Splinter cannons.... eh they will basically stay only being on venoms and possibly on razorwings now. The heavy change makes it even less likely you will throw them on scourges or kabalites. They are basically just a worse heavy bolter... hopefully GW doesn't price them as a heavy bolter. Honeslty they are about half as good as a heavy bolter, worse vs t4 or less, worse vs vehicles, the same vs t5 infantry and better vs t6+ not very many of those targets. Its worth about 5-8 points somewhere, but I'm betting GW point it at 10-15 somewhere. If GW points it at 5-8 I will be excited for these, but I won't get my hopes up til we see points. That said, they aren't bad, just unfortunately splinter cannons were a large part of our anti horde options (which we didn't have many ranged options) and they turned it into anti MEQ, but hey they are a reasonable pick vs marines now on venoms so take what we can get.
Kabalites being at 4+ is nice at least they might get to actually make a save occasionally now, its not like it will massively up their survival, but again its not like anyone expects kabalites to live. So any chance they do is welcome. This honestly is the change I am most excited for.
The +1a makes me laugh honestly... first 3-4 custom kabals are combat focused, and now we get +1a for kabalites. Someone at GW REALLY is in love with the idea of kabalites being a combat unit lol. But in all seriousness, they can potentially charge guardsmen, cultists, termagants etc, and actually get a few kills to finish off a unit, and their 4+ save would actually make a difference vs most units they would potentially charge, so it gives them more flexibility even if its not necessarily something you will want to utilize in most matchups, it can still find a use occasionally.
So its not like anything here was bad they are improvements, just nothing to really get excited about either. I think if the cannon was 4 shots or even 5 I would have something to get happy about, but making it a worse heavy bolter is kinda like, eh ok I guess I can use it on venoms. Hopefully future previews can provide something to really look forward too as opposed to, a, "Oh thats nice that they got something."
Edited by GrinNfool, 08 February 2021 - 07:43 PM.