Rogal Dorn Battle Tank
Were you looking for Rogal Dorn, the Galaxy's Most Stubborn Man?
"Imagine naming a main tank after a Primarch – but not the one who masterminded the defence of the Imperium in its darkest hour. The time has come to correct this grievous error."
- – Warhammer Community
"Mine's bigger."
- – The VIIth Legion's Liege finally winning for a change...
"But mine doesn't have a fucking hole in it."
- – The VIth Legion's Liege clapping back using model design idiocy.
The Churchill T-14 M6 Heavy Tank M26 Pershing Flintstones Tank Rogal Dorn Battle Tank is a new Imperial Guard AFV, revealed as part of their big 2022 refresh. More akin to a Heavy Tank than an MBT, it is a chonkier and shootier big brother of the old reliable Leman Russ and seems to be a non-Forge World alternative to the Macharius Heavy Tank as a second-generation Baneblade. It's in universe provenance is as yet unknown.
It's unfortunately undermined by having one of the greatest model fails in recent memory, due to the entire undercarriage being MIA. It's been memed that this in-universe is because one of the usual suspects stole all the undercarriages, among other mockeries of Geedubs' (alledged) cost-cutting.
Or maybe the exposed hole was because this was originally the Fulgrim Battle Tank?
Overview
Like its namesake it seems to specialize in siege work, both breaking and anchoring defensive lines with its wide variety of guns. Its main turret can carry either two Battle Cannons or an Oppressor Cannon, an anti-armour gun that can supposedly one-shot anything up to and including a Chaos Knight. It can also carry a hull-mounted Castigator Gatling Cannon or Pulveriser Cannon, a baby version of the Demolisher cannon, along with the usual array of extra weapons: hull-mounted Heavy Stubbers or Meltaguns, sponson-mounted Heavy Bolters or Multi-Meltas, and last of all a pintle-mounted Heavy Stubber in case you feel like reenacting the last twenty minutes of Fury with Your Dudes. Some of them have side sponsons, some don't. The previews of its datasheet reveal that it's got a little more Toughness and four more Wounds than the Leman Russ, all the better for keeping it going in a firefight.
It's larger than a Leman Russ but smaller then a Baneblade, so we're in Malcador Heavy Tank territory. Probably meant to be used as a budget Lord of War.
Inspiration
The Rogal Dorn is a direct copy of the T14, with tracks and other bits from the Churchill and ARL-44 to make it more 40k. The design of its turret is inspired by the Pershing, while its upper-glacis also takes cues from the experimental AC-IV Sentinel, down to the position of the hull gun. Even the twin-cannons of the battle cannon loadout is lifted from the Sentinel, though in the Sentinel's case they just wanted to make sure the chassis could handle the stress of high-caliber ammunition. The unfortunate turret gunner that has to stand on a platform behind the turret to man the heavy stubber probably comes from the factory-mounting of the M2 Browning machine gun on an M4 Sherman forcing its gunner to stand on top of the tank behind its turret, though in that case, the M2 had to go there because it was intended for pointing the gun upward to shoot at low-flying aircraft because the Yanks were afraid of the Luftwaffe (funny enough, friendly fire from trigger happy allied pilots ended up being more feared than the increasingly absent Germans). In the Imperium's case, standing out in the open serves two purposes: against certain opponents, standing in the open where they can shoot at you is the safest place to be; and in the other case, it's so you can stab people with your sword. It also looks more like a proper tank in scale than the Russ. The Leman Russ has always had a notably tiny turret (just note the size of the commander's hatch compared to the overall size of the turret), whereas this thing looks like you could have an actual crew in there.
Model Shenanigans AKA How to Clown a New Badass Tank in One Easy Step
 Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it. |
It is the year of our God-Emperor 2023 and GeeDubs seems to be going ass-backwards when it comes to model quality. The first released Imperial Guard box set for 9th Edition was a hotly anticipated release, until people got their hands on it and their attitudes went from excitement to absolute neckbeard horror when they started building their shiny new Rogal Dorn tanks. You see, for some reason, the sprues that make up the Rogal Dorn had basically almost everything present ... until the folks who bought it realised something was missing when they started putting the model together.
What was missing exactly? Well, turns out that the tank named after the guy known for his fortifications just so happens to be missing its entire goddamn undercarriage. Many IG players who bought the box set were left scratching their heads. "Surely I must have missed a sprue somewhere?" some wondered in perplexity. But after hours of searching, reality started to set in for them. GeeDubs didn't even bother to give the tank an undercarriage in the first place. This means that every Rogal Dorn tank is now stuck with this absolutely hideous hole at the bottom of the tank, making the vehicle feel incomplete and making IG players rage with the force of a thousand suns.
Just to give you some context. Imagine paying $90 USD (that's about 72 British pounds) for a new model that doesn't even have a fucking bottom. Questions immediately spread like wildfire. "Why did GW remove the undercarriage!?", "Did GW forget about the undercarriage?", "Surely it must have been a production issue and the undercarriage went missing?", "Nay, this is intentional, GW just wants to cut plastic cost and not use an undercarriage model!". Whatever the case, /tg/ has already made a metric shit-tonne of memes over this predicament ranging from the Imperium having regressed to using Flintstones-level propulsion, to the tank being immune to anti-tank mines to jokes on modellers 'filling in Rogal Dorn's hole'.
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Peter Turbo smirks once again at Dorn's impotency.
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YABBA DABBA DOO!
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Even Angron has found a use for this tank.
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Believe us. This is what GeeDubs will do one month later.
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A Discworld nod...nice.
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Times have really hit the Imperium hard ever since the Great Rift.
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Now in model form!
Gallery
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Armed with standard loadout.
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Armed with big FUCK OFF Oppressor Cannon.
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Top of the tank.
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Comparison to a Leman Russ and the Baneblade.
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