Steel Hammer: The 11th-Edition Guard Super-Heavy Tank Detachment

A shooting permission plus a keyword grant, and the second is what makes the enhancements usable at all.

Ceaseless Cannonade: each time an ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC or ASTRA MILITARUM SQUADRON unit from your army is selected to shoot, models in that unit can target enemy units within Engagement Range of that unit (including with Blast weapons), provided no other friendly units are also within Engagement Range of that enemy unit. When doing so, those models do not suffer the penalty to their Hit rolls for being within Engagement Range, excluding attacks made with Indirect Fire weapons.

In plain terms: your super-heavy can fire its main gun into whatever charged it, which is normally the one thing a tank cannot do. It converts the standard answer to Guard armour, which is to tie it up in melee with something cheap, into a mistake.

Read the proviso, because it is the limit that decides games. No other friendly unit may also be in Engagement Range of that enemy. So screening your own tank with infantry switches the rule off against whatever is fighting both of them. This is genuinely counter-intuitive: the instinct to bodyguard your expensive model is exactly wrong here. Keep your infantry beside the tank, not in front of it.

Note the rule names SQUADRON as well as TITANIC, so your Leman Russ and Rogal Dorn tanks get the Engagement Range shooting too. Only the Character grant below is Titanic-only.

Keywords: in the Muster Armies step, you can select one or more ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC units from your army to gain the Character keyword. The pack prints its own Designer's Note spelling out the consequence: those units can be given Enhancements, and one of them can be selected as your Warlord. Three of the four enhancements below require a Titanic Character, so this grant is not optional flavour, it is the mechanism the detachment runs on.

Six, five at 1CP and one at 2CP. Note carefully which name TITANIC and which name the broader VEHICLE, because three of them work on your ordinary tanks.

• Engine of Wrath (Fight phase). 1CP. Target one ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC unit that has not fought this phase; select one enemy unit within Engagement Range. Until the end of the phase, add 6 to the Attacks characteristic of melee weapons in your unit, improve their Armour Penetration by 2, and each model can only target that enemy unit. Six extra attacks at improved AP turns a super-heavy from something that tolerates being charged into something that punishes it.
• Imposing Arrival (Reinforcements step, from battle round two). 1CP. Target one ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC unit in Reserves; set it up wholly within 8 inches of the battlefield edge and more than 6 inches horizontally from all enemies. Holding a Baneblade off the board denies your opponent a turn-one target and lets you pick the flank. The 8 inch band means it arrives at an edge, so plan the approach.
• Adamantine Behemoth (your Movement or Charge). 1CP. Target one ASTRA MILITARUM VEHICLE unit that has not moved or charged; until the end of the phase it can move horizontally through terrain features. Note VEHICLE, not TITANIC, so it works on Leman Russ squadrons. On a super-heavy it turns a ruin from a wall into a shortcut.
• Shattering Salvo (your Shooting). 1CP. Just after an ASTRA MILITARUM TITANIC unit has shot, select one enemy unit hit; until the end of the phase it cannot have the Benefit of Cover. Fire the super-heavy first, strip cover, then shoot everything else into the same target.
• Withering Firepower (your Shooting). 1CP. Just after an ASTRA MILITARUM VEHICLE unit has shot, select one enemy unit hit; it must take a Battle-shock test, subtracting 1. A Battle-shocked unit cannot receive Orders and has reduced Objective Control, so this is a scoring tool as much as a damage one.
• Accuracy Under Pressure (your Shooting). 2CP. Target one ASTRA MILITARUM unit that has not shot; until the end of the phase you can re-roll the Hit roll for every attack. The most expensive and least thematic, but it names ASTRA MILITARUM generally, so it is your answer when the important shooting is being done by something other than the tank.

The sequencing lesson: Shattering Salvo and Withering Firepower both trigger after a unit has shot, so the order you activate units in decides how much value you get.

Four, and three of them are unusable without the Keywords grant, because they require an Astra Militarum Titanic Character model.

• Battalion Commander (30 pts). Astra Militarum Titanic Character model only. The bearer has the Voice of Command ability and the Officer keyword, and can issue up to 2 Orders to Astra Militarum Titanic and Squadron units. The most expensive enhancement here and the one the Keywords grant exists for. A Baneblade that issues two Orders to tank squadrons is a genuinely different army from one that just shoots.
• Titan Killer (20 pts). Astra Militarum Titanic Character model only. Each time the bearer makes a ranged attack, you can re-roll the Damage roll. On a super-heavy throwing high-variance damage dice this is worth more than re-rolling hits, because the shots that matter are the ones that already landed. Best on a Shadowsword, whose main gun is a single big damage roll.
• Assault Hatches (25 pts). Astra Militarum Titanic Character Transport model only. Each time a unit disembarks from the bearer after it has made a Normal move, that unit is still eligible to declare a charge this turn. Note the Transport requirement, which narrows this to hulls that actually carry passengers. On a Stormlord it turns a slow advance into a delivered assault.
• Engine Speaker (15 pts). Astra Militarum Tech-Priest Enginseer model only. Each time the bearer uses its Omnissiah's Blessing ability, until the start of your next Command phase add 3 inches to the Move characteristic of the selected Vehicle model. The only enhancement here that does not need the Titanic Character grant, and the cheapest way to make a slow super-heavy arrive somewhere useful.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

• [Baneblade](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-baneblade) is the archetypal TITANIC unit and the natural carrier of Titan Killer or Battalion Commander. The plastic kit builds the Baneblade and most of its variants, so one box covers this detachment's centrepiece options.
• Stormlord is the transport variant of the same kit, and the only sensible target for Assault Hatches, which requires a Titanic Character Transport. Build this one if you intend to deliver infantry rather than just shoot.
• Shadowsword is the anti-titanic variant and the best home for Titan Killer, because its main gun is one high-damage shot rather than many small ones.
• [Leman Russ Battle Tank](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-leman-russ-battle-tank) is SQUADRON rather than TITANIC, so it gets Ceaseless Cannonade's Engagement Range shooting but none of the Character grant. Faction Pack v1.2 adds the FRAME keyword to it along with every other Leman Russ and Rogal Dorn variant.
• [Rogal Dorn Battle Tank](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-rogal-dorn-battle-tank) is the heavier SQUADRON option and a better beneficiary of Ceaseless Cannonade than a Leman Russ, because it has more guns to fire into whatever charged it.
• Tech-Priest Enginseer is the only legal carrier of Engine Speaker, and a repair model a super-heavy list wants anyway.
• [Cadian Shock Troops](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-cadian-shock-troops) hold objectives, and are a positioning lesson: keep them off the enemy your tank is shooting, or Ceaseless Cannonade switches off.

One buying note. Tech-Priest Enginseer has no exact entry in our catalog, so we link no box for it; the Grombrindal model filed under this faction is a special-edition figure rather than that datasheet.

Steel Hammer carries no Unique Tag, so all three 1 DP detachments are legal partners at exactly 3 DP.

• [Bridgehead Strike](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/bridgehead-strike) (1 DP) gives the widest threat spread in the faction. Your super-heavy demands an immediate answer in the centre while Scions arrive somewhere else entirely, and both detachments can hold their centrepiece in Reserves, which makes your deployment genuinely hard to plan against.
• [Designation Force](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/designation-force) (1 DP) completes the tank's range coverage. Ceaseless Cannonade solves shooting at things that are too close; designation solves shooting at things that are too far.
• [Abhuman Auxiliaries](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/abhuman-auxiliaries) (1 DP) gives you a melee element a pure armour list lacks, with the important caveat that Ogryns must not stand in Engagement Range of whatever the tank is shooting.

Take it when you own a super-heavy and want it to be the centre of a list rather than an expensive target. It is also the detachment for a player who likes owning one enormous model rather than fifty small ones, which is an unusual thing for the Guard to offer.

Be clear-eyed about the risks. A super-heavy is a large fraction of your points in one place, and 11th edition's missions reward board presence rather than a single unkillable object. The Keywords grant makes your tank a Character, which is a benefit for enhancements and a liability against anything that targets Characters. And the detachment does very little for infantry, so your scoring pieces are on their own.

Sample gameplan: pair with Bridgehead Strike (2 DP + 1 DP). Take one Titanic unit and use the Keywords grant to make it a Character carrying Battalion Commander, so it issues two Orders to your Leman Russ squadrons every Command phase. Hold it in Reserves and bring it in with Imposing Arrival on the flank your opponent committed away from. Fire it first each phase, spend Shattering Salvo to strip cover, then follow with the squadrons. Keep infantry beside rather than in front of it so Ceaseless Cannonade stays live.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Astra Militarum army guide.