Hey guys, I'm need some serious assistance here. I've been having a blast with the new percentange rules for 8th edition army comp. You can just barely fit 2 naked slann with focused rumination in at the 2250 level, which is what most tourneys are set at. My (simplified) army list is as follows... -2 x slann, Focused Rumination, lore of life (other lore is variable, mostly shadow or light. I know you're supposed to choose your lore pre-game in 8th, but my gamestore waives that req) -Skink Priest on Ancient Steg w/Cube of Darkness -Skink Chief, xtra hand weapon, light armor, BSB, skavenpelt banner -27 skinks, 3 krox, standar bearer (BSB goes here) -24 skinks 3 krox, standard bearer -16 Temple Guard, Guardian w/Blood Statuette, standard bearer -16 Temple Guard, Guardian, Standard Bearer Its been a great list so far, I'm loving most all of it. You wouldn't think skinks (even frenzied ones) would do that great in combat, but I'm here to tell you, when they are toughness 6 skinks with 3 attacks that ASF (flesh to stone + Birona's timewarp ^_^), they can hold their own, even without krox backup. As well, your slann make those 2d6 power dice last a loooooong time. Anywho! to the root of my problem. I was absolutely wrecked last night by an empire gentleman who loaded down on knights to satisfy core reqs, took a couple high lvl wizards for leaders, then dumped everything else into cannons/mortars and a steam tank. This irrtates me. How are steamtanks fair? I'm aware I'm a little irritated over loosing without killing a SINGLE enemy model, but they seem a bit ridiculous. Are they really only 300ish points? And now they're T10 due to the errata, where everything else in the game stops at T6 (well except new 8th ed super mnosters). I managed a few wounds off of it with poisoned skink javs, but short of taking the lore of metal and dumping max dice into Searing doom, I can't think of much to deal with them. I really don't want to have to construct a list solely to take out this empire steamtank artilleryfest, as I think thats kinda in bad sportsmanship... so...HELP! You guys have never let me down before, so thanks in advance!
PS - I think it was mostly the 20+ inch charge and the milliond3 impact hits into my temple guard first turn (not even taking into account what 3 mortars and cannons did to my skinks and steg) that really skewed it for me...
Whaaaa... Why in the heck is the steam tank now Toughness 10? I thought they were making it a point to amend the rules just enough to make them playable by the 8th edition changes, but sure enough, there it is in the FAQ. Not to mention the tank is still inexplicably immune to Pit of Shades...
I think skinks are just the thing to send against the new steam tank. Since only strength 9 or 10 have an improved chance to wound, you might as well send the cheapest stuff after it and wait for it to fail armor saves. Metal does indeed seem to be a sure-fire way to deal with it though. Top spell in the Lore of death and Lore of life have a chance to one-hit the thing, and the amber spear could also put some wounds on it.
So for the price of a steam tank you can field about 60 regular skinks. It may look like he is winning while he plows through your poor skinks, but I think generally the skinks will win in the end. Steam tanks have always been, and will remain, a problem.
Dont even try to kill it, it's impossible. Try to get some 2-4 wounds throught its armour, then it isnt that dangerous anymore
Ah, ok, upon reading up on the ol' steam tank in the empire army book, I have found several points... 1. Steam tanks are immune to any spell without a strenght value, ie pit of shades, purple sun, and dwellers below. Also are the several spells from shadow that could be used to drop its str, toughness and such. Oh, and just as an added below the belt hit, the lore of metal in 8th edition is useless as it no longer causes a hit with a strenght, it just wounds on an opponent's armor save... 2. It *will* be technically useless if you drop it to 5(ish) wounds, but again 8th ed changes kinda trap us here, as you don't get VP for anything that isn't completely destroyed. So while you may leave it just sitting in the middle of the field not doing much of anything, the points of troops you're going to have to throw at it to do those wounds are troops NOT used for attacking the rest of the empire army, which *will* be shooting you, alot, constantly. 3. The amber spear may be helpful, but for a few things. A) the lore isn't terrific against the empire as a whole and in 8th you have to prepick your lore, B) you still only wound on a 4+ hoping for more than 1 wound and C) the empire is one of the most magically defensive races ever in 8th, making any magic a dicey (ha! pun) proposition. Skinks with javelins were the only thing I had taking wounds off it, but even then I only got 2 down. +1 armor is hard to poison. Any other thoughts?
Isn't there a way to boost an Oldblood to St8 or St9 (potion of Strenght or whatnot)? IIRC all CC attacks hit automatically so an Oldblood on a CO with a +3 attacks sword and St8-9 could drop a few wounds, no? Still, not very efficient, I know, but... I must say I'm getting back into WFB after a 5-years hiatus and my best friend is starting Empire so I'm pretty interested in how to fight them! Phil
That is a moot point. 8th Edition isn't 'guilty' for that: the Steam tank is a War Machine and you don't get VP for a half-destroyed WM. Not even in 7th! Then again, T10 is nasty. I don't quite know how that thing works in close combat, but IIRC (probably not!) he can only fight in HIS round. So you can try to pin him down with (relatively cheap) skrox. I'd also say avoid. To try and kill it is just pure madness. Bring it down somewhat and then let it sit somewhere, preferably in the hot sun; as the crew might bail then. Nobody likes being in a hot car..eerr...tank! The Hunted
Wait what about the Enchanted Blades of Aiban (lore of Metal). If you cast it on your skinks, they get a +1 bonus to hit and its armor piercing + transmution of lead = lots of poisoned hits and not many armor saves. (But does the +1 to hit work with poison?)
The weird thing is, in the new big rule book it still lists it as T6... Wonder if that's a typo in the FAQ.
Oh, unfortunately its not a typo. Pretty much all of the huge centerpiece models for various armies are toughness 10, such as the steam tank, the cauldron of blood and the dwarf rune anvil. The difference between a cauldron or anvil and the steam tank, is of course the difference of 5 wounds... The anvil admittedly has some damange potential, but the cauldron is just crewed by a few witch elves. and also NOT TEN WOUNDS. Heh, vented.
Well, the Cauldron, the Anvil, and the Casket all used to be indestructible with no wound or toughness profile of their own, and they're all war machines with a crew that you can still wound on their own toughness in CC. The change is in keeping with the idea that the FAQ's are not there to balance the game, just make it playable under 8th rules. The tank is a chariot, and it already had it's own T and W. I'm still holding out some faint hope of a typo, as there are a ton of these things running around at my game store and the Empire players are all jumping up and down with glee.
The difference is, back in 7th ed, the anvil and cauldron were indestructible, and 2/3's of your shooting hits would be wasted... but now you have to wound a toughness 10 when shooting, which is arguably much harder. But like Caneghem said a few posts ago, once you get into CC, you're hitting squishy witch elves, NOT T10 super chariot. Even dwarves aren't that sturdy in hand to hand.
This is my first post, and I couldn't resist; You're seriously going to complain about one steam tank when you're taking two slanns? If you're that worried about it, take Lore of Metal - I've heard that they're deleting that "No spells without a strength vaule" line from it's rules in the errata.
from the looks of the updated FAQ the steam tank lost all magic immunities. so yeah, metal is going to rip that thing apart.
Ahhh... much better now with the updated FAQ. T10 is fine, as long as it loses that darn spell immunity. Hm, push it back into terrain with the wind spell, perhaps?
lol "Oh, Sigmar... HANS! TURN ON THE REVERSING LIGHTS AND TELL THE SWORDSMEN TO GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!"
My two slann are not but toughness 4, their major powers can be dispelled (ever try dispelling a str10 d6 wound cannonball? tell me how that works out), and while they are in a unit of temple guard who are stubby on ld 8 coldblooded, they are not several things... -Toughness 10 -Unbreakable -Immune to many types of magic -able to ignore obstacles - Equipped with both a steam flamethrower and a str 10 cannon - Wait I was going to keep complaining here, but I just read the new FAQ and realized that steam tanks are affected by like every magic ever now... I wish to retract pretty much all of my previous bitches and replace them with semi-manical chuckling...