Three Dreads, or two Venerables?

[ShinyRhino]

I'm tweaking a 1750 list for this weekend, and am trying to decide whteher to take three slightly up-gunned Dreads, or two Venerables instead.

 

I really like the "No, reroll that." aspect of a Venerable Dread. You just have to know when to force the reroll, and when to take the hit.

 

My general plan is to use the Dreads as "overwatch" for my defenders. One is planned to be a basic AoBR armament...MM and DCCW with stormbolter replaced with a heavy flamer. The other is supposed to be Assault Cannon and DCCW/HF. I figure the combination of both of these guys can put some hurt on incoming transports, and the troops inside. Both can also put the hurt on Deff Koptas, Nob Bikers, Fexxen, etc etc etc.

Both have a 24" range with their shooting, and the ability to flame footborne troops, then punch them in the face. With Venerable, they can withstand some punishment due to the rerolls.

 

But, I've also considered that the Venerable upgrade for two Dreads can buy me a whole extra Dread! I do have the Elite slots open (running a Troops-heavy Biker list with a couple mech Tacticals, and a Vindicator). This one would probably sport a lascannon, or a missile launcher, for long-range support.

 

Drop podding and Ironclads are out of the question right now. I have a NIB Ironclad, but not enough time to assemble it before the tourney on the 19th. I have some homemade pods, but they're not the role I am aiming for my Dreads to fill.

 

Ideas? Suggestions?

[greatcrusade08]

Id say go with the three dreads, whilst the re-roll is good, its still dependant on a bit of luck (which is out of your hands), having a third dread can make alot of difference...

 

Gc08

[minigun762]

I like the idea of 3 Dreads more, especially making one a Hellfire pattern for shooting.

Plasma/Missile is a great cheap little multi-use unit or dual TL AutoCannons for ripping apart transports.

 

For me, quantity > quality when it comes to armor.

[ShinyRhino]

Good points. I stuck a las/missile Dread in the list. We'll see how it fares. One thing I was reluctant to lose from the Venerables was the WS/BS of 5.

[HERO]

2 Ironclads + room for something else.

[Grey Mage]

My vendread is known to my local opponents as the "Unkillable bastard" because while he will be immobilized, missing all weapons and simply headbutting orks in CC *and winning* hasnt died once in the last two years since I built him- gaming about once a week.

 

I always go venerable dreadnaught, they seem to absorb more firepower than their AV 12 should even consider.

[chapter master 454]

May I point out venerables have WS5 and BS5 along with their 're-roll' trick. I say it's better to hit with precision quality than blindfire quantity. heh, try that on for size first rank fire second rank fire guardsman (heh, 5 terminators vs. 20 odd guardsman. wasn't fair by a long shot, well 24" to be precise and lets just say I leveled them for a kill ratio of 0:12 with one barrage. Lysander for the win! (CML fragging too)). Oh new lysander joke too: I heard they were making a new strength class more broken that Destroyer. It's strength Lysander.

[HERO]

I still think Ironclads are superior because they make IMMUNE to Power Fists and Krak Missiles, and making Lascannons pen on a 5 compared to a 4.

[Chengar Qordath]

I still think Ironclads are superior because they make IMMUNE to Power Fists and Krak Missiles, and making Lascannons pen on a 5 compared to a 4.

Immune is an overstatement; Fists (assuming base Strength 4) and Krak Missiles still glance and Ironclad on a five and pen on a 6.

[HERO]

I still think Ironclads are superior because they make IMMUNE to Power Fists and Krak Missiles, and making Lascannons pen on a 5 compared to a 4.

Immune is an overstatement; Fists (assuming base Strength 4) and Krak Missiles still glance and Ironclad on a five and pen on a 6.

 

Overstatement indeed, but from my experiences, their survivalbility goes up dramatically with AV13 compared to AV12.

[minigun762]

I still think Ironclads are superior because they make IMMUNE to Power Fists and Krak Missiles, and making Lascannons pen on a 5 compared to a 4.

Immune is an overstatement; Fists (assuming base Strength 4) and Krak Missiles still glance and Ironclad on a five and pen on a 6.

 

Overstatement indeed, but from my experiences, their survivalbility goes up dramatically with AV13 compared to AV12.

 

Very true, plus you are actually immune to Krak Grenades which is a big bonus.

 

As for the WS/BS5 increase, I don't think its really worth it. A regular Dread is a very respectable BS4 and having 3 such units is always more firepower then 2 with a higher BS.

Examples:

 

3 regular Dreads with Ass-Cannon

12 shots = 8 hits

2 Ven. Dreads with Ass-Cannon

8 shots = 6.67 hits

 

3 regular Dreads with TL LasCannon

3 TL shots = 2.67 hits

2 Ven. Dreads with TL LasCannon

2 TL shots = 1.94 hits

 

WS5 is even less of a bonus, only having an impact on units that are WS2, WS4 or WS5. While there are alot of those units (atleast the last two), we're typically talking about 2 Power Fist or DCCW swings, so the bonus is not that significant.

[ShinyRhino]

Good discussion, all.

For now, I'm fielding the three regular Dreads. One asault Cannon/DCCW/HF, One Multimelta/DCCW/HF, and one Las/Missile. Maybe the Venerable pair next time.

I applied Lanchester's Square Law to decide this time around, hehe :cuss

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

Assuming Lancaster's square law holds true:

2 Venerables are 4x more effective than 1.

3 Dreads are 9x more effective than 1

2 Venerables cost 330 base.

3 Dreads cost 315 base.

Assuming points are a good indicator of effectiveness:

2 Venerables = 330 x 4 = 1320 effectiveness

3 Dreads = 315 x 9 = 1945 effectiveness

 

3 dreads in a landslide. They're approx. 1.47x more effective.

[chapter master 454]

Numbers mean jack, what matters is unless you have a MotF you've just filled your 3 elites with dreadnoughts, I personally feel thats over-relying on dread, I field 2, no more no less and I still have a slot for some flexibility. To each there own but I personally think the BS5 and WS5 is priceless along with venerable rule, really helps ease the pain of lucky lascannons or krak grenades getting through. Oh well, maybe I'm just attached to having them!

[Fetterkey]

I field four Dreadnoughts with a Master of the Forge. In the case of Dreads, quantity beats quality.

[garreth]

I prefer 2 venerables over 3 casual:

3 casual ~ 2-3 killpoints

2 venerables ~ less than one killpoint (it's all in my own experiense).

[ShinyRhino]

Numbers mean jack, what matters is unless you have a MotF you've just filled your 3 elites with dreadnoughts, I personally feel thats over-relying on dread, I field 2, no more no less and I still have a slot for some flexibility. To each there own but I personally think the BS5 and WS5 is priceless along with venerable rule, really helps ease the pain of lucky lascannons or krak grenades getting through. Oh well, maybe I'm just attached to having them!

 

While I agree with this point, I don't currently run anything in my Elite slots other than Terminators. No Sternguard for me, yet.

What I'm really relying on the Dreads to do is provide support to objective defenders, or to combine for a lot of high S shots downrange.

Two Dreads provide nice complimentary firepower. The addition of the third gives some redundancy in weaponry. If my Multimelta Dread pops, I still have the lascannon on the third one as a backup. If the assault cannon drops, I can frag or krak with the missile launcher as a poor man's substitute.

 

Venerable is a great rule, and frustrates opponents to no end. But what I fear with only two is that volume of fire will still bring one down. Say I end up with three Penetrating hits from various anti-tank sources. I can ony survive forcing rerolls for so long. Even with a reroll, one of those three is going to land on a 5 or 6.

With three standard Dreads, the opponent has to concentrate all fire on one per turn, giving me three full turns of Dread distraction and outgoing fire :)

 

I'm actually planning to test this out tonight in a practice game for Saturday's tourney. We'll see how it goes. If I get mauled, I might swap to the two Venerables for the tournament.

[waaanial00]

Have you considered making the Lascannon/Missile Launcher a Venerable and using the Assault Cannon as stock? I appreciate that BS5 on a Twin Linked weapon might seem like over kill but couple this with the added accuracy on the Missile Launcher and the extra survivability you have a decent firebase unit. The reroll is decent until you get struck with multiple melta weapons, +1 to the result makes even the reroll dangerous however most times if you are at lascannon range you are getting one, maybe two results which is where the Ven shines.

 

Have run a Ven Support Dread before and it does quite well. As Grey Mage suggests they are damn hard to kill and their bonus offensive abilities really make the unit shine.

 

Hope this is useful information

 

Wan

[ShinyRhino]

I ran with three Dreads over two Venerables this weekend in our tournament.

Three Dreads worked nicely for covering a lot of firelanes.

Game One saw them stacked up against a fully-meched out IG list with three Russes and a Vendetta. They took so much fire that I don't htink Venerable would have helped them, though it might have spared the rest of my troops some shooting if the Dreads had lasted longer.

Game Two was against Necrons, and I didn't lose a single Dread. The two that had DCCWs were tarpitted by a 10-base set of Scarabs for a couple turns, but broke free and fired in the final couple turns. The las/missle Dread poured long-range shots from across the board into the Destroyers and Monolith.

Game Three was against Orks, and only one Dread died. Close combat with a squadron of Kans for a couple turns before he exploded. The other tarpitted a 30-strong Mob of Boyz for the whole game, and the other soaked fire from a SAG and Lootas for the whole game.

 

I don't think the paired Venerables would have helped at all. Fewer shots downrange, and less tarpit all around. Though I would have liked to have had the AssCan on a Venerable, since it missed like crazy all day.

But, overall it was quantity over quality, like the Russians versus the Germans!

[chapter master 454]

I ran with three Dreads over two Venerables this weekend in our tournament.

Three Dreads worked nicely for covering a lot of firelanes.

Game One saw them stacked up against a fully-meched out IG list with three Russes and a Vendetta. They took so much fire that I don't htink Venerable would have helped them, though it might have spared the rest of my troops some shooting if the Dreads had lasted longer.

Game Two was against Necrons, and I didn't lose a single Dread. The two that had DCCWs were tarpitted by a 10-base set of Scarabs for a couple turns, but broke free and fired in the final couple turns. The las/missle Dread poured long-range shots from across the board into the Destroyers and Monolith.

Game Three was against Orks, and only one Dread died. Close combat with a squadron of Kans for a couple turns before he exploded. The other tarpitted a 30-strong Mob of Boyz for the whole game, and the other soaked fire from a SAG and Lootas for the whole game.

 

I don't think the paired Venerables would have helped at all. Fewer shots downrange, and less tarpit all around. Though I would have liked to have had the AssCan on a Venerable, since it missed like crazy all day.

But, overall it was quantity over quality, like the Russians versus the Germans!

 

Sounds like a good success story for the trio. you might want to take venerables for another reason because telling a marine player your hitting his cheeky relic blading honour guard on 3+ in CC is priceless (that battle took all game due to bad rolls but was rather funny, they chopped of his arm at best and my MotF put it back on. 2+ repair roll helps. Hehe, 2 venerable dreads plus a tech with harness of tech servitors is just cruel!)

[solkathos]

I usually run two ven dreads with my marines and I can confirm a lot of what other people are saying, they are actually pretty hard to take down. Last tournament I had one lose his CC arm and still manage to keep a regular dread tied up in CC and away from a tac squad holding an objective for the whole game. WS5 makes them much more effective in CC, reducing the chances that a sneaky PF is going to take them down. Personally I give them assault cannons, another place BS5 helps out. Generally twin ven dreads will scare your opponent into putting everything he can into killing them (something which isn't easy), taking fire away from other targets.

[ShinyRhino]

I'll probably run the list with two Venerables next time, due to how our shop is running composition scores now. Comp score is tabulated into your overall scoring for the tourney for Best Overall prizes.

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

No, not comp!

Bane of my existance at RTTs!