Spartan Assault Tank thoughts - and the future



Having finally finished this model - post to follow - but you can see it above!

Its now time to have a think about how I want to use it moving forward.

Rocking in at T8 with 20 wounds and a 2+ save its a tough cookie to crack, its also pretty decent in combat with 8 attacks hitting on 5's at S8, Ap-2 with D3 damage. 

On the charge at full health this boy is going to hurt, especially with re-rolls. 

Weapons wise it brings two Quad Lascannons, a Twin Heavy Bolter & (for me) a multi-melta to the mix. 

Thats a fair amount of firepower, technically able to split fire across four seperate targets. 

Then you had a troop capacity of 25 and it can help you deploy a lot of different units in one drop, speeding up your deployment, and keeping said units pretty safe. 

So why would I want to change this? 

Well at the moment I am paying for that transport capacity that rarely gets used, so I am thinking if its worth looking at something for similar points that can pack a punch and doesnt have points 'wasted' on transport capacity. 

The options seem to be pretty simple for me, coming in at roughly the same points cost we have the Typhoon Heavy Siege Tank & the Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer. 

First up we have the Cerberus, which would have two Lascannons & a Multi-melta added to it (for my taste), this would bring it in at 33 points more than my current Spartan build. 


I would drop 6 Lascannon shots, in exchange for 3 Heavy Neutron Laser shots at Strength 14 - so wounding most vehicles on 2's. Its damage stat is D6+3, meaning if all three hit and wound then the minimum damage you would inflict is 12, and thats with a treble 1! If you are lucky enough to survive this you are at -1 to shoot in the following turn.

Its likely to drop anything upto and including a Landraider in one volley, at -4 2+'s only get a 6+. 

Following that the Typhoon, with the same add ons comes in at 70 points more than my current Spartan build. Its main gun puts out Heavy 2D6, S10, Ap-5 and a flat 3 damage. Which isnt too shabby, although its unlikely to wipe out a landraider quite as effectively - although the Landraider doesn't get a save vs this. 
Both are tasty choices, maybe a long term goal should be for me to get both of these tanks....

Although both of the tanks technically allow me to shoot at the same number of targets.

So

Move:

Spatan / Cerberus / Typhoon - all equal

Shooting targets:
Spartan, Quad Lascannons at two different, Heavy Bolter at another, Multi-melta at another. 
Realistically this will be three targets with the Multi-melta looping in with a Quad Lascannon.

Cerberus, Lascannons at two different, Multi-melta at another, Neutron Laser at another. Realistically it will be two targets with all the Lascannons & Multi-melta at the same target.

Typhoon - see above, the Lascannons will combine to hit something while the main goes for something else. 

Toughness
Cerberus & Typhoon are T9 as standard - much safer from Multi-meltas & Lascannons
Spartan is T8

The Cerberus / Typhoon will take less wounds vs S9 & S8 - 17% less, and they have extra wounds to boot! 

Wounds:
Cerberus & Typhoon are 22
Spartan is 20.

Combat:
The same across all three. 

Conclusion

The way I see it I would be dropping the number of shots, but likely increasing the odds of wounding my targets, and flat damage is much more consistent. 

The additional survial can't be under estimated either.

In the end I think I would look at Cerberus over the Typhoon. It wouldn't take much to tweak my current lists to fit in in, and should be very useful moving forward! 

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