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People repeatedly mention tankshocking Falcons.

1. Wouldnt tankshocking expose the skimmers rear armour, at least to lightly mobile enemys?

2. The BBB seems to imply that you cant rotate the skimmer after moving in a straight line, so if you fly through a unit your tanks rear end will face the tankshocked unit...

3. The BBB doesnt mention that tanks have to move up to their maximum moving range, so I assume one can fly a skimmers front end into a target unit and stop there. This way the opponent has to test LD and has at least to move around the Skimmer to get rear shots...


Are the above mentioned points reasonable? How do you use tank shock?


Greetings.

Tank-shocking with Falcons 101:

1. On turn 1 (or 2), move Falcon to a position where 36" of straight-line movement will clip as many units as possible.

2. Move a second Falcon to a position to support the first.

3. (Optional) Move a third Falcon to a position to support the first or second.

4. Next turn, rotate first Falcon and tank shock. Resolve leadership tests.

5. Rotate second Falcon and tank shock the remaining units, finishing up in a position to make moving around the first falcon more difficult.

6. (Optional) Rotate third Falcon and tank shock any remaining units, finishing up in a position to make moving to the back of either (or both) the first or second Falcons more difficult.

6a. Alternatively, use a third Falcon to move within 6" of fleeing units, to ensure they will not regroup on the following turn.

Basically, three Falcons crashing through the lines in support of each other means relatively few units will be able to get around to take advantage of the rear armor. Even if some do, the Holofield/spirit stone/vectored engine combo makes it much harder to actually drop the thing, in spite of the weaker armor. Any surviving Falcons can either drop their payloads the following turn (if appropriate), or resume tank shocking any unbroken units, or escort broken units off the board.

The remaining elements of the Eldar army, meanwhile, should be hitting any high-mobility elements in the opposing army, to inhibit hatch-blocking.

Janthkin wrote:
6a. Alternatively, use a third Falcon to move within 6" of fleeing units, to ensure they will not regroup on the following turn.

Which is effective even against those pesky ATSKNF Space Marines.

Note that as far shooting in the back is concerned, you're still a skimmer and you still have holo-fields. They can't have that many guns. Lascannons have only a 1.5 times greater chance of glancing and S7 a 2x greater chance.

Meanwhile their lines are broken and the rest of your army is slamming them from the front.

Can't you rotate so that the rear armor is facing the units you are tank shocking, and back over all of the units, so you end up with your front to the opponent?

You could, but.....

If a trooper being shocked attempts a "death or Glory" move, he will be using the Falcons impressive rear armor of 10. Even with the upgrades, it would be easier to get a kill shot.

Sounds good on paper, but not sure how well it actually works. At the Balt GT my last opponent basically tried this with his Fire Prism, zipping up and down my IG lines. I pretty much just ignored it, only had one squad break over three turns. And on the last turn I went ahead and did a DoG with the last squad he tank-shocked, boxcars............ However, I'll admit I'm considering it as a possible tactic with the Eldar army I'm in the process of building. My recent experience could have just been an anomaly.

don_mondo wrote:Sounds good on paper, but not sure how well it actually works. At the Balt GT my last opponent basically tried this with his Fire Prism, zipping up and down my IG lines. I pretty much just ignored it, only had one squad break over three turns. And on the last turn I went ahead and did a DoG with the last squad he tank-shocked, boxcars............ However, I'll admit I'm considering it as a possible tactic with the Eldar army I'm in the process of building. My recent experience could have just been an anomaly.

Target selection is important. For example, before trying this on Guard, kill the standard bearer.

In game #3 of the Baltimore GT I was facing a super shooty Tau army on a wide open lava table.

He took the first turn and a half killing my Avatar, and then the next turn and half killing my army.

I tank shocked the crap out of him, and only one unit broke the whole game. But I was able to deliver my harlies and scorpions into assault, and they went nuts killing everything in sight.

Blackmoors idea might work. You cold fly to one flank and then slide sideways through his lines. This way DoG would at best be used agianst your side armour which happens to be 12 as well.

I mean its not that you have friends to lose when playing with Falcons these days.

Tank shock is incredibly effective. With the speed of the eldar skimmers you can hit a lot of units all at once to maximize your chances of actually breaking something. The fact that you might expose your rear armor is of minimal consequences since its the holofiled that protects falcons, not their armor. They can just zoom around almost at will and mostly ignore the shooting into them.

Death or glory is something you really don't have to worry about. Your opponent gets one auto hit which then has to immobalize or destroy the falcon or he dies. We all know the chances of this happening (4/36 assuming he rolls high enough to get past the armor in the first place). Sure the enemy might kill your falcon, but chances are much better that you'll break his units or kill anything that's foolish enought to stand in the way of a tank.

The best use of tank shock is pushing units out of cover. If there is an enemy unit held up in cover, just tank shock on top of the terrain feature they are hiding in. They will have to move out of it and then you can shoot them to pieces with your other long ranged units. It works great, particularly if you have war walkers or dark reapers in your back field.

We recently played a game at my local store that was 3 competative 1850 armies (two Tau and one IG) vs 1850 points of tank-shocking cheesed out Eldar, and the Eldar were kicking all our assess. We probably had 2000 points of units run right off the board in the first 3 turns simply because of star-engine fueled tank-shocks. The worst we did was blow off a few guns on one or two falcons and finally immobilize another, which allowed for the stupid space Clowns to then pop out and continue raping us. In the end we probably would have one just by sheer numbers, but if it had been a 1v1 game there wouldn't have been a hope in hell of living more than 2 or 3 turns. Eldar skimmers, and really Eldar in general, are incredibly screwed up.

How can 3 armies that lose to FotD or Tank Shock claim to be competitive...

Theres a reason that all tournament armies are either mechanized or fearless you know

Cheese,Cheese Cheese

Sorry, were people talking about the nigh invulnerable Falcon again?

I mean, my 'Ard Boyz SM army chewed through Falcons (and Eldar armies) with relative ease in the shooting phase.

72 S6 AV shots and 6 Lascannons + 21 Meltabombs really made them laughable.

Made most things laughable, really.

Hells bells, I can do 72/6/16 in 2k points.

Crazy. Even with only 36/3 per table half, it's enough to bring Falcons screaming outta the sky.

My buddy's shooty IG army would do better probably. I think it had 14 AC and 9 Las. I know it was a bitch to beat. Came down to a single 3+ save. lol

Phoenix wrote:Tank shock is incredibly effective. It works great, particularly if you have war walkers or dark reapers in your back field.

I'd love to see tank shock actually affect me in some way, in a game somewhere on the Planet, in my lifetime. Maybe I play the wrong kind of armies. Who knows.

War Walkers and Dark Reapers are good? Dammit I missed the memo. When did they go from suck to good??

Janthkin wrote:The remaining elements of the Eldar army, meanwhile, should be hitting any high-mobility elements in the opposing army, to inhibit hatch-blocking.

The remaining 800 points of Eldar army?

Man, if I could cripple a 1850 point army with only 800 points--who'd need Falcons?

If only I could play my points better, and beat the Beast.

Stelek wrote:

Janthkin wrote:The remaining elements of the Eldar army, meanwhile, should be hitting any high-mobility elements in the opposing army, to inhibit hatch-blocking.

The remaining 800 points of Eldar army?

Man, if I could cripple a 1850 point army with only 800 points--who'd need Falcons?

If only I could play my points better, and beat the Beast.

Yes, yes. You're invulnerable. We get it. Put it back in your pants.

Triple posting within a week

Good Trend


Where the hell is the ignore button

Stelek wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Tank shock is incredibly effective. It works great, particularly if you have war walkers or dark reapers in your back field.

I'd love to see tank shock actually affect me in some way, in a game somewhere on the Planet, in my lifetime. Maybe I play the wrong kind of armies. Who knows.

War Walkers and Dark Reapers are good? Dammit I missed the memo. When did they go from suck to good??

Both were really good in third edition. With the advent of 4th, reapers sucked until the new codex came back out and gave them a 3+ save again. At that point, they were back on the field. Those two units dish out such a huge amount of death from such long range that its really difficult to deal with them. Regardless, one of my standard tactics is to zoom my falcon up to some sort of squad that's hideing in cover and tank shock them out of it by parking my falcon over the terrain. Since this all happens in the movement phase, I can adjust the position of my war walkers if I need to and then blaze up the now displaced squad that no longer gets cover saves. Its rather effective.

Lots of people underestimate their usefulness because they look bad on paper. On the battlefield, if used well, they are devistating.

As far as tank-shocking with the Falcons goes, it's not exactly the world's most effective tactic, but there are some situations when it's useful.

1) When you're moving 36", might as well try to ram your way through anything possible... usually no real reason not to.

2) When you've dropped off cargo and you're shaken... nothing else to do for a turn, might as well tank shock.

3) When there's a light vehicle or squad parked behind a Falcon waiting to offload Harlequins.

4) When you need to move someone out of cover (say for example for your no plasma grenades Harlies to attack).

5) When you need to move someone off an objective.

6) When you just want to be a jerk and/or throw your opponent for a loop.

The biggest reason you'd want to do it is #3. You're right about all the things you said in that you expose to rear armor, etc... but who cares? It's not overly hard to glance a Falcon, it's just actually stopping one that's hard. Don't ever worry about Death or Glory... typically, anyone who can actually hurt the Falcon won't be risked on an extremely low-probability stop unless there's no other choice.

A lot of times tank shock is not effective (Fearless, Synapse, mob size, high Ld, etc), although bear in mind it doesn't matter if they're fearless or not... they still have to move, so you may still want to shock for reasons 3, 4, or 5.

Also, sometimes, you tank shock because there's nothing else to do. Against a teleport Necron list (multiple Monoliths, maybe VoD) your Harlies are fairly ineffective, as they'll get yanked out of combat by teleportation and then gunned down. Against an army like this, your tanks are also going to be shaken pretty much constantly (thanks Gauss), so your only real option (other than getting lucky on shooting down Monoliths) is lots of tank shocks. Necrons have high Leadership, but if they eventually fail one or more, they lose big chunks of points when you escort them off the board. Whittle down a couple squads with tank shock and you can do a little cleanup with overwhelming numbers of Harlies (kill entire squad so no WBB) and force a phase out. I've played against this style of army a lot, and usually unless I can force a squad or two to fall back with Tank Shock, it's typically a lost cause. (Unless it's an Alpha game, since they still have a lot of trouble destroying Falcons, Alpha Secure and Control or Cleanse usually just lead to draws.)