Best anti-tank so far?

Building a list and am stuck on what to take for anti-tank duties.  With the new codex out for over a month now, I'm wondering if there is anything approaching a consensus on whether Lance Ravagers, Scourges (Blasters or HWB?), and/or Reavers are our best forms of anti-tank.  Or perhaps 2 x units of each, so 2 x Lance Ravagers, 2 x Blaster Scourges, and 2 x 6 man Reaver squads with CC and HL in a 2000 point list.  I haven't managed to get a game with the new book in yet so I'm curious to hear if I'd be better off taking 3-6 of one unit or using all three as listed above?

Best antitank so far is to have loads of lances from all the sources you mentioned.

I would name them like this

1) Turn 1 Antitank - Lance Ravagers, Lance Raiders, HWB Scourges
2) Turn 2 Antitank - Kabalite Blasters, Trueborn Blasters, Blaster Scourges, Reavers with CC, Grots
3) Turn 3++ Antitank - any deepstrike AT squad, Flyers

As you saw it is layered approach, you cant name best, because say blaster, be it cheaper then dark lance cant at all target enemy vehicles at turn 1, because it is out of range. But at turn 2 it is cheaper for the same effect. But if you take all blasters it may so happen that all will be dead T2, and no real effect caused.

It is also kinda nice to have some AT capability across every unit in your army.

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Or perhaps 2 x units of each, so 2 x Lance Ravagers, 2 x Blaster Scourges, and 2 x 6 man Reaver squads with CC and HL in a 2000 point list.

It is generally considered good practice to bring some redundancy in the list, you roll 1 unit crap, another do its job. Twice so with army of paper planes.

Very good insights. I do like the layered approach, wherein your AT capabilities actually increase on turns 2 and 3 due the ability to bring your medium and short range weapons to bear. From a value standpoint, are Lance Ravagers more cost efficient and a better use of points than Blaster Scourges? Since Scourges are one of the only units with access to HWB, is it better to equip them with that and leave Dark Light weapons to Ravagers, Raiders, and Warrior squads?

"Best" is a word that doesn't apply very well to this question. Many of the AT weapons we have are viable options, and which one you use depends heavily on how you prefer to play.

There are plenty of other oddball AT units that we don't really consider. For instance Haywire Hekatrixes, Heat Lance Taloi, etc... the most popular, for good reason, are:

• Haywire Scourge and Trueborn are arguably our deadliest AT choice point for point, and at the same time are easily our most fragile.
  
• Ravagers pack less firepower than Scourges or Trueborn, but they have the range and armor to compensate for it.
  
• Razorwings and Voidravens are hard to compare because they pack as much AT as they do AI. They have even less AT than Ravagers, but they're also more durable -- granted your opponent doesn't take AA.
  
• Kabalites with Dark Lances/Blasters, mounted in Raiders, are fairly durable units. Their transport can jink while the Kabalites continue to fire. Like Razorwings, this is an odd comparison because this loadout hauls as much AI as it does AT.
  
• My favorite form of AT is actually Reavers. They can easily wreck vehicles with rear armor 11 and under. Granted they're also very expensive, and can be very fragile depending on your opponent's arsenal. If you decide to take Reavers, don't give them AT weapons as they need to jink. Instead give them Caltrops.
  

As a general rule, the less cost-efficient a unit is at taking AT weapons, the more durable it is.

The solution is really to ask yourself, "What can I get away with?" What are the most cost-efficient units you can take, whilst managing to keep them alive?

The most optimal scenario is that you take nothing but Scourges or Trueborn, and they fire every single turn with impunity. This is the most effective scenario your AT can have, but in reality, your AT, if it's a threat, is going to get focussed. Therefore, the art of laying down as much firepower as possible comes in two forms. You take more durable AT, which theoretically will survive longer and therefore fire more shots, or your provide your opponent with other higher target priority threats.

Think about each unit's threat priority in your army to your opponent. What does he need to kill most?

• The more threats you have in your army that aren't AT specialists, the longer your AT units can stay alive to do their job.
  
• The less non-AT threats you have in your army, the more durable your AT needs to be OR the more AT you need to take.
  

For instance, my opponent knows my Reavers will cause the units in his dedicated transports to die if the Reavers surround the tank. Because of this, my Reavers have a higher threat priority than my AT. This in turn allows me to put more emphasis on my AT, so I take Scourges instead of Ravagers.

sweetbacon wrote:

Or perhaps 2 x units of each, so 2 x Lance Ravagers, 2 x Blaster Scourges, and 2 x 6 man Reaver squads with CC and HL in a 2000 point list.

The issue with dividing AT responsibilities is it gives a clear-cut notion of what your enemy needs to focus down. Let's say for instance you take 2 Scourge units and a Ravager, and you don't deep strike any of them. Your opponent knows the Scourges can deal much more damage if they get in range, so he focusses all his firepower on the scourges. Meanwhile, let's say your Ravager is getting ignored, but now, since it's less cost-efficient, it's firing less shots per point than it could have been if it had just been another unit of Scourges.

When you divide AT rolls, you need to force your opponent to make the worst threat priority assessments. This can be done by taking two Ravagers and deep-striking a unit of Scourges. Another example is taking Trueborn and Reavers, which forces your opponent to either shoot a unit that's not in range (the Reavers), or shoot the unit that won't deal as much damage (the Trueborn).

Azdrubael's use of AT well describes how threat priority should work. His first units in range are also his most durable ones. His units that are going to be in range the following turns deal more damage.

sweetbacon wrote:

From a value standpoint, are Lance Ravagers more cost efficient and a better use of points than Blaster Scourges? Since Scourges are one of the only units with access to HWB, is it better to equip them with that and leave Dark Light weapons to Ravagers, Raiders, and Warrior squads?  

The easiest way to answer this is to tell you how to do the math. Take the total cost of the unit, and divide that by the number of guns it has.

Scourges with Blasters are more efficient than Ravagers with Lances and Night Shields. For the same cost, the Scourge get one more Blaster.

I prefer Haywire Blasters on my Scourge. Others will say differently. There are plenty of pros and cons to each weapon. It comes to preference.

Haywire Scourges and Heat Lance/Caltrop Reavers seem like the big winners of the Codex.

I actually think lance Ravagers have gotten much worse. Dark Lances just don't perform that well and I actually think that dissies are great since you can cover AT elsewhere. But I probably wouldn't run Ravagers regardless.

I agree with what has been said above about a layered approach to anti-tank, and with Khordajj's mini-essay on the different AT available to us.

Additionally, although I don't personally play CWE, I understand that if you ally in a squad of Fire Dragons you have the best anti-tank unit available to us--and you can attach them to an Archon with Webway Portal riding in the Archon's personal Raider, and a Farseer to generate Prescience, for maximum carnage. But you may not have many friends after that.

Someone commented in the Walkers thread that a good rule of thumb is to bring one dark light weapon for every 100 points of your army. I thought this was interesting and it led me to wonder if the same would hold true for both dark light and haywire combined. So if I have a 2000 point army, would I still have sufficient anti-tank if I had 12 dark light weapons and 8 haywire blasters?

I've also seen a lot of mixed opinions on Ravagers, with some people stating even with the points increase, they're still the best platform for lances and others feeling like the loss of Aerial Assault coupled with the point increase makes them not worth taking.

Any AT shooting unit with WWB.

And Close Combat

The other thing to bear in mind here is what type of damage is your anti tank actually doing? Glancing hits have no effect on limiting the Tank's return fire, which is obviously a point that tends to count against haywire blasters since that's where the majority of their tank damage comes from, they perform best at wrecking vehicles through stacking hull point damage. A lance however is statistically more likely to have an effect on tanks through penetrating hits and therefore causing it to fire snap shots etc. and carries the threat of an explosion that the HWB rarely does (open topped vehicles excepted)

To slightly tweak the original question - I'd say that Haywire blasters are our most reliable anti tank weapon, but purely the best anti tank weapon we have (in terms of potential) is the heat lance in half range. It has the most reliable scope to cause a penetrating hit, and the best chance of causing an explosion from that hit because of its AP.

The Burning Eye has a very good point about reliability versus effectiveness. If we haywire a vehicle down to one hull point its still just as effective as if had all of its hull points, whereas, just one hit/pen with a heat lance will significantly reduce the vehicle's effectiveness next turn even if we only strip off one hull point. I think now I'm more inclined to use at least one unit of heat lance Scourages and 1-2 units of haywire blaster Scourges, plus Ravagers and Warriors with blasters.

Heat lances are not so good as thinked. They actually are good against AV13+, but they lacks in range, and to shut up any AV12- Veichle the sucks. Much better a single blast.

Yes, they can do a big deal with Land Raiders, but now you also have 4HWB per Scourges squad, so simply...why?
S6, never forget it.

So, to strip some HP, HWB and Close Combat (and we have alot of this) are the best way.
to shut up a Veichle (like Shanken veichle etc.) Blaster are way better. Expecially vs trasports like Rhinos, Khymeras and Wave Serpents.

Imho

I agree with others who have said loads of lances or heatlances or haywire blasters, there is no clear winner as they all have their place and I include all, I would just like to add the simple autarch with haywire grenades on jetbike.

Today I played a 2000 pt guard army with a knight and a baneblade.    

My autarch threw his haywire nade at the knight and then charged it hitting again with his haywire nade in cc thus stripping the last 2 hullpoints off the cursed beast!  He survived the explosion and went on to take the last hullpoint off a russ.    

I ended up winning 10 to 4 thanks in no small part to this guy!

While not really what this thread is on about after the game I wished I could have at least 3 of these guys flying around taking out vehicles and knights!

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Heat lances are not so good as thinked. They actually are good against AV13+, but they lacks in range, and to shut up any AV12-

Not sure if true, heatlance is better then blaster in its intended purpose - at close range.

It is min equal to Strenght 7 on AV penetration. And if even one of 2 dices you roll have better result then 1 you already made it to blaster level.

S6 out of range should be used to fire at heavy infanry. Just as S8 it wounds on 2+. No loss here. Except for instant death on T4 models.

Here are the odds for Dark Light weaponry and Heat Lances(Inside and Outside Melta range) to hit and penetrate against Armour Values 10, 11 and 12. Glancing hits were disregarded.

Av10
   Dark Light: 44.444~%
   Heat Lance(<9"): 55.555~%
   Heat Lance(>9"): 22.222~%

Av11
   Dark Light: 33.333~%
   Heat Lance(<9"): 48.148~%
   Heat Lance(>9"): 11.111~%

Av12
   Dark Light: 22.222~%
   Heat Lance(<9"): 38.888~%
   Heat Lance(>9"): 0%