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SilverAlien wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
I think it's a fair point that the Raven Guard trait really hurts Guard gunlines. Yes, Pask don't care, although the Punisher only has a 24" range and he's one model (which is very likely to get blown up turn 1). For everything else, whether you're re-rolling 1s or re-rolling misses or whatever, BS4+ is hurt a lot more by -1 to hit than BS3+ is. One could imagine an Eldar or Tyranid army with the RG trait doing extremely well given their access to Conceal and Malanthropes. Index Guard would have relied on deep-striking Scions to come down within 12" and trouble-shoot; this is a lot harder for Codex Guard.

It'd be a good point, but the reason it doesn't matter is nothing in the SM army list that can really benefit from that trait is worth using. Devastators are more fragile than a predator for cost even with the trait, most SM units want to be in RF range which negates it, rifleman dreads don't exactly have a good cost to firepower ratio.

Unless you use FW dreads, raven guard is never going to actually be any good, because this is an edition where tanks do the job so much better than SM infantry could ever hope to.

Now, admech is actually worth discussing, because the -1 applies to things like Kastalens, dragoons, and onagers (and also something people seem to forget when discussing the admech codex). That actually makes admech pretty good at dealing with IG.

Nah, Cawl is too large a part of admech's shooting power. Running stygies as your kastellans takes down their offensive output by an enormous degree.

SilverAlien wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
I think it's a fair point that the Raven Guard trait really hurts Guard gunlines. Yes, Pask don't care, although the Punisher only has a 24" range and he's one model (which is very likely to get blown up turn 1). For everything else, whether you're re-rolling 1s or re-rolling misses or whatever, BS4+ is hurt a lot more by -1 to hit than BS3+ is. One could imagine an Eldar or Tyranid army with the RG trait doing extremely well given their access to Conceal and Malanthropes. Index Guard would have relied on deep-striking Scions to come down within 12" and trouble-shoot; this is a lot harder for Codex Guard.

It'd be a good point, but the reason it doesn't matter is nothing in the SM army list that can really benefit from that trait is worth using. Devastators are more fragile than a predator for cost even with the trait, most SM units want to be in RF range which negates it, rifleman dreads don't exactly have a good cost to firepower ratio.

Unless you use FW dreads, raven guard is never going to actually be any good, because this is an edition where tanks do the job so much better than SM infantry could ever hope to.

Now, admech is actually worth discussing, because the -1 applies to things like Kastalens, dragoons, and onagers (and also something people seem to forget when discussing the admech codex). That actually makes admech pretty good at dealing with IG.

Right, I'm talking about the RG trait as a generic rule that lots of armies seem to be getting. Though I don't think the FW Dreads are negligible -- SMs get traits on as wide a variety of vehicles as AdMech does, really. But they're not great anti-horde and SMs are basically always going to want to be Ultramarines for Guilliman anyway. Likewise, as Purifier says AdMech doesn't really want their main gunline to be Stygies. That's why I was saying it's possible for the Eldar or Tyranid codices to to-some-extent balance Guard, if they have desirable RG-type subfactions.

Hate to say it but its the truth. AM could probably beat RG without shooting for the first 2 turns.

SilverAlien wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
They make their charge, and they don't work alone. If one fails, there's enough redundancy in re-rolls and other units to get at least enough of them in.

They never take overwatch, because a Trygon(s) that brought with Hormagaunts precedes them. Without all the units working together, they're left out in the open to dry after taking out the first Conscript squad.

Wait... do you play power level by any chance? Because I keep noticing you are saying rerolls, and talking an trygons like they make charges consistently as well, and I'm thinking you may be talking about power level where stratagems can be reused multiple times in a phase. I imagine that would make alpha strike tyranids a bit scarier. I'm still unsure how they don't get shot up turn 2, but this makes more sense.

Sometimes, sometimes not. However, just playing PL doesn't let you use more than 1 instance of a strategem, since that's a property of matched play rules, which we use regardless of whether or not we're using points or PL.

However, everything that can has adrenal glands, setting their charge range out of DS to 8. The thing is, if you have 2 or 3 instances of each unit, more often than not you're going to get the required number of instances in, especially considering that 1 unit can have it's charge range re-rolled.

Xenomancers wrote:Hate to say it but its the truth. AM could probably beat RG without shooting for the first 2 turns.

There is almost no possible way for an IG to beat raven guard without shooting in the first 2 turns.

Conscripts on turn 1 with focused fire, followed by assaulting the tanks with jump infantry on turn 2.

 Purifier wrote:
Nah, Cawl is too large a part of admech's shooting power. Running stygies as your kastellans takes down their offensive output by an enormous degree.

Okay time for my admech rant, which isn't representative of what most people think about the army but is coming from someone with a different perspective.

Frankly I think this assumption is in large part what holds back many admech lists, over reliance on this single unit combo that eats up points, CP and makes list building nightmarish. Having tried numerous combos, Kastalens+Cawl is what you use if you want to run 1-2 IG battalions with admech. Stygies is what you do if you go pure admech. You do not mix the two, or try to run pure Mars.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
However, everything that can has adrenal glands, setting their charge range out of DS to 8. The thing is, if you have 2 or 3 instances of each unit, more often than not you're going to get the required number of instances in, especially considering that 1 unit can have it's charge range re-rolled.

Which, again, would make genestealers better, but they can't have adrenal glands. I'm fairly certain I pointed that out to you the last time you talked about fighting genestealers.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Nah, Cawl is too large a part of admech's shooting power. Running stygies as your kastellans takes down their offensive output by an enormous degree.

Okay time for my admech rant, which isn't representative of what most people think about the army but is coming from someone with a different perspective.

Frankly I think this assumption is in large part what holds back many admech lists, over reliance on this single unit combo that eats up points, CP and makes list building nightmarish. Having tried numerous combos, Kastalens+Cawl is what you use if you want to run 1-2 IG battalions with admech. Stygies is what you do if you go pure admech. You do not mix the two, or try to run pure Mars.

That sounds really counter intuitive. Kastellans+Cawl is incredibly powerful no matter what you run them with. They aren't enabled by battalions of IG, they're just stand-alone powerful. It doesn't matter what you run them with, they do their job (which makes them a really boring choice, but an incredibly solid one.)

I don't agree at all with your idea on the lists either. With Cawl, you can almost guarantee Shroudpsalm every round, so the survivability difference isn't big enough to warrant you dropping Cawl. And calling him a point sink is really inaccurate. He's fairly costed, and compared to the Dominus, absolutely worth the ~100 extra points. And he works with anything in your backline, like Dunecrawlers.

Stygies is an amazing addition to a Mars army, not because of the 12" hit-thing, but because of a single Stratagem... Clandestine Infiltration. It ensures a first round alpha charge, which can, if you pick the right units and buff them up, put a huge dent in your opponent's army... but is incredibly reliant on getting first turn. Gotta say, IGOUGO is a bigger threat to this game than even the AM.

Stygies is, like Raven Guard, for the melee parts of your army, and running a Stygies detachment in a Mars army is nothing to sneeze at. It's also what I'm doing next weekend in my tournament. Although it's a far from optimised list, it's a really neat way to bring in my 8 dunestriders that have been doing nothing every game since I got them with the Skitarii release and actually get to see them do some damage.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Nah, Cawl is too large a part of admech's shooting power. Running stygies as your kastellans takes down their offensive output by an enormous degree.

Okay time for my admech rant, which isn't representative of what most people think about the army but is coming from someone with a different perspective.

Frankly I think this assumption is in large part what holds back many admech lists, over reliance on this single unit combo that eats up points, CP and makes list building nightmarish. Having tried numerous combos, Kastalens+Cawl is what you use if you want to run 1-2 IG battalions with admech. Stygies is what you do if you go pure admech. You do not mix the two, or try to run pure Mars.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
However, everything that can has adrenal glands, setting their charge range out of DS to 8. The thing is, if you have 2 or 3 instances of each unit, more often than not you're going to get the required number of instances in, especially considering that 1 unit can have it's charge range re-rolled.

Which, again, would make genestealers better, but they can't have adrenal glands. I'm fairly certain I pointed that out to you the last time you talked about fighting genestealers.

I know that, but Trygons and Hormagaunts can. It's not just about the Genestealers, they just serve to chew up a unit to let the Hormagaunts move ahead.

Anyway, that's besides the point, the tyranids seem extremely capable of clearing out horde units, but lack in the ability to effectively destroy heavy vehicles.

 Purifier wrote:

brother_b wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I was told spore mines were D3 when I was playing them.

First they roll to hit. Then its 1-nothing happens 2-5 1 mortal 6-d3 mortals. They cost 36 points. If they do miss their shot becomes a mine that does the same thing (but you can shoot it before it hits you) Ultimately if you spam like 15 biovores - you will get an average of 8 mortal wounds on a target - but that doesnt take into account for what happens to the missed spore mines. They are best against flyers because flyers can't avoid the mines because they are forced to move. Really - they suck. Only reliable method Nids have to deal with SHV is close combat - but Nids are probably the best at getting into combat in the game. They can easily charge first turn with 2-3 units. Armies that rely on shooting struggle with this - but not AM. AM has more than enough bodies to stop CC from typing up any important units. Unlike ADmech who have a bunch of units that can't fall back from CC and shoot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
I don't really understand *in tournaments" how an AM list could ever hope to win against any of the following lists:

- Raven guard
- Alpha legion
- Azrael parking lot
- DG with Mortarion

And probably many more that i'm not recalling at the moment.

It's quite simple really. AM can hide a significant portion of their army and still shoot with it - and most of their shooting is effective against EVERYTHING. Whats available to shoot? 3 Point models. This is basically an auto win condition.

Hiding a significant portion of your army doesn't matter. It's only -1 with Stygies. Pask shoots 49 shots, at BS 2. You think Stygies will hide from him? Other tanks in his army will have a worse BS but can DOUBLE TAP so that works out. And can't tanks take advantage of Cadian's doctrines? Stay still, double tap, reroll ones, or get the Take Aim stratagem and reroll all misses.

The ability to fall back seriously handicaps melee armies, as there is no way to lock in units and their is absolutely no penalty for falling back when you're IG and can just issue the get back in the fight order from one of your numerous cheap commanders. Then the melee unit is at the mercy of the entire gunline that didn't move and can now double tap and take advantage of whatever orders and broken stratagem combination you desire.

Nobody has offered up a solution to what GW will do about the AM codex and tournaments. I'm not sure there is a solution and think with this codex we've ushered in the era of necessary soup and AM dominance.

AM is Astra Militarum. The common shorthand for Adeptus Mechanicus is AdMech, to avoid confusion. He's talking about Astra Militarum, not AdMech. AdMech can't hide anything. We don't have any indirect fire weapons.

I know that.

 Purifier wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
In response to the OP, my local club isn't doing anything, really.

As many of the recent tournaments have shown, 8ed doesn't really work in a competitive setting.

Dunno if you read the whole title, but this thread's question was specifically about hiw they work *in tournaments*

Dunno if you understand, but the thread's question is fundamentally stupid.

GW doesn't "do" tournament balance. There is no "mess" to speak of.

To imagine that GW would rebalance the new Codex that they just put out to try and satisfy the <1% who GW cares absolutely nothing about is patently ridiculous.

If there were a tournament problem (and there isn't), then the handful of people who actually care should be taking their concerns to the TOs, not a random rabble with ZERO influence over GW, who themselves have peripheral (at best) influence over how any given tournament gets played.


If Dakka actually had influence over GW, we'd be using it to get support for Chaos Dorfs, Dogs of War, Squats and Sisters of Battle - in roughly that order...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
In response to the OP, my local club isn't doing anything, really.

As many of the recent tournaments have shown, 8ed doesn't really work in a competitive setting.

Dunno if you read the whole title, but this thread's question was specifically about hiw they work *in tournaments*

Dunno if you understand, but the thread's question is fundamentally stupid.

GW doesn't "do" tournament balance. There is no "mess" to speak of.

To imagine that GW would rebalance the new Codex that they just put out to try and satisfy the <1% who GW cares absolutely nothing about is patently ridiculous.

If there were a tournament problem (and there isn't), then the handful of people who actually care should be taking their concerns to the TOs, not a random rabble with ZERO influence over GW, who themselves have peripheral (at best) influence over how any given tournament gets played.


If Dakka actually had influence over GW, we'd be using it to get support for Chaos Dorfs, Dogs of War, Squats and Sisters of Battle - in roughly that order...

GW has shown a far greater interest in tournaments than before. For example, they quickly nerfed flyer spam the moment it was evident that it dominated the tournaments.

So give it a few months for a few important tournaments, and if AM dominates then they will eat a nerf just like how Stormravens did.

Spoletta wrote:
I don't really understand *in tournaments" how an AM list could ever hope to win against any of the following lists:

- Raven guard
- Alpha legion
- Azrael parking lot
- DG with Mortarion

And probably many more that i'm not recalling at the moment.

Honestly pretty easy. I have seen them utterly destroy 2 of those lists. Mortarion doesn’t last more than 2 turns against a guard list and hitting raven guard on 5s is largely negated when you can reroll all failed hits with the new Cadian skills.

Spoletta wrote:
I don't really understand *in tournaments" how an AM list could ever hope to win against any of the following lists:

- Raven guard
- Alpha legion
- Azrael parking lot
- DG with Mortarion

And probably many more that i'm not recalling at the moment.

Those lists don't have the model count to compete. Mortarion means NOTHING vs conscripts. Deal your mortal wounds, chief. I am legion and ignore morale.

broxus wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I don't really understand *in tournaments" how an AM list could ever hope to win against any of the following lists:

- Raven guard
- Alpha legion
- Azrael parking lot
- DG with Mortarion

And probably many more that i'm not recalling at the moment.

Honestly pretty easy. I have seen them utterly destroy 2 of those lists. Mortarion doesn’t last more than 2 turns against a guard list and hitting raven guard on 5s is largely negated when you can reroll all failed hits with the new Cadian skills.

Do people actually think that this is the cadian doctrine? Because the situation where any cadian unit is going to actually be rerolling all hits is vanishingly small.

Any infantry unit armed with lasguns? It's always going to be FRFSRF. FRFSRF rerolling 1s is 100% better than rerolling all misses without FRFSRF.

Any vehicle? Can't get the order to reroll all hits.

Almost every unit that you want to use a special weapon with, you're probably going to want to be moving.

It's JUST going to be HWS ever getting that order. For everybody else, the cadian doctrine is going to be rerolling 1s if stationary, 99% of the time.

the_scotsman wrote:
It's JUST going to be HWS ever getting that order. For everybody else, the cadian doctrine is going to be rerolling 1s if stationary, 99% of the time.

So I guess we will see a lot of mortar squads. Maybe sniper command/special/veterans too? Or veteran squads built for range, like las/plas. Also, can you still order FW artillery carriages these days?

 Trickstick wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
It's JUST going to be HWS ever getting that order. For everybody else, the cadian doctrine is going to be rerolling 1s if stationary, 99% of the time.

So I guess we will see a lot of mortar squads. Maybe sniper command/special/veterans too? Or veteran squads built for range, like las/plas. Also, can you still order FW artillery carriages these days?

If we do see Sniper vets, it'll probably be a significant drop in power from Ratlings, which don't have to take any tax lasguns and get to infiltrate.

The trouble with Cadian vet squads is the "if STATIONARY' part of the doctrine, which precludes hiding them in a chimera and popping them out to use the 3 special weapons.

Artillery cages can no longer be ordered. The artillery piece itself is not infantry - you can order the crew, but that doesn't order the gun. As such, they can never reroll hits either.

For competitive play, it's just mortar teams. the trouble with them is, theyre so cheap pointswise that theyre rarely worth officer support. One 30pt commander can order 2 mortar squads....or you could get a third mortar squad?

SilverAlien wrote:

 Purifier wrote:


Frankly I think this assumption is in large part what holds back many admech lists, over reliance on this single unit combo that eats up points, CP and makes list building nightmarish. .

Thank you. I thought I was the only one had noticed that people are locked into "we need Cawl and Kastellans with blasters because AdMech is a shooting army, and it's a shooting army because it has Cawl and Kastellans."

It generally doesn't make a whole lot of sense to order a mortar squad. Orders ought to be valued at about 15 points, right? A mortar squad is now 33 points. Ordering a BS4+ squad to re-roll misses instead of just re-rolling 1s is a 29% increase in firepower. You should just buy more mortars instead.

ISTM that the standard use for the order is going to be BS4+ lascannons, either in Infantry squads or HWS. Veterans are often not a great target for it, because re-rolling misses is only 14% better than re-rolling 1s for them. Even in absolute terms, A BS4+ shot gets more additional damage out of the order than a BS3+ one (0.167 extra hits vs 0.111 extra hits).

Well... Admech is a shooting army because there's no way to get melee units as troops or HQs. You can get good melee fast attack, good melee elites, good melee heavy supports to a point (talking about infiltrators, dragoons, and punchbots). but you need some kind of shooting core to back them up or else you need to build a list with just tax HQs, because the HQs pair with shootbots and onagers far better than anything else.

But that's beside the point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:
It generally doesn't make a whole lot of sense to order a mortar squad. Orders ought to be valued at about 15 points, right? A mortar squad is now 33 points. Ordering a BS4+ squad to re-roll misses instead of just re-rolling 1s is a 29% increase in firepower. You should just buy more mortars instead.

ISTM that the standard use for the order is going to be BS4+ lascannons, either in Infantry squads or HWS. Veterans are often not a great target for it, because re-rolling misses is only 14% better than re-rolling 1s for them. Even in absolute terms, A BS4+ shot gets more additional damage out of the order than a BS3+ one (0.167 extra hits vs 0.111 extra hits).

mmmmmmmmmmmhm. Which is why, unless you're complaining about specifically pask, complaining that Cadians reroll all misses is just dumb.

They reroll all 1s, almost all the time. The complaint is similar to "Stygies/Raven Guard get their whole army -1 to hit!"

it's creed who you can take that gives reroll 1's bubble right? And available to all regiments?

 Xenomancers wrote:
it's creed who you can take that gives reroll 1's bubble right? And available to all regiments?

That's Yarrick, and I believe he is available to all regiments.

Catachans can also get it through Sgt. Harker.

Although this may be tantamount to stirring the pot, I've done some mathhammering and gratuitous dice-rolling lately, and I've discovered that the ultimate OP choice from the new IG codex will probably be the Shadowsword, due to its very high potential to one-shot or heavily cripple not just other SHVs, but basically any other vehicle with just its volcano cannon. Bringing 2-4 hull lascannons is really just insurance.

From the trials I've run so far (about 30 per target), the approximate probability that firing a volcano cannon once will instakill:
- A 4++ Stormsurge = 23%
- An Imperial Knight (5++) = 29%
- Another Baneblade (no invul) = 64.5%
- A Leman Russ (or other 12W non-Titanic vehicle) = 93.5%(!)
- A 5++/6+++ Riptide = 26%
- A Valkyrie at -1 to hit/other 14W flyer = 48%

I am currently compiling data on a Google doc, and will try to share it Sometime Soon(TM).

 KommissarKiln wrote:
Although this may be tantamount to stirring the pot, I've done some mathhammering and gratuitous dice-rolling lately, and I've discovered that the ultimate OP choice from the new IG codex will probably be the Shadowsword, due to its very high potential to one-shot or heavily cripple not just other SHVs, but basically any other vehicle with just its volcano cannon. Bringing 2-4 hull lascannons is really just insurance.

From the trials I've run so far (about 30 per target), the approximate probability that firing a volcano cannon once will instakill:
- A 4++ Stormsurge = 23%
- An Imperial Knight (5++) = 29%
- Another Baneblade (no invul) = 64.5%
- A Leman Russ (or other 12W non-Titanic vehicle) = 93.5%(!)
- A 5++/6+++ Riptide = 26%
- A Valkyrie at -1 to hit/other 14W flyer = 48%

I am currently compiling data on a Google doc, and will try to share it Sometime Soon(TM).

The Shadowsword will be somewhat tricky to use though, as you need to declare what you are firing at all at once. That will take some thought, as you don't want to leave 1 wound on something or waste 3 lascannons on it. I guess a few backup lascannons on russes would be really useful.

 Trickstick wrote:

 KommissarKiln wrote:
Although this may be tantamount to stirring the pot, I've done some mathhammering and gratuitous dice-rolling lately, and I've discovered that the ultimate OP choice from the new IG codex will probably be the Shadowsword, due to its very high potential to one-shot or heavily cripple not just other SHVs, but basically any other vehicle with just its volcano cannon. Bringing 2-4 hull lascannons is really just insurance.

From the trials I've run so far (about 30 per target), the approximate probability that firing a volcano cannon once will instakill:
- A 4++ Stormsurge = 23%
- An Imperial Knight (5++) = 29%
- Another Baneblade (no invul) = 64.5%
- A Leman Russ (or other 12W non-Titanic vehicle) = 93.5%(!)
- A 5++/6+++ Riptide = 26%
- A Valkyrie at -1 to hit/other 14W flyer = 48%

I am currently compiling data on a Google doc, and will try to share it Sometime Soon(TM).

The Shadowsword will be somewhat tricky to use though, as you need to declare what you are firing at all at once. That will take some thought, as you don't want to leave 1 wound on something or waste 3 lascannons on it. I guess a few backup lascannons on russes would be really useful.

That really isn't a problem. Just spread your shots around, then followup with HWT, Leman Russes, and Scions.

 Quickjager wrote:
That really isn't a problem. Just spread your shots around, then followup with HWT, Leman Russes, and Scions.

It's not the biggest problem but it does add another layer of decision making. More importantly, it adds decisions that the user can get wrong. Forcing the opponent to make hard targeting decisions that they can get wrong is one of the things you can do to swing the game in your favour.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
That really isn't a problem. Just spread your shots around, then followup with HWT, Leman Russes, and Scions.

It's not the biggest problem but it does add another layer of decision making. More importantly, it adds decisions that the user can get wrong. Forcing the opponent to make hard targeting decisions that they can get wrong is one of the things you can do to swing the game in your favour.

Is it really a hard targeting decision? Most armies run off synergy still, those that don't tend to focus on above average units in all slots. At the end of the day you just ask yourself a simple question, what can do the most damage to me? Then you just go off how much you need on average to kill something. The rest of your army helps with any deviance. It's just like Wave Serpents in 6th, kill the Sicarans or Hyrdas (lol), own the board. It isn't a hard part of the game to master, imagine 6th. I have Dreadknights, opponent has a gravstar; gravstar must die in 3 turns for if it doesn't I lose. It really is basic.

EDIT: Like it is a REALLY basic skillset.

 Quickjager wrote:
Is it really a hard targeting decision?

It's not that it is too hard but it is something to think about. My Shadowsword has 4 lascannon sponsons and the enemy has two landraiders heading towards my lines. Do I unload on one of them to assure the kill, or do I split and take the risk that they both live and get their contents into my force. It is not something you have to worry about when your weapons are spread over several units, but something like a Shadowsword needs some extra thought.

Also, if a single gun on a single model can reliably either kill or damn near kill models with degrading stat lines what does it matter if the model survives? There is a significant difference in what impact a full health vehicle can do and a single wound remaining vehicle. It can be finished off at leisure next turn. Thats a very forgiving mistake in decision making.

 Lance845 wrote:
Also, if a single gun on a single model can reliably either kill or damn near kill models with degrading stat lines what does it matter if the model survives? There is a significant difference in what impact a full health vehicle can do and a single wound remaining vehicle. It can be finished off at leisure next turn. Thats a very forgiving mistake in decision making.

Transports seem a bit different though. Opening one of them up lets you shoot the models inside, so you really don't want to leave 1 wound on them. Or it could be giving out some sort of buff/debuff.

 Trickstick wrote:

It's not that it is too hard but it is something to think about. My Shadowsword has 4 lascannon sponsons and the enemy has two landraiders heading towards my lines. Do I unload on one of them to assure the kill, or do I split and take the risk that they both live and get their contents into my force. It is not something you have to worry about when your weapons are spread over several units, but something like a Shadowsword needs some extra thought.

This is much less about the Shadowsword specifically and more about relying on just one model for anti-tank. It would be a bad idea to rely on a single Shadowsword with 4 lascannons to be your anti-tank for many more reasons than just that it makes targeting harder, though, so I don't see that this is worth worrying too much about on its own. Like, the problem with a ~550 point Shadowsword is that it's 21 points per T8 3+ wound. If your opponent goes first it's going to get shot to pieces. Compare to a regular Russ which, even with a hull lascannon and plasma sponsons, is only paying about 16 ppw. Even ignoring these worries about targeting, surely it makes much more sense to bring a barebones Shadowsword for under 16 ppw and then find a couple more points to bring another Russ while spreading your anti-tank around a bit more to make it less vulnerable to enemy fire.

Edit: Like, the new volcano cannon is always worth at least 12 lascannons, and 18 against typical T7 3+ targets or 22.5 against T8 2+ or 21 against T8 3+ Titanic targets. It just seems like a terrible idea to pay 40% more points to add 4 more lascannons (and admittedly a ton of heavy bolters).

So ISTM that the right answer is that you have your barebones Shadowsword fire at the more dangerous Land Raider, and then you have your other anti-tank fire at it until it's dead before moving to the next one. I don't expect it to be a hard choice.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
That really isn't a problem. Just spread your shots around, then followup with HWT, Leman Russes, and Scions.

It's not the biggest problem but it does add another layer of decision making. More importantly, it adds decisions that the user can get wrong. Forcing the opponent to make hard targeting decisions that they can get wrong is one of the things you can do to swing the game in your favour.

Decision: do I shoot my Russ at the non-dead target or drop Scions and finish it off?

WHAT decision making, again?