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You can still hover and hit fliers on 4+ if you have to, no?

Hey guys, apologies if this has been discussed before but I’m not trawling back through this many pages looking for it lol.

How do you feel about including an assassin in your Astra Militarum lists for itc? I’m thinking holding 85 points spare for an assassin could be a good thing for guard with the flexibility of being able to choose which one based on your opponent is best suited to your game.

I know the Operative Requisition Sanctioned stratagem now costs 2cp but it’s not like we are short of command points. So the question is is it worth including an assassin in your list for the potential utility they offer?

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

@ Greyknight: thanks for the answer

An interesting thing I realized (maybe its already something trivial everybody knows, but it was news for me): the tarantula battery seems to lack the vehicle keyword. Therefore while it may not fire at full BS arriving from ambush this should mean that they do not suffer from the "only one vehicle" limitation of the ambush stratagem, right?. So if I want to use the ambush stratagem to drop added firepower on a flank it seems to be possible to drop 2 x 3 Tarantulas instead of 2 units of infantry in addition to the vehicle(s) I ambush?

Am I right in this assumption or have I missed something?

Hey Local Tournament Mini-bat Rep here. Just going to give the basics some of you might know me from the custodes thread but I didn't have my custodes available for this event so here is what I brought

My list

Battalion
Cadian:
2 Company Commander (Warlord w/ Old Grudge + Aquila)
3 Infantry Companies
2 HWT w/ Mortars

Spearhead
Vostroyan
1 Tank Commander (Punisher, Plasma Cannons, HB)
1 Tank Commander (Hammer of Sunderance Relic, PC, HB)
3 Leman Russ Conquerors (CBC, HB)

Super Heavy Aux
Krast
Crusader (First Knight, Mark, RFBC, Icarus)
2 Warglaives

and an Assassin

Round one was vs an Imperium mix. He was fielding 3 Allarus Shield Captains and a Deathwatch Battalion with 3 kitted out vanguard Squads A thunderfire cannon, a Derodero dread and a Leviathan Dread, A primarus Apoc, Watch captain and 1 other character.

I got Initiative. Declared the Leviathan to be the old grudge and my opening volley droped It, the Dero-dero, and 1 of the allurus. His opening turn didn't do really anything. Turn 2 I kill everything else on the board except the Watch master and 1 Allurus. I did make a mistake of not having my Callidus shoot and kill the Watch captain thinking I would kill it in charge. (it had been aspect scan and bombarded by the thunderfire) and it ended up dying to overwatch. He droped in his Veteran teams banged up 2 of my lemans a bit. Rest of the match was me moping up the veteran teams which were a LOT more durable then I was expecting end up tabling him Turn 4.

Match 2 was probably one of the Closet games of 40k I have ever played. Not going to lie it got a bit heated at points but was an amazing game. List my opponent brought was 3 Chaos Knights (1 Double RFBC, 1 Melee, and 1 Double Avenger) a battalion of Chaos Deamon (The plague bearer characters, 2 25 man units of Plague bearers and 1 brimstone horrors) Then an Aux with Ahriman.

I got the initiative roll off but then he seized I used prepared positions. He ended up only taking out 1 LR:C with his opening volley. I banged up his Double avenger really bad but didn't quite eliminate it put a few wounds on the RFBC. His turn 2. He took out 1 of Armigers and an Infantry Squad LR:C. He had manage to get is PBs up most of the field to and was holding 3 objectives between the 2 units. My turn 2 I took out the Melee knight (Had a bit of an issue where he thought I had already fired a tank once and I was firing it again but I we got it sorted out) and the Double avenger knight though he revived that one with a strat and took the RFBC below half. My Callidus Assassin (WHY OH WHY DIDN'T I take the eversor?!?!) attempted to charge and kill the RFBC but got mulched by overwatch again. 9 6s on the avengers.) I tried to charge 1 of my tanks into a PB to tied them up but failed the charge. His turn 3 He finished the 2 remaining Infantry squads and brought 1 of the remaining LR:Cs to 3 wound remaining. Charged in 1 unit of plague bearers to try and finish off the tank but it was to tough. My turn 3 fell back with 1 tank the wounded one however was mostly wrapped and couldn't fall back. (I thought it could through a gap and We had to have a judge come make a ruling probably the most heated point in the game as one of his PB units had just regenerate another 5 models, It regenerated 11 models this game and I was getting frustrated by them) Turn 3 I finished off the 2 Remaining Knights and threw everything else into the PBs not and managed to get them to 14. However he regenerated another 6. His turn 4 during his Psy phase time was called so we were to play out this final round and that would be it. Points were extremely close. He did 9 damage to my knight to grab some kingslayer points with arhiman and also doom bolted it so It couldn't get over the PBs on my turn with its reduced movement to attempt to take out arhiman for Slay the warlord. Now his PB unit that wasn't tied up on the leman charge and through some really ahem stretch placement was on 3 different objectives. With the unit on the tank on the 4th. So my final round had me fall back everything that was locked in combat with the stretch unit and the fire everything into the unit in the hopes that it would be enough to finish it off and give me some badly needed points. (If he held all 4 objective he would score an additional point for mission plus hold more. I needed to kill the unit for Kill one, Kill more, and Old school while denying him hold more.) I was successful. Ending game point 21-19 my favor. Gahh I hate hate hate Plague bearers. Taking the Callidus was idiotic of me. The LRs had amazing rolls for their shot numbers I was averaging probably between 8-9 shots each with them. Opponent made a few poor choices too not maisming the stretch unit the last round probably the most egregious. Also he wasn't able to really capitalize on his secondaries much. (He took Marked for death, Head hunter, and Kingslayer and only scored 5 points of those.)

Game 3 was vs Tau.

He was fielding 3 Riptides, 2 Hammerheads, 6 Pathfinder teams, 1 unit of 4 Shield drones, 3 Commanders, an Etheral, Darkstrider, and 2 Drone Controllers? Not sure what the last 2 were to be honest.

This game left me a bit befuddled as my opponent chose to have me set up and go first didnt even try to seize initiative. He also didn't use prepared positions. (I think he was exhausted at this point as he said he had had been up play D&D till 3 am last knight and he had driven at least twice as far as me. This round was starting at around 8:30 pm too.) Anyway my opening volley took out 2 Rip-tides the 4 shield drones and damaged the other. Nearly killed a pathfinder team too but they passed morale. His turn he killed a mortal team and an Armiger. Turn 2 saw me drop the eversor behind his etheral and darkstrider. The death of 1 of his commanders the last riptide and 2 Pathfinder teams. The Eversor charaged the Etheral....and manged to flub his wound rolls so bad as to only put 2 damage on it. The Remaing wounded Armiger charged a commander and promptly died to overwatch. However he did exploded and took out 1 of the drone thingies with him and finished off a pathfinder team. His turn 2 his tiredness showed as he completely forgot to drop darkstrider and the etheral out of combat. (I let him do it in the shooting phase anyway) and also didn't take out the units he had in the building 1st floor so they couldn't shoot the eversor after. He also forget to move the etheral and darkstrider more then 3" away from the eversor so I heroiced back into combat. He blew up an LR:C this turn but conceded as I was so far ahead in points and just didn't have enough to deal with 4 LRs and a Knight with only 2 Hammerheads 1 of witch was wounded and 2 commanders 1 of which was wounded.

So all in all 3-0 Showing took first place. Was sad my custodes weren't ready in time but honestly it was probably to my advantage. The Calidus Grav-tanks without old grudges would have had a much harder time with the Chaos knight and I had been running a Gallant instead of the Crusader in that list. The LR also were rolling consistently high on there number of shots all day too.

Wells that's All feel free to ask if you have any questions.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

Damn. You are spending a lot of CP that isnt needed.
Bullgryns are survivable enough, put them in cover to save CP there. Or use astropath psychic barrier. Also why are you rerolling every failed armor save/failed charge etc. They can be 1+3++; or better in natural terrain cover. They are plenty surviable. I also find people don't focus them down until later game do to needing to get kills. That should allow them to move and advance T1, then move and charge T2 .
For vigilus if you are using both arty and tank companye thats 2. Then 1 for the tank relic. Then 2 for shoot twice wyvern.
I find assassins aren't impactful enough (looking at the vindicare). BUt if you are taking him, make sure to spend the Cp to regain CP when he kills characters.
What relics are you taking? Are you taking Kurovs Aquila and/or Grand stratagist to CP farm?
You shouldn't have to be spending 2 cp first turn if you deploy right. Generally i find it not worth it.
Take Catachan if you are worried about random dice output on your wyvern instead of Cadia. Now you don't have to burn CP for overlapping fields.

 Dynas wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

Damn. You are spending a lot of CP that isnt needed.
Bullgryns are survivable enough, put them in cover to save CP there. Or use astropath psychic barrier. Also why are you rerolling every failed armor save/failed charge etc. They can be 1+3++; or better in natural terrain cover. They are plenty surviable. I also find people don't focus them down until later game do to needing to get kills. That should allow them to move and advance T1, then move and charge T2 .
For vigilus if you are using both arty and tank companye thats 2. Then 1 for the tank relic. Then 2 for shoot twice wyvern.
I find assassins aren't impactful enough (looking at the vindicare). BUt if you are taking him, make sure to spend the Cp to regain CP when he kills characters.
What relics are you taking? Are you taking Kurovs Aquila and/or Grand stratagist to CP farm?
You shouldn't have to be spending 2 cp first turn if you deploy right. Generally i find it not worth it.
Take Catachan if you are worried about random dice output on your wyvern instead of Cadia. Now you don't have to burn CP for overlapping fields.

II'mnot worried about opponents that would shoot my Bullgryn on turn 1. If they have good target priority and maneuverability they will go after a Basilisk, HWS, or infantry squad with a lascannon. I have too many infantry units to keep them all in cover so 2CP when going 2nd works well for me.

Usually grand strategist or old grudges. Kurovs or lost relic. Varies from.game to game.

Overlapping fields is huge for Cadia especially to counter -1 to hits. When pounding a knight/FW dreadnought/centurions exc it's going to take a lot of firepower. It also really helps with plasma. Overcharging stays 1/36 safe instead of 7/36 risky when I am unable to reroll 2s.

The 4CP for spotter and shoot twice effectively adds 2 more basilisks to my list. A single basilisk hits as hard as 3 with those CP. Overlapping fields is still more efficient though IMO

I'm looking at running a 5 model unit of bullgryns with mauls, an astropath and a ministorum priest. Any suggestions on the shield load out?

 necron99 wrote:
I'm looking at running a 5 model unit of bullgryns with mauls, an astropath and a ministorum priest. Any suggestions on the shield load out?

After a disastrous tournament with my Guard (2-3... worst tournament I've played to date) where I got massacred in one game by the freaking Tau meleeing my tank commanders with battlesuits, I am thinking the same thing. Bullgryns are an absolute requirement for playing a mostly Guard list.

I don't think I'd run something as small as 5 though. I've heard 7 suggested as a bare minimum, and even then only because it denies the ITC secondary "Gangbusters"... otherwise I'd take a full squad of 9.

I'd run them as 5-6x slab shields, 3-4x brute shields. If you keep them in cover, and buff them with an Astropath, they're at a 0+ save. Meaning against AP3 weapons, they're still getting a 3+ save... which you could buff to a 2+ save by using the Take Cover stratagem at the same time. So the slab shields are awesome at protecting them from shooting. The only reason you'd really want brute shields is for making saves against power fists and thunder hammers and stuff in melee, which is useful, but they gotta make it there first.

Oh yeah, no doubt more would be much much better. My current list doesn't have the points to allow for doubling their size - although that sounds like fun. To that end I'm not sure if I want to hold them back to protect my tanks (3 TCs and 2 bassies) or ram them down the enemies throat as quickly as humanly possible

Bullgryn are not 100% necessary, but the roll of counter assault is absolutely necessary and there is not much besides bullgryn that can do that roll. The only 2 alternatives IMO is large numberof of Catachan infantry and cyclops.

I usually run a Catachan spearhead with a lord commissar and 3-5 cyclops to fill the roll of Bullgryn missing from my list.

Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

RaptorHunter wrote:
Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

Armored and scout sentinels are dirt cheap now to fill out a brigade. Hell hounds are good but not dirt cheap filler.

I'm just finishing building my first Astra Militarum list and I was wondering if there were any good resources or tips for playing AM in general? I've read the 1d4chan pages and various blogs but I'm more looking for something like when is the best time to use order X vs order Y for example.

I don't really have specific questions since I haven't played with them yet but I'd like to go into my first game with them (hopefully in the next week or two) as prepared as possible.

I cant think of any, but here are some good starter tips for AM

If you are running pure guard, dont go ham on CP. You wont need them. Bringing the right units is more important. Find a good balance. You could bring 20+ cp, but have no hard hitting units to fully utilize them. For pure guard, i shoot for 12 to 17. When i bring in soup, closer to 10.

Boys before toys. Run units cheap so you have points for more units. I run IS with no upgrades and they work very well.

Orders are all about different. If cadian, the reroll all misses is great. For lasguns, FRFSRF is good if you moved. And move move move for moving. Others are more situational. Just get in the practive of remembering to use them, thats step 1.

Screen. D6 Evolution on YouTube has great videos on screening, highly recommend watching. Guard is all about screening, falling back and letting your shooting kill assaulting enemies.

Play games. Cant understate this. Biggest thing you can do to improve and learn from your mistakes.

RaptorHunter wrote:
Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

I prefer Hellhounds. Yeah they cost more but they cover a very important niche in the army. Sentinels meanwhile don't do a whole lot. I really dislike tax units without a purpose. If all our fast attack sucked it'd be one thing, but Hellhounds are great so I don't think I'd leave home without them.

 UMGuy wrote:
I cant think of any, but here are some good starter tips for AM

If you are running pure guard, dont go ham on CP. You wont need them. Bringing the right units is more important. Find a good balance. You could bring 20+ cp, but have no hard hitting units to fully utilize them. For pure guard, i shoot for 12 to 17. When i bring in soup, closer to 10.

Boys before toys. Run units cheap so you have points for more units. I run IS with no upgrades and they work very well.

Orders are all about different. If cadian, the reroll all misses is great. For lasguns, FRFSRF is good if you moved. And move move move for moving. Others are more situational. Just get in the practive of remembering to use them, thats step 1.

Screen. D6 Evolution on YouTube has great videos on screening, highly recommend watching. Guard is all about screening, falling back and letting your shooting kill assaulting enemies.

Play games. Cant understate this. Biggest thing you can do to improve and learn from your mistakes.

Thanks! This is very helpful!

Number one big tip I have.... NEVER EVER keep your tanks along a board edge. Sure, you can start them there, but move them up a few inches away from the edge. Otherwise, it's too easy for an opponent to touch a tank, and then you don't have room to fall back. Once you're locked in close combat with a tank, you're never going to fire it again, it's as good as dead.

Has anyone tried the Sabre Defense platforms. Im thinking they are a cheap slot option for some anti flier shenenigans.

 Horst wrote:
Number one big tip I have.... NEVER EVER keep your tanks along a board edge. Sure, you can start them there, but move them up a few inches away from the edge. Otherwise, it's too easy for an opponent to touch a tank, and then you don't have room to fall back. Once you're locked in close combat with a tank, you're never going to fire it again, it's as good as dead.

Good tip! I hadn't considered that but looking at how large the leman russ models are that makes perfect sense.

Slaul wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Number one big tip I have.... NEVER EVER keep your tanks along a board edge. Sure, you can start them there, but move them up a few inches away from the edge. Otherwise, it's too easy for an opponent to touch a tank, and then you don't have room to fall back. Once you're locked in close combat with a tank, you're never going to fire it again, it's as good as dead.

Good tip! I hadn't considered that but looking at how large the leman russ models are that makes perfect sense.

I lost a 750 point game once to a single squad of genestealers... they killed the Guardsmen in front of my tanks, consolidated into the tanks, and because the tanks were at the back, it was GG.

I guess that goes along with my other big tip... keep your guardsmen about 5 inches in front of your tanks. The last thing you want is your enemy to assault the guardsmen, kill them all, and then use their 3" consolidate to touch your tanks, because then they cannot fire next turn. If you keep your infantry far enough in front, then they cannot do that.

What would be the best kind of tank to put a Knight Commander Pask in? Just a generic Battle Cannon Russ? Or maybe the plasma one?

I like running Pask in a Punisher tank lately, but he goes really well in the battle cannon one too. Pask in a Punisher w/ 3x Heavy Bolters gets 49 str5 shots, and if he doesn't move he's hitting on 2+, re-rolling all misses with all of those shots. he straight murders hordes, and can even be expected to put quite a few wounds on knights.

Putting him in an Executioner isn't a bad idea, but if you were gonna rank the Leman Russ guns by how good they are, The Battle Cannon and Punisher Cannon are like tier 1, while the Executioner (and demolisher) are tier 2, and the others are tier 3.

The executioner would rank higher if it wasn't for how minus to hit modifiers work in this game. If you're at a -1 to hit, your plasma overheats on 1's and 2's now... so shooting an Executioner at an Eldar Flyer that has -2 to hit (or even -3) means you're taking wounds on a roll of 1, 2, 3, or 4. Makes it a huge liability. Really only a problem against opponents that have that to hit modifier, but it makes it a bit of a worse choice for a take all comers list.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Bullgryn are not 100% necessary, but the roll of counter assault is absolutely necessary and there is not much besides bullgryn that can do that roll. The only 2 alternatives IMO is large numberof of Catachan infantry and cyclops.

I usually run a Catachan spearhead with a lord commissar and 3-5 cyclops to fill the roll of Bullgryn missing from my list.

lol I thought of that too...I have a brigade of Catachan (6 infantry squads). No cyclops though...seem a little pricey now points-wise but I get your point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:
I like running Pask in a Punisher tank lately, but he goes really well in the battle cannon one too. Pask in a Punisher w/ 3x Heavy Bolters gets 49 str5 shots, and if he doesn't move he's hitting on 2+, re-rolling all misses with all of those shots. he straight murders hordes, and can even be expected to put quite a few wounds on knights.

Putting him in an Executioner isn't a bad idea, but if you were gonna rank the Leman Russ guns by how good they are, The Battle Cannon and Punisher Cannon are like tier 1, while the Executioner (and demolisher) are tier 2, and the others are tier 3.

The executioner would rank higher if it wasn't for how minus to hit modifiers work in this game. If you're at a -1 to hit, your plasma overheats on 1's and 2's now... so shooting an Executioner at an Eldar Flyer that has -2 to hit (or even -3) means you're taking wounds on a roll of 1, 2, 3, or 4. Makes it a huge liability. Really only a problem against opponents that have that to hit modifier, but it makes it a bit of a worse choice for a take all comers list.

My problem with Pask is that he becomes an immediate target and is usually the first thing shot off the board. For 10 points more than your standard TC he's gold but not if he only gets to fire once if you're lucky. I've moved to a supreme command detachment using the Vigilus Emperors Fist tank company with 3 TCs. I spread out the weaponry so no one looks like a bigger threat than anyone else. One dude gets the sunderance relic BC and heavy bolter, another dude gets the regular BC with a LC and the third gets a BC, HB and PC sponsons. Making any of those Pask is like signing their death warrant.

Pask will draw enormous aggro from your opponent, use that agaisnt them. Hide Pask out of LOS during deployment. On turn 1 move him out of cover and combine pop smoke and shoot orders with night shroud. The -2 to hit penalty is so strong that the best thing to do is ignore Pask that turn and blow up a different vehicle. If an opponent gets too fixated on pask they can still kill him with a -2, but they are going to waste a lot of dakka doing so. Having 1 tank being the obvious threat is ok if you're rocking night shroud and psychic barrier on it. Barrier also stacks with cover if you can pull off being 75% obscured.

Am I missing something or are Artemia Pattern Hellhounds just Hellhounds with one extra damage on the flamer for no cost? What's up with that?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Am I missing something or are Artemia Pattern Hellhounds just Hellhounds with one extra damage on the flamer for no cost? What's up with that?

Artemia Pattern Hellhounds roll "2D6 drop the lowest" for the number of shots, Hellhounds roll 2D6

Artemia Pattern Hellhounds cause D6 mortal wounds when they kersplode, Hellhounds only do D3.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Pask will draw enormous aggro from your opponent, use that agaisnt them. Hide Pask out of LOS during deployment. On turn 1 move him out of cover and combine pop smoke and shoot orders with night shroud. The -2 to hit penalty is so strong that the best thing to do is ignore Pask that turn and blow up a different vehicle. If an opponent gets too fixated on pask they can still kill him with a -2, but they are going to waste a lot of dakka doing so. Having 1 tank being the obvious threat is ok if you're rocking night shroud and psychic barrier on it. Barrier also stacks with cover if you can pull off being 75% obscured.

This. You have to deploy as though you are going second. To many times people deploy assuming first turn. And with Punisher Tanks, its evenworse because of the short range, you put him closer than necessary to get the Grinding Advance double shooting. Then he gets blown up or charged.

I generally run Pask in an Emperor's Fist company, so he can double tap after moving 10"... so it's easier to place him behind cover to start.

Why do people go with heavy bolter sponsons over plasma? It’s only 4 more points for plasma, and you trade 2d3 for flat 3...but S7 AP-3 is a lot better that S5 AP-1 especially considering that you can get that elsewhere (even massed lasguns kill similar targets) and you reserve the option to reroll 1’s for another 2d3 S8 AP-3 D2 shots. If you’re catachan, that random shot becomes less swingy and with Tallarn you don’t suffer the movement penalty.
Basically, I feel like the niche that heavy bolters fill is covered by other stuff (or can be taken by cadian infantry, etc) and you’re losing out on a chance to take a different/rarer class of firepower that has the option to overcharge and become quite deadly.