Firefight: Surprise, Surprise

The last model (for the moment) in the Veer-myn army is the Tunneller which is their tank variant. It comes with a couple of weapon options and I opted to build mine with the Super Heavy Ray Gun. Built to tunnel in underneath the enemy it has some impressive looking drills on the front which can also double up to chew up enemy troops. This model was a bit more involved to glue together than the Forge Father tank but a quick watch of the Mantic build video set me on the way. Due to the way the model goes together building it so it could use all the weapon configurations was a more involved process so I opted not to bother. It could be done with magnets and some forward planning though.

In a direct comparison with the Sturmhammer we can see the Tunneller is a fair bit cheaper but not quite as tough. It's also not quite as good a shot and has a shorter ranged weapon with less penetration, it doesn't however suffer a penalty for shooting at aircraft like the Sturmhammer. Those big front drills do make it a fearsome proposition if it manages to contact enemy outside buildings, vehicles cannot assault them. 

The real point of difference and the reason you are most likely fielding a Tunneller is it's Subterranean Deployment and Capacity (10) special rules. The first of these we saw with the Tunnel Runners and allows you to bring the unit from off table on turns 1 or 2 and place them in the open outside of 6" from any enemy for a short action. This means they could appear at the critical place on the table and still get a shot off *or use the Protect the Nest Faction (1) order to make a 12" charge for the cost of one command pip.* 

*Update* - this bit is incorrect, you cannot use a command order on a unit that didn't start it's activation on the table.

Capacity (10) means that the Tunneller can bring some friends along when it does this who can also activate to move or charge during their turn. The Tunneller can carry 10 small (height 1 or 2) or 5 large (height 3+) models which must be whole units, it can carry more than one unit. You can add extra capacity sections which Mantic sell to increase the capacity by 10's up to a maximum of 30.

The question then is what passengers would be best to carry? Given that the Tunneller itself is better suited to getting into melee as are the Veer-myn in general, you probably don't want to fill it with shooting.

So going the melee route I have three options for how to fill the Tunneller of increasing expense:

10 * Stalker - 20 attacks on 4+ @ 85 points

5 * Nightmares 3 twin drills & 2heavy drill -  17 attacks on 4+ with AP1 or 3 @ 160 points

Pack Leader + 2 Hvy Drill Nightmares - 14 attacks on 4+ with AP1 or 3 @ 130 points

2 * Brood Guard - 6 attacks on 4+ with AP2 @ 75 points

3 * Nightmares 2 Hvy Drill & 1 twin drills - 11 attacks on 4+ with AP1 or 3 @110 points

2 * Nightmares Hvy Drill - 8 attacks on 4+ with AP3 @ 85 points

The first two options are pretty simple in that it's one unit that will be jumping out at the end to charge into the enemy. You generally get what you pay for in terms of quality of the attacks and the chance to survive afterwards so it's probably down to how many points you have to play with.

The third option gives you a Command unit in the Tunneller, in order to use Faction or Command Orders you normally need a Command unit within 12" of the activating unit, so having it onboard makes that easy to arrange. The Pack Leader and chums unit is a massive amount of attack dice in such a small unit and you can still fit 2 Brood Guard in as well. Having 2 units in the Tunneller allows you to potentially target multiple enemy units from one vehicle or have a wave of assaults that softens up the enemy before the Pack Leader goes in. 
The last option is a variation on previous two but using small units of Nightmares instead of one large one. This does allow you to increase the number of Heavy Drills you can field by 2 but at the cost of less survivable units.

That certainly gives a few tactics and compositions to try out and I think one needs to be careful about tying up too many points in the Tunneller and it's passengers. It is useful to note however than being inside a vehicle that blows up doesn't damage the passengers so you aren't quite putting all your eggs in one basket. Also the usefulness of shielding your melee units against incoming fire cannot be underestimated. That of course could be another use, it's a big height 4 model so it could just be parked sideways across the table to shield units from enemy small-arms fire.