The Earth Shakes.

I've recently acquired a couple of Basilisks for my Imperial Guard army. I've been rotating them in when playing against a buddy of mine who runs ultramarines. I've used them in a few games and wanted to write up my thoughts separate from other tacticas.

Firstly, the problem I'm trying to alleviate. Running imperial guard you end up with a lot of troops on the field. A lot. In a recent 1750 pt. game I fielded 56 infantry models, 6 tanks and 2 walkers. This is a lot of models, and even spreading out across the entire six foot length of field my squads end up getting in the way of each other. Solution: Basilisks. For at least the first few turns of the game they can be used as artillery. Not having to move a tank-sized piece of terrain through and across my firing lanes for my infantry and tanks gives me a lot more freedom of mobility. Seriously, it can be challenging to move a land raider, three russ variants, and a handful of chimeras such that each vehicle has a target they can fire at while still leaving room for the infantry firing line to take shots.

This is all in addition to the entirely worthwhile cannon the thing carries. Even better than a Leman Russ Battle Cannon, the Earthshaker has that extra point of strength that makes it twice as likely to penetrate something that has armor fourteen. With an armor penetration of three it picks marines up off the table like nobody's business. It's front armor of twelve means that it is immune to almost all opposing artillery. And it clocks in at at least twenty points less than the cheapest russ configuration.

I'm definitely happy with the performance of the Basilisk. It's never any less accurate than the Russes, its cheaper, more survivable, and is better at taking out vehicles. It's what every imperial tank commander could want.