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Someone asked me if he could field Vulkan (the primarch) in a game of regular 40K this weekend. Since it was a friendly game, I said 'sure, why not.' to which he said: "Because he's OP as feth"'.

So I started looking for his rules and I came to this conclusion:
Against other space marine armies, he is very good since his armor makes him all but immune against Plasma, fusion, flamer and melta weaponry.
However, some Xenos (Necrons and Nids in particular) do not use these weapon types and can kill him fairly easy with volume of Str5+ shots.

The only thing I'm concerned about is his 3++ save, which makes him nigh invulnerable in CC.

Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators have 3++ saves but most people can deal with them....

You said in the other post of this thread that you accidentally double posted. What is your question? Don't really get the point of this thread.

I think he wants to know how concerned he needs to be about Vulkan

Yes, the primarchs are quite good in a regular game of 40k. I'd question that any army could kill him 'fairly easily,' and he's going to be rather beastly no matter what you're fighting him with.

Just remember that the 30k rules for LOW do not allow them in games below 2000 points, and you can't spend more than 25% of your points on them. Primarchs are powerful units, but you'll have enough points available to bring answers.

One of the best way to make someone fail an X++ save is to force that model to make a lot of saving throws.

For example - 10 SM with bolters on rapid fire, that's 20 dice. Statistically 1/2 will hit, ( i don't know Vulcans profile ) maybe 1/2 again will wound and he will have to take 3-5 armor save rolls and there is a good chance that he will fail 1.

 fox-light713 wrote:
For example - 10 SM with bolters on rapid fire, that's 20 dice. Statistically 1/2 will hit, ( i don't know Vulcans profile ) maybe 1/2 again will wound and he will have to take 3-5 armor save rolls and there is a good chance that he will fail 1.

You're off by quite a bit there. Vulkan is T7 W6 2+, so the 20 dice will get you 13.33 hits, 2.22 wounds, and 0.37 failed saves. IOW, bolter marines are not a realistic counter.

If you're relying on bolter marines to take out a primarch you're doing it wrong. You need AP1/2 weapons and concentrate on taking him out first.

 Toofast wrote:
If you're relying on bolter marines to take out a primarch you're doing it wrong. You need AP1/2 weapons and concentrate on taking him out first.

The problem is that Vulkan's special rule halves the strength of most AP 1/2 weapons. For example, your STR 3 plasma gun can't even roll dice to wound him, and melta needs 6s to wound. And then on top of that Vulkan gets a 3++. The real answer is sniper rifles, autocannons, etc. You'll allow the 2+ armor save, but at least you still get to generate enough wounds to get some through.

Snipers will be excellent, as they got a sort-of rending effect, meaning you wound on 4s and on 6s you lower his save from 2 to 3.

You'll need alot of snipers if that's all you got, but they will stand a chance there.

Not sure what other rending stuff marines have though. but if you got rend, or high S spam-it should put a dent in him.


Allied assassins always work too. they are quite capable at taking down single targets no matter how powerful they are.
vindi shieldbraker will land a wound 50% of the time, and assuming he is a psyker than clue will be giving him a bad time if he gets close.

Vulkan isn't a Psyker. Only Lorgar is a Psyker so far IIRC.

Do Autocannons have rending? What about Lascannons, would they do anything?

Be happy it isn't angron o.o just volume of shots should do the trick. I imagine a lascannon would but I think just making him save against a lot of dice would be the way to go.

He's a slow >500 pt 1-model. He'll probably roll in a landraider (+~250 pt) with at least some retinue.

Slow but in close combat, hammer attacks with aoe attack.
That and being tough as primarchs come.

T7 is not normal statlines.

You know what's pretty good at taking out Primarchs?
Fulgrim.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
You know what's pretty good at taking out Primarchs?
Fulgrim.

Nice

Kaldor Draigo will do fine against him.

He's also an IC I think which means he will have bodies infront of him. You'll struggle with him so try and keep your distance and make Vulkan roll lots of saves.

What's the normal toughness score of a Primarch? 6 strikes me as monstrous creature territory, which is a bit of a stretch for the concept.

Anyhow, I guess in this scenario I'd start cracking out the test or be removed weaponry. Yeah, only does 1D3 to a Lord of War, but still shortcuts some of the weary process of trying to force enough wounds through a high toughness, good save 6 wound guy with a bodyguard.

Only does 1D3 to a superheavy, not to a LOW.
A non-superheavy LOW is still instagibed unless he got some special rule protecting him. not sure if primarchs to.

And I thnk they are in the T7 zone. they are rather mad.

changemod wrote:
What's the normal toughness score of a Primarch? 6 strikes me as monstrous creature territory, which is a bit of a stretch for the concept.

Anyhow, I guess in this scenario I'd start cracking out the test or be removed weaponry. Yeah, only does 1D3 to a Lord of War, but still shortcuts some of the weary process of trying to force enough wounds through a high toughness, good save 6 wound guy with a bodyguard.

I don't think Monstrous Creature is a stretch at all. I mean Angron survived being trod on by a Titan.

Hammerhand + activated force weapons?

Primarchs have Eternal Warrior, of course, so force weapons don't matter. Basically, whatever you would do to kill a big squad of hammernators is what you would use against a Primarch.

You kill the primarchs like you would a riptide, and for vulkan you can't do it with flamer melta or plasma. Poison still shreds them and so does sniper. He is slow and pricey so you could also treat him as a hamstrung imp knight, just kill the landraier quickly and then avoid him.

Edit: and grav weapons will make short work. Equal points of grav centurions will 1 turn kill him.