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Looking at ordering from Forgeworld before their free shipping thing ends. A few things caught my eye that I'm on the fence about, though, and I wanted to see if anyone here had an opinion on them. Mostly smaller stuff for now - want to set up the core of my army completely before I start collecting MOAR TANKZ...swappable turrets aside, that is.

Stigies-Pattern Vanquisher - Vanquishers are trash in 8e, but I remember seeing someone say this could be worthwhile. Main cannon hits at 3+ stationary without any outside assist, rerolls hits if I spray the target with my coax storm bolter (not the end of the world with wounds-on-6). Plus all the other stuff the Vanquisher normally gets. Looks more expensive in points, but I don't feel like crunching GW's stupid points system right now, though. Are these compatible with the plastic Russ hulls anyways?

Russ Annihilator - Twin lascannons look neat and lascannon seem to do alright in 8e - thoughts? Hits a little harder than a LRBT but is more points-expensive, it would seem.

Rapier Laser Destroyer - Cool looking (a tad bit pricey looking for something of its size), and the rules seem nifty. And the crew is some of the best-trained hand-to-hand combatants in the Guard But is it worth a shot at 78 points? And, it's an entire Heavy Support choice on its own...doesn't appear like it could be loaded into a transport, either, since it is a vehicle.

Heavy Mortar / Thudd Gun - Stats look alright, and indirect fire is cool. I had been playing with the idea of converting all or most of my mechanized squad heavy support weapons to having wheels, emulating them being dragged behind the track, and this cuts to the chase. Different style of wheels from what I anticipated though On closer look, though, it seems like this can't move once deployed - that's less than good.

I was going to say Cyclops, but that really looks low-tier - potentially only explodes to 1" around it. Nah. Looks really cool, though.

Thoughts, experiences, etc?

Cyclops is anything but low Tier. They are awesome! Hide some behind your chaff screen and anything that dares to charge your guardsmen is in for a very nasty surprise.

Vanquishers are bad but maybe they'll eventually get a buff? Either way, they are fluffy and look sweet. So I say worth it for 1.

Annihilators are sweet but you can easily convert one up out of excess heavy weapon team las cannons and the exterminator gun piece.

The laser destroyer is fun and potentially a beast. Probably cool to have 1. I like to sick mine on enemy tanks. I try to target but things that don't have invulnerable saves.

Heavy mortars were decently bad before the CA price hike. Definitely not worth it now.

Cyclops were super nasty at 40 points. But 60 may have gone too far. They're great fun and I recommend them.

The Stygies Vanquisher doubles-down on the Vanquisher's awfulness, buffing the main-armament to being even better but it's just a bad gun. It's like buffing a bunny rabbit to fight The Rock.

The Russ Annihilator is fairly good .

The Rapier Laser Destroyer is a fantastic anti-tank weapon for imperial guard infantry and artillery regiment players, fluffy and powerful. I'm not sure it's our /best/ anti-tank for the points (I'm fairly certain that goes to the Shadowsword by a huge margin) but you're not shooting yourself in the foot or anything by taking them.

The heavy mortars / thudd guns are also good "medium artillery" for an artillery, siege, or infantry regiment, though they're not really scary enough to be heavy guns and not cheap enough to be light guns (that's pretty much just the mortar atm).

The cyclops is amazing.

Vanquisher is still bad. The added BS doesn't make up for the absolute garbage that is the gun.

The cyclops is silly though. It's really good.

I like the stygies vanquisher. A lot of people are hoping that GW will buff it if they silence it advocates, but I enjoy having a super-melta available for when primarchs and other 200pt+ models show up. The Coax gun helps mitigate the fire rate of only two shots per turn by boosting the accuracy of those shots. Run it with a tank commander for the rerolls of 1s and you have a great companion to battle cannon leman russ.

The mortars are ok, but are really being outshined by the other artillery available for AM.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I like the stygies vanquisher. A lot of people are hoping that GW will buff it if they silence it advocates, but I enjoy having a super-melta available for when primarchs and other 200pt+ models show up. The Coax gun helps mitigate the fire rate of only two shots per turn by boosting the accuracy of those shots. Run it with a tank commander for the rerolls of 1s and you have a great companion to battle cannon leman russ.

The mortars are ok, but are really being outshined by the other artillery available for AM.

The problem is once you get a lascannon on the Stygies Vanquisher, you're spending like 200 points.

I don't think it's worth half the cost of a shadowsword. Especially when Primarchs and other 200+ point models show up. The stygies vanquisher will hurt, but the shadowsword will erase.

I see the Vanquisher hate is strong in this thread.

Rolling 2D6 and picking the highest over that long a range is NEVER useless. Especially at 3+ to hit. Do you want to take a bunch of them? No, but they are a hell of a tool to dish out damage at range.

 sfshilo wrote:
I see the Vanquisher hate is strong in this thread.

Rolling 2D6 and picking the highest over that long a range is NEVER useless. Especially at 3+ to hit. Do you want to take a bunch of them? No, but they are a hell of a tool to dish out damage at range.

Dish out how much damage?

Because on average, it's less per shooting phase than a LRBT would do.

Vanquisher against T8 3+ (e.g. another Russ)
2 shots, 1 hit (1.33 for Stygies), .5 (.67) wounds, .42 (.55) wounds, for 1.875 (2.475) (average of 2d6 pick highest is 4.5, iirc) damage per shooting phase.

Leman Russ against T8 3+
7 shots, 3.5 hits, 1.75 wounds, 1.17 wounds after saves, for 2.33 damage (average of d3 is 2) damage per shooting phase. And in this case, the Leman Russ can move and is VASTLY more effective against other targets.

Against T7 3+ (e.g. a Predator):
2.52 (3.34) damage

3.11 damage. And the Leman Russ can move and is vastly more effective against other targets.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I like the stygies vanquisher. A lot of people are hoping that GW will buff it if they silence it advocates, but I enjoy having a super-melta available for when primarchs and other 200pt+ models show up. The Coax gun helps mitigate the fire rate of only two shots per turn by boosting the accuracy of those shots. Run it with a tank commander for the rerolls of 1s and you have a great companion to battle cannon leman russ.

The mortars are ok, but are really being outshined by the other artillery available for AM.

The problem is once you get a lascannon on the Stygies Vanquisher, you're spending like 200 points.

I don't think it's worth half the cost of a shadowsword. Especially when Primarchs and other 200+ point models show up. The stygies vanquisher will hurt, but the shadowsword will erase.

You're thinking this because the Baneblade and every variant on the chassis is currently undercosted. By a large margin.

sfshilo wrote:I see the Vanquisher hate is strong in this thread.

Rolling 2D6 and picking the highest over that long a range is NEVER useless. Especially at 3+ to hit. Do you want to take a bunch of them? No, but they are a hell of a tool to dish out damage at range.

ChargerIIC wrote:I like the stygies vanquisher. A lot of people are hoping that GW will buff it if they silence it advocates, but I enjoy having a super-melta available for when primarchs and other 200pt+ models show up. The Coax gun helps mitigate the fire rate of only two shots per turn by boosting the accuracy of those shots. Run it with a tank commander for the rerolls of 1s and you have a great companion to battle cannon leman russ.

The mortars are ok, but are really being outshined by the other artillery available for AM.

I would not want to put my faith in a Vanquisher against Guilliman or Saint Celestine or Magnus. That task will fall to Battle Tanks and Manticores, which will offer superior performance. The Vanquisher is fundamentally not good at doing damage.



I ran off 10000 trials with Python. The top chart shows the chance of dealing X wounds, the bottom chart shows the chance of dealing at least X wounds [which is perhaps more relevant]. You'll notice that the Vanquisher has a much, much larger chance of doing nothing at all. It's never really noticeably better at any range, only slightly exceeding it at 5 and 6 wounds before again being surpassed, and is noticeably worse at dealing any wounds.

It's not actually effective against Primarchs [and St.C], because they all have invulnerable saves that neutralize the AP advantage the Vanquisher has over the Battle Tank. Since they both have the same strength, that means the Battle Tank with more shots will be more reliable at sticking damage onto the target.

So if we bring the thing to bear against targets without invulnerable saves, like an opposing Razorback tank:



It's still not doing noticeably worth it. The Stygies Variant specifically isn't lagging as much in the actually doing damage department, so you might want it for the improved "high damage" potential, but I'd honestly still pass.

In addition, a Vanquisher won't benefit from being Cadian or Catachan, and thus getting re-rolls on it's output, which is a relevant consideration.



I'd still chose SPG's over either, though.

Unf...probably should have NOT mentioned the Vanqishers

Performance aside, how well do they mesh with the current GW plastic hulls, anyways? Last time I was looking at FW stuff, the Russ still had the hueg hole in the top, not the modern tiny ones. I might get one just for kicks - who knows if the Vanquishers will one day be good (naturally around the time they pull those from the store )

So the Cyclops *is* good, then? Weird - reading the profile it looks like I was selling its radius short - it's actually 1"-6". Sounds like I should get one. Even if it isn't GOOD it still looks pretty sweet. Shame it can't be transported though! 10" isn't hot.

Shame on the heavy mortars; will need to see what sized wheels look right on the regular ones and I can have best of both worlds :p

The laser destroyer is in, I think - shame it also can't be transported (super slow) but it hits hard, to say the least. Wasn't there more of these types of units? I swear I saw another one somewhere but I could not find it.

Definitely going to snag one of those autocannon Chimera turrets - they're Not Good but they look cool. Worth getting before they're Gone Forever, at least.

 Infantryman wrote:
Unf...probably should have NOT mentioned the Vanqishers

Performance aside, how well do they mesh with the current GW plastic hulls, anyways? Last time I was looking at FW stuff, the Russ still had the hueg hole in the top, not the modern tiny ones. I might get one just for kicks - who knows if the Vanquishers will one day be good (naturally around the time they pull those from the store )

So the Cyclops *is* good, then? Weird - reading the profile it looks like I was selling its radius short - it's actually 1"-6". Sounds like I should get one. Even if it isn't GOOD it still looks pretty sweet. Shame it can't be transported though! 10" isn't hot.

Shame on the heavy mortars; will need to see what sized wheels look right on the regular ones and I can have best of both worlds :p

The laser destroyer is in, I think - shame it also can't be transported (super slow) but it hits hard, to say the least. Wasn't there more of these types of units? I swear I saw another one somewhere but I could not find it.

Definitely going to snag one of those autocannon Chimera turrets - they're Not Good but they look cool. Worth getting before they're Gone Forever, at least.

I saw a guy running a detachment that consisted of a Spearhead of Catachan Cyclopses lead by a CC, and it was really funny. They ran up, hiding behind cover and other advancing units, then just plowed into the enemy and detonated, killing a crap ton of things. The downside is that if one goes, all of them go, and they can't really be stacked onto one target since one with set off the others. I'm thinking of making myself a few, since they can't be that hard to make, and they're kind of cute.

They're probably a breeze to make if you were cool and put wheels on your Tauroxes. I have a bunch of their treads laying around that seem about the right size.

Colonel Cross wrote:They're probably a breeze to make if you were cool and put wheels on your Tauroxes. I have a bunch of their treads laying around that seem about the right size.

Might *almost* convince me to buy that ugly kit :p

Considering that they're literally like $20, might as well just buy them if the spare parts aren't lying around.

You'd be paying more for the Taurox and the wheels [or cinderblocks] for it than you would for the pair of the little guys.

 sfshilo wrote:
I see the Vanquisher hate is strong in this thread.

Rolling 2D6 and picking the highest over that long a range is NEVER useless. Especially at 3+ to hit. Do you want to take a bunch of them? No, but they are a hell of a tool to dish out damage at range.

The problem is the math just doesn't add up. There is almost no target in the game that it's better at killing than another variant. When a super specialized variant with extra bonuses is losing out to a bare bones normal tank that's a bad sign. Just because it does 2d6 pick the highest in damage does little to mitigate the fact that it will rarely get to that point when it matters. The Rof, strength, and AP are all lacking for what a dedicated tank killer should be. To rub salt in the wound, stygies vanquishers can't even be tank commanders like every other FW Russ variant

If it wanted to be proper anti tank it'd have a profile similar to the neutron laser Onager dunecrawlers get, which is AP5, S10, and does d6 damage but can never roll below a 3. Oh and it has d3 shots, an invuln save that can reroll ones, and fire on the move with no penalty as well as provide morale buffs for nearby units. All for less points.

Or heck, I'd take an annihilator which just gives me 4 lascannon shots. That's what sucks about vanquishers. They just do not serve any niche that you can't cover with a basic LRBT. It desperately needs something like the beast Hunter shells it used to have, something unique that gives you an actual reason to check it out.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
To rub salt in the wound, stygies vanquishers can't even be tank commanders like every other FW Russ variant

Yeah, the way they did Tank Commanders is a little unfortunate in this edition. I think it should have just been a note saying any <Leman Russ> tank. Hell I think we should have Command variants of basically every vehicle - Sentinel, Chimera, Salamander, you name it.

At the very least the Salamander COMMAND Vehicle should be one...

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Or heck, I'd take an annihilator which just gives me 4 lascannon shots. That's what sucks about vanquishers. They just do not serve any niche that you can't cover with a basic LRBT. It desperately needs something like the beast Hunter shells it used to have, something unique that gives you an actual reason to check it out.

Yep. It would be just a collection vehicle for me, not one I'd run with any intent of high success with. It is, however, Very Cool looking, so it can sit next to my Exterminator and Hydra, basically safe from any battlefield.