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A few people been saying that the Executioner is really good with Plasma cannon sponsons. Is it better then the Demolisher which costs less?

Demolisher Strength 10 ap2 24 range 5 inch template costs 15 pts more then a Leman Russ Russ Battle Tank.
Advantages
Strength 10 insta kills Nob Bikers + Warboss, Marine Attack bikes etc.
Costs less in both points and cash since don't have to spend extra for forge world turret.
Strength 10 + d6 ordinance is not bad versus large vehicles high av vehicles like land raiders

Executioner 3 x Strength 7 ap 2 36 inch range 3 inch templates. costs 40 pts more then a basic Leman Russ Tank
Advantages
3 3 inch templates potentially hits more then 1 5 inch template
less effected by a bad scatter as you have 3 shots.

Seems like the Executioner is worth trying though.

If only someone would math-hammer the scatter and hit results....

The former can be done by a variety of things. Marbo, medusa, Psyker battle squad 1/3 of the time (ap1-2), vets etc & various lesser heavy ordenance. Generally at better ranges.

Nothing can do that the latter does as well & at that range. Who needs sponsons? You can move & fire, so manouver into position that afford little cover PLUS TEQ/MEQ wont generally stick to cover. If they do then they should be slowenough to pummel to death

or
]
be scared enough about ap1-3 anti-cover weapons to try & move up quickly.

Razerous wrote:The former can be done by a variety of things. Marbo, medusa, Psyker battle squad 1/3 of the time (ap1-2), vets etc & various lesser heavy ordenance. Generally at better ranges.

This is why I like the Executioner. Watching it do its work is really horrific (for the other guy). When you get a couple of direct hits, you kill a lot of guys due to overlapping templates.

As Razerous said, you can get other, cheaper artillery to do the job of the Demolisher, and usually at a longer range and cheaper price. I'll take the specialist tank and specialist artillery over a generalist of both.

sourclams wrote:

Razerous wrote:The former can be done by a variety of things. Marbo, medusa, Psyker battle squad 1/3 of the time (ap1-2), vets etc & various lesser heavy ordenance. Generally at better ranges.

This is why I like the Executioner. Watching it do its work is really horrific (for the other guy). When you get a couple of direct hits, you kill a lot of guys due to overlapping templates.

As Razerous said, you can get other, cheaper artillery to do the job of the Demolisher, and usually at a longer range and cheaper price. I'll take the specialist tank and specialist artillery over a generalist of both.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I'm just curious what artillery you had in mind. The bastion buster medusa? A basilisk? I don't like the demolisher because I like tanks to hit targets in the back field and encourage the enemy to advance or get pounded for nothing in return. With a 24 in range, I can't really do that with the siege tank. I guess when artillery is in a squadron, enough griffins start to have the same effect as a single demo, except from out of line of sight, and without watching half your wounds get saved by cover.

Bastion Buster Medusa/Grifolossus combo.

I think naked LRDemos are still a very viable tank in our new codex.

S10 ap2 ordnance on an AV14 platform has many advantages and can engage virtually any target effectively. In addition, it is still an economical purchase.

The only real downside it has is the lack of range.


The LRExec has a slightly longer range, but at much higher price point.

imo, if you are going for a LRExec you better go all out, give it plasma sponsons and perhaps even camo. Stick it in cover and try to milk it for everypoint it is worth.

The LRDemo is a solid choice for an aggressive tank than can advance with the troops, threaten any target, absorb enemy fire (from near by ligher armor), and does not cost almost as much as a Land Raider.

Both are very viable, but imo, have very different battlefield roles.

A couple people said you can get artillery to do the same as a demo, IMO: wrong.

Indirect fire has a nasty advantage, this is true.

But, there are no good ap2 artillery pieces. medusa is good but requires sight (not really artillery if you ask me... assault artillery more like it).

Anyways, I have to agree with BoxANT that the Demolisher is a tank that has the ability to soak up damage and take some assaulting hits (not a lot, but better than others) thanks to 11 rear AV.

If you are going to have your army just sit back and wait to be killed, they will be killed, you have to be assertive (not aggressive).

Slap a lascannon (maybe heavy flamer) and you have a decent killing machine for under 200 pts that is highly manouverable and loses little when it moves.

You gotta take the Lumbering Behemoth rule and abuse it, constantly move away, retreat until you find an opening in the opponents lines then ram/shove/push all your troops in the gap to take the objectives.

Kids be bringin' nasty stuff and there's no room to not do the same. The only games I have lost playtesting with Guard are when they do not move. in 1850 you can field 13+ vehicles, make your opponent crap themselves.

I tried out the Executioner in a game yesterday. It was pretty amazing. Abaddon and 4 terminators piled out of a destroyed land raider. One Executioner volley later Abaddon down to his last wound and 1 terminator moved through the wreck of the land raider to get out of los of my executioner just to eat las cannon volley from my Vendettas next turn. The Chaos Marine player complained that the tank was better then Obliterators putting out 5 templates for the cost of the Obliterators 3. I wouldn't agree to that because of Oblits versatility with other weapons but the executioner is very good.

In the situation with the terminators the demolisher would have gotten less hits with its single large template since they were clustered after getting out of the vehicle, but the milage really varies if your opponent spreads out the full 2 inches the 3 inch templates of the executioner will be less effective and the demolisher would be more effective.

Like Nenya97 said, other then the Medusa no artillery is strength 10 ap2. The medusa is not exactly atrtillery since it is direct fire and is av12 and is not exactly cheap at 30 less points then a Demolisher, the av14 of the Demolisher might be worth the extra 30 pts despite the decreased range since av12 is a bit easy to shake.

BS3 las cannon is a bit underwelming for 15 pts but might be worth trying since it is high strength and has the same AP as the Demolisher cannon and gives you something meaningful to fire if your not in Demolisher Cannon range. This also stops your opponent from wound stacking to reduce casualties from the demolisher cannon that you get with heavy bolters. Heavy flamer seems not worth it as you don't want your Demolisher in melta range if at all possible.

Mobility is very important since you need to get to objectives in 2/3s the games. I forget where its from but someone said "Speed is life, you go slow you die." With the way the game works as far as vehicles that is true somewhat.

Avariel wrote:In the situation with the terminators the demolisher would have gotten less hits with its single large template since they were clustered after getting out of the vehicle, but the milage really varies if your opponent spreads out the full 2 inches the 3 inch templates of the executioner will be less effective and the demolisher would be more effective.

I don't see this to be accurate. If models are spread out, then all blasts are less effective regardless of their size. A large blast can land a direct hit and cover 3-4 models, or it can scatter and only get 1-2 but probably 0 if the scatter is large. Likewise if a small blast lands a direct hit, it can cover 1-2 models, and if it scatters it only gets 1 and again probably 0 if the scatter is large. The real difference is in that the Executioner fires 3 small blasts versus one large. Against clumped up troops (deep strike circle, for example), the Demo hits 10 or so once 1/3 of the time, and far fewer when it scatters badly. The Executioner hits 8 or so 1/3 of the time with the potential to hit another 16 if it scatters well, and if it scatters poorly you've got 3 chances to at least hit a few models as opposed to the Demolisher all-or-nothing.

So, here I go with a try on mathhammer.
Chance to hit with a 3" template on bs 3: 41.67 %
Chance to hit partially (1" scatter after subducting bs) is another 8.33%
So you got a 50% chance to hit roughly. Calculating the propability for how many models might be underneath that template is just impossible since your opponent's reaction is not statistically independent

Chance to hit with a 5" template on bs 3: 61.11 %
Chance to hit partially (up to 2" scatter subducting bs) is another 30%
Thus we get a chance to hit at least partially with a 5" template of 91.11%

So we got a chance to hit 150% of at least half the amount of targetted models with an executioner, while the demolisher would hit 91.11% of them. The overall value still depends on the target you're shooting at for reasons of instant death or shooting vehicles.

My way of calculating since I don't think 91.11% is realistic:
33.33% for a hit on scatter dice + every possible result up to bs 3 (f.e. 1+1, 2+1, 1+2) with a propability of 1/36 i.e. 2,77...% each.
I assumed that hits are only scored, if the area directly underneath the template is covered at least half which would be the fact for small units. Ergo the propability would be higher when shooting at large units.
Thus you should get the propability for a hit on at least the half of models you targetted or all of them when taking into account only the first propability.
IMO calculating propabilities for more than half the models is quite impposible without disproportionate effort.
I'd be thankful for any hint on mistakes of any kind and hope there aren't any

PS: Didn't read through all the article, just saw someone demanding the mathhammer, flew over it to see if someone did it, realized noone did, so I thought I'd take a shot

Whats the average marine squad size? Give me a number and I will generate wound numbers for both an Executioner and a Demolisher using scatter probabilities in CAD software.

I really think this is an apple's and oranges comparison. The demolisher is used for armor as it's main target and heavy infantry as it's secondary. The exeuctioner's main target is heavy infantry, and does not do well at all against vehicles.

Unless my scatter dice suck that bad I think the fully loaded demolisher is better geared for taking out monstrous creatures as well. 5 plasma templates vs. 1 demolisher template, 1 lascannon shot, and 2 multi-melta shots.

I'm actually liking the idea of putting both in my lists right now.

Warmaster wrote:I really think this is an apple's and oranges comparison. The demolisher is used for armor as it's main target and heavy infantry as it's secondary. The exeuctioner's main target is heavy infantry, and does not do well at all against vehicles.

I disagree. The Demolisher's main target has always been Terminators. The AP2 is more valuable than the Str10. In a secondary capacity, it can perform anti-vehicle duties but unless you're shooting at a Land Raider, you will miss more than half the time.

If you're using the Demolisher for anti vehicle work, just take Medusas. Preferably Medusas with BBs. They're cheaper, easy to hide on chimera chassis, and easier to protect from melta with their 48" range.

The Executioner does amazingly against troops, and decently well against light vehicles.

sourclams wrote:
I disagree. The Demolisher's main target has always been Terminators. The AP2 is more valuable than the Str10. In a secondary capacity, it can perform anti-vehicle duties but unless you're shooting at a Land Raider, you will miss more than half the time.

If you're using the Demolisher for anti vehicle work, just take Medusas. Preferably Medusas with BBs. They're cheaper, easy to hide on chimera chassis, and easier to protect from melta with their 48" range.

The Executioner does amazingly against troops, and decently well against light vehicles.

We will have to disagree. My all mech steel legion has always included demolishers for busting monolith's and raider's, and insta-killing daemon princes (under 4th). Killing termies was the job of the plasma gun command squads AND the demolisher's. Now that's not to say a lot of this wasn't changed by 5th edition but saying it was always meant for termies is a bit of a fallacy I think. I know for all purpose use I would rather keep the demolisher the executioner will be better against termies, unless the termies are spaced out well enough. The demolisher will net you more kills vs nobs, monstrous creatures and vehicles. And what if someone get's into your lines you aren't going to be shooting the executioner at em, because of the chances for scatter, at least the demolisher has a couple of options for someone that gets too close.

I guess I dont like the sponsons because I plan to move my LR exec up the field or flank to basically either intimidate the other guy or to roll onto an enemy-close objectives.. but 5 templates from one vehicle is nice. I guess its also because I play a couple gunliney/castling players so I generally want the maxiumum effective ranges from my vehicles.. but anyway, I digress;

Executioner

Eradictaor

Medusa.

(Not including troops, hqs & elites or fast attacks to provide more of the same)

Covers everything & covers it properly. The only true anti-nob biker weapon would be the manticore (semi-viable to just awesome depending on build) to the deathstrike which just isnt really. Jetbikers will get a 4+ invunerable re-rollable reguardless with a possible 3+ cover rerollable but between the all the above str 6+ pie, atleast one 'hit' will get allocated to the Farseer so theres a chance for awesome instant death!

Warmaster wrote: I know for all purpose use I would rather keep the demolisher the executioner will be better against termies, unless the termies are spaced out well enough.

This is the fundamental fallacy that I have issues with. If the targets are spaced out, BOTH blasts do more poorly. Depending on large or small bases, the Demo goes from hitting 6-10 to hitting 3-4 and the Executioner goes from hitting 9-15 to hitting 3-6 (with 3 shots).

The demolisher will net you more kills vs nobs, monstrous creatures and vehicles. And what if someone get's into your lines you aren't going to be shooting the executioner at em, because of the chances for scatter, at least the demolisher has a couple of options for someone that gets too close.

Yes, the Demolisher will kill more Nobz via instant death. I've admitted as much before. HOWEVER, it does worse against single monstrous creatues (1 hit versus 3), and still isn't good versus vehicles. In 4th ed, the Demolisher wasn't great at Monolith/Land Raider hunting, but it was really all you had at 24" other than massed lascannons. In 5th, there are other, better options (Medusa w/BBs) so you no longer have to rely on the Demolisher as your sole AV14 killer.

Likewise your comment about "if someone gets into your lines...aren't going to shoot the executioner...because of scatter" makes 0 sense to me. If you have baddies in your line, killing your guys, you'd rather shoot the S10 gun that could scatter onto your other tanks/artillery --killing 0 bad guys and quite possibly neutralizing one of your own tanks-- instead of the 3 S7 blasts that will statistically kill more bad guys and do less damage to your vehicles?

The deciding point i see is that the demolisher can be more versatile as it can also take on vehicles very effectively while the executioner is going to have trouble with even light armor sometimes.

I would take 1 executioner and 2 demos just to have both strengths.

They are arguably the two best tanks in the codex at the moment.

Taking a lone executioner w/ Pask at the helm (increasing the amount of hits with all those cupcake plates), two naked Demolishers, and then Bassilisks or something is possibly the best combo I see.

Listen, here's the thing - building armies is resource management: you pay points for being able to do a certain job. Take Space Marines, who are relatively expensive and thus relatively few in number - you'd better hope you can perform multiple tasks with them: killing tanks AND killing infantry (i.e. 10-man squad with Flamer and Multi-Melta). But IG are cheap enough that you can afford to specialize them. One unit for killing tanks, one unit for killing light infantry, one unit for killing heavy infantry. While I agree that you should have versatility in your army, in a Guard army, it should be separate units that reinforce each other providing versatility. If you're spending points because something is versatile or you're buying upgrades to make something versatile, IMO you're wasting points. Using Demolishers to kill tanks is, again IMO, a waste of points when melta squads can do it more reliably for cheaper. And while I hear the argument about Monoliths, you shouldn't be trying to kill the Monoliths anyway, you should be killing troops to force a Phase Out.

If you want to kill tanks, use a melta squad.
If you want to kill light vehicles, use something with ACs (Hydras, AC HWS - I don't care - that's another argument I won't get into here.)
If you want to kill infantry, use a tank (again, which one you choose is up to you and your metagame.)

As to whether the Demolisher or the Executioner is better, I'll refer to the old adage of "Everything counts in large amounts." A Demolisher's pie plate is good, but you've only got 1 shot with it. An Executioner's multiple shots is better as, well, there's more chances for you to hit. And with the IG BS of 3 (even when it comes to Blast weapons) you still want more shots rather than less.

Death By Monkeys wrote:
As to whether the Demolisher or the Executioner is better, I'll refer to the old adage of "Everything counts in large amounts." A Demolisher's pie plate is good, but you've only got 1 shot with it. An Executioner's multiple shots is better as, well, there's more chances for you to hit. And with the IG BS of 3 (even when it comes to Blast weapons) you still want more shots rather than less.

This I agree with 100%. There are now three times the Leman Russ variants that there used to be. You don't need to take the versatile ones that can be average against every target; take the ones that knock the crap out of specific targets.

Death By Monkeys wrote:
If you want to kill tanks, use a melta squad.

Or 30guardsmen with 3 lascannons & 3 grenade launchers. Blob squad.

Support with a CCS (or PCS) In a chimera with thier own heavy weapons & special weapons.. so beside giving out orders, a seperate effective (albeit only anti-troop) firebase.

This unit can now take on most unit types. Costs 230pts. An additional 120-200 (the latter equates to character upgrades) to suppliement.

Razerous wrote:

Death By Monkeys wrote:
If you want to kill tanks, use a melta squad.

Or 30guardsmen with 3 lascannons & 3 grenade launchers. Blob squad.

Support with a CCS (or PCS) In a chimera with thier own heavy weapons & special weapons.. so beside giving out orders, a seperate effective (albeit only anti-troop) firebase.

This unit can now take on most unit types. Costs 230pts. An additional 120-200 (the latter equates to character upgrades) to suppliement.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but lascannons don't kill tanks reliably. Especially not only 3 of them. Now, a CCS or PCS with 4x Melta? That's tank-killing goodness!

sourclams wrote:
This is the fundamental fallacy that I have issues with. If the targets are spaced out, BOTH blasts do more poorly. Depending on large or small bases, the Demo goes from hitting 6-10 to hitting 3-4 and the Executioner goes from hitting 9-15 to hitting 3-6 (with 3 shots).

Exactly my point so against a spaced out opponent the demolisher and the executioner hit the same number of targets.

sourclams wrote:
Yes, the Demolisher will kill more Nobz via instant death. I've admitted as much before. HOWEVER, it does worse against single monstrous creatues (1 hit versus 3), and still isn't good versus vehicles. In 4th ed, the Demolisher wasn't great at Monolith/Land Raider hunting, but it was really all you had at 24" other than massed lascannons. In 5th, there are other, better options (Medusa w/BBs) so you no longer have to rely on the Demolisher as your sole AV14 killer.

I disagree that it's worse against a single monstrous creature. And remember I'm talking fully kitted out. A demolisher with a lascannon, demolisher cannon, and 2 multi-meltas is better against a monstrous creature than 5 plasma cannon shot's. Especially against a t7 or t8 monstrous creature.

sourclams wrote:
Likewise your comment about "if someone gets into your lines...aren't going to shoot the executioner...because of scatter" makes 0 sense to me. If you have baddies in your line, killing your guys, you'd rather shoot the S10 gun that could scatter onto your other tanks/artillery --killing 0 bad guys and quite possibly neutralizing one of your own tanks-- instead of the 3 S7 blasts that will statistically kill more bad guys and do less damage to your vehicles?

Actually I was getting at the fact that I can shoot all of my sponson and hull weapons and net zero effects on my vehicles or anything around it, not the demolisher cannon.

A t7-8 MC will outrange a demo LR any day if it wants to.

The two I can think of are a tooled up fex & a wraithlord. Both of which can equip longer ranged weapons than the demolisher. With also that crazy sponson firepower your russ isnt moving. Lumbering bee (somthing.) is a good rule..why dont people seem to want to equip for it.

Liquidewulfe - Marine squads usually are either combat squads of 5 or tactical squads of 10 if you could please do math hammer for those sizes that would be greatly appreciated.

Nenya97 - Pask does not seem to be worth the points. +1 BS for a scattering template is not that good.

Ravenous - It is true that 2+ save high toughness mcs have better range but plasma cannons tend to scatter off them as well so its best to shoot them with with Vendettas although the Demolisher is not to bad against the Tyrant with Guard if you can get in range.

Current list has 2 Demolishers and 1 Executioner with Plasma Cannon Sponsons and in games so far against Chaos Marines, and Tyranids the Executioner performed better although Demolishers were decent against marines and I destroyed one of the land Raiders early with a Demolisher and killed many termies between the Demolishers and Executioner.

Might be dropping Demolishers, they don't perform nearly as well without the Armored Company Ace Gunner perk. Their ability to instakill nob bikers and the warboss as well as obliterators is really nice but getting some bad scatters in latest games.

The Executioner seems to draw a lot of fire if your opponents know what it is capable of and it can die fairly quick which maybe a good reason to run 2 of them or have the ablative basic Russ but I haven't liked the Ablative Russ much when I tried it with Demolishers in my first test list.