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Hello. First, a bit of back story.

At our flgs, there tends to be a few circles who play against the same people often. There are a lot of tables but a lot of people, and the painting group tends to steal a few away so we often double up. I traditionally play Leman Russ-Heavy IG and/or Nurgle, and ask people what they want to fight before hand. They complain about the Leman Russes but typically take anti-tank heavy lists and flyers(which I don't) so I consider it even.

That day we played a 4,000 point non-apocalypse game of 4k of IG versus Necrons and Horus Heresy Marines. I was a little miffed when I saw a fellblade on the table but it's in their book so I didn't complain too loudly until 2 turns later when I had no tanks and a quickly dwindling horde of scared, scared guardsmen. Despite repeatedly shooting at it with Vanquishers(and as I got more desperate and ran out of vanquishers, my executioner las cannons and Pask-Exterminator from the side)I couldn't scratch more than 4 hull points off of it before all my anti-tank was dead. I came to the conclusion that I didn't really know how to deal with fellblades, as this was one of the most one-sided battles I'd ever been a part of.

Now, my only Super-Heavies are a shadowsword(which isn't allowed), a warhound(which isn't allowed D weapons), and a stormlord(which is bad). So my question is, assuming I have an essentially limitless IG collection, what is my best(most point-efficient) means of dealing with a Fellblade without using a super heavy myself?

Vendettas and Deep Striking Meltas is all I can really recommend. I would talk to the guys in charge of the store house rules and see if you can't get the ban on D weaponry lifted in apoc. It seems unfair.

You could also buy a void shield generator/ally in DA and use presienced blobs with Lascannons.

Melta won't be as useful as a HH Fellblade can take the armored ceramite upgrade. Meltaguns on the AV12 rear can still be useful, you just don't get the benefit of the melta rule.

Take the Shadowsword if you can. Even be willing to go with the same limitation on Lords of War that the HH list has (no more than 25% of total points) just to be fair.

Otherwise, spam lascannons and Vanquishers at the sides of the Fellblade.

Forgive me for asking the question, but what is a fellblade? Or if you could give me a rough indicator, then we could advise?

Why isnt your shadowsword allowed? The rules of escalation clearly allow it, and its a non optional rule.

Why would a Horus Heresy army (which is a completely different game, not meant to be played with 40k) list be allowed but escalation not be allowed?

Razerous wrote:
Forgive me for asking the question, but what is a fellblade? Or if you could give me a rough indicator, then we could advise?

This is a Fellblade.

haroon wrote:
Why isnt your shadowsword allowed? The rules of escalation clearly allow it, and its a non optional rule.

Why would a Horus Heresy army (which is a completely different game, not meant to be played with 40k) list be allowed but escalation not be allowed?

Quite a few clubs/events are house ruling a ban on Str. D weapons. Something I totally support.

I've never seen a rule so broken that it actually destroys the fun in a game as much as Str. D

If you can't get the Shadowsword allowed, maybe you could suggest the alternate D weapon rules that Forge World released:

*Destroyer weapons count as being Strength 10 and have the Instant Death, Sunder and Ignores Cover special rules. In addition, successful invulnerable saves taken against hits from Destroyer Weapons must be re-rolled.

*Each unsaved wound from a destroyer weapon inflicts d3+1 wounds. Each penetrating hit from a destroyer weapon causes d3+1 hull points / rolls once on the appropriate vehicle damage chart.

I think that people would be open to this, as they allow Horus Heresy lists.

Fellblades are one of the few good SHs without D weapons. However something strange was going on if you were loosing even a single leman russ per turn to it. Are you sure the rules from Imperial Armour 1 Second Edition were being used?

Just using 4 vanquisher leman russ' you should destroy him about the same time he kills your last tank. Just keep them cheap and in cover, it also helps to have a source of prescience. Another option is a tank hunter (from order), prescienced, lascannon foot blob will deal out some serious damage. Keep in mind the tank does not ignore cover so GtG behind an ADL will mitigate the damage extremely well.

Trickstick wrote:If you can't get the Shadowsword allowed, maybe you could suggest the alternate D weapon rules that Forge World released:

*Destroyer weapons count as being Strength 10 and have the Instant Death, Sunder and Ignores Cover special rules. In addition, successful invulnerable saves taken against hits from Destroyer Weapons must be re-rolled.

*Each unsaved wound from a destroyer weapon inflicts d3+1 wounds. Each penetrating hit from a destroyer weapon causes d3+1 hull points / rolls once on the appropriate vehicle damage chart.

I think that people would be open to this, as they allow Horus Heresy lists.

These rules are known but it has been stated that if I ran my shadowsword people simply wouldn't play. I could maybe find some other people but not the people I currently play with, and that would sort of defeat the purpose.

ansacs wrote:Fellblades are one of the few good SHs without D weapons. However something strange was going on if you were loosing even a single leman russ per turn to it. Are you sure the rules from Imperial Armour 1 Second Edition were being used?

Just using 4 vanquisher leman russ' you should destroy him about the same time he kills your last tank. Just keep them cheap and in cover, it also helps to have a source of prescience. Another option is a tank hunter (from order), prescienced, lascannon foot blob will deal out some serious damage. Keep in mind the tank does not ignore cover so GtG behind an ADL will mitigate the damage extremely well.

The Fellblade isn't in IA Vol I ver 2 unless I missed something...

It has 2 twin linked S9 AP1 Ordnance shots and a S9 Armorbane small blast, plus the demolisher when it closes range. Losing a tank a turn isn't really that unreasonable. The other thing is it isn't like the Fellblade was the only threat on the table. I also had to deal with the U shaped flyer(can't remember name) dropping terminators on turn 3(who then assaulted some guardsmen) heavy conversion beamer predators, necron flyers and other stuff. Another big problem was that it and the other things would stun/shake a tank or two as well, which meant they wouldn't murder anything the next turn. The Fellblade obviously doesn't suffer from this, being a super heavy.

Obviously I CAN kill it if I devote enough crap to it, since that's how you can kill anything. I was wondering if someone could think of an efficient way to do it that I couldn't see. I really, really hate taking flyers but it looks like Vendettas will be my melta vets, perhaps with a spare command squad full of meltas in one as well.

The fellblade super heavy most definitely is in IA2 2ed and that is the most recent rules.

I would avoid melta as it can (and should) have immunity to melta from a cheap upgrade.

I assume you are talking about laser destroyers, fellblade cannon, and a possible demolisher cannon. However non of the weapons has AP1. The most damaging profile to leman russ tanks is S9 AP2 3" blast armour bane, 2 quad lascannons (4 shots at 48" is much better than 2 ordnance shots at 36"), and a 24" S10 AP2 ordnance shot. None of these has ignore cover on them so the amount of damage it can do against an AM player behind an ADL is going to be limited. Even with just guardsmen for cover for your russ' the fellblade shooting everything at your tanks has a 25% chance to destroy a tank a turn. You can take 4 vanquishers for the price of a fell blade and deal out an average of ~3 HP a turn without any extra support (much more with prescience, putting your tanks on both board corners for side armour, and I factored in a 5+ cover save for a tank which will struggle to claim it). The fellblade's damage output is drastically reduced by cover.

Also your comment about the opponent's having other resources is a bit pointless. Of course they do...doesn't your side have more resources than 540 pts worth of leman russ'?

There are a number of options you have in the AM codex all of which are great.
*Lascannon Sabre platforms with orders to give tank hunter are brutal, you can get 2 units of 3 sabre platforms, yarrick, and a skyshield landing pad for the same cost as a fellblade; averages ~4 HP of damage a turn and the fellblade will struggle to remove even a single sabre platform (they might chew through your ablative wounds though)
*bastion breacher shells on some form of medusa siege gun (I like the heavy artillery version)
*Guard Blobb w/ 5 lascannons, ADL, Yarrick w/ Icarus lascannon, primaris or two. A bit more expensive (though you probably were bringing a lot of it anyways) but with the ADL you will take relatively little damage (GtG for a 2+ and order them up again if you fear you will get wiped). The damage is pretty great with ~4 HP a turn average (assumes prescience and tank hunter).
*rapier battery
*A bunch of deathstikes or manticores could work and would be pretty hilarious, just block LoS
*A vlador tank hunter can be useful in a no D weapon environment. It is fairly easy to claim cover and you have a lot of psykers to help you hit.
*Warhound with overload plasma blast guns is actually pretty brutal, if will likely chip off ~3-4 HP and kill everything near the tank

If the opponent is always bringing it forward to use the demolisher cannon then there are even more options. Also if the opponent doesn't take ceramite then you can melta it to death in a variety of fun and interesting ways.

Last time I engaged a fellblade I killed it with two Vanquishers and two Thunderers for the loss of one of the Thunderers.

I was not impressed.

My six other LRBTs murderated most of the rest of the things.

Bear in mind that the IA2 version of the Fellblade doesn't necessarily override the HH version. HH intentionally has different versions of some units that also exist in 40K.

Anyway, sometimes a bit of luck is required. I know what it's like to hit with every lascannon, but to fail every armor penetration roll.