E&C:
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It doesn't say their "slow mobililty" restricts their use in a fluid battle, it says their "lack of mobility" restricts their use in a fluid battle.
Slow mobility is bad grammar. Lack of mobility denotes, well, a lack of mobility. It does not mean that their mobility is nonexistent, only that there is a lack of it.
People in wheelchairs lack mobility. This does not mean they don't have any, only that there is a relative, well, lack of it.
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That means that they have to wait for targets to come to them, not that Marines will be pick them up and carry them slowly towards the enemy so that they can partake in limited mobile warfare.
Alternately, it means that moving them around would be a pain in the ass to be avoided if possible.
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Just because the sentence includes the words "fluid battle", that in no way implies that the Tarantulas are partaking in any part of the "fluidity".
Actually, it rather does. It restricts their use
in a fluid battle. They still take part in battles which are fluid - there are just limited things which can be done with them. If you're in a fluid battle, you're partaking in the fluidity by definition. Otherwise you wouldn't be in the battle any more.
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I just checked with a couple of models sitting on my shelf, and the central part of the Tarantula is pretty much the same size as a Sentinel's cab. Much bigger than an infantryman.
Er...from what I recollect of Sentinel cabs, that's a relative statement if I ever heard one. Of course, I don't have a current Sentinel around to judge.
In any case, Thudd Guns and Eldar HWPs are both pretty big relative to Sentinels, and they get to be Infantry. Hell, the first picture of the Tarantula in IA 1 has it making better use of cover than the Guardsman next to it.
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It's some kind of direct-fire gun cannon, not artillery. Could easily be infantry though.
Crew-serviced weapons which are big enough to have a vehicle statline are called artillery in 40K (to be fair, it's a lot simpler than saying "big crew-serviced weapons"). The Thunderfire Cannon is one of these. Eldar Weapons Platforms are artillery, too, for the purposes of the vehicle rules. And all artillery pieces in 40K are infantry in Epic.
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Likewise, why are Rhino drivers lugging Tarantulas about in the middle of a battle?
Because the Tarantulas would be more useful elsewhere than where they currently are?
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This isn't pre-battle setup you're talking about, you're suggesting Marines drag Tarantulas into Rhinos, drive up to within range of the enemy, then drag out, calibrate and set up a Tarantula battery, so that the Tarantulas can fire on the enemy.
As opposed to letting the Tarantulas sit behind the line of battle doing nothing when they could be moved closer to the line of battle where they could do more good?
Marines do what Marines need to do to win. And I can think of several circumstances where moving Tarantulas would be a good idea. Especially in siege warfare - what if you capture enemy trenches and want to hold them? Do you leave the Tarantulas sitting where they are, or do you move the damn things up?
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That is, essentially, the exact thing that Imperial Armour says Marines don't do.
All Imperial Armor says about Marines using Tarantulas is that they're used for static defense and Marines mostly use them for routine guard duty. Neither of which precludes their redeployment outside of immediate combat. Hell, neither even precludes a small group of supervisors for a large group of Tarantulas - and frankly, I'd expect nothing else. At minimum, there should be someone there to hit the kill switch when the Tarantulas decide your Scouts are unfriendly.
