Assaulting Baneblades tactics.

[The Catachan Devil]

I posted this in the Official rules thread and in response to a Space Wolves player who was having difficulty assaulting baneblades. It was suggested I re-posted it here. Here is my $0.02 on the matter of tackling baneblades. Though if anyone has any other good anti baneblade tactics it'd be great to hear them!
 

I'll divide my tactica into 3, Movement, shooting and assaulting. 

Movement
Approaching a BB is fairly straight forward - stay out of LOS until the last possible moment. Note however baneblade variants such as the stormlord can carry heavy weapons teams - which have access to mortars which don't need LOS. 10D6 shots from mortars isn't fun so keep moving and push up as quickly as possible. Remember BB have a BS of 4+ and if they move it is made 5+, as a result they won't likely move.
A tactic baneblader would use is plenty of speedbumps to slow down any assault (usually conscripts). The best ways to avoid these is either to shoot them to bits, make sure you get the charge on them or deep strike past them.

 

Shooting
Any Baneblader worth their salt will have a techpriest to replace D3 wounds a turn, so you are unlikely to kill them with small arms fire. If you want to shoot a baneblade to death, you'll need something fairly monstrous and anti-tank dedicated to do so. Spamming melta will likely be your best bet.

Assaulting 

IMO the baneblade stormlord is probably the hardest variant to charge. 4 twin-linked heavy flamers is bad enough but plus 20x S6, 12x S4 and 4x S9 shots - a lot may die. However remember you just need SOMETHING to get into CC with it. When you do the rest can charge in unhindered by overwatch. I feel the best sort of viable unit is plenty of multi-wound models with a good toughness and armour saves - in the SW codex this may be terminators? However this is expensive and these guys are probably the ones you're relying on killing the BB so casualties here will reduce your damage output. So my advice is to charge the BB with a vehicle first.  Charging the Stormlord with something as lowly as a Rhino can be effective. It's cheap and has 10 wounds - a BB would have a hard time killing it (in overwatch) in one round of shooting. 

In regards to weapon selection. A BB has 26 wounds. The best way to bring it down is with multi-wound damage weapons. Don't bother with D3 if you can, try and stick with D6 or 2 or 3 damage weapons - D3 will wound 1 damage 33% of the time which is rubbish. High AP is a no-brainer -3 or -4 should be enough. You can't go too wrong with power weapons. You need to kill it in one go if possible as the BB can fall back, shoot you up and the charge you with 9x S9 -2AP D3 damage attacks - it's counter will be brutal.  

Below you can see that to assualt a Stormlord you'll need >20 GEQ, >13 MEQ and >5 TEQ to reliably get into CC.
Rhinos and Landraiders are also very viable options to take the brunt of the overwatch.

Average wounds caused by stormlord overwatch:  

 

VS GEQ = 19.97 dead.
VMB = 3.33 hits = 2.78
HB = 1 hits = 0.694
HS = 1 hit = 0.44
HF = 28 hits = 15.5
LC = 0.66 hits = 0.55555

VS MEQ = 12.16 dead.
VMB = 3.33 hits = 1.481*2
HB = 1 hits = 0.33333
HS = 1 hit = 0.16666
HF = 28 hits = 9.3333
LC = 0.66 hits = 0.4629 *D6

VS TEQ = 4.02 dead.
VMB = 3.33 hits = 0.7407*2
HB = 1 hits = 0.16666
HS = 1 hit = 0.11111
HF = 28 hits = 6.222222
LC = 0.66 hits = 0.370370 *D6

Vs Rhino EQ= 7.67 Wounds (out of 10w)

VMB = 3.33 hits = 0.55555*2

HB = 1 hits = 0.16666
HS = 1 hit = 0.11111
HF = 28 hits = 4.6667
LC = 0.66 hits = 0.4629 *D6

Vs Land Raider EQ = 5.39 Wounds (out of 16w)

VMB = 3.33 hits = 0.5555*2

HB = 1 hits = 0.111111
HS = 1 hit = 0.02777
HF = 28 hits = 3.1111
LC = 0.66 hits = 0.296*D6

 

Overall tactic - Move up to it quickly breaking LOS, the BB won't move as it will have a BS penalty. Once close enough shoot meltas at it. When assaulting first charge it with something which has a lot of wounds which it statistically is unlikely to kill. Don't forget your vehicles are good candidates for this. Once engaged charge in with your assault models which are armed with mult-damage weapons with hopefully enough attacks to bring it down in one go.

 

Example - I got charged by 30 Ork boys then after overwatch by Meganobz and G.Thraka. I minced a lot of orks but my opponent removed all the non-power klaw weapons which resulted in him knocking off 14 wounds from me in his assault just from meganobz and boyz. Thraka then finished me off as he has 6 attacks which caused 3 damage per wound. My baneblade died hard.  

 

 

I hope this is useful. If anyone has any tactics for combating Baneblades add your $0.02!

Edited July 11, 2017 by The Catachan Devil