MG144-HE004 Eques Battle Tank

Herosine Empire

144th (10 or 12mm)

Platoon of four vehicles supplied.

Comes with tank turret (with three hot-swappable barrels)

Size (Bounding Box, assembled, railguns): 69.41mm x 32.22mm x 23.96mm

The main gun barrels are designed to be removed and replaced during a game. Make sure that when painting, both the guns and the slots in the turret where they sit are all painted. They are designed slightly loose when unpainted, so that when painted, the additional thickness of the paint will provide enough friction to keep them from sliding around.
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The Eques Heavy Battle Tank is the primary main battle tank of the Herosine Empire. Nearly ubiquitous now, the Eques has undergone numerous minor upgrades since its inception ago in 2323 (none significant enough to warrant a new mark number). Most recently was the conversion to newer shield generators and the –I version.

In part, this is due to the exceptionally careful design, in which cost was no object. The Eques demonstrates the Herosine Empire’s economic advantage to the fullest. The Eques comes equipped as standard with technology, that while not out of reach of most other powers, would be prohibitively expensive to use on a normal tank. The Eques is modular, with the basic design expected to be upgraded piecemeal over a projected fifty to seventy year lifetime: the Eques at the end of such a time will be only superficial similar to the earliest.

The Eques’ most major feature is the use of nanotechnology, specifically nano-replicators. In addition to being part of the Eques’ internal structure – thus providing superlative self-repair facilities, provided with sufficient power – the Eques’ turret can be reconfigured on the fly. Each of the three main guns can be transformed – together or independently – by the use of the nano-replicators in just a few seconds to one of three patterns.

The primary barrel configuration is a 200mm railgun. Working in concert, this allows the Eques to fire a staggered salvo of railgun slugs. While this affords it better penetration that one slug alone, it also has the advantage of being better at penetrating shields: if the first or second round drops the shields, the remaining rounds can strike the armour unimpeded.

The second configuration is an 80mm gatling railgun for anti-infantry or anti-air defence. As the Eques turret is not suitable for tracking high-elevation targets, the guns instead pivot a short distance outside the turret, allowing them to reach up to 90º elevations. While this shortened the distance the barrels could be made (and thus the penetration), Herosine railgun technology and the rate of fire produce a significantly dangerous output when fired together. Further, the guns automatically set to stagger-fire against point-targets, granting the same advantages as the main guns against shielded vehicles.

The final configuration is a rocket pod. Each pod carries 30 SGMAT-20 Sagitta rockets. Unlike the simple solid slugs of the previous two weapons, even the nano-replicators cannot create warheads themselves, but the Sagitta’s otherwise simple mechanisms can be produced. Thus the warheads themselves are stored separately and fetched and installed as the pod is replicated. This limits the total reloads to 90 across the entire vehicle. The process of conveying the warheads to position (or back to storage) doubles the time it takes to switch to and from this weapon mode, but this is still only a staggeringly short 11.2 seconds.

The small size of the Sagitta precludes a large warhead (the rockets have slightly less power than a Herosine Heavy Infantry Missile), but in concert (typically fired in salvos of three), their firepower rated at Tier 17. The rockets are also capable of being sensor guided, allowing the Eques to make indirect fire when given targets from Screen Drones or Psiloi Gravitic Orb Scouts.

Finally, the Eques carries a standard point-defence turret with twin Tier 7 lazer cannons, which also houses a sensor array, allowing it to act like a short sensor mast.

The Eques AA vehicle is a modification to the Eques tank, essentially replacing the turret with the missile turret of the Turma warhead launcher module turret, and doubling the available magazine space. While not strictly a dedicated AA vehicle, the Eques’s inherent AA targeting computer allows it to use its missiles as a company air-defence asset. They are frequently assigned a recon unit (typically a single Auxilia or one or two Psiloi) which allows them to additionally function as a limited artillery support unit with their torpedoes.