The AV14 issue

[Tech-Priest]

Every time I see threads on tactics or army list people bring up the issue of how to deal with AV14 and I'm wondering if it is really that big of an issue in most cases.

 

Sure having something to deal with the AV14 tanks are beneficial but is it absolutely necessary to focus as much on it as people seem to? In most 1500 pts games how much AV14 are you realistically going to encounter? One? And in 2000pts maybe 2?

 

So I'm wondering if when I build a list if I should even care about bringing some uber landraider can opener or just have enough firepower to crack open transports and use those points for other things

 

Any thoughts?

[Brother-Captain Stacius]

To be honest with you, the group I game with normally play 2000pts. We do normally see a AV14 in most list's, or an AV13. I find that I never craft a list with a uber opener just as that's the unit that normally get's pinged first.

A little anti- tank spread throughout is normally enough. For me, that normally equals a tac squad with a melta gun, maybe a couple of rocket launcher's. With my angel's I always have my biker boy's take 2 melta gun's to the party. I find these most effective in sniping out lone special's after blasting the tank's.

So, in conclusion, i think that if you have a well rounded list with a little anti tank, you should be fine with AV14 vehicle's.

After all, it only take's a single shot to take it out. :lol:

[Possessed Marine]

well, considering that in a 1500 pts list I usually put Khârn and 19 more berzerkers inside 2 Land Raiders and still have some points left over... it's usually wise to bring a can opener

[d@n]

The problem with AV14, is if you do not have anything that can deal with it your opponent can just drive you off your home objective and then park it there.Terminators or whatever is going to assault out of it is not normally the problem, its the fact that your opponent has free rain move about the board as he like's tanking shocking stuff and denying you lines of fire and movement ect

[Hellios]

Every time I see threads on tactics or army list people bring up the issue of how to deal with AV14 and I'm wondering if it is really that big of an issue in most cases.

 

Sure having something to deal with the AV14 tanks are beneficial but is it absolutely necessary to focus as much on it as people seem to? In most 1500 pts games how much AV14 are you realistically going to encounter? One? And in 2000pts maybe 2?

 

So I'm wondering if when I build a list if I should even care about bringing some uber landraider can opener or just have enough firepower to crack open transports and use those points for other things

 

Any thoughts?

 

Also the Leman Russ... sure you can get side and rear armour... but if someone brings 9 of them in 2,000pts it would be nice to be able to harm the front AV14.

[Vaktathi]

Every time I see threads on tactics or army list people bring up the issue of how to deal with AV14 and I'm wondering if it is really that big of an issue in most cases.

 

Sure having something to deal with the AV14 tanks are beneficial but is it absolutely necessary to focus as much on it as people seem to? In most 1500 pts games how much AV14 are you realistically going to encounter? One? And in 2000pts maybe 2?

 

So I'm wondering if when I build a list if I should even care about bringing some uber landraider can opener or just have enough firepower to crack open transports and use those points for other things

 

Any thoughts?

 

Also the Leman Russ... sure you can get side and rear armour... but if someone brings 9 of them in 2,000pts it would be nice to be able to harm the front AV14.

If someone is bringing 9 in 2000pts and isn't running an Armored Battlegroup FW list, that's probably one of the easiest armies to beat in the game, especially with ubiquitously available krak grenades. Get into base contact with one tank, threaten all three in the squadron, get into melta range of one tank and inflict melta-double pen hits on a tank in the squadron 22" away from your meltagunner. Unless running the FW Armored Battlegroup list, Codex Armored Companies are awful, and really require very little anti-AV14 to engage, rather the biggest thing is that you just need to get into assault range with krak grenades and a powerfist.

[jeffersonian000]

I'm a heavy Land Raider user, with 2-3 in a list on average. If my opponent does not bring anti-AV14 units, I will roll all over them with only half my army point total, with the rest just enjoying the ride. And that's at 1500pts.

 

Against opponents with significant anti-AV14, I have to be conservative and play a smart game, which is more fun for me than face-rolling the other guy. And yes, I too bring anti-AV14 units on the off chance my opponent is as tank-crazy as I am.

 

SJ

[TyrionTheImp]

Think of it this way: Whatever can harm AV14, can harm lower AV's as well and considering most strong armies are mechanized, you need a lot of vehicle killy stuff.

 

Just so happens for SM armies (Minus GKs) Melta is cheap, and easy to get.

[breng77]

I can just speak from my own games. I was playing 3 LR deathwing a couple of years ago against an IG player with all autocannons, the mission was kill points.....

 

While you can gamble on not seeing it, if you are playing armies most marines run melta guns anyway, why chance getting beat down by an opponents hammer unit if you don't have too. (as hammer units are usually what one finds inside land raiders.)

[Valkyrion]

Dealing with AV14 is so cheap that you'd be nuts not to prepare for it.

 

Chainfists, Melta Guns, Melta Bombs are all available to most space marine units for 10 points or less and that applies to most armies.

[Hemal]

Not to mention the lascannon which can be found on 5 seperate platforms in the SM army (Infantry, Land Raiders, Dreads, Preds and Razorbacks) can make a complete mess of ANY vehicle platform from any tabletop range, often whilst hunkered hull down. A well hidden Las Razorback will still give a land raider crusader pause for thought...

[sofacoin]

Not to mention the lascannon which can be found on 5 seperate platforms in the SM army (Infantry, Land Raiders, Dreads, Preds and Razorbacks) can make a complete mess of ANY vehicle platform from any tabletop range, often whilst hunkered hull down. A well hidden Las Razorback will still give a land raider crusader pause for thought...

"Pause for thought?" Really? Something which gets one shot a turn, even if it misses only once out of every 9 shots-- but only penetrating on a 6 and glancing on a 5, with 1/3rd the results on the damage table being ignored by the machine spirit?

Works out to about a 10% chance of a penetrating hit that does something useful, and about a 5% chance of a glance that does something useful. Even from 48", that's not good odds.

 

AV 14 is a non-issue to marine armies when 2-3 melta options can be taken in every troops slot; the short range is a non-issue as all the only AV 14-all-around craft is the Land Raider, a transport meant to drive directly towards the enemy (and if it isn't, you just lucked out- his weapons are either short range, or merely a couple lascannon and heavy bolter, so you can pretty much just take it out whenever you're ready.)

Wait, there's another? And it's immune to melta? That sounds more dangerous. Which one is it again? ...Oh, the monolith? Just kill the Warriors.

 

AV 14 front, in the form of battlewagons and lemans, are a little more of a problem to marines; they're still something a few typhoons jockeying for the side-shot, bike with melta, or even a quick drive up the field with melta-sternguard will solve pretty quickly.

 

The only time AV 14 is a problem to marines is when there's a lot of it; the solution is liberal application of wonderfully ubiquitous melta. You want to kill tanks anyway, and there's no such thing as overkill in love and war. Dreads, tacs, sternies, attack bikes, bikes, land speeders, land raider crusaders, command squads, HQs- there's no shortage of platforms on which one can, and often should, take it.

[DV8]

Indeed, with Space Marines you'll have two ways to deal with enemy armor (firepower wise): long range and close range.

 

From long range, your firepower is better spent knocking out the lighter armor - transports, support tanks, dreadnoughts, etc. - the "meat" of the army that is meant to support the AV14 tank (re: Land Raider). With typically lower front AV, the lighter armor is far easier to take out, and cripples the enemy army far faster and far more readily than focusing fire and attempting to kill that AV14 tank just because it has the highest armor value.

 

You'll find that without proper support, an AV14 is really ridiculously easy to knock out.

 

From close range, you should have a plethora of Meltaguns (and maybe a few Meltabombs scattered about, or Chainfists) that are more than capable to knock out said AV14 vehicle (and any of the lighter tanks that get through your long-range firepower).

 

Do you have to specifically kit out units to kill AV14? No, but in the process of taking long range, close range, and close combat weaponry that can kill armor effectively, you'll find you already have the tools to deal with AV14.

 

 

DV8

[BearersOfSalvation]

The problem really isn't 'how often do you see it', the problem is more 'if you see it do you lose'. In tournaments not being able to deal with an army knocks you out of the running for first, and in general it's not fun to just get demolished. You don't have to put in a huge effort for it, give one tactical squad a multi melta, another a melta gun, plus a squadron of speeders or attack bikes and an opponent taking a land raider or two will have to think twice about getting near you. And the melta isn't only good against AV14, it insta-kills anything T4, wounds almost everything on a 2, and pops lower armor too.

[Meatman]

Standard marines can handle everything bar AV13 or 14 with enough numbers. That's why anti-AV14 is so important.

 

Lascannons can destroy it, but if you spam enough for it to be reliable. Meltas are easier (and cheaper in most cases) to spam to reliably take out AV14. The AP1 helps big time too.

 

Now, dreads with chainfists, there's a can opener.

[DarkGuard]

AV14 problem? Sure, I have a friend who likes nothing more than to field 3 Land Raiders in his Wolves list. And when you can expect to run into that every once and a while, you need some can openers along the lines of MM Speeders. I was winning that game but that swiftly turned into me nearly losing it, only just being able to a get a draw because he knocked out all my mobile melta, making it near impossible for me to get him out of his tanks. I also ran into a similar Deathwing list at a tournament last year, again I was lucky to draw. So yes, you do need it, because if you don't and all you have is missile launchers against multi-Raiders, you'll lose.

 

That being said it depends on metagame. Fortunately Land Raiders seem to have become a little less popular, but I'll still see one between 33-50% of the time. So I do feel it is vital to have a quick unit that can easily deal with them and get the nasty contents inside out in the open. Come forward MM/HF Speeders. Of course, if you don't see them then don't worry about them, it's that simple.

[northoceanbeach]

I'm tooling up a new list and it's packed full of melta weapons, twin linked too. I think I have maybe 10+ and some twin linked lascannons.

 

I hear the arguement about not needeing to worry about them too much, but the way I see it is, that , I don't want there to be anything I cannot deal with. And the weapons that I 'll take to use against av14, should be more than enough for monstrous creatures and terminators and lighter vehicles. So, it's not that it's just for av14. It's still versitile. I could sacrifice some of my heavy armour pooping ability and take more plasma, but the meltas work for all.

[Corby]

Edit : Incorrect math on my part :)

[breng77]

You can never 100 percent guarantee destroying anything in this game, the other thing to consider is that if you are moving 6" per turn with your meltas to get into range, the lascannon will have fired several times before you get in you 6" melta shot.

 

Another way to look at it is that beyond 6" the las cannon is twice as effective with each shot as the melta gun between 7-12" and infinitely better beyond that. Not discounting the melta gun, but the lascannon is more effective Long range Land Raider killing power.

[breng77]

Also your math is off on the melta.

 

A BS 4 melta has a 20.98% chance of wrecking a land raider at half range. (2/3 chance to hit, 21/36 chance to pen, 1/2 chance to wreck or explode + 5/36 chance to glance, and 1/6 chance to wreck. 2/3*21/26*1/2+2/3*5/36*1/6=.2098.)

 

At that percent in order to get a 99.8% chance of destroying a land raider requires 27 Melta gun shots. 8 Shots gets you about an 88% chance, 7 about an 85% chance.

 

As for the lascannon that math you have correct at about 3.7%, to get a 99% chance to destroy a land raider requires ~122 shots, 27 shots gets you about 63%.

[Brother Valerius]

Indeed. A melta weapon is more likely to destroy the Land Raider, but the lascannon has a range advantage. I need to run to work so I don't have time to crunch numbers... but the extra couple of shots you can get off with a lascannon compared to a melta weapon should put the two in something like the same ballpark.

[Corby]

Also your math is off on the melta.

 

A BS 4 melta has a 20.98% chance of wrecking a land raider at half range. (2/3 chance to hit, 21/36 chance to pen, 1/2 chance to wreck or explode + 5/36 chance to glance, and 1/6 chance to wreck. 2/3*21/26*1/2+2/3*5/36*1/6=.2098.)

 

At that percent in order to get a 99.8% chance of destroying a land raider requires 27 Melta gun shots. 8 Shots gets you about an 88% chance, 7 about an 85% chance.

 

As for the lascannon that math you have correct at about 3.7%, to get a 99% chance to destroy a land raider requires ~122 shots, 27 shots gets you about 63%.

 

 

Yes you're right Breng , I made a balls of the maths in my head.

 

the other thing to consider is that if you are moving 6" per turn with your meltas to get into range, the lascannon will have fired several times before you get in you 6" melta shot.

 

I disagree with this however , A melta should be mounted on a mobile platform and not something which moves 6" this turn. Scout bikers and scouts in a landspeeder storm make an ideal melta platform for being highly mobile and only requiring a turn for setting up the shot with the melta. Lascannons and Meltaguns are two very different weapons designed for two very different purposes , For example , I don't remember the last time an Imperial guard player wasted firing his vendettas at my landraiders , but I do remember all the times a guard player has used melta-vets to blow it up.

[breng77]

Oh I don't disagree, (though scouts are BS 3 melta guns, so a bit worse than the above math). The thing to remember though is that a smart player can bubble wrap to keep those melta-guns out of range until he wants to be close. If you go second, 2 turns of movement has often payed for that Land Raider already, with 24" of movement delivering its contents into the fight.)

[Corby]

Oh I don't disagree, (though scouts are BS 3 melta guns, so a bit worse than the above math). The thing to remember though is that a smart player can bubble wrap to keep those melta-guns out of range until he wants to be close. If you go second, 2 turns of movement has often payed for that Land Raider already, with 24" of movement delivering its contents into the fight.)

 

A scout Sgt is BS4.

[breng77]

ah so you are taking a combi-melta on the sarge, I guess that is ok, I am never a big fan of one shot weapons for the purpose of a unit. I think attack bikes, or regular speeders are probably better melta delivery systems. The 24" range on the multi-melta really makes a huge difference.