Latest posts for the thread "STank, The tournament Dilemma"

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

So I'm faced with a tournament Dilemma.

I've decided to use a High speed, High Impact Tournament list that relies on active combat res instead of static combat res. The list is 2k points, and at this point looks something like this:

1 King, Chariot, Crown of Command, Flail of Skulls
1 Liche Priest, Cloak/Jar
1 Liche Priest, Steed

7 Light Cavalry, Champion
19 Hw/sh skeletons Full Command, Banner of Undying Legion
20 Tomb Guard
3 Chariots Standard, Icon of the Sacred Eye
3 Chariots
3 Chariots
1 scorpion
1 scorpion
3 Carrion
1 Bone Giant

The Metagame around my hobbystore is going to look something like; Dark Elves Typical bullcrap that involves a Hydra and an executioner bunker, Vampire Counts that is actually quite a balanced list, but a slow vampire, Khorne Chaos with a super lord on a Juggernaut, and tons of heavy cavalry/chariots/marauder cav, A combatty-Dwarf list, A high elf list that doesn't include dragons, and an Empire list that has the Walter and the STank. (There will be others, but this is really the top 6) Now I own pretty much everyones souls here at my Local FLGS, and I expect to win 3 and be in contention for the tournament win going into the 4th and final round.

Here's the problem, and it's a heck of a thought exercise. All of those lists are pretty much no problem for a well played Tomb Kings list, expcept for that walter/STank list. The reason is 2 fold: 1)My King is used to blow up the super tough units, but if I charge the STank with my King, his unit will take 4d6 str6 impact hits on itself. 2)The Walter, and the STank both present immune to psych platforms that are also nearly impossible to break that my opponent uses to lock my units into place and sweep me off the board.

So how do I deal, with the units presented with the STank?

This is a thought exercise, I already know how to do it, but this is a thought exercise for the community. Please refrain from changing my list, that's not the point of this tactical article.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Arion — GMT

pound it with the Bone Giant. Get wounds on it and let it become a paper weight.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

Yeah, you get around the poor weapon skill of the bone giant with auto hits. Of course only half your hits wound and only half of those will get through armor, so there's still the potential for fluff-town, but with a little fortune on your (un)stoppable assault, you can neutralize it.

RZ

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Airmaniac — GMT

I don't think you can count on the Bone Giant to neutralize a Steam Tank. Your list has a pretty weak ranged game, which means you will be coming to him. He is going to have Great Cannons, which are a problem for your Bone Giant and Chariots. If your Bone Giant survives the Great Cannon shots, then he still has to be able to charge the Steam Tank (I think it's more likely that the Steam Tank can charge the Bone Giant). If your Bone Giant get's charged by a Steam Tank, he will suffer 6D3 S6 impact hits. That's an average of 12 hits, 8 wounds, 6,66 unsaved wounds. That means a Steam Tank will, on average, kill your Bone Giant on the charge.

Besides the Bone Giant, I don't see any units that are capable of dealing a lot of damage to the Steam Tank. I think the best bet is going to be blocking it with the Skeletons, and keep raising them (which the Banner of the Undying Legion helps with).

On a side note: Executioners are not a unit that is often seen in a Dark Elves army. They are in fact, one of the worst units in the Dark Elf army book.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

Airmaniac wrote:

On a side note: Executioners are not a unit that is often seen in a Dark Elves army. They are in fact, one of the worst units in the Dark Elf army book.

The executioner bunker unit, with a captain or an assasin, or typically both in the "tournament bunker reference" who also have the ASF banner are quite possibly one of the best. The bunker is nothing more than a points denial strategy that you can't resolve through combat.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

BAWTRM — GMT

Ragnar4 wrote:
The executioner bunker unit, with a captain or an assasin, or typically both in the "tournament bunker reference" who also have the ASF banner are quite possibly one of the best. The bunker is nothing more than a points denial strategy that you can't resolve through combat.

I see Black Guard almost used exclusively for this, not Executioners.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

Yeah, second that. Black guard are a far more effective and efficient bunker. They can get ASF without having to bring the BSB into play, and come with stubborn and ItP so don't need a cauldron or Pearl to get them to that "super bunker" status.

I would much rather see this, as I could assassinate the BSB out of the unit, then chop up the soft striking-last elves.

RZ

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Minsc — GMT

Way I see it, with the current list there Bone Giant's your only real choice. Nothing else has the strength or capability to stand up against the STank. If you had some Screaming Skulls I'd suggest them for their D6 wounds and lack of saves, but you don't.

You could throw the Skeletons at it in the hope of soaking up wounds, but that's iffy as you're relying on the charge being either alone or low on overall casualties inflicted.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

BAWTRM wrote:
Ragnar4 wrote:
The executioner bunker unit, with a captain or an assasin, or typically both in the "tournament bunker reference" who also have the ASF banner are quite possibly one of the best. The bunker is nothing more than a points denial strategy that you can't resolve through combat.

I see Black Guard almost used exclusively for this, not Executioners.

shoot, my bad. Black Guard is the unit not Executioners. Sorry everybody, sorry!

As to the STank, The problem that presents itself is an interesting one. My opponent almost exclusively uses it to shut down a flank, and in this scenario it's still the best. The hope is that he can rush down a flank and turn on it and pop an entire unit of chariots instead of one. With Cannons on the hill, I can't turn my chariots to mitigate losses.

So. Step one is "use my carrion to deal with his cannons". Turn one charges on cannons are easy if it's the only thing your thinking about.

Now that I have the Cannons dealt with, I can turn my front to my opponents steam tank so the most chariots he can kill in a turn is one.

My opponent is a smart opponent, and he's going to use the STank to the best of his ability, which means he's going to try to use it as a hammer unit while all his other units are going to bog me down, and tar-pit me, while the tank comes in and sweeps me off the board 1 flank charge at a time. The flip side of this coin, is that I want to be in combats on his firing phase so that he can't shoot into combats, but I also need to use my skeletons unit as a blocker.. so that he can't get into my chariots flank to charge. The light cav help with that role because they can angle so when he does charge, any sort of an overrun will cause the stank to misdirect. Then the Skeletons block block block.

As soon as I wipe his units out, I just need to run away like the little girl I am, and get behind terrain and try to mitigate the damage the STank can do.

The trick to dealing with it, is to actively ignore it. Because if I fed it my giant, it would rock my giant, unless I got reaaaaly lucky on a charge. I've tried the "Get reaaaaaly lucky on the charge" thing about a half a dozen times, and every time I do, I struggle to do more than a wound. it's.... silly.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

BAWTRM — GMT

Ragnar4 wrote:

So. Step one is "use my carrion to deal with his cannons". Turn one charges on cannons are easy if it's the only thing your thinking about.

Now that I have the Cannons dealt with, I can turn my front to my opponents steam tank so the most chariots he can kill in a turn is one.

As an Empire player it's step one I'd be expecting. DD or a scroll would definately be kept in reserve for this! I'd probably even let double Skull Catapult shots go through if it meant having my Cannons around longer. Also, if terrain allows it, I'd put the Cannons on a hill with a unit of shooters (or maybe even a full infantry unit) right in front of them, not leaving enough room for the Carrion to land, which means they'd have to charge the blocking unit or try to sweep around a flank (which would give me time to fire the Cannons and maybe take out the Carrion with other shooting).

I'm not sure what you mean with the second point. If you're talking about flank shots with a (steam)Cannon on your Chariot unit then yes, you would like to keep your front turned to the Cannon barrel(s). IMO though, the greatest threat of the Stank is it's charge. A good charge dishes out an insane number of high Strength impact hits.

Funnily enough the best unit in the TK list for wrecking a Stank are the Ushabti. Stanks (and War altars too btw) hate multiple high S attacks.

Re:STank, The tournament Dilemma

cptjoeyg — GMT

A Screaming Skull Catapult would be your best bet. But remember that you are in a Tourney and can't base your whole army around one emeny unit that you might not even play.

Re:STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

cptjoeyg wrote:A Screaming Skull Catapult would be your best bet. But remember that you are in a Tourney and can't base your whole army around one emeny unit that you might not even play.

I 100% agree. But remember this isn't a "how do I deal with my opponents overpowered cheese tank," This is a strength building exercise wherein we use what we have to the best of our abilities. What we have, is not much.

I still maintain that killing everything around the tank, while feeding it a RnF unit and then running like hell with this the best way to deal with it.

Bone Giant sacrifice is a close second.

Re:STank, The tournament Dilemma

steinerp — GMT

I tend to agree with the feed it skeletons for the rest of the game plan. If bone giant isn't shot to piece he could give it a go but I'd still rather feed it skeletons.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

So did this tournament go down? How did the ignore it/feed it skeletons route go?

RZ

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Bat Manuel — GMT

I don't see 20 skeletons standing up to the Stank that long. Your safest shot is the giant or maybe send in the king alone, probably get his chariot thrashed then end the Stank with the flail, but that's a pretty big sacrifice.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

Tournament goes down 5/1..

I've played the guy a few times, and the "feed it skeletons route" usually goes pretty well. The "Smash with bonegiant" route usually sucks bawls.

What makes this game so interesting, is that I know it's going to be for all the marbles, and this is the first time I've taken so many chariots in one army in a very long time. The stank is an absolute terror on chariots, so I have to stay away from it for as long as I can. I acutally intend to take a camera to the tourney and document every turn.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

I'm sure it makes an important difference if the steam tank gets the flank or not. If it's using 5 steam points, you're looking at an average of 8 or 9 dead skeletons. Give it a flank bonus and lose your ranks, and you don't hold up for than a couple grinds. Which maybe, maybe is long enough, I suppose.

RZ

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Malleus — GMT

I'm not convinced you're reading the steam tank's impact hits rules right. They state:

"Units that cause impact hits against the steam tank do so as normal, but suffer d6 s6 hits themselves."

You've postulated 4d6 impact hits back on your king's unit if you charge the tank. This would only make sense if the rule above said "models" rather than "units."

In fact, if your unit of four chariots charge the steam tank, they will take only d6 s6 hits distributed like shooting. He'd have to roll REALLY well to even destroy a single chariot, and you, you sneaky undead villain, can heal all that back through empire's typically shaky magic defense.

I'm not suggesting this is your optimum strategy, I'm saying if the stank gets in your way, your king's unit can probably smash it in two rounds of combat, especially if you do enough wounds on the charge that it can't grind you properly. the advantage of this over the bone giant is that you can actually kill the damn thing, rather than just neutralizing it and being denied those points. The risk, of course, is that you fluff your flail-powered attacks and then sit there chipping away at the tank for the whole game. No doubt you'd eventually get it, but that's not a great spot for your most powerful combat unit, especially with the war altar out there to pop cleansing flares or flank charge you >_<

My thoughts as an empire player. If it were me, I'd employ a pistolier screen to keep your carrions away from my cannons, and do some epic chariot-smashing madness on my turn 1, and hopefully this would all be rather moot.

Best of luck to you, sir.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

cypher — GMT

Haven't posted here in a while so I thought I would break the silence with a little suggestion.

Drop the giant and take 2x SSC. The catapults are very good in a general tomb king army. Against all of the armies you have mentioned they have something useful to shoot at and can become very deadly.
The giant on the other hand is usually meh and struggles to be useful against most armies.

Ubshapti (when charging) are the only other unit in the tomb king army that stand a chance against the tank.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

Hey Cypher- valid point, but as you can see, Ragnar's not changing the list, and he already knew the answer. This was for the benefit of the rest of us...

Ragnar4 wrote:
This is a thought exercise, I already know how to do it, but this is a thought exercise for the community. Please refrain from changing my list, that's not the point of this tactical article.

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Ragnar4 — GMT

Sooo uhh.. what had happened was...

Well he didn't bring the STank, he switched it up, brought ogre kindoms, lost his first game, and then took a crap in the vegetable crisper just for good measure.

I did win the tournament though. Good fun was had by all.

Beat an Empire all mounted cavalry list to start
Had to slug one out with a dwarf artillery line
Finally absolutely raped a vampire counts bonethugs list.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did change it up tho:

1 king, flail of skulls, chariot, light armor, shield
1 prince, chariot, spear of antarhak, light armor, shield
1 liche priest, steed, staff of ravening
1 liche priest, cloak/jar

3 chariots, standard icon of the sacred eye
3 chariots, standard
6 light cav
20 tomb guard, full command, banner of reform and chargy-ness
2 Scorpions
1 Bonegiant
4 Carrion

STank, The tournament Dilemma

Red_Zeke — GMT

Ah, disappointing. Congratulations on the win- I have to imagine that anvil gunlines are probably an even easier matchup than combat Dwarves for Tomb Kings. You can just be up in their business so fast...

RZ