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My friend recently bought this from Forgeworld, and this thing is...An absolute goliath. Lascannons out the butt, heavy bolters, and a twin volcano cannon, which is basically just an anti-super heavy gun. With t9 and 28 wounds, how on earth do I handle this thing? It is around 1000 points, but when surrounded by bubblewrap this thing just seems impossible to crack. Anything heavy enough gets obliterated, and chaff usually doens't have the ability to do meaningful damage to it fast enough.

Falchion is one tough cookie. Being T9, all I can suggest is Lascannons, Lascannons, Lascannons. I'd also recommend getting your own super heavyweight. To directly combat it. Super Bloodthirser or the like.

What about running a hoard army and giving it nothing to shoot at? Or how about a Necron Quantum shield army? Seems that would frustrate a model like that.

What do you play?

Toughness 9 with 26 wounds is fething tough. Even at 1,000 points that means you can take a healthy amount of support for it.

The short answer is; tell your friend it's not fun to play against and it's ruining your games. The long answer? Pepper it to death with anything that is Strength 5 or more (so you're doing 5+ to wound). There's no point in trying to out-firepower it, because anything big enough to do that will likely get shot off the board. I don't know what you play, but if he insists on playing this tank most games (and you continue to play him), you may want to meet that with something equally atrocious. Running CSM, I'd consider trying to run three Scorpius tanks against it - hide out of sight and just dump 6D3 shots of indirect fire (per tank) on him each turn...each shot doing 2 wounds with -2 modifier.

The sad reality is that it appears to be one of those things to which there is no easy answer without going to lengths to specifically address it - my least favourite type of arms race. Close combat would be great if you can get in there, and swing a hundred damn attacks.

Another possible answer depending on your army is Smite (somehow). Or general Mortal Wound generation - heck a bunch of cheap Snipers just dumping fire into it, hoping for 6's, etc.

Also, consider (when possible) suicide Deep Strike squads with melta/strong weapons which maaaaay luck out and hurt it. If he's smart, it'll be wrapped up and generally protected from stuff like that.

meleti wrote:
What do you play?

I play CSM, got a bit of everything.

Take a GSC batt, 296 pts, 2 magus, 30 troopers and ambush it a few times with mind control. Laugh hysterically and thank him for brimging it. He will stop taking it.

Slaaneshi havocs with lascannons. Put them in cover, then hit them with Prescience for +1 hit, Slaaneshi FNP power, have a lord nearby for re-rolls, then use VoTLW and the shoot twice stratagem. Not sure what the armor save on that thing is, but you're looking at like ~20+ average damage in one turn.

And there's always berzerkers to just mulch through the screen and then kill it.

It definitely is one hell of a tough cookie. That said, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. After the beating it took in Chapter Approved it’s spectacularly overpriced, so don’t be afraid to spend 1000pts on anti-tank purely to bring it down.

The first thing I’d say is to try and avoid Strength 4 for obvious reasons, but also to avoid Strength 8 - you’re investing a lot to get to that value for zero benefit against a Toughness 9 target. Use Strength 5-7 if you can, 5 being the best as you’re investing less into Strength. After that, AP, Damage and number of shots are all equally important.

Autocannons and particularly Predator Autocannons seem like a good bet. A lot of Nurgle guns do, too. It doesn’t quite fit what I said above but I’d actually go for Obliterators, too.

That brings me to another point: target dilution. A Falchion will utterly annihilate one thing per turn, and put a Lascannon Predator’s shooting into two other things. Your best bet is to spread your firepower out - for example, taking two Predators with just a twin Lascannon each rather than one Predator with four Lascannons. Or taking 2 Havoc Squads with 2 Lascannons each instead of one squad with four. If you concentrate your firepower on a couple of models they’ll die before they can do much, so spread the love around.

The Falchion has no answer to Invulnerable saves, so Daemons are your friend. Again I’d say Obliterators - marked with Tzeentch they can be buffed to a 4++ with a psychic power, or with Slaanesh a Stratagem can make them shoot twice. Don’t forget Veterans of the Long War for +1 to Wound, and Psychic Powers or a Lord’s aura for rerolls to Hit.

On a different note, you can take two Shadowswords for the price of one Falchion, and one Shadowsword is just about enough to take out the Falchion in one shot...

Aren't you the one who was complaining that you needed a list that could not be possibly construed as cheesy and that your friends were perpetually bad?

All things considered, just hit it with a dozen Lascannons. Or recognize the error of your ways in turning to the Dark Gods and seek His grace; bring a Tallarnian Shadowsword, park it in outflank, then bring it on T1 and sodomize his with yours.


It's good against vehicles and heavy infantry, not so much against light infantry. It will kill about 3 tank-things a turn. The general solution is to not give it targets, but then you're exposing yourself to the other 1000 points of stuff he has that's optimized to kill light infantry. Avoid bringing big things that you can't hide in reserve, it'll zap them on turn one.

Play games with progressive objective scoring, check out ITC rules. It's a more balanced, exciting game style that will also punish players who lack mobility and troops to hold and contest objectives.

Two options:

1) Boyz/guardsmen/etc. Put several hundred models on the table, claim all the objectives, and win. The Falchion with its low volume of fire becomes a useless paperweight when the only thing on the table is 4ppm guardsmen.

2) Bring two Shadowswords for the same price, have double the firepower. Remove the Falchion on turn 1, then deal with the rest of your opponent's army.

I understand the spot you are in. Shadowswords are not an option for CSM lists, and Falchions can mow down a lot of your tanks on turn 1, before you get to shoot. And if you don't kill it in the first couple turns, it's going to be there all game.

Consider running a skew list. This is the one I run. It's there to kill tanks immediately then pick off remaining units one at a time.

If I'm not mistaken, the Falchion can only target 3 units at a time at 48 inches (since the Quad Lascannons have to each target a unit, split fire applies to guns not shots.) For each unit with lascannons beyond 3, you are guaranteed an opportunity to shoot back.

 Peregrine wrote:
Two options:

1) Boyz/guardsmen/etc. Put several hundred models on the table, claim all the objectives, and win. The Falchion with its low volume of fire becomes a useless paperweight when the only thing on the table is 4ppm guardsmen.

2) Bring two Shadowswords for the same price, have double the firepower. Remove the Falchion on turn 1, then deal with the rest of your opponent's army.

Pretty much this - the flachion is about 400 points overcosted - thats enough to take 2 shadow-swords.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Aren't you the one who was complaining that you needed a list that could not be possibly construed as cheesy and that your friends were perpetually bad?

All things considered, just hit it with a dozen Lascannons. Or recognize the error of your ways in turning to the Dark Gods and seek His grace; bring a Tallarnian Shadowsword, park it in outflank, then bring it on T1 and sodomize his with yours.


It's good against vehicles and heavy infantry, not so much against light infantry. It will kill about 3 tank-things a turn. The general solution is to not give it targets, but then you're exposing yourself to the other 1000 points of stuff he has that's optimized to kill light infantry. Avoid bringing big things that you can't hide in reserve, it'll zap them on turn one.

My friends arent perpetually bad, theyve been improving

But yar thats me. Ive just never faced a model so absolutely massive in toughness and firepower, so im a little bit at a loss on how to tackle it. It is one of those models that you sort of HAVE to tailor around, because against a take all comers list, it will just slap it silly.

Don't forget about Veterans of the Long War. Never forget about Veterans of the Long War.

It is a massive boost to your ability to take down high tougness enemies. Lets your Las Cannons wound on a 3, Melta Guns wound on a 4. Obliterators, Melta Bikers, Las Cannon Havocs. All of these squads can do some real work with Veterans of the Long War and Endless Cacophony for another around of shooting. Embrace Slaanesh as your one true god.

In terms of Melee. A Maulerfiend and Defiler both have a lot of potential to cause a large amount of damage- especially with Daemonforge for re-rolls to hit and wound. They don't like being shot at with a Volcano Cannon, but they can be tricky to bring down leveraging Smoke Launchers, Defense buffs from psychic powers (like Delightful Agonies) and their built in ward save. Use Warptime to drive them home. A Defiler with Miasma and smoke launchers popped is -2 to hit, and with Delightful Agonies has 5+ FNP. Either way, it can make him far more difficult to take down.

Melee is a much tougher sell, as the Falcion will annihilate any Daemon Engines that try to approach it. Honestly Veterans of the Long War and Endless Cacophony on good anti tank platforms are probably your best bet.