What use does a steamtank have?

[Ich]

I don't really get the steamtank.

Mortar is for softening up unarmoured infantry. (and can fire easily over the own lines)
Hellfire Missiles the same, just better. (but not necessarily cost effizient (80% more cost and upkeep))

Cannon vs. large targets (cav / monster groups, not single large monsters).

Luminarium vs single characters or monsters.

Hellfire Cannon against everything, but short range and needs line of fire.
During the time it took the enemy to reach my lines the Hellfire Cannon did more dmg against every enemy unit type than any other siege weapon!!!!!


SteamTank vs ????

Mortar / Hellfire is better against inf
Cannon is better vs cav
Luminarium is better vs single units
Hellfire is better against everything

SteamTank gets wrecked if the enemy has AP (only 10 MeleeDefense -> gets hit more often than not).
I do understand that you don't have to protect it as much like the others (no easily killed crew), it is also quite fast (I think 50 speed), unbreakable and reduces enemy leadership.
But for the cost it does absolutely nothing that other units do far better.
The only thing I can think of is to bind enemy units with low AP (& high armour), but 500 upkeep just to bind enemy tanky units is...
...and if powerful AP Monsters (ex.Giant) or Charas get to it, it will get wrecked extremely fast.


I must be missing something, I just can't believe that a supposedly powerful Tier 5 Unit is pretty much outclassed in every way, especially for the cost and upkeep.

[Bran Mak Morn]

It's canon, so it made it in the game, it's just there to please the geeks who simply must have it and the stupid copters.

[Ich]

Are the gyrocopters also bad??
Have only tested Spells, Empire units and Bretonnia units so far.
Next is the Bretonnia campaign (because this is the only "complete" one without DLC).
I guess it will be similar to the Rohan campaign in "Third Age - Total War".

[Elitewrecker PT]

I like them (gyrocopters). I always have a couple, they can get a decent amount of damage and you can send them in melee mode to unprotected artillery.
There's also kind of an exploit where you position them in front of the artillery piece and they'll try to shoot you but you're within their minimum range and they won't usually try to move.

[bbolto]

I've found them very useful in campaign. Specifically, the usual counters against artillery you face as the Empire work poorly against steam tanks (bats... wolves... hounds... eh), its cannon does some decent work, its speed means that it can easily find angles for the cannon, and the terror is very useful for the Empire vs. Norsca/Chaos. I usually stick them next to a hero or two so getting gooned by an enemy hero/monster isn't so much of a threat. Main problem with them in campaign is that I rarely get to field them before I've already taken the brunt of the chaos invasion.

Now against VC I'll absolutely take a luminark over a steam tank.

The gyrocopters are not great, they're mainly useful for their bombs... they have some effect vs. enemy artillery but it's not that fast.

[Ich]

Why the luminark over steam tank especially vs VC? Especially if the VC have the "usual counters against artillery..."(bats...wolves)?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to protect the steam tank, since I still believe that it is a useless unit (especially for that price) for anyone who is good at defending their own artillery.
It just is strange that you said their good against usual arti counters like bats and wolves while not using them against a faction which uses said counters.

[Wyvern]

Luminark is better because it can snipe enemy lords, which are a key to keeping up VC leadership, meaning they can easily win you a game in just 1-2 shots.

As for the steam tank, it sucks. Ideally it's a weird mix between an artillery piece(being worth ~2/3rds of a cannon battery), a chariot and an unbreakable tarpit unit.
In practice, the armor gets bypassed by AP, and you lose over 1/3rd of your armor when you get exhausted, and the tank is rather easily bogged down, despite its high mass. I struggle to really justify it.

[Stevcorp]

I use the steam tanks to bog down infantry so my artillery can hit them. In the off chance the tank gets hit by mistake, it doesn't take much damage.

As for the gyrocopters? They're the only thing the dwarfs have that can move around the battlefield quickly. So I use it to deal with problems that would otherwise have to be ignored, like unexpected flanking or a hellcannon.