# Best Anti Tank for new codex?



## Veggie4pizza (May 10, 2009)

This is for taking out high armour values like land raiders and the like
As I see it there are three options: Vanquisher,Demolisher,Medusa(with bastion shells)

PROS:
Vanquisher - Great range, rolls extra d6, good armour
Demolisher - Large blast, high strength, good armour
Medusa - Decent range, high strength, rolls extra d6, cheapest

CONS:
Vanquisher - One shot with BS3  , Not much better than missile launcher for troops etc
Demolisher - Shortish range, expensive
Medusa - VERY VERY poor armour, No lumbering behmoth, open topped, smaller blast

So whats everyone's Favourite?
Is the medusa viable at all being so easy to kill?
Is sacrificing points and range worth the survivability and versatility of the demolisher?
Does pask vamp up one of these selections significantly?
Have I completely overlooked a hidden tank killing god in the new codex?


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## Master_Caleb (Jan 5, 2009)

Demo, and medusa are the only viable options. The demo is okay, and can do what you want, but the closer you get the more danger it's in. I personally don't have problems with it though, although the vanquisher just seems like a waste. At BS3 you are only hitting 1/2 the time, and that means that for what you are paying you aren't hitting much. Pask helps, but make it even more expensive.

Finally my favorite is the medusa. It is cheaper as you mentioned, but if you're willing to pay a few extra points you can close it now, and it's allot more durable then before. It has twice the range of the demolisher, and in addition to the extra d6 you get the +1 on the damage table because of AP1. Demo gets it too I believe, but the vanquisher is once again left in the dust. 

I guess the final note is also what you're looking for. I look at the medusa a glass canon, and the demo as a shorter ranged, bigger canon. The medusa does to better vs. vehicles, but is limited vs. infantry. My personal opinion is that if you want a tank with more variety then take the demo, but if you want pure anti-heavy tank then it's worth taking a medusa or two. The vanquisher is just a plain no. It has less power then both, and allot less versatility. The extra range isn't worth it in anything short of apocalypse. 

Thanks,

~MC


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## Sqwerlpunk (Mar 1, 2009)

Anything AV13 or less - Vendetta Gunships. Exceedingly cheap for their abilities, and will drop anything you target a couple at with alarming ease. I expect these to be everywhere people are trying to be competitive.

AV14 - Quite simply, I think the Vanquisher out-classes both. Grab Pask + Lascannon hull-mount, and you're dropping anything that isn't shielded (i.e. Wave Serpents/Monoliths) pretty easily. Demo doesn't have AP1, and both it and the Medusa are hella in-accurate, the difficulty in hitting even a vehicle directly with a blast is just ridiculous. If you want vehicle mounted anti-AV14, the Vanquisher with those upgrades is the place to be. You have a S9+2d6 main gun, and a S10 gun firing at BS4 at anything within 72" and 48" respectively. It's going to die, and die hard.


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## Pandorav3 (Jan 30, 2009)

I prefer the medusa personally, The vanquisher just plain misses most of the time. The demo is a great choice but it cant usually start taking out tanks till turn 2-3 minimum due to range. Personally I just use heavy wep squads for AT. 1 squad of LCs will do just as good, and is a lot cheaper.


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## Sqwerlpunk (Mar 1, 2009)

Pandorav3 said:


> I prefer the medusa personally, The vanquisher just plain misses most of the time. The demo is a great choice but it cant usually start taking out tanks till turn 2-3 minimum due to range. Personally I just use heavy wep squads for AT. 1 squad of LCs will do just as good, and is a lot cheaper.


The vanquisher has a better chance of hitting than the medusa, in my opinion.


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## Master_Caleb (Jan 5, 2009)

Sqwerlpunk said:


> Anything AV13 or less - Vendetta Gunships. Exceedingly cheap for their abilities, and will drop anything you target a couple at with alarming ease. I expect these to be everywhere people are trying to be competitive.
> 
> AV14 - Quite simply, I think the Vanquisher out-classes both. Grab Pask + Lascannon hull-mount, and you're dropping anything that isn't shielded (i.e. Wave Serpents/Monoliths) pretty easily. Demo doesn't have AP1, and both it and the Medusa are hella in-accurate, the difficulty in hitting even a vehicle directly with a blast is just ridiculous. If you want vehicle mounted anti-AV14, the Vanquisher with those upgrades is the place to be. You have a S9+2d6 main gun, and a S10 gun firing at BS4 at anything within 72" and 48" respectively. It's going to die, and die hard.


First off that's 220 points right there. Second off I don't know which codex you're looking at but it's a S8+2d6, and a S9. The one vanquisher already extremely expensive, and if you have 60 more points you can take two bunker busters, or just take one with close top, and save yourself 65 points. Now I will give you he ups weapon strength against vehicles, but it's not an overall increase in strength.

Now on accuracy the bunker buster isn't as bad as you make it sound. First off there's a 33% of just rolling a hit, and then there's another 33% chance of rolling a four or less (to be very conservative we're going to say if it scatters more than an inch then it's scattered too far). That means if you keep things simple there's a 2/3 chance, or a 66% chance you'll hit something. It's really not that bad. Given these numbers aren't perfect, but it saves time to keep it simple. Another note is if you miss it will often hit something else. It may just take out some orks, but it's often better then a hit or miss. 

Now to keep things even we'll count a regular vanquisher vs. a closed top medusa. This way points are even, and we aren't leaving out any factors. The vanquisher has a 50% chances of hitting at BS3. 

Now for penetration rolls vs. a LR that's do the numbers. The medusa has a 66% of glancing or better, only needing two on both dice, or better. The vanquisher, with S8 needs two 3's or better, putting it at only 50%

Finally the medusa has a 50% chance of wrecking it on a piercing (I'm going to ignore glancing to keep these numbers simple, and it should be proportionate anyways), and the vanquisher has only a 33% chance. 

That means overall the Medusa adds up at:
average of 4/6 + 4/6 + 3/6 = roughly 22%

That's roughly a 22% chance of destroying a vehicle (it's probably slightly lower, but saying you have 1/5 chance of destroying a LR every shot is pretty good odds).

That means overall the vanquisher adds up at:
average of 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 12.5% chance

If you look at it in the same context you can say for the same points your chances go down to 1/10.

Now given all these numbers are slightly rough, you are looking at about a 50% reduction in firepower/accuracy for the same amount of points, and all you are gaining is two points of AV. Given it makes you considerably more survivable, it comes down to what I was saying before. The Medusa carries firepower, and the vanquisher carries armor. That's simply all there is to it, and it comes down to personal preference. I don't like the argument that the vanquisher is immediately the better choice. It comes down to how you play the game, and what style of play you are going for. Also I know the vanquisher has considerably more potential with upgrades, but I wanted a comparison on even point levels as for no extra claims. If you want to start getting into Pask, and adding lascannons, then there's going to be mass arguments of adding meltas to my veterans, and we run away from crunching the real numbers. Anyways that about closes things up, and at the end of the day it comes down to personal preference. For me I like the bunker buster, but once again that's just me. 

Thanks,

~MC


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

Something else to note,

According to the BRB, ordinance barrage always counts as hitting side armour. Helps when dealing with pesky 13 front but it has some nice 11 side armour.

It's suppose to represent hitting top armour.


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## UncleThomson (May 12, 2009)

Master_Caleb said:


> First off that's 220 points right there. Second off I don't know which codex you're looking at but it's a S8+2d6, and a S9.


He looks at the new codex and Pask gives +1 to Strength for armor penetration, making the Pask manned Vanquisher a killer IMO.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

That is not what Pask does. He gives +1 on damage tables, not strength.

Personally I prefer to have none of the above, and instead spread lascannons around my infantry units and elsewhere. I think a key requirement of AT in a guard army is that the other guy can't easily kill all of it, which they can if it's in once place.

The tanks are generally best used for anti-infantry work thanks to their many blasts. A leman russ with battle cannon, plasma sponsons and lascannon is a pretty serious weapon against all targets be they tanks, MCs, heavy infantry or hordes. Not cheap of course.


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## air (May 11, 2009)

Best anti-tank are lasguns on tanks or carried by armoured fists.

Hunter killer missiles are a cheep advantage for sentinals 3 sentinal, 3 hunter killer missiles.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Devil Dog with Melta Cannon? BS3 with Scatter, but with the average 7" Scatter, you're looking at a 24" Melta Weapon - zoom up, first turn BANG. Potential to get more than one tank as well. And a Str 8 Hit hurts most tanks any way.

It's a Fast Tank Hunter. And it has more flexibility than a Valkyrie. As in Str 8 Blast = Good Bye Marines.


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## Micklez (Nov 22, 2008)

Melta cannon doesnt scatter does it?? Have to agree with you, although it is at risk from other melta class weapons.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

On second thoughts - Bane Wolf is the Best. Fast Vehicle, Multi-melta in the hull, you can move 12", and fire both your Weapons, and hope to catch the guys on the side with the Chem Cannon, because it's defensive, and AP3, wounding on 2's, goodbye Marines, not to mention a Multimelta in the hull. Beast.

But, yes, the Melta Cannon does scatter - it's a Blast Weapon.

Having said that, for range, a Bastion Breacher Medusa has Str 10, 2D6 Pen, although the scatter is whack on it.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Nothing to do with AT, but the banewolf is better than I thought actually. I'd give it a heavy flamer in the hull and let it race around dropping two templates a turn. Stuff would die. It would probably die as well though.

A bane wolf moving 6" and firing turret + multi-melta might be lots of fun.


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## Azure Rathalos (Mar 2, 2009)

I dont play guard, but if I did, i would happly plonk loads of lascannon teams on the board and watch tanks go pop, lol. They arn't as manoverable as a tank, but there's a few more shots for your points.


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## Sqwerlpunk (Mar 1, 2009)

Someguy said:


> That is not what Pask does. He gives +1 on damage tables, not strength.


+1 to any Armor Penetration rolls.

I read that as basically +1 strength against vehicles, not as in AP1 basically. It could be argued both ways however.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Sqwerlpunk said:


> +1 to any Armor Penetration rolls.
> 
> I read that as basically +1 strength against vehicles, not as in AP1 basically. It could be argued both ways however.


My bad, I read it wrong. He does get +1 to penetration rolls, not damage rolls.

That's actually very interesting. Based on that, he might make sense in something like an exterminator rather than a vanquisher, or maybe just a normal battlecannon version. With a lascannon to break armour 14 and maybe heavy bolter sponsons to massacre light vehicles, he would be a strong all-rounder without being ridiculously expensive or inflexible. Still pretty damn expensive though. He doesn't make much difference in the vanquisher, which penetrates armour for fun already.

More generally, there's a big question between lascannons and melta weapons, to see which is the best form of AT.

In a guard army it's pretty easy to get a whole lot of lascannons and set them firing. Doing this can pretty much guarantee you a lot of dead enemy vehicles. They start firing straight away, unless they have to move onto the board in DoW.

On the other hand, melta weapons are individually much more effective at close range and you can get a bunch of them in one unit. As such, melta units give you a better way to nail a single problem tank, like a land raider or battlewagon full of CC nasties.

Either way it's a gamble. Sometimes your lascannons will just fail to stop the LR. Sometimes your veteran squad will not arrive on time or in the right place, for whatever reason. However, I think that either of these options is better than any of the available AT vehicles. Tanks miss, get stunned or shaken, and their hits bounce off. Most of the time they are only firing one or two shots that can seriously threaten tanks, while infantry options would be firing many more.


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## Lord_Murdock (Jul 16, 2008)

How about a couple lascannon support squads and the "bring it down" order? I took out a Necron Pylon like that the other day. Fun stuff.


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## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

As a DE player the cheaper the unit the better and as I play them armour means nothing to a lance weapon unless your a monlith so I'd go for a medusa or two.


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## Sqwerlpunk (Mar 1, 2009)

Like I've said, the Medusa is far too in-accurate for my tastes, particularly if it's where it should be (behind terrain, and safe). My personal favorite anti-tank in the entire codex would probably be melta-vets in a vendetta. Cheap for the extreme pain they can dish out.


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## Master_Caleb (Jan 5, 2009)

Sqwerlpunk said:


> Like I've said, the Medusa is far too in-accurate for my tastes, particularly if it's where it should be (behind terrain, and safe). My personal favorite anti-tank in the entire codex would probably be melta-vets in a vendetta. Cheap for the extreme pain they can dish out.


Once again if the medusa has LoS (which is has to because its not barrage), then it has better accuracy then BS4... not very inaccurate. Not to mention each shot has a 20% of destroying a LR. If you want you can put half of it in cover behind something, and get a cover save. Melta-vets are very good, but I think calling the medusa inaccurate is nothing more than a common misconception. 

Thanks,

~MC


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## Veggie4pizza (May 10, 2009)

air said:


> Best anti-tank are lasguns on tanks or carried by armoured fists.
> 
> Hunter killer missiles are a cheep advantage for sentinals 3 sentinal, 3 hunter killer missiles.


Am i imagining things here or did you just say LASGUNS on tanks?? Hunter-killer missiles aren't too great imo with strength 8 it can only glance on a six which is poor.


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