Best baneblade variant post CA

[Commissar potato]

Hello everyone, just a quick discussion on the best baneblade variant post chapter approved. In my opinion I think it is between the vanilla baneblade and the hellhammer as, with the nerf to the shadowsword and the point reduction to the Demolisher Cannon those two have become a far more appealing choice.

 

What are all of your thoughts on the matter?

[HallofStovokor]

I'm a big proponent of the banehammer. It's strength is nothing special, but it gets 3d6 shots, flat 3 damage and halves a target's movement for the next turn. Let's say that you pop a knight with the banehammer, but the knight player by some miracle passes all of the invulnerable saves. With any other baneblade, you'd have done nothing. The banehammer only needs to hit to reduce movement, it doesn't need to wound. If you were to have the same thing happen with the hellhammer, that Knight can still move its full distance.

[Trickstick]

I could see a banehammer being useful if you load it with some decent units and assault with it. I have still yet to see, or personally try, the yoyo superheavy but I think it could be good for a laugh. The banehammer would probably be a decent version to try it on. For reference, it is a superheavy that you repeatedly fall back and then charge with the crush them stratagem. Because of the superheavy rules, you don't really lose anything for doing it. You could additionally make it Tallarn, so that you can advance and fire, or load it with flamers for even more fun. It really works with any variant too.

 

I think the shadowsword is still going to come out on top, its gun is just the best for taking out hard targets. It probably isn't #1 by quite the massive amount it was though, so at least taking ithers won't feel like shooting yourself in the foot. I want to try my favourite again, the stormsword. I'm thinking that it could do well in an armoured push, backed up by demolisher tanks.

 

Edit: Looking at the stormsword cannon, what is even the point in that gun? It used to be a 10" blast version of the hellhammer. If it was a 4d6 version of the hellhammer I would at least consider it. But what does it have now? d6 damage is ok I guess, but 2d6 shots is horrible for a former 10" blast. It is only slightly better than a demolisher cannon really. It gets an extra AP and ignore cover, as well as not getting the d3 shot penalty. It even seems worse than the doomhammer now.

 

Sorry, just me remembering how bad my favourite variant is. At least it still looks the best.

[rcoon]

No idea why on earth they nerfed the Shadowsword, it was never particularly overpowered against it's primary targets (knights) in the first place. I used to run a SS in every game I played vs a Knight player and his volcano lance knight would consistently bracket my SS turn 1 and also be able to shoot other targets at the same time and have infinitely more staying power. The Shadowsword would either do absolutely nothing to the Knight, or one-shot it and that's it, before dying the following turn. The Heavy Bolters and Lascannons rarely actually did anything for me.

 

Now I can wholeheartedly say the Shadowsword is crap if your opponent is playing any kind of knight, which relegates its usefulness to zero for me. It's OK vs predators and the like, but the whole point of a SS is to deal with Titanic units, which it does worse than other Titanic units.

 

I'd say the Hellhammer and vanilla Baneblade are the best variants now, but the staying power of all of the superheavy tanks is so poor they pretty much require two primaris psykers and a techpriest to babysit it and provide -1 to hits against it and +1 to its save rolls. That means bringing a baneblade costs in excess of 5-600 points to deal with a unit that costs significantly less and provides wider battlefield support.

 

In short, the best baneblade variant is a Knight, sorry to say.

[Trickstick]

Now I can wholeheartedly say the Shadowsword is crap if your opponent is playing any kind of knight, which relegates its usefulness to zero for me. It's OK vs predators and the like, but the whole point of a SS is to deal with Titanic units, which it does worse than other Titanic units.

 

I wonder if it is worth using Ambush to keep your Shadowsword safe until turn 2. I think letting 500+ points worth of units miss a turn could be a mistake, but it would definitely get to shoot.

[rcoon]

 

Now I can wholeheartedly say the Shadowsword is crap if your opponent is playing any kind of knight, which relegates its usefulness to zero for me. It's OK vs predators and the like, but the whole point of a SS is to deal with Titanic units, which it does worse than other Titanic units.

 

I wonder if it is worth using Ambush to keep your Shadowsword safe until turn 2. I think letting 500+ points worth of units miss a turn could be a mistake, but it would definitely get to shoot.

 

Running it as Tallarn sucks, and the stratagem costs 3CP. On the other hand Catachan lets you reroll a bad shot number dice, and Valhallan keeps it on BS4+ for longer. Plus if you do end up going first and you Ambushed the SS, then you miss out on a turn of shooting with the SS anyway.

 

A knight, however, has none of these issues.

[Trickstick]

Well you don't get the doctrine benefit running in an auxiliary detachment anyway, so it isn't that important. I guess a supreme command is alright if you want to get the extra HQs.

 

I do agree that knights are better though.

[rcoon]

Well you don't get the doctrine benefit running in an auxiliary detachment anyway, so it isn't that important. I guess a supreme command is alright if you want to get the extra HQs.

 

I do agree that knights are better though.

I always ran with a Commissar and two Primaris Psykers for protection (and "It's for your own good" from the commissar in case anything untowards happens to the psykers) to make a Supreme Command detachment.

EDIT: I'm just extremely mad they nerfed the SS. Baneblades weren't remotely a problem or even competitive, if anything they needed a drop so they could compete with knights.

[Tirak]

They nerfed the Shadowsword to make the other Baneblades more attractive, without taking a moment to realize the Baneblades all are an underwhelming super heavy line. 

[Jolemai]

For those of us who are out of the loop, by nerf do you mean a points increase or a change to the datasheet?

[sairence]

Let's be fair here, the Shadowsword was stupid cheap for what it can do to big targets. 404 (target not found) points might have been a fun little joke, but it was silly that the most effective Baneblade was also the cheapest.

[Trickstick]

For those of us who are out of the loop, by nerf do you mean a points increase or a change to the datasheet?

 

They went up by 20 points, whilst most of the other variants went down by 20 points.

[noigrim]

The stormhammer can also drive your guards around

[micahwc]

I've loved my shadowsword as Valhallen, I run it with all the heavy bolters and lascannons. Its hard to find a more sturdy platform with 10 heavy bolters on it. I don't think an extra 20 points would dissuade me from taking it.

[Trickstick]

The stormhammer can also drive your guards around

 

Did you mean the Banehammer?

 

Although talking about the Stormhammer, it seems to have fallen a bit further behind. Tiny points drop due to multilasers and it's not as if it was awesome anyway. The main gun is a slightly better basilisk, and the twin battle cannon is the same as a double shot russ cannon.

[The Black Guard]

Just a quick question - Ive got a game tomorrow vs some orks and eldar.

 

Should I take a baneblade and a russ (and a few infantry squads) or 3 Russes with more infantry squads? 

 

The 3 Russes would be an Executioner, 2 Battle Tanks and an Eradicator (various sponsons).

 

Or

 

A baneblade with two sponsons and a battle tank?

 

What do you think?

[Trickstick]

Hard to know without a list. Baneblade does have the advantage that you can't tie it up in melee. If you think the orks are going to be charging then that could be useful. That depends on how good your screening is though.

[Tirak]

The Leman Russ is nearly always better than the Baneblade. They offer more shots, which is key in the guard, and more compartmentalized wound chunks. Much easier to overkill a Russ than a Baneblade.

[HallofStovokor]

I tend to think that running a few leman russ variants with a lot of infantry is typically how the guard were meant to be played. I'd drop the eradicator for a punisher. I just don't like the main gun. In my humble opinion, I think that the best variants are executioner, battle cannon, punisher and demolisher. The eradicator, and exterminator are very situational and the vanquisher is hot garbage. On the baneblade question, I think it depends on your playstyle. If you like to focus on heavy firepower and have a tech-priest and psyker to help buff it, the baneblade variants might do well. Personally my favorite variants are vanilla baneblade, banehammer and shadowsword. With my playstyle, I don't bring them at 2000 or less points. They're great, but you've put a lot of points into a single model that can be focused down on.

[The Black Guard]

Thanks for your opinions! Unfortunately I can't change the Eradicator though as I am playing with a friend who built it that way without magnetising.

 

So Im bringing:

Yarrick

Primaris Psyker

3 Company Commanders

6 Infantry Squads

Priest

3 Bullgryns

3 Ogryns

 

And hes either bringing:

 

3 Russes 

Sentinel

Company Commander

Couple Infantry squads

 

or: 

 

Russ

Baneblade

Company Commander

maybe 1 or 2 infantry squads

 

It seems like the russes are the better option as their wounds are more spread out - but maybe the option to shoot whilst in combat outweighs this?

 

(Sorry if this isn't quite relevant to the topic lol)

[Diagramdude]

How would Banehammer interact with the Emperors Wrath artillery suppressive fire strat? Would it stack to make the enemy unit reduce to one quarter of its move speed?

 

Both abilities cut your move in half.

[Rommel44]

Shadowsword is still my favorite as the only real change was it going up in points a little bit. Don't know why some people are salty about that as with all the other point decreases, it shouldn't be too difficult to field or find room to take it and so far mine has done extremely well.

 

Either way, for me the best 3x Variants are the Shadowsword and Baneblade from GW, and I am a fan of the FW Stormblade Super Heavy. And I run the Valhallan Regimental Doctrine for obvious reasons.

[Trickstick]

I can't see any reason that they wouldn't stack. They both modify the characteristic, and modifiers are noted in the rule book as being cumulative.

[Trickstick]

Either way, for me the best 3x Variants are the Shadowsword and Baneblade from GW, and I am a fan of the FW Stormblade Super Heavy. And I run the Valhallan Regimental Doctrine for obvious reasons.

 

I would rate the hellhammer over the baneblade. Stronger gun and 36" range isn't too bad.

[Rommel44]

 

 

Either way, for me the best 3x Variants are the Shadowsword and Baneblade from GW, and I am a fan of the FW Stormblade Super Heavy. And I run the Valhallan Regimental Doctrine for obvious reasons.

I would rate the hellhammer over the baneblade. Stronger gun and 36" range isn't too bad.

I like the Baneblade for the Flexibility it brings to the table. Hellhammer is a solid variant but I run the Shadowsword 90% of the time as it fills a void in my list.