Impulsor

The Grav-Rhino is back with a vengeance! Except it can’t fly like in grav Rhino art.

Well it seems that /tg/'s complaints about the Primaris' lack of a proper transport have finally been answered. Behold, for GW has given us the Impulsor ... which is, for all intents and purposes, a flying Rhino. Seriously, we would not be surprised if the Impulsor was a literal hand-me-down of the Custodes and Sisters of Silence' mothballed Grav-Rhino.

Overview

Being smaller and cheaper than the floating deck of guns known as the Repulsor Tank, the Impulsor literally looks like the hull of a Rhino with a truck bed and some anti-grav plates bolted on.

It is armed with a pintle-mounted heavy stubber and two storm bolter sponsons (which can alternately be armed with fragstorm grenade launchers). Unlike the sponsons of other Imperial vehicles, the mounts on the Impulsor are uniquely designed. They are far more compact and modular, reducing the physical vulnerability that most sponsons are known for while retaining additional firepower. However, despite having the aforementioned truck bed for marines to stand in, since it's being explicitly described by GW as “open BACKED,” it does not benefit from the open-topped rule.

As a Squad Bus, it only carries 6 compared to the Repulsor's 10 and cannot transport units with Gravis armor (read: no Aggressors), but the Assault Vehicle special rule means that as a transport it can uniquely deploy your models after moving—with the steep downside that your disembarked units then can't charge that turn, meaning it's useless for the fabled Turn 1 Charge. However, if you need to get a valuable part of your gunline in position on turn 1, but also want to shield them from enemy fire because your opponent got to go first, it could do the trick. As an added bonus, it comes with the same charge roll reduction effect that the Repulsor has so melee units won't be able to attack it as easily.

Finally, for added spice, you can equip it with either a 4++ shield generator for added durability, a pair of anti-air Ironhail heavy stubbers to take potshots at stray flyers, a missile launcher to threaten light vehicles and distant infantry, or a comms array for calling in a once-per-vehicle-per-turn-per-game orbital strike that does d3 mortal wounds within d6 inches of a point you specify on a roll of 4+ (5+ for characters). That said, without any of those extra goodies it only costs 10 more points than a Rhino in spite of its overall better stats so it's worth taking for any Primaris-heavy force.