6" of movement under gas engines and 6" using thrusters, the first thrust does not require a test (see pg. 33 of Da Roolz). However, unlike an Ork Bike, Dust Rat Bikes ignore difficult terrain and treat very difficult terrain as difficult ground.

The hit location damage work in precisely the same way as an Ork Bike (see pg. 64 of Da Roolz), except the armour values are listed below.

 

Light Recce Vehicle

The Imperium of Man has a large repertoire of vehicles adapted to a huge number of differing terrains. As a result, the basis for most of their vehicles is an incredibly tough chassis that’s designed to keep rolling whether its moving through snow, sand or across the crust of a recently cooled lava lake. However the Imperium’s strategy of using soldiers en masse means that these vehicles aren’t deeply committed to keeping their occupants alive. While they soak up small arms fire like a sponge, they fall apart when presented with anything bigger than a rifle.

Several hundred years later the working stock of LRVs are mostly copies of the originals mixed with cannibalised parts, leaving them in an even more precarious position as spare parts run low and Ork weaponry gets more deadly. The boys in motor pool do their best and strictly off the books have come up with a number of useful enhancements that make them a bit safer, a bit quicker and a little more efficient at reducing the Greenskins to a pile of twitching goo.

LRV movement works in precisely the same way as an Ork trukk, i.e. 6" of movement under gas engines and 6" using thrusters. The hit location damage work in precisely the same way as an Ork trukk (see pg. 62 of Da Roolz), except the armour values are listed below.

 

Support and Salvage Vehicle

As a part of the Paleo-Team who were set to dig into the pyramids, a large fleet of transport battlefield salvage pattern trucks were deployed to the base in order to carry the hopefully large quantity of salvage and artefacts back to the base for extraction. As the hulk crashed through the atmosphere and knocked the Eternal Vigilance earthwards they had yet to be deployed as the excavation was still in its early stages, resulting in the entire fleet of trucks being sealed in deep storage.

The boys in motor pool have added additional armour and modified the trucks to make them useful for backing up the high speed LRVs and allowing units to have greatly extended mission durations and ranges by carrying extra supplies, water and ammunition with them. However, these trucks are several tonnes of steering resistant metal and as a result, are much more difficult to control at speed, something made no easier by the extra armouring and weaponry bolted onto to these repurposed behemoths.

These large vehicles are almost as large as an Ork trukk, often exceeding them in length. Their heavy armour makes driving them quite a skill and it takes them some time to get up to speed. Once moving at speed it becomes increasingly difficult to slow them down and even the most experienced drivers sometimes have trouble regaining control.

Dust Rat SSVs count as Ork trukks for all rules except movement, as detailed under SSV Movement. The hit location damage work in precisely the same way as an Ork trukk (see pg. 62 of Da Roolz), except the armour values are listed below.

SSV Movement

SSVs have two kinds of movements, just like Ork vehicles – gas engines and thrusters. The term "thrusters" here does not necessarily mean the vehicle has an actual booster system, merely higher gears that can be reached by sustained acceleration, but any damage to thrusters occurs just as it would for an Ork vehicle.

Under gas engines an SSV may move up to 4" and make two 45° turns (see pg. 31 of Da Roolz).
Thrusting works as follows – the first successful thrust is up to 3", the second up to 4", and the third (and any subsequent thrusts) up to 5".

Once the vehicle is up to full speed it becomes difficult to slow down again, represented in-game by the fact that if an SSV thrusts it must move at least 2" next turn before it can move as normal (so it could then turn or move the rest of its gas engines move, i.e. 2").

The driver may attempt to regain control before then by passing a leadership test, which will allow the SSV to move as normal. Should he fail the leadership test the SSV will move forward D6" and swerve, ending the vehicle’s movement automatically.

Tags: Dust Rats, Orktober

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 at 13:06 and is filed under Ere Be Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.