Helldivers 2's new Bastion tank absolutely rules — it's amazing and awful all at once, and my new favorite stratagem for spilling Automaton oil

After the meddling Automaton Legion managed to hack into Super Earth's database and steal plans for the planet-destroying Star of Peace, Helldivers 2 players have been ordered to launch a daring offensive to take the bots' home world of Cyberstan before they build the superweapon and use it to target Super Earth.

To support Lady Liberty's finest as they push towards the heart of the robotic menace's territory, the Ministry of Defense has begun production of a vehicle that fans of the original Helldivers will be very happy to see: the TD-220 Bastion MK XVI, tough-armored, heavily armed tank that comes equipped with a lethal 120mm main cannon, a heavy coaxial machine gun, and two little passenger hidey-holes for Helldivers along for the ride.

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My friends and I put the armor to the test on the Automaton front for several hours last night, and holy Liberty, this thing is a beast. The main gun's 120mm shells pack devastating firepower equivalent to the ones fired by your Super Destroyer during 120mm Orbital Barrage usage, so you'll be one-shotting pretty much everything the enemy can throw at you that isn't a Factory Strider (those go down with two hits to the same spot). In fact, the only thing it can't obliterate are hardened objective structures that need Hellbombs.

The coaxial machine gun also hits as hard as the Heavy Machine Gun support weapon, but comes with an extremely generous 2,000 rounds, allowing you to cut down bots en masse with minutes of non-stop firing. The cannon gets 30 shells, which is plenty provided you're saving them for heavier targets like Hulks, War Striders, Factory Striders, dropships, and bot fabricators.

On top of that — and unlike other Helldivers vehicles like the Fast Recon Vehicle and the Exosuit mechs — the Bastion can take punishment almost as well as it can dish it out. Its thick armor plating shrugs off most small arms fire and bug claw jabs, and it can absorb a surprising amount of damage from rockets and explosive laser blasts before giving out. When it does, everyone is forcibly ejected and given a few seconds to get clear before it violently explodes.

But as awesome as the Bastion tank is, it also has some very glaring weaknesses. For one, it's technically a World War 2-style tank destroyer; like these real-world vehicles, the Bastion has a fixed turret that can't rotate on the X axis, meaning the gunner can only adjust their aim left and right a small amount, and that the driver has to turn the entire vehicle towards targets. This is a limitation, to be sure, though it does smartly make the driver feel more involved in the destruction you're doling out.

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That, paired with the tank's hilariously slow turning speed, means that it's extremely easy to get flanked if you're not proactively keeping an eye out for where enemies are coming from and adjusting your positioning accordingly. The armor's "breakneck speeds of up to 32 kilometers per hour" also make it difficult to quickly get out of hairy situations — and as resilient as it is, it will get destroyed rapidly if it takes too much heavy fire from multiple angles.

Like many Helldivers 2 stratagems, the Bastion treads a fine line between "the literal coolest thing ever" and "this sucks, actually," requiring effective teamwork and coordination to maximize feeling like the former and avoid the latter as much as possible. It may feel weak if you're playing with mic-less randoms, but go in with a squad of communicative buddies and you'll spill enough Automaton oil to make General Brasch proud.

It's not going to be meta, but frankly, I don't really care. It's an absolute blast to use, it's still very strong when used with a coordinated team, and for me, stratagems like this that demand teamwork bring some of the highest highs that Helldivers 2 co-op can. I guarantee you that this thing will have you grinning from ear to ear.

For bot missions, this is hands-down my new favorite stratagem, and I'm excited to give it a try on the bug and squid fronts at some point, too (right now, I'm 100% committed to the push to Cyberstan). Excited to get behind the treads yourself? You can unlock the Bastion tank with 35,000 of the Requisition Slips earned from completed missions and operations.

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