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I think almost everyone is at least somewhat familiar with the annoying "Glory Hogs" rule of Tankbustas, but in the mech heavy enviornment of today... is it really a problem?

The second obstacle standing in the way of their use is the fact that they steal a loota slot from you, and really I'm not sure I can see much arguing here; lootas would almost certainly appear to be the stronger unit overall on paper, and they probably are. However, could tankbustas be better in a pure mech list?

I'll start with the small suicide squad option:

Tankbustas occupy the same slot as another Phil Kelly AT-unit - the Fire Dragons, and come at a very similiar price (15 for 'Bustas, 16 for Dragons) - could you perhaps use them in a similiar fashion?
What I had in mind was something like this:

Three units of: 5x Tankbustas /w 3x Bomb Squigs (maybe tankhammers? not sure they'll survive getting into CC)

3x BWs in heavy support, 5x squads of Trukk Boyz in Troops. Have Tank Bustas steal 3 Trukks and relocate the Boyz to the Wagons. Alternatively, keeping the TBustas in the Wagon's might be an option as well and just having them plinking away until an opportunity to release Squigs presents itself. Would make them a bit less of a suicide unit but also makes it harder to get them into position.
Of course, you could put them in looted wagons and save the hassle of switching units around but the unreliability of the Looted Wagon and fragility of the Bustas makes me question this option.

Problems that I can see:
- Can't shoot if moved further than 6".
- Will likely be brought outside KFF range if it moves full speed towards its intended target... AV10, open topped makes it fairly likely that their vehicle goes *poof*. If you keep them close to the rest of your army until you can get within range and shoot in the same turn, 1s for the squigs might hurt.
- If bomb squigs are released from inside a vehicle and a 1 is rolled.... will the squig hit the vehicle from which it was released as that's the "closest friendly vehicle", technically? This would really make me want to never take bomb squigs in anything but a trukk mounted Busta squad... What facing would it hit on anyway - rear?
- No lootas, nobz or burnas. Definitely hurts the options available.
- 6+ save and trashy LD means they run if they get shot up :(

What you get is a 125 pt (assuming absolute bare-bones trukk) suicide unit capable of unleashing 3 str8 auto-hits (18" range) with no cover save possible, as well as 5 str8 rokkits (24" range), and they actually have a chance at taking down a LR with their 6+2D6 tankbusta bombs (of course, they suffer from the same problem as PKs - 6s to hit vehicles that moved 12"). The Squigs don't even have to target the same thing as the Bustas, which is a nice bonus, opening up the possiblity of a double kill

Thoughts?

Your measurements are slightly off. Tankbustas could fire if their battlewagon moved 7" with red paint. If you really don't mind them dying, you can even move 13" with them before disembarking and firing. That would give you one turn where your threat radius is 39" for the Rokkits and 33" for the Bomb squigs.

Another reason to dust them off is the new codex of the month is Tyranid. Without Eternal Warrior, many of mid-level bugs would be very unhappy to be shot by this squad. Since the nids don't have any vehicles, you are free from Glory Hounds.

They are an interesting unit, and they may be exceptionally useful for a time.

Ah you are right, I somehow forgot that you can shoot after disembarking That does make what I was thinking of quite a bit better...

Hm, what do you think about the definition of "closest vehicle" - if you roll a 1, would that be the vehicle you are embarked upon?

To clarify what I mean:
A Tankbusta squad is onboard a Battlewagon and decide to release their bomb squigs, but a 1 is rolled.... Does the BW now take 3 S8 hits as it's the "nearest friendly vehicle"?
If so, to what facing are the hits taken? I know Weirdboyz that 'eadbang inside a transport have the hit taken on the vehicles rear armor but not sure if this ruling would apply here.

If it says "Nearest Vehicle" The it more then likely also means the transport you are in. Some Gaming stores rule it that way, so it all depends on who you play with.

For the bomb squig's rolling-a-1 issue, they FAQ'd this to hit rear armor of the transport you are in.

I roll Tankbustas instead of Lootas in my Goff Horde. They are great units, adding to the mass of models heading down the board. The issues you are having is assuming you need a transport for them. In a Mech list, you don't need shooting anti-tank: you have boarding planks and fast PKs. In a shooting list, you don't need to worry about protecting the stationary Lootas because your whole army is sitting there with them. Tankbustas are the anti-tank for horde armies: they are mobile and handy in close combat.

Just like Lootas though, they need to be run in maxed squads to help against Ld issues. They don't have nearly as large of a problem though, thanks to their Nob with Bosspole.

Bombsquigs are a glorious invention. I can't count how many times I've gotten those great double-kills. The greatest force multiplier a unit can get. Always take 3.

I can't wait to see how well these guys will do against the bugs. Bomb squigs don't work, but then you have free reign to shoot at whatever you want. Entire squads of Warriors, Raveners, Shrikes, Zoanthropes and what-not are going to down in a single barrage, not to mention the monsterous creatures.

Not that this was mentioned, but personally I don't like Tankhammers. If an enemy needs his tanks to survive, he is going to shoot at the Tankbustas, so you'll want to get more attacks out in shooting before the unit gets killed off. If he cares more about the other 120 models coming at him, you'll still want to be shooting because squizing a 15 man unit into CC with them is difficult. On top of all of that, Tankhammers have the same issue anything does with taking out a Vehicle in CC: the squad inside then blows you up for it.

Considering that all Tankbustas have tankbusta bombs, like krak grenades with 2D6 penetration, Tankhammas are moreso stuff for use on walkers rather than regular anti-armour.

Anything that comes close enough to assault them will have to walk through those three bomb-squigs first.

I find things don't get into close combat with them, especially given the mass of models surrounding them.

Sure, but given that they're a dedicated anti-tank unit, they do better hunting down enemy walkers and preventing them from locking down mobs of Ork boys for disposal by enemy counter-assault units.

Interesting that you consider them a Footslogging unit. It makes some sense tho, no need to worry about the bomb squigs killing your own stuff. Unfortunately that make them very unattractive for me as someone who prefers mech Ah well.

My question for fielding Tankbustas is, is going after Armor 14 targets even an option for Orks?

At str 8 and BS 2, you need to fire ALOT of Rokkits to threaten a big target, and the best you can hope for is a glancing hit. 5 or 6 to hit, followed by 6's for a glancing, then 3 or higher to do any damage. Sounds like 15 Tankbusta's could shoot at Armor 14 all day and get no were.

Thats just my assumption from NO game experience (I've only played 4 games now).

MegaDombro wrote:My question for fielding Tankbustas is, is going after Armor 14 targets even an option for Orks?

At str 8 and BS 2, you need to fire ALOT of Rokkits to threaten a big target, and the best you can hope for is a glancing hit. 5 or 6 to hit, followed by 6's for a glancing, then 3 or higher to do any damage. Sounds like 15 Tankbusta's could shoot at Armor 14 all day and get no were.

Thats just my assumption from NO game experience (I've only played 4 games now).

Nope. Power Klaws are still your best option, however poor even that may be.

I think that the OP is right that bustas just created a role for themselves. They technically already had one in the modern mechanized-army-only world, but it has been reinforced by the blossoming force of new codex hounds. Even a relatively hordish list will still include a number of high end 4 to 6 wound MCs with 3+ save and 6 toughness. Boyz have problems with them, and klaws need to be put together with other klaws to make those things go down fast.

A fast and easy alternative is bustas. With 15 of the suckers rolling around in a wagon, you are safely putting 5 wounds per turn on monstrous creatures. To put that in perspective, that's a swarmlord and guards dead in 2 turns. A tervigon has slightly better than a 50% chance of living through 1 round of shots. Make it two rounds, and statistically, he's toast + 4. A hive tyrant or carnifex goes down with 1 round of shooting.

At that rate, they should handily accomplish paying off their points by turn 3, and there's no downside to taking a few tankhammers to make it an all-comers list since you are really only looking for 12 rokkits to make the group completely effective.

With those numbers, the bustas can quickly and easily pay for themselves. They haven't been truly bad in a mech world, but they outright own tyranids.

In 2,000+ games, my take-all-comers mechanized list has a squad of tank-bustas in a battlewagon.

Tankbustas are fine and the Glory Hogs rarely ties your hands too much. You want them killing vehicles generally and against non-vehicle armies, you have total control. The biggest problem is that they are elites (when they should be heavy support, perhaps) when orks are LOADED with good elite choices, and I wish they had the "Tankhunter" skill, which I believe they had last edition. But I find them entertaining, like all things ork.

Dashofpepper wrote:In 2,000+ games, my take-all-comers mechanized list has a squad of tank-bustas in a battlewagon.

My Bustas bust tanks and doesn't afraid of anything, but I'm curious to know how Mech Bustas perform with a competent player. Can you elaborate?

LeperMessiah wrote:Tankbustas are fine and the Glory Hogs rarely ties your hands too much. You want them killing vehicles generally and against non-vehicle armies, you have total control. The biggest problem is that they are elites (when they should be heavy support, perhaps) when orks are LOADED with good elite choices, and I wish they had the "Tankhunter" skill, which I believe they had last edition. But I find them entertaining, like all things ork.

The problem is the FoC is sooo damn overloaded for Orks. You make Tankbustas elite and they get out-competed by Nobz and Lootas. You make them Heavy Support and sure, you can take them... but now you can't have Battlewagons. They need a dedicated transport, and maybe they could be a 0-2 or something Troop choice?

number9dream wrote:

LeperMessiah wrote:Tankbustas are fine and the Glory Hogs rarely ties your hands too much. You want them killing vehicles generally and against non-vehicle armies, you have total control. The biggest problem is that they are elites (when they should be heavy support, perhaps) when orks are LOADED with good elite choices, and I wish they had the "Tankhunter" skill, which I believe they had last edition. But I find them entertaining, like all things ork.

The problem is the FoC is sooo damn overloaded for Orks. You make Tankbustas elite and they get out-competed by Nobz and Lootas. You make them Heavy Support and sure, you can take them... but now you can't have Battlewagons. They need a dedicated transport, and maybe they could be a 0-2 or something Troop choice?

At 1500, and even my projections into the 2000 point game I am not running into restrictions by the FoC. Anyway, Tankbustas aren't meant to compete with Lootas, they are meant to replace them for any army that can't or won't baby-sit Lootas.

Tankbustas with their Assault weapons work better when the ork player's force is mechanized. Their competition, Lootas, are great, but also very static. If you want a moving firebase, grab tankbustas. I ran them in one game, and they killed more tanks than my lootas ever have.

On the other hand, I can think of times when glory hogs screwed me over, I got blown out of my transport, and got shot up by guardians, but my tankbustas mostly lived, I thought "Good I'll just shoot the guardians and charge them." then I remembered the Glory Hogs rule, I have to shoot....I think maybe if I shot their transport and blow it up maybe I can kill some of the guardians, but nope, I only wrecked it...so the Glory Hogs rule can bite you, but my tankbustas had been blasted out of their transport. If they aren't in their tank, they will probably die.

DarkHound wrote:Anyway, Tankbustas aren't meant to compete with Lootas, they are meant to replace them for any army that can't or won't baby-sit Lootas.

This seems to be a popular view on this forum, but you know how many times my lootas needed babysitting out of the last 40 games I played? Once, against a SW drop pod list when I was very new to Orks. Since then they've been killed off at long range or by deepstrikers, but it would have had to be some crazy massive screen to protect from the warp spiders that got them one game (and were then promptly killed by a shoota mob) and they still earned back their points by knocking out a wave serpent and disabling a falcon in the first 2 rounds of the game. Tankbustas could have only begun doing their job on turn 2, and could have been wiped out by the same thing plus many others.

I also worry about using tankbustas when the only vehicle my opponent has are long ranged support, like an IG army with a few russes for backup. However, as points increase, the likelihood of that decreases. In very large games or in mechanized lists tankbustas definitely have their place, but with their cost, fragility, and needing to get close, mechanized is the way to run them IMO.

With nids being the flavor of the month, I'm sure anti-nid weaponry and units will see more use, such as tankbustas and sniper rifles.

As has already been said, tankbustas are for the roving firebase in a mek list thanks to the short range of the rokkits. They work in concert with my burna boyz, trying to open up the transports for the burnas to scorch the juicy insides.

No surprise to anyone, I play mechanized Orks - I do very well with them. Below 2k points, I'm fleshing out troop choices and min/maxing my squads, and there's not room to add tankbustas in there - between my nobs, boarding planks, rokkits on vehicles, grabbin' klaws, and occassionally deffrollas depending on the venue I'm in (not to mention a few deffkoptas) I've got assorted anti-tank in practically every unit in my army.

At 2k+, I have the opportunity to dedicate a unit to heavy-lifting without being a detriment elsewhere in my army. In terms of slot competition we have tankbustas, kommandos, nobs, burnas or Lootas to choose from.

Kommandos: You can only have one Snikrot per army, and he's what makes kommandos shine - meaning that I'll never have more than one unit of kommandos.

Nobs: A mechanized list has serious issues if it doesn't have Ghazghkull or a warboss, and those nobs turn into a troops choice, alleviating the need for an elite slot.

Lootas: The entire purpose of a mechanized army is to deny anti-infantry and template weapons a target until YOU decide to disembark and wreak havoc. Lootas don't fit the ethos of a mechanized list, and detract from the crushing force you can leverage with your mobile wrecking ball. There are obviously people who feel differently....*shrugs* I'd say they're wrong.

Burna-Boyz: These are so completely awesome that I feel any mechanized list 1500+ needs a unit of these. Two units might be better than one unit, but in terms of cost (both $ and points) I've never tried it.

That means in a mechanized list, I have at most two elite slots taken up: Kommandos and burna boys. Nobs are a troops choice, leaving me an elite slot for Lootas or tank-bustas. I believe that if you're going to take Lootas...you take 45 of them and make them the centerpiece of your army, and they don't fit a mechanized style, so there's a free slot left open for anything you like. Enter the Tank-bustas.

I used these at 'Ard Boyz 2009 to great success. I had three battlewagons; one had Ghazghkull+18 boys. One had 15 burna boys. One had 15 tank-bustas+KFF Big mek. The KFF was in the central battlewagon, flanked by two more battlewagons, and the whole thing was in a fleet of trukks (4-5 more). Against tyranids, I tossed the tank-bustas against the elite carnifexes (the ones with a 3+, not the heavies with a 2+). Two things worth noting:

1. A tankhammer being smacked on a hull across a boarding plank is as effective as Ghazghkull doing the same. It is fantastic anti-tank.

2. Against mechanized lists, I dropped them out of their battlewagon in a line, and had them multi-assault tanks - as many as I could. That way, I minimize the damage done if I explode a tank (so all my boys aren't surrounding one) and can shake/stun/other multiple vehicles. With orks in particular, stunned is enough. Its a virtual guarantee of a next turn wreck/explode when you're auto-hitting rear armor with a powerklaw.

That's really all I have to input here. I had great fun making them....mine are all custom-built.

-Take a killa kan rokkit, cut it in half, and glue the rokkits to the end of a shoota or a slugga to make a rokkit pistol or a rokkit launcha.
-Get a box of fantasy orks (you need the legs and torsos anyway) and use all the maces - cut off the ends and glue them to pistols/shootas. Add in a tank-mine here and there (they come on pretty much every boy sprue).
-Take the rokkit launchas that come ork boyz....cut it down to just the rokkit launcha itself (no wires, arms, etc...file it down) and glue it to a spear or pole....voila tank hammer!

Tank busta's can't compare really to fire dragons, IMO niether really is anti tank, i take both after eliete infantry and hope for instant death.

Fire dragons? We're talking about orks here....

Actually, in the OP I made a reference to Fire Dragons. Fire dragons are most definitely anti-tank tho, probably the best anti-tank in the entire game...?

How do you multi assault multiple vehicles with one unit?

the_ferrett wrote:How do you multi assault multiple vehicles with one unit?

When you declare an assault, you move your closest model into base contact with the closest enemy model in the unit you're assaulting. The rest of your unit now has 6" (or the highest of 2D6 for difficult terrain) to assault, with the only requirements being this:

1. They must maintain coherency.
2. Every model that can get into base contact must do so.

You can assault anything you want after you move your closest model, as long as you keep those two rules followed. Thus...multi-assaulting.

I too am a convert to the Kult o'Tankbustas. I'm trying out a unit of 10, with 3 bomb squigs and a pair of tank hammers. For my money, the Tank Hammers are the proper choice. You only likely get one volley, and 2 of your guys are going to be releasing bomb squigs, might as well not lose out on Rokkit shots. It also helps with krumping walkers and land raiders if you make it to em.

My guys steal a trukk boy squads trukk. Gets er done.