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.

If it is a serious threat, it will be shot. If it isn't a serious threat, it will be ignored. In the case of the banewolf, if you're not playing aggressively, it will be ignored until it moves forward, at which point it will be shot.

The only benefit to taking fragile units is if there's some way you can protect them (like with the extreme range of hydras or the LOS shenanigans of IF artillery), or if you can reliably do a lot of damage before they die (like artillery, stormies, marbo, etc). You don't get either of these with the banewolf.

Plus, it's not like your opponent can't spread out their forces. It takes a lot of player skill to get it to work, while it takes relatively little player skill to stop.

I might take one...
remember- it may need to get closer, but with fast, It can just zoom ahead 12", next turn, zoom again and fire the thing! auto-hit, 2+ to wound, no armour? ouch.
at 130 points, it can have a S5 AP4 flamer and a poisoned AP3 one! especially in apoc.- use flank march. pop up behind a few deverstator squads and pow! It just killed 200 points worth of marines in one go! Only really good ways I can think of using this are:
not drawing any attention, driving up to a tactical squad, and unleashing it all.
zooming from cover to cover, until they reach near some stuff.
racing ahead full speed until they reach the enemy.
waiting near your gunline, and when something gets near them ,flame 'em.
though I've never used this, but meh.
I just wish vanilla marines could get something like this or the baal...

erwos wrote:My Colossus says hello.
The way to deal with biker lists is to use strategic blocking with chimeras and bubble wrapping. Ultimately, they're just fast marines with T4(5). You take away that 3+ turbo boost cover save, and they die like everyone else. I'm sure it's a tough as nails list, but saying that the Banewolf is the only way to deal with it... not sure I buy into that.

I agree that speaking in absolutes like that isn't the best way to go about it and every situation is different on the battlefield. It's up to the Commander to make the choices for his/her army. Some are just more fun than others ^^.

guiltl3ss wrote:For IG Players
Do you use the Bane Wolf? Why or why not? Is it effective?

Thanks!

I used the bane wolf in my first guard army which was based on citu fighting. I don't run them now, but they are absolutely necesary when fighting any enemy with a save of three plus in a city fight. They own space marines and the like. That is, if you can get them close enough. What, it kills on two plus's, a normal space marine doesn't get a save from it,a dn he doesn't get a cover save as well.

hen I runned them, I more often than not, killed a squad of chaos marines or space marines with it.

Ailaros wrote:So, you're going to spend 130 points for a piece of AV12 that just chills around in your back field and hopes to kill marines?

Why not take a basilisk?

Why not both? The basilisks and manticores, along with other units, help to outshoot the enemy at range. You will win the shooting pahse and the game. The enemies only recourse is to close the gap and charge into your army to tie them up in HtH and pop multiple tanks on assaults. The Banewolf allows you to help fend off this rush into your army.

And why would it be useless if the enemy doesn't charge you? Any LOS blocking terrain near the center can be a big hinderance for a gun line IG. The Banewolf can comeup to threaten any unit(s) that hide behind it. At the very least the Banewolf can shoot a heavy bolter across the board and most often it is given a Multimelta and can go tank hunting if the enemy isn't going to assault your lines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

erwos wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:Vendettas and Valks are autolose vs. all bike marines. No one plays all bike marines? In Chicago they do - the Big Waaagh best general does and he absolutely eats IG lists for lunch with his all space marine biker list. The only thing that will give those bikes pause is a Banewolf.

My Colossus says hello.

The way to deal with biker lists is to use strategic blocking with chimeras and bubble wrapping. Ultimately, they're just fast marines with T4(5). You take away that 3+ turbo boost cover save, and they die like everyone else. I'm sure it's a tough as nails list, but saying that the Banewolf is the only way to deal with it... not sure I buy into that.

Bubblewrapping the tanks might be the worst possible option. First you lose a lot of scoring unit. Next you need a lot of bodies to bubblewrap 6+ tanks unless you park them 2x3 in the corner which negates any mobility for those tanks. Finally the Bubblewrap could lose you your entire force as the Bikes hit with 1-2 bikes - noth enough to make the guardsman break that turn - and then win the fight on the IG players turn, opening up the tank parking lot to a deluge of melta, powerfists and krak grenades.

Believe me it is the hardest possible matchup for mech/hybrid mech IG. We have tried and tried.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've got over 5000pts of Guard that I won from 2 Ard Boyz semifinals championships and that bike list has kept them out of tournaments in the Chicagoland area for years. I'm throwing the Banewolfs at him tomorrow so I can only hope they work or else I'm giving up on Guard.

If the purpose is to do damage up close, it can be done WAY better with other units. The banewolf need to be in assault range to work, and at this range, the banewolf is woefully outclassed by other options. Plus, if an opponent is charging you, they're not going to let a banewolf stop the charge.

Otherwise, as you mention, it's only as good as shooting a heavy bolter. Spending 130 points for a heavy bolter is insane.

The problem here is that one can imagine a few hypothetical situations where a banewolf would be cool, but your opponent is going to have a much easier time ensuring that said hypotheticals never happen than you will have doing sufficient damage outside of the hypothetical.

DarthDiggler wrote: I'm throwing the Banewolfs at him tomorrow so I can only hope they work or else I'm giving up on Guard.

Pinning all of your hopes for an entire guard army on banewolves is like pinning all of your hopes for chaos on chaos spawn.

When you take good units, the guard does well. Taking bad units and seeing them do poorly doesn't mean the guard can't be competitive when done properly.

Ailaros wrote:If the purpose is to do damage up close, it can be done WAY better with other units.

For educational purposes, what would be better for close range?

Powerblobs, most likely. Those chew through other things in close combat like no ones business.

However, I could easily see a Banewolf being an excellent supporting unit for IG as a whole. That's what I did at Platinum Devil 2, and it served me well. The speed of the Banewolf allowed me to engage the enemy far enough away and keep them busy long enough for my long distance shooting from lascannons, missile launchers, and Basilisks to crush them. Don't think of them as a hammer you use to smash the enemy against an anvil. Think of them as what you use to pin something down long enough for the hammer to smash it to bits.

Is this the most competitive strategy? No. Will it work 100% of the time? No. However, it's served me very well in the past.

Good enough for me. Now to build me one, haha.

guiltl3ss wrote:

Ailaros wrote:If the purpose is to do damage up close, it can be done WAY better with other units.

For educational purposes, what would be better for close range?

Anything with a special weapon or a close combat weapon which ignores armor. There's a lot in this camp from power blobs to mechvets to rough riders to SWSs to priests. And you've also got to remember that long-range options don't necessarily lose any of their potency when you get close (a basilisk is just as effective at 3" as it is as 90".

Really, like the eradicator and the punisher, the banewolf was something new and interesting that GW added to the new guard codex, except out of fear of making it overpowered, screwed it up so that it's not really worth taking.

I find a serious limitation with power blobs is that they die rather quickly and dont have great mobility. So unless you can find cover quick, you stand a great chance of getting cut down. Of course it can usually stay alive long enough to get off some hits, but nothing really that powerful. Nothing that can bust MEQ like the Bane Wolf (or other tanks/ordinance) can. Lots of If/Thens I see...but thats war, of course.

Ailaros wrote:

guiltl3ss wrote:

Ailaros wrote:If the purpose is to do damage up close, it can be done WAY better with other units.

For educational purposes, what would be better for close range?

Anything with a special weapon or a close combat weapon which ignores armor. There's a lot in this camp from power blobs to mechvets to rough riders to SWSs to priests. And you've also got to remember that long-range options don't necessarily lose any of their potency when you get close (a basilisk is just as effective at 3" as it is as 90".

Really, like the eradicator and the punisher, the banewolf was something new and interesting that GW added to the new guard codex, except out of fear of making it overpowered, screwed it up so that it's not really worth taking.

Special weapons do nothing ot Bikes that turboboost. You rapid fire 3 plasmaguns and they take 3+ saves. Powerblobs are no good either. The Guard have str 3 power weapons and the Bikes are T5. Guard hit them on 4's and wounds on 6's. Instead of sending 1-2 bikes into the bubblewrap, they send 15 including the command squad. The Power blob might wound 1-2 bikes and the bikes will take out 25 guardsman. Then you have your leadership 9 to roll and stick around for your turn where the bikes kill you and assault into everything.

There is nothing you can produce in the IG codex that will stop 30+ bikes who just turboboosted 14" from your face in into your deployment zone. Nothing, except the Banewolf.

Or massed Hydras. By massed, I mean like 6 of them, and even then I'm not so sure since Autocannons are only AP4....I'd say the Banewolf would be the best counter to such a thing. As long as you know they WILL die the next turn. Hopefully they buy time enough to do some damage.