Lord Scythican wrote:
I am considering getting something as well myself.

However I have been considering these:

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Stormblade-Arkurian-Pattern

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Stormsword-Arkurian-Pattern


Right now with the euro down, I can get them cheaper than the GW baneblade kit.

 Brennonjw wrote:


erm, forgeworld uses GBP not euros. It would be about 170 USd to get those ones, BEFORE shipping

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:


erm, forgeworld uses GBP not euros. It would be about 170 USd to get those ones, BEFORE shipping

ouch...didn't see that. dammit. I always thought they were in euros. That makes forge world way more expensive than I thought.

 pumaman1 wrote:
Doesn't the hellhammer lose ignores cover as well?

 ionusx wrote:
stormlord or shadowsword are the two "best" variants of the blade. if you want to stock blade id probably run strikeforce hammerblow so it becomes a twin linked baneblade

 chrispy1991 wrote:
IMO the Stormsword is vastly superior to the Baneblade and Hellhammer for 2 reasons. Point cost, and ignores cover. 7th is all about ignoring as many saves as you can. The Stormsword is also 485 points base, vs 525 for the Baneblade and 540 for the Hellhammer. With the points you save, you could buy those oh so shmexy side sponsons you want. Every single battle I have used the Stormsword I was pleased with its performance. It gives the middle finger to literally everything but flyers and invul saves.

Eisenfresser wrote:

 ionusx wrote:
stormlord or shadowsword are the two "best" variants of the blade. if you want to stock blade id probably run strikeforce hammerblow so it becomes a twin linked baneblade

What's the Strikeforce Hammerblow?

 Tenzilla wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
IMO the Stormsword is vastly superior to the Baneblade and Hellhammer for 2 reasons. Point cost, and ignores cover. 7th is all about ignoring as many saves as you can. The Stormsword is also 485 points base, vs 525 for the Baneblade and 540 for the Hellhammer. With the points you save, you could buy those oh so shmexy side sponsons you want. Every single battle I have used the Stormsword I was pleased with its performance. It gives the middle finger to literally everything but flyers and invul saves.

Hellhammer also ignores cover...and for 55 points more you get a demolisher cannon.

 Orlanth wrote:
My take.

Build a Baneblade and drill a heavy pin onto the barrel stoock forthe main gun. Fill the barrel cores with modelling putty and sink it onto the pin. This makes the barrels swappable without magnets.

You want the Baneblade because it is the default and most common super heavy, and is seldom a poor choice, because while it lacks cover negation it brings so much pain on so many range brackets its always useful.

You want the Hellblade because it is a safer choice than the Stormsword. Dont get me wrong the Stormsword is a fine tank, the 10" pie is a big advantage as chrispy explains, but dont get overly fixated on the area of effect. It means you have to be very careful where you aim because friendly fire is much easier to come by. Also a 7" pie is good enough for accurate fire, anything but the wildest scatter will end up hitting the centre target if you want to kill a tank and is a lot safer. Besides the Hellhammer cannon has a coaxial mount, the Stormsword lacks this (though that depends on whether you allow co-axial fire as the rules are ambiguous on this point,if allowed I would call the Hellhammer a superior weapon).

Most of all the Hellblade is turreted. All too often you will be in combat and cant turn the main hull. Super heavies can shoot and be shot at in combat, but that stormsword cannon is a fixed gun, you need to swivel the hull the Hellhammer main gun is turreted. Even if not surrounded by assault troops you have to take into account terrain and armour arcs. Quite often you dont want to turn your tank around 90 degrees to shoot a dangerous target on your flank, you just want to turn the turret for the same effect.

I am not a fan of the Stormsword siege cannon, it gimps its ride and forces a large lumbering block of a tank to maneuver to use it. This can cause all sorts of hassle for your own deployment. The Hellblade doesnt have those problems and provides almost the same bang with its main gun. and has secondary weaponry to help. Having a Demolisher cannon as an afterthought is awesome.

 chrispy1991 wrote:

 Tenzilla wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
IMO the Stormsword is vastly superior to the Baneblade and Hellhammer for 2 reasons. Point cost, and ignores cover. 7th is all about ignoring as many saves as you can. The Stormsword is also 485 points base, vs 525 for the Baneblade and 540 for the Hellhammer. With the points you save, you could buy those oh so shmexy side sponsons you want. Every single battle I have used the Stormsword I was pleased with its performance. It gives the middle finger to literally everything but flyers and invul saves.

Hellhammer also ignores cover...and for 55 points more you get a demolisher cannon.

Demolisher cannon blast area covers about 19.6 square inches
Hellhammer cannon blast area covers about 38.5 square inches
Stormsword cannon blast area covers about 78.5 square inches

You are not paying 55 more points for a demolisher cannon. You are paying 55 points, and about 40 square inches of STR10 AP1 ignores cover cannon, to get a demolisher cannon and a 10pt autocannon.

While having 2 cannons means you have the possibility of dealing 2 wounds instead of 1 to the same target, the fact that both cannons are much less accurate (because they cover less surface area, even combined), and that one of them doesn't ignore cover, is AP2, and only has 24 inch range, makes it seem like a poor trade off to me. The advantage of having a turret is not a particularly significant one on a super heavy with a good range either IMO.

I would just take the extra lascannon/TW HB sponsons with the points you save, and keep the 78.5 square inch super doom cannon that you have to literally roll a 9 or higher on the deviation to miss the target with (and that's assuming the target is a small infantry base, vehicles are almost impossible to miss). You could alternatively put those 55 points elsewhere in the army to keep your SH from becoming a point sink. As one of the previous posters pointed out, all it takes is a melta deepstrike, and the tank reliably goes 'splody in 1 turn.

As far as the Shadowsword goes, I'm not particularly fond of it because it's a 1 shot cannon that only covers 19.5 square inches, and even IF it hits, you have to roll a 6 on the D table to ignore cover and invul.

 pumaman1 wrote:
Well maelstrom missions have specific deployment patters, and eternal war you are supposed to roll from deployment, but a topic for another thread.

And i also stated that at side armor, it is likely to die in 1 turn as well.

or a single storm surge with 2-3 markerlights for d missiles.

You like the hellhammer, i get it. Having played against most varients of the baneblade, the storm sword is the most devastating, one of the cheaper options, and can usually get its points back in 1 blast. There are certainly circumstances where a turret mounted cannon will be beneficial, but many 40k games are played on sparse terrain tables (to their detriment). so pivoting a stormsword isn't an issue.

 slowclinic wrote:
The kit does come with enough parts to build all of the variants listed on the GW site. I have one that's yet to be put together as I'm in a similar situation and just can't decide how to equip it. Originally I was going to go with the stock Baneblade for the amount of weapons it has, but now I'm more interested in the Stormlord and Shadowsword, like you are.

Glad you posted this, as I was going to put up something similar in the coming days.