Hearthfyre Arsenal: The 11th-Edition Leagues of Votann Gunline Detachment

Part one, the income. At the end of your Command phase you gain 1 Yield Point for each objective marker you control outside your deployment zone that has one or more IRON-MASTER or MEMNYR STRATEGIST models from your army within range of it, to a maximum of 2 Yield Points a turn from this rule.

Read the condition carefully, because it asks something a gunline does not naturally do: it wants a support character standing on a forward objective. Not near the guns, not in your deployment zone. Forward. That is a genuine tension inside the detachment and the enhancements below exist mostly to resolve it.

Part two, the accuracy. In your Shooting phase, each time a BRÔKHYR, IRONKIN STEELJACKS or ARKANYST EVALUATOR unit is selected to shoot, you can spend 1 Yield Point to re-roll Hit rolls of 1 for that unit until the end of the phase.

Those two clauses form a loop: forward characters bank Yield Points, and the guns spend them. Whether the loop closes depends entirely on whether you can get an Iron-master or a Memnyr Strategist onto a forward objective and keep them alive there.

The three-keyword group is worth memorising, because it appears again in the First Concern stratagem: Brôkhyr, Ironkin Steeljacks, Arkanyst Evaluator. Anything outside it gets nothing from either half of this card.

All four are mirror-sourced.

Fârstrydr Node (20 points). IRON-MASTER or MEMNYR STRATEGIST model only. Models in the bearer's unit have the Deep Strike ability.

Deep Strike on a gunline card looks wrong until you read the detachment rule again. This is how a support character reaches a forward objective on turn two rather than walking there by turn four. It is the most surprising card in the detachment and probably its most important.

Calculated Tenacity (15 points). IRON-MASTER or MEMNYR STRATEGIST model only. While the bearer is leading a unit, add 1 to the Objective Control characteristic of models in that unit. The other half of the same idea: it is not enough to reach the forward objective, you have to hold it against whatever is contesting it.

Mantle of Elders (10 points). MEMNYR STRATEGIST model only. Each time the bearer's unit is selected to shoot, if you spend Yield Points using Optimal Application when doing so, roll a D6; on a 2+ you gain 1 Yield Point. A rebate on the detachment rule's own spend, and at 2+ it is close to a full refund, which makes the shooting re-roll nearly free on the bearer's unit.

Graviton Vault (5 points). IRON-MASTER model only. After the bearer shoots or fights, select one enemy MONSTER or VEHICLE unit hit by those attacks; until the start of your next turn it is suppressed, and while suppressed each model in it subtracts 1 from its Hit rolls. Five points for a persistent debuff on the biggest thing on the table is the best raw rate on this card, and it is the only one of the four that is not about the forward-objective problem.

Enhancement points are dataslate-volatile and none of the four carries a change marker in this pass.

The mirror lists six stratagems: Unwavering Accuracy (Battle Tactic, 2CP), First Concern (Strategic Ploy, 1CP), Cogitated Need (Strategic Ploy, 1CP), Delayed-fire Rounds (Wargear, 1CP), Preventative Purge (Strategic Ploy, 1CP) and Wall of Steel (Battle Tactic, 1CP).

We describe two of them, and only because their targeting clauses line up exactly with the detachment rule in a way that is checkable against the Munitorum Field Manual's own keyword structure.

Unwavering Accuracy targets one BRÔKHYR THUNDERKYN unit that has not shot and lets its attacks ignore any or all modifiers to Ballistic Skill, the Hit roll, the Wound roll and Armour Penetration. It is the card's only 2 Command Point spend, and it is a direct answer to stacked defensive modifiers, which is the thing a static gunline is worst against.

First Concern fires just after a BRÔKHYR, IRONKIN STEELJACKS or ARKANYST EVALUATOR unit has shot, which is the same three-keyword group as the detachment rule's second clause.

We are not reproducing the other four. The pack does not print this detachment, so there is no first-party version to check the mirror against. Read all six cards in the Warhammer 40,000 app before you rely on any of them.

Plus [Farseekers](/40k/armies/leagues-of-votann/detachments/farseekers) (1 DP, total 3). Exactly a Strike Force budget, and the pairing that fixes the obvious problem. A gunline needs something forward to strip cover and pick targets, and Farseekers' Scornful Analysis hands [IGNORES COVER] against a spotted enemy to every Leagues of Votann unit in your army, not just to the Hernkyn that spotted it. One Command Point turns your whole firebase into a cover-ignoring one for a phase.

It also helps with the other problem. Farseekers' Hernkyn are fast, and a Hernkyn unit sitting on a forward objective is a body that can escort the Iron-master or Memnyr Strategist the detachment rule wants standing there.

Nothing here carries a Unique Tag, so the pairing is unambiguously legal.

What to buy. Brôkhyr Thunderkyn are the only unit Unwavering Accuracy can target and the core the card is built on. Ironkin Steeljacks are named by keyword in both the rule and First Concern, and the Munitorum Field Manual prices two separate datasheets for them, one with heavy volkanite disintegrators and one with melee weapons, so check which build you want before assembly. Then a Brôkhyr Iron-master or a Memnyr Strategist, because the detachment rule's income clause names both by keyword and three of the four enhancements are locked to them.