My little study of the new steam tank. Warning - this contains statistics... Here are the chances of failing a steam test. Dashes mean either no chance (or less than .1%) of failure or no chance of passing (go on, guess which is which). Hull 3 steam 4 steam 5 steam points points points points 29 - - - 28 - - 0.1% 27 - - 0.3% 26 - - 0.7% 25 - - 1.6% 24 - - 3.2% 23 - - 5.9% 22 - 0.4% 9.8% 21 - 1.2% 15.2% 20 - 2.7% 22.1% 19 - 5.4% 30.5% 18 - 9.7% 40.0% 17 0.5% 15.9% 50.0% 16 1.9% 23.9% 60.0% 15 4.6% 33.6% 69.5% 14 9.3% 44.4% 77.9% 13 16.2% 55.6% 84.8% 12 25.9% 66.4% 90.2% 11 37.5% 76.1% 94.1% 10 50.0% 84.1% 96.8% 9 62.5% 90.3% 99.4% 8 74.1% 94.6% 99.3% 7 83.8% 97.3% 99.7% 6 90.7% 98.8% 99.9% 5 95.4% 99.6% 99.9% 4 98.1% 99.9% - 3 99.5% - - 2 - - - 1 - - - As you can see, it is perfectly safe to go for full steam ahead for quite some time. You should only start worrying when you get down to 19 or 18 hull points, at which point you either take a calculated gamble (and it's not much of a risk, really), or you simply go for 4 steam points instead of 5 - as you can see, at this point there is very little chance of your actually failing. Of course, this all presumes that you have lost some hull points to begin with. Now how did that happen? S3 shooting against front: BS 3, long range, large target - to hit on 4+, hit soft spot on 6, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - to cause a single wound this way you need to shoot 72 times (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 36 shots - but that is assuming that a half chance is as good as a full chance, which it is not). S3 shooting CANNOT injure the steam tank if it hits a hard spot. S3 shooting against flank: BS 3, long range, large target - to hit on 4+, hit soft spot on 5, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - to cause a single wound this way you need to shoot 36 times (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 18 shots). S3 shooting against rear: BS 3, long range, large target - to hit on 4+, hit soft spot on 3, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - to cause a single wound this way you need to shoot 18 times (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 9 shots). Well, shooting the rear of the steam tank seems to be the way to go - but hang on, just how do you propose to do that? And just how many shots do you need to make to do some real damage? Assuming good luck, to cause the 7 wounds needed to make going for 5 steam points a bit too risky you will need to shoot 116 times just to scrape in with 6.5 successful hits. From the rear. Now, supposing that the steam tank is within short range... S3 shooting against front: hit on 3+, hit soft spot on 6, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - 54 shots needed (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 27 shots). S3 shooting against flank: hit on 3+, hit soft spot on 5, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - 27 shots needed (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 14 shots). S3 shooting against rear: hit on 3+, hit soft spot on 3, cause 1 'wound' if you roll a further 6 - 14 shots needed (if we round up because we are feeling lucky, then we need 'only' 7 shots). Mmmm, yes, I can see those hull points vanishing like mist. Very well, combat is obviously the way to kill it. S4, T3 infantry with 4+ save, full ranks, standard. hit soft spot on 3+, wound on a further 5 - you will need to attack 5 times to wound, 3 if you are very lucky. The odds are very much against rolling a 6 to score 2 wounds. Rolling a 1 or 2 will hit a hard spot - and S4 troops CANNOT injure a hard spot. The real problem here is that the steam tank is 3 inches wide - that will get you a maximum of 5 models attacking if the owner charges so that the tank points straight at the enemy (which any competant opponent will do - and why would he allow more than the minimum 4 models in base contact?). In other words, standard infantry cannot hurt the steam tank, and this example is assuming that they charged. If the steam tank had charged, then there should not have been anyone left to attack - d3 S6 impact hits to start with, plus a further d3 for every full 3 inches of charge - a competant general will get at least 9 inches of charge in, for an average of 8 impact hits. These will wound on 2s, 6 of which will wound (7 if the tank commander is lucky), and no saves will be made (S6 penalty of -3 for saves cancels 4+ save). So, best case scenario for the infantry is to charge, and get a combat res of 3 for ranks + 1 for outnumbering and another 1 for the banner. You win. Whoopee. You can't break the tank, and although lapping around might bring in sufficient numbers to actually wound the thing next turn, it can simply grind you to pieces in its movement phase, or it can even just wander off, leaving the combat to charge something more interesting - or back up and charge into you. The worst case scenario has the tank crushing 6 infantry on the charge, winning the combat by 1 point, and possibly breaking the enemy (LD 7 is not enough - a break test on 6 will fail, and LD 8 doesn't do much good either if you lose combat). If they don't break, then they will have lost a rank, making it that much harder to win next turn. So, standard infantry can't do a bloody thing, how about heavy cavalry? 10 knights, S6 on the charge, 2+ save, 2 ranks, standard. hit soft spot on 3+, wound on a further 3 - you will need 3 attacks to wound, 2 if you are lucky. You can injure a hard spot on a 5. Cavalry should be able to get a flank attack, and as the tank is 6 inches long this should allow all 5 of the front rank to attack - 6 attacks with a champion, for 2 or 3 whole wounds (it is unlikely that the 4 attacks that hit soft will then get a 5 or a 6 - on average 2 will wound, and they will roll 3 and 4, which will get you 3 wounds in all, and the 2 attacks that hit hard will fail to roll the 5 or 6 needed to hurt the machine) and a combat res of 5 or 6 - and your horses cannot wound it. Again, you win. For all the good it does. Now, if your cavalry gets charged by the tank... 10 knights, S4, 2+ save, 2 ranks, standard - and of course the tank will be pointing right at you (this isn't the worst case - it could be charging your flank). It will cause 8 impact hits and 4 kills. This will leave no-one to hit back. The cavalry will have a combat res of 3 (rank bonus, outnumber, banner), and will lose by 1 point. They might break, but even if they don't they are in trouble. They will hit next turn at S4, but only with 4 models - enough to wound once (at S4 you can only hit a soft spot, and need to roll a 5 to do so - that 5 will get you one wound, and the 6 that would cause two wounds is asking too much of average dice), but ONLY if you are lucky. So troops are ruled out. That leaves magic and war machines. The steam tank completely ignores any magical effect that does not cause damage with a specified stength. So this leaves magic missiles and a very few other spells. Which turn out to be mostly useless. One quarter of the spells that deal straight damage use S3 and one third of the spells use d6 S4 - that's well over half the spells doing little or nothing: 1 hit S3 spells cannot hurt the tank if they hit hard. If they hit soft (1 in 6 from the front, 1 in 3 from the flank, 2 in 3 from the rear), they need to roll 6s to cause any wounds. These spells are therefore highly unlikely to cause any damage. D6 S3 spells will cause, on average: front - 0 soft hits (3 or 4 hits on average aren't enough to say you will get that 6 needed to hit soft), 3 or 4 hard hits, cannot wound; flank - 1 soft hit, no wounds, 2 or 3 hard hits, cannot wound; rear - 2 or 3 soft hits, no wounds, 1 hard hit, cannot wound. 2d6 S3 spells, will cause, on average: front - 1 soft hit, no wounds, 6 hard hits, cannot wound; flank - 2 soft hits, no wounds, 5 hard hits, cannot wound; rear - 5 soft hits, 1 wound if you are lucky, 2 hard hits, cannot wound. D6 S4 spells will cause, on average: front - 0 soft hits, 3 or 4 hard hits, cannot wound; flank - 1 soft hit, no wounds, 2 or 3 hard hits, cannot wound; rear - 2 or 3 soft hits, no wounds, 1 hard hit, cannot wound. 2d6 S4 spells will cause, on average: front - 1 soft hits, no wounds, 6 hard hits, cannot wound; flank - 2 soft hits, no wounds, 5 hard hits, cannot wound; rear - 5 soft hits, 1 wound, 2 if you are lucky, 2 hard hits, cannot wound. D6 S5 spells will cause, on average: front - 0 soft hits, no wounds, 3 or 4 hard hits, no wounds; flank - 1 soft hit, 1 wound, 2 or 3 hard hits, no wounds; rear - 2 or 3 soft hits, 2 or 3 wounds, 1 hard hit, no wounds; 2D6 S5 spells will cause, on average: front - 1 soft hit, 1 wound, 6 hard hits, 1 wound; flank - 2 soft hits, 2 wounds, 5 hard hits, 1 wound; rear - 5 soft hits, 3 or 6 wounds, 2 hard hits, no wounds. D6 S6 spells will cause, on average: front - 0 soft hits, no wounds, 3 or 4 hard hits, 1 wound; flank - 1 soft hit, 1 or 2 wounds, 2 or 3 hard hits, 1 wound if you are lucky; rear - 2 or 3 soft hits, 3 wounds, 1 hard hit, no wounds. If you are lucky and roll above average, 5s and 6s will cause wounds where the paragraph above says no wounds. However, that is still only a wound or two, and there are still far too many occasions when it is impossible to wound the tank at all. Note that only three spells (I may be wrong - I know nothing of Dark Magic) can potentially cause S5 wounds - one of them requires a specific terrain feature (hill or similar), without which it causes only d6 (as opposeed to 2d6) S5 wounds but has a reduced range of 6 inches, another can actually be dodged or dispelled long before it hits, and the third requires an armour save, which the steam tank does not have, to cause more than S3 damage. The only S6 spells in the game (the same spell twice, as it happens) are unique to one army, and limited within that army to lords. All spells are randomly allocated, and only 3 of the direct damage spells (all d6 S4) are default spells - and again you have to roll to see if you hit soft or hard, with the overwhelming likelyhood of hitting a hard spot. Moving on to war machines, which should surely be able to do some real damage here. War machines are subject to the same rules for determining hits as ordinary shooting. Bolt throwers with S6 will, on average, cause 3 or 4 wounds if they hit soft, and 1 or 2 wounds if they hit hard - remembering that hitting soft is a 1 in 6 chance from the front, a 1 in 3 chance from the flanks, and a 2 in 3 chance from the rear. Remember, bolt throwers only get one die for shooting with, so they have to hit first - for BS 3 troops, this means hitting on 3+, which still leaves a 33.33% chance of missing to start with (and it goes up to a 50% chance if the tank is at long range). BS 4 troops (Elves) have it a bit better - 16.66% better, as it happens. Cannons inflict d6 S10 hits. But they can still only hit the tank once, and this is almost certain to be a hard spot from the front and flanks (and who is going to expose the rear of their steam tank, which would gurantee a soft spot, to a cannon?). So the average of d6 + S + multiplier - 10 (3.5 + 10 + 3.5 - 10) gives 7 wounds. A soft hit will average 9 wounds. Sounds pretty good, and I suppose it might be - IF you have cannons, IF you have at least two, IF you have nothing else that must be shot at by those cannons, IF they don't misfire, and IF you can guess the range well. That's a lot of ifs... It is also worth noting that although every army (except Bretonnia) has access to cannons from the Dogs of War list, Bronzino's Galloper Guns cause only d3 S7 hits (which will reduce the damage to 2 or 3 and 4 or 5 wounds for a hard and soft spot respectively), and standard DoW cannons cause only d3, not d6, S10 hits (5 or 6 hard, 7 or 8 soft wounds) - and both are generally frowned upon for some reason. Stone throwers and mortars are much less effective (and much more limited in availability - only two armies have stone throwers, and only a third army has mortars). Stone throwers cause d6 S4 hits, and anything under the template hole gets hit with S8. Luckily they automatically hit soft spots, and will cause an average of 3 or 7 wounds, depending on where the template is placed. Mortars, with 1 S3 hit for normal targets and d3 S6 hits for the target under the hole, are far less effective - if the template is spot on, you should cause an average of 3 or 4 wounds, and if it only grazes the tank then you will cause only 1 wound, IF you can roll a 6 on command. The average die roll calls for a 3 or 4, which does nothing. Dogs of War Halfling Hotpots are, effectively, mortars, and, like DoW cannons, frowned upon. And again, for both stone throwers and mortars, as with cannons, all of this holds only IF you have them, IF you have at least two, IF you have nothing else that must be shot at by those war machines, IF they don't misfire, and IF you can guess the range well (and in this case, IF they don't scatter to the other side of the table). That's a lot of ifs... This is a really stupid unit. I had considered taking it (with an old model, of course, not the new thing that costs $100!). Now I will never take it, and should I ever play a fellow Empire general I will refuse to permit it in the game. Other things you can ignore or tie down - you cannot do either with a steam tank. Anyone with half a brain will use it to devastating effect - and it should move at its full 15 inches for most of the game, making it impossible to ignore. Ordinary troops can't touch it, and even extraordinary troops will have a hell of a time against it. The best war machines in the game will only scratch it most of the time. For only 250 points, I can buy a steam tank without guns but with 29 hull points. And my opponent cannot do a damned thing to stop it unless he plays the Empire or Dwarfs and loads his army with every war machine he can take (and possibly some he can't). All I have to do is ram the thing forward at full speed through his lines - and very little indeed will survive unscathed (or even simply survive). Only when it is reduced by fully half its hull points will I bother worrying about slowing down much - by which time I will have had ample time to wreck his army (and those expensive war machines) - assuming of course that the tank's hull is EVER reduced like that. I have to wonder if any real thought was put into the development of the new steam tank, and whether or not anybody tested it (or at least did the statistical analysis as I have). Now I too hate Alessio's work. Resign, Alessio. Resign now.