Devastator Squads

[Smirnov]

This is a bit of a newbie question... So bear with me, please <_<

 

The problem is that I have never used a devastator wquad as is and now I plan an army which extensively uses heavy weapons. So I would be really grateful if anyone could give me a bit of general advice like 'Devastators 101' about unit composition, what weapon to use against what and the like.

[minigun762]

This is a bit of a newbie question... So bear with me, please <_<

 

The problem is that I have never used a devastator wquad as is and now I plan an army which extensively uses heavy weapons. So I would be really grateful if anyone could give me a bit of general advice like 'Devastators 101' about unit composition, what weapon to use against what and the like.

 

There are quite a few topics out there that go over similar issues, but I can throw out some pointers.

 

1) I would abide by the 1:1 ratio of bullet sponges to heavy weapon Marines. This means if you have 6 Marines in a squad, I wouldn't take more then 3 heavies.

2) The safest plan is not to mix weapons. You can mix weapons if you have a good plan, for example you'll see alot of 3 Missile Launchers/1 LasCannon. This is because the LasCannon can use that BS5 piece of Wargear, to be more accurate.

3) In general, killing heavy armor (AV13+) requires Melta weapons and those are best found in your Fast Attack or Elite slots. I prefer to think of my long range tank busters as transport/walker killers (AV10-12) and focus them accordingly.

4) Maybe its just the Traitor in me, but I'm kinda jealous of the 4 Plasma Cannon Dev squads. Thats an awful lot of blast weapons to be laying out, meaning its equally effective at frying an Ork horde or squad of Terminators, or even that pesky MC. Not super reliable for tank busting though (see point 3)

5) When in doubt, use Missile Launchers. They're good "do-everything" weapons with long range.

6) The advantage of Devs over vehicles is you can't be stunned or killed in 1 shot. The disadvantage is you can be hurt by small arms fire and you could always fail a LD check and run.

[DarkGuard]

Another disadvantage of Dev squads are their high points cost, especially considering their effectiveness. Most time you'll find that fielding a 5 man Sternguard Squad with 2 heavy weapons will be cheaper than a Dev Squad with the same load out, while having more attacks, better leadership, and a larger range on their bolters.

 

But for fielding Dev squads, I agree with minigun762, 1:1 ratio on heavy weapons and bullet catchers.

 

However, although 4 lascannons, or 4 plasma cannons may look awesome, the actual points cost of them may not justify their use. So for lascannons, like minigun762 has already said, have one lascannon and 3 missile launchers in a 10 man squad, with the lascannon using the BS5 shot. For plasma cannons, I've had some success with a 10 man unit with 2 plasma cannons and 2 heavy bolters. This unit will take down infantry quickly, and the ranges of the weapons match.

 

Of course, if in doubt a 10 man 4 missile launcher squad can be effective, and a 10 man 4 heavy bolter unit can also be nasty to infantry.

[Ming]

Same here. When I use devs, it is for 4x cheapest weapons (HBs and MLs). I put the more expensive weapons in other squads (tacs or stern) where points are more efficiently spent.

 

I never thought about it much, but where I may uses a tri-las pred, it is about the same as a tri-las dev squad. I probably could use some reverse engineering on my own use of heavies in my lists.

[Warp Angel]

Two articles I've written address my thoughts in detail about Devastator squads: Unit Size and Risk and Tactica: Heavy (see my sigs below).

 

The summary is:

 

Heavy support slots need to do something in your army that nothing else does, or that your army doesn't do well. The role of devastators is usually anti-tank or anti-infantry. The problem here is that the job that devastors do is replicated by the Predator (multiple las/multiple HB), Typhoon (missile/HB), Thunderfire (multiple frag missile), Vindicator (templatey death from multiple plasma), or by Sternguard with 2 heavy weapons. Almost all of which cost less, and almost all of which are mobile while still being able to shoot something. Anti-tank is also cheaper and more effective with melta equipped land speeders, attack bikes, etc.

 

And a 5 man devastator squad is the single most easily reduced in potency power armored unit in the C:SM.

 

If you lose a guy, you lose either a heavy weapon or the sergeant with his Ld, Signum, and possibly his weapon/ccw upgrades. 100% risk. You have to have ablative wounds of some kind or see your squad quickly degrade in effectiveness.

 

The problem with adding additional squad members is that your "ablative wounds" provide almost no additional offensive bump to the primary mission of the devastator squad.

 

This makes them flat out inefficient. They are only on my unit radar when I'm fielding a battle company in Apocalypse, otherwise they don't hit my army lists.

[Smirnov]

Thanks for the replies!

 

Can you give me a quick description of what each heavy weapon is good/bad at or link to the post if it already exists...

[minigun762]

Thanks for the replies!

 

Can you give me a quick description of what each heavy weapon is good/bad at or link to the post if it already exists...

 

Sure.

Heavy Bolter = pure anti-infantry. Its too light to be considered an anti-tank weapon (with the sole exception of blowing up Land Speeders and Raiders as they're AV10 Skimmers). Its great for killing horde infantry or Eldar/Tau warriors as it punches through their armor save and usually wounds on 2's.

Against Marines its slightly less effective, but still surprisingly good against them (only about 20% worse then a Krak Missile). Drawback is the short range and the fact that the basic Bolter is also good against those same kind of targets and you have alot of those.

 

Multi-Melta = Anti-tank, MC. The problem with the Multi-Melta is delivery. You need to get it up close to do its damage. This is why its usually best on mobile platforms like Attack Bikes or Land Speeders, where it is king of killing AV14.

In Dev squads, what you're going to have to do with it is take a 10 man squad, put them in a Drop Pod or Rhino, move them up to midfield and use is as a short range, but deadlier Missile Launcher (AP1 kills 50% of the time on penetrating vs 33%). Even this is hard to do though, considering all the turns you spend moving and not firing.

 

Missile Launcher = Default weapon. Good against everything other then Terminators, 2+ save MCs or AV14. Its not a great weapon, but its flexible and cheap. Pretty much the yard stick against which everything else is measured.

 

Plasma Cannon = Contender for default weapon. Like the Missile, its good against a variety of targets. Its less powerful against armor due to S7 and blast, but its better against Marines and Terminators. Shorter range and "Gets Hot" rules plus higher price tag make it a harder weapon to spam.

 

LasCannon = Anti-tank, MC. Same role as the Multi-Melta, with twice the maximum range. This would be the no brainer if it wasn't so horribly expensive. Don't rely on it to kill AV14 (Melta weapons up close do a much better job) but any other armor is fair game.

 

I'd look to Darkguard's post about effective weapon mixing combos.

[Koremu]

Two articles I've written address my thoughts in detail about Devastator squads: Unit Size and Risk and Tactica: Heavy (see my sigs below).

 

The summary is:

 

Heavy support slots need to do something in your army that nothing else does, or that your army doesn't do well. The role of devastators is usually anti-tank or anti-infantry. The problem here is that the job that devastors do is replicated by the Predator (multiple las/multiple HB), Typhoon (missile/HB), Thunderfire (multiple frag missile), Vindicator (templatey death from multiple plasma), or by Sternguard with 2 heavy weapons. Almost all of which cost less, and almost all of which are mobile while still being able to shoot something. Anti-tank is also cheaper and more effective with melta equipped land speeders, attack bikes, etc.

 

And a 5 man devastator squad is the single most easily reduced in potency power armored unit in the C:SM.

 

If you lose a guy, you lose either a heavy weapon or the sergeant with his Ld, Signum, and possibly his weapon/ccw upgrades. 100% risk. You have to have ablative wounds of some kind or see your squad quickly degrade in effectiveness.

 

The problem with adding additional squad members is that your "ablative wounds" provide almost no additional offensive bump to the primary mission of the devastator squad.

 

This makes them flat out inefficient. They are only on my unit radar when I'm fielding a battle company in Apocalypse, otherwise they don't hit my army lists.

 

This * over 9000

 

Devastator Squads just do not work. Even the firepower they give out isn't especially impressive, given how static they are and that any competent player on a board with the recomended terrain density should be able to offer a minimum of a 4+ save against all the Devastator Squads firing.

 

They only become worth it if and when you can guarantee you will be fighting with a defensive setup - so planetstrike defense games really.

[Paulochromis]

Multi-Melta = Anti-tank, MC. The problem with the Multi-Melta is delivery. You need to get it up close to do its damage. This is why its usually best on mobile platforms like Attack Bikes or Land Speeders, where it is king of killing AV14.

In Dev squads, what you're going to have to do with it is take a 10 man squad, put them in a Drop Pod or Rhino, move them up to midfield and use is as a short range, but deadlier Missile Launcher (AP1 kills 50% of the time on penetrating vs 33%). Even this is hard to do though, considering all the turns you spend moving and not firing.

Of course, if you take Sicarius, you could give them Scout, and have them take up a nice position during deployment.

[DarkGuard]

Multi-Melta = Anti-tank, MC. The problem with the Multi-Melta is delivery. You need to get it up close to do its damage. This is why its usually best on mobile platforms like Attack Bikes or Land Speeders, where it is king of killing AV14.

In Dev squads, what you're going to have to do with it is take a 10 man squad, put them in a Drop Pod or Rhino, move them up to midfield and use is as a short range, but deadlier Missile Launcher (AP1 kills 50% of the time on penetrating vs 33%). Even this is hard to do though, considering all the turns you spend moving and not firing.

Of course, if you take Sicarius, you could give them Scout, and have them take up a nice position during deployment.

 

Only a Tactical squad can be given USRs by Sicarius, sorry. Of course, the same principle can work with a Tactical squad with meltagun and multi-melta, just not as efficient as 2 multi-meltas.