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Every time I see threads on tactics or army list people bring up the issue of how to deal with AV14 and I'm wondering if it is really that big of an issue in most cases.

Sure having something to deal with the AV14 tanks are beneficial but is it absolutely necessary to focus as much on it as people seem to? In most 1500 pts games how much AV14 are you realistically going to encounter? One? And in 2000pts maybe 2?

So I'm wondering if when I build a list if I should even care about bringing some uber landraider can opener or just have enough firepower to crack open transports and use those points for other things

Any thoughts?

AV14 (Essentially Land Raiders most of the time) usually carry expensive deathsars.
If you can pop it then you can either stall the deathstar to minimize the damage or gun them down.

Monoliths don't fulfill the same function as Land Raiders and so are treated differently, they are also immune to the usuall methods of killing AV14 so they are usually ignored in favour of a phase out.

You should have the ability to do it but i wouldn't spend a lot of point on it.

Most talk about av14 is paranoia. In reality av10-12 in infinitely more common and even two of the vehicles with av 14 have weaker side armor (Leman Russ and Battlewagons).

When people build TAC lists, they build T A C lists, not "take everyone you expect to see" lists. How many AV 14 vehicles is it possible to see at 1500? 3, maybe 4.

2000? I can think of at least 1 army that can do 5.

If you dont have the ability to damage these monstrosities, you are going straight to hell.

In my personal opinion, if your list cant crack open a land raider, your doing it wrong. The last thing you want is that land raider to deliver whatever cargo it is carrying, and you can guarantee that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Luke_Prowler wrote:Most talk about av14 is paranoia. In reality av10-12 in infinitely more common and even two of the vehicles with av 14 have weaker side armor (Leman Russ and Battlewagons).

I like to operate on worst case scenario plans, therefore, engaging a Leman Russ from the front is optimal, engaging from any other direction is icing on the cake.

Jaon wrote:
In my personal opinion, if your list cant crack open a land raider, your doing it wrong. The last thing you want is that land raider to deliver whatever cargo it is carrying, and you can guarantee that.

Many entire codicies have no reliable means of shooting a Land Raider dead, so it's not such a big deal to worry about that.

You should have some means to kill such a vehicle in your army somewhere though. Even if it's in assault.

I think of it this way, you should never overload with things to pop AV 14 especially at low points, but you should always have something. If possible I try to deep strike meltas behind them, but otherwise I focus on killing the transports so it's harder for my opponent to score

Well if you take something that can crack AV 14 vehicles, then it would have no proplem what so ever dealing with AV 12 or 11, so it isn't much of a waste bringing one in your force. Also people seem to love takeing as much armour as possible these days. I walked into my FLGS one day and saw a guy who had a 1000 point IG list with 4 leman russ battle tanks in it (yes, I knew how many points his force was the moment I walked in, I have no life). So I decided to combat his force in the most reasonable manner I could think of, by takeing 3 land raiders in a 1000 point list. Needless to say I won. My point is be ready for those guys who take as much armour as they can and think that they are invincible because of it, becuase they are not, you just have to show them that.

KJD wrote: In most 1500 pts games how much AV14 are you realistically going to encounter? One?

The 1500 point army I use in tournaments has:

2 x av14
4x av13
and an av 11

None of which contain any expensive Deathstars, but do contain scoring Troops. Typically if you don't have anything to deal with av14, you don't have anything that will reliably kill av13 either.

If you want to ignore my av14 that's your prerogative, but you're essentially handing me the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lyzin Locrian wrote:Well if you take something that can crack AV 14 vehicles, then it would have no proplem what so ever dealing with AV 12 or 11,

This is also a very good point. Your anti-av14 weapons will also make easy work of av11 and av12, so why not bring some? Especially when in most cases, Melta weapons are a cheap upgrade for a squad.

Take some melta guns and call it a day. If all else fails you can use your own transports to block and slow down their av 14 while you try to glance it down or something.

Av 14 isn't that tough, well unless your green tide orks fighting fast landraiders, can't even hit them.

Well I agree in a space marine army it's easy enough to include a melta weapon at 10 pts but I was thinking more along the lines for an army like nids that require a dedicated unit for dealing with high av vehicles

KJD wrote:Well I agree in a space marine army it's easy enough to include a melta weapon at 10 pts but I was thinking more along the lines for an army like nids that require a dedicated unit for dealing with high av vehicles

Monstrous creatures? Zoanthropes?

Yeah taking zoans would basically just be a unit for the av14 opening not that they are horrible after you have cracked the av14 open but nids elite slots are precious as it is and vulnerable to psyker defense/gk dex ...

And I know that's not the only way to crack av14 but one of our best ranged options...

Trygons good way to go but pricey in smaller games...

Hive Guard to keep it stunned/shaken (less effective on gk)

Again I know there are options but my thinking was more does it really warrant the focus most people put on it...

Really though I guess it boils down to your local meta game and the opponents you face

If every opponent in your area is playing crusader btw and deathwing in landraiders you will want them over the guy who mainly plays against de and footsloggers

It's not an issue of commonality, an issue of possibility. IMO, if you play competitively, you should be building all-comers lists. If you play tournaments it's a necessity.

It's not about AV14 specifically, but most weapons that handle AV14 well also do very well against AV13 and AV12. "Antitank" as a broad category should be able to deal with a wide spectrum of threats, from AV10 to AV14.



In short, if you don't bring S9 / S10 weapons, monstrous creatures, and/or melta weapons in some combination, you will be ill prepared for any mechanized armies, let alone AV14. And one of the AV14 maximized lists will simply walk all over you.

AV14 is only a major issue when we're talking BT or Necron. It's also a major issue if your only main recourse are S8 weapons. Especially when they don't come with AP1. So hopefully we'll at least see things like living metal removed from the game entirely and never return.

For my come all list, I usually field guard with HWS of 2 Autocannons and a Las. After fielding that in my new locale, I have had to adjust it to 3 las per squad. I can crack most armor in the first round of shooting(6 las cannons minimum tend to do that) but AV14 poses a slightly trickier scenario. I basically blob around it to keep it in place, then saturate as much las on it as I can. Not ideal but it works.

-cgmckenzie

Dark lances are good, until some jerk brings monliths, then your bent over and your cheeks are spread(Sorry for the graphic image)

Only a couple av14s need to be supported properly by the rest of your force or they'll get eaten.

Right. It's bad enough that you're fighting with a S8 weapon. But to lose the melta and lance rules against BT and the Monolith are just too much for DE to overcome. It's a shame the darklight stuff wasn't AP1.

Remember kids, Its all fun and games until someone fields an Achilies.