Smoke Launchers

[captain sox]

As the title says... are Smoke Launchers any good? Do they actually help or are they useless? What vehicle would they benefit the most?

 

Thanks!

[Koremu]

They are a turn of free cover. This can go very well, or it can go very badly. From observation, it doesn't really help mitigate a really good round of enemy fire significantly enough to save the vehicle, but it does tend to turn the merely poor turns of fire into the utterly negligible quite frequently.

[minigun762]

I look at it as a tool to force your opponent to apply more firepower to a unit to take it out.

In this way, you can help to minimize the amount of destroyed vehicles per turn.

[Xeonic]

Smoke launchers are free and I tend to find them quite effective at what they do, and that is to force your enemy to chose to spend more firepower to destroy your rhinos and predators and the like. They allow the front vehicle covering those behind in a spearhead formation to also get a cover save and hopefully let that vehicle take a bit more fire before asploding.

 

Point is if you're moving a predator, it's either firing one gun or popping smoke, so why not just move twice as far to get where you need to be and pop smoke? Likewise if you're moving a razorback 12", or a rhino at all(rhino gives up a pair of S4 shots to pop smoke woo...). Dread running up the field into multi-melta or assault cannon range? Pop smoke to add a save.

 

It's a colorful addition to the game that adds to the tactical depth IMO, and I like smoke launchers, even if they don't get used too often(well often on rhinos, sometimes never on predators or dreads).

 

EDIT: it's also one of the few ways to give a land raider a coversave.

[Brother-Chaplain Gaius]

they're invaluable IMO. rush forward pop smoke, and next turn you're rapid firing something with a full squad

 

use em all the time

[FlamingDeth]

They're good for anything with a 5th ed codex, a bit trickier with older codices like Black Templar, where instead of a cover save it reduces all hits to glances. With older smoke launchers I find them to be really good on Rhinos and Razorbacks (because let's be honest, how hard is it to pen AV11?) and slightly less useful on, say, a land raider or a predator.

[Voltaire]

Very useful. I've found them invaluable in some cases where it was of dire necessity for me to move most, if not my entire mechanised force well within range of meltas, missiles, Demolisher cannons and the like.

 

 

It's better to have the potential to have a save against a Las-cannon shot then to simply have nothing at all.

 

 

Several of my spearhead tactics would not be viable if smoke launchers weren't available.

[waaanial00]

My biggest problem with smoke is when to use it. Ok from a logical point of view its really easy, when your moving flat out etc. However, and maybe its just me, I find that in game there are multi level dangers which are both real and percieved and I tend to hold onto my smoke unit too late in the game for fear of using it too early.

 

Given that I generally never pop smoke on my Dreadnoughts and I have nothing other than Rhinos with smoke in my competative army, I find that I never use it as I am continually saving it for a time when I am in sufficient danger to use it.

 

Still I see that they are a valuable asset to have, even if I dont use them much.

 

Wan

[Koremu]

I use it at the earliest necessary point. Although that isn't that often, as my terrain set is good and chunky (I have entire buildings you can comfortably fit Rhinos inside).

[Warprat]

I use them on vehicles that are moving fast between cover, or that lose shooting for a turn (and not in cover). Generally, you want all your vehicles to not be seen, in cover or smoked if you can work it that way. But if a couple of your vehicles are visable, and the rest are not, you have to be careful because the enemy will just target the easy vehicles and you gain nothing by popping smoke. So, it's almost all, or nothing.

[DarkGuard]

Smoke launchers for me are invaluable. As I use at least a couple of full strength Tactical Marines in Rhinos then those smoke launchers come in handy, move the full distance available, pop smoke, hope you don't get destroyed (which is no harder thanks to the cover save), and you should get another turn to move your troops into the enemy's deployment zone.

 

But don't be so impulsive with them, at times I've been able to shield one of my Rhinos with the other and some terrain, meaning I use smoke for one turn on one Rhino, the other obscured one gets a cover save, and then 'leapfrog' them the next turn. Was invaluable in getting to the Tau's lines in a street fight game.

 

Basically they are good, invaluable for Rhino rush, but if you can get a cover save without the smoke launchers go for that instead and keep your effective free cover save for later.

[Deathwing]

They're good for anything with a 5th ed codex, a bit trickier with older codices like Black Templar, where instead of a cover save it reduces all hits to glances. With older smoke launchers I find them to be really good on Rhinos and Razorbacks (because let's be honest, how hard is it to pen AV11?) and slightly less useful on, say, a land raider or a predator.

 

I find the old style smoke much better on Land Raiders than the current version. Penetrating a land raider is already fairly difficult and the old smoke pretty much garuntees it will live through any fire. Coupled with the old style machine spirit, that Land Raider is going to be disgorging its cargo regardless of what your opponent does to it (well unless he immobilizes it)

 

Heck, even with Rhinos I prefer the old style smoke. Keeps that moving box alive longer and frustrates your opponent to no end (at least for a turn). Now for a pillbox like the predator or a razorback (to a lesser degree), the new smoke is probably slightly better as you can ignore hits and then keep shooting the turn after.

 

Of course the ideal situation is to have a cover save with the old style smoke as then the vehicle is practically invincible for a turn. Not that hard to do if you properly screen your land raider with a rhino who is screened by a bike squad or speeder.

[Arikel]

You guys seem to be treating smoke launchers as one shot items? From everything I've read they can be used any turn you don't plan to fire.

[Xeonic]

You guys seem to be treating smoke launchers as one shot items? From everything I've read they can be used any turn you don't plan to fire.

BRB, page 62 under smoke launchers "once per game" is pretty clear.

Note that this may be overridden by codex specific smoke, but I can't imagine where, the older codex smoke was just a downgrade of a pen to a glance as opposed to the new 4+ coversave, no?

[Giga]

Smoke launchers are great.

 

Not only are they a turn of free cover, they're also a great psychological deterrent. People don't like to shoot at smoking vehicles, and will often ignore a smoking vehicle even when taking that vehicle out might be extremely important at that particular moment.

 

Another great thing is that, when moving a bunch of rhinos, having the frontmost rhino pop smoke will usually mean all of your rhinos get cover saves. A few lucky cover saves on vehicles can turn entire battles.