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Hi all,

So I get that looted wagons are a controversial heavy support choice, and as per previous threads, I understand the reasons why many consider it suboptimal - killkannon is meh, armour is meh, don't press dat! is annoying, and Ork heavy support slots are very contested. However, it just so happens that my flatmate has kindly donated an old Chaos pred from when he used to play, so I thought I might as well convert it into a looted wagon using spare battlewagon parts.

The question, therefore, is this: if you were to take a looted wagon, how would you equip it?

I was thinking the following:

* Killkannon - with a 6" move and a 24" range it could do a fair bit of damage, even on turn one
* Reinforced ram - mandatory for Ork vehicles
* 'Ard case, grot riggers and armour plates - if I am going to use it to fire the killkannon then it's not much good as a transport unit anyway, so I might as well give it some additional protection
* Three big shootas, - the killkannon will force it to snap fire anyway, and at least this way it might actually hit something. Also, it gives me sacrificial weapons if one of them gets destroyed
* Technically it will still have some transport capacity, so a big mek inside with da fixer upperz and kustom force field, and/or a couple of meks, in order to lend it some survivability (I know AV11 is not great).

I already have three battlewagons in my army between HS and DT, so I imagine there will be other scary threats to distract fire from it.

Thoughts?

Barebones besides the killkannon and reinforced ram, maybe a couple of big shootas/rokkit launchas at most.

You want them cheap and cheerful simply because of how fragile they are, there isn't a point in wasting points on things like armour plates (which doesn't help against being forced snapshot and therefore be unable to fire the killkannon anyways) or grot riggers/'ard case with it being unreliable with "Don't Press Dat!". Chances are it will die in one go from HP stripping and all of those upgrades you mentioned do nothing to prevent it so its best to keep upgrades to a minimum.

It is only a glorified rhino so don't expect much from it. In the few cases I have used it I ran at least 2-3 of them with this loadout so even if one goes AWOL with "Don't Press Dat!" you have the other two to pick up the slack. So you may have to proxy a couple of other looted tanks so you have enough threat overload to use them. Also I use its open-topped nature to my advantage by just putting a squad of shoota boyz in them. Worst case scenario if its shaken you can drive up with the Boyz like it's a trukk and deliver its cargo. Plus their dakka can help out given that they don't have to snapfire when the killkannon fires.

OK. What about the meks/KFF big mek?

 Krusha wrote:
OK. What about the meks/KFF big mek?

I wouldn't. Not for a Looted Wagon.
It's not a tough vehicle, so spending point on trying to make it survive just isn't worth it. Keep it cheap and cheerful.
They're no a bad vehicle if you have a HS slot going spare. But they're not game changers.

OK - so basically, the lesson here is that armour 11 is so bad that no amount of trying to increase its survivability (beyond, perhaps, the 'ard case upgrade) is really worth the points investment it requires.

Cheers all, I will see how it gets on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimskul wrote:
Plus their dakka can help out given that they don't have to snapfire when the killkannon fires.

Sorry, just saw this edit.

If you are going to transport boyz, then is it worth giving them 'eavy armour for when it explodes?

No, since cheapness is the name of the game with looted wagons, 'eavy armour just inflates the points for that unit and chances are that the looted wagon won't blow up anyways (doubly so if you take the ard' case upgrade, which I wouldn't) just get wrecked by S6-7 spam.

Can it take just 2 bigshootas/rokkits?

 koooaei wrote:
Can it take just 2 bigshootas/rokkits?

It can take up to 3.

Just because ypure looting a predator, doesnt mean it has to end up being a looted wagon.

It already is covered in big guns, so chuck a ram on the front and a platform on the back and turn it into a battlewagon. (Oh i just noticed you already have 3... though no harm in aiming for 5 for the formation )

Or use the mek junka rules instead, which i personally prefer.

You could even turn it into a big trakk easily i expect, depending on what turrets the predator already has.

I only say this as personally I'd say all these alternative looted conversions are better than the looted wagon lol.


If you're determined to go for the looted wagon though, i wouldnt bother with meks or big meks. Too expensive an upgrade for no real benefit. If anyone shoots at the wagon itll die anyway. Keep it cheap.
Kilcannon and a big shoota to protect from weapon destroyed.

Well, theoretically you can use it as a bigshoota/rokkit platform. As it can have 3 of those. Though, it must remain stationary to get the bonuses out of it. And it's suboptimal. You're better off with grot tanks or buggies for the role. So, yep, Killkannon and nothing more.

Lol. It seems that battlewagon spam is a very hard mould to break.

I would have thought a predator was too small/weedy to pass for a battlewagon (I have two official battlewagons and a looted land raider). As for big trakks etc, I have concerns about opponents getting funny with me using forgeworld rules.

I run Looted Wagons with 'ard case and 3 Skorchas... It absolutely destroys stuff and can't blow up too easily

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
I run Looted Wagons with 'ard case and 3 Skorchas... It absolutely destroys stuff and can't blow up too easily

Interesting. How do you make it close to the enemy with a ~100 pt av11 vehicle? Target saturation, i guess.

67 points for a Ordinance blast isnt bad and is pretty cheap. Sure its Av11 but some armies pay that or more for transports with little fire support capability.

 koooaei wrote:

Target saturation, i guess.

When presented with a problem the orks default answer!

Problems with your warboss being killed by their beatsticks? MOAR WARBOSSES!
Problems with your boyz being killed by their beatsticks? MOAR BOYZ!
Problems with your battlewagons not getting off the starting line? MOAR BATTLEWAGONS!
Problems with your battlewagons being killed by their beatsticks? MOAR BATTLEWAGONS! minimum of 3; 1 to get blown up, 1 to run em over, 1 to reverse back over to make sure he's dead.

If I was running wagons;
I would run as many as I could I reckon, rokkit wagons and burna wagons. you can pack quite a lot of shots onto each one.

I'm a big fan of everything template for orks. With low BS and AP of 5 or 6 on most of the weapons it's a waste of time to shoot at the enemy. However even a small template has a pretty good shot of landing wounds on something.

If anything I'd simply mount the biggest gun possible on it and stay at extreme range dropping huge painful death on the crunchies softening them up for the boyz.

 Krusha wrote:
Lol. It seems that battlewagon spam is a very hard mould to break.

I would have thought a predator was too small/weedy to pass for a battlewagon (I have two official battlewagons and a looted land raider). As for big trakks etc, I have concerns about opponents getting funny with me using forgeworld rules.

Adding a ran on the front and a boyz cage on the back would do fine for a battlewagon, though true its not optimal. Will require some conversion.

As far as forgeworld goes, these days i thought it was widely accepted. Most of the rules are way more balenced than the ones GW puts out.

Also, target saturation with wagons isnt really an option, as it takes up way too many valuable slots. Im assuming your battlewagons are already dedicated transports?

If you want to add some gun blasts, and a big trakk supacannon is off the cards, why not mek gunz?
More accurate than a looted wagon
cheaper than a wagon
you can have 5 in 1 heavy support slot
way more killy
much more likely to survive

Niiru wrote:

Adding a ran on the front and a boyz cage on the back would do fine for a battlewagon, though true its not optimal. Will require some conversion.

Boyz cage? What's one of them? Is that from a trukk?

Also, target saturation with wagons isnt really an option, as it takes up way too many valuable slots. Im assuming your battlewagons are already dedicated transports?

One is, the rest are HS.

If you want to add some gun blasts, and a big trakk supacannon is off the cards, why not mek gunz?
More accurate than a looted wagon
cheaper than a wagon
you can have 5 in 1 heavy support slot
way more killy
much more likely to survive

Because that wouldn't involve making use of this free predator

 koooaei wrote:

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
I run Looted Wagons with 'ard case and 3 Skorchas... It absolutely destroys stuff and can't blow up too easily

Interesting. How do you make it close to the enemy with a ~100 pt av11 vehicle? Target saturation, i guess.

Well... It isn't open topped, so it usually can take a hit. It is also immune to bolter fire, and most anti-infantry guns. I just bull rush it forward and hope for the best. If they waste the 6-10 shots needed to kill it with AT (if they don't get lucky and roll a 6 and explode it) then I come out ahead, and if they underestimate it, then I demolish them. I also love putting DFU Meks into them, but that's not really a competitive use of HQ slots, so I didn't mention it before.

I run looted wagons with 10 gretchin in them, with a killkannon. it's cheap, it's dangerous, and it can poop out a unit to grab an objective, and it makes use of the cheapest "need more CAD's" troops unit out there.