Goliath Truck

Beep Beep! Emprah-Worshiping Corpse Fuckers! The Rape Train has no brakes!

Not to be confused with the Goliath Mega-Cannon, an equally hilarious super-heavy ordnance vehicle created by the Squats.

The Goliath Truck, also known as the Lulz Mobile or the Hive Mind's Pimpin' Ride, is a new vehicle made for the new Codex: Genestealer Cult released in 2016. The Genestealer Cult members themselves aren't known for being the most handsome of individuals, and their vehicles follow suit, consisting largely of industrial and mining vehicles that have been re-purposed into crude transports.

The Goliath Truck seems to be the replacement for the sometimes-mentioned but never-officially-modeled "Cult Limousine," and it was definitely a step in the right direction. This is a vehicle that out-Orks the Orks in terms of looks, out-Guards the Guard in terms of guns placed everywhere, and comes with a wall grinder of a dozer blade (Rockgrinder exclusive) to turn anything in front of it into roadkill.

Goliath Trucks are rugged transports originally designed to bear Imperial factotums through crypt complexes and mining tunnels. The vehicle’s dense and robust construction makes it proof against the most hostile of underground environments, and its folded layers of chemically treated permasteel give it a measure of protection against every industrial hazard the Imperium has yet encountered.

Even an unmodified Goliath truck can survive acid storms, hurricanes, malfunctioning rad-chambers, and volatile toxin eruptions. Whilst the Genestealer cult lies quiet, its Goliaths are used in everything from subterranean transit to stockpiling munitions. The duraglass screens inside each vision slit can be raised to make the vehicles airtight – as useful for surviving the choking confines of a hazard mine as the poisonous atmosphere of battle.

Goliath Truck

Side view of the Goliath.

For a civilian vehicle, the Goliath Truck is packed with serious firepower. Its weapons include a twin side-mounted Autocannon and a pintle-mounted Heavy Stubber, not to mention the 10-man squad or brood inside that is just waiting to jump out and tear off a limb or two.

Basically, a Goliath Truck performs a role similar to the Imperial Guard Chimera for similar points. However, it features bigger guns and the Open-Topped ability in exchange for slightly less troop capacity and somewhat less durability (the latter of which is partly mitigated by the Rugged Construction rule).

The utility of the Goliath also extends well beyond its use by the Genestealer cults, because it is highly suitable as a kitbash model for other factions. For example, are you a Guard player who wants to use the Taurox, but hates that ridiculous truck-tank model? Use a badass mining truck instead. With nearly identical stats, armament, and transport capacity, the Goliath was practically tailor-made to be a perfect WYSIWYG replacement for the Taurox in friendly, non-competitive games.

Goliath Rockgrinder

Time to bring out the JUICE!

The most common variant of the Goliath Truck is known as the Goliath Rockgrinder. Though compact like its regular old cousin, the Goliath Rockgrinder is built to withstand rockfalls, mud slides, malfunctioning mining equipment, controlled demolition explosions and the occasional dam burst. The Goliath Rockgrinder is what happens when a Genestealer Cult saw gameplay from GTA V and thought that running people over is a pretty swell idea.

Much like the normal Goliath, a Rockgrinder is well armed. For armament it can select the fiery backwash of a Clearance Incinerator. This is a massive, multi-chambered Heavy Flamer that is able to turn a landslide to molten slurry. Alternatively, it can take either a Heavy Seismic Cannon which, as you can imagine, is a larger variant of the normal Seismic Cannon, or a Heavy Mining Laser which is the larger version of the regular Mining Laser. It also comes with a Heavy Stubber as standard.

The 6 passengers huddled within the Rockgrinder have a great deal of protection from all but the highest-caliber weapons (however, the Rockgrinder lacks the Open-Topped ability). The massive drilldozer blade at the Rockgrinder’s front boasts grinder arrays that can crack mineral seams and bore tunnels through bedrock. These are put to a far more sinister use in times of war, when it is used to mulch through swathes of enemy infantry into a meaty smoothie mix (and would also most likely make consumption of biomass so much easier once the main Hive Fleet appears) and serve as a battering ram against fortified walls.

Although the Goliath Truck and the Goliath Rockgrinder are both durable and highly capable vehicles, they are not tanks, and it is important to remember that they will probably come off poorly if forced into a stand-up engagement with enemy armor. Still, both vehicles are well suited to shock-assault tactics.