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dangerous terrain rolls are d6 S6 hits still? i dont see that being effective against a T10 anything.

No I believe a dangerous terrain test is now more similar to 40k. You roll a die, if you get a 1 you take d6 wounds (if you are a chariot... non-chariots take 1 wound).

Here are a number of ways to beat the snot out of the Steam Tank. . .

High Elf Solutions
Did anyone notice that in the PDF, for the Steam Tank it doesn't include the rule saying it can't be affected by spells that don't have a strength value, so there is a pretty legitimate argument saying it no longer has that rule. This puts the Lore of Metal back into contention especially the signature spell, of course that also means you evil empire players can cast augments on the damn thing.

Also something funny Teclis, can kill the steam tank very easily all he needs is the +3 strength, +3 to attacks spell, and now thats 4 hits that wound on 2+, without an armor save. So he needs an average of 2 combat rounds.

Eltharion can kill it pretty easily as well, since he can cast the savage beast of Horros and Wyssan's Wild Form on himself and then attack for 7 attacks hitting on average 6 times for 2 or 3 wounds (on charge) with no armor saves. Now there is a question on whether the Savage Beast of Horros would effect Storm Wing, if t would sheesh, thats 7 more attacks at strength 9 for 2 more wounds. Of course this is slightly pricey but I would be happy to spend 490 points to kill it in 2 or combat rounds. Oh and if you miscast you might just blow it up .

Noble with the Foe Bane, and Armor of Caledor, and then cast Savage Beast of Horros on him. 2.2 wounds per combat round. . .

Warriors of Chaos Solutions
Use a Giant, thump with club should kill the thing extremely quickly. . . And you will be up by points.
With the new rules it seems that they might die faster but to be honest they were designed to kill Steam Tanks. . .

Some of the magic, could be frankly you should just be using it on other units, unless as I suspect the Steam Tank lost its immunity to magical spells without a strength value.

I am still of the opinion you need a strength value. The FAQ doesn't say anything about Steam Point generation either: It'd be just as valid to say "Well then Steam Tanks can't generate Steam Points" now as it would to say "They can't ignore magic".

Specifically to High Elves, I was looking to find ways today of dealing with the steamtank.

I think the best method I found was using a spell from the lore of beasts to increase the strength and number of attacks that a hero gets by 3 each. This increases STR to 7 and Reduces the tanks armor save to just a 5+, the tank is still str10, so you need a weapon like foebane "Any attack that hits, wounds automatically, and then you use your strength for modifying armor saves" thus the need to up your strength to 7.

One good round of combat should mess up the steam tank. Without using spells, I am at a loss...

Karon wrote:So is everyone playing 3000 points now? I'm seeing a lot of people analyzing units effectiveness in a 3000 point scenario.

I think that the standard is either going to be 2500 or 2999. Definately not 3000 as no one will want to see 6 Cannons, 6 Mortars, 4 Rocket Batteries, and 4 Hellblasters (or anything even close to that!) and there will always be TFG.

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As for the Stank, cannons causing D6 wounds now will bring it down to size pretty quick. For those elite armies that dont have artillery like HE and DE, try an Uber lord (potion of strength and +3 strength sword) on some kind of fast steed. He will crash in and then be stuck though, so idk how well that would work unless you make him <300 points

I think 3k will be the new standard.

If not 3000, then we'll be playing 2800 (more easily goes into 25% than 2500...)

Flashman wrote:

Vulcan wrote:Skaven Jezzails work reasonably well, with their -4 to armor saves...

Not very logical, but Poison Wind Globes work even better

Oh yeah, I forgot about them, wound on a 4+ with no armor save! That'll take down a steamtank but quick!

(Well, faster and cheaper than nearly anything else out there anyway!)

The STank ignores the same Magic as always, so that solution is out.

Honestly, I am going to run two for a lot of reasons, the foremost being I love the model. I know that Helstorms are probably a stronger, more versatile pick, but the psychological impact, as well as the impact on the game if they are well-supported, is worthwhile.

I don't know the stank but looking around some ideas:

-Ogres. Just their core Ironguts with greatweapons are laying down 3 6Str hits each. And while that still requires a 6 to wound, it's also -3 to armor save and they get a LOT ofa ttacks.

Thunderers. Kind of same deal. Just three of them you're averaging like what, 18 hits? They are str 4 but armor piercing. Some of those got to get through.

Gorgers have killing blow, but I think you'd want something cheap and easy and/or not Gorgery, which has other things to do.

As for heroes, Greasus has 10 str and he'd smush it with no problem other than his outrageous cost.

-Lizardmen, besides spell wackiness, can you just Skink poison them? All their attacks are poisonous so you can tarpit and try and pour (poisonous) sugar in its gas tank.

Carnisaurs need a 6 to hit with their Str. 7, but they take away an awful lot of armor and do D3 wounds with 4 attacks.

Stegadons are nearly in the same boat and you can load them up engine of the gods.

Obviously the characters, especially Kroak and the other I don't feel like looking up, could spell him down with their unique abilities pretty easy. But that's a 675 point solution to what, 350?

The best solution to the Steam Tank in the entire game is the Great Unclean One. Balesword, S8 during the first combat phase, four automatic hits, four automatic wounds, then the Steam Tank gets four 6+ saves due to the -5 armour save modifier, and those are all then multiplied to D6 wounds each. Yep, it just about explodes already in the first combat phase.

The GuO isn't too vulnerable to cannons either, considering he's charging on turn two and has ten wounds.

I have been wondering about how to beat a Steam Tank too as a regularly play empire with 1-2 Stanks so For my Tomb Kings, I'd say the best options are Blade of Settep (ignores armour), Bone giant (and if the immunity to no strength magic is true) a casket of souls.

Therion wrote:The best solution to the Steam Tank in the entire game is the Great Unclean One.

It might be the "best", but is it the most cost effective?

I stand by my Poison Wind Globadiers

Some of these "solutions" aren't particularly fool proof.

Tarpit with X cheap unit.... Did the empire player forget to bring the compulsory 3x mortars and 1-2 helstorms?

Poisoned wind globadiers... Are these invisible poisoned wind globadiers? or are they the kind that can be killed with magic and shooting before they get across the table?

Spell that increases strength of units fighting steam tank... Are you screwed if that spell gets dispelled? Does the empire player know that?

If you use an expensive unit that you'd like to do more than one thing with to kill it in combat, you may decrease its effectiveness by dropping 2-3 wounds off of it. But don't forget that you can't walk away from the table until you've finished your plate. Your big scary strength 6 unit that charged it will live, but they have to knock 10 wounds off before they are back in the game. Its not like the steam tank is a 600 point star dragon. Its the same cost as three cannons, or just 30 points more than a 10x knight unit with full command. ZOMG 300 points!


Here are some ways to stop the tank that are either difficult or impossible for empire to stop.

Cannon. Well, three cannons pretty much paperweights the tank in one turn. One of them misses, two of them hits, and one of those two wounds. D6 wounds later, its impassable terrain.

Stone thrower. Might take you two turns, or it could happen on the first turn. One in three stone throwers keep the big hit over the tank. 5+ wounds with no armor save, D3 wounds gone.

Beast lore amber spear. The empire player will have a level 4. he'll also know that you have an amber spear. But if you are also a level 4, its quite likely that he'll be unable to counter it at least once over two turns. Now you've got a cannon.

daemons of chaos - strength 10 bloodthirster, skulltaker with heroic killing blow, changeling 'borrowing' toughness 10, therion's GUO that he mentioned. The bloodthirster will be cannon-ized, skulltaker now that he is M5, in a bloodletter unit with icon of endless war has a longer charge range than the tank. Mortars might thin that unit to nearly nothing, but skulltaker will make it most likely. GUO has some very decent cannon immunity with regenerate.

skaven - Just make sure you can outshoot empire. If you did that then you could just completely ignore the tank until it tries to get close to you, then tarpit it. Do respect the steam gun however. The steam tank will kill about 15-20 rats a turn with 5 steam points. But if its coming at you, poisoned wind globes will wreck it first.


With all of this steam tank dissing, just keep in mind that the empire player isn't going to driving it around midfield trying to roll your flank with it. He'll just have it idling next to his wizard, waiting. As you get harassed by pistoliers, weakened then charged by knights, and bombed on by 7-8 warmachines, it'll still just be waiting. Whatever limps through the smoke and the fleeing pistoliers will be faced with this beast. Adjust your 'steamtank counters' accordingly.

Shep wrote:Tarpit with X cheap unit.... Did the empire player forget to bring the compulsory 3x mortars and 1-2 helstorms?

The problem here is that even just putting a single turn of this into said Tarpit is potentially saving hundreds of points in other troops from being gibbed (I mean, if someone chose to fire all that at my 250pt block of Night Goblins instead of my 450pt block of Big 'Uns I'd be ecstatic).

Shep wrote:Poisoned wind globadiers... Are these invisible poisoned wind globadiers? or are they the kind that can be killed with magic and shooting before they get across the table?

Globadiers have about a 10" move, to my understanding, and can march-fire to boot (unless I recall Skirmisher changes wrong). The bigger disadvantages for them now are that:
1) Special (thus competing with things like Jezzails)
2) Suffer long-range penalties (meaning usually -2 to hit due to movement plus range)

That's where Poison Wind Mortars come in, needing 5's instead of 4's but longer ranged to boot.

Shep wrote:Spell that increases strength of units fighting steam tank... Are you screwed if that spell gets dispelled? Does the empire player know that?

Depends a lot on the army. HElves with Teclis, you aren't dispelling diddly the turn it's cast.

Shep wrote:Cannon. Well, three cannons pretty much paperweights the tank in one turn. One of them misses, two of them hits, and one of those two wounds. D6 wounds later, its impassable terrain.

Unfortunately, very few armies have access to these (four, to my understanding, three if you discount the Hellcannon and two if you ignore Dogs of War). Heh, well, I apologize: Unfortunate for us. For those wielding one or two Steam Tanks, it's not much a loss at all.

Shep wrote:Stone thrower. Might take you two turns, or it could happen on the first turn. One in three stone throwers keep the big hit over the tank. 5+ wounds with no armor save, D3 wounds gone.

Wait, Stone Throwers are only D3 wounds now? They really cut down a Stone Thrower to make up for it no longer needing to guess. Like, hit it hard. From S4 (S8) D6 wounds no-saves, but having to guess, to no-guess... but S3 (9) with full saves and D3 wounds. Ouch.

Shep wrote:daemons of chaos - strength 10 bloodthirster, skulltaker with heroic killing blow, changeling 'borrowing' toughness 10, therion's GUO that he mentioned. The bloodthirster will be cannon-ized, skulltaker now that he is M5, in a bloodletter unit with icon of endless war has a longer charge range than the tank. Mortars might thin that unit to nearly nothing, but skulltaker will make it most likely. GUO has some very decent cannon immunity with regenerate.

Again, very army-specific.

Stone throwers are still D6 wounds, but only under the center hole.

Minsc wrote:That's where Poison Wind Mortars come in, needing 5's instead of 4's but longer ranged to boot.

notice I ducked talking about those, haha.

They are disgusting! And rumored to be coming in the starter set? Oh great.

I wish the OP had named what army he played with. That would really help narrow down a strategy for him.

I think my only real solution for a Stank in my WoC is the hellcannon.

its str10 but that's still only a wound on 4+, and it'll prolly scatter.

Infernal gateway could do the trick with the right roll, but I'm not sure i wanna focus fire the Stank and leave the rest of his army un-blooded.

Can anyone post the actual magic rule regarding the stank now?

I can only paraphrase from looking at it like twenty times.

"the metal hull affords some amount of magical protection. Therefore the steam tank can only be damaged by spells with a strength characteristic. All other spell affects are ignored."

The problem is, in the FAQ it says use the following abilities ect. and thick hull plating isnt one of them.

They fail to list its magic resistant thick hull in the special rules in the FAQ, they dont tell us to disregard the rule in the army book. This will likely just take a phone call to fix.

The thing is, "Thick Hull" isn't the rule that gives the magic immunity. It's under a section something like "Steam Tank in the Magic Phase".

For HE an interesting option is to charge the tank with a forlaiths robe mage and be stuck in combat forever. Just make sure you grab spells that can be cast in/out of combat.

Giants don't do badly ...
Yell and bawl ... he wins combat by 2
Thump with club ... Initiave test, fail takes 2D6 wounds with no armour save
Chomp ... D3 wounds no armour save (gets a wound back for every on he causes)

ouch that would suck, since the tank auto fails initiative tests!

The main issue with Giants is getting them there intact: 6 T5 wounds with no sort of save. No +1 to hit Large Targets is a small boon, but it doesn't change that even a Steam Tank on its own has good odds of gibbing the Giant before it can reach combat. Plus, it has a 1" further charge on average (Actually 1-3", having a solid 15" average as opposed to 12-14"), meaning it can then cause its impact hits (which should drop it unless it has full wounds, and likely even then).

That's why you use Giants in pairs, but then that's 400-ish points spent to counter a single unit. You're better off in that case simply buying a block of Gobbos or Gnoblars (since you can get about 60 wounds for about 200-300pts, and even with Cannon + Handgunner spam are likely to weather enough to meet the tank and hold for a round or three than reach in-tact with a Giant).

I got a list that'll beat it, I'm still relying on the beast of lore spell that adds +3str and +3attack, but this list could be ok at decimating the steam tank. Its very gimmiky, lots of magic and lots of shooting, and no tarpits, 2996pts.

Teclis
Noble on Horse w/ talisman of Loec & +3 str lance with no armor saves on charge
Level 2 Dragon Mage w/ Silver Wand and Ring of Corin (but I'm hoping that there's something that says no warmachines may shoot me)
Lance Noble on Horse, w/. Foebane & 25pts of something else
18 Archers
18 Archers
18 Archers
20 Archers
6 Dragon Princes
6 Dragon Princes
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower

Tri wrote:Giants don't do badly ...
Yell and bawl ... he wins combat by 2
Thump with club ... Initiave test, fail takes 2D6 wounds with no armour save
Chomp ... D3 wounds no armour save (gets a wound back for every on he causes)

Could a giant stuff the Steam Tank down his trousers?

THAT would be a battle report...

Mattlov wrote:

Tri wrote:Giants don't do badly ...
Yell and bawl ... he wins combat by 2
Thump with club ... Initiave test, fail takes 2D6 wounds with no armour save
Chomp ... D3 wounds no armour save (gets a wound back for every on he causes)

Could a giant stuff the Steam Tank down his trousers?

THAT would be a battle report...

only if some one knows a way to change its size ^_^ ... Large targets only ever get hit by one of those 3.

ShivanAngel wrote:ouch that would suck, since the tank auto fails initiative tests!

Unfortunately because the Steam Tank has split profile the rules have changed on how it works. It has the drivers initiative of 3, so the giant only has a 50%, chance to hit it with thump with club. I also think that the new rules will also give the steam tank the WS of the driver.

Its under the split profile section, remember the steam tank is now a chariot. . .

so that means steam tanks have to roll to hit now using the drivers WS? that would be sweet....