Punisher Effectiveness

[Aleczander_G]

How are you finding the punisher in 8th? I haven't used one since the very few games I played in 7. Do you think it worth trading out a plasma or battle cannon russ for?

[Wassa]

Punishers are amazing against hordes where the AP doesn’t really matter, such as Orks, Daemons, or Tyranids.

[The Black Guard]

 

How are you finding the punisher in 8th? I haven't used one since the very few games I played in 7. Do you think it worth trading out a plasma or battle cannon russ for?

I think I played one game of 8th when it first started.  And while I miss Pask's Rending the punisher does excel at clearing hordes IF properly kitted and fielded.  For example focusing strictly on  Dakka.  The Punisher cannon is 20 shots.  Each heavy bolter which is the same strength is 3 shots  X3 for 9 more shots.  A heavy stubber grants 3 more shots for a grand total of 32 shots per Russ.  Put in a squadron of 3 thats 96 dice rolling.  In previous editions I have wiped out Nid's and Terminator squads and whittled down Necrons rather fast with them.  The problem comes from not having enough points to bubble wrap them with my own horde of guard OR have enough points left over for adequate Armor nullification. 

Don't forget Grinding Advance! That means if you move less than half your movement you can fire your turret weapon twice - so usually you will be firing 40 shots with your punisher as you should probably be using infantry squads to contest objectives not your tanks`. Arm the with triple HBs (I wouldnt bother with heavy stubber to be honest).  They are amazing anti-horde vehicles. You still need to deal with Imperial Knights and the like as well as CC units so its very important to screen your tanks - this shouldnt be a problem in a 2k game. Also for me a bare pones shadowsword is great for under 450 points giving you one of the best anti-tank weapons which is great especially since knights are very good now.

[Wassa]

You can also kamikaze advance a Punisher 10+D6 and use the Unyielding Advance strategem to fire twice :).

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Arm the with triple HBs (I wouldnt bother with heavy stubber to be honest). They are amazing anti-horde vehicles.

You sure a Punisher doesn't need sponson-mounted multi-meltas or other anti-armor weapons to defend itself from enemy tanks, Dreadnoughts, battlesuits, Knights, etc.?

[The Black Guard]

 

Arm the with triple HBs (I wouldnt bother with heavy stubber to be honest). They are amazing anti-horde vehicles.

You sure a Punisher doesn't need sponson-mounted multi-meltas or other anti-armor weapons to defend itself from enemy tanks, Dreadnoughts, battlesuits, Knights, etc.?

 

Arm them with triple HBs if you just want anti-horde and they're relatively cheap. I did say however in my originial message that you still need to deal with vehicles/titans so I suppose its good to even out your options and have both anti-horde and anti-tank roughly balanced between the turret weapon and sponsons, but HBs are much cheaper and are still relatively effective against lightly armoured vehicles. But yes its good to take anti-tank sponsons but I reckon the points may be better invested in other more effective ant-tank vehicles or infantry to screen them.

[HallofStovokor]

I've had games where my punisher inflicted more wounds on a knight than my shadowsword. If you throw 40 shots at anything, you're going to get wounds through. This essentially how our infantry work too. We take quantity over quality, because quantity is a quality.

[duz_]

Repost due to topic split

 

There is also a general LR comparison here

[MrZakalwe]

I only field a Punisher if I've got plenty of other anti-tank weapons already as anti-tank is at a premium in the guard while anti infantry is not.

 

I'm playing against Deathguard next week and I'll be bringing one to wipe the floor with pox walkers- even toughness 5 poxwakers die in droves to 40 BS 3+ STR 5 Vengeance for Cadia shots.

[Wassa]

 

 

You sure a Punisher doesn't need sponson-mounted multi-meltas or other anti-armor weapons to defend itself from enemy tanks, Dreadnoughts, battlesuits, Knights, etc.?

 

 

 

That's what the other 5 tanks in your list are for :).

 

Punisher is great against hordes or against units with ridiculous invulnerable saves where AP doesn't matter.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

You sure a Punisher doesn't need sponson-mounted multi-meltas or other anti-armor weapons to defend itself from enemy tanks, Dreadnoughts, battlesuits, Knights, etc.?

 

That's what the other 5 tanks in your list are for

Those "other 5 tanks" will likely bear battle cannons or Demolisher cannons, meaning they can deal with enemy armor by themself if they find themselves isolated by terrain or enemy ambushes- teleportation being one in-game way to sneak past otherwise alert sentries- meaning they'll likely have sponson-mounted heavy bolters or heavy flamers for anti-infantry defense.

 

I'm still not confident in the Punisher gatling cannon's anti-armor capabilities. Maybe I'll give mine a hull-mounted lascannon instead of sponson-mounted multi-meltas, so its anti-horde capabilities aren't reduced by much.

[sairence]

There's 3 tanks I will seriously consider adding Sponsons to as more then just a filler: Tallarn Punishers, Executioners or Demolishers. In that order. Generally Heavy Bolters. If they're TCs, I'll think about Plasma. My Battlecannon tank commanders will sometimes run with hull-Las.

 

In all those cases, the range of the extra guns supplements the range the turret wants to be at anyway. And the turret is where the power of a Russ is. Multimeltas are too expensive period.

 

Also: Not all your units have to be great at all roles. It's perfectly effective for your Punisher to be tooled against infantry only. You have other units that can do the main AT work.

 

And teleportation or deepstrike is mostly irrelevant with the amount of screening we do. They have to land more than 9" away from your stuff. Even in a fully mechanised list you can throw out Sentinels to push that bubble so far away from your tanks it won't matter too much. And if you get charged, those sponsons won't exactly deter anyone.

[bigmic66]

Take vultures with twin punishers. A steal at 160pts and has way more utility than any other platform

[Shamansky]

Take vultures with twin punishers. A steal at 160pts and has way more utility than any other platform

Excepting that it is a Forge World model which is banned in many places

[MrZakalwe]

Excepting that it is a Forge World model which is banned in many places

Not so many these days, I think forgeworld stuff has finally been mostly rubbish long enough for the stigma to wear off.

[Shamansky]

Well may be. But most of big tournaments here adopted the ETC and ITC rules and restrictions as if participants are training for some international tournaments (stupid posers)

[MrZakalwe]

ITC allows forgeworld, it's really just ETC that doesn't of the main circuit tournaments.

[Bonzi]

 

 

You sure a Punisher doesn't need sponson-mounted multi-meltas or other anti-armor weapons to defend itself from enemy tanks, Dreadnoughts, battlesuits, Knights, etc.?

 

That's what the other 5 tanks in your list are for

Those "other 5 tanks" will likely bear battle cannons or Demolisher cannons, meaning they can deal with enemy armor by themself if they find themselves isolated by terrain or enemy ambushes- teleportation being one in-game way to sneak past otherwise alert sentries- meaning they'll likely have sponson-mounted heavy bolters or heavy flamers for anti-infantry defense.

 

I'm still not confident in the Punisher gatling cannon's anti-armor capabilities. Maybe I'll give mine a hull-mounted lascannon instead of sponson-mounted multi-meltas, so its anti-horde capabilities aren't reduced by much.

Like the Emperor's wrath, a Basilisk can't be hidden from. No guardsman or tank ever fights alone on the battlefield so long as they're in range of artillery.

 

Its a rare battle where an opponent is gonna force a Guard model into a one on one confrontation, and if they do they've honestly won regardless of your weapons load out. The counter point being that in an edition of splitfire, what each vehicle has individually matters less that what your army has in aggregate.

[bigmic66]

Yeah even alot of etc events allowing forgeworld now