Warhammer 40k -II- Tactics for the Tactics God

[Erloas]

Odds are, if someone's going to shoot something at either the wave serpent or the wraithlord, it won't be some pidly S6 weapon. It'll be something that will hurt it, or have a chance to, anyway (like a lascannon). The wraithlord can survive three of those shots (more, with luck, and a little cover). The transport could die with the first shot (or never). In my experience, if a person sees a glass cannon with a lance on it, they gun it, especially if you lack other vehicle targets.

Well actually most of my tank hunting so far is with s6 weapons, and right now its working pretty well because I have the speed and manuverability to do it. But its a given that for most armies it will be str8-10 hits going for them. Which was my point, because in all cases against the wave serpent (since they are coming from at least mostly stationary targets the chance of getting shot in the back is minimal) str8-10 needs a 4 to glance and a 5/6 to pen, where as with the wraithlord thats a 4/3/2 to wound, and I'm not sure of a single str8-10 weapon that wouldn't negate his save. In terms of cover, being a vehicle or monsterous creature, they are both just as likely to have or not have cover.

As for the target selection, yeh, it might be more of an issue if I was only running 1-2 vehicles, but so far when I took it I had 1 other wave serpent, 2 war walkers and 2 vypers. And I can't see a whole lot of lists I might make where I don't take at least 1 war walker and vyper, since they are useful and relatively cheap.


As for the storm guardians compared to the normal guardians, I'm thinking about running some of them, I just don't have any yet. Although I'm not sure the guardians are gaining much, even being up close.
With the HWG you get 18 shots at BS3 str4 AP5 and 3 more at Str6 AP5 (assuming the up close and personal use with shuriken cannon I'm trying), and 20 WS3 S3 attacks on the charge. With the storm guardians you get 8 BS3 Str4 AP5 shots, 2 flamers or fusion gun, and then 28 WS3 S3 attacks on the charge. Either way, the shuriken weapons are much more dangerous in shooting then either unit in CC. The fusion gun ends up either being shot at something not worth it, or against a vehicle where all of the shuriken pistols are useless and they can't hit in CC, in which case you aren't gaining a whole lot VS a HWG crew sitting back with a EML (same price) or brightlance (5pts more), you get another shot and melta makes it more dangerous, but the unit is a lot more vulnerable. The flamers are where the variables really come in, they are by far the most dangerous guardians of either sort can be against hordes. The storm guardians are better off (not by a lot, but some) if they get charged.
Since the fusion gun option is better left in the hands of fire dragons, it really comes down to giving them flamers and throwing them in the middle of everything and see what they can do to infantry. With the same save and stats, I'm not sure if one is noticably more effective at that then the other unless there is a decent amount of cover for the flamers to negate (because the cannon would get 1-2 rounds of shooting before closing range). I'll probably give that a try, probably with both HW-Guardisns and Storm Guardians at the same time, when I get around to getting and fielding an Avatar. Not expecting to do that soon, but maybe since I worked 7 hrs of overtime yesterday.

Edit: Fusion not plasma... I knew it was one of those high str melta weapons