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.

 Ailaros wrote:

A battlecannon is only Ap3 [...]

I agree entirely about the battle cannon. However, heavy 3 plasma cannon, large blast ignores cover or heavy 20 rending are things your opponent reallys want to stay away from, so you can leverage that area denial against your opponent with your other units. If your opponent commits against your tanks you have ton of lascannon infantry squads or meltap/plasma veterans who get the chance to blast him just as much as the tanks. That's why I'm arguing against sponsons in most cases, to disperse your resources and firepower. Imperial guard has so options for strong weapons on cheap units there's always place to shift your weaponry around.

Knight Commander Prask+Leman Russ+Punsisher Cannon=AWESOME

As much as I still love my FW Vanquishers, they're just a shadow of what they used to be when they had the option to fire the AP shot or the regular battle cannon shot, along with the coaxial gun.

Battle Tanks, Demolishers and Executioners for me.

The standard MBT is by far my favourite though, despite the fact they no longer have Lumbering Behemoth and must snap fire every thing else, the Battle tank always makes it's points back in every game I use them in. Most of my games are against some flavour of Marines so they always manage to pick away at marine squads and get enough kills to make their points back.

In some exceptional cases though my MBTs have won me games. They may be the not be cost effective and probably the worst Russ variant currently but they always do well in my games.

 Ailaros wrote:

A battlecannon is only Ap3, so it's not causing vehicles to be killed by exploding them, and its only heavy 1, which makes it terrible at stripping hull points. And taking down MCs, who often have a Sv2+ or a ++ on top of multiple wounds. Meanwhile, against infantry it doesn't ignore cover saves, and you can always displace down to the point where even a "hit" will only catch three models. Which you still have to wound. And make it through armor saves. Even if it's just bad-Sv units, then you have the problem of single-blast weapons not being that effective against hordes. And it can't even shoot at fliers, and is terribly unreliable at even glancing AV14.

The best way to think of a battlecannon is a heavy 3 missile launcher against infantry, and as a heavy 1 missile launcher against anything else. Battlecannons have been hopeless since 4th ed ended.

I agree that the Battle Cannon is not the best choice for anti-armor or MC hunting, but on paper it does seem like it should put the hurt on be 3+ infantry, etc. at a good distance, while staying mobile and durable. Is a missile launcher a good comparison? The Battle Cannon has 1.5x greater range and is not as inhindered by low BS. Furthermore, you have to consider where those 3x missile launchers will be fielded. Unit disbursement and cover saves (exc. Eradicator) are a problem for all the template Russ variants, but at it's operating range and Str/AP it should still dish out decent damage over the course of a game. I suppose deciding to field it depends on your opponent/situation. How would you balance the standard LRBT?

I had pretty good luck with Battlecannon Russ tanks in 5E, but since the change to Lumbering Behemoth and the changes to the vehicle kill mechanisms over to HP's and the vehicle damage table made largely irrelevant, the basic Battlecannon Russ has just become really...bad.

kodi wrote:That's why I'm arguing against sponsons in most cases, to disperse your resources and firepower.

Disperse them to where?

Where else can you get two relentless multimeltas and a relentless lascannon for 30 points? On an AV14 unit?

Russes are, by far, the cheapest, most durable, most mobile, and most reliable way to take these kinds of weapons. If you're dispersing them away from russes, you're just dispersing them somewhere worse, while dramatically decreasing the effectiveness of something you're spending a fair chunk of points on.

It's sort of like not giving platoon infantry squads special or heavy weapons so that you can spend the points elsewhere. All you're left with is a 50 point squad that's not doing very much. It's way better to spend the points to give them a few more guns.

Crabbit wrote:The Battle Cannon has 1.5x greater range and is not as inhindered by low BS.

Yes it is.

It turns out that a BS3 blast weapon winds up hitting what it was pointing at about 50% of the time when you do the math. Or, BS3 blast is about as accurate as BS3.

Crabbit wrote:Unit disbursement and cover saves (exc. Eradicator) are a problem for all the template Russ variants, but at it's operating range and Str/AP it should still dish out decent damage over the course of a game.

Why would it?

If your opponent displaces and hides in cover, you've got a roughly 1/2 chance to hit three targets, who you have to wound, and then they get a 4+ cover, assuming they don't go to ground. By rough metrics, we're starting with a battlecannon killing 2/3ds of an infantry model a turn. The real odds are a little better, but they're still pretty dismal.

Crabbit wrote:How would you balance the standard LRBT?

Firstly, it absolutely must be able to fire sponson weapons again like the other russes. Secondly, it needs a niche again. They were okay in 4th ed before they invented super ruins and cover was worse and harder to get and you couldn't go to ground. And, of course, models were more expensive, so if you didn't catch as many it wasn't so bad of a deal. And when there weren't fliers they couldn't shoot at, and when they stood a decent chance of causing vehicle explosions.

The game has systematically changed over the last eight years to make the battlecannon hopeless. Either they need to undo some of those changes (here's hoping), or else they need to update the battlecannon so that it makes sense for what the game has become.

Of course, you can't give it ignores cover, because of the eradicator, so if you want to make it decent against infantry again, perhaps give it the super-huge blast template? It doesn't hit very well, but at least it hits a lot of them. It would be sort of like a long-range punisher that didn't work well against elite units or light vehicles. Or you could go the conqueror route and keep the battlecannon the same, but make it heavy 2 or heavy 3, so that at least it could be decent against vehicles again. You could also handle some of these problems if you gave it the barrage rule (and then came up with some silly fluff, like "airburst rounds" or something), except this would conflict with the basilisk. Maybe you could make it a special rule where the russ still needs LoS.

Something, though. And something that doesn't step on a variant's toes.

Good ole conqueror, the classic BT, and ole plasmacutionor, are my favs.