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How do you tend to use your cyclops demolition vehicles?

I just bought two, and I'm thinking of the best ways to employ them.

I can see two uses:

1) Hide them behind a terrain feature etc, or a tank, and pop out and devastate enemy forces breaking through or deep striking.
2) Insert them into a conscript blob, hidden by said conscripts. The conscripts pull back and the mine blows up the enemy that the conscripts were otherwise holding in place.

Thoughts?

 Naix wrote:
How do you tend to use your cyclops demolition vehicles?

I just bought two, and I'm thinking of the best ways to employ them.

I can see two uses:

1) Hide them behind a terrain feature etc, or a tank, and pop out and devastate enemy forces breaking through or deep striking.
2) Insert them into a conscript blob, hidden by said conscripts. The conscripts pull back and the mine blows up the enemy that the conscripts were otherwise holding in place.

Thoughts?

1 is dangerous if they have any indirect fire or fliers to get LOS on the cyclops.

2 doesn't work. They can just shoot the Cyclops. The conscripts dont obscure the cyclops.

I think the best use is to take a detachment of elysians with cyclops as heavy support and drop the cyclops somewhere outside of los.

But the conscripts easily obscure it. Cyclopi are pretty small. I don't see how they can draw line of sight.

 Naix wrote:
But the conscripts easily obscure it. Cyclopi are pretty small. I don't see how they can draw line of sight.

Doing some testing with 30 conscripts in base to base and a laser pointer suggests otherwise. I can try 50 next to see if it makes a difference. Also, any model with a flying stand can see over them and indirect can still target them.

Send one up the middle. Keep the other near your lines.

It just occurred to me how good these could potentially be against fliers assuming they can get within range of their base.

Fliers are the big reason why I bring Cyclops.

Ive had one one shot a sunshark before. 10/10. Would use vs fliers.

What do they roughly do?

How tough are they?

RogueApiary wrote:

 Naix wrote:
But the conscripts easily obscure it. Cyclopi are pretty small. I don't see how they can draw line of sight.

Doing some testing with 30 conscripts in base to base and a laser pointer suggests otherwise. I can try 50 next to see if it makes a difference. Also, any model with a flying stand can see over them and indirect can still target them.

Fair point - I was looking at it from the perspective of another guardsmen. Didn't consider elevation. With my movement trays and 4 rows deep of conscripts you wouldn't otherwise be able to pick it out.

Razerous wrote:
What do they roughly do?

How tough are they?

Heavy 2D6 str 9 -2 d3 damage shots once per game for a range of D6" and hits allies as well. 10" move, but cant explode if it advances.

T6, 4W 3+ save and explodes on a 3+ for d3 mortal wounds.

If you can get them where you want them, they can do a lot of damage, but getting them there can be tough.

Honestly unless you are playing other guard there just is not much indirect fire out there. Hide it and drive it out when they reach your lines.

Most indirect fire that other armies have is anti infantry so if they are wasting those shots on your cyclops, it's still serving a solid purpose. Just keep it out of 6 inches of the rest of your army.

Just making sure I've not been playing this wrong. You don't need the whole detachment with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS to get aerial drop, right? Like, if the rest of the units in a Battalion Detachment are CADIAN, I can still assign the ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS key word to the Cyclops sitting in the heavy support slots and they can then deep strike?

Also, can I detonate the Cyclops while engaged in melee and after a fallback? I believe the answer is yes as it says at the beginning of the shooting phase with the only exception being if you advanced.

RogueApiary wrote:
Just making sure I've not been playing this wrong. You don't need the whole detachment with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS to get aerial drop, right? Like, if the rest of the units in a Battalion Detachment are CADIAN, I can still assign the ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS key word to the Cyclops sitting in the heavy support slots and they can then deep strike?

Also, can I detonate the Cyclops while engaged in melee and after a fallback? I believe the answer is yes as it says at the beginning of the shooting phase with the only exception being if you advanced.

You can make it Elysian, yes. The only problem with doing that might be if you get rules in the codex that only work if a whole detachment is from a specific regiment. That's been the pattern so far, and those rules are pretty good (things like raven guard CT) so you will want them.

A better option might be to take a spearhead detachment of elysians - or any detachment of them with the cyclops as your heavy support.

I can't see an awful lot of point dropping a cyclops though. It would have to be more than 9" away from the enemy, and couldn't move any further, so it couldn't detonate. I guess you could try and charge it in the hope that it died in cc.

There doesn't seem to be anything stopping the cyclops from falling back and detonating, or doing so in cc. But obviously if you charge it at something that's in the assault phase, and too late to detonate it until your following turn.

Mandragola wrote:

RogueApiary wrote:
Just making sure I've not been playing this wrong. You don't need the whole detachment with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS to get aerial drop, right? Like, if the rest of the units in a Battalion Detachment are CADIAN, I can still assign the ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS key word to the Cyclops sitting in the heavy support slots and they can then deep strike?

Also, can I detonate the Cyclops while engaged in melee and after a fallback? I believe the answer is yes as it says at the beginning of the shooting phase with the only exception being if you advanced.

You can make it Elysian, yes. The only problem with doing that might be if you get rules in the codex that only work if a whole detachment is from a specific regiment. That's been the pattern so far, and those rules are pretty good (things like raven guard CT) so you will want them.

A better option might be to take a spearhead detachment of elysians - or any detachment of them with the cyclops as your heavy support.

I can't see an awful lot of point dropping a cyclops though. It would have to be more than 9" away from the enemy, and couldn't move any further, so it couldn't detonate. I guess you could try and charge it in the hope that it died in cc.

There doesn't seem to be anything stopping the cyclops from falling back and detonating, or doing so in cc. But obviously if you charge it at something that's in the assault phase, and too late to detonate it until your following turn.

Not too worried about losing benefits in the future, building a list for a tournament this weekend and don't want to bring an illegal list. Post codex, I probably would just do an Elysian Spearhead with an officer, a plasma CCS, and the drop Cyclops.

It would be very situational. But depending on terrain and how likely other units near the charged unit could shoot it on their following turn, you could use it to gain some extra movement from the charge distance. Also, forces a unit to burn an order on GBITF or not shoot.