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Okay so I run an IG mech vet list so I'm never short of vehicles to hurl at the enemy, but it strikes me that the 40K rules for tank shocking is very lacklustre and I can't see why I would want to do it.

As I understand it, performing a tank shock works thusly:

a) Enemy takes a morale test.
b) If failed, enemy immediately falls back.
c) If successful, they move out of the way and let the tank pass.
d) If successful 1 model that was in the path of the tank may attempt DoG.
e) If failed, model is removed from play.
f) If successful, vehicle is stopped.

Broadly speaking, most people are Ld8 or so and on average, unless you're tank shocking Grots, most people will pass their Ld test. So they just step aside harmlessly in a prime position to assault your overexposed vehicle and glance it to death by punching its rear armour.

Does anyone have any clever tactical uses for tank shock? I'm surprised it's never had a leadership modifier to make it easier to break the target. Short of just shifting the enemy harmlessly to the side, and them then assaulting you easily next turn what is the point? Why would I do that instead of just shooting everything I have at the target? Does it have any actual use apart from "oh well I'm in a rubbish position so I might as well try?"

Thanks

You should rarely, if ever, be tank shocking with only one vehicle when it doesn't have proper support.

Key uses for tank shock are as follows:
1. Moving units out of range of objectives.
2. Causing units to flee that are either too numerous (IG blobs) or too survivable (GK Paladins) to destroy.
3. Breaking backfield objective campers. (Like those grots you mentioned)
4. Forcing your opponent to move his models in a way that benefits you.

When you pass a tank shock, you have to move the shortest distance possible to get out of the way. This means if you really think about the direction your tank is going, then you can force units who pass their leadership out of objective contesting range, or into range of your guns.

And all though leadership tests will be passed more often than not, when there is a failure, you try to make sure it's a critical unit. There's nothing quite like watching a group of paladins fall back off the table because they failed a tank shock test.

It's not the most "OMG OP" technique out there, but it does offer you options in terms of position, objective games, and attacking units where they are often weakest.

The two best uses of tank shock I've found is to line up enemy squads for template weapons, and block LOS between their heavy weapons and your priority targets.

That empty rhino wasn't doing anything useful anyway - may as well get in somebody's way. (And there is always the odd chance that you'll force them to panic and run)

IF you happen to have a squad fleeing they automatically fail their morale tests as well - I shocked a squad of 'Terrified' Wraiths off the board the other day.

Depending on angle too, you can sometimes push an opponent out of terrain too so your charges do not have to test for difficult.

also, IIRC, if they cant move out of the way after theyve fallen back, E.G. they ran 2" and you still had another 3" of movement after the shock, then the models under said vehicle are destroyed. also, try it with ork trukks full of burnas. if you tank shock right the burnas can pump out a scary amount of str 4 autohits.

Sometimes the funniest of things can happen when something fails DoG, like a Leman Russ crushing a bloodthirster under it's tracks.

If you have a deff rolla on an ork battlewagon, then they take hits even if they do move out of the way, and if they dont, they take even more hits.

Also, I think someone said it earlier, but if you have two tanks near a group of infiltrators you can move one in front of them, and the other tank to tank shock them off the board.

There have been several times i have tanked shocked a unit and ran them off the board because of it. It has won me a bunch of games.

And as posted before its a great way to line up a squad for your flamers to eat. My SoB love it when their targets are all bunched up

Back in the day, the models used to have to get out of the way in a line that the tank went through. Now they just have to get out of the way of where the tank actually ends up (it's assumed that they fill back in after the tank passes through).

Back in the day, you could use this to line up nasty template shots. Now, you can only do this a little bit. As such, unless you've got some fancy upgrades like deff rollas or whatever those dark eldar vehicular nipple blade things are, then no, there isn't much point to tank shocking anymore.

Unless, yeah, you happen across some grots or conscripts, but even then, they can now regroup within 6" of the tank, so...

They have to maintain coherency though, so if you park right on top of the squad they have to do the truffle shuffle all to one side.

Also, it's worth mentioning that if they can't move out of the way because they're blocked in by other units, a board edge, or impassable terrain, or couldn't stay coherent, they just die.

 Ailaros wrote:
Back in the day, the models used to have to get out of the way in a line that the tank went through. Now they just have to get out of the way of where the tank actually ends up (it's assumed that they fill back in after the tank passes through).

Are you talking about 2nd edition? Because this part of the rules hasn't changed since 3rd, at least.

Tyrs13 wrote:
There have been several times i have tanked shocked a unit and ran them off the board because of it. It has won me a bunch of games.

And as posted before its a great way to line up a squad for your flamers to eat. My SoB love it when their targets are all bunched up

This. I once had a Rhino run 500pts of Tau off the board in a single tank shock. Tank shocking is still very useful imho.

Think about this more tactically.

Say you have a Land Raider full of assault termies. There are two squads of plasma vets within easy charge range, but both are too far apart to be multi-charged. Looks like you'll have to assault and destroy one of those squads, then take a horrible salvo of plasma to the face. But wait! Your Land Raider could tank shock one of the squads, knowing full well that they can't hurt your AV14, and hopefully tank-shock them into fleeing. Then your terminators can get out and assault the other squad!

So, that's a use I suppose. Also to knock infantry off objectives.

Tank shock can ruin your day, I had a squad of terminators deep strike in my opponent surrounded my terminators and tank shocked them I failed death or glory squad couldn't flee as I was surrounded and thus destroyed

The new chaos dex also adds some wonderful blades to your rhinos that do hits during shocks as well. Makes rhinos a bit more useful after everyone jumps out.

 BryllCream wrote:
Think about this more tactically.

Say you have a Land Raider full of assault termies. There are two squads of plasma vets within easy charge range, but both are too far apart to be multi-charged. Looks like you'll have to assault and destroy one of those squads, then take a horrible salvo of plasma to the face. But wait! Your Land Raider could tank shock one of the squads, knowing full well that they can't hurt your AV14, and hopefully tank-shock them into fleeing. Then your terminators can get out and assault the other squad!

So, that's a use I suppose. Also to knock infantry off objectives.

Can't disembark after tank-shock and can't tank-shock after disembark, but one could totally use another tank to bunch them up for the termies to multi-charge.

Only thing I've ever seen this good for, is if you go 2nd, to push guys out of range of an objective by sitting on it turn 5 and hope the game ends. Eldar tanks, the Monolith and, Land Raiders are particularly good at this.

One good use is to run smack-bang into the middle of a heavy weapons unit. Assuming the unit passes its test, you can usually line up the shock in such a way that the unit is forced to move to regain coherency. That forces snap shots, even assuming they can fire at something useful with a tank blocking a chunk of LOS.

I'm surprised that someone doesn't "like" tank shocking.

You can obcure lines of sight, set up flamer strikes, run units that are falling back OFF the BOARD witha Tank shock as they auto-fail morale.

Last nights game was a great example. I was hitting three units a round with wo devilfihes and intead of firing at what mattred or killing my troops, he was stuck shooting a vehicle! In this case Tau, so they weren't gong to charge it of course. Now he never failed a daren morale test (shockingly good rolls in that game, we tied) but man... thosebabies absorbed a LOT of valuable shooting and were in NO way important to the outcome of the game. they cant take objectives and one of them had no weapons.

So I was pretty pleased with the way I was able to cut him off, slow him down and generally stop him from getting anywhere just with two annoying Devilfish's.

Good times!

Agent0range wrote:
Okay so I run an IG mech vet list so I'm never short of vehicles to hurl at the enemy, but it strikes me that the 40K rules for tank shocking is very lacklustre and I can't see why I would want to do it.

As I understand it, performing a tank shock works thusly:

a) Enemy takes a morale test.
b) If failed, enemy immediately falls back.
c) If successful, they move out of the way and let the tank pass.
d) If successful 1 model that was in the path of the tank may attempt DoG.
e) If failed, model is removed from play.
f) If successful, vehicle is stopped.

Broadly speaking, most people are Ld8 or so and on average, unless you're tank shocking Grots, most people will pass their Ld test. So they just step aside harmlessly in a prime position to assault your overexposed vehicle and glance it to death by punching its rear armour.

Does anyone have any clever tactical uses for tank shock? I'm surprised it's never had a leadership modifier to make it easier to break the target. Short of just shifting the enemy harmlessly to the side, and them then assaulting you easily next turn what is the point? Why would I do that instead of just shooting everything I have at the target? Does it have any actual use apart from "oh well I'm in a rubbish position so I might as well try?"

Thanks

With the fragility of vehicles in 6E, there isn't much point.

Now, Tank Shock isn't much different in this edition than previous editions, but previously tank shocking with a transport onto an objective was a game winning move, now it's just likely to get the tank killed and your embarked unit will have to fight its way in, which may or may not be possible.

yeah but who CARES if they kill it? Its just a transport. You weren't using it any more. Might explode on them. Might run them off the board.

so who gives a rip if they died?

I'm surprised no one has brought this up:
Use three Chimeras to box in a squad of nasties on three sides, then use a LRBT with it's AV14 front to close the box. If they fail LD, they have nowhere to run and are destroyed, if they pass, they have nowhere to run and are destroyed unless they DOG a LRBT.

Also, tank shocking allows you to dictate where your opponents models go, you might as well be moving them yourself. What isn't to like?

 Jancoran wrote:
yeah but who CARES if they kill it? Its just a transport. You weren't using it any more. Might explode on them. Might run them off the board.

so who gives a rip if they died?

Kill points?

I still think tank shocking is useful in the end game to move infantry off of objectives.

How can you tank shock units of the board?

Do you mean that you destroy them? Because its stated in the brb that units cant leave the board through a movement caused by tankshocking

You can run units off the board by forcing them to fail a morale test and fall back off the board.

The moving of models during the resolution of the tank shock isn't what moves them off the board (you can't do that) - it's on the off chace that they don't pass their leadership and are close enough to the board edge that 2D6 pushes them off the edge.

Wyrdeone wrote:
You can run units off the board by forcing them to fail a morale test and fall back off the board.

The moving of models during the resolution of the tank shock isn't what moves them off the board (you can't do that) - it's on the off chace that they don't pass their leadership and are close enough to the board edge that 2D6 pushes them off the edge.

Well i understand that you try to force them but like i said in the BRB its writen that: "Units that have to move due to tankshock, have to take the shortest way possible and have to be atleast 1 inch away from the tank, in formation and on the board. If thats not possible they get destroyed by the shockmovement"

Its not an actual quote of the brb (I dont owne an english version of it) but it is what i read under tank shocking

Fandarel wrote:

Wyrdeone wrote:
You can run units off the board by forcing them to fail a morale test and fall back off the board.

The moving of models during the resolution of the tank shock isn't what moves them off the board (you can't do that) - it's on the off chace that they don't pass their leadership and are close enough to the board edge that 2D6 pushes them off the edge.

Well i understand that you try to force them but like i said in the BRB its writen that: "Units that have to move due to tankshock, have to take the shortest way possible and have to be atleast 1 inch away from the tank, in formation and on the board. If thats not possible they get destroyed by the shockmovement"

Its not an actual quote of the brb (I dont owne an english version of it) but it is what i read under tank shocking

It means that if they pass their morale test and are forced to move they have to stay on the board. Simple.

I use tank shocking devilfishes with my tau to mess up assault troops. Run the fish across thier front line and park it in the middle of the units front. This forces them back so the lose a couple inches of movement every turn, then they have to move around it to get closer, or stay where they are at and try to kill it in assault. If they waste a turn dealing with it, well that still puts them back a turn. If it breaks them somehow, its golden.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Fandarel wrote:

Wyrdeone wrote:
You can run units off the board by forcing them to fail a morale test and fall back off the board.

The moving of models during the resolution of the tank shock isn't what moves them off the board (you can't do that) - it's on the off chace that they don't pass their leadership and are close enough to the board edge that 2D6 pushes them off the edge.

Well i understand that you try to force them but like i said in the BRB its writen that: "Units that have to move due to tankshock, have to take the shortest way possible and have to be atleast 1 inch away from the tank, in formation and on the board. If thats not possible they get destroyed by the shockmovement"

Its not an actual quote of the brb (I dont owne an english version of it) but it is what i read under tank shocking

It means that if they pass their morale test and are forced to move they have to stay on the board. Simple.

But if you box them off and are up against the board edge and other units, then they are effectively destroyed because they can't move anywhere on the board.

So you are technically not pushing them off the board, but using the board edge as a wall to crush them against.

Fandarel wrote:
How can you tank shock units of the board?

Do you mean that you destroy them? Because its stated in the brb that units cant leave the board through a movement caused by tankshocking

Units falling back autofail morale tests. So when they are running, you can tank shock themto make them run AGAIN.