Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

In my last battle my poor old Vampire army was caused a fair amount of misery by a meandering Steam Tank.

I've been looking into ways of taking a few wounds off the metal beast. Has anyone had similar experiences or does anyone have any bright ideas about how I can beat a steam tanks with Vamps ?

I'm thinking maybe cairn wraiths with a lot of rank and file support from zombies and maybe a Vampire with the +1 combat res modifier. I realised I can't even resort to Pit of Shades because the metal behemoth is not vulnerable to non-strength magical attacks

Has anyone got any bright ideas ?

Do you know all the rules of the Steam Tank by chance? I might have some ideas but i don't want to waste time if there is already a rule in place that I don't know about.

Yes, I sure do. They're a bit long but here's my shorter version...


Player decides how many steam points to generate (from 0-5)
Roll a D6 and it the dice + steam points you decided to generate is greater than the Tanks remaining wounds then ttank loses a wound and no steam is generated.

Wounds 10
Toughness 6

2 steam points for main cannon
1 steam point for steam cannon
1 steam point to move 3 inches

D3 impact hits + D3 impact hits per steam point used to "charge"

Basically, it means that the player can always generate 4 steam points without fear of the steam tank taking any wounds.

The "Stank" is most effective when "charging" (it does not double it's move) but it can get 5D3 strength 6 hits.

To reduce it's effectiveness I think you need to take 2 wounds off it, to make it vulnerable to damaging itself you need to take 4 wounds off it.

I used a steam tank once and found that once it starts taking serious damage (ie 4 wounds or more) it's all downhill.

Note: it's immune to psychology, unbreakable and immune to all magic except magic which gives a strength hit (eg. a fireball).

It's a nasty lump of metal and a bargain for 300 points if fighting an army without artillery.

Any ideas what I can do to counter it ?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Very tough question indeed! After reviewing the VCs units I really only came up with 3 options.

1. Vargulf. S5 attacks will reduce Stanks armour save to a 3+ giving you a chance to start wounding it. Downside you dont want to waste your Vargulf in combat with the Stank forever and since Stank has a higher unit strength if you fail to wound you lose wounds.

2. Blood Knights. S7 attackson the charge with S5 after again will do hurt the Steam Tanks armour save, but why waste all those points you spent on Blood Knights?

3. Great Weapon wielding Grave Guard. First off let me say that I'm not 100% sure they can even take those, but if so they are your ideal unit. Take a small units of 10 for the surefire combat res and just hack away. You'll effectively reduce its armour save to a 4+ swo as long as you can get the charge in and wound immediately you might be able to avoid being run over and take the thing out after a few turns.

I think you could be right, it might be a job for the Grave Guard with great weapons and some nearby Vampire support to reraise any Grave Guard which have been ground into the mud under the Steam Tanks wheels.

I think the Stanks greatest vulnerability is that close combat hits against it are automatic (I guess it's difficult to miss !)

Also, I think I'm right in saying that it can only generate steam points in it's own turn. Is that right ? That's how we played it in our last battle. It means it only gets to ground into the enemy ranks in it's own turn.

Can anyone confirm that bit about only generationg steam points in it's own turn please ?

The Steam Tank is a very, very hard vehicle to defeat. Here are a few options (aside from things like cannons) which can help.

1. Character on winged mount. Vampires churn out some nasty CC (A vamp with a great weapon is something like S7 no?) so put him on a cheap flying creature and have him go to town on it. Even taking a weapon with no armor saves allowed will make things a little more interesting.

2. When you can't beat it, slow it down. There are spells and options out there which do things like slow down the enemy unit ("treat the next movement as difficult ground" for example). These can force the steam tank player to either sacrifice movement or firing it's weapons, giving you options to work on the next on his/her army.

3. Lock it up in combat. I think with undead it's not too hard to simply set up a massive roadblock of zombies (or something similar) which will simply waste the steam tank's time and give your bigger units time to deal with the other points.


There's a few suggestions. I'll take a look at the steam tank rules and see what I can do about making it fall.

Aha - spot on scurrdi. The above it what I managed to do in the last battle, with Zombies. The only problem was I was using up all my power dice while the enemy was getting closer and closer and encircling me. I didn't have enough dice to re-raise ghouls and skellies.

It was a very close run thing acually. The only reason I got myself inot that state was because the Empire enemy took Kurt Hellborg and it took me an age to kill him and his knights.

We settled for a draw. I'm determined to take it out next time though, I have a nasty feeling that 2 steam tanks might come along for the party this time !

What about the Banshee's ghostly howl? it's not magic. It's shooting. I don't know what the Tank's Leadership is thought.

That doesn't have a Strength value though, does it? Cause the attack must have a Strength value or else it can't wound the Stank

zombie dragon!!!!! rip it into with him

Lol yes, I discovered this to my detriment when i attacked the stank with 2 cairn wraiths and a banshee, thankfully the cairn wraiths caused a couple of wounds.

can vc take the lore of metal because spirit of the forge would destroy it. 4-5 wounds on average per casting. thats assuming you have that lore.

Forbidden Lore 35points
Long must one study to gain knowledge of the netherworld, but time is often of little concern to an undying scholar

In addition to Invocation of Nechek the Vampire knows all of the spells from either the Lore of the Vampire or any of the Lores of Magic in the Warhammer rules (except Lore of Life!).

What about some Great Weapons on your vampires? Team up 2 of them and smack that tank with S7 hits, I dont know how hard the tank hit you for, but might do the trick?

Steam Tank stats:

M: Special
WS: -
BS: -
S: 6
T: 6
W: 10
I: -
A: Special
L: -

Large Target, Unbreakable, Terror, unit strength 10

I'd say it can hit back pretty good.
it also has a Canon and Steam Gun as well as the Engineer's weapon of choice.