Devastators

[Fire Lord Captain]

Hi, just a quick one.. Can devastators be taken as a combat squad with the four heavy weapons and a serge? If so do people play them like that or do you fully squad them with the 5 marines armed with bolters?

 

Also, what would be the adantages/disadvantages of both types of squad.

 

Cheers!!

[JamesI]

The problem with 5 devestators with 4 heavies is you have no bodies to take hits. Each casualty costs as you either lose your sergeant or a heavy weapon.

[Fire Lord Captain]

The problem with 5 devestators with 4 heavies is you have no bodies to take hits. Each casualty costs as you either lose your sergeant or a heavy weapon.

 

So you recommend the full 10 man squad?

[Captain Antonius]

Greetings Brother,

 

If I field a Devastator Squad, I usually try to bring all ten men. I will typically give them a transport unless I know I can start them on the table. If they have to walk on, thier guns will be silent for a turn. If they are in a transport, atleast they won't die as easy before they can get to a position to provide fire support. As as stated earlier, by not bringing 5 extra bolter guys, your heavy weapons and sgt are the first to go when the unit takes wounds.

 

So some advantages of the 10 man Dev squad are: Surviability, ability to bring one heavy support choice and then split fire with two combat squads (two lascannons in one and two heavy bolters in the other for example). Some of the disadvantages of the 10 man squad are: cost, bolters don't have the range or firepower to match the heavy weapons in the squad, they aren't a scoring unit so sitting on an obj isn't helping.

 

Some advantages of the 5 man squad are: cost, can fit in a razorback to add more firepower to the unit. Disadvantages are: only 5 guys, can't split fire (unless you are space wolves), and should be configured to specific mission role to get any advantage in the firepower (for example, anti tank or anti personelle).

 

To show you how I arm my squads, here are my two Dev squad loadouts:

 

Dev squad 1

Sgt w/Powerfist and Combi-plasma

3 PlasmaCannons

1Multimelta

5 bolters

(this squad usually combat squads with the PC's providing cover fire with 2 bolters and the sgt and mulitmelta and 3 bolters going tank hunting. this is not typical of most dev squads as most people would have never given thier sgt a PF or put a MM in an anti-infantry squad)

 

Dev squad 2

sgt w/bolter

2 lascannons

2 missile launchers

5 bolters

(this is my multi-mission squad. depending on the enemy's composition, they are either working on killing insanse toughness monstrous creatures or tanks. they can combat squad into sgt, 2 LC, 2 bolters and 2 ML and 3 bolters)

[nurglespuss]

I usually go for a 6 man, the price of the squad is pretty steep, so provided you dont kit out the sergeant, then thats 2 'freebies' you can give away. Dev squads are meant to be small really, because, Ideally, they should be incover, and not recieve too much fire.

[thade]

The rule of thumb I've taken is roughly 1 vanilla body per body with a weapon. So if you put 3 lascannons in, you want three ablative hits (in my opinion, the sergeant can count, but it's better to protect his signum too).

 

3 lascannons are really nice for putting pressure on things like Wraithlords. =)

[Fire Lord Captain]

Cheers Brothers!

[Shadow Captain Corveus]

The problem with devs though is they're much too expensive for how powerful they are on the battlefield... In my experience a combi-pred HBS/TLLC is much better value for money...

 

Edit:Errr... I mean Points!

[Mal]

My personal preference for when I can squeeze in enough points to field a full 10 squad is to split so 2 squads have 2 heavies each, this means I can lay down fire against 2 targets or concentrate on 1 as required.... in anything but an annihilation match this added flexability can come in handy.

[Arikel]

I run a 7 man dev squad(still painting up some marines to fill it out) with 2 las cannons and 2 ml. It did very well whittling down carnifexes as they ran to my lines in one of my last games, and only took one casualty all game.

[Bannus]

Another popular option is to take all 10 so the unit can combat squad.

 

You then put the Sergeant with a lascannon and three warm bodies as a heavy 'sniper' unit against big nasties.

 

The other half has three missile launchers (or similarly inexpensive heavy weapons) with two warm bodies providing mass fire support.

[Miscellaneous Marine]

My post from http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=3720

 

 

10 man squads work well in 2000 point games or more. At Battle in the vines this year I ran 2 x 10 man devastator squads to back up 60 tactical marines. This worked because it added more bodies to the field. I won 3 out of 5 games. I ran one with 4 missile launchers and a second with 3 plasma cannons and a heavy bolter. They were capable of taking out entire squads and didn't take much fire because I had 30 marines in rhinos barreling down on my opponent

 

5 man squads work well in small games of 1250 or less. I play in a progressive league that over 10 weeks grows from 750 points to 2000. In earlier games I find that 2 squads are better than other options such as vindicators because you need to take out 5 guys instead of 1 tank/dread. In short they are more resilient.

 

The other thing is that they should improve your comp score because they are theoretically easier to kill and cost more points.

 

In short

- Great for fire supporting horde/large gun lines

- Great bang for buck in small games

- More shots = more wounds = more failed saves

[Frosty the Pyro]

Another random note for the 10 man. If you combat squad it, you get movible cover even if your out in the open. have the guns behind the bolters, in the movement phase move the bolters out of the way, in the shooting phase fire the guns and then RUN! the bolters back to provide cover. While only a 4+ cover save (which is realy the best your getting without a techmarine/MoTF to bolster) it can let you cover a fireline that would otherwise be more risky.