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What is the point of the Punisher

Lets Compare:

Standard Russ

150 points
S8 AP3 Large Blast, Ordnance, 72"

Punisher Russ

160 Points?
S5 AP- Heavy 20, 24"

_____________________________

The standard russ will out kill it against anything
You can cram about 10 models under that large blast
wounding on 2+ no saves (usually)

Wheras

Heavy 20, hits 10 on average, wounding on 3s (probably)
Armour saves for all
thats what, 6 dead orks or 2 dead Marines

Standard russ is way better!

I hear that it works well against single big targets like MCs. By that logic it would also perform well against Terminators but then again so would the Executioner.

Against someone who groups up units when he knows hes facing a russ, yeah, blast away. If he spreads them out, now you get 2-4 under the blast and still have scatter.

I play-tested a pair of punishers in a game recently against CSM. Round one they killed 9 out of 10 marines, and drew the fire from every unit that could range on them. Which was that much less fire aimed at my troops. And when they were immobilized/weap destroyed/wrecked over the next two turns, that was still more fire not being aimed at my troops. Which were FRF/SRF every turn.

Having up to 31 shots from one russ can work pretty good, sometimes.

Razgryz wrote:Against someone who groups up units when he knows hes facing a russ, yeah, blast away. If he spreads them out, now you get 2-4 under the blast and still have scatter.

I play-tested a pair of punishers in a game recently against CSM. Round one they killed 9 out of 10 marines, and drew the fire from every unit that could range on them. Which was that much less fire aimed at my troops. And when they were immobilized/weap destroyed/wrecked over the next two turns, that was still more fire not being aimed at my troops. Which were FRF/SRF every turn.

Having up to 31 shots from one russ can work pretty good, sometimes.

Not to mention adding Heavy Bolters to the sponsons. Then, if you have two in a squadron, you're firing 52 Str. 5 Shots if you're still or 46 if you're not. It's a numbers game. Throw that at a unit and you're going to kill it, most likely. Punishers and Battle Tanks are two different animals. They're not meant to fill the same role.

It's useful to remember how a Punisher Cannon would combine with three Heavy Bolters under the casualty removal rules as compared to a Battle Cannon combined with three Heavy Bolters. When there's a difference in the armour piercing value, the lower AP hits can be dumped on single models.

If we take a unit of ten Tactical Space Marines the Battlecannon will cause ten potential his, whereas the Punisher will cause twenty. Likewise against a single Monstrous Creature or light vehicle, the Battlecannon should cause one hit, and the Punisher should cause ten hits.

Basically the flat rate of hits by the Punisher Cannon increases its utility against targets with low model:footprint ratio.

Consider using the Punisher on Terminators. It'll wound Terminators on 3+, compared to the Battlecannon's 2+, but both will get a Sv2+, and if there's five in the squad then the Punisher can cause potentially 4x the number of hits.

The Paskisher is win vs Nids in particular. Rerolling wounds, I killed a T6 W6 TMC every turn for 3 turns and laid waste to a whole mess of warriors too. Outside of that the Punisher is meh. I've had it destroy MEQs like crazy, and also had it kill a total of two Wolves in a whole game.

Lets run with that 2 dead marines number. Standard russ (or demolisher) shoots at marines, hits (assuming) say 3 in cover because they are spread out, and when there's battle cannons floating about you've got to assume either 'target in cover' or 'really dumb opponent'. Wounds all 3, then 2 make their cover saves. 1 dead marine. (well just under 1.5)

Against a punisher there is nothing you can reasonably do to reduce the number of casualties you're going to take. It's great for hosing squads in cover and does well vs termies (I've routinely run 6 punishers in 1750). Also, it does terrible terrible things to light elite infantry (eldar/de/tau) or horde armies (nids, orks) and also MCs (nids or daemonzillas). It's not great vs marines, but it fares out ok.

Think about 3 punishers vs a greater daemon - 60 shots, 30 hits, 10 wounds, 5 failed saves, pop. The same 3 demolishers would cause maybe 2 hits (one fail scatter), probably 2 wounds and thus 1 failed inv save.

LRP = Win. Just not the same win as imperial guard tankers are used to.

A big problem is that 24 inch range. The BC can shell from 72' (IE the board edge). Get within 24, and you are melta bait. Not to mention other vehicles are a huge threat since about the biggest thing you can threaten is a speeder (or *maybe* get a lucky glance on AV 11).

Shooting a crapload of BS 3 Ap - shots won't change that. And you get to pay +10 pts. No thanks. Chimeras are fine vehicles for adding quantity of fire.

Seems to have it's uses but pretty situational, like jmurph said the 24" range is a major downer, adding a hull mounted Lascannon and a HK missile might help mitigate its weakness against other tanks though.

jmurph wrote:A big problem is that 24 inch range. The BC can shell from 72' (IE the board edge). Get within 24, and you are melta bait. Not to mention other vehicles are a huge threat since about the biggest thing you can threaten is a speeder (or *maybe* get a lucky glance on AV 11).

Shooting a crapload of BS 3 Ap - shots won't change that. And you get to pay +10 pts. No thanks. Chimeras are fine vehicles for adding quantity of fire.

Have to say I agree with this, 3 ML/HB/H. Stubber Chims = 9 S6 AP6 shots, 9 S5 AP4 shots, and 9 S4 AP6 shots for 15 points more than the Punisher with HB sponsons.

3 Chimeras armed as above as compared to LR Punisher

Pros: 3 targets instead of one. A weapon destroyed on a chimera only drops your ROF by 3 shots compared to a weapon destroyed on the Punisher where you can kiss 20 shots goodbye. 1/3 of your shots are made at S6 which means blowing up rhinos from the front, and blowing up most SM tanks from the side becomes viable. Way easier to get side shots on tanks with three units shooting at them! It's a transport! Doesn't take up any FOC slots, which means even more tanks! 36" range on every gun in this load out!

Cons: You put 3 KPs on the board instead of 1. Front armor 12 is much easier to pop than 14 (not to mention side armor 10 versus the LR's 13...). LR Punisher's rear armor is impervious to bolter fire. If Chimeras are unloading with all of their weapons they're not moving their troops towards objectives or their melta vets towards the enemy's armor. Doesn't have that same "oh s&^%" factor as one tank rolling 20 dice (or 29 if AP isn't an issue) in one go.

I'd say there are reasons to take either option, but I personally would be hard pressed to take a punisher over 3 chimeras.

Also of note 3 Chimeras do not have the same Torrent of Fire potential as the Punisher. All those dice can forse saves on some of the models that the 3 chimeras wont produce enough wounds to get to such as sergeants, special weapons, ect. I still don't think its a great tank, but a bucket of dice is one of its pros.

Cheers,
~Volkan

MinionOfDaCube wrote:What is the point of the Punisher

Fun. Rolling dice. And versus a small (too small, hence the = fail = true) bracket of stuff, its consistent too.

Volkan wrote:Also of note 3 Chimeras do not have the same Torrent of Fire potential as the Punisher. All those dice can forse saves on some of the models that the 3 chimeras wont produce enough wounds to get to such as sergeants, special weapons, ect. I still don't think its a great tank, but a bucket of dice is one of its pros.

Cheers,
~Volkan

You can never have enough dakka but the punisher will bring your pretty damn close!

A freind of mine looking at making an Armored Fist and is planing on 2 LR squadrens with 1 Punusher and 2 others for each one and at least one will have pask and one that is 2 Punishers and sonthing else.
I do not like the thought of facing 100+ shot a turn at me

I see your points, the punisher could be useful against MCs or Spread out units, but then you could just field Lascannon teams vs MCs or against the spread out infantry deploy Commander Chenkov and a legion of his respawning conscripts

I had written off the punisher when I first saw it, but this thread has got me thinking at least about playtesting it. In most armies I'll take range over almost anything, and I don't consider 24" to be adequate for a vehicle that isn't fast. But I'm also attracted to the fact that it's immune to HtH attacks of str4 or less, but is still cheaper than demolishers or executioners, so it has the chutzpa to be able to close to the range where it wants to be--except against melta.

Torrent is huge, especially for a squadron of 2. That makes it qualitatively different from the same quantity of fire from chimeras.

I don't know, I think I might prefer a squadron of hydras over the punisher. 12 Str7 AP4 Twin linked and 9 HB shots at a much longer range for about the same price as 1 Punisher. Much more utility, resiliance and range. Granted, if I really had points to dump into HS 3 Punisher squads wouldn't be too bad, but I can't help but think that the guard is not really hurting for anti-infantry, what with 3 HB heavy weapons teams being so cheap and easy to keep alive etc.

I just can't help but see the tank move to 24", fire a load of lead at a rhino of girls, fail to immobilize or stun due to -3 on the table, girls zoom up 12. Punisher moves away, fires, does nothing again. Rhino zooms 12, girls pop out and put 2 6" melta shots into it. Blarg.
Alternately a chimera or two do the same trick with Vets, only Str5 does nothing to AV12.

I don't know, I just think that the punisher solves the wrong problem for guard. Now, if it had AP4 or Rending or Pinning it would be another story.

MinionOfDaCube wrote:I see your points, the punisher could be useful against MCs or Spread out units, but then you could just field Lascannon teams vs MCs or against the spread out infantry deploy Commander Chenkov and a legion of his respawning conscripts

Feth no, conscripts are horrible.

With regards to the Punisher, I wonder how it'll fare against the surge in MEHREENS that Codex: Team Edward will inevitably bring. I'm thinking it'll be good at dealing with Meffy McI'mASpitInTheFaceToKhornatePlayers, but that it'll suck and die against anything else. Not that Blangels are good at dealing with armour; most talk I've heard revolves around melta pistol spam.

Quick math quiz: what is half of 6"?

Remember also that the punisher doesn't suffer reduced effectiveness if your target is in cover or spread out. A combat squad in cover is going to only get 3 or 4 so models hit by the battle cannon, meaning that you will only get 3 or so instead of the 8 that you would get if your target is in packed blob formation.

ph34r wrote:Remember also that the punisher doesn't suffer reduced effectiveness if your target is in cover or spread out. A combat squad in cover is going to only get 3 or 4 so models hit by the battle cannon, meaning that you will only get 3 or so instead of the 8 that you would get if your target is in packed blob formation.

Good point! Nothing worse than having your Battle Cannon end up "sniping" two guys because of spacing.

Yes, but it also doesn't force your opponent MEQ player to spread out or hug cover. If he gets that armor save regardless of where his models are or what they are doing, he can bunch up or stand wherever he pleases.

Restricting your opponent's options is useful too.

The other benefit that 3 chimera have is that they can be in 3 places. The Punisher and even Hydras can't. Your opponent has side and rear armor facings pointing somewhere, and it's harder to melta targets two feet apart.

The Punisher is an interesting tank. It definitely has its uses, but as already pointed out, in the current Mech environment anti infantry isn't really what we need, especially out of our heavy slots.

One of the great things about this codex is that you can get what your army needs from its fast and heavy selections. You have things like Hellhounds, Eradicators and Punishers to deal with anti horde, you have bane wolves and battle tanks and colossus artillery for anti MeQ and hydras and vendettas for anti transports. Vendettas along with demolishers handle TEq and finally vendettas, devildogs and Vanquishers for anti AV 14.

The balance inside the codex is amazing strong, Elite selections aside, that make playing IG so much fun, and so good, in the current state of 5th ed.

In the end, the usefulness of the Punisher, or any single selection out of your Fast or Heavy choices, is what the rest of your army looks like.

punishers are 180pts

Can be good with pask

Showerbuddy wrote:punishers are 180pts

Can be good with pask

Punishers and reviving a 2 year old thread both suck, huge. Even with pask.

The Punisher has its own uses. MC and foot slogging armies. After that, nothing. On the good side, if you field one, and you are playing against a heavy meq army, it will be ignored.

However, I actually once got it positioned to where it took out two rhinos in one game. That never happens again.

Thread is being locked due to thread necromancy.