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I'm starting to think about build a list built around a stompa. I'm sure this isn't a new idea, sticking a big mek with a KFF and maybe Da Fixer Uppers inside a stompa with grot riggers, coming to about 900 points. Add a unit of burna boyz with three meks and maybe even an HQ mek and you have an extremely hard nut to crack. Now that being said it's about half of an 1850 army. So I suppose the question is, how viable 'half an army' is it?

Codex stompa theres really only one way to run it.

Unless i am missing a general super heavy rule, its not an Assault vehicle so it has the same issue transport wise the nauts have - everything you put inside wants to assault. Except one. Burna units with their own meks rather than HQ meks.
Without double-foc you can put 3 units of 5 burnas inside that thing, each with their own 3 meks so a total of 9 meks in its belly. Grot riggers for a 10th fixing attempt. If you really want to, add in Big Meks or HQ Meks to bump that number up to 12-15 attempts a turn including riggers to repair it.

Only real cost is using all your elite slots, which if you have a stompa youre probably doing a walker list anyway. Min burna units are 80pts a pop.

As for the viability, depends on the points. If youre playing 2k points it probably will never die. 12HP with Invincible Behemoth rule and a gakload of repair chances each turn, you would have to take a LOT of fire for that thing to die and without either damn good luck, an army tailored to deal with it, or another super heavy rolling 6s on Str D weapons odds are it wont die in one swoop.
Stick a biker unit behind it to act as bodyguards for a KFF mek, so it gets a 5++ as well as other walkers for even more protection.
3k points, i imagine its pretty tame at this point. Even if you arent against supers theres bound to be a ton of things that can hurt the stompa to glance it to death/get the occational D3 damage on Explode! results.

I mentioned making a Stompa to my GK playing friend. His reply was to boast about how a bunch of Jokaero in Chimeras could take it down easily with multi-meltas. Now, not having the GK book myself, and never having used a super heavy before, I really don't know how accurate that is, so I'm hoping people can shed some light on it for me here. That's just an example of how it doesn't seem to scare people, accurate or no.

But honestly, 13 hull points is a tall order. I'm sure people can manage it somehow, somewhere, hell maybe the Jokaero CAN do it, but it takes some punch to be able to do with all the defenses you listed. Without giving it anything extra, it has extremely long range guns that pack the most shots and punch of anything we have (and let's face it, I bet psycho dakka-blasta! is hilariously fun to use), and you can take more supa rokkits(that's a large blast that has a range of infinite, by the way). I'd love for the armor to be higher, or upgradeable to av14 somehow, but hey, there IS lots of dakka.

Psycho-Dakka-Blasta was more fun with the first Stompa.

Multi-meltas need to be 12" away to have a real threat to the Stompa, and an Explode result doesnt auto-destroy a super heavy it causes D3 additional hull points. Still threatening, but not auto-fail.

Assuming his multi-meltas are shooting at max range, thats a 5 to Glance 6 to Pen. Unlikely to cause significant damage. If he has double-pen range, its almost auto-pen since he needs average dice to pen AV13.
However, with new vehicle rules AP1 needs a 5+ to cause an Explode! result. Unless he fields a TON of them, i would find it highly unlikely he would kill it in one go and your metric crapload of Meks can repair most of the damage between turns.
Theres also the range factor. Multi-meltas are 24", 12" when they actually become lethal. Sorry but the Stompa has a LOT of 36" guns that will wreck any non AV14 vehicle since it shoots a Massive Blast S10 AP1 shot across the table (thats the 5" diameter pi plate i believe) on top of the Supa Rokkits and Gatler that can easily wreck half or more of his melta toting units before they can even shoot.

Unless they deepstrike, or you cant shoot them first, meltas arent that threatening to any vehicle since most of the counters to said melta-toting unit out ranges the gak out of it.

I ran the numbers vs a combi melta loaded pod of stern guard and after rounding everything in their favor they remove 9 hull points.

Your stompa could be killed by Fire Dragon spam or certain Tau lists, otherwise not.

It will win games but not friends.

Tau lists? What kind of Tau lists?

My friend runs a few Necrcon Crypteks with the 4 shot Haywire things. They wipe Hull Points like a hot knife through butter. He ran a squad made up of 4 guys with the Haywire Guns and a guy that allows a deep strike move from starting on the board. He ran 2 squads and deep striked them up and stripped a ton of hull points. I wad lucky the rest of his army had really bad rolls but he almost wiped me in a single turn. I will be getting the Gaz supplement pretty soon because I heard there is a KFF that gives a 4++ Save instead of the normal 5++. That will only make the Stompa More brutal. Deny 50% of in coming shooting. Nasty.

A stompa is far from invincible, but it's still a tough nut that can remove a lot of enemy units during his first turn. However, if your opponent dedicates roughly the same amount of points to the stompa as it costs, he will sooner or later kill it.

I also had a bit of Trouble vs Grav bike spam. I have another mate that was running a pretty tough list at 1850pts. All bike with Grav and Melta bombs. I found the Stompa is at its weakest in combat because you don't get the chance to repair at the end of the opponents turn. I did Stomp a Chapter Master though and rolled the removed from play result. He wasn't happy about that one.

I'd be interested to see how it holds up vs Wych spam with the new D weapon rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another trick I have been trying out is taking a ton of Boyz on foot and surrounding the Stompa with them. They are like a screen to block out deep striking melta, haywire or anything else thats can hurt the stompa. They also work like blockers so melta bomb units can't assault the stompa. The Stompa gives them fearless so they won't run until you get to the last boy. Squads of 30 seem to work best. Once the Stompa has shot your opponent apart you can charge in to finish off any stragglers. The boys will restrict your Stompas movement a bit though until you move them out of the way to destroy things. The stompa should only be charging in the Mod to late game anyways.

Grav guns arent that much of a threat to SHW though. Grav guns only cause a Glance on a 6 to vehicles and immobilize it - btw, super heavies are immune to any damage chart result except Explode! which is a different result than normal as well. they cannot be immobilized which means the additional damage for multiple immobilization is impossible to happen.

Actually if you REALLY wanted to you could say Grav guns cant even do damage to super heavies. It says "on a 6 it causes an Immobilization result and loses a single hull point" - the stipulation here being an Immobilization result outside of a vehicle damage chart causes a damage as well. Major rule-threading going on but feasible to see it that since SHW cannot be immobilized, no damage is done.
But thats treading into "that guy" territory, so i'd advice against it lol