Editing Baneblade (section)

==Origins==
The Baneblade first appeared in the ''Space Marine'' edition of [[Epic]], where it was the Imperial Guard's standard super-heavy tank (it says a lot about the universe that there's such a thing as a "standard" one). This version was armed with a turret-mounted Battle Cannon (with the same stats as the one on the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank]], despite the turret being the ''size'' of a Leman Russ), two Lascannons, and a bunch of dice worth of "Bolters" to deal with swarms. Despite obviously having a big gun on the lower hull, there was no representation of it in the tank's rules. Fluff described the hull as the size of a city block.

Being a standard version, there were variants at that point, and only three:

* The '''Stormhammer''' was effectively a moving fortress, and the precise armament is hard to say given the odd way the game treated "Bolters;" anything from an officer's [[Bolt Pistol]]s to ''both'' a Leman Russ' [[Heavy Bolter]]s was one attack die with the same stats. This means this particular monster might have up to 24 Heavy Bolters (or alternately 12 bolt pistols) in addition to two turrets with two battle cannons each. Basically, you park it in a place and then forget about that place, since it is now Defended.
* The '''Shadowsword''' was one of two Titan-killing variants, armed with two [[Lascannons]] and some "Bolters" like the Baneblade, but with the rear hull built up to mount a fixed Volcano Cannon, a giant laser weapon normally mounted on Titans.
* The '''Stormblade''' was a second variant of the fixed-weapon hull, and proof of how incredibly fucking HUEG the old Epic fluff made the Baneblade chassis; no fruity Lascannons for this one, the sponson weapons were a rack of missiles and a fucking ''[[Battle Cannon]]''. Your main gun was a Titan-grade Plasma Blastgun with a Hellion anti-Titan missile slung on the top. Potential drivers had to produce written proof that they were [[meme|bad enough dudes]] [[/v/|to save the President]] before they'd even be considered. [[Forge World]] makes a Stormblade, but it just sits there (eating an entire sack of dicks) because it knows it will never be cool enough to have a sponson-mounted Battle Cannon.
The Chaos legions have their own version called the '''Decimator''', which is, in fact, an early pre-production model super-heavy tank that would later lead to the development of the Baneblade. It has replaced its bolters with lots and lots of Reaper Autocannons, resulting in it being far nastier against medium armor, though its main cannon is not turreted, meaning the entire tank has to turn to fire it. They also use the chassis for [[Tower of Skulls]].

The [[Macharius Heavy Tank]] is created as "second-generation Baneblades", as a supplement tank to Baneblades.