Effective use of Vulkan

[McFisty]

I am curious how others like to deploy and use Vulkan? Can he join a Termie squad in a LR? Is it effective to put him into a Rhino? Should he stand back and counter enemy assaults in your own deployment zone? I like the idea of twin-linked flamers and meltas but how can I make best use of his CC abilities? Sorry if this has been discussed before but my searchy didn't find it. Thanks in advance.

 

McFisty

[DarkGuard]

Yes, Vulkan can be put into a Land Raider with Terminators. I believe a lot of Vulkan lists use such a squad, normally 5 TH/SS Terminators in a LRC or LRR with multi-melta. I'd imagine it's incredibly effective as Vulkan can soften up the enemy before the Terminators come in and kill anything left.

 

I'm not much of a fan of Land Raiders, so I put him with a Sternguard Squad with power fist and 2x heavy flamers in a Razorback (normally with dozer blade). This unit has normally done a lot of damage, 3 twin-linked heavy flamers tend to destroy most enemy units, including Marines. Tau seem to suffer most. Then Vulkan's combat abilities can come in handy. Remember Sternguard are no slouches in combat and heavy flamers in Assault.

 

I couldn't see him working well in a Rhino unless it was with a big Sternguard Squad are something. Remember, unless they combat squad Vulkan can't fit in the Rhino with a full size Tactical Squad. I suppose you could chuck him down with a Tactical Squad in a Drop Pod, but I'm not a fan of such vehicles.

 

As for use. I tend to use him either as the spearhead, leading my two Rhino Tactical Squads into enemy lines, a distraction on another flank or advancing behind the Tactical Squads, ready to fill in gaps are counter-attack. Of course, 3 heavy flamers tend to assume he will be offensive.

[Giga]

The way I see it, Vulkan should always be kept with 5 th/ss terminators in a land raider. The land raider should be equipped with extra armor and a multimelta. I personally prefer the land raider classic.

 

The only time I ever used Vulkan in another transport was when I was playing against imperial guard. It was dawn of war deployment, so I combatsquadded one of my tacticals, placed 5 marines with flamer and combiflamer into a razorback, and deployed vulkan with them in the razorback. He ended up doing lots of carnage. B)

[waaanial00]

A little seen unit configuration with Vulkan is LandRaider (enter flavour of choice) + max number of LC Assault Termies. This made my Ork army disappear, I couldnt harm his Raider from afar and every time I got close enough to charge it my unit got murdered by Heavy Flamer followed up by Relic Blade and Lightning Claws. Whatever survived that did not do much to the unit then got proptly scared enough to run the hell away.

 

As much as TH/SS have the survivability if I were facing off against Orks or Guard then I would run a Cruisader and this configuration any day over them. Puerly for the sheer number of heads they would collect. Hell even against Tau!

 

Wan

[Giga]

Well, that depends a lot on the ork list.

 

With twinlinked flamers in the army, it's easy for the SM player to deal with hordes. Even the humble tactical squad can take out as many as 15-20 orks in a single shooting turn if you give them a combiflamer + a flamer, and position them correctly.

 

On the other hand, there's few things in SM army that can reliably deal with a nob biker unit, or just with a bunch of nobs with a painboy in a battlewagon. This is where the th/ss termies come in; to fulfill a role nobody else can. LS termies, on the other hand, would end up killing a couple of nobs, and then likely get owned by massed attacks and powerklaw hits.

[waaanial00]

@Giga - Dont doubt you there at all. Just suggesting that there is an alternative which is perfectly viable, have seen it in action and it is pretty nasty. TH/SS is boring! Its like running a plague marine, Dual Lash, Obliterator Chaos army (shudders to think about how dull that would be).

 

Unless they are Nob bikers most Nob units are easy enough to overload with shooting once their transports have been killed. Nob Bikers however are usually too mobile for my Assault Terminators to get hold of as well so neither configuratino seems to be the best way to combat them, going up a level usually seems to be a good idea.

 

Wan

[Deathwing]

You don't always need to go after the Nob biker unit. They will eventually hit your lines and then you can counter charge. Or just sit on an objective and wait for him to try and shift you off of it (Mind you I play with scoring terminators so it might be different for non-scoring terminators).

 

Interesting anecdote: I recently encountered a 7 Nob biker unit + warboss (originally 10 but a vindicator shell killed three of them) who tried to shift a 5 man Deathwing squad + Belial from an objective. I got a little lucky as my opponent didn't take as many klaws as he could have (2 klaws cause the third one died) and lost combat to the terminators and then were ran off the board by Belial (3 nobz dead to 2 terminators dead, they lost by 4). Instant kill weapons certainly do wonders against nobz. Lightning claws probably wouldn't have done as much damage and if they did, none of the nobz would probably have died.

If I had master crafted thunder hammers and 3++ storm shields, that biker unit would probably have lost by more.

[Ethrion]

If you're including Vulkan then usually lists will include lots of sternguard with either meltaguns or heavy flamers and lots assault terminators w/ TH/SS. Also including Kantor with Vulkan is a good IC combo - especially cos Kantor makes those sternguard scoring and will give extra attacks to the terminators or honour guard he is attached to.

[DarkGuard]

If you're including Vulkan then usually lists will include lots of sternguard with either meltaguns or heavy flamers and lots assault terminators w/ TH/SS. Also including Kantor with Vulkan is a good IC combo - especially cos Kantor makes those sternguard scoring and will give extra attacks to the terminators or honour guard he is attached to.

 

Not exactly. Well, no on the Kantor part. It is part of Kantor's Chapter Tactics that makes Sternguard scoring, and if you have multiple characters with Chapter Tactics only one can be used. So you can have either scoring Sternguard, or twin-linked heavy flamers/ combi-melta/flamer Sternguard, but not both.

[Giga]

@Giga - Dont doubt you there at all. Just suggesting that there is an alternative which is perfectly viable, have seen it in action and it is pretty nasty. TH/SS is boring! Its like running a plague marine, Dual Lash, Obliterator Chaos army (shudders to think about how dull that would be).

Well, that's your personal preference. I don't think th/ss are overpowered, but actually a specialized unit that weaknesses as well as advantages. TH/SS being boring is also personal preference, since in my opinion heavily armored guys with huge hammers and shields, hitting like trucks and wading through lots of really dangerous shooting, are always cooler then heavily armored guys with claws who get owned by a guardsman with a plasmagun. TH/SS also looks ultimately cooler. :rolleyes:

[Ethrion]

If you're including Vulkan then usually lists will include lots of sternguard with either meltaguns or heavy flamers and lots assault terminators w/ TH/SS. Also including Kantor with Vulkan is a good IC combo - especially cos Kantor makes those sternguard scoring and will give extra attacks to the terminators or honour guard he is attached to.

 

Not exactly. Well, no on the Kantor part. It is part of Kantor's Chapter Tactics that makes Sternguard scoring, and if you have multiple characters with Chapter Tactics only one can be used. So you can have either scoring Sternguard, or twin-linked heavy flamers/ combi-melta/flamer Sternguard, but not both.

 

Ah quite true - then you would take Vulkan's re-roll abilities and just use Kantor's extra attacks bonus. Put Vulkan with some heavy flamer sternguard and Kantor with the TH/SS terminators.

[DarkGuard]

If you're including Vulkan then usually lists will include lots of sternguard with either meltaguns or heavy flamers and lots assault terminators w/ TH/SS. Also including Kantor with Vulkan is a good IC combo - especially cos Kantor makes those sternguard scoring and will give extra attacks to the terminators or honour guard he is attached to.

 

Not exactly. Well, no on the Kantor part. It is part of Kantor's Chapter Tactics that makes Sternguard scoring, and if you have multiple characters with Chapter Tactics only one can be used. So you can have either scoring Sternguard, or twin-linked heavy flamers/ combi-melta/flamer Sternguard, but not both.

 

Ah quite true - then you would take Vulkan's re-roll abilities and just use Kantor's extra attacks bonus. Put Vulkan with some heavy flamer sternguard and Kantor with the TH/SS terminators.

 

Interesting idea. Of course I wouldn't try this unless it was 2000pts as the amount of points going into so few models would be staggering, and you'd still need to use some Troops. Might be worth a look in though.