Assault Cannon VS Cyclone Missile Launcher

[the_carpethead]

Curious...I'm a WH40K newb looking to start at Deathwing army. I'm seeing a lot of lists now with tons of CML and no AC's. What are the pros and cons of each? Also, I saw a list with a ven. dred. that has a plasma cannon, which I havent seen before, that still a viable option?

 

Thanks all,

Carpet

 

Oh, and what are some good Deathwing blogs out there, if any?

[EPK]

The biggest pro to the CML over the AC is simply the price/effectiveness.

 

DA recently got an FAQ which made our CML comparable to C:SM - ie. it is now 2 shot, where it was 1 shot before. However, the price remained unchanged at 20 points. The AC is 30. You can also take into consideration that pure Deathwing always lacked long range fire power. Now with a cheap 2 shot CML it can help tackle that problem.

 

This thread details unit composition and may have some insight on AC vs CML (if not, I know it has come up in another thread) - http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...=assault+cannon

 

Ah, here we are. In that thread, from this point on we start to discuss AC vs CML -

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...t&p=2645438

[exsulis81]

Well, with the Errata update for the points it is more efficient to have the CMLs.

 

As to the venerable dread, which one is it? IE C:DA, or is it the forgeworld one?

Either way a plasma pie-plate is fun for tanks <_<

[EPK]

Well, with the Errata update for the points it is more efficient to have the CMLs.

 

As to the venerable dread, which one is it? IE C:DA, or is it the forgeworld one?

Either way a plasma pie-plate is fun for tanks :D

 

And MEQ infantry obviously (or lower, but could be see as overkill). I tend to see it as one of those situational and if the points allow it type purchases but I don't see why it's not viable.

[IanSturrock]

I think the plasma cannon on the dread is a bit too situational, personally. On the upside, it doesn't need to worry about Gets Hot! results. On the downside, though, it's not as efficient or versatile as a great many other weapons. Any good player these days knows to spread his troops out so your small blast only hits one model, which means the plasma cannon is often less effective than a regular plasma gun (usually much cheaper and more easily available than the cannon), as the latter potentially gets two shots rather than one. The only time you can be pretty sure of having elite troops (2+ or 3+ armour save) bunched up is when they deep strike, again making this an *extremely* situational gun -- particularly since, again, if you have even a half-competent opponent, that deep-striking squad is going to use the shooting phase to Run and spread out, if you have a plasma cannon in your army.

 

There is perhaps something to be said for plasma as a way to deny Feel No Pain, now that FNP is becoming so much more common, but again, you'll rarely hit more than 1-2 enemies with it, per shot, and it'll fairly often scatter so far it hits nothing at all.

 

When you can have a twin-linked autocannon on the dread, which is one of the best anti-transport guns in the game, reliably kills light infantry better than the plasma cannon, and can at a pinch be used to suppress AV13 (stopping a predator from shooting at you can make a huge difference, even if it's for just one turn) or kill elite infantry (sure, they get their armour save, but you are probably making them make two armour saves a turn, so sooner or later they'll fail), I don't see much benefit to the plasma cannon. Its one advantage over stuff like the multimelta and assault cannon is range, since dreads can sometimes take a while to get within 24" of viable targets, but again, I think I'd rather have the autocannon for a sit-back-and-shoot dread; the plasma cannon's range doesn't even suit its main niche (killing elite deep strikers) especially well, since the big danger of deep striking units is that they land right in your face.

 

As for assault cannon vs cyclone, on the termies -- I just think the cyclone is *so* much more versatile these days that there's almost never a good reason to take the assault cannon... maybe if you already had at least 4-5 squads with cyclones?

[TyrionTheImp]

I started collecting my Deathwing before the FAQ came out, assault cannons were all the rage (especially when you deep striked a few of them into your opponent's face!), so I have models already with Assault Cannons on them still deep strike them, but since the FAQ, I've been trying to gather more CMLs. Frankly my CMLs have performed quite awful, today they did diddly squat the whole game, I've never seen so many fails to penetrate on an AV12 with Strength 8. Of course, as of right now I only have one modeled, and the other model is awaiting his own when I can get it (and arms, not sure how I managed to have a torso and legs but no arms!).

 

I think the assault cannon still works if you want to go for the in-your-face deep striking approach with the squad, but for the most part, having more S8 missiles is NEVER a bad thing, especially when they're cheaper.

 

As for the Venerable Dread, I'm a fan of the assault cannon over the Plasma Cannon. I don't like blasts, they scatter off, and most opponents will spread out, or have cover, either way your effectiveness drops. Assault Cannons provide that sort of all-around effectiveness that many guns can't really match. If we could get double Twin-linked autocannons I'd advocate those, however, the chapter who developed the Mortis, can't use the Mortis (using the Codex only of course, I believe an IA lets us use it).

[Brother Kovash]

The first few squads I built all had assault cannons. After the FAQ update, I've added one CML to one squad, and once my lightning claws arrive I'll make another with TLC. If I know I'll be facing a lot of infantry (orcs, tyranids) I'll bring the AC, against some vehicles I'll take the CML.

 

 

Also, when it comes to the dread, I'm really hoping we get the rifleman back when a new codex arrives. Of course, I still have a mix of plasma cannons in my tactical squads. Need more plasma, I always say.

[EPK]

Great points IanSturrock and TyrionTheImp. It's definitely even more situational than I thought. In my defense, most of the time when I run a Dread I find myself simply using the a Venerable with the basic load out, so I really don't have the experience.

 

One situation that it may still be handy for is, as you noted, is FNP orks. I have a friend that always runs a mob of 30 boys with extra armor and FNP. It's a beast if you don't have the right resources to quell it. Than again, sometimes it's best to just avoid them, as they are always footslogging. But you are right, you may still only hit less than a few of them.