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Hey all,

I was wondering if there were any effective tactics for a Baneblade and all its variants. Mine is magnetized so I can swap to any variant. Or is it better to just not field them? Do they bring enough power to the table to be worth the points?

I'm gonna say leaving it on the model shelf.

Why's that? What makes it bad?

To be blunt and honest, it's not a GMC. Therefore, it can lose multiple HP to melta attacks and even lucky AP 2 shots, whereas GMCs have to be ground down wound by wound. Its firepower is decent, but not horrifying like Tau or Eldar. But defensively, it kinda sucks.

Ah, I see. Would there be any way to possibly make it good? I got a Knight and a full AM/IG and SM army. Maybe bubble wrap it with a huge Guardsmen blob?

spacemarine542 wrote:
Ah, I see. Would there be any way to possibly make it good? I got a Knight and a full AM/IG and SM army. Maybe bubble wrap it with a huge Guardsmen blob?

You could try that. But then that won't help against the D weapons. Which are probably a bigger problem than melta, because they can't be wrapped against.

That's true. I don't think my buddies are going to be fielding D weapons for a long time though. We're mostly casual. It's kind of surprising it dies so fast with 3 structure points, and fluffwise being one of the strongest vehicles the Imperium has to offer.

Baneblade's are actually surprisingly durable. Despite what Martel said. Unless your buddies are bringing massed melta or d weapons it can last a while and puts out lots of Dakka. The sticking point for me is the pts. cost.

So there's no chance that someone "casually" fields a Wraithknight? Or a Stormsurge?

The fluff means absolutely nothing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 War Kitten wrote:
Baneblade's are actually surprisingly durable. Despite what Martel said. Unless your buddies are bringing massed melta or d weapons it can last a while and puts out lots of Dakka. The sticking point for me is the pts. cost.

That means it's fragile for the cost. Not durable at all. And has little output for the cost. That's the opposite of lots of dakka. It's the exact same problem the land raider has.

You have a point but luckily so far they don't have those models. Unlucky for me my opponents are Tau and Eldar and occasionally CSM, so It's only a matter of time. That's when I swap to a Warhounds though .

Well your in luck (hopefully) As come the 29th Warzone Damocles:Mont'ka is gonna drop and will have new datasheets for all 9 baneblade variants. Now as the what will be new about them, I have no idea.

The problem with Baneblades in general atm is that first off they are vehicles that unlike the Knights have no save to speak of, so when you get hit you just take it. Second off is the less than impressive rear armor which renders it as durable as a Chimera (I think this is reasonable but 7th has been a really bad editions for vehicles). Third is that compared to the newer super heavies, the baneblade is horribly over costed for what it brings to the table.

With luck, mont'ka will fix this but we'll have to wait and see.

spacemarine542 wrote:
That's true. I don't think my buddies are going to be fielding D weapons for a long time though. We're mostly casual. It's kind of surprising it dies so fast with 3 structure points, and fluffwise being one of the strongest vehicles the Imperium has to offer.

In case you dont know this (since youre saying structure points instead of hull points), each structure point is 3 hull points. So 9 hull points.

Ignore Martel. He's gut a stick up his rear about (G)MCs. Yes they are overpowered but that doesn't make all vehicles bad.

Yea, tell the renegade flamer sentinels they are bad because they are vehicles. 10/10/10/2 might be junk, but not when you cost 20.
Its all a matter of price per effect.

As for melta multi-damage, fortunately much AT in the current meta revolves around HP stripping with spam over raw power, assault knights /bikers and grav, with melta being pushed back "because tanks suck anyway and nobody takes them"
Supers like bane variants do not fall quickly to grav or spam. And being IG you can bubble against assaults rather well.

Now, I don't know if the BB variants are properly costed, but dismissing them too quickly might be foolish. Take some variants to a spin and check it out. Focus on the ones without godly range, units with range over 48 usually pay for practically nothing (as that range is hardly ever relevant), especially with big guns.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Ignore Martel. He's gut a stick up his rear about (G)MCs. Yes they are overpowered but that doesn't make all vehicles bad.

That is true. I'd like to see him say 'it's bad because it's not GMC' after facing a Revenant.

That said, he is not wrong here. The Baneblade is not a very competetive choice.

The Baneblade isn't bad - especially since you have access to any variant.


They're an odd one. As noted, they're not Gargantuan Creatures, or Walkers, and that means they need protecting from assaults - a knight worth fewer points can ginsu one quite happily in a single round of assault.

If you play Imperial Guard, "Must Protect The Tanks" is not an especially new concept, though. It is pleasingly fast, but if you start moving at speed, you can't maintain an infantry screen.

I dunno. You do have the advantage of AV14 on the front and AV13 on the sides, which means that compared to other people's knights, scatter laser fire is a joke.

The big party piece is the massive blast and apocalyptic blast weapons - which can be lethal if used right. More important are the Hellhammer and Stormsword's weapons, which stack a devastating combination of S10, AP1, Primary Weapon and Ignores Cover with a huge blast template that can remove units from a huge area.

Ignoring multiple wounds and FNP at T5, and ignoring Jink into the bargain, makes them lethal against thunderwolves, ravenwing, jetbikes, and so on, as well as skimmers and hull-down tanks.

The big problem is that baneblades don't fight other superheavies well (the problem with firing big blast weapons at one model). They're good at battering armies, but not taking down other big things - even the shadowsword's not too great at it. So focus on destroying everything else.

If you do end up facing a Wraithknight with twin cannons or a Stormsurge, actually a Stormlord is one of your best bets for killing it. If you can get "all power to weapons" off, you can probably shoot the bezeesus out of it in two turns - and you've got enough HP to take the odd destroyer hit provided it's not a deathblow. Dig in hull down and that goes double.

Sadly that doesn't work against a knight unless he's stupid enough to flash his arse at you, because S6 can't tough AV13.

Other note:
Consider taking (if you can afford it) a Rampart Detachment Formation. The Bullgryns act as impressive assault deterrant, grant a 4+ cover save, and are actually tall enough to provide meaningful cover.

I've seen the Stormhammer at work (Str10 AP1, Ignores cover apocalyptic blast) a few days ago.

It was pretty good. It dropped a full broadside squad with drones turn one. Despite suffering an Explode! result taking of 4 hull points in the first turn, it went strong until turn 3 where it was destroyed by a deep-strike melta team.
Can't remember what the lascannons and other guns did exactly, but it's not like they weren't there.

I figure it would've been destroyed turn 2 had the team arrived during that turn, but really I think the tank would've carried its weight nonetheless.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Ignore Martel. He's gut a stick up his rear about (G)MCs. Yes they are overpowered but that doesn't make all vehicles bad.

But in this case, the vehicle is indeed bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:
Ignore Martel. He's gut a stick up his rear about (G)MCs. Yes they are overpowered but that doesn't make all vehicles bad.

That is true. I'd like to see him say 'it's bad because it's not GMC' after facing a Revenant.

That said, he is not wrong here. The Baneblade is not a very competetive choice.

Revenants have special snowflake rules that make them deadly. If Baneblades or IK had those rules, they'd be good too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Yea, tell the renegade flamer sentinels they are bad because they are vehicles. 10/10/10/2 might be junk, but not when you cost 20.
Its all a matter of price per effect.

As for melta multi-damage, fortunately much AT in the current meta revolves around HP stripping with spam over raw power, assault knights /bikers and grav, with melta being pushed back "because tanks suck anyway and nobody takes them"
Supers like bane variants do not fall quickly to grav or spam. And being IG you can bubble against assaults rather well.

Now, I don't know if the BB variants are properly costed, but dismissing them too quickly might be foolish. Take some variants to a spin and check it out. Focus on the ones without godly range, units with range over 48 usually pay for practically nothing (as that range is hardly ever relevant), especially with big guns.

My lists last much longer against Baneblades than it does Riptides or WK/scatbikes or Skyhammer. So yeah, they're bad. They are super heavies that can't keep up with the big boys.

Shadow sword or the S10 Ap1 ignores cover one are the only ones worth considering.

And even then, you have to ask yourself if a knight wouldn't be better for its points.

They seems very costly for what they can do, indeed.
Even if their firepower seems good, the most have no ignore cover.
0 cc abilities, a very large footrprint, 0 save...
It is not worth as much as 500 (!!!) points.
One day I will have one, but be sure I am not a "competitive" player most of th time^^

Does a chimera in front of a banebladd give him cover ? I don't own one, I can see if it screen 25% or not while letting him shoot, it can help if it work.

You can just buy a sky shield for 75 points and give you're baneblade 4++ invul

If you like the S10 ignores cover you might consider a Typhon Heavy Siege Tank instead it has melta immunity, AP14 on all sides and rocks in at only 350 points (at least the heretic one in IA 13 does). Blast is the 7" one though.

For me thats a more manageable price cost but if you are playing big apocalypse games say 2500+ points then baneblade can be good fun and will achieve stuff (just probably wont make its points back).

Typhoons are freakin scary. As a Tau player i couldnt remove that thing for squat. Admittedly my surge wiffed his damn D missiles (most of them, did 3 damage with 1) but still that thing does not flippin die thanks to melta immunity.

Baneblades i feel got nerfed too much. They used to be too strong for the cost since they were spewing D massive blasts once upon a time. Now theyre a joke.

I love that skyshield idea... I'd have to model a ramp on it though because I find it super silly when tanks wind up on buildings lol.

Hide it in the corner of the board away from most of your army, preferably behind some scenery. Ty to to the eyes away from it, and get anything than can get it from afar 1st
Alliteratively get a Macharis instead.

If you back a baneblade up with a couple of enginseers (sp) with good numbers of servitors, and probably give it some bubble wrap, it's actually pretty damn tough to take down. It can still be done, and especially with D weapons, but sort of large amounts of D it's going to be really hard to remove from the table.

What baneblade variant are you using? Quite frankly the Hellhammer is probably the best one out there, str 10 ap 1 ignores cover massive blasts are nothing to sneeze at, and 36 inch range will cover most tables well.

If you're going to invest that many points into a superheavy tank, you really need to maximise your output by using psychic powers as a force multiplier. Make sure you take a couple of separate psykers with Divination for the Primaris power. Less important for the Blast variants, but essential for the Stormlord.

Thanks for the input guys! I've got my Baneblade magnetized so I can swap the variations when I want. So it sounds like the only semi-viable options is the Str D Shadowsword and Str 10 Ap 1 Apocalyptic Blast Ignores Cover Stormsword.

The stormlord can be good as well if you support it right - back it up with rerolls to hit and or wound, and it'll chew through monsters like stormsurge and wraithknights as well as anythingelse you have access to.

locarno24 wrote:
The stormlord can be good as well if you support it right - back it up with rerolls to hit and or wound, and it'll chew through monsters like stormsurge and wraithknights as well as anythingelse you have access to.

Not really... It will take 2 turns on average for a Stormlord to shoot a Wraithknight to death, doing just over 3 unsaved wounds each turn, and that's under very favourable circumstances (Stormlord has Prescience, is equipped with a pair of Lascannon sponsons, didn't move so it can fire the Vulcan Mega-Bolter twice, the Wraithknight has no cover or invulnerable save, Wraithknight is not buffed by any psychic powers). If the conditions start to go the Wraithknights way, it takes far longer.

It does better on average against a Stormsurge, since they are only T6 (ie easier to Wound and the Heavy Bolters can hurt it now), but even then it will still only shoot one to death in a single turn under favourable Prescience/Mega-Bolter Double-Tap/No Cover/No Invuln/etc conditions, however it will do just over 13 wounds to it then. Without Prescience but still shooting the Vulcan Mega-Bolter twice it will only do about 7 wounds, and the Stormsurge has 8...