ML Devs vs Plasma Devs in 6th

[Kickrock]

With every question I ask, there is some back story behind it.

 

My tried and true 5th edition Blood Angels army was a generic DoA list. It was nothing special, something very common that everyone has seen before to some degree. The core of the list was similar to ;

 

1-2 JP Libbys

Honor Guard w/ JP / x4 Melta

2-3 JP Priests

3-4 10 Man Assault Squads w/ x2 melta, PF

2 ML Dev Squads w/ extra devs where points permit.

 

When 6th Edition came three things happened that are the reason behind why I am posting. Power Weapons became AP3, giving models with 2+ Saves (Terminators for example) a nice buff. The second thing was the changes in vehicles and transports along with shooting, pushing towards more infantry based lists. The third are that Fliers are extremely strong! Only certain weapons (which most armies don't have) and other fliers (which some armies don't have) can take them down effectively. So I rewrote my list. The core is along the lines of;

 

Dante

1 Sanguinary Guard squad w/ x4 Melta Pistols, x2 Axe

2-3 Sanguinary Guard squads w/ x2 Axe, maybe x2 plasma pistols. Havn't decided 100 % yet.

2 JP Priests

2 Dev Squads

 

The reason behind the changes is simple. Sanguinary Guard have Artificer Armor. 2+ saves. Enemies like Grey Knights who build Halberds to counter Blood Angel assaults can no longer sweep my assaulting units before I attack. AP3 on their weapons allows me my armor saves, and heaven forbid I miss my 2+ I still get my FnP from the priests. Dante allows me to unlock these models as Troop Choices. The 4 Melta Pistols have been around forever, as they can deep strike onto whatever target they want, EXACTLY making the 3" range for melta achievable. This is a list that is very common, again, just the new edition made it extremely more viable.

 

Now, this is where the question comes into play. Those two Devastator Squads. I have not decided what I outfit them with. With 6th moving away from vehicle lists and going back to Infantry, plus the indirect buff to 2+ armor, Plasma Cannons are a lot more viable then they were before. I am loosing one strength, but it is giving me the ability to punch through Terminators and take out large groups, easier. The trick comes into play with flyers... You CANNOT shoot down a plane with a Plasma Cannon. Blasts cannot hit them. To be competitive and to write a "beats all" list I have to account for those flyers. So I ask the question, and hope that this sparks some discussion. Do I (and anyone else who decides to) switch from Missile Launchers on my Devs and move over to Plasma Cannons?

 

* If I stay Missile Launchers I can attach a Librarian to my Devs. With the divinations ability (I forget what it's called) I have rerolls on one of those Dev squads. This frees up points that I can place into other areas. More devs to soak up wounds, an Autocannon Dreadnought. A Furioso Librarian is another option, who can in turn buff the second devastator unit. The downside is I can not thin out and weaken those Terminators / MegaNobs / Dreadknights as easy before I assault.

* If I move over to Plasma Cannons nothing on the ground is safe. But in order to combat those air threats I would have to purchase and bring along a Storm Raven of my own. Don't get me wrong, the Storm Raven is the strongest flyer in my opinion, and a terror of the skies. But at its cost on top of the 5 extra points per Plasma Cannon I do not have the luxury of sitting a Librarian or Dreadnought next to my Devs and potentially lose upgrades on my Guard.

 

Yes, I know that plasma is a lot stronger, but having said the above, what is everyone’s opinion?

[knife&fork]

Having seen what a div libby( runepriest) can do together with a squad of longfangs equipped with lascannons I'd say that's the direction I would go with any new dev unit I assemble. Both rerolls and ignores cover make hem crazy good.

 

You might lose the blast but on the other hand you gain so much more. No gets hot, wound anything short of a wraithlord on 2+, ID and thus FnP denying on T4, better range, better against all kinds of vehicles including flyers.

 

In my experience so far any move away from vehicles have been mostly lip-service, you still need the mobility and all the other things they provide. Some types of vehicles have become more or less useful but models with AV aren't going away.

[mmaarrkk]

ML's cause ID just as good as lascannons for cheaper, the advantage of being able to take on hordes as well as tanks and both are as good as each other against MEQ, not so good against TEQ compared to lascannons, and being up against orks guard or DE (Anything with 6+ saves) and against MEQ ignore cover is very useful. Light armour ML's can take down, lascannons are a little bit better of course but i wouldnt be realying on LC's for heavy armour, meltas are the only way to go.

[DominicJ]

It takes ten missiles with re rolls to pen an av12 flyer.

 

Far far better to deny a flier targets.

If it hovers, you can plasma cannon it.

 

I take four rockets and four cannons

[mmaarrkk]

Have many fliers are there that are av12, SR's of course, storm eagles, detta's anything else?

[knife&fork]

I take four rockets and four cannons

 

While vehicles aren't going anywhere 2+ saves are getting more popular while coversaves and PWs got worse.

 

Lasers are more likely to kill any target by pens than missiles. Getting pens in the first place is more important than ever, glances do nothing to reduce the abilities of a vehicle.

 

How useful are frag missiles, honestly? Sometimes you might luck out but they are not particularly useful for 'horde' control. People tend to overestimate how much you can cover with a small blast. Goes for the plasma cannon as well.

 

Not telling everyone to thrown their missile devs in a vat of simple green, but las cannons deserve a serious revaluation in 6th.

[Bayaz]

Plasma Cannon Dev squads are oh so good for dealing with Termies/MEQ. They can't deal with fliers, but ML Devs are no good for that either, even with presience. If you're going to be running into fliers and aren't taking a raven, then find the 100pts for a quad gun Aegis Line (maybe by running only one libby?). It'll give nice cover for your Devs and you can happily run one plasma cannon squad and one ML squad.

[DominicJ]

Blasts can be useful.

Cover, disembarks, just setting up charges even, can all force the enemy to bunch up.

 

And blasts can force them to do the above poorly.

[Kickrock]

I take four rockets and four cannons

 

While vehicles aren't going anywhere 2+ saves are getting more popular while coversaves and PWs got worse.

 

Lasers are more likely to kill any target by pens than missiles. Getting pens in the first place is more important than ever, glances do nothing to reduce the abilities of a vehicle.

 

How useful are frag missiles, honestly? Sometimes you might luck out but they are not particularly useful for 'horde' control. People tend to overestimate how much you can cover with a small blast. Goes for the plasma cannon as well.

 

Not telling everyone to thrown their missile devs in a vat of simple green, but las cannons deserve a serious revaluation in 6th.

 

While I almost entirely agree with you, I wanna point out two things.

 

The first; while glance hits do nothing against the vehicles ability to fire back at the moment, glancing hits can now cause a wreck on a vehicles, where you had to get lucky before. Granted, Pens are more valuble, you can't rule out the significant of a glancing hit. What Lass brings that Missiles don't (aside from the +1 strength) is the AP2.

 

Second; Your missile launchers will do no more than a Lascannon will against a horde. Plasma Cannons will do almost double the work, on average.

 

All of that being said in the thread I am seriously going to consider Las instead of Plas/Missile. I just need to justify the cost. Understanding everything you're saying but I for two Dev squads thats 80 points.

[knife&fork]

The first; while glance hits do nothing against the vehicles ability to fire back at the moment, glancing hits can now cause a wreck on a vehicles, where you had to get lucky before. Granted, Pens are more valuble, you can't rule out the significant of a glancing hit. What Lass brings that Missiles don't (aside from the +1 strength) is the AP2.

 

Second; Your missile launchers will do no more than a Lascannon will against a horde. Plasma Cannons will do almost double the work, on average.

 

All of that being said in the thread I am seriously going to consider Las instead of Plas/Missile. I just need to justify the cost. Understanding everything you're saying but I for two Dev squads thats 80 points.

 

Glances are not unimportant, just not as good as pens. Sometimes you want to glance things to death because you get a nice predictable wreck, but more often than not the pens will be more desirable.

 

I'm honestly not really concerned about 'horde'. I assume we are talking lots of orks or GEQ? Even bolters and normal CC attacks are very effective against them.

 

Another important factor that often get overlooked when talking about effectiveness is time. If you can quickly shut down/or kill something it's worth more than doing the same thing over a larger number of phases. You get to turn your guns on something else and the opponent gets less return on his investment in the unit you just disabled.

Is it enough to justify the extra points in the case of missiles vs lasers? I can't speak for everyone and I'm not running devs myself atm, but I'm impressed by what they do in my friends lists. Why not proxy for a game or two and see how you like it?

 

Another thing that I have against PCs (on devs) is the range. 36" can be a bit limiting and you don't even get the option of taking snap shots on the move.

[Kickrock]

Glances are not unimportant, just not as good as pens. Sometimes you want to glance things to death because you get a nice predictable wreck, but more often than not the pens will be more desirable.

 

I'm honestly not really concerned about 'horde'. I assume we are talking lots of orks or GEQ? Even bolters and normal CC attacks are very effective against them.

 

Another important factor that often get overlooked when talking about effectiveness is time. If you can quickly shut down/or kill something it's worth more than doing the same thing over a larger number of phases. You get to turn your guns on something else and the opponent gets less return on his investment in the unit you just disabled.

Is it enough to justify the extra points in the case of missiles vs lasers? I can't speak for everyone and I'm not running devs myself atm, but I'm impressed by what they do in my friends lists. Why not proxy for a game or two and see how you like it?

 

Another thing that I have against PCs (on devs) is the range. 36" can be a bit limiting and you don't even get the option of taking snap shots on the move.

 

Heh, as far as the proxy goes, I'm currently unable to play... Makes me sad. I havn't had a game since July and I won't be able to have another until next November. As close as I can come is Vassal... by myself...

 

On the subject of Glances, I was stating what you said. Ork Lootas (origionally an ork player) are crazy good now against everything but Av14 because of the sheer numbers they can put out and the ammount of glances that can come from it. Flyer comes in? Doesn't matter, 15 lootas.

 

Hordes were never a thought when considering Plasma Cannons. I considered them to negate the 2+ armor saves that are on the rise. I'm definatly going to look into Las over Plas on those devs. I'm just concerned about the performance in regards to the price compaired to Plas.

[Calnus]

Instead of plasma cannons, have you considered Heavy Bolters? You generate more consistent wounds and have MUCH better horde control, due to volume.

 

The thing I'm finding is that if you see basic 2+ armor, either you're seeing the 2+/5++ or something with 4++ or better. Even getting smacked in the face by plasma doesn't hurt a Hammernator squad too terribly, as they just take it on the 3++ and keep swinging. Now, the best way to kill those is sheer weight of fire, throwing dice at it until they roll 1s.

 

And the big thing with plasma cannons is scatter + gets hot. You have a 1 in 6 chance, not re-rollable through prescience, to simply not fire, then a 2 in 3 chance to scatter somewhere you didn't intend. The first time you hit your own SG and they dissapear, you'll hate your scatter dice. With a direct fire weapon, you get the hits where you want them all the time.

 

On top of the question over what to equip your devastators with, I really love the Stormraven. A flying multi-melta wreaks absolute havoc on pretty much anything, and you still get those lovely AP 1 missiles. And my usual opponents just roll their eyes when they remember how damn near everything on the gunship is twin-linked. Hurricane sponsons are a great way to add weight of fire too, I've had a game where I blew up a dreadnought with the multi-melta and then knocked down 3 terminators standing beside it with the assault cannon and hurricane sponsons. Throwing 16 twin-linked dice at a 2+ save should see at least one failure, by raw averages.

[mmaarrkk]

I take four rockets and four cannons

 

While vehicles aren't going anywhere 2+ saves are getting more popular while coversaves and PWs got worse.

 

Lasers are more likely to kill any target by pens than missiles. Getting pens in the first place is more important than ever, glances do nothing to reduce the abilities of a vehicle.

 

How useful are frag missiles, honestly? Sometimes you might luck out but they are not particularly useful for 'horde' control. People tend to overestimate how much you can cover with a small blast. Goes for the plasma cannon as well.

 

Not telling everyone to thrown their missile devs in a vat of simple green, but las cannons deserve a serious revaluation in 6th.

 

 

How useful, very useful frags can be, took out 11 lootas behind a aegis with 4 frags and perfect timing. Even against MEQ frags are good if they are bunched up enough, never underestimate making your opponent roll as many saves as possible.

 

Also just remembered, used them last sunday, one squad killed 11 plague beares with frags in one shooting phase (of course when they deep struck) and another squad took out 8 PB's. Last night one squad of devi ML's and quad gun took out 5 ravagers or reavers or something DE. I love me some ML's

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Good discussion here. After reading the different arguments I think I am still in the Missile Launcher "camp" although I haven't done any playtesting (bought my first BA yesterday, although both shops I checked were sold-out of Sanguinary Guard so I'll be limited in what I can do until next week -- might start with the Death Company squad).

 

The 15 point difference for lascannons still seems a bit expensive to me, in order to get +1 Str and -1 AP, but while giving-up the flexibility of being able to switch to frag missiles in the event of hordes. It's true that properly-spaced hordes won't be horribly hurt by frag missiles, but even so, you should get more than one hit whereas you have a 2/3 chance to get only a single hit with the lascannon. I think that having an Aegis defence line with Icarus Lascannon for the Devastators to take cover behind seems like a good combo.

[Brother Maikel]

I run 4xML Devs in most lists, though I've contemplated swapping one of the MLs for a Lascannon that the Sarge can signum.

Gives you a bit more punch vs tough targets, a good chance at penetration on vehicles, and doesn't cripple the squad when it comes to horde control.

 

 

And the big thing with plasma cannons is scatter + gets hot. You have a 1 in 6 chance, not re-rollable through prescience, to simply not fire, then a 2 in 3 chance to scatter somewhere you didn't intend.

I'm pretty sure the Gets Hot! rule states that anything that grants re-rolls allows you to reroll the Gets Hot! roll for weapons that don't roll to hit. (pg 37, BRB) That would include Prescience.

Plus, if you get truly atrocious scatter you are allowed to reroll your scatter roll (but it has to be both the numerical and scatter dice at the same time)

And as far as scatter is concerned, you've got a 1/3 chance of a "Hit", plus the chances of rolling 4 or less on the numerical dice are 6/36=1/6. So you've actually got a (1/3 + 2/3*1/6) = 44.4% chance of a hit with BS4. For BS5 that goes up to 1/3 + 2/3*10/36 = 52% chance of a "Hit". Still not quite as good as a direct-fire weapon, but if their squad is big enough even a couple inches of scatter won't matter too much.

[mmaarrkk]

But with the plasma cannon the gets hot roll is just that, it is not a hit or miss so cant be re rolled via prescience. I did take 4 of them in a tourny in September, lost one to gets hot in 4 games, won me the game in one match, drew a LOT of fire in another which they managed to weather (one standing after two turns of rapid fire from drop podding GH's, how they did that I dont know!)

 

On tuesday played a game against necron flier list, I had two devi squads with ML, aegis with quad gun and storm raven, he had 6 flyers to start off, ended with 1 full HP and 1 with 1 HP left, the ML's were brillant and the squad that didnt have prescience was lucky I guess as they had two kills, the storm raven 2 kills and the quad gun and other ML's had a load of glances and low pen rolls. If I had taken LC's instead of ML's i wouldnt have been able to take two units so voulme of fire over one higher strength and one less on the pen roll was a lot better ime.

[knife&fork]

On the subject of Glances, I was stating what you said. Ork Lootas (origionally an ork player) are crazy good now against everything but Av14 because of the sheer numbers they can put out and the ammount of glances that can come from it. Flyer comes in? Doesn't matter, 15 lootas.

 

Totally valid point but really not relevant for BA devs with their selection of guns and limited numbers. You simply can't give them the damage output needed to do things the same way as lootas. We are forced to go with quality over quantity.

 

 

It's true that properly-spaced hordes won't be horribly hurt by frag missiles,

 

Indeed, the 11 casualties mentioned above means both poor placement and insanely hot dice. Even with zero misses and no saves of any kind you would have to get 5-6 lootas under every small blast if you rolled average for wounds. Properly spaced you will hit 1 or 2 at the most.

 

I don't think one has to be in the las or missile camp, they both have their place. The SW player I saw used one of each. Depends on what else is in your list and how the local meta looks like... as always. One things that's for sure are that lascannons are better at taking down AV and you will have to land a lot of hits with frag to cause more wounds on 2+ units.

[mmaarrkk]

On the subject of Glances, I was stating what you said. Ork Lootas (origionally an ork player) are crazy good now against everything but Av14 because of the sheer numbers they can put out and the ammount of glances that can come from it. Flyer comes in? Doesn't matter, 15 lootas.

 

Totally valid point but really not relevant for BA devs with their selection of guns and limited numbers. You simply can't give them the damage output needed to do things the same way as lootas. We are forced to go with quality over quantity.

 

 

It's true that properly-spaced hordes won't be horribly hurt by frag missiles,

 

Indeed, the 11 casualties mentioned above means both poor placement and insanely hot dice. Even with zero misses and no saves of any kind you would have to get 5-6 lootas under every small blast if you rolled average for wounds. Properly spaced you will hit 1 or 2 at the most.

 

I don't think one has to be in the las or missile camp, they both have their place. The SW player I saw used one of each. Depends on what else is in your list and how the local meta looks like... as always. One things that's for sure are that lascannons are better at taking down AV and you will have to land a lot of hits with frag to cause more wounds on 2+ units.

 

 

It was lootas behind a Aegis, 4 frag missiles with perfect timing, he had a lot of orks hiding behind the aegis, thinking he would be safe, but no. It was quite a common sight, IG and Orks hiding behind Aegis lines with objectives as well, opponents thinking go to ground if they are shot with that many dice, granted without perfect timing it wouldnt have gone so well (orks could not go to ground as they were fearless, think there was 14 or so). Maybe a one off doing that many wounds, but the game before (it was a tourny) i got perfect timing as well and used krak missiles to take down their quad gun and then thunderfire gun, both of which were behind Aegis lines,

(ar

And yes I agree, I do like the idea of taking 3 ML's and 1 las to use signum with, will have to try it out next month. I wouldnt waste ML's on units with two plus saves, I have plasma in my tacs, SR's or DC's for those. Personnaly I like to run a good fire base with objective campers (usually devi squad 4 ML's, tac squad with plasma cannon and plasma gun behind a aegis with a libby and sang priest (just shy of 600pts) then spend the rest on CC units and SR's (DC ASM sternguard etc). Not been doing too bad with it

[DominicJ]

36" range is a deployment issue.

A unit deployed front and centre is 36" from each board edge.

Far corners are 51" away.

 

You have a significant part of the centre dz under threat and viritualy all of the mid board.

 

A shootie tau or guard list could probably hide, but barely.

[knife&fork]

You have a significant part of the centre dz under threat and viritualy all of the mid board.

 

There's no guarantee you can or want to deploy like that. It might not be possible, you might not have any good lanes fire and it might be a very bad place to be due to how close the enemy units are. Range is important for static units, otherwise we would see a lot of people running multimelta devs.

[DominicJ]

All true, but its not an insurmountable problem.

 

For the record, i do keep a mm around my back line.

You have a fair chance of popping an inbound walker with one, usually he is in a tac squad.

 

Thirty six isn't good, but its usable.

[Brother Atheos]

In my meta i play a lot against Tau, Mech IG, Nids and CSM/C:SM so usually i'm looking at flyers from pretty much everything except the tau player who fields a very small, elite list. With my BA i've only played the IG so far playing twice and winning twice (11-1 on BGNT, 13-2 on Scouring) and having originally played in the 4x ML camp I must say i am pleased with how they have performed but not overwhelmed. Turn 1-2 they were helpful in taking down chimera but otherwise struggled when it came to dealing with 3 russes front AV14 and 2 vendettas. The biggest issue wasn't always hitting the vendetta or the russes but making the shots count thanks to prescience librarian. The same issue would arise against TEQ where i would want to know that i have good odds of negating a save. In the defence of ML, they are very very cheap and they will be staying on my plasma/ML tactical squads due to the multiple missile types and for my devs the downright cost effectiveness is a huge factor behind me even taking devs at all.

 

Sadly, over the 2 games against the IG they killed 3 chimera, glanced a couple times on another and managed to immobilise one more. So 2.5 chimera a game which tops out at pretty much barely making their points back against a vehicle heavy list, a scenario where i need them to be on fire. They were outclassed by pretty much all my other serious AT options (combat squadded sternguard - 5 russes 2 chimera 1 vendetta, SR - rough riders 2 squads 2 vendetta 1 russ) and even my tactical squads in the second game. The only thing that went in their favour was that they drew a lot of fire in BGNT where they were on an objective.

 

Basically to sum up what i'm trying to say is that all LC is a touch on the cost prohibitive side but will be extremely more effective with a prescience librarian however you will lose out against horde infantry. All ML and you will find yourself wishing for those extra points against large numbers of AV13+ or TEQ. Half and half will give you more AV punch and some TEQ punch without sacrificing the crowd control options. I would only consider PC if i took a second squad and had already got a solid AT base.

[DominicJ]

2x10 or 3x5?

 

I play 2x10, and have just math hammered that they will beat 3x5, barely in a fire fight.

 

But real world?

 

Anyone have any strong feelings?

[Ushtarador]

My problem with lascannons is that they are really really very expensive. I will run a squad with 3xML,1xLC in the future, just use the signum on the LC to get an almost guaranteed hit. But devas already die if someone looks at them crosswise, if they cost 200pts as well it's too much of a target imo.

Plasmacannons are a completely different usage, they don't work against real tanks and fliers but shred things like terminators, I don't think you can even compare them to ML squads.

[Morollan]

I often run 2 Dev squads - 1 with 2 ML and 2 LC, the other with 2 ML and 2 PC. I find that both squads are able to provide AT and AI, albeit in different ways. The ML/LC squad can threaten any vehicle in the game, with the MLs able to at least glance and the LC's obviously to do the heavy lifting. They can also threaten infantry. Against 3+ or worse saves they are mustard. Even against 2+ saves you can use Frag to force a lot of saving throws in the hope they will fail one (or more) and obviously the LC's will force cover or invulnerable saves.

 

The ML/PC squad can also threaten vehicles, although they are better used against lighter armoured vehicles due to lower strength. They are of course extremely good against all sorts of infantry, forcing a lot of armour saves from the Frags and a lot of invulnerable/cover saves from the plasma. All in all, I find them to be very, very good, especially as they can generally deploy in cover and fire from Turn One. The addition of one or more Librarians with Prescience and (hopefully) Perfect Timing is an excellent option. The look on an opponents face when he gets hit by plasma cannons that ignore cover is priceless!