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Is this tank worth while?

As with any weapon...it depends on the target. :p
The obvious use is mobs but curiously I've also seen one used to put a couple of wounds on an MC.

The punisher got a bit better with the change to 6th editon since it now can move 6" and shoot everything. It has short range, so you will probably have to move it often, which might not make Pask worth it. (he only gives his full bonus if the tank is stationary) If I had one (been thinking about buying one for some time), I would probably field it with 3x heavy bolters, a heavy stubber and nothing else except the main cannon. This way it costs 210 points, and can put out 20 STR 5 AP- shots at 24", 9 STR 5 AP4 at 36" and 4 STR 4 AP 6(or -? I can't remember).

The Punisher is pretty decent. I'm inexperienced using them (only 2 games so far) but if you treat it similar to a Demolisher you'll get some good use out of it.

I ran mine with a LC and sponson MM. Quite costly, but it can kill anything. If you push it down your opponent's throat they have to deal with it, and it can still dish out awesome damage. I used mine with SW allies, and with Prescience its damage out-put was nasty.

Thank you guys for your insight. I really like the tank so I think I'm going to give it a go.

I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

I have two words for this,
MAGNETIZE IT.
or you know don't glue till after playtesting

andystache wrote:
I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

That's so remarkably unlikely.

The Punisher should kill like 1.1 Terminators per salvo.

They have the capacity to do loads of damage, just because of the number o dice being rolled, but its more likely that their damage output will be mediocre. I prefer executioners, but that might just be because they are plasma tanks, rather than their true effectiveness

A punisher rigged with a lascannon and multimelta sponsons is the best russ you can take at the moment. There isn't a target in the game that doesn't fear its killing power.

The only really serious problem is that it costs 225 points, which is pretty pricey. That and it's not likely to have all that much to shoot at on turn 1. Otherwise, it's pretty good.

 TheCaptain wrote:

andystache wrote:
I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

That's so remarkably unlikely.

The Punisher should kill like 1.1 Terminators per salvo.

Yeah, I wouldn't aim it at terminators unless I had quite literally nothing else to shoot at. Even fully kitted out with a LC and MM, and with prescience you're only gonna kill like 2ish terminators unless someone rolls ridiculously.

It is the coolest looking LR though, I dunno if that matters to you, but it's certainly +1 to take it in my book.

Hilariously, I find first rank fire, second rank fire to be obscenely effective against teqs. Shoot the tanks at something else.

 TheCaptain wrote:

andystache wrote:
I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

That's so remarkably unlikely.

The Punisher should kill like 1.1 Terminators per salvo.

I've found that all the mathhammering in the world has absolutely no bearing when the dice actually hit the table. Last night I popped a LR is one salvo from Sammael's TL Assault Cannon, 4 shots, 4 hits, 3 6's on the pen roll, a 5 and 6 on the d3s, and both pens rolled 6's.

Give me volume fire over mathhammer any day of the week. I've seen a lot of numbers thrown around online and they never seem to hold up on the table. Although thinking on that it makes sense, in one turn he killed 4 guys with a 2+ save and didn't shoot at termies the rest of the game, so he averaged 1 termie kill per turn, but I know that's not the kind of numbers you're crunching

Volume of fire IS mathhammer. Mathhammer is always relevant, its just that an individual game might has several statistical outliers occur at critical junctures. You don't notice how many rolls fall right into mathhammer predictions, because they are relatively unimportant. Statistical outliers are the slayers of marine lists and elite lists in general.

Martel732 wrote:
Volume of fire IS mathhammer.

QFT.

So, there's something that's easy to miss about las/melta punishers - you have two different groups of wounds.

Usually, your opponents are going to put their guys with storm shields in front. That punisher cannon does, on average, 7 wounds. This means that you're usually good for at least one storm-shield terminator failing an armor save. Depending on who is closest next, once you've cracked the shell, the next closest target may well not have a storm shield, allowing you to put a lascannon or multimelta wound or two onto a much softer 5++ save.

Do this with a pair of punishers, and you can do some pretty serious damage, stripping away the storm shields and maybe getting another guy or two. More importantly, they're now stormshieldless, which means all the rest of your list can now shoot at soft targets.

Punishers can be pretty mean to terminators, especially draigowings, where you've got a lot of stuff that causes instant death, and they don't get stormshields at all. ID AP2 weapons plus volume of fire can GUT paladin squads, and in a hurry.

It is now an auto-include in any list I take. A lot of people do not like the Punisher but it is all a case of having the right tool for the job. I typically run it with hull and sponson heavy bolters, heavy stubber and Pask. Expensive but it rarely doesn't make its points back.

Send this Punisher up against TEQs and it is a waste. It can handle MEQs through sheer weight of fire power. Against Hordes it is amazing.

On a side note the Punisher is the best tank for very close tank support. For example, I played a game recently where a Necron immortal squad with lord and Imotek were contesting my home objective, against my 5 man squad. My regular LRBT could not help without risk of killing my own dudes, but the Punisher just rolled up and shredded the whole enemy squad with no risk to my own men

TL;DR Punisher is amazing, just send it against the right targets.

andystache wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

andystache wrote:
I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

That's so remarkably unlikely.

The Punisher should kill like 1.1 Terminators per salvo.

I've found that all the mathhammering in the world has absolutely no bearing when the dice actually hit the table. Last night I popped a LR is one salvo from Sammael's TL Assault Cannon, 4 shots, 4 hits, 3 6's on the pen roll, a 5 and 6 on the d3s, and both pens rolled 6's.

Give me volume fire over mathhammer any day of the week. I've seen a lot of numbers thrown around online and they never seem to hold up on the table. Although thinking on that it makes sense, in one turn he killed 4 guys with a 2+ save and didn't shoot at termies the rest of the game, so he averaged 1 termie kill per turn, but I know that's not the kind of numbers you're crunching

The more dice you roll, the more average your rolls will be.

Mathhammer is literally the most relevant when it comes down to volume of fire.

That's why you see IG players crunching numbers so much.

Because with the amount of shots we put out, our results lean so far toward the average.

 TheCaptain wrote:

andystache wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

andystache wrote:
I've had a single Punisher rip through a squad of DW Knights. Killed 4 out of 5 in one round of shooting. Punishers are now higher on my kill list than they were from just reading the entry

That's so remarkably unlikely.

The Punisher should kill like 1.1 Terminators per salvo.

I've found that all the mathhammering in the world has absolutely no bearing when the dice actually hit the table. Last night I popped a LR is one salvo from Sammael's TL Assault Cannon, 4 shots, 4 hits, 3 6's on the pen roll, a 5 and 6 on the d3s, and both pens rolled 6's.

Give me volume fire over mathhammer any day of the week. I've seen a lot of numbers thrown around online and they never seem to hold up on the table. Although thinking on that it makes sense, in one turn he killed 4 guys with a 2+ save and didn't shoot at termies the rest of the game, so he averaged 1 termie kill per turn, but I know that's not the kind of numbers you're crunching

The more dice you roll, the more average your rolls will be.

Mathhammer is literally the most relevant when it comes down to volume of fire.

That's why you see IG players crunching numbers so much.

Because with the amount of shots we put out, our results lean so far toward the average.

You are right, I've been spending too long listening/reading Marine players argue over differences in the range of 1-2% and refusing to admit anything that is not "mathhammer optimized" can work on the table. Guard/DE lists are what makes me respect lists that force the opponent to make the saves rather than relying entirely on "kill shots" as a plan of attack.

Again apologizes for spewing bile at those who understand

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:Send this Punisher up against TEQs and it is a waste.

What? You're talking about 29 BS4 S5 shots. On average, that puts down 13 wounds per turn of shooting. And it doesn't matter if your opponent has storm shields or not. Anything that, with a little help, can reliably take down a squad of terminators in two turns of shooting doesn't sound like a waste to me. Not the absolute best perhaps, but still...

 Ailaros wrote:

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:Send this Punisher up against TEQs and it is a waste.

What? You're talking about 29 BS4 S5 shots. On average, that puts down 13 wounds per turn of shooting. And it doesn't matter if your opponent has storm shields or not. Anything that, with a little help, can reliably take down a squad of terminators in two turns of shooting doesn't sound like a waste to me. Not the absolute best perhaps, but still...

13 wounds is 2 dead terminators.

 Ailaros wrote:

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:Send this Punisher up against TEQs and it is a waste.

What? You're talking about 29 BS4 S5 shots. On average, that puts down 13 wounds per turn of shooting. And it doesn't matter if your opponent has storm shields or not. Anything that, with a little help, can reliably take down a squad of terminators in two turns of shooting doesn't sound like a waste to me. Not the absolute best perhaps, but still...

Sorry let me clarify.

I agree with you that the Punisher can take down terminators, if the need arises.

What I meant is that it is a waste of the Punishers potential damage output.
For example, the Punisher will do much better against a large horde of gants (of their equivilant). Not only is the tank going to kill more models but it will also reduce the target squads effectiveness proportionally. killing 15 out of 20 gants reduces their effectiveness by 75%.
Killing 2 out of 6 terminators only reduces that squads potential by 33.3%.
The only reason to use it against MEQs is because on average you are going to inflict just under 5 unsaved wounds a turn (0.35 from the stubber + 4.5 from everything else). This reduces the squads effectiveness by 40-50%

Hope this helps to clarify.

TheCaptain wrote:13 wounds is 2 dead terminators.

Yup, and two turns of shooting is 26 wounds for 4 and 1/3rd dead terminators. In two turns of shooting, a punisher takes out all five terminators a third of the time, all by itself. Throw in just enough firepower to kill off 2/3ds of a terminator over the course of two turns (like a heavy stubber, or a little bit of help from some nearby lasguns or something), and you're pretty reliably killing off a unit of five terminators in two turns. Storm shields or no.

That's not that bad.

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:What I meant is that it is a waste of the Punishers potential damage output.
For example, the Punisher will do much better against a large horde of gants

Sure, but how many armies are you going to face off against that have both terminators and huge hordes of gribblies at the same time? It's possible, but not common.

Furthermore, even if you were in this situation, so what? You've got a bolter boat pask punisher against a horde of gribblies. That can also pretty decently damage terminators once the gribblies all die off.

Yes but it is not good either.
Leave the TEQ killing to those units that specialise in it. For example, 2 squads of veterans with 3 plasma guns each. Cost 30pts less than the Bolter Pask Punisher. These guys pump out 6 plasma and 14 las shots (at worst). The plasma on average will kill 2.3 termies and the lasguns will kill 2. So for less points you are able to do in one turn of shooting what the Punisher has to do in two.

At the end of the day it all comes down to how a person plays their army. I prefer to specialise my units to perform one task very well. This is why I don't take autocannons. However, you may want to have units which can perform almost any task to an ok degree. Neither play style is wrong at all. It just affects what tactics to use I suppose.

That is why I include the figures for the MEQs too.

I am not arguing against the fact that the Punisher can damage termies, I just believe it is a massive waste of its potential. Use the punisher to kill the gribblies while the TEQ killiers do their job. I dont want to try and make a unit perform a task it is not suited to if I can at all help it.

Is this tank worth while?

IMO, no. The Vulture is a much better punisher cannon platform, so unless you're already filling all of your fast attack slots with Vendettas then I don't see much point to the LR Punisher. I want my heavy support tanks to do things that I can't get in other slots, and that means Demolishers/Executioners and the artillery tanks.

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:Leave the TEQ killing to those units that specialise in it.

Well... look at it again.

Firstly, compare your vets. 12 BS4 plasma and 28 lasgun shots kill 3 terminators in a single turn if there are a couple of guys with storm shields (which there will be), not 5. Plasma vets are better, but they still take the same number of turns to kill terminators, and this is pretty much THE thing that plasma guns are supposed to knock it out of the park against. Secondly, look at some other options. Those points buy you one and two thirds of a medusa. Even being very generous to the medusa and assuming 4 terminators hit per hit, you're looking at one dead terminator per turn. The number looks even worse for demolishers, and the punisher is way, way better than executioners, especially once you remember that executioners are more expensive.

Put another way, punishers ARE a specialized anti-terminator unit. Except that they're also a specialized horde unit at the same time. Give them good hull weapons, rather than just heavy bolters, and they can compete with lots of stuff in their own fields of specialities. The question isn't one of why we would take punishers when there are other things that do just one job well, but rather why should we bother taking other stuff when the punisher can do everything well.

... and on an AV14 chassis...

 Ailaros wrote:

FatBoyNoSlim wrote:Leave the TEQ killing to those units that specialise in it.

Well... look at it again.

Firstly, compare your vets. 12 BS4 plasma and 28 lasgun shots kill 3 terminators in a single turn if there are a couple of guys with storm shields (which there will be), not 5. Plasma vets are better, but they still take the same number of turns to kill terminators, and this is pretty much THE thing that plasma guns are supposed to knock it out of the park against. Secondly, look at some other options. Those points buy you one and two thirds of a medusa. Even being very generous to the medusa and assuming 4 terminators hit per hit, you're looking at one dead terminator per turn. The number looks even worse for demolishers, and the punisher is way, way better than executioners, especially once you remember that executioners are more expensive.

Put another way, punishers ARE a specialized anti-terminator unit. Except that they're also a specialized horde unit at the same time. Give them good hull weapons, rather than just heavy bolters, and they can compete with lots of stuff in their own fields of specialities. The question isn't one of why we would take punishers when there are other things that do just one job well, but rather why should we bother taking other stuff when the punisher can do everything well.

... and on an AV14 chassis...

Oh no. Skewed logic again. Of course the Punisher outshines AP2 stuff against 2+/3++.

You know what outshines the Medusa against 2+/3++? 30 Rapidfiring lasguns. 60 shots, 30 hits, 10 wounds, 1.67 dead terminators. But Lasguns aren't Anti-terminator either, because 2+/3++ is not the majority of terminators. It is a specialized type of Terminator. A specialized type of Terminator that largely invalidates the advantages AP2 offers against Terminators. So yeah, the Punisher looks pretty good against Terminators compared to anti-terminator weapons when the terminators in question are tailored against anti-terminator weapons.

Compare a Medusa to a Punisher against 2+/5++ Terminators, the results will be quite different.

Or even Plasmavets. Or heck, an Executioner.

This biased justification-thing you're doing is pretty silly, Ailaros. It's not very good help to the readers on Dakka that look to your posts for legitimate advice regarding running their list.

You know the Punisher is sub-par Vs. TEQ. Manufacturing a scenario where it is decent against TEQ doesn't change the fact; it only blurs the distinction newer users can make by warping their understanding of the matter.

-TheCaptain

 Ailaros wrote:
So, there's something that's easy to miss about las/melta punishers - you have two different groups of wounds.

Usually, your opponents are going to put their guys with storm shields in front. That punisher cannon does, on average, 7 wounds. This means that you're usually good for at least one storm-shield terminator failing an armor save. Depending on who is closest next, once you've cracked the shell, the next closest target may well not have a storm shield, allowing you to put a lascannon or multimelta wound or two onto a much softer 5++ save.

This same phenomenon occurs when you mix lasguns and plasmas. Ignoring it is a double standard, and I'm calling you out on it. Seriously, not cool.

Mathhammer is useful, but only if you apply your rules consistently. Doing otherwise is deceptive and a disservice to our newer users (as TheCaptain pointed out).

Firstly, the best terminators have access to at least a mix of storm shields or are paladins, which against most weapons might as well have them against weapons that are S7 or lower.

Secondly, lasguns can also kill storm shield guys, but not as well. Having one survive and having none survive when it's time to start talking about heavy hitters can be a pretty big deal.

Thirdly, assuming no storm shields, the punisher STILL does better compared to the medusa or the executioner.

Fourthly, even if you can find things that are in the same league against TEq for the cost of a punisher (especially the las/MM variety), the punisher, for those same points, is about as good against TEq, while being better against MEq AND against hordes AND against light vehicles AND against heavy vehicles.

What we're doing is comparing a screwdriver to a dremmel. Even if the screwdriver is a bit more cost efficient at putting in screws, the dremmel also puts in screws, while also doing lots and lots of other stuff that the screwdriver can't.

 Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, the best terminators have access to at least a mix of storm shields or are paladins, which against most weapons might as well have them against weapons that are S7 or lower.

The point is that you're deliberately biasing the comparison by assuming stormshields reduce plasma wounds effectively against the veterans, but assuming that the punisher cannon shots will remove the stormshield so that the MM/LC can hit the 5++ models.

Secondly, lasguns can also kill storm shield guys, but not as well. Having one survive and having none survive when it's time to start talking about heavy hitters can be a pretty big deal.

This is completely false. 28 spare lasgun shots kill 1.03 terminators, while the punisher cannon kills 1.11 terminators. Both are about equally effective at removing stormshields before the AP 2 wounds arrive, except the veterans have 12 AP 2 shots at BS 4 compared to the Punisher's three AP 2 shots at BS 3.

Thirdly, assuming no storm shields, the punisher STILL does better compared to the medusa or the executioner.

Depending on what assumptions you make about how many models will be hit by the blast weapons.

Fourthly, even if you can find things that are in the same league against TEq for the cost of a punisher (especially the las/MM variety), the punisher, for those same points, is about as good against TEq, while being better against MEq AND against hordes AND against light vehicles AND against heavy vehicles.

How exactly is the LR Punisher better against those targets than a pair of Medusas? Or a Manticore and a melta storm trooper squad? Etc.