Storm Speeder Chassis

In 9e, the Storm Speeders are Toughness 6 with 10 wounds and a 3+ Save. A Drop Pod is Toughness 6 with 8 wounds and a 3+ save. Close enough for us - We will reuse the Drop Pod W and Sv: 2 and 6+.

In 9e, the Storm Speeders are Ld 7, so is a Land Speeder, so Ld 5, in Apoc.

The M, WS, and BS will be pulled from the 9e profile. 1 Attack, since that is mostly standard for vehicles.

Storm Speeder Hailstrike

Most of the Hailstrike guns already exist.

For the Fragstorm Grenade Launchers, we will reuse the profile from the Aggressor squad, except with only 1 attack. Interestingly, this makes it identical to the Impulsor Defensive Weapon System. Even though the model has 2 of them in 9e, we still only give it 1 with 1 attack here, since that is how it works for the Impulsor Defensive Weapon System.

The Onslaught Gatling Cannon already existed.

The Twin Ironhail Heavy Stubber was easy: just double those attacks!

For PL, the Hailstrike is 8 PL in 9e, which matches the Predator. We will match it in Apocalypse as well: 7 PL

Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

The Stormfury Missiles have a similar statline to Las Cannons, just with 1 more S. As we did with the Gladiator Valiant, we are going to reuse the Lascannon profile.

The Thunderstrike Las-talon is a normal Las-talon with a 36" range.

The Twin Icarus Rocket Pod was easy: just double those attacks!

For PL, the Thunderstrike is 1 more PL than the Hailstrike in 9e, so we did the same for Apocalypse: 8PL

Storm Speeder Hammerstrike

The Storm Speeder Hammerstrike was a pain in the ass. The only easy thing was the PL - it matches the Thunderstrike in 9e, so we will make it match in Apocalypse: 8pl

Krakstorm Grenade Launcher

The Krakstorm Grenade Launcher uses the same profile as a krak grenade, but krak grenades do not exist in Apocalypse. The next closes would be an assault cannon - more shots, less damage, but the same S and AP. We initially tried reusing the same profile with the following changes:

• 1 attack instead of 2
• Make the SAP 1 worse and the SAT 1 better, from 6+/8+ to 7+/7+ - this follows two general rules that can be observed when looking at the data sheets:
  • More Shots = Better SAP - The Launcher has fewer attacks, so should have worse SAP
  • More Damage = Better SAT - The 3 damage on the launcher means it should have better SAT

Interestingly, this makes the profile equal to a Heavy Plasma Cannon or a Missile Launcher. This is almost definitely wrong, so we started looking for other profiles that were close to this statline in Apocalypse, and found the Twin Autocannon - in 9e, it has 1 more S, and is Damage 2, instead of d3. This is definitely close enough for us, so after waaaaay overthinking this weapon, we decided to reuse the Autocannon profile: SAP/SAT 8+/8+

Hammerstrike Missile Launcher

The Hammerstrike Missile Launcher has the same profile as a Las-fusil, so we originally were going reuse that profile. This is probably a little underpowered, since the Las-fusil profile is an infantry weapon, and thus uses different conversion math.

If we compare it to something like a Multi Melta, the Hammerstrike missiles have 1 less AP, and on average 0.5 less damage than a multi melta - all in all not a huge difference. We decided to use the Melta profile, but reduce the SAT by one. This might be a little overpowered. shrug

The only other comparison is a supercharged Heavy Plasma Cannon, but the supercharge rules in Apocalypse, combined with the Plasma Cannon being a Blast weapon, make the comparison even more difficult.

Melta Destroyer

The Melta Destroyer is my new favorite weapon in 9e: it is a Multi-Melta with 1 more shot. Unfortunately, this presents a challenge in Apocalypse, since the Multi-Melta only has 1 shot.

If we compare the Meltagun to the Multi-Melta, then we see that 1 more shot is worth the SAP and SAT improving from 11+/7+ to 10+/4+. Improving it further to 9+/1+ would probably be overkill, so we decided to go with 9+/3+, which makes it a pretty awesome gun. No normal Adeptus Astartes gun wounds on a 3+, though some Forge World guns do:

The Turbo-Laser Destructor on the Thunderhawk is 7+/3+, which has an ABSURD profile in 9e - that just goes to show how valuable the Destroyer keyword is.

The Siege Melta Array on the Mastodon in 11+/3+, but it also has 6 shots in 9e, and 4 in Apocalypse, so its not a great example to use. We could call it a Melta Destroyer with twice the shots, but the 3+ being better than a multi melta doesn't make a whole lot of sense in that context.

The Spartan Assault Tank has two 9+/3+ guns - Exactly what we are looking for!

Quad Lascannon

In 9e, it has 1 more attack, 1 more S, and 1 less AP. In Apocalypse, however, the Quad Lascannon gets 1 more shot than what we are giving the Melta Destroyer.

Laser Destroyer

In 9e, it has the same shots and API, but 2 more S, and d3+3 damage instead of d6.

The Laser Destroyer does have Destroyer as well - this brings up a question that would be good for us to investigate: Why do some things get Destroyer and not others? Is S10 the cutoff? Are there other tradeoffs? This might come up more for other factions, that have some new super heavy profiles.

Overall, this is probably as close as we are gonna get without searching through every datasheet in the game looking for an exact duplicate, so 9+/3+ with 1 attack is what we settled on.