Theoryhammer: How would you kill this?

[YorkNecromancer]

So, I've been reading HH vol3 a little more, and one of the units available to the Mechanicum is the Thanatar:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Images/Product/DefaultFW/xlarge/thanatar1.jpg

It's been out for a while, and yes, beautiful.

HOWEVER: I didn't discover this until I got the book - these things can come in squads of 5. 5!

Stop and think about that. For those of you unfamiliar with their statline, allow me to elucidate:
MC, Toughness 8, 4 wounds, 2+ save.
They have a str6, AP3 twin-linked Mauler Bolt Cannon, and a Str 8 AP2 Ordnance Barrage which forces successful cover save re-rolls.

Imagine five of these in a single squad.

Now, their only disadvantage (aside from the fact that squad's just over 1000 points and costs more than Brazil's GDP) is that they have Programmed Behaviour, which means unless there's a Magos or someone with a Cortex Controller (like, say, Peturabo or Ferrus Manus) nearby, they behave like slightly more effective Tyranids (if there's a unit in 12" they have to shoot it, if it survives, they then have to charge it, otherwise they behave normally).

But that's it.

Obviously in a real battle, they're slow and that kind of unit - while terrifying - is never going to win a battle, because it can't hold objectives. So my question is this: you're up against this squad of nigh-invincible monsters. It's like dealing with a Wraithknight only five times worse.

How would you try to kill it? (And before we go for the obvious, Poison doesn't work against Cybernetica).

[DrLove42]

Lack of invuln is gonna be the weakness, same as Wraithlords
Im not as well versed with the legion army lists, but massed plasma seems a good place to start. Or some of the more unusual abilities that force tests or wounds on Ld or Init. Something like pyschic shriek if your a legioncthat allows pyskers

[Archon Charybdis]

Are we talking outside the context of a HH game? If so, I'd decline to play it with my Dark Eldar, and be willing to give it a good-natured shot with my Eldar list and hope that Bladestorm and Wraithcannons are enough to do the job. In my experience, the Legion lists I've played against really haven't seemed that out of whack compared to normal 40K, but the Mechanicum stuff is consistently bonkers hard to deal with.

[Charon]

If I really really had to play agains this in a standard 40k game (heresy is not balanced for 40k - not even remotely) I would probably fight fire with fire. An Adamantine Lance is faster, can ID them with their D weapon, have more Attacks, better I, better WS and is nearly immune to their shooting while costing a bit less.
Going hard on Fliers could also be an option.

[YorkNecromancer]

Either in HH or out; whichever you like. :)

As for massed plasma, that's much easier to pull of in HH. Legion tactical support squads are basically marine tactical squads but where envy one has the same special weapon, so you can have squads of ten marines with a plasma gun each. They don't have grav guns, which would be the obvious solution - graviton guns work differently in HH. 'Modern' grav guns are called 'graviton implodes' and are for Mechanicum HQ only.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Step 1, cast Misfortune on them,
Step 2, "FIRST RANK, FIRE! SECOND RANK, FIRE!"

Repeat until you clear this filth from the Emperor's sight.

[Archon Charybdis]

Also, what's their Ld like and are they Fearless? Mind War or some of the Dark Eldar wargear options that attack Ld might be an option.

[Tyrendian]

Step 1, cast Misfortune on them,
Step 2, "FIRST RANK, FIRE! SECOND RANK, FIRE!"

Repeat until you clear this filth from the Emperor's sight.

uh... yeah... right... against T8... that's gonna take you a while :) also, they are Imperial (usually), so throwing Emperor-related curses at them isn't going to do much good...
Necrons will really struggle with these, except for Doom Scythes and Night Shrouds, and even those will not kill more than one a turn...

[Mr Mystery]

It does have an Inv save - Atomantic Shielding to be precise!

And you can upgrade the unit to have Paragon of Metal, which removes the downside of Programed Behaviour, gaining It Will Not Die and Rampage. Also makes them a Scoring unit (hurr. Score.).....

[Shadow Raven]

Close combat it with Lukas the trickster...okay it's only 50/50....BUT, that's how I took out fulgrim

[Denzark]

Charge it with a 50 man fearless conscript squad and watch 1000 points be stuck for 5 turns, whilst the rest of the army takes all the objectives.

[CoffeeGrunt]

uh... yeah... right... against T8... that's gonna take you a while :) also, they are Imperial (usually), so throwing Emperor-related curses at them isn't going to do much good...
Necrons will really struggle with these, except for Doom Scythes and Night Shrouds, and even those will not kill more than one a turn...

Great rebuttal, well-researched.

Go read the rules for Misfortune, then read the rules for Rending.

[Charon]

Charge it with a 50 man fearless conscript squad and watch 1000 points be stuck for 5 turns, whilst the rest of the army takes all the objectives.

Conscripts won't survive the 5x 5" Barrage bombardement which can also snipe out the priest.

[YorkNecromancer]

Also, what's their Ld like and are they Fearless? Mind War or some of the Dark Eldar wargear options that attack Ld might be an option.

They have Fearless and are essentially immune to psychology on account of being, you know, robots. Their Magos leader isn't, though...


Great rebuttal, well-researched.

Go read the rules for Misfortune, then read the rules for Rending.

Ummmm... I did. Rending gets you round the armour, but it doesn't raise strength, does it? Because at T8, Thanatars are completely immune to lasgun fire; like, it's not 'roll a 6 to wound' it's 'literally you cannot wound this thing on any dice roll'.

They're immune to Bolter fire too. Basically you need a str of 5 MINIMUM to get a roll of 6+ to wound. Plasma only wounds them on a 5+!

[Charistoph]

Ummmm... I did. Rending gets you round the armour, but it doesn't raise strength, does it? Because at T8, Thanatars are completely immune to lasgun fire; like, it's not 'roll a 6 to wound' it's 'literally you cannot wound this thing on any dice roll'.

They're immune to Bolter fire too. Basically you need a str of 5 MINIMUM to get a roll of 6+ to wound. Plasma only wounds them on a 5+!

Rending Auto-Wounds on a To-Wound of 6 at the same time it goes AP: 2.

[YorkNecromancer]

Ah... Then assuming you get in range and survive the cover re-rolling plasma barrage, it's pretty workable. Though I'm not sure you'd kill more than two before being wiped out...

[dimdum]

Right so in my experience the best way to deal with these is close combat. They have a measly 2 attacks, and even with 5 of them isn't that scary to a horde unit or a unit with good invuln. Not only that but their 5++ goes down to a 6++ in combat which is a nice bonus. Don't expect to kill them all, they're tough as nails, but stopping 1000 points of shooting is huge against mechanicum. However if you happen to have force weapons or anything with instant death, ignore that and go wild, mechanicum hate instant death. Do beware though, if the mechanicum player has a magos with cyberthergy (not sure if thats the correct spelling) they can cause them to self destruct resulting in a S8 ap2 large blast to appear where one of the thanatars used to be, so make sure to tie him up as well, if you can. If you have av14, use it and abuse it, thanatars have to get close to hurt you and close isn't where they wanna be.

If you must rely on firepower, against mechanicum you've got to look away from the 'lots and lots of average power shots is best' and look at your quality fire power (unless they run a horde list). This means putting away stuff like wave serpants with scatter lasers and pulling out...well whatever eldar (and other armies) have that is ap3/2, you dont see it too much. Having to change your ways after realising S7 spam doesn't work any more can be frustrating, but replacing the odd wave serpant with a fire prism here and a hornet there has really livened up my games, and if you have a mechanicum player in your midst, well variation in types of firepower is something you're gonna have to embrace.

Characteristic tests are good if you concentrate on initiative and leadership, as these are generally low (is my monolith finally useful? No no it isnt).

[Aventine]

It does have an Inv save - Atomantic Shielding to be precise!

And you can upgrade the unit to have Paragon of Metal, which removes the downside of Programed Behaviour, gaining It Will Not Die and Rampage. Also makes them a Scoring unit (hurr. Score.).....

At least that only works on a single unit of a single model.

In Heresy games I'd say ten-man lascannon support squad is a decent bet, though the Thanatar could wreck the unit in return...

[Wolfshade]

This is it, you don't need to kill it, you can just tar pit it.

[Krargan]

A few ideas from 30k off hand. Mass sniper fire. Legion veteran squads with sniper and infiltrate (ravenguard or alpha legion), Recon squads, infiltrated squad of 10 Iron Warriors terminators (yes, each one has a cyclone missile launcher, infiltrate: See alpha legion troll tactics), A land raider? Or two? Maybe a spartan filled with terminators, like red butchers? or Fire Drakes. They really don't have anything particularly scary to a land raider. Or a thunderhawk gunship.

[Mr Mystery]

Trouble is, there's still the rest of the Mechanicum force knocking about :p

Man, need to get on with my Mechanicum force. Such nice rules! Such nice models!

[ShadowcatX]

A pair of wraith knights.

[sfshilo]

The assassin's formation could probably kill it?

Looking at it closer a culexus could kill them by itself....maybe a vindicare turbo penetrator round as well....

[Arkhan Land]

I feel like 1000 points is more than a good budget to either cripple or at least tar-pit this unit with something as costly

so i guess to clarify, I wouldn't, but given their limitations It might be possibly to hold them off with less than 1k which can shift the remainder of the battle

[sparti67]

I have two of these and they are beasts. There is no true D.O.A. method to stop them. If you are playing against a Mechanicum Army their downside is no psychic powers (they have their own list called cyberthergy sp?), once you get away from tech-thralls they become very expensive troop choices, and somewhat limited fast attack choices. However you can take beast-like jump troops with melts-guns and give them skyfire as an option (they become a heavy support choice but jump troops with sky fire is pretty cool). The other thing that slows Mechanicum down would be their tactics as mentioned. They are robots, they have limited thought processes, kill, destroy, repeat. You need leadership and that can get pricey.

[interrogator_chaplain]

Well, the Paragon of Metal only really comes into play when there's a single Thanatar. If there's more than one, the option cannot be selected. Which means no "IWND" and no Rampage. They also become subject to Programmed Behaviour which means:
- No Running or Sweeping Advance.
- Must fire at any enemy within 12".
- Must charge any enemy within 12". (But may only charge at the unit it shot at in the shooting phase.) And must consolidate to the closest enemy within 12".
- May fire up to 3 weapons in the shooting phase against the same target.
These restrictions are only lifted if there's a Magos or someone with a Cortex Controller nearby to babysit them.
But they do become scoring again, which Paragons are not.

So, if you're taking 5 Thanatar with the Enhanced Targetting Arrays that re-roll successful covers', then you're looking at 1275 points. For 5 models. So these are 1275 points worth of "I do not want to get near you for any reason." and they would also rather that you stay 12" from them, as the Plasma Mortar is range 12"-24" (If they moved.) or 12"-48" (If stationary.) So you've got one foot of breathing room from their sun spitters, but in kill range of the Bolt Cannons (Heavy 3, S6 AP3). Survive that and you can drop in and tarpit (But you'll need to be S5 or you'll do nothing to T8.) or hit them with Thunder Hammers or Power Fists. (But beware they're S8 too, and at I2, they'll strike before you. So T4's will get insta-gibbed.)

But again, if you take 5, you're quite mad, as all it leaves you with is around 500-725 points left to play with, and that's not a whole lot. Your Magos, some Adsecularis and maybe some Thallax or a couple Castellax. And if capturing objectives is the name of the game, you spacing out your army is going to give you a lot more room to maneuver to objectives that the Mechanicum.

I've got a Thanatar myself (Primed at the moment, not completed, ohh so looking forward to augmenting my Dark Angels with this thing!) and I doubt it would stand tall against the intense attentions of my usual opponents (Tyranids and Tau.) but it would make a decent account of itself.

(But so help you if the Magos gains the "The Death of Flesh" Warlord Trait, then all units in the detatchment have Preferred Enemy (Infantry - all types) because that's gonna be a killer.)

So 5 Thanatars would be a stupid-expensive deathstar. But hey, they don't have a 2++ re-rollable! So there's that!

[Maelstorm]

If within 24"-35" (average rolls), a trio of IA12 Necron Focused Death Ray Sentry Pylons (160 pts each) should put most of a unit of 5 down in a single round. Each one fires a strength 10 AP 1 ray 24" + 3d6". Every model under the line is hit twice by the Death Ray. Double the number of hits from the same number of Doom Scythes (175 points each).

For less than the price of 5 walkers you can get 6 Sentry Pylons = 12x strength 10 AP1 hits for each model under the lines...

[Mr Mystery]

Thanatar have you outranged, and still have their pesky 5+ invul....

[CoffeeGrunt]

Rending Auto-Wounds on a To-Wound of 6 at the same time it goes AP: 2.

Thank you. Does no-one else check the rulebook before replying to a rules question?


Ah... Then assuming you get in range and survive the cover re-rolling plasma barrage, it's pretty workable. Though I'm not sure you'd kill more than two before being wiped out...

Do they need to? Barrage won't leave much cover anyway, and Conscripts see this being not much scarier than a Griffon Mortar...

[TheDeathJester]

Fire Dragons.

[Wildcard]

Nemesis Dreadknigts withsword, teleporter and h. psycannon. couple or few of those with their force weapons activated.. 10-15 attacks on charge that have 2-3 re-rolls to hit and hit on 3+. then they wound on 2+. They also strike at I4 normally (+ have hammer of wrath attacks - tho these are more or less irrelevant.)
all this for roughly half the points.

someone who can can do the math if they are interested...

edit: also, before the 3 of those charge, they will shoot 18x str 7 rending shots, of which couple can do something but with luck take 1 of those enemies out before close combat

[marful]

Any ability that forces stat tests or be removed from play is probably effective. They might be good mind war targets too... What about Wraithguard D-Cannons?

How about Necron Wraiths that drop initiative on models combined with a C'Tan that forces an initiative test or be removed from play?

[lantzkev]

Nemesis Dreadknigts withsword, teleporter and h. psycannon. couple or few of those with their force weapons activated.. 10-15 attacks on charge that have 2-3 re-rolls to hit and hit on 3+. then they wound on 2+. They also strike at I4 normally (+ have hammer of wrath attacks - tho these are more or less irrelevant.)
all this for roughly half the points.

someone who can can do the math if they are interested...

edit: also, before the 3 of those charge, they will shoot 18x str 7 rending shots, of which couple can do something but with luck take 1 of those enemies out before close combat

lol, two would easily kill that squad.

H incinterator and gatling psilencer.

the flamer might get a kill out of it or two, but the insta kill when he charges will devastate em.

[DarkLink]

Psilencers are a joke. For one, they can't actually hurt T8. Even if they could, you'd need 6's to hit and they'd still get their 2+ save, you need to roll to hit and you need to get Force off, which mean that after so many points of failure your odds of actually doing anything are close enough to zero you might as well not bother. And the heavy incinerator is terrible against MCs. Great against infantry, but on this unit? You'll get like 3 hits that need 6's to wound and he still gets his 2+.

Plus, if you're playing Grey Knights, the answer is built right into the codex. Take Draigo, stick him with basically anything. Get off Force and Hammerhand, which is easy with all the warp charges GKs produce, just throw lots of dice at it. He will then, in the immortal words of Miley Cyrus, "come in like a wrecking ball". Get Prescience on him and he has decent odds of wiping the unit in one go. He'll shrug off any return attacks, and the rest of your unit will probably kill off the remainder.

Dreadknights are a good answer as well, and if you're playing Gks you should have a couple. Between Draigo and the Dreadknights, if you're having trouble with this unit you're either doing something terribly wrong or I'm completely missing some rule these guys have that changes everything.

[lantzkev]

psilencers are a joke for forcing wounds on toughness 8...

but the psilencer on a dreadknight is simply one of the best costed weapons available to it, and more effective than h psycannon.

You do understand the dreadknights psilencer is 12 shots.. of which 9 will hit, 1.5 wound and 0.2ish will die... but the reason you use it isn't to kill the thanatar, it's for the rest of the army. The thanatar as a whole unit is a joke against one assaulting dreadknight.

[DarkLink]

Psilencers are str 4. Str 4 can't wound T8. They are literally incapable of killing these guys.

Psilencers are not good in practice. Psycannons will at least reliably chip away wounds on things. Psilencers rely purely on you throwing a handful of dice and praying that you roll 6's and your opponent rolls 1's. Even with 12 shots, you barely enough dice for any rational person to expect that to work.

We can do a little math to prove this, actually. Psilencers can't wound these guys, but we can compare to a Riptide, another common MC, for the sake of the argument. Lots of wounds help the Psilencer, and the invuln save hurts the psycannon.

Psilencers need to activate Force. With 4 dice, you fail 13% of the time. You need to roll to hit, roll to wound, and they get saves. After taking Rending into account, a single psycannon does .52 wounds. Heavy psycannon does .78. A psilencer does .10 wounds, and a heavy psilencer does .19.

Since the psilencer only needs to do one wound, and the Riptide has 5, multiply the psilencer wounds by 5. The heavy psilencer gains a small edge over the psycannon, but the regular psilencer is worse than a psycannon, even at a target favorable to the psilencer. We can simply cross regular psilencers off the special weapons list.

Heavy psilencers are very marginally better at killing their ideal targets, but utterly worthless at everything else. Compared to a psycannon, you lose the ability to hurt tanks, T8, and the lack of rending hurts you against heavy single wound infantry, especially considering that GKs already have plenty of str 4 shooting. Against the heavy incinerator, you lose the ability to drop a ton of ignores cover ap4 wounds on hordes.


So, if you're going to tailor your list to beat a guy who plays lots of Riptides, sure, heavy psilencer is ok, though it's still only a tiny advantage. But in a take all comers list, go heavy psycannon and heavy incinerator.

[Valdier]

With the new Necron Codex...

For the same points you get 21 wraiths. 3 Elite squads of 6 each and a canoptek harvest formation.

21 wraiths charging them would get 84 attacks. Assuming Weapon skill 4, they hit 55 times, 9 wounds no AP, 9 rending wounds AP2. So, first round 3 of them die from the rending and another takes 2 wounds on average from the other 9 hits.

The wraiths likely lose nothing round one with 3+ invul saves and 2 wounds + assigning to canoptek harvest troops for reanimation.

Round 2 the fight is over and you might have lost a couple wraiths... gg.

[marful]

6-Man Centurion Squad with Grav Cannons comes in at 490 points. That is 30 AP2 shots that hit on a 3+ with 2+ re-rollable to wound shots.

30*4/6*(5/6+1/6*5/6) = 19.444 wounds inflicted per shooting from the Grav Cannons. That is a dead Thanatar Squad with slightly above average shooting. Take equal points worth of Centurions and it's guaranteed kill.

[CrimsonTurkey]

I'd just throw a brood or two of toxin sac hormagaunts at it.

[lantzkev]

Psilencers are str 4. Str 4 can't wound T8. They are literally incapable of killing these guys.

Psilencers are not good in practice. Psycannons will at least reliably chip away wounds on things. Psilencers rely purely on you throwing a handful of dice and praying that you roll 6's and your opponent rolls 1's. Even with 12 shots, you barely enough dice for any rational person to expect that to work.

We can do a little math to prove this, actually. Psilencers can't wound these guys, but we can compare to a Riptide, another common MC, for the sake of the argument. Lots of wounds help the Psilencer, and the invuln save hurts the psycannon.

Psilencers need to activate Force. With 4 dice, you fail 13% of the time. You need to roll to hit, roll to wound, and they get saves. After taking Rending into account, a single psycannon does .52 wounds. Heavy psycannon does .78. A psilencer does .10 wounds, and a heavy psilencer does .19.

Since the psilencer only needs to do one wound, and the Riptide has 5, multiply the psilencer wounds by 5. The heavy psilencer gains a small edge over the psycannon, but the regular psilencer is worse than a psycannon, even at a target favorable to the psilencer. We can simply cross regular psilencers off the special weapons list.

Heavy psilencers are very marginally better at killing their ideal targets, but utterly worthless at everything else. Compared to a psycannon, you lose the ability to hurt tanks, T8, and the lack of rending hurts you against heavy single wound infantry, especially considering that GKs already have plenty of str 4 shooting. Against the heavy incinerator, you lose the ability to drop a ton of ignores cover ap4 wounds on hordes.


So, if you're going to tailor your list to beat a guy who plays lots of Riptides, sure, heavy psilencer is ok, though it's still only a tiny advantage. But in a take all comers list, go heavy psycannon and heavy incinerator.

I feel your analysis is grossly overstated in the favor of the psycannon. Against other monsterous creatures, you're going to assault them and kill them, and activate force if you can so that you kill them quickly and easily. Against troops, most competent players keep them in cover and spread so that the template isn't as effective, also your template is more random than your bs is. 1/3rd the time you scatter on average at least 2 inches, this is big against your average hits, and subsequent wounds and armor/cover saves.


praying that you roll 6's and your opponent rolls 1's

odds are it'll happen over a round or two of shooting, but regardless when you look at multiple wound models, this quickly adds up, ie crisis suits, ork nobs, etc. Against regular troops, you still will find yourself with about the same amount of wounds or better than a psycannon every time, unless you plan on your psycannon always landing on hit, which is 2/6th the time.


So, if you're going to tailor your list to beat a guy who plays lots of Riptides, sure, heavy psilencer is ok, though it's still only a tiny advantage.

That's what assault is for.