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Battlewagons are awesome. 14/12/10 with a transport capacity of 20 and a lot of weapon options is fantastic. The deff rolla is great against vehicles as well.

However, after playing multiple games with 2 of them, I'm finding myself feeling that I'm not using them as effectively as I could be and am looking for recommendations.

I tend to load out my wagons with the following upgrades:
Deff Rolla
RPJ
Kannon
2 Big Shootas

Sometimes I put 20 boyz (sluggas or shootas) in the wagon.
Sometimes I put 10-15 Lootas in the wagon.
Sometimes I put 10 Burnas into the wagon.

I have rarely put the killkannon on the wagon.


The issues that I have is that the wagon tends to get stuck by an infantry unit in it's path who then just destroyer it when it's my opponent's turn. Shooting after a tank shot only does so much as well. Ramming with the rolla works well but since it's AP -, my opponents tend to know that the easiest way of addressing them is to confront such with infantry. Burna wagons work well enough but turn into a priority for higher end firepower.

So I guess I'm looking for strategy and tactics around Battlewagons. What should I avoid when moving them forward? Should I just throw a killkanon on it and leave it in the backfield with Lootas inside? Should I not care about any upgrades and just use it as a transport for boyz?

I just seem to be having troubles finding how to best use them while wishing the rolla had an AP value.

I run 2 in my list and I just give them armor plates, 2 big shootas and a deff rolla. Drive those suckas up the table filled with shoota or slugga boys and make a huge melee pile. Its orky and it works most of the time.

Stashgordon36 wrote:
I run 2 in my list and I just give them armor plates, 2 big shootas and a deff rolla. Drive those suckas up the table filled with shoota or slugga boys and make a huge melee pile. Its orky and it works most of the time.

What/when do you use the Deff Rolla? Being AP -, I've had really bad luck using it to tank shock infantry and such prevents disembarking for a turn and allows the enemy to possibly surround the vehicle before destroying it and everyone inside. if you get out prior to tank shocking, then you can't tank shock for a turn making the rolla a point sink.

Deff Rolla is used to tank shock tanks! Ap - has no bearing this time. just the str10 hits. Pretty huge.

1st off,

take the BW bare bones, def rollas look good on paper, till you realise that they just make your BW even more of a target, and are really only good against other vehicles, not much a deffrolla can do that a PK nob cannot do better.
2nd

MAX them out, 3 at min,
maybeably with 1-2 more filled with cheap nobs or with minned nob squad to let more boyz in, but 3 is ok till you hit 2k games


3rd som trukk support right behind them works AWESOME... even the huge new trukk models will be LOS blocked by the BW if you do it right.

4th: try to have a mega armor boss in the front BW's to tank any exploded wounds, and make sure you are getting cover

5th: you need lots of threats in their face all at once, so warbikers (not nobs) are a really solid choice. have one or two units as large as you can fit in to either flank the sides and distract, or to put in front of the BW+ trukk convoy to give them cover.

I generally have run 3 BW's in 1850 games, always in assault turn two due to flat out 18" first turn, then 6 + 6 + assault range for turn two meaning a lot of the table is in threat range.

I also will have some trukks to wheel into position to back up any BW's that might go down to enemy fire (literally, nothing except centurians and darklances has brought them down... even tau seem to ignor str 10 weapons, usually people shoot at them with str 8 and waste most of their shooting, or shoot at more blow uppy targets... ESPECIALY with no deff rolla on the BW, they tend to be ignored over the large 30 man shoota squads/grots/trukks/warbikers I have holding mid feild or moving up to flank.

 Icculus wrote:
Deff Rolla is used to tank shock tanks! Ap - has no bearing this time. just the str10 hits. Pretty huge.

Agreed rollas are great for ramming tanks.

Thanks Easysauce for the info. I know there's a lot of talk in a few other threads on Shootas vs Choppas and assault. Do you still take shootas given how much assault pressure you put on first turn?

Tank shock a vehicle with the deffrolla then you can snap shot your wagon full of shoota boys at a different target in the shooting phase. That way you maximise your turn 2 tank shocking. Then disembark turn 3 and start krumpin if they havent popped the wagon yet.

at 1500-1850 i run 3(4 depends what i feel for 1 BW with manz)
rest filled with shoota boyz the BW itself deffrollah and 1 big shoota sometimes RPJ just for the lol's
backed up with nob bikers and dakkajets. I like running speed :3

Im with phatonic. All about the speed. Trucks, wagons, bikes or buggies. If it has wheels its on my list

1) Most armies can deal with one BW a turn. It takes BW 2 turns to cross the board. So if you aren't taking at minimum 3, it is probably not worth it.
2) Battlewagons are a transport 1st. Stay away from Kannon. If you want something like that you should drop you BW in favor of a Looted Wagon. Battlewagons should be moving flat out until they deliver troops to the enemy, so the only point of even a Big Shoota is to keep from being immobilized.
3) Battlewagons work best when loaded with a unit that can jump out and kill or at least tarpit any infantry they run into. At that point, the BW can go on its way tank shocking vehicles.
4) The problem with Lootas in a Battlewagon is that when said wagon is destroyed it tends to kill 1/2 of the lootas. When we are talking about 6 point boyz getting killed by an exploding BW, it isn't near as big as 15 point Lootas. Lootas are probably better off hiding in cover, and in squads small enough that they aren't a target priority.
5) Burnas in Battlewagons seem awesome. However, I've never seen anyone pull it off successfully. Shoota Boyz, MANZ, or Nobz are all better when in a Battlewagon IMO
6) Battlewagons are Open Topped. So if you run into a unit that is deadly in Melee, you can hang out 18" away, and let your Shoota boyz throw dice at them until they die.
7) In most games Battlewagons are going to be the #1 target priority for your opponent. But that is just fine. 120 Pts for a unit that draws fire from squishier units is worth it. Even if they only manage to move 18" and then die, that is 1 turn closer to the enemy form your Shoota Boyz / Nobz.

Battlewagons are one of the best assault vehicles avaliable in the game. However, to be truly effective - they must be spammed. The more wagonz - the better.

The most effective are shootaboyz/meganobz/nobz in multiple wagons. As for me, plain boyz are better than anything else, but when you reach the limit of 3 HS wagons with shootaboyz or have some other heavy support slot for something like lobbas, you can get dedicated transport wagonz on nobz or meganobz which are not bad with indep.

It's interesting that at the start of 6 edition wagons were really bad. Cause compared to 5 ed rules they got worse cover save from a kff, s4 explosion and no more move 12 + disembark 6 + run d6 with waaagh + 6 charge...and at the start of 6 ed people people still had their AT weaponry packed cause they needed it in 5 ed. What i see now are tons of s6-8 weapons and just a few lances and meltas or gravgun spam. So in current meta they shine. I have a good win rate vs tau-dar! And that's one of the top armies now. Pure eldar are harder to win cause of superior mobility and huge wagon sides don't like constantly getting shot at. But still i manage to pull victories from time to time. And that's only cause of wagonboyz (or nob bikers but we're not talking bout them right now )

My wagon build is: bs + ram. Nothing more - just 100 pt wagons. If you got spare points - you can put an extra bigshoota - sometimes comes handy, espetially when you want to ground a fmc. I stopped using deffrollas cause over a course of MANY fights they had no effect. I think that's mainly cause of pre-measurement and the ammount of skimmers that are very fast and unreachable with a 12' move. Even if you catch them - roll dice - ramming avoided. So i prefer spending this 15 pt per wagon elsewhere. Like eavy armor on nobz. Or some extra backfield support.

Good information.

Thanks Everyone.


One last question since I hate assuming. MANZ = meganobz?

Also - @koooaei - since you mention your win rate against TauDar, what strategies do you use for anti-vehicle? Just resort to Lootas? Extra PKs? Tankbustas?

I crank 'em out as warmachines. Being that my opponents don't really use a whole lot of vehicles I use 4 Big Shootas and a Kilkannon. Always worked well for me.

And yes. MANz are Mega Armored Nobz

Battlewagons are so good. Cheap AV 14, even only on the front, is gold. Compare to the LR. Yeah.......

I equip my Battlewagons as you do. Red Paint Job, Deffrolla, 2 Big Shootas, and a Kannon. They're best loaded up with Shoota Boyz or MANZ.

Red Paint Job is killer on Battlewagons. You can drive 7" instead of 6", deploy your troops, and Assault. With the random charge length in 6th Edition, that extra inch you can move before deploying can make a big difference.

The Kannon I take for some moderate offensive firepower. Yes, it will likely not do a whole lot. However, at 10 points it's such a cheap upgrade that it's worth taking. If you only manage to wound ONE model with it the whole game, chances are it was worth the points.

The Big Shootas I take because of fliers. They're great for taking snap-shots at Flying Monstrous Creatures. Even if you don't cause any wounds, you'll cause a Grounding Test. Orks need as much volume of fire as possible against fliers, because we don't have very many options. So in your typical list, you'll have at least one or two squads of Lootas. They're great, but if they crap out on you, you can throw a couple Big Shootas their way too.

The Deff Rolla has become a lot harder to use in 6th Edition. Pre-measuring means that opponents can do a much better job of staying out of its way, and you cannot use it when going Flat Out. Unless you have an odd game, you're not going to be able to use the Deff Rolla until at least turn 3, and it's very possible one or more of your Battlewagons will be destroyed by then... preferably AFTER dropping off their troops. That being said, it's still potent, and even if you don't get to attack with it, it can serve a good psychological effect on the field, forcing your opponent to try and stay away from the Battlewagon.

Murrdox wrote:
The Big Shootas I take because of fliers. They're great for taking snap-shots at Flying Monstrous Creatures. Even if you don't cause any wounds, you'll cause a Grounding Test. Orks need as much volume of fire as possible against fliers, because we don't have very many options. So in your typical list, you'll have at least one or two squads of Lootas. They're great, but if they crap out on you, you can throw a couple Big Shootas their way too.

This, I have two big shootas on each of my 3 wagons. I brought down a flying daemon prince with snapshots from my BWs. was pretty fantastic to knock it out of the air and cause a wound just from those little snap shots. Really with ork shooting, its not about the BS, the str of the weapon or even the ap. Its all about the volume of shots. I average around 60-80 dice worth of shooting per turn.