It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical – many are modified by their crews in order to achieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades – the most common of which are listed here.
| Dozer blades are heavy ploughs, blades, rams, or scoops, used to clear obstacles from the vehicle’s path. |
Vehicles equipped with dozer blades treat their front armour as one higher than normal when
ramming. Furthermore the vehicle can
re-roll failed
Dangerous Terrain tests.
| Some vehicle crews add additional armour plating to their vehicles to provide a little extra protection. |
Vehicles equipped with extra armour count
Crew Stunned results from the
Vehicle Damage table as
Crew Shaken results instead.
| Hunter-killer missiles are commonly fitted to Imperial vehicles. These single-use weapon systems allow vehicles such as Rhinos to engage armoured enemy vehicles that would otherwise far outmatch them. |
A hunter-killer missile is an additional weapon, fired using the vehicle’s Ballistic Skill.
| Searchlights are often fitted to vehicles so that the foe cannot use darkness as an ally. |
Searchlights are used when the
Night Fighting rules are in effect. If a
vehicle has a searchlight, it can, after firing all of its weapons, choose to illuminate its target with the searchlight. If it does so, it also illuminates itself. You may find it helpful to place coins, or other suitable counters, next to the units as reminders, and next to a vehicle to show it has used its searchlights this turn.
Illumination lasts until the end of the following turn. Illuminated units gain no benefit from the
Night Fighting rule.
| Some vehicles have small launchers mounted onto them that carry smoke canisters. These are used to temporarily obscure the vehicle behind billowing clouds of smoke, allowing it to cross open areas in greater safety – although it does so at the cost of being able to fire its own weapons. |
Once per game, instead of shooting or
moving Flat Out (or
Running in the case of
Walkers), a
vehicle with smoke launchers can trigger them. Place some cotton wool or some other appropriate counter next to the vehicle to show it is obscured. The vehicle may not fire any of its weapons in the same turn as it used smoke launchers, but counts as
obscured in the next enemy
Shooting phase, receiving a 5+
cover save.
After the enemy’s Shooting phase, the smoke disperses with no further effect. Note that a vehicle may still use smoke launchers even if has suffered a
Crew Shaken or
Stunned result or it does not have any shooting weapons.
