Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Che-Vito wrote:

Shep wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:... for 170 points. for less than a hammerhead with railgun. Don't let the ballistic skill fool you, its just as consistent as higher BS lower strength guns, you just discover that you have failed to pen one roll sooner.

Not true.
Hammerhead - 90 point
Railgun- 50 points
Twin Burst Cannon Drones - 10 points
Total: 150 points

Throw in this combo:
Hammerhead - 90 points
Railgun- 50 points
Twin Burst Cannon Drones - 10 points
Disruption Pod - 10 points
Flechette Launcher - 10 points

Now you have a 14/13/10 tank that has a main weapon that is either ST 10 AP 1, or ST6 AP4 Large Template at 72", as well as 6 ST5 AP5 shots at 18"
This vehicle receives a 4+ cover save anywhere, if the enemy is 12" away, and wounds on a 4+ in close combat. 170 points.

The format of this post is somewhat confusing, but i think you are trying to say that a hammerhead is cheaper than a vanquisher.

Well, lets build it like veryone actually builds it...

Hammerhead 90 Railgun 50 Smart missile system 20 multi-tracker 10 disruption pod 5.... 175

Shep wrote:

Che-Vito wrote:

Shep wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:... for 170 points. for less than a hammerhead with railgun. Don't let the ballistic skill fool you, its just as consistent as higher BS lower strength guns, you just discover that you have failed to pen one roll sooner.

Not true.
Hammerhead - 90 point
Railgun- 50 points
Twin Burst Cannon Drones - 10 points
Total: 150 points

Throw in this combo:
Hammerhead - 90 points
Railgun- 50 points
Twin Burst Cannon Drones - 10 points
Disruption Pod - 10 points
Flechette Launcher - 10 points

Now you have a 14/13/10 tank that has a main weapon that is either ST 10 AP 1, or ST6 AP4 Large Template at 72", as well as 6 ST5 AP5 shots at 18"
This vehicle receives a 4+ cover save anywhere, if the enemy is 12" away, and wounds on a 4+ in close combat. 170 points.

The format of this post is somewhat confusing, but i think you are trying to say that a hammerhead is cheaper than a vanquisher.

Well, lets build it like veryone actually builds it...

Hammerhead 90 Railgun 50 Smart missile system 20 multi-tracker 10 disruption pod 5.... 175

Hmmmm, sorry if that was confusing, that is the way my mind works

The way that I have put it out there is the way that I typically play my Hammerheads.
-A Railgun speaks for itself

-the Burst Cannons allow more ST5 AP5 firepower for 10 points cheaper than SMS (Burst Cannons don't ignore cover, but I seldom find myself in situations where I am shooting at enemies in cover with it).

-Disruption Pod speaks for itself, and Flechette Launcher can be a nasty surprise for outflankers, or a good use of the vehicle if it's weapons get knocked out...and let's face it...Hammerheads soak up fire like you wouldn't believe.

To each his own though.

They aren't very popular for some reason, but instead of the vanquisher, consider a manticore.

Pretty reliable to hit vehicles...1/3 chance for initial hit, and if it drifts, 1/3 chance for 2nd blast to roll hit, which means odds are good you can place it back on the original target.

Strength 10 ord does well against any armor.

If fired indirectly, it can ignore intervening cover saves and hits side armor.

Against infantry, AP 4 isn't great, but the strength 10 threatens everything, and multiple large blasts are always dangerous. The threat of insta-killing can prove handy, too.

Just a thought.

eh, the Manticore isn't all its cracked up to be against armor. It is str10 yes, but it only rolls 1d6 for armor pen and isn't AP1 so it doesn't get a bonus to its damage roll. I'd rather have a Vanquisher at that point since its pretty much going to pen every time it hits. Same with the BBS Medusa (which I think is definitely a poor choice even though I currently have one in my list lol, I want to test it and see if I'm wrong).

The main issue I think we're trying to deal with is something that is AV14 all around, since we have fine options for tagging side armor and hitting flanks (Vendetta namely). What we (at least Shep and myself anyway) are struggling with is something like a Land Raider that is AV14 all around and can sit back and plug away at us out of melta range. If we try to go near it we walk into the marine melta umbrella and get, well... melted. Thus a longer range option that can consistantly destroy something like a Land Raider is what we're looking for, and penetrating 1/3 of the time (and then killing the tank on 1/3 of penetrating hits) against AV14 is not going to really be good enough IMO.

To be honest if the Manticore was AP3 I'd be in favor of giving one a shot because it can then at least really bring pain on MEQs. AP4 just doesn't seem to cut it unless it can at least deny cover saves.

As much as I feel like its a points sink I'm thinking Vanquisher(s) will probably wind up being being basically the best of a host of mediocre (at best) options. I'm going to test a BS3 Vanquisher and a Paskquisher in the next couple of weeks and see how things go with them.

Two shots at S10 > one shot plus a bs3 lascannon.
---------
Look, thats 750 points of paperweight plus a bunch of one target only melta castle plus on target only outflankers. It dies against anything "not mech".

If you ask me, that is like bringing 5 vanquisher to the table. Its far to specialized a list for take all comers environment unless there is a really clever list I haven't seen out there.
---------
Also, fundamentally shooting is crap solution against the so called shooty Landraider army. With the average of just under one kill per game a extra toy it is not going to stop them from shooting all that much and it weakens the list against everything else.

The solution against shooty landraiders is to play the mission, not shoot the overcosted pillbox. One can play it with the reverse logic against a hyper specialized army, instead of neutralizing all anti-tank, neutralize all anti-infantry and just walk your guardsman and melta them to death. Or only just kill all their scoring units and go-to-ground all your guardsman afterwards and see how effective lascannon/melta is against 3+ inv save guardsman.

If I am to counter a tri-godhammer-raider army, I'd take more guardsman.....

Caffran9 wrote:eh, the Manticore isn't all its cracked up to be against armor. It is str10 yes, but it only rolls 1d6 for armor pen and isn't AP1 so it doesn't get a bonus to its damage roll. I'd rather have a Vanquisher at that point since its pretty much going to pen every time it hits. Same with the BBS Medusa (which I think is definitely a poor choice even though I currently have one in my list lol, I want to test it and see if I'm wrong).

The manticore doesn't get a bonus d6 penetration, but it is ordnance, so it rolls two dice and picks the highest for pen. Not quite as good, but still significant. The medusa and vanquisher are next to worthless versus infantry, though, and that's a significant problem, while the manticore is good all around...sure the AP4 doesn't remove pie-plates of marines, but wounding on a 2+ means you'll still kill plenty.

Plus, against lighter armored hordes (especially chimeras), the blast is still moderately effective against side and rear armor. Strength 5 with two dice for penetration has a good shot at hurting the sides and rear of AV10 vehicles.

It's not the ideal solution, but I don't see guard having many for this particular problem (vendetta perhaps), and this seems pretty effective .

Somehow, I completely missed Ordance when I looked at it, literally thought that it was slowed that it wasn't ordnance, and then made my post.

It is in fact ordnance (I really have no idea how I thought it wasn't lol), which makes it much better. I'm going to test a Manticore in addition to the Medusa and Vanquisher now. I like its versatility in comparison to the Vanquisher and BBS Medusa a lot, so we will see how that goes.

Yeah the math is up there earlier in the thread...

The manticore pens just 6% less than the vanquisher cannon. It is certainly a comparable anti-land raider weapon at least offensively speaking.

I prop up the vanquisher more for its combination of heavy tank killing mixed with its own armor value. All of the rest of the options require babysitting. Its not too hard to babysit, and IG has so many armored threats that things like manticores and medusas can occasionally just get passed over. But I'd really like to have a 3rd russ in my chimera heavy lists.

Manticore has advantages in take on all comers, because when you bump into the random horde player, you've got an excellent thinner on hand. But over the course of 6 turns, the math has shown that it doesn't pen side armor 14 as well as a vanquisher given average missile rolls and accepting a "33% of scatters still keep hole over... and only hits can make hole over on subsequent missiles." assumption.

But we're just going to go back and forth now at this point. The math is here, and the vanquisher is pretty damn good at killing a heavy armored tank at long range, and pretty awful at killing light tanks and infantry. And it has that old fashioned russ survivability (which gives it a mission even against a tankless army, screen chimeras, and tank shock and block objectives). I'm just going to start running it, and see how I feel about it in the context of a real game situation.

If one really needs another AV14 model to block vision, maybe the 3x demolisher (2squaded) + 1 manticore army would work. (which adds up to just slightly more than your current 3russ set up) 3 demolisher shots should be comparable to 10 plasma cannons, and 5xS10 plates certainly kills mech and most other things even if not all of it have long range.

I just don't like the idea of having 10% of a army being a paperweight in some matchups....

SWPIGWANG wrote:

It has worked against single land raiders. How about 3 land raiders with multi-meltas? Something like that could just sit there and pick my transports and vendettas apart.

I'm not sure one could build a 3LR army while still having serious outflanking, a melta castle and enough other stuff to not instant-lose against the likes of deep strike army or hoard. Now if someone posts the lists then one can look carefully pick them apart.

Otherwise just throwing a unit that have one use against one unit in one army is a bit hasty imo.... (since there is better units for everything else)

I played against a 5 Land Raider DH army at the 1,850 pt level last Adepticon. I think the army is becoming more popular (sadly, IMHO because, win or lose, it is a boring game for anyone who doesn't have a list tailored to fight against it).

I was playing Tau and I had 2 Broadsides and 2 Hammerheads as my only weapons with the ability to punch AV14 (I had plenty of Rocket Pods and stuff to kill AV12, but that wasn't any help). I was only able to kill one Land Raider before he finished that stuff off (the Hammerheads actually lasted several turns but were pretty ineffectual).

I still managed to pull an overall draw, but the result still knocked me out of the running for anything (and then getting a dual-Nob biker army after that didn't help either).

You can gamble and hope you don't face an army like this, but it certainly is nice if you can have contingency plans in place to deal with it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Vanquisher gets 6 shots a game.

3 of those will miss.

Of that 3 that hit, 1.5 of those will be ignored by the cover that the tank you're firing at is in.

Is it worth it for 1.5 damaging hits a game?

I know you like to play on VERY terrain heavy tables but from my experiences unless you're playing against Tau you don't see vehicles getting cover saves all that often except from smoke launchers. . .or at least there is always one vehicle out in the open to shoot at.

yakface wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Vanquisher gets 6 shots a game.

3 of those will miss.

Of that 3 that hit, 1.5 of those will be ignored by the cover that the tank you're firing at is in.

Is it worth it for 1.5 damaging hits a game?

I know you like to play on VERY terrain heavy tables but from my experiences unless you're playing against Tau you don't see vehicles getting cover saves all that often except from smoke launchers. . .or at least there is always one vehicle out in the open to shoot at.

Im going to have to agree with yak here, ive run the Vanq in a few test games and most armies are becoming mech heavy...at least where i play. We use standard terrain rules that mirror tournies and there always seems to be at least one target to shoot at at any given time (other than smokes). And once they start moving out to claim objectives there are plenty too choose from.

I run the Pasquisher which i feel is a better overall way to run the Vanq than in standard kit.

What do you guys think of running BS3 Vanquishers with sponson plasma cannons and hull lascannons? The sponsons broaden its threat range, and the lascannon/turret gun are also not bad for capping heavy infantry and resilient stuff like Nob Bikes since they instakill and deny FNP. It winds up 10pts cheaper than a Paskquisher but with a much more flexible role on the table since it can shoot at more than just tanks and see decent effect. The issue comes with the Plasma Cannons doing nothing against heavy armor, at which piont they're wasted 40pts if the entire game is spent shooting at Land Raiders. Thoughts?

Caffran9 wrote:What do you guys think of running BS3 Vanquishers with sponson plasma cannons and hull lascannons? The sponsons broaden its threat range, and the lascannon/turret gun are also not bad for capping heavy infantry and resilient stuff like Nob Bikes since they instakill and deny FNP. It winds up 10pts cheaper than a Paskquisher but with a much more flexible role on the table since it can shoot at more than just tanks and see decent effect. The issue comes with the Plasma Cannons doing nothing against heavy armor, at which piont they're wasted 40pts if the entire game is spent shooting at Land Raiders. Thoughts?

i think it has its place. It will murder most transports and light vehicles and be a threat to heavy tanks and infantry. its something I might try out when i get around to my guard. What I was thinking of is just 2x standard vanq's with hull lascannons. I'm playing a renegade army and the idea of using vendetta's just seems unfluffy so I'm trying to find other options for long range tank duty.

Caffran9 wrote:What do you guys think of running BS3 Vanquishers with sponson plasma cannons and hull lascannons? The sponsons broaden its threat range, and the lascannon/turret gun are also not bad for capping heavy infantry and resilient stuff like Nob Bikes since they instakill and deny FNP. It winds up 10pts cheaper than a Paskquisher but with a much more flexible role on the table since it can shoot at more than just tanks and see decent effect. The issue comes with the Plasma Cannons doing nothing against heavy armor, at which piont they're wasted 40pts if the entire game is spent shooting at Land Raiders. Thoughts?

dual purpose Vanq ? well i have to be honest i think a vanq bs3 really is a waste. Its so expensive that unless in pairs or a single with pask i dont see it being worth it. If i was going with the Plasma sponsons i would use them on the demolisher or plasma tank. The vanbq should be way out of plasma range. I would use 1 or 2 tanks and go bare bones vanq/pask with lascannon.