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They seem awesome! 20 shots and Str 5? Sounds like anti-horde to me!

So how do these perform on average? Should I bother with them against things like tyranids and orks?

Just need some perspective. I'd really like to tech one of these into my list.

First, the vehicle has to get within 36". Assuming it survives:

Take all of those shots, and cut them in half. Those shots missed. Now, take half of those shots away because of cover saves. And reduce it further by 1/6th (or 1/3rd for T4) because not all S5 shots will wound their target. So. 20 shots fired, 10 shots hit, 5 shots get through the cover saves, ~3-4 shots wound.

Isn't that fun?

Mind you, against, say, Tyranids or Orks without cover saves, they can be pretty nasty... but that depends on the state of your game board.

Proxy it. You'll find it underwhelming. It's something that other armies would enjoy, but you have so many better options in your heavy support choices.

Well I would assume the targets would be T3, so that wounds on a 2+, and then they would have something like a 5+ save, so in other words, against other guardsmen and Nids

Getting in 24 inches isn't that hard when it's an AV 14 tank either.

But I see your point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, I'll run some mathHammer tonight and see what happens.

I've been thinking about trying one in a game for kicks 'n giggles, but like Melissia I'm worried about it not being able to do much of anything against all those cover saves you run across in a typical game. I think the best thing that can be said about it is that it looks darn cool. If it had more range and cost less, than it might be worth it.

I think it could be good if you put Pask in it. But it'd be better to put him somewhere else, so YMMV.

True, but the Punisher is already pricey, and I can't help but feel like putting Pask into is is like throwing good points after bad (to paraphrase). Not that it is going to stop me from trying it sometime .

My experience with is that, it need Pask to help with the BS. Now this also helps make it a decent MC killer, and with some heavy bolter sponons, it is good anti infantry, but cover saves and short range hurt it alot.

I have a buddy who uses one with 3 heavy bolters and its not the end of the world when it fires but its not something you can laugh off ether but for what you pay for it. I think it should be heavy 30 instead of 20.

Moving to Tactics....

What you really want is a Vulture with twin punisher cannons. Effectiveness goes way up when you are twin linked. Costs less too, iirc!

If you want to kill hordes, take a manticore. Don't bother with the punisher.

Melissia wrote:First, the vehicle has to get within 36". Assuming it survives:

Take all of those shots, and cut them in half. Those shots missed. Now, take half of those shots away because of cover saves. And reduce it further by 1/6th (or 1/3rd for T4) because not all S5 shots will wound their target. So. 20 shots fired, 10 shots hit, 5 shots get through the cover saves, ~3-4 shots wound.

Isn't that fun?

Mind you, against, say, Tyranids or Orks without cover saves, they can be pretty nasty... but that depends on the state of your game board.

24", not 36", for the main gun.
And I'd run the math as determine wounds, then cut in half due to cover, since only wounding hits cause cover saves............... Against Orks in cover, that means maybe 4 unsaved wounds from the main gun per turn on average.

The thing that really hurts the gun is the lack of an AP value, or Rending, or both. Even an AP of 5 w/ Rending would make it much more viable, but as it stands its a very underwhelming tank whose niche is filled far better by Manticores and even standard LRBT.

L. Wrex

Did some simulations against marines...14 hits, 6 wounds, 3 unsaved....Not bad, I guess. A battlecannon is better I got really lucky there. No way I could get that many hits again.

Next, against other guardsmen (not realistic, but it happens)...8 hits...7 wounds....3 unsaved wounds.....What? A battcannon is still better

Pask would be good, that BS 3 is slowing the gun down, really. Here's a simulation of BS 4.
14 Hits.....12 wounds....6 unsaved (against guardsmen)


So overall, I'm not impressed. I much prefer large blast templates

If I could only mount that gun on a devilfish...

don_mondo wrote:
24", not 36", for the main gun.
And I'd run the math as determine wounds, then cut in half due to cover, since only wounding hits cause cover saves............... Against Orks in cover, that means maybe 4 unsaved wounds from the main gun per turn on average.

When you do multiplication (and division is multiplication with fractions and percentages) it doesn't matter what order you do it in as long as you don't need to add or subtract in the middle somewhere. 20 x .5 x .5 x .66 is the same as 20 x .5 x .66 x .5 So it doesn't for math hammer purposes matter what order you do it. (it only matters in game, and if you are doing a more in depth statistic breakdown rather than averages, and it doesn't even usually matter there, though its been years since I've had to do that)

But yes, what it does is pretty underwhelming, getting 24 points of orks as an average scenario isn't exactly good. So don't fire it at hordes, fire it at termies, heavy infantry, bikes and maybe light skimmers (like landspeeders). Make them take a bucket of saves, they will fail one out of six. (and there is always the chance they could fail more than they "should") When you kill a termie biker (marine or other) or nob, that is 40 or more points you killed.

Still don't recommend it though, guard are about templates, and they have more efficient torrent of fire units. But if you do take it, use it on high value targets, and saver your heavy flamers and templates for the horde units.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:The thing that really hurts the gun is the lack of an AP value

Right. The punisher cannon is basically a big multilaser. The problem with the multilaser is that guard flak armor actually works against it, dropping its usefulness by a third. That said...

Samus_aran115 wrote:They seem awesome! 20 shots and Str 5? Sounds like anti-horde to me!

... focusing on just a single part of the stat line of a weapon is a classic newbie mistake.

When you don't look at things in the big picture, yeah, this gun would be okay, but when you start looking at things like points effectiveness, your opponent's ability to minimize your damage (through cover or blowing your vehicle up), it's impact on your actual ability to complete missions, etc, then it really sticks out as a terrible weapon.

Usually people can ignore this kind of big picture thinking because the drawbacks are sneakier, but in this case, even the ardent narrow-focuser has a hard time ignoring the serious problems of this vehicle.

I wish I could mount punisher cannons on my razorbacks. now THAT would be a sexy combination.

I wish I could put a deathstrike missile on my whirlwinds

pfft, i'd take them in place of hunter-killer missiles, and mount then on rhinos.

Honersstodnt wrote:I wish I could mount punisher cannons on my razorbacks. now THAT would be a sexy combination.

Even if it made your rhino cost 90 points?

well I already take 80 point razorbacks at this point, with las/plas turrets and dozer blades.... whats 10 points more, to give it a badass gatling gun?

I play Orks and Punishers are way down on my Target Priority list. Even with Pask, it doesn't do enough damage to stop me getting to it and cracking it open with a Power Klaw. Hellhounds and Manticores are much scarier, IMO

Huh, well I guess they're not as good as I thought.. I'll just stick with the regular leman russ. t does the job fine..

You can lock this thread if you so wish ^.^

Samus_aran115 wrote:Did some simulations against marines...14 hits, 6 wounds, 3 unsaved....Not bad, I guess. A battlecannon is better I got really lucky there. No way I could get that many hits again.

Never run "simulations". Just look at the statistics. It will help you not be mislead.

All this is valid, but there are specific instances where the punisher is useful. Versus a standard lrbt, that ordinance is one shot. Whats that going to do against a high toughness monsterous creature with many wounds? About the same as a lascannon. One wound. Take 3 heavy bolters and the gattling gun, thats almost 30 shots. If you play against tyranid and chaos sm with lots of MC's, putting pask inside makes this a viable tank. Unless your aim is space marines or worse, I find ordinance minimally effective.

Play a few with it and show your opponent it's crap. Then sneak pask in there one game and while he keeps the tank on low priority, show him the error of his ways.

tldr wrote:All this is valid, but there are specific instances where the punisher is useful.

Oh, definitely there is a situation or two where the punisher is going to be better. That said, why spend so DARN many points just to handle a few long-shot scenarios when said scenarios can be handled by other means for much cheaper, and are also better in more normal situations (like plasma guns)?

I really like it but with it you gotta go big or go home. 3 HBs Pask and Heavy stubber make this thing so much fun. It makes MCs go away. Which is its main job then after that its great for taking out squad strailgers by overwhelming them with wounds.

I've had it drop 13 kroot in one round of shooting. Next round fired all at my Shas'o with stim injector. 0 wounds.