Thinking out loud... err in text i guess

[IK Viper]

Melta guns are great, but sometimes you need to reach across the table and put the bloody/angelic pimp slap on something well before your melta toters get anywhere near it. Enter the heavy support options.

 

By my reconing the two easiest ways to include this is with either Dev. Squads or Predators. Its important to me that my all comers list has enough ranged fire power to whittle down anything that is really going to be a problem for my RAS guys before they get there. I have up till now used ML Dev. Squads because these guys are cheap, flexible with their Krak or Frag rounds, and one unlucky shot wont destroy the whole unit. This being said, in Dawn of War, or on maps with a whole bunch of terrain they find themselves missing out on alot of shooting that a Auto/Las Predator would not. I don't like being at the mercy of the deployment gods or terrain.

 

In conclusion I think instead of 2 Dev. Squads I will go with one Predator and one Dev. Squad, using the Pred to cover the areas out of my Dev. Squads field of fire.

 

Is this the best approach? trying to maintain some ranged fire support, or would I be better served withe Baals rushing to midfield? Also, would it be just as effective to use VV's with Melta Bombs and a Thammer? I'm not trying to outshoot IG here, I just want to be able to kill off the really nasty stuff when I have to.

 

I put this thread up to open up a discussion of how to effectively give a JP army a ranged threat that is reasonably reliable, cheap, and effective in all deployments.

[knife&fork]

This being said, in Dawn of War, or on maps with a whole bunch of terrain they find themselves missing out on alot of shooting that a Auto/Las Predator would not. I don't like being at the mercy of the deployment gods or terrain.

 

Agreed.

I'm also a strong proponent of preds, mostly because of the mobility. Being stuck with a useless field of fire is the worst thing that can happen to your fire support. I've even thought about using triple las preds, but haven't had a chance to proxy them since I haven't run a heavy mech list in a while. Kinda want to try the flamestrom baal and tri-las pred combo in a mech or hybrid list.

[SnorriSnorrison]

Devastators are actually pretty good, as you said, but I've had the same problems with them in scenarios like DoW, it's pretty annoying. Preds I haven't used that much actually, at least not the non-Baal variants, but I just found my Whirlwind so I guess it's going to appear in a list from time to time again.

 

As mentioned, you need some fire support to crack open transports or tanks before you're moving into LoS of the big guns. You can do that in many ways, one, as you described, is through the Heavy support slots, either Devs, Preds, or even a Stormraven(sorta).

 

What you can also do is to go with the Fast attack route. Attack bikes are effective, fast and have a increased range over the normal meltaguns. Or, try Landspeeders with Typhoon missile launchers. Two of them are 200 points, that's pretty expensive for such a short-living unit, but they have their advantages over Devs. Really mobile, flexible and able to have a coversave when boosting over 18" is pretty neat(attack bikes can do that as well). They shoot 4 missiles each turn, or 4 templates and have heavy bolters on top of that, so a very versatile unit.

 

Problem is however that if you want to field 2 Baals, the Fast Attack slots are filled up pretty quickly and you won't be able to field VV on top of that.

 

Another way are Scoutbikes. These are heavily discussed amongst the gamers, but they have their uses. While their grenade launchers lack the strength of MM/missile launchers, the unit has ways to compensate this, for example through outflanking or a scout move. Disadvantage is their reduced armour save and when you outflank, you have some of your anti-tank fire not at hand when you need it(turn 1).

 

 

I'd go with 5 devs 4 missiles and probably a Landspeeder unit. :)

 

 

 

Snorri

[Deschenus Maximus]

I've been experimenting with one dev squad with a razorback and 2 autolas preds in mech lists. It works pretty well - you can usually find at least 1 good spot for the Devs in your deployment zone, the Razorback alleviates the pain of Dawn of War to a certain extent, and the autolas preds are mobile so can manoeuvre to get good shots.

[DominicJ]

land speeder move 24"

they are never out of range for long :P

[Morticon]

land speeder move 24"

they are never out of range for long :tu:

 

To be fair, in my experience they're never on the board for long either :P

[Sigismund's Fury]

2x Preds and a 10strong Dev with missles combat sqaud them down. Devs deploy where preds cant go, DOW still sucks.

[Zynk Kaladin]

To be fair, in my experience they're never on the board for long either :D

 

Heh, which is why I switched to bikes when I switched to the BA dex. Although, I'm debating whether I want to try out 2 squadrons of 2 bikes and a squadron of 2 typhoons. 3 squadrons of attack bikes are obviously better, but I love the gunship-like feel of typhoons.

 

I've found typhoons work wonders until your enemy gets smart and targets them. However, one can mitigate the damage by getting squadrons of 2 and hiding one of them behind a rhino or terrain piece for a cover save. The more fire your enemy pours into your typhoons, the less he has to put into your RAS and things that hurt typhoons at such a long range generally hurt RAS worse.

 

However, I've found that multimelta bikes work well with a jumpers list. They slag scary tanks like butter and give your jumpers something extra to hide behind while flying gloriously across the board. It may not be a 1st turn, reach-out-and-touch-someone type unit you're looking for, but with enough of them on the board they indeed put the bloody/angelic pimp slap when you're in range.

[IK Viper]

lol thank you, I will indeed look into those bikes of doom, I like the pimp slapping alot...

[Morticon]

To be fair, in my experience they're never on the board for long either :D

 

Heh, which is why I switched to bikes when I switched to the BA dex. Although, I'm debating whether I want to try out 2 squadrons of 2 bikes and a squadron of 2 typhoons. 3 squadrons of attack bikes are obviously better, but I love the gunship-like feel of typhoons.

 

I've found typhoons work wonders until your enemy gets smart and targets them. However, one can mitigate the damage by getting squadrons of 2 and hiding one of them behind a rhino or terrain piece for a cover save. The more fire your enemy pours into your typhoons, the less he has to put into your RAS and things that hurt typhoons at such a long range generally hurt RAS worse.

 

 

I think they'll also draw less fire if you have 2 squads of MM bikers turboing at them along with all your other vehicles.

[Brother Chris]

My heavy support is a Dev squad in a razorback for fast deployment. I've never used a regular Predator and my bikes are anti-personnel. I've never considered using one of the Dreadnoughts in this slot. Has anyone else?

[DominicJ]

My anti tank is limited to three speeders with meltas, a raven melta/plasma, and a mm dreadnought

plus some powerfists

 

Theres usually not that many tanks that I really need to pop, and its unlikely even a raider will survive 5 melta shots.

[Enzephalon]

I swear by my two predators with Lascannons/Autocannon. They are the backbone of every list I build. Altough they sometimes don't do much, they create a big threat bubble which can't be ignored by my opponents. Forcing his units to hide in cover or focus fire on them.

[Atlantic]

I run three 5 man dev squads packing 4 missle launchers.

 

I also run 2 squads of 2 multi melta attack bikes.

 

This has been pretty effective for me, even in DOW games.

[JamesI]

I run three 5 man dev squads packing 4 missle launchers.

 

I also run 2 squads of 2 multi melta attack bikes.

 

This has been pretty effective for me, even in DOW games.

I like to run something similar, though I usually only take 2 squads of devs.

[Ruthven]

my heavy slots are usually taken up by a stormraven and two autocannon/las cannon preds. I run a plasma cannon on the raven along with the multi-melta. The general strategy depends on the army I am against, but generally the raven is there to deliver whatever unit(s) I put inside it and then it becomes a gunship. The Preds are there to give the raven covering fire and hopefully at least prevent as many of their big anti-tank guns from getting to shoot at my Raven. I also try to run a Baal Pred with the flame cannon to help thin out hordes large marine squads before I assault.

 

I don't really care of Devs because of Dawn of War. Also, sometimes you can get stuck with a side of the table that has less-than-opportune firing lanes for Devs. With the preds you get the same number of shots, two strength 9, two strength 7, rather then the four strength 8 shots from the devs, but the preds can move and fire, so it is almost impossible to keep the preds from having at least one gun able to get a good shot at a target.

 

I run a mech-ish list with at least one jump pack assault squad for some tactical flexibility in general, some games the preds do nothing, some games they are my mvp. It basically comes down to the dice with them, while Devs require a lot more in terms of terrain and placement. It depends entirely on what you want your army to do.

[knife&fork]

I used a 4*HB dev squad (for lulz) in two games today and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised....

 

On paper it's a crap pick and there's no reason whatsoever to pick the heavy bolters when you get the missile launchers for the same points. On the other hand since that is what everyone thinks they didn't draw any fire until very late in both games. I've never had a heavy support choice sit unmolested like that for the better part of a game. Centrally placed and with a 36" range they could cover most of the board and only missed one shooting phase thanks to DoW deployment.

 

Heavy bolters are obviously near useless against vehicles unless you happen to play dark eldar, but I have plenty of melta to deal with those. What they did well was torrent wounds on troublesome squads that have good saves (or cover) or don't care as much about S8 as regular marines. Today it was TWC and terminators.

 

I'm going to use them a bit more until 6th drops.

With necrons, DE, GK henchmen, orks on the rise there's less 3+ in the meta anyways.