So my TK buddy is wanting me to ask what do we have in our book to deal with the Steam Tank as we have a guy who runs two in our local scene. My first thought is a king rocking Destroyer of Eternitys but this is very slow IMO. So how do you all deal with these behemoths

Purple Sun. Failing that, Necrosphinx.

The thing with the Steam Tank is that you need to either deal it 3-4 wounds before it gets into combat (severely limiting it's steam point generation) or hit it by something like a Necrosphinx (But even then you need to get a bit lucky, and no I don't mean triggering HKB, that's so rare you might as well discard the possibility).

Our best way to deal with them at range is lucky shots with the SSC or Casket, or Sepulchral Stalkers who wound it on 6's (due to the commanders errata'd profile) and allowing it no armor save (Which is the main issue when targeting it with bow fire for instance), the problem with them all is unreliability (SSC's basically need a hit, and then you just wound it on 5+ unless you've cast desication on it), it has LD10 so he needs to roll really high for the casket to do anything and stalkers only first have a chance to come up at your second turn, at which point it might already be in combat if he started and you didn't back away from it.

In short, it's a real bitch to deal with, I'd probably just pack my stuff and go home against someone who used two...

Sepulchral Stalkers, Casket of Souls, Sphinxes of both variants are able to tie down a tank for some time although the Necrosphinx is better with its S10 attack. Catapults can also wound on a 5+.

Spell wise, Incantation of Vengeance and hope he fails it XD (The tank is classed as a chariot, so each failed Dangerous Terrain test hurts it BADLY)

Once you put a few wounds on the tank, it becomes pretty much useless for the rest of the game as it cannot generate steam points reliably.

2 steam tanks is never fun to play against. Ask your opponent to try a list that's a little more friendly. Honestly, I would bring it up before the day of the game.
Barring that, Purple Sun or double SSC's are our best answers.

Somehow, I don't get the feeling that the guy who plays 2 Steam Tanks in his list is going to acquiesce to the requests of "pretty please, don't play that". I know I wouldn't.

Either way, I'd actually rank the SSC behind the Necrosphinx in its ability to deal with the thing. As was mentioned above, Sepulchral Stalkers are also a fairly good idea, and they also have the benefit of being able to mess with his other war machines once you're done with the Tank.

Stalkers and mass bow fire.

As our sphinxes are keenly aware, sixes (and ones) come up waaaay too often. :)

The Nekrosphinx screams good idea to me (besides it being killed by cannons) as its HKB attack auto hits

Stanks have 1+ armour save, so all in all, you have 1/108 chance per shot to score an unsaved wound with an archer. It can work, but it certainly won't work every game.

Stalkers are a better bet since they skip the armour save. A Necrosphinx with the cursed blades incantation cast on it will have a 1/3 chance to one-off it per CC phase.

you autohit a tank?

Yup, the Stank's rules say that all close combat hits against it hit automatically, you only need to roll to wound.

Hey guys this is my first post on this site so bare with me ;)

Steam tanks have I1 meaning Stalkers will turn that beast into a mound of sand.

Basically all you need to worry about is killing them yourself due to misfires. As a fellow tank man (I own 4 myself) I can safely say to take a tank out the game you only need to do 5-6 wounds to it. But if you want the VP against this guy who has two tanks take 2 units of 3 Stalkers EBTS and pop up behind (adds to story and fluff lol). Or deploy with your army tis up to you.
Rules dictate you need to have Line of Sight to engage in combat. So the tank isn't allowed to simply reverse into you like old rules says it can (6th edition old rules anyway) so you have 2 turns of shooting at it. 6 rolls on the Artillery dice with needing 4's to wound no saves allowed... I'll be very surprised if its not dead.

Hope that's okay for a first post

Just a minor correction... The tank has no Initiative value, however the Engineer Commander has an I of 3, and both are counted as a single model. So you roll against the I of the Engineer instead.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_Custom..._EmpireV1_2.pdf

This can debated,

Because yes your right, it is one model

However on the other side in the empire rule book the steam tank passes all characteristics test except Initiative which automatically fails. When I asked both GW store managers in bath and Bristol (my locals stores) they say that it rolls on the tank itself? (by that I mean both said its just counted as I1 for the Spectrual Stalkers)

This is one of the many reasons why I tend not to use steam tanks anymore because there is lots of confusion still about the tank. Even the errata you just posted is confusing.
- it tells you to ignore the paragraph about it being immune to magic, yet when I person asked if it can be affected by the pit of shades the answer is no.
But I digress this isn't about the tanks it's about how to destroy them with TK ;)

I dont see any reason why Pit of Shades wouldnt just wipe it out? Thier FAQ says to ignore their paragraph about being immune to magical effects and their book says that the Stank fails all I tests. Pretty straight forward.

One the topic of Stalkers, you need to roll 6s to wound, as the Engineer has I3. Much like we would need a 1-3 to pass a Cracks Call on a Warsphinx (Necro is still screwed).

I would use my bow shots at something else lol

Or you can always try to ding it down with the Casket against his Ld10

Army Books always trump rulebook.
Purple Sun one hit kills it.
Failing that use the Casket. I've never really understood what all the fuss about these things is-they die so easily to Tomb Kings.

The Stalker attack is not a characteristic test.

Pit of Shades / Purple Sun is an Initiative characteristic test - which the tank auto fails - which auto kills it.

Stalker gaze is just substituting the Initiative for the Toughness value.

That is the "old" empire FAQ. The latest one doesn't have that clause anymore now, if I remember correctly.


Hope that helps mate :)

Yea, stanks are easy. Stalkers, casket, and purple sun. Now, I don't use two of those three, but the one I do use will kill the poop out of it. That hard.

[QUOTE=rothgar13,Jan 11 2012, 12:07 AM]Somehow, I don't get the feeling that the guy who plays 2 Steam Tanks in his list is going to acquiesce to the requests of "pretty please, don't play that". I know I wouldn't.


Well, if they continue to play like that, just don't play them. Some players do change up if their lists if others tell them what they take isn't fun to play against. Some enjoy bringing the toughest list they can make and that's fine, it's just that not everyone plays WH that way.

That is true, but if the guy is fielding 2 Steam Tanks and he's been gaming for any length of time (and given that he already has a reputation as "the guy that plays with 2 Steam Tanks", it seems like he has), chances are he's playing to win.

And just not playing him because his list is tough sounds like the chicken's way out to me (and frankly flabbergasting considering the context of this being a wargame), especially when the OP has already come here asking for tactical advice. I say gear up and take the fight to him. At the very least you'll give him a good tough game.

DAMAGE:

- spirit leach - because its easy to have on your lvl1 mages. stronger version can be casted on 24" so its a safe distance. liche in a unit with tomb king Ld10

- casket of souls - u can even throw him a doom and darkness spell. on average 4 wounds with D&D

- SSC ( if it is a must but i would rather kill cannons first)

- bone giant with great weapon, but first a spell -D3 Toughness and Strength. he slices that shiny can like butter

- Necrosphinx - HKB what more to say

- purple sun - obvious

- tomb king with Destroyer of Eternities - with glorious charge item (costs 2.5 slaves) and a necrotect inside a unit. thats 5A with rroll to hit in first round when charges, and u only need 6s to wound = pa pa steamy!

- killing blow spell cast on Necrosphinx and tomb king with DoE

- lots of bow firepower towards tank (if u got nothing juicier to shoot at).

- vengeance incantation - stenk fails dangerous tests on 1 and 2 and suffers D6 wounds being a chariot. + it reduces its movement by -D3 per steam point (the tank will have 2"/1"/0" per steam point)


SACRIFICING TRICKS:

- charge with a unit of 5 (or even 1) heavy horsemen (can also be carrion, but horseman are cheaper) = the steam tank will be trapped because it can only hit in his own CC phase. in his round of cc he will grind you to death, but it cant overrun. great success!

- put a unit of horseman or carrion 1" in front of him so the tank must charge u. it cant overrun so it only moves 1"

Good summary, teclis.

Thunderstomp doesn't work, though (only infantry, warbeasts and swarms are affected)

it says "the model underneath the template hole instead suffers a S9 hit D3 wounds. All models under template (not infantry, war beast, swarms) are otherwise unaffected because they are too big."

template hole is not a template. thats my thought.

btw, u must have meant 'thundercrush' not 'thunderstomp'


my thoughts on 'playin against 2 steam tanks'. first try to kill or cripple one, and on the other one u try sacrificing tactics. when u cripple the first one, cripple the second one, and destroy the remains of his force (it should be easy if u dispel the important stuff - throne of vines, dwellers, etc).

if ure using HKB models then just kill one, and the other u try to cripple/delay

So I watched the game unfold last night and though he brought down both stanks the cannons and mortars were a bit to much.

He ran a Nekro and DOE and killed both stanks in the first round of combat

And there you have it. Hooray for Heroic Killing Blow! :lol:

I think that our killing blow spell shoul've given them Heroic Killing Blow as well. I'd love to see an archer unit killing a Bloodthirster.

this fuсkin guy :huh: :D

Yeah, my bad, I meant Thundercrush.

But your reading is of the Thundercrush rules is peculiar. They state, word for word:

The sentence on S9 is encapsulated by statements on model type, and it's clear that "The model under the template's central hole instead suffers a single Strength 9 hit" refers to the sentence before. The word "instead" doesn't cancel the mention of troop types, it refers to "single Strength 3 hit".

I would expect trouble if you used your reading of the rules in a game.

This is very correct.

I had a guy at my local store with his kitty trying to thunder crush my Kitty. (Tk civil war)

Even asked the store manager and he said pretty much the exact same thing as OldWitheredCorpse.

Yeah, you can't T-crush anything that's not infantry/war beasts/swarm.

FWIW, I agree that you cannot interpret the Crush to allow the S9 hit to work on a tank. The whole is as much a part of the template as the lines on the top, the edge, and the rest of it. Plus, there's the grammar part of the argument others mention.

It's small stuff only.


@Secundum-
Keep in mind that if those archers are trying to kill something with shooting, the KB spell won't matter anyway. KB does not apply to their shots.

@teclis -
Your DoE tricks are better than you think. You don't roll to hit the tank, so you don't need re-rolls.

Yep: DoE king chances to cleave the steam tank:
no magic: 51%
smiting: 60%
cursed blades: 80%

Any chance of a % with Smiting and Cursed blades?
I'm really poor with maths

However 80% is a healthly percentage ;)

Smiting and Cursed Blades combined would be:

1-(4/6)^5 = 86.8%

Legend!
Thanks very much

Necrosphinx should do the job quite well. It moves fast enough to catch the stank, the S10 hit puts a wound on it half the time, and has a 1/6 chance of killing it outright. The T8 means that it isnt too bothered by grind attacks. And it is a ubiquitous unit that should already appear in a good number of lists.

According to the people at my local gaming club/place you do need to roll to hit against the Steam Tank due to the Errata that gives the engineer a WS value >>

That's plainly incorrect - it doesn't matter if the Engineer has a WS value, they haven't errata'd the close combat paragraph out.

one more rule helper - bane stone (+1 to wound on models 6" of a banestone). if bane stone is present be clever how you set up troops ;)

Good suggestions above, one more - Vengeance.

Dangerous terrain failures do d6 wounds to chariot-types. Point that out when casting it.

Then, even though it's only a 1 in 6 chance of actually working, many people will sit rather than rolling the dice. Especially if it's got some shooting to do while parked. If you can keep the tank parked, you've neutralized it, as its grindy-ness is better than its shooty-ness.

The usual disclaimers about unreliable magic apply, and someone who's not psyched out easily will ignore you. But it could be worth a shot.