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Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I have a question. A Baneblade company (in the fluff) is a trio of superheavy tanks. Withe Imperial Knights being a thing, I have decided it may now be at least a bit acceptable to play one in regular 40k. I will compare them to knights below:

Toughness:
Each Baneblade is somewhat tougher than a Knight, with 50% more hull points and thicker armor. However, they lack any invulnerable save at all.

Firepower:
Each Baneblade has immeasurably more firepower than a Knight; however, they do not have any D attacks at all and cannot defend themselves in CC.

Speed: Baneblades tend to be faster than Knights because they ignore terrain entirely.

Do you all think this would be frighteningly overpowered?

Baneblades aren't a particularly abusive superheavy.

Would it be overpowered? Not really, there's a huge number of very capable & common hardcounters, to say nothing of being slow and will have issues with anti-tank capability itself.

If someone can deal with a mechanized IG army, they can deal with the Baneblades. That said, some armies do have problems with that.

That said, it may not be spectacularly fun for many people.

But i'd certainly rather face 3 BB's than 5 Knights in most cases though some of the same issues apply to both.

Back in 5th edition when GW released a book of missions (the name eludes me), one of the listed missions was 3 Baneblades versus a 1500 pt army.

I say go for it.

If you use the baneblad variants it will be playable at least

Followup questions:

Would the Baneblade apocalypse company formation be overkill? It helps somewhat with antitank firepower and assault.

And would a Shadowsword company be too overkill?

It's unbound, therefore it's overpowered and you're a WAAC TFG who should be ashamed of the fact that you're using rules that I don't like. Why can't you just play a nice battle-forged Wave Serpent army like everyone else?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Followup questions:

Would the Baneblade apocalypse company formation be overkill? It helps somewhat with antitank firepower and assault.

And would a Shadowsword company be too overkill?

Well you can't use Apoc formations in normal games of 40k.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Followup questions:

Would the Baneblade apocalypse company formation be overkill? It helps somewhat with antitank firepower and assault.

And would a Shadowsword company be too overkill?

Well you can't use Apoc formations in normal games of 40k.

With opponent's permission you can do whatever. I am just getting a gauge of how people feel. If 99% of posters say NO TERRIBLE! then it isn't worth it to ask.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Followup questions:

Would the Baneblade apocalypse company formation be overkill? It helps somewhat with antitank firepower and assault.

And would a Shadowsword company be too overkill?

Well you can't use Apoc formations in normal games of 40k.

With opponent's permission you can do whatever. I am just getting a gauge of how people feel. If 99% of posters say NO TERRIBLE! then it isn't worth it to ask.

If that's how you play then why don't you ask the people you actually play with then random anonymous people on the internet?

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Followup questions:

Would the Baneblade apocalypse company formation be overkill? It helps somewhat with antitank firepower and assault.

And would a Shadowsword company be too overkill?

Well you can't use Apoc formations in normal games of 40k.

With opponent's permission you can do whatever. I am just getting a gauge of how people feel. If 99% of posters say NO TERRIBLE! then it isn't worth it to ask.

If that's how you play then why don't you ask the people you actually play with then random anonymous people on the internet?

Because it is still a good gauge of how stupid it would be.

I'd rather not use apocalypse formations that give 'free' bonuses.

But then, I am opposed to normal formations and similar that give the same kind of free benefits.

Vaktathi wrote:But i'd certainly rather face 3 BB's than 5 Knights in most cases though some of the same issues apply to both.

Yeah, and that's the important part. Three baneblades would be tough but straightforward. I feel like I'd wind up rolling my eyes slightly more against an all-knight army.

Once you get into CC with Baneblades, they're screwed. Honestly, at BS3, they're firepower is way overrated. Unless you create some special, fun scenario, I think the game would be rather boring and simply an exercise in dice-rolling. I've played maybe half a dozen games using a single Baneblade: it's gone nuclear twice (killing more of my stuff in the blast than it killed in 3 turns of shooting) and only survived to see the end of a game once (where I conceded on VPs since it was the only thing left of my army).

I love my Baneblade, but OP it ain't

Serious answer: it really depends on your opponent. The problem with an all-Baneblade list is that it's a really one-dimensional list. Some armies (flyers, mech MSU, anything tailored to killing Baneblades) will table you effortlessly, some armies (the average "battleforce" army, foot MEQs) have no hope of winning. There isn't much middle ground where you play a fun and competitive game with the outcome in doubt until the final turn. Most of the time you can just ask "can you kill these" before the game begins and not bother playing the actual game. And that's not much fun no matter who gets to win the one-sided massacre.

Just ask your opponent if he would be ok with it... best way imo.

I say go for it. Just keep it as a secondary force you use every now and then, that should make it more fun for both you and your opponent.

Oh and definitely tell people in advance when you're bringing this list. I doubt many armies would have enough AT to deal with so much armor without prior warning. Let people tailor to it a bit.

Single unit lists like this really push the rock/paper/scissors game to eleven. And you are doubling down on rock. I know I’ve added “how do I deal with a superheavy?” to my army build checklist, but dealing with 3 is a little much to expect.

I would not enjoy a surprise baneblade game. If I knew ahead of time, I’d be OK with it. I’m a WYSWYG guy, so there is a limit to how much AV I can put on the table.

So I played my first game with the Baneblade company tonight.

I told my opponent ahead of time (as I always have) that I was bringing it.

We had a blast, though I spend much of the game defending myself against deep-striking pods, I was able to thunderblitz one baneblade clear to speed for the objective.

I made it, but not having objective secured lost me the game!

C'est la vie, though, it was fun, and victory was never the highest priority!

Glad you had fun! Is a baneblade big enough that you can park it over the objective and keep everyone over 3” away? Who needs OS when you are big enough to physically keep people outside of scoring range.

 Nevelon wrote:
Glad you had fun! Is a baneblade big enough that you can park it over the objective and keep everyone over 3” away? Who needs OS when you are big enough to physically keep people outside of scoring range.

It is plenty large enough, but I didn't have enough movement to get all the way there, and there was a hero Tac Marine who absolutely refused to fail a cover save. (Admittedly, he went to ground, but still.)