Dreadnoughts

[Shaantitus]

A question for all the experienced rules lawyers out there. When a dread goes into fire frenzy and you are forced to target one of your own units, is it acceptable to use your re-rolls backwards? Re-rolling all the dice that hit and keeping those that miss. If this is doable then they aren't as bad as i thought.

I hope this is the case as i have 6 dreads at last count.

What do the experts think?

[Massawyrm]

Nope. Not if you're thinking about Twin Linked weapon rerolls. The passage specifically reads:

 

you may reroll the dice to hit if you miss (including twin linked blast weapons).

 

It's way too specific to maneuver around.

 

That said, Dreadnoughts can be great if used properly. But you need to make sure to keep them as far away from your own troops as possible - OR run them next to units that can shrug off their attacks. A Heavy Bolter or Plasma Cannon Dread walking adjacent to a Land raider has little to fear. And for their price, they can be a bargain and will no doubt draw attention away from other units.

[Shaantitus]

Thanks for that. I had not checked the specific wording.

I normall try and hide my tllc dreads on one flank hidden behind a piece of terrain. If they have to shoot, fine if they move up with blood rage then move them back next turn or behind something else.

[the jeske]

A Heavy Bolter or Plasma Cannon Dread walking adjacent to a Land raider has little to fear.

ok so you say that in order for a 100+pts unit to work [sometimes as you say yourself you need to use it in a proper way] you need to buy a 250 pts transports . and as its a transport it would be nice to put something inside [ another 250+] ... only wait the transport move 12" per turn and a dread moves 6" , it could move +d6" but then it doesnt use use the plasma canons you already paid for .

 

nope dreads suck and there is no way of making them useful or even a medicor pick out of the chaos dex .

[Massawyrm]

A Heavy Bolter or Plasma Cannon Dread walking adjacent to a Land raider has little to fear.

ok so you say that in order for a 100+pts unit to work [sometimes as you say yourself you need to use it in a proper way] you need to buy a 250 pts transports . and as its a transport it would be nice to put something inside [ another 250+] ... only wait the transport move 12" per turn and a dread moves 6" , it could move +d6" but then it doesnt use use the plasma canons you already paid for .

 

nope dreads suck and there is no way of making them useful or even a medicor pick out of the chaos dex .

 

Now Jeske, don't take what I'm saying out of context. I never recommended that you should TAKE a LR to make a Dread work - that would be borderline retarded. What I'm saying is that with finesse you can make them viable. I certainly have. If you're running a Land Raider and you want to run dreads, run them near units that have little to fear from them.

 

I know you're king mathhammer of the chaos dex, and I would never personally argue that they are COMPETITIVE choices. But the guy has six dreads and wants to know how to use them. You're a smart player. Certainly you have a better answer than Sorry, you're SOL, the new dex sux. Just last week I sent my nurgle dread out and he earned his points back and then some. But I wouldn't take him to a tournament.

[Sons of Horus]

fire frenzy does not force you to target your own units all the time. only if they are the closest available targets :P

[Brother Vader]

I like dreads precicely because they are mental. I'd happily field one (in fact, I intend to once I get round to repainting him). He may do something spectacular or he may not. Such is the fickle nature of the chaos gods. You want to keep them close to the enemy, preferably on a flank, out of sight of your guys is even better. Fire frenzy and berzerk rage can then work in your favour.

If I had 3 I'd equip them with heavy bolters and run them up a flank together. If they fire frenzy they won't be able to damage eachother (unless one's run forwards and gets shot in the back, but that would be comical). Use the other 2 as Daemon Princes (ie daemonically possessed dreadnoughts) with shooty psychic powers, no wings though. That's 5 of your 6 dreadnoughts used, it may not be ultra competitive but it will look cool.

[the jeske]

But the guy has six dreads and wants to know how to use them

use codex sm counts as with a forge master . never ever use dreads with the chaos dex we have now . Or like I do wait for the 6th ed .

 

What I'm saying is that with finesse you can make them viable

nope wont agree here .pure NM army builds requier finesse to use . Raptors and kamikaze termis too . dreads dont . you cant use something with finesse , if you cant control it and on top of it the dread can hunt your own army . what happens if your opponent plays eldrad and repositions your dread [or units close to it ]? what if the tank you have near it has to move away [you need it for tank shocking etc] ? what if you use them in tandems with RL and one gets blown up ? you cant do nothing . Now even with the bad sides it has a dread could find some uses , if it was either cheap [like 80 pts fully armed] or was an interesting meta option [if one could use a siege dread or with interesting weapon options like the mortis patern loyalist dread]. but it aint . it sucks in hth compering to other units both we can take and other armies can take [and i dont only mean the other races dreads/walkers/mc] and its shoting is much much weaker then what you can get out of oblits , hell even defilers .

 

I know you're king mathhammer of the chaos dex,

nope not really , i dont do mathhammering [at least not the extrem version people use on this forum] . but the dreads are way beyond the tournament/friendlly thing . for them to do something in a battle you have to get LUCKY . and lets face it , if a unit has to get lucky to do something , you may as well play with anyother unit as luck is not something man can influence [well at least not without a proper set of dice].

 

Just last week I sent my nurgle dread out and he earned his points back and then some.

how do you make a dread "nurgle" with the new dex ?

[chillin]

That said, Dreadnoughts can be great if used properly. But you need to make sure to keep them as far away from your own troops as possible - OR run them next to units that can shrug off their attacks. A Heavy Bolter or Plasma Cannon Dread walking adjacent to a Land raider has little to fear. And for their price, they can be a bargain and will no doubt draw attention away from other units.

 

- I tryed that "run the dread next to the LR thing" (thought I was brilliant for thinking of it :ph34r: ).

I think dreads add to the look of an army, and I have a heavily converted one at that. It worked fine the first time. The second game, my LR had to peel off to deal with some flankers, my dread couldn't keep up, sure enough, rolled fire frenzy, shot and killed 3 of my own guys. The very next turn he rolled blood frenzy (or whatever), problem was he had to charge at the closest enemy unit, problem was, the closest enemy unit was surrounded by a brzrkr squad and csm squad and were as good as dead already, I needed the dread to fire his plasma cannon elsewhere. So he does nothing usefull again. the next turn he rolled bloodfrenzy again and goes chasing off after a unit that he has no hope of reaching. So the last 3 turns of a tight game, my dread is outta control and does nothing foe me.

- But wait, my tell of woe does not end there. I decided to give the dread 1 more chance. He gets shot and immoblized 2nd turn, it then rolls fire fenzy and starts blasting away at my own guys for 2 turns.

My LR was there to take the shots so I lose no one . But that ment A- the dread was not shooting where I needed him to, B- all of my guys had to run away, not neccessarly where I wanted to send them but out of LOS of the dread, and C- I couldn't move my LR until all of my guys & rinos were out of line of fire of one of my own units ;)

Needless to say my dread won't be seeing action again until we get a new dex (or until I experiment

with the s/m dex, actually being able to use my dreads is one of the main reasons I want to play around with the new s/m dex)

[Tamagoyaki]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can equip your dread with second CC arm, and then change it for missile launcher for free ;)

And then you can shoot to your land raiders / other well armoured vehicles (vindi's front armour? I have no idea :D)...

[Massawyrm]

Just last week I sent my nurgle dread out and he earned his points back and then some.

how do you make a dread "nurgle" with the new dex ?

 

You pay 90pts plus weapon cost and use this as your Dreadnought.

 

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Chaos/nurgle/nurgdread2p8.jpg

 

Mine looks a little different than the one above - but I've been trying to make my Plague Marines a little yuckier than normal.

[TheDarkApostle]

Let's keep it both friendly and on-topic shall we?

 

TDA

[the jeske]

I wasnt ? <_< Well I still stand with my views on the dreads .

[TheDarkApostle]

I'm sorry, I just fail to see how Spawns and Plague Marines fit in with Dreadnoughts.

 

TDA

[the jeske]

spawns have more or less the same lvl of usabilty in any chaos list as dreadnoughts do . And my point on the FW dread was , that for me a nurgle dread was something that had nurgle rules and not a normal dread , but with FW model . thats why I asked how to make a dread nurgle with the new dex . I dont follow all the apo stuff and considering what GW did with the EC [giving options for sonics for units that could take them in the 4th ed] , I thought that maybe I have missed the same thing for DG .

[Night Stalker]

My dread was dead 'ard in small tournament yesterday ... well, it actually killed more my marines than my opponent models while shooting with his plasmacannon, but at least he kill ork warboss in one battle and few biker nobs in thrid battle [was lance magnet in second battle, but survived :)]. So nothing to sneeze about. But giving him plasma was bad idea ...

[Rob_Loken]

I think that the Fire Frenzy rule is funny and adds character to the army I hope they don't get rid of it. Plus it's in keeping with the fluff. However your points regarding tournaments is a valid one I think, Dreads just aren't suited for competitive gaming, but. if your playing at the local club or whatever and it's just a friendly game, hell why not I mean the whole game is based on chance. Anyway my two cents entered.

[Sheff]

I thought the crazed rule from the previous codex was well balanced and made a lot more sense than the one we have now. Hopefully when we see the legion codex(es), the dreadnought will get something to rebalance this (well, for other legions).

[Askari]

dreadoughts can easily be made usable. the best ways to control fire frenzy are putting the dreadnoughts far infront of your army and giving them short ranged weapons. Or have a rhino moving alongside it and give it a plasma cannon. That way you don't have to worry about losing a bunch of expensive space marines if it goes trigger happy and at worst you'll lose a 35 point transport, and even that's unlikely because fire frenzy will usually only happen once per game and if it does there's a good chance the Str7 plasma cannon will either scatter and miss the rhino, not roll high enough on it's armor penetration to harm the rhino or get a non-wrecked result like weapon destroyed or crew shaken.

 

to whoever simply said dreadnoughts suck, please don't post things like this when a person asks how to use a unit. they are trying to find a way to make a unit useful not asking whether a unit is good or not. It's comments like these that influence the trend of people only using a few competitive army builds and if you don't have anything to say that will help a poster then please don't reply.

[the jeske]

so you say you put dreads infront of your army right and with a rhino next to it [what means a squad is runing around without one] ? hmm isnt it kind of a bad .. I mean csm /zerkers/pms all scoring units have a24" range or smaller , they have to move forward if they deploy behind the dreads , they will lose precious inchs . what more while . I can envision hiding a dread or a rhino behind terrain , I have cant imagine a deployment that always has enough space to hide both a rhinos + dread [and considering stuff should be run in pairs a second dread too] and the rest of your army .

also do you advance with your dread ? [i think so , otherwise it would be behind your army after one turn] what if your opponent blows up or stuns the rhino , do you stay with the dread next to the rhino or do you gamble and move it ?

 

Or do you mean that to play dreads a chaos player should go gunline ? because gunline doesnt work out of chaos dex [i doesnt even work out of sm and they techniclly can have 5 man squads with a hvy].

 

As the usage of dreads go . there is two things you can do with them . Play a fluffy force [not a good army , but fluffy] with codex sm "counts as" or use them as weight for paper .

[Askari]

The dread won't get fire frenzy every turn just like a daemon weapon won't wound its owner every turn. Most turns you won't fire frenzy at all. There's no way to get rid of the risk of fire frenzy all together but you can reduce its effects.

[Mal]

What chaos dreads NEED is a drop pod.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I think a lot of people are missing the point. I love dreads, but jeske is right. It doesn't matter if the fire frenzy doesn't kill any of your units, or if the bloodrage sends you exactly where you want to go. The point is that if you fire frenzy on yourself, even if you don't hurt yourself, you are not hurting the enemy either. That is the main problem with dreads. And if you bloodrage, even if it takes you into melee, it means you lost a turn of shooting. On average your fire frenzy will hit your own units and your bloodrage won't bring you in range or CC. So in an average game the dread is only contributing 4 out of the 6 turns and thats what really kills them.

[Brother Nihm]

What chaos dreads NEED is a drop pod.

See now that might actually make them viable. :lol:

[Night Stalker]

yeah, just pray you dont kill your pod when you're in range with worthy opponents ;)

 

but still, pod is good.

 

another way to settle things is using plasma cannon/ccw dread near land rider - no risk of killing LR and you have nice few S10 attacks to kill nasty warboss or to hold enemies when your squad is breaking from combat ... sure - defiler is better, but it's also more expensive and larger. About contributing - with lash prince or two, there is a good chance that run will allow him enter combat.

 

Still, it's unpredictible, but also cheap like chips.