Pasquisher...squadron?

[march10k]

Some of you know that I only ever field Pask in a vanquisher, on the theory that while he's slightly less killy against tanks than he would be in a punisher (and useless against infantry, but that's what wyverns are for), being able to reach out from a lonely corner of the board and auto-pen land raiders means that he lives a lot longer...

 

Till now, I've pretty much only given him LRBT wingmen...but it's just been pointed out to me that preferred enemy is a  boost to the accuracy of his wingmen, which I had previously ignored, since it doesn't help battle cannon scatter...but what if I were to give him two vanquisher wingmen?  rerolling ones on BS3 is really only a 1/12 improvement in hits at 7/12 instead of 1/2...but with Pask hitting 78% of his shots and each wingman hitting over half, three lascannons and three VBCs would make for some pretty devastating antitank fire, no?  It should net 4 AP2 hits (obviously pending AP rolls) per turn...I wouldn't really consider this, since even preferred enemy BS3 heavy 1 shooting is mediocre at best, but the truth is that I very frequently choose to fire the lascannons on his wingmen at pask's target, giving up the battle cannon shot.  If the target is important enough to merit the opportunity cost of not firing the battle cannon(s) at some juicy blob of troops...a couple of bonus VBC shots (not to mention points savings) would be fantastic...

 

This is in the context of a list that also fields two demolishers and two wyverns, so I have the high-S, low-AP pieplate thing covered.  Up to now, I probably would have left the LRTB out of the list entirely if Pask could be fielded solo...if I do do this, I could potentially replace the wyverns with an eradicator or two....or an LRBT or two....what do you think?

[WarriorFish]

I think Vanquishers are cool, but sadly not quite good enough without some form of bonus applied, which is why I don't like them outside of a tank commander or Pask. It'd be great if we didn't have to, but all the punch in the World is useless if you miss and the tank is too expensive for a 50% chance. Pask's Warlord trait is very nice and makes him a murder machine, also benefiting his mates but in a Vanquisher Pask is going to almost certainly brutalise what tank he hits in some form so I don't think he much needs much help.

 

So I'd say taking another Vanquisher as a friend should do it, 3 would be expensive and superfluous unless you've got lots of heavy armour to be popping. That said, if you have the points you could split fire the other two to have good odds are taking down 2 medium armour vehicles a turn which is pretty nifty. I suppose it comes down to reliability and what you need - against what you're willing to spend of course. The squadron would be quite expensive and highly specialised but it'd be cracking open armour with impunity... which I rather like the sound of, especially if your environment is high in vehicles.

[CoffeeGrunt]

My personal problem with the Vanquisher is how once it gets the Pen roll, it's still needing 6s to kill a tank, (which with its one-shot nature and stunted BS, is seemingly what it's aiming to do.) Similar to the Railgun Hammerhead, you can have it constantly Shaking a Land Raider without much effect until something kills it. Sad, as I bloody love mine, but it's only worthwhile on a Tank Commander IMO. Add in Cover Saves from opposing tanks, Jink Saves from aggressive skimmers, or heck, the Serpent Shield, and against the wrong opponent you could be achieving literally nothing with it before something kills it.

 

I'd say the LRBT as a buddy offers more versatility, but the Vanquisher could still work well, and is a little cheaper IIRC. Not amazing, but could be handy in a pinch.

[march10k]

The more I think about this the more excited I am, rule of cool and all...a whole squadron of vanquishers just sounds so...yummy in my imagination.  I actually don't suffer too much from enemy tank spam, actually...that is, what I have now seems to be just enough, without excess...or margin for error.  It is really problematic when Pask fails me (like the time he failed to pen a land raider...and failed again on the reroll), and actually there is this one guy who likes to spam daemonic walkers...stupid fast ones....maybe I'll start with just one wingman and see how that goes.  If I did field three, prescience would seem almost mandatory with all that heavy 1 BS3 shooting...

[CoffeeGrunt]

It's a pity Perfect Timing can only be cast on the Psyker's unit now, but ah well. Prescience may well be worthwhile, but IMO with Pask re-rolling and giving everyone re-roll 1s, I'd save it for a generic squadron or Tank Commander-led one who'll benefit more from it.

 

However, the Rule of Cool is what's most important! 

[Idlem]

The only thing I'd have against switching from a LRBT to a Vanquisher, is that you lose the a viable option on what to shoot with. On one turn, you can choose to shoot with that lascannon, but on the next, you can choose to shoot with the battle cannon. It gives you more tactical options to use a LRBT with a lascannon than just a vanquisher. 

[WarriorFish]

Yes, the utility of the standard Russ is always a bonus but only if you're not after something specific. I don't think I'd be up against enough armour to warrant more than just Pask in a Vanquisher which is a shame as I'd like to have tried this out.