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Just wanted to open a thread to get the communities opinion on the two new AA tanks. I've seen some threads discussing each vehicle on it's own, but I'm curious what everyone's reasoning for taking a particular vehicle over the other would be, especially since it's a dual model kit. I'm personally leaning towards the Hunter, but that's just my preference for blowing up vehicles outright over glancing them to death shining through. What does everybody else think?

I dislike both of them since they lack optional skyfire and interceptor and will end up being a shelf sitter like hydras

I rather like the hunter as well. AP2 is really useful as is its S7 making it more effective than the stalker, even with its 8 shots. Personally? i'm going to get a kit and make a hunter then use the stalker cannons as TFC's because its not worth the 56 USD for a TFC when I already have 2 extra techmarines

I don't have much to contribute to the Hunter vs Stalker debate since I haven't fielded either yet, but for an "are they both shelfsitters" debate, I would argue that they have their place in lists that are running a lot of vehicles as cheap AA support. If you're going footslogger-heavy, however, you'd be better off with an aegis + quad gun.

I'll be testing out the Hunter in a game later today.

I'm opting for this build first since I believe it has better options in not only killing fliers, but forcing control over the air itself. The hunter missle is strong, AP2 and has savant lock. Even if you miss, you still have a 1/3 chance that it hits on it's own in subsequent turns. If they fly off or get into cc to avoid it, they wont be vectoring striking/shooting with the flier for another turn. If not and they keep flying, you just keep firing away at it with missles. No limit to the number of savant locks, so you could have a flier being chased by 2/3 missiles a turn.

That said, the Stalker can focus on more than one flier a turn, useful if you're going up against weaker flier spam type builds. most things only have AV11/12, so TL s7 should have a decent shot at taking one down, but the value drops IMHO, when you shoot at two different fliers at BS2.

I'll reply with an update on how the Hunter does once I try it out this afternoon.

Neither, Land Raider Helios with AA missiles. Has both skyfire and interceptor, transport(ok only a couple guys) AV 14 all around, POTMS, and a pair of TL lascannons.

The hunter is by far the best at killing mech air, while the stalker handles FMC. Both handle skimmers no problem.

 juraigamer wrote:
The hunter is by far the best at killing mech air, while the stalker handles FMC. Both handle skimmers no problem.

Because of the TL aspect, or just more shots?

 volatileart wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
The hunter is by far the best at killing mech air, while the stalker handles FMC. Both handle skimmers no problem.

Because of the TL aspect, or just more shots?

The hunter, having armorbane will mess up anything vehicle like when it hits, and it will hit.

Were as the stalker just has lots of shots, which is better vs FMC, because they have wounds. Armorbane doesn't help with that.

 juraigamer wrote:

 volatileart wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
The hunter is by far the best at killing mech air, while the stalker handles FMC. Both handle skimmers no problem.

Because of the TL aspect, or just more shots?

The hunter, having armorbane will mess up anything vehicle like when it hits, and it will hit.

Were as the stalker just has lots of shots, which is better vs FMC, because they have wounds. Armorbane doesn't help with that.

True but the Hunter is AP2, so it denies any armour saves an FMC might have. I'm not really up on FMCs though, no 'Nid or Daemon players in my FLGS. Do many (any) of them even have a 3+ or 2+ armour save?

True, but I was considering the savant lock and the S7 AP2 missile as pretty beefy. While it wont benefit from the armorbane, it still keeps the 1/3 chance of coming back to hit on subsequent turns.
Still, I hadn't really considered the extra shots as better until you mentioned it. Thanks!

Also to add for the hunter, it works against ceramite plating which is nice.

As well, a straight shot against a skimmer is also very strong.

Personally, I prefer the Hunter. I tend to see a lot of skimmers in lists. Tau, Eldar and Crons all tend to bring a lot of them to the table. In my mind, the Hunter is far superior for killing these. Lets break it down by AV values just for fun.

The Stalker firing Twin Linked against AV 10

will hit 3.5
will pen 1.75
will explode the skimmer 0.28
will explode if its open topped 0.58
will strip a HP through glance or pen 2.31

The Hunter firing against AV 10

will hit 0.66
will pen 0.6
will explode the skimmer 0.20
will explode if its open topped 0.30
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.64

Stalker against AV 11 Twin Linked

will hit 3.5
will pen 1.16
will explode the skimmer 0.19
will explode if its open topped 0.38
will strip a HP through glance or pen 1.75

Hunter against AV 11

will hit 0.66
will pen 0.55
will explode the skimmer 0.18
will explode if its open topped 0.28
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.61

Stalker against AV 12 firing Twin Linked

will hit 3.5
will pen 0.56
will explode the skimmer 0.09
will explode if its open topped 0.18
will strip a HP through glance or pen 1.15

Hunter against AV 12

will hit 0.66
will pen 0.48
will explode the skimmer 0.16
will explode if its open topped 0.24
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.55

Stalker against AV 13 firing Twin Linked

will hit 3.5
will pen 0
will explode the skimmer 0
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.56

Hunter against AV 13

will hit 0.66
will pen 0.39
will explode the skimmer 0.13
will explode if its open topped 0.19
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.48

Stalker against AV 14 firing Twin Linked

Cannot cause any damage

Hunter against AV 14

will hit 0.66
will pen 0.28
will explode the skimmer 0.09
will explode if its open topped 0.14
will strip a HP through glance or pen 0.39

all numbers have been rounded to the nearest hundredth

I have included all AV values for the sake of comparison. There are AV 14 skimmers (looking at you monolith). I have not included the ability for the Stalker to fire at 2 different targets, although this would severely lower the numbers for the stalker as it would not be twin linked, and it would be firing at BS 2. I have also not included any jink saves. This is strictly a comparison of the numbers that you can expect to get when you fire each weapon.

Against AV 10 targets the Stalker is obviously superior. Against a non open topped transport though, the odds of exploding the vehicle are about even. Against AV 11 targets the Stalker is once again better suited to strip HP but the odds of exploding the vehicle are almost identical. Against an open topped AV 11 target the Stalker has the slight edge. However, against 12, 13 and 14 the hunter takes over. That means against the most potent skimmers the Hunter is the superior tank. It also does this at a longer range.


*** Edit ***

While it wont benefit from the armorbane, it still keeps the 1/3 chance of coming back to hit on subsequent turns

Why wouldn't the sky spear missile keep armourbane? The profile of the weapon has armourbane, and the savant lock rule says that the target is hit by the weapon with the above profile. Nothing in the armorbane rule would stop this from working that I can see.
Oh, I see you were referring to FMC. My mistake.

I hadn't noticed that the Hunter has a longer range? *Runs back to check codex*

Why wouldn't the sky spear missile keep armourbane? The profile of the weapon has armourbane, and the savant lock rule says that the target is hit by the weapon with the above profile. Nothing in the armorbane rule would stop this from working that I can see.

Armorbane wouldn't matter against the FMC that juraigamer mentioned.

Yep 60" IIRC

Wow, so the Hunter can actually fire from outside the treat range of some of the most common Flyer weapons that can threaten it, like Lascannons and ML. Granted that range advantage won't last past the turn the flyer hits the table...

As far as it being a shelf sitter.... I can guarantee I'll be fitting one into most of my lists. At 70 points, the hunter is a dirt cheap anti air, anti skimmer swiss army knife. It works against all AV's, its great against FMC's, its great against flyers. You can park it in cover and not worry as it has a massive range. It is great for an all comers list and even gives you the edge if you face off against someone who brings rarely seen models such as a monolith. All it is missing is interceptor, but if that tank had interceptor it would be ridiculously overpowered.

While lack of Interceptor may seem horrible, remember the 2 most popular codices out there are Eldar and Tau. Both of which have Skimmers as vehicles. Skyfire can shoot skimmers at full BS no problem.

Str7 armorbane will pen nearly any skimmer. Serpent Shield is a problem, but it will force them to keep it up instead of shooting it.

And the bonus is if you miss, you have a 33% chance of hitting them next turn on rear armor. From how I understand it, this works even against a vehicle that you snap fire against. So shoot a LR at snap shots, and next turn have a better chance of hitting it, and you can shoot something else.

And frankly, Interceptor would have been OP on a str7 armorbane gun with 60" range.


I think the Hunter will be a good choice. It will hurt any flyer reliably, and if it misses it might come and hit it again next turn.

Against av12: (2/3)(30/36)=55% chance of a damage(48% chance of a pen, 7% chance of a glance)

and if you miss, you still have a 1/3 chance of coming back next turn and hitting rear armor.

rear12: (1/3)(30/36)=27.7% chance of damage result(24% chance of pen, 3.7% chance of glance)

rear10: (1/3)(35/36)=32.4% chance of damage result(30.5% chance of pen, 1.9% chance of glance)


Thats not good odds for any flyer. even a Heldrake will be nervous.

Templar, the Savant Lock only works against Flyers. Unfortunately you won't have the chance to hit skimmers in subsequent turns. However, even with that said, the tank is amazing against skimmers and with all the Tau, Eldar, and Necrons you see out there, for 70 points, its an absolutely worthwhile choice to take.

I know that I would hate to see it across from me if I had my Crons.

And the bonus is if you miss, you have a 33% chance of hitting them next turn on rear armor. From how I understand it, this works even against a vehicle that you snap fire against. So shoot a LR at snap shots, and next turn have a better chance of hitting it, and you can shoot something else.

Nope, it says right at the start of how that works its only against FMC and Flyers. It wouldnt work against skimmers or regular vehicles.
However FMC are still classified such when they arent flying, you maybe snapping but it technically still does the 33% retry attempt, which is humorously more accurate this time around lol. That is of course it didnt get locked in combat, it doesnt say anything but im assuming the shot is lost since you cant shoot models in combat.

Misread it then. Like you said, still useful.

And yeah, I do remember it saying the Savant Lock is lost if the FMC gets locked in combat.

Whats the exact wording on the savant lock? as from what i remember after the initial shot it is no longer a shooting attack but a reoccurring effect like soul blaze which should work in close combat.

"If the target leaves airspace or is engaged in close combat, immediately discard any Savant Lock counters it has"

but IIRC it has a specific rule that if you get locked in combat and some other situations the lock is lost.

edit: ninja'd

Note that since vehicles can't be engaged, the lock will not be lost if its on a vehicle.

Aww no dice i guess. thanks

Right, however only way a flier could be assaulted anyway for that to even POSSIBLY cause a conflict is if it went into hovermode, which it isnt a flier anymore. The "rebound shot" would be attempted before you had a change to charge any hovermode flier you had marks on.

Heh, actually that sounds a bit better with this gun vs other AA guns. Enter hovermode if its say a Stormraven/Talon and has 48" guns, turn around, pelt something, next turn it may still shoot at full BS but its a "skimmer" not a "flyer" so the rebound shots wouldnt leave any marks
Other AA guns wouldnt care, since theyre weight of fire over anything else.

And i missed that part about combat lol. I need to read this thing without distractions, i have a bad habit of having a video playing when im going through a codex.

It still forces opponents into moving their models in a way they may not want to or that is tactically unsound. The Savant Lock is a nice little bonus against Flyers and FMC.

The only problem I can see with it not having interceptor is against the fliers coming out of reserve. If it's an AA tank, I don't think it needs to be able to shoot at non-fliers/skimmers.

Eh, its 12/12/10 with 3HP. Unless its a Stormraven/talon with lascannons and they dont wiff their 1-2 penning rolls they get, it should survive anything that comes in to shoot at it.
Quite frankly if it had all this AND interceptor, it would be broken as hell as not a single flyer would survive it to do anything. I'd say it wouldnt be balanced unless they doubled its price just because of interceptor lol

Knowing my luck, i'd roll 1s and 2s with my stormtalon lascannons every bloody time lol. Same reason i never use Nova charged Ion Accelerator shots on Riptides - only reason to do it is a single, strong anti-tank shot that i ALWAYS bomb either with Gets Hot! or a horrible Pen result, even with Ordnance helping lol