Pound them to Dust!

[L30n1d4s]

I think Orders are, hands down, one of the strongest parts of the new Codex, providing a variety of very significant/meaningful buffs across numerous units, all with 100% reliability and no way to "Deny the Witch" them.

 

One Order that I think may be slipping under the radar is the Mexhanized Order, "Pound them to Dust!"

 

By letting any vehicle count enemy units as double their strength for purposes of Blast weapons, this really upset the power of many AM vehicles:

 

1) Enemy squads of 3 or more counts as 6+ models, meaning that your Blast weapons get a minimum of 3 shots each

2) Enemy squads of 6 or more counts as 11+ models, giving Blast weapons their maximum number of shots

 

I see this coming up and being a game-changer in a lot of scenarios, for example:

 

-Sentinels with Plasma Cannons

-Hellhounds with Melta Cannons

-Artillery Vehicles like Basilisks, Manticores, and Wyverns

-Most turret types for Leman Russes and Rogal Dorns

-Even Baneblade variants get this Order from Lord Solar Leontus, turning up their firepower to 11!!! (Imagine a Shadowsword with guaranteed 6 Volcano Cannon shots or a Baneblade with a guaranteed 18 shots) 

 

While Pound them to Dust! comes at an opportunity cost for other orders (like reroll 1s to Hit from Gunners, Kill on Sight!), in certain units you mitigate this with other sources of buffs (i.e. a Master of Ordnance can give reroll 1s to hit to Arty vehicles). 

 

Anyway, I have a whole Armoured Company within my Guard and I am looking forward to seeing what damage I can do with this Order, especially when combined with the new Turret Weapon rules and Elite Sharpshooters for free re-rolls.

Edited December 12, 2022 by L30n1d4s

[Emperor Ming]

Its no help for single targets thou

 

Its ok, but its not better than the previous version, which had universal use

[sairence]

It's essential for running Demolishers I'd say, and can be helpful for the other turrets. Useful to have in the tool box, even if you won't use it all the time.

 

[Santaclauswitz]

I was having a random discussion with a guy on YouTube who is convinced that the thudd gun will be given the keyword to use vehicle orders.  I was getting confused by the blast rules in general so I thought I'd double check here. So if a wyvern now targets a unit with 3+ models while benefiting from pttd it doesn't really matter because 4 dice will automatically get more than 3 shots. Is that right? With pttd it'll get the 24 shots at 6+.

 

I think that pttd is handy but not broken. There are a fair few factions that have small model counts so more often than not we'll be benefiting from a guaranteed 3 from a d6 weapon. Also as the game goes on and models are removed from the take it'll be harder to find targets that trigger blast. 

[sairence]

Blast is a minimum nr of total attacks, not nr on any individual dice roll. So the Wyvern with 4D6 shots will never benefit from the lower segment of blast, because 4D6 = min 4 attacks, which is more than the 3 that blast would give you.

 

At 11+ models you get the full 24 shots, because you get your maximum nr of attacks. So pound on a wyvern could be interesting.

 

[jarms48]

Demolishers, Wyverns, and potentially Heavy Quad Guns will be the best units to give PTTD. 3 shots on a Demolisher against 3+ and 6 shots against 6+ models is pretty good. Wyverns and, hopefully, Quad Guns would be alright with 24 shots against 6+ models.