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SemperMortis wrote:
You sir are in fact lying. NOBODY takes a Stickbomb Chucka, NOBODY. Why? Because all it does is confer stickbombs to your unit in the Battlwagon....Guess what? Every Ork Boy and Nob COMES WITH STICK BOMBS....lmao

And red paint? 5pts to go 1 inch further when you flat out...nobody is going to use that either because its not important at all.

Zzap Gunz? I haven't even seen those fielded since 7th dropped, Theres no point to any of those upgrades, other units/gear do more for less

You can think my attitude stinks, thats your opinion and you are entitled to it, but what I just said above is still very much true. I have seen BWs taken in 3 configurations total, 2 of them aren't good, and the last one is done only because you want to take more then 12 models in a unit (IE A trukk is still better).

Config 1: Transport, Put a ram on it, maybe 2 Big Shootas or Rokkitz and scoot it down the field filled with Boyz. Once it drops off the troops its effectively useless except to grab objectives and to occasionally ram things, which still doesn't do much.

Config 2: Sneak Attack Gun line. Used in Blitz Brigade and all 5 are equipped with Kill Kannonz and Rokkitz, Scoots forward 6, fires off all of its weapons and hopefully does something productive. Not that great but can be surprising to foes who aren't afraid of orky firepower.

Config 3: Static Gun Platform. Stays away from fighting and fires off its big shootas and either a Kannon or a Lobba. You can put Lootas inside to help shield them from getting wiped out but you make a juicy target. This is probably the least useful and productive because its basically a shield for the lootas since its firepower is not that great and could easily be replaced by a unit of 5 lobbas for less points and a lot more durability.

Now im sure there are other configurations but those are the main 3 I have seen, very anecdotal I know. But honestly this thread is about improving a bad unit not complaining about peoples attitudes and being unproductive.

Well, I can only say that I feel sorry for someone who plays in such a confined meta. It must lead to quite dull games.

Stikkbomm Launchas are a vestige of a previous Codex, where Meganobz didn't come with Stikkbomms. I'd expect someone who makes such sweeping generalisations to forgive such an oversight in my argument, but people increasingly seem to assume malice in others, rather than carelessness. What a shame.

Your point seemed to be about how useless Battlewagons are, without contributing a meaningful fix. I'm simply saying that the problems listed in the OP aren't really problems, providing you approach the game with a healthy attitude. I.E: one which doesn't artificially disallow perfectly good options because you did some hugely presumptive maths, or because other people don't use them.

I play in a relatively tame meta, but I still face competitive armies. Nobody is taking the Sub par units because they want a fluffy game.

With that in mind the BW is not that good.

Comparing the BW to a gunboat was the purpose because its the only MBT we have, and I am well aware that its primary mission is and always will be as a transport.

I think the biggest problem with the BW is that it tries to be both a transport and a MBT at the same time and as we all know, Jack of all trades, master of none doesn't work that well. For Transports the Trukk is superior because of cost but it has a smaller capacity and less armor (I still think the Trukk is over priced)

As a Tank, the BW is just awful. BS2 teamed with low rate of fire weapons means its not particularly good in any way, shape or form.

You compare it to Killa kanz, Flash Gitz and Nauts, And I think thats about right. Though I think the BW is better then all 3 of those units, but then again all 3 of those units are trash..

SemperMortis wrote:
Comparing the BW to a gunboat was the purpose because its the only MBT we hav

If you count Forgeworld stuff there are a few more options, but none that quite fit the bill of what I think we're looking for without going to super heavies.

The closest is probably the Grot Mega Tank. It has a whole lot of dakka, but is lacking in armor, which is probably why it's a fast attack choice.

Then there's the Gun Wagon, which sounds promising but it's actually just a transport. It has decent armor, but is pretty lacking in dakka despite the name "Gun Wagon". It's more of a Razorback than a Predator. Same thing with the Looted Wagon.

There's the Big Trakk, which can have its transport capacity swapped for a pretty big gun, but it's lacking in armor. It's more of a Hellhound than a Leman Russ.

Then it jumps to the super heavies: the Kustom Battle Fortress and the various Kill Tanks.

If we compared it to walkers, it's kind of like we go from Killa Kanz straight to Stompas, with no Deff Dreads or Gorka/Morkanauts. I want to make an army of ork tredd hedz, so it would be cool to have something in that middle ground. If we don't get it I guess I'll just make do with battlewagons.

I would imagine an orky MBT would have less armor than a LRBT, but more hullpoints and a decent ramshackle rule. It would be fun for autocannons and missle launchers to keep blowing bits off off only to have it keep on chugging along. It would have even more dakka than a LRBT, but that would be of limited use due to orky inaccuracy and the tendency for the weapons to fail in hilarious ways. This doesn't really have anything to do with effectiveness on the tabletop, I just think it would be fun and fluffy.
ETA: I guess, depending on how you look at it, the current battlewagons can be sort of like this, but not quite, and they're grossly overcosted when you do it.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:


I would imagine an orky MBT would have less armor than a LRBT, but more hullpoints and a decent ramshackle rule. It would be fun for autocannons and missle launchers to keep blowing bits off off only to have it keep on chugging along. It would have even more dakka than a LRBT, but that would be of limited use due to orky inaccuracy and the tendency for the weapons to fail in hilarious ways. This doesn't really have anything to do with effectiveness on the tabletop, I just think it would be fun and fluffy.
ETA: I guess, depending on how you look at it, the current battlewagons can be sort of like this, but not quite, and they're grossly overcosted when you do it.

I like that idea. As far as the BW, we are paying for huge transport capacity and HIGH front armor. And then I am guessing GW forgot to add in a shooty vehicle for orks so they were like, just take that big wagon concept and throw on a bunch of short ranged crap guns and we'll call it orky.

If you could swap out the transport capacity for more guns it would be better. The Killa Kannon kind of does this already but in a terrible way. You lose 10 capacity and are charged 30pts to equip a S7 AP3 24in range gun....so you lose abilities and are charged through the nose for a crappy gun. no thanks.

If you could fit some weapons arrays on the flanks of a BW instead of being a transport that might work. The old IA8 book I believe had a Battlewagon version that could take a Supa Kannon which is S9 AP3 range 60 Primary weapon. But to take that it costs.....70pts. So your looking at a 180pt (without any backup weapons) vehicle which is in effect a 50% more expensive, slightly better armored version of a basilisk. But the Basilisks gun is better because BS3 longer range and being barrage.

It's very simple - make deffrollas work just like in the old codex. Old battlewagons with deffrollas were a threat, current ones are barely more dangerous (i.e. useful) than trukks.

I also would make the 'ard case improve side and rear armor AV by 1.

Also, they used to only be 90 points.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
It's very simple - make deffrollas work just like in the old codex. Old battlewagons with deffrollas were a threat, current ones are barely more dangerous (i.e. useful) than trukks.

I also would make the 'ard case improve side and rear armor AV by 1.

Also, they used to only be 90 points.

That would make 'Ard Case worth taking, if they reduced the price back to 90pts a model and gave us the old deff rolla I would be happy.

It still bugs me that the GSC version of the Deff rolla is better than the ork one.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
It still bugs me that the GSC version of the Deff rolla is better than the ork one.

what they did was take the deff rolla, Nerf the hell out of it. Make it unusable and then put it back in the Ork codex so that they could take the old deff rolla, nerf it a little and give it to the GSC and call it something else, even though its literally the same damn thing.

SemperMortis wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
It still bugs me that the GSC version of the Deff rolla is better than the ork one.

what they did was take the deff rolla, Nerf the hell out of it. Make it unusable and then put it back in the Ork codex so that they could take the old deff rolla, nerf it a little and give it to the GSC and call it something else, even though its literally the same damn thing.

Exactly. It also irks me that something designed specifically for the purpose of annihilating people, tanks, and anything that gets in the battlewagon's way is weaker than an industrial rockgrinder. If they were the same in terms of damage I could tolerate it. But the power gap is so huge that I can't help be mad.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
It's very simple - make deffrollas work just like in the old codex. Old battlewagons with deffrollas were a threat, current ones are barely more dangerous (i.e. useful) than trukks.

I also would make the 'ard case improve side and rear armor AV by 1.

Also, they used to only be 90 points.

That would make 'Ard Case worth taking, if they reduced the price back to 90pts a model and gave us the old deff rolla I would be happy.

Yeah, that seems like it would make the 'Ard Case a decent upgrade. Especially seeing as how infantry attacks the rear armor of vehicles. That's a problem of tanks in general, not just the Battlewagon. That, and the rules with ordinance and split fire making weapon combinations kind of difficult. The LRBT loses out even more than the Battlewagon when it comes to that.

I'm trying to remember, but in a previous edition couldn't you upgrade up to three of the Battlewagons weapons to big gunz, plus have a Kill Kannon, plus have up to five bolt on big shootas that passengers could use?

more fire points for the 'ard case, at least 5 for a min squad of specialists. If you can't shoot and you can't assault out of it, what's the point?

I like giving it ramshackle or grot gunners. Maybe make riggers standard.

Long ago i've been toying with a rewrite of an ork codex. There were lots of aspects but what i did to all vehicles was add the Ramshackle special rule across the board . Kinda like an army specific rule for all ork vehicles if you please. It had different grades:

Ramshackle(6+) : trukks, buggies, killa kans, planes - lighter spectrum of ork vehicles with fewer excessive parts.
Ramshackle(5+): battlewagons, the rest of walkers, stompa - heavier ones with more rusty bits here and there.

Furthermore, i revamped the Extra Armor upgrade to be +1 to ramshackle. Haven't seen it being used like...ever.

Tested it out and it was pretty ok. Not gamebreaking but it's kinda like a light version of a serpent shield. It's a much needed slight durabity/reliability buff as ork vehicles generally lack jinks and invuls (other than those from an overpriced and a nearly extinct kff/mff). You still loose a hp but at least have more chances to avoid being exploded/immobilized or stunned.

As for the current state of the game, battlewagons are only effective as transports making 90% of their upgrades redundant. If you want to make it an effective gunboat, add the ability to get free weapons in exchange for transport capacity and grotgunners upgrade that could make it bs3. That could also adress the issue of battlewagons being extremely overpriced as transports for shooty units like lootas or flash gits, tankbustas. If you could just get a bunch of free rokkits/bigshootas or a couple kannons/zzap guns that'd cap the wagon's transport capacity at 10-12 or something, it'd be a more desirable and fair purchase for those specific cases. Think of all the model diversity!

If orks need an effective gunboat, then maybe we should look at other successful gunboat-style vehicles and what makes them work for inspiration.

Wait, do we even have gunboats in this edition? Most of the effective vehicles I can think of mostly either are transports, useful mainly due to spammability, and/or mainly sit in the backline sniping things. Can someone actually remind me which gunboats are good?

Having the possibility to use grot crew for using their bs3 would be very nice.

But to be effective gun boats orks BWs also need serious weapons as rokkits are nice but only because they're cheap and they're a lot. Any gunboat (vehicle or unit it doesn't matter) that is worthy has amazing weapons, orks have nothing better than S8. And if you want Ap2 you also pay the Gets Hot tax.

With bs2 and orks weaponry BWs would never be effective gunboats.

 Blackie wrote:
Having the possibility to use grot crew for using their bs3 would be very nice.

But to be effective gun boats orks BWs also need serious weapons as rokkits are nice but only because they're cheap and they're a lot. Any gunboat (vehicle or unit it doesn't matter) that is worthy has amazing weapons, orks have nothing better than S8. And if you want Ap2 you also pay the Gets Hot tax.

With bs2 and orks weaponry BWs would never be effective gunboats.

Well the Gets Hot rule is its own nonsensical problem that needs to be addressed. Primarily that you lose the model 1/6th of the time and you only hit 2/6ths of the time. In other words you are half as likely to kill yourself as hit the target.

But anyway. If there's no point in an BW gunboat then we need to stop paying a massive tax to put weapons on the thing. for 110pts it should at least come standard with 4 Big shootas/Rokkitz and a Kannon.

Extra Armor adding +1 to the sides and rear is good and all but you are still left with an empty transport that serves little to no purpose after disgorging its compliment of troops.

I like to compare the Battle Wagon to the Land Raider because they are similar in function and design, keep in mind that the Land Raider is SUP OPTIMAL at best, nobody takes them in competitive lists because there's no point.

BW is 110pts, it comes naked, Open Topped and can carry 22 passengers.

Land Raiders on the other hand are 250pts (140 more) have 6 more armor value, (2 on the sides 4 on the back), come with 2 TL Lascannons and a TL Heavy bolter. It also comes with Smoke Launchers and Searchlight but realistically nobody uses that so whatever. It only has 10 Transport capacity but that doesn't matter as much because 10 is about the biggest you can get a Squad of Marines with few exceptions. Lastly, this armored beast has BS4 an "Power of the Machine Spirit" and Assault vehicle special rule without being open Topped.

So that 140pts is giving you 2 TL Lascannons (Costs 50pts for 2 NON TL Lascannons) a TL Heavy Bolter (10pts for a NON TL Heavy Bolter) and isn't Open topped so you don't have +1 to explode. As well as having PotMS and chapter tactics and what have you. So factoring in 5pts per weapon to TL it you have 75pts worth of weapons leaving you with 65pts which is used to give +2 side armor and +4 rear armor, PotMS, and +2 Ballistic Skill and the borderline useless smoke launchers/searchlight.

So once you have used the over priced Land Raider to disgorge your troops you still have a mobile bunker that can put out some decent damage, even more so if you give it the 10pt Multi Melta up top. In other words, its still got a function and barring a lucky Penetrating hit with AP2 or AP1 you are going to keep that thing around for a bit and its going to hold an objective and shoot some decent (not great) Anti-Tank Fire power at stuff.

I know that whenever I play against a SM who actually brings a Land Raider I just ignore the damned thing because its to hard to kill and won't do enough damage to me to justify me wasting units killing it. So for all those upgrades over a BW its still not good.


Summary: The BW needs some upgrades or its as useless as a Land Raider

And yet the battlewagon is much better in practice. Because you lose a lot less when hit by D weapons. I think the battlewagon gets a dozer blade option, too. That alone makes it way better.

Land raider is the worst unit in the worst marine codex. Hands down, bar none.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

I like to compare the Battle Wagon to the Land Raider because they are similar in function and design, keep in mind that the Land Raider is SUP OPTIMAL at best, nobody takes them in competitive lists because there's no point.

So once you have used the over priced Land Raider to disgorge your troops you still have a mobile bunker that can put out some decent damage, even more so if you give it the 10pt Multi Melta up top. In other words, its still got a function and barring a lucky Penetrating hit with AP2 or AP1 you are going to keep that thing around for a bit and its going to hold an objective and shoot some decent (not great) Anti-Tank Fire power at stuff.

It used to be that once you assaulted your orks out of the BW, then the wagon could still threaten things with the Deff rolla without spending too much on weapons. Now that's no longer the case.

Honestly which would people prefer: having the battlewagon be the ork main battle tank, or orks not really having a main battle tank but having buggy squadrons/kans/Deff dreads/orkanauts performing the same function?

Land raiders threaten nothing for double the price. What a bargain!

Martel732 wrote:
Land raiders threaten nothing for double the price. What a bargain!

If you can get within range, Land Raiders have much better weapons and BS while being more difficult to destroy. Is is worth double the price? Maybe not. But they can threaten much more than battlewagons can.

That's a HUGE if that's not worth 250 base. The pricetag on the LR is what completely kills it.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
If orks need an effective gunboat, then maybe we should look at other successful gunboat-style vehicles and what makes them work for inspiration.

Wait, do we even have gunboats in this edition? Most of the effective vehicles I can think of mostly either are transports, useful mainly due to spammability, and/or mainly sit in the backline sniping things. Can someone actually remind me which gunboats are good?

You're right in that this edition doesn't favor heavily armed vehicles. Most of the problems with the Battlewagon are also problems with the LRBT.


I think I have a warped perspective on Land Raiders, being as I'm used to playing footslogging orks and I've mostly played my brother who primarily plays Black Templars. His Land Raider Crusader was decent at slaughtering my boyz and light vehicles and I had a hard time scratching it.

He's been taking about getting two more Crusaders to do that Landraider formation. He's not intentionally trying to stomp on me, but still I'm thinking it might finally be time to invest in some Tankbustas and Kustom Mega Kannons.

SemperMortis wrote:


BW is 110pts, it comes naked, Open Topped and can carry 22 passengers.

i'm pretty sure it's 20


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

He's been taking about getting two more Crusaders to do that Landraider formation. He's not intentionally trying to stomp on me, but still I'm thinking it might finally be time to invest in some Tankbustas and Kustom Mega Kannons.

They ain't going to do much vs lrs. Try looking at meganobz with killsaws. The most point-effective anti...everything in our codex.

 koooaei wrote:
They ain't going to do much vs lrs. Try looking at meganobz with killsaws. The most point-effective anti...everything in our codex.

That's true, with orky BS it would take a ridiculous amount of shooting to glance a Land Raider to death. I do have one unit of meganobz and one has killsaws. A relatively barebones battlewagon would actually be pretty useful in that instance to get the nobz close to the Land Raider, as he'd have a hard timing dealing with AV14 on the front.

No one ever needs to do anything to a Land Raider.

When a Crusader Squad takes one as a dedicated transport don't they become Objective Secured, or am I reading that rule wrong? Sorry I'm still trying to get caught up to speed on the new edition.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
When a Crusader Squad takes one as a dedicated transport don't they become Objective Secured, or am I reading that rule wrong? Sorry I'm still trying to get caught up to speed on the new edition.

Yes, they do. But that's a lot of points to cap one objective.

Martel732 wrote:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
When a Crusader Squad takes one as a dedicated transport don't they become Objective Secured, or am I reading that rule wrong? Sorry I'm still trying to get caught up to speed on the new edition.

Yes, they do. But that's a lot of points to cap one objective.

Keep in mind Martel, I am not saying the Land Raider is awesome or that much better then a BW. I am pointing out how bad the BW is by comparing it to a Land Raider who everyone agrees is garbage.

Yeah, the BW is probably in the bottom 1/3 of units. At least it's a more affordable source of AV 14. And you can keep it stripped down.

A BW is better than a LR because it's cheaper (costs half the points) and has better sinergy with orks style of playing than the LR has with SM one. The BW is a transport, orks have just the BW or the trukk as available options, no deepstriking units and lots of units that need a vehicle to get into combat, while SM have other transports that serve their purpose better than the LR.

SM have several units that shoot better than a LR, flyers and drop pods as more efficient transports, other than deepstriking units. Vanilla marines can also field free transports.

That's why BW in orks lists can be useful even in semi-competitive lists while the LR can be played only in friendly games.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
It's very simple - make deffrollas work just like in the old codex. Old battlewagons with deffrollas were a threat, current ones are barely more dangerous (i.e. useful) than trukks.

I also would make the 'ard case improve side and rear armor AV by 1.

Also, they used to only be 90 points.

That sounds like deth roll would be too good. How would BW be useful WITHOUT deth roll? If BW is useful only if it has deth roll then deth roll is automatic choise=too good. You would need to do it so that a) BW without deth roll is useful b) deth roll be useful