Defensive Tank Tactics?

[Mr Hellcat]

I'm aware of the reputation Exorcist tanks have of being fire magnets, which is somewhat of a compliment to their function.

So... I was wondering, what tactics and tricks aside form extra armour do you use to keep your static tanks alive???

 

Is there an optimal formation to minimize damage?? An accompanying troop type to repel assaults??

Or is this a case of flaunt them while you got them??

 

Ta.

[tastytaste]

My friend which plays sisters normally use rhinos to block the Exorcist from fire giving it at least a 4+ save. Because the Gun is mounting so high on the model he usually has no problem seeing over everything and avoids giving other people cover saves.

[SJumppanen]

Well, never field Exorchist alone is one thing. Another is that you should park EXO into cover at the begining. Then you should minimize return fire, this is done by considering enemy weapons range and field of fire, but also by selecting your targets. Lastly you should give enemy something else to shoot at.

 

Selection of targets is usualy very difficult, but best i can say, is to shoot what you can kill. Also, to insure this you should have more than one unit ready to shoot at this target. For example: Do not even consider shooting at enemy Land Raider at first turn unless there is nothing else to shoot. Good target is one of those light skimmers with AT-weapon intended to be used as suicide weapon at first turn or all kinds of walkers with AT-weapons. Also consider shooting at light transports, like Rhino or truk. If target is in cover or if it has strong inv. save, then consider another target, don't waste shots as you never know how many you get.

 

Terminators, Obliterators and MCs without cover or inv. save are absolutely the best targets.

[jakehunter52]

I feel your pain brother....I mean sister.

 

I find that it is best to park them as far back as possible to take advantage of that 48" range and keep a couple of Devistator/Obliterator/Loota/whatever squads from keeping you in their sights. Cover is another tricky thing. Woods don't provide it, it is just straight up "if 1/2 of the model is obscured, you get a 4+. Anything less means dittly." So that makes it kinda hard to get a sniper position for a big box I have found. However, remember that you do fire from the turret, which is huge cause that means you can actually shoot over your rhinos and such (but I don't get to take advantage of this cause I still haven't gotten around to finish building those suckers <_< ). But besides that fire denial and forcing cover saves, your Exorcist is always going to be a hot topic, so bring back up, preferably in multiple forms.

[WAR]

I field them in pairs and constantly move 6 inches to avoid auto hits in melee I don't worry about cover to much since I try to run them at weapons that won't hurt the front armour but on the opposite side I run two immolators with a dominion squad and a celestian squad gun them for the larest concentration of troops I can find and force my friends to choose the immolators or the exorcists

[Corpse.]

Sit a rhino in front of the exorcist. The exorcist can see a target 24"+ away completely if the rhino has its side armor up against the front armor of your exorcist. You get obscured 4+ cover results, and you get to fire sisters out of the rhino / use the rhinos smoke launchers when its most appropriate.

 

Giving the rhino to a retributor unit that sits still would be the best, since a rhino for that unit is not used much. Its sligtly costly, but a single rhino spun to its side armor facing two of your exorcists (granted the enemy doesnt have a ton of high strength blast weapons) one rhino can cover two of your tanks for obscurity. If you sit these behind a hill, and the rhino is mobile, if required you can climb the hill with the rhino and block off line of sight to the exorcists completely. (Perhaps when you want to move all three vehicles.) Remember dont sit the tank up against your tanks completely, this prevents them from pivoting. Mostly a stationary tactic.

 

(Reading vehicles shooting rules, LoS is drawn from the weapon to the target, and is not considered firing through your own unit if you can see 100% of the model aside from the usual gun barrel/banners etc not being in view)

 

For other vehicle tactics, the General Tactics link has a compiled list of tank tactics (among others) that you can make use of. Feel free to check it out sometime.

[SJumppanen]

I feel your pain brother....I mean sister.

 

I find that it is best to park them as far back as possible to take advantage of that 48" range and keep a couple of Devistator/Obliterator/Loota/whatever squads from keeping you in their sights. Cover is another tricky thing. Woods don't provide it, it is just straight up "if 1/2 of the model is obscured, you get a 4+. Anything less means dittly." So that makes it kinda hard to get a sniper position for a big box I have found. However, remember that you do fire from the turret, which is huge cause that means you can actually shoot over your rhinos and such (but I don't get to take advantage of this cause I still haven't gotten around to finish building those suckers ). But besides that fire denial and forcing cover saves, your Exorcist is always going to be a hot topic, so bring back up, preferably in multiple forms.

 

We handle woods bit differently. We put terrain piece like small hill on the table and put few trees on top of it if it is suposed to be wooded hill (it usualy is). After this we just consider that there is lots of trees on that hill and everything on or behind that hill gets cover. This is lots of easier than trying to keep trees from moving.

[ArmouredWing]

Even with careful placement behind cover exorcist heavy support has only got a limited lifespan of maybe 2-3 turns. They are that much of a threat on the table to everything that moves, even the likes of LR's & Monoliths will eventually take damage from a trio of exorcists concentrating their fire turn in turn out.

 

With that being the case I always run them with this limitation in mind and if they do happen to survive into the latter stages of the game then it's a definite bonus. So to make the most out of them pick your targets carefully and don't be distracted into spreading your fire over a number of targets. Exorcists work best if they work together and you should kill a target before moving onto the next one.

[WarriorFish]

Don't forget that the best protection for armour is having some friends to back it up! The more vehicles you have on the board, the more diluted your opponent's AT gets. As I always say, when it comes to mechanisation it's best to go all out. Even if your opponent decides to focus his fire on the Exos (which is probable) then that just frees your Rhino mounted Sisters up to get into his weak spots.

 

In that way you can force your opponent's hand where he has to choice which he tries to stop, or if he gambles on trying to take them all on (likely to fail, as we all know!). If you also make use of the covering/hiding mentioned above then you should be able to get a lot more out of your Exos.

 

Last but not least, as Armour said you shouldn't expect them to survive a game intact such is their fearsome (and deserved) reputation. So always make sure you have backup AT for when this happens.

[Marshal Rohr]

Well, for my Vindicators, I stick them literally in between my 2 LR's. I make it so that it is just far enough forward to maintains its 45˚ firing arc, and the AV 14 of the LR's protects it well. Since the Exorcist shoots from the back I would assume Immolators with their higher profiles and even LR's would give you decent protection.

[Midge913]

I would concur that multiple excorsists working in conjunction is the best route to go. Not only does it double your fire power, but it will force the enemy to split his anti-tank fire power to deal with both, or cause him to concentrate on one freeing the other to act.

 

If you are unable to field multiple excorsists, I usually place mine in a posistion where it receives a cover save from being obscured. Now this is going to be entirely reliant on what your terrain pieces look like, but with the height of the excorcist missile launcher, I have found it relatively easy to find a piece of terrain to hide behind, and still allow me LoS to my targets.

 

As far as preventing assault, I have found that a good way to do this is to surround my excorsist with a full squad of Sisters. I tend to run my squads at max capacity, with flamers, and a bunch of bolters. This size of a squad is a duanting unit for most enemy attackers due to its size, and the volume of shots that it will pour out into advancing units. If you position things right you should be able to force any charging units to have to go through your troops to get to your Excorcist.

 

All that being said, I have in all of my games, had an Excorcist last past turn 3 maybe twice. The sheer fire power that this baby can put out makes it just to pivotal of a target for your opponent to ignore. If you go into your games with this in mind it will make it less painful when he eventually takes it out. Therefore target priority is essential. I tend to leave heavier vehicles such as land raiders, russes, and the like to my mobile melta teams. Light vehicles, meganobz, termys, and high toughness units are the ideal things to turn your Excorsists sights upon.

 

Lastly it is important to support your Exorcist with rank and file line fire. Again, I run large squads of Sisters, and throw alot of shots into the incoming enemy. To make this better, you can use the act of faith that will make your to wound rolls of 6 AP1, and with 20-40 shots you are going to get a couple sixes. Nothing will make your opponent groan quite as much as making him take 8-15 invulnerable saves with his 5 to ten man termy squad.

 

Hope this helps