Spartan Assault Tank
The Spartan Assault Tank is a massive vehicle used by Space Marines. It is the "big brother" of the Land Raider line, having roughly the same shape but built to a massive scale; it is as tall and wide as the Land Raider Proteus while being longer, and larger in all dimensions than the standard "Phobos"-pattern chassis. GW released a plastic Spartan in 2022, with the Pintle gunner wearing Mk2 crusade armor.
- Length: 11m; approx
- Mass: 71 tonnes
- Crew: 2 crew including 25 Space Marines
- Max Speed: 71kph
Overview[edit]
In that overgrown chassis, the Spartan can carry 25 Marines (more than twice as many as most Land Raider patterns, and in fact more than any Imperial vehicle other than the super-heavy Gorgon Armored Assault Transport, CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORT, Mastodon and Stormlord) in almost perfect safety before unleashing them on the enemy. That's an emphasis on Marines -- even during the Great Crusade, when Land Raiders were plentiful enough to be used by the Imperial Army, the Spartan was strictly Marines- and Mechanicus-only. Even during the Imperium's golden age, the Spartan was just too expensive for mass production, and in the grim, dark future of the 41st Millennium, the only Spartans around are relics of that era.
Fortunately, Spartans are incredibly long-lasting. They have AV14 all around and five hull points -- if they were any more durable, they would have to be classified as super-heavies (and in fact, two vehicles built on the Spartan chassis, the Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer and Typhon Heavy Siege Tank, are super-heavy tanks). Its weaponry is similarly up-scaled from the Land Raider, with a twin heavy bolter (which can be exchanged for a twin heavy flamer instead) a pair of quad lascannons for vehicle destruction that can be swapped out for laser destroyers if it needs to go hunting superheavies, and options for a pintle-mounted storm bolter, twin-linked bolters, heavy bolter, heavy flamer, multi-melta, Hunter-killer Missiles, and a Havoc Missile Launcher. For the times when even AV14 on all sides isn't enough, it can also take armored ceramite to make it melta-proof and a flare shield that causes most frontal attacks to dissipate harmlessly. Needless to say, it's considered a must-have for any self-respecting Horus Heresy legion list.
Funnily enough, the original Land Raider, back in the Rogue Trader days, had an extended hull variant called the "Land Raider Spartan", but Forge World decided that a longer Proteus wasn't impressive enough and scaled the whole thing up, hull, tracks, even the sponson guns were doubled up, and adding the assault ramp nose of the modern Land Raider.
With GW taking over the Horus Heresy the Spartan is amongst the Legion agnostic kits that go full plastic and one of the Vehicles contained within the Age of Darkness Starter Box for HH2.0. Rules leaks suggest it's back to being a "Land Raider Spartan", instead of something separate. Additionally it's capacity was increased to 26 and it can also now swap it's hull heavy bolters for twin lascannons.
While it shares the name with a certain someone, it has nothing to do with Master Chief. Though either through careful planning or a stroke of luck, the rules for the Spartan can be found on page 117 of the Imperial Armour book it appears in.
The only known variant is the Grav-Spartan. Designed by Arkhan Land for use by the Adeptus Custodes. Just like the Grav-Rhino and Grav-Raider. There are no rules or models for it. Despite how awesome these would be.
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Open wide.
Forces of the Alpha Legion 
| |
|---|---|
| Leaders | Chaos Champion • Chaos Lord • Librarian • Daemon Prince • Sorcerer |
| Troops | Chaos Chosen • Chaos Raptors • Chaos Space Marine Squad • Cultist • Havocs • Operative • Saboteur • Warpsmith |
| Great Crusade-era | Effrit Headhunter • Lernaean • Seeker Squad |
| Walkers | Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought |
| Transports | Land Raider (Land Raider Proteus • Land Raider Phobos) • Chaos Rhino • Road-Wheeler |
| AFVs | Bike Squad • Land Speeder • Predator Tank |
| Superheavy Vehicles | Spartan Assault Tank |
| Flyers | Chiropteran Scout • Storm Eagle • Thunderhawk |
| Spacecraft | Dreadclaw Assault Pod |
| Allies | Chaos Space Marines • Lost and the Damned • Space Marines • Imperial Guard |
