Intro:

What's better then shooting at your foe's big things? Shooting at them with even bigger guns! The Heavy Rifle Team is up to the task of taking out medium based and large based heftily armored opponents. Is it your best option at 2 points? Perhaps, let's take a journey in to the meat of the Heavy Rifle Team!

Stats:

SPD: Let's be honest, they are our slowest unit in the arsenal. They aren't winning any contests here.
RAT: Standard for most of our non-specialized units. Rangefinder puts it up to solid if you can keep it there!
DEF: Once again, we fall in to the realm of standard.
ARM: Higher then some of our units but fairly standard in POW 6's are going to take him out more often then not.

Wow. That looks fairly unimpressive. Slowest model, baseline stats, um... so why do I want to take them?

Special Abilities:

Armor Piercing: Now you're talking! Armor piercing on a POW 7 weapon means you hover around that "5 damage" range on a decent number of heavies. It also means you hover around the "Taking out an aspect/system" on most lights.

Light Artillery: You can't move and shoot. It's a bummer.

Range Finder: You get +2 on attack rolls when guy #2 is in base to base. It's a blessing and a curse. Watch out for those wandering AOE's!

Weapons and attacks:

He has an awesome armor piercing gun and both guys have a sword. The swords are not much to write home about. If you are using the sword you better start praying because things just went pear shaped!

Tactics:

The Heavy Rifle Team is a pretty straight forward tactical piece. Deployment on this unit is everything. Due to the lack of mobility you really need to make sure he is where you are applying your force before you know that the force needs to be applied there!

I generally deploy mine near the center if deploying first. When deploying second I would suggest being shaded towards the best heavy targets.

What to kill? This guy excels at one target type. Medium/large based models under ARM 20. Those are your main targets.Your effective RAT7 will give you pretty much free reign to fire down on them. Their slow movement can be a blessing as it allows them to run full out without over extending, allowing your other units to be in front of them. Since you are shooting at things that are medium based and larger, you don't need to worry as much about Line of Sight.

Range of fire:

Here is a simple drawing I did to demonstrate how much of the field this unit can take care of. You may need to click through to get a better picture depending on your browser -

What's it worth:

We have an abundance of amazing 2pt options. Is this team, that suffers from no hit boxes and wandering AOE's, worth it? That depends largely on your opponent. What is he competing against?

Ghost Sniper - This is the obvious competitor. For non-small targets, the Heavy rifle team wins under ARM 20. The Sniper is more versatile, can move and shoot and picks a column.

Housegaurd Riflemen - A less obvious competitor but these guys bring a CRA so they can reach almost the same levels and do double the shots. They cost more but quite a bit so it's a trade off. Do you have the points and want a full infantry unit?

Stormfall Archers - With Brutal Shot they have a bit less range but almost comparable damage. They can shoot 4 shots per turn for only double the points.

That's some hefty competition. When you know you will face a lot of lights or lightly armored heavies, the Rifle Team is your king. When facing any other army, those contenders generally pick up more slack.

Synergy:

There is no specific piece that shows the Heavy Rifle Team synergy that doesn't show that same synergy as well or better with the other options.

Garryth - Mirage allows them to move every turn while still being able to shoot. That move allows you to change facing so that can be helpful in a bind.

Rayven - Her feat is obvious and snipe always helps!

Ossyan - His feat is pretty obvious and Quicken helps that first turn placement.

Rahn - Telekenisis for placement

Ghost Sniper - After the Heavy Rifle Team shoots, the Ghost Sniper can score off the rest of that column to help disable something tasty!

Final Thoughts:

In an army that lives and dies on it's versatility, we have a piece that has one function. It does it's function well though. If you play in a meta with multiple lights or lower armored heavies then this unit can do the job. If you are facing a medium based multiwound infantry brick, they can do wonders. If you are facing an infantry horde or a high armor brick? They may be worth leaving in the box.