Most Efficient Super Heavy Tank Destroyer?

[Fire Wolf]

Greetings brothers,

 

While I respect the multiple threads looking to pair Knight houses with the Vlka Fenryka to combat other nights on the field, I can't help but want to keep my battle-forged armies pure.

 

I'm considering a Forgeworld order to get a super heavy tank to deal with the incoming Knights.  Does anyone have an opinion or experience using any of those tanks against this now common target?

 

My initial reaction was to just buy the Falchion, but then I realized you -have- to take the sponsors with the vehicle which catapults the points cost up.  However, things like the Typhon and Cerberus are more reasonable to field.

 

Seeking advice from everyone here in the Fang.

[PeteySödes]

Bjorn with a shield dread guard IMO.

[TiguriusX]

i have just completed serious knight research. knights are most vulnerable to melee. the invulnerable save is only for shooting (1 relic exception). gallants are everywhere due to their fellow knight killing power.

 

 

knights can be shot but the ion shields and stratagems require full commitment to shooting.

 

space wolves are not a premier shooting army so this is not the best approach.

 

i have a batrep recently where i was able to kill a knight army (basically bjorn went bonkers on them and i kept him shielded from fire)

[The Saint Ragnar]

I am really just going to echo the others here.

 

Big scary Titan, meet Bjorn. Bjorn, big scary Titan. Now you two get along.

 

I have had Bjorn murder a Stompa from full health with some amazing rolls.

[Fire Wolf]

I appreciate all your feedback really, but I'm looking for a ranged solution to them.  Here's my situation:  Had a tournament last Saturday and we had a guy kind of come out of the woodwork from another city, turns out he's a huge ITC player.  Nice guy, however he put the serious slap down on me.

He was running a Castellan with Imperial Guard and he just had enough bodies clogging up the avenues, a charge literally could not happen without that Castellan basically deleting all key units.  While I believe Bjorn can do it, he can't without the charge in that particular situation.

So yeah, I was looking into the possibility of tank destroyers of some sort.

[TiguriusX]

Honestly you are better off looking for units to help clear the bodies out of the way (much easier job to accomplish)

 

There is no ranged castellan killer.  If he blows the 3CP for rotate ion shields and has the ion bulwark warlord trait he has a 3++ (which he can reroll for bad failures)

 

You are basically shooting at a T8 3++ 28 wound target.

 

Even those volcano cannon toting imperial guard tanks have bad odds of doing the job in 1 turn. 

 

How many points do you intend to sink into ranged anti-knight fire power?

 

The laser destroyer rapier is nice but all he needs is a 3++ and you do nothing.  Even if you get through and manage 2D6 damage you aren't taking off 28 wounds fast enough

[Karhedron]

Yup, trying to drop a Knight with firepower in one turn is asking a lot. Eldar can do it with psychic shennanigens, Reapers and Fire prisms. Guard might be able to do it if they have a pair of Shadowswords. Tau with marker lights. Not sure many other armies can level the kind of firepower that you need.

 

Just to give you an idea, if the Knight player Rotates Ion Shields for that 3++ save, you would need around 54 lascannon shots to drop a Castellan/Valiant. You can improve that a bit with Long Fangs rerolling 1s to Hit a WGBL or two rerolling 1s to wound but you are still looking at the firepower equivalent of 10 Long Fang packs. I am not sure about FW but I don't know if any of their tanks pack the kind of punch you need.

 

A player with just 1 Knight will not blink at spending 3CPs to help keep a 600-ish point unit like the Castellan alive for another turn.

[PeteySödes]

Well the venator is probably the best in that criteria. It’s a sicaran chasis so it’s fast, and can move and shoot w/o penalty it’s possible 2 lascannons along with a H3 48” s12 -4 d6 gun that gives a -1 debuff if it wounds the target.

 

It won’t one shot it but the speed seems like it would allow at least one safe shot. I’m still building mine so this is all theoryhammer atm to me.

[Karhedron]

The Venator will get an average of 4 shots per turn that hit on a 3+, wound on a 3+, take the Knight down to its Ion shield save and do D6 damage. That is actually about the same damage output as a Predator annihilator but 50% higher cost. A Pack of Long Fangs with Lascannons will do significantly more damage for less points as they get 5 shots per turn and can natively reroll 1s to Hit.

 

The only thing the Venator has going for it is mobility. :(

 

I am not convinced there are any hidden gems in FW that will give you significantly more damage per point than our native units. Knights are really hard to destroy with just shooting unless you resort to Titanic units of your own. Otherwise you need to resort to throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at them or engaging them in melee.

 

An allied Manticore battery might work well, especially as they do not need LOS. 

[TiguriusX]

Also dont limit yourself. There are many alternative approaches

 

Ranged fire power

Melee combat

Avoiding the knight altogether! (i.e., using ruins for infantry)

Debuffing the knight with njal (tempest doesnt require LOS i believe)

Focusing on mission and objectives

[Yoyo ninja]

If it's a single knight, then pin it in CC with TWC. They can't step over TWC because there not infantry or a swarm. Bikes will do the same I guess. Put SS on them and there not going anywhere fast either.

[PeteySödes]

The Venator will get an average of 4 shots per turn that hit on a 3+, wound on a 3+, take the Knight down to its Ion shield save and do D6 damage. That is actually about the same damage output as a Predator annihilator but 50% higher cost. A Pack of Long Fangs with Lascannons will do significantly more damage for less points as they get 5 shots per turn and can natively reroll 1s to Hit.

 

The only thing the Venator has going for it is mobility.

 

Yea 100%, in my experience though that mobility is super key though. The hit debuff is icing on the cake too that you can't forget. Especially against an army with a token knight or superheavy.

 

Like I said i havent gotten to field the beautiful bastard yet but i do use LF a lot and if you get a bit unlucky can be removed pretty fast. We're basically in agreement though. Gotta punch them to death.

[Fire Wolf]

Hm, just when I had kind of thrown in the towel on TWC, they should be effective with stormshields and that most Castellan weaponry isn't that great against infantry formations, even though a squad of long fangs would crumble fairly quickly.  You all make a good case of making our own aresenal, I wasn't really looking to one shot it for the record, doing a good bit of damage to drop it's effectiveness was acceptable.

 

Noted for the future!

[CCE1981]

An Imperial Guard Shadowsword is also a possibility. Take the supreme command detachment with 2x Primaris Psykers to give the tank a -1 to be hit and +1 save, a techpriest to repair it(if you want), and Catachan Doctrine(reroll one dice for number of shots for each weapon each time it shhots) orVallhallan (double remaining wounds for chart).

[PeteySödes]

An Imperial Guard Shadowsword is also a possibility. Take the supreme command detachment with 2x Primaris Psykers to give the tank a -1 to be hit and +1 save, a techpriest to repair it(if you want), and Catachan Doctrine(reroll one dice for number of shots for each weapon each time it shhots) orVallhallan (double remaining wounds for chart).

 

I think the whole exercise from OP was to avoid souping.

[Karhedron]

The problem is that firepower is not the SW's forte. We are merely average MEQs in that regard so trying to outshoot a dedicated shooty unit from a brand spanking new codex is a tough ask, even with FW units available.

 

The two options really are soup-up with a unit or two from a shootier army so you level the playing field or deal with them in melee so we can force them to fight on our terms. Trying to fight the enemy on their terms in an area where we are mediocre is just not going to end well 95% of the time.

[CCE1981]

 

An Imperial Guard Shadowsword is also a possibility. Take the supreme command detachment with 2x Primaris Psykers to give the tank a -1 to be hit and +1 save, a techpriest to repair it(if you want), and Catachan Doctrine(reroll one dice for number of shots for each weapon each time it shhots) orVallhallan (double remaining wounds for chart).

 

I think the whole exercise from OP was to avoid souping.

 

These can be dressed up as the Space Wolf Auxiliary forces with no issues.

[PeteySödes]

In the same way as buying that 3D printed space wolf Titan that’s everywhere has no issues.

 

No matter how you dress it up that’s not “pure” battlefoeged space wolves as OP was shooting for.

[wilkco]

The tank i currently use is the astreus super heavy tank. It does not have the anti titanic wepaon of the shadow sword but it gets the rerolls from all the space wolves team so should be able to do alot of damage plus it has a good anti air roll as well

[Karack Blackstone]

Hello OP.

 

If you're facing a foe at 2,000 points, there's some considerations to take into account in any fight, let alone countering a Knight.

 

TWC, with TH/SS each

Ven Dread with Axe and Shield

Predator

Sicaran Venator

 

Give each unit a job.

 

For the points of taking a Ven Dread with Axe and Shield, as well as some TWC with TH/SS, there's tradeoffs in every force as to what you can fit into both your points total and the Detachment choice you end up taking, which will define your force and what you are able to take in it.

 

As far as options, each have strengths and weaknesses. Each of the four above qualifies as an Astartes option, and the first two are exclusive to the Wolves. The Pred and Sic Ven can be taken as Wolf units, as the Wolves are Astartes. The single biggest question, to me, is this:  what do you want each unit to do? More than one Ven Dread or multiple TWC units can make up for the loss of one, if you're lucky enough in your die rolls to not worry about needing a backup option, if one of the others gets taken out of the fight.

 

So, what tickles your fancy, as far as pure Wolf options go, overall?

[munocat]

10 wuflen with thunder hammer and storm shields, wgbl and wolf priest.

 

In one game killed 3 dawn eagle custodes. To Armiger Knights, an imperial knight and kastalan robots. Only lost 4 guys, first 2 when the knight charged, on their death they did 6 dmg each.

[M.Redbeard]

As most I'd say that the answer is outaide of Forgeworld. I think that actually we are one of the best suited armies to take a Knight on a fight. What I'd do.

 

Tow Ven Dreads with Shields, Bjorn, Stormwolfm, 10 Wulfen, Wolf Priest w/ Jump Pack, WGBL with Jump Pack and Krakenbone Sword amd TWC with chainswords/Frost swords. Use the Stormwolf for preaasure while the Dreads, TWC and Bjron advance. Turn two everything assaults. Wulfen from DS , Dreads, Bjorn Cavalry. The TWC are for ablative wounds and eat Overwatch so keep the cheao. If you don't care about CP get a Slamguinius with the no Overwatch Relic amd 4D Warlord Trait. Enjoy you Melee Knight killing army.

 

Caution: This is a silly list just taking things that a pure Knight List will hate. Try only under advise that it will probably not work. Mathematically if you get all the charges you may destroy 3 Knights in a turn but it is not reliable nor guaranteed.

 

Edit: Add Njal to cast Tempest's Wrath against the shootiest Knight and enjoy him hitting the Stormwolf and Smoked Dread on a 5+

[Karhedron]

The tank i currently use is the astreus super heavy tank. It does not have the anti titanic wepaon of the shadow sword but it gets the rerolls from all the space wolves team so should be able to do alot of damage plus it has a good anti air roll as well

 

The Astreus is tasty but costs a lot of points. If you are considering that price range then the Fellblade also packs a lot of anti-tank guns on a single chassis with POTMS.

[Karack Blackstone]

 

The tank i currently use is the astreus super heavy tank. It does not have the anti titanic wepaon of the shadow sword but it gets the rerolls from all the space wolves team so should be able to do alot of damage plus it has a good anti air roll as well

 

The Astreus is tasty but costs a lot of points. If you are considering that price range then the Fellblade also packs a lot of anti-tank guns on a single chassis with POTMS.

 

 

Fellblade vote here, if one can afford it in both money and points cost.

 

Still, if the point needs to be reiterated, a Fellblade with an Axe and Shield Ven Dread to help is not a bad idea, either.

[Ishagu]

2 Sicaran Venator would cripple or outright destroy a super heavy quite easily, and they look great.

Probably the best option available to Marines.

 

The Astartes Super Heavies are currently NOT efficient. I would hold off until Chapter Approved 2018 is released and see if their points are adjusted. The best of the bunch as of right now is the Astraeus as it's not cripplingly expensive points wise.

 

Otherwise a Shadowsword or a Knight Castellan are the only viable options.