dreadclaw assault army

[henrywalker]

I run a single dreadclaw in my army, normally with 5 plague ogryn in it. I'm going to be getting a few more drop pods which i'm planning to convert and i was wondering if anyone has any experience of playing a dreadclaw based army? maybe three squads of 10 plague marines in claws and then another one with my ogryns. 

 

the one that i do run never fails to please. 

 

one secondary thing to think about is what to do with them once they've dropped their units. they can still fly around, pick up other units and potentially ram. any ideas? 

 

[daboarder]

Dreadclaws are terrible, they take a fast slot (so 3 max) and if you are running them you don't get drakes. not to mention they are fliers so at earliest your units are getting stuck in turn 3...and they are to many points.

[henrywalker]

I have to disagree with such a black and white view, there are play styles other than rush forward and get stuck in. I have not found drakes to be a panacea for all games despite being a very nice unit. 

 

yes the dreadclaw's unit comes in on turn three but it comes in where you want it having been fairly invulnerable the entire way, generally the things at the front of the opponents army that you're units would meet first are the ones he is happy to have attacked. The units at the back that he left around the objectives tend to be much more focused on shooting and keeping the opponent at a distance and are hence a far juicier target that would not be reached by your troops on foot or in rhinos before turn 3 even if they ignored all combat and shooting and just ran. 

 

I run servants of decay allies which allows me to take dreadclaws as dedicated transports for units such as my ogryn (or plague marines if i want to put them in the servants FOC. 

[Warsmith Aznable]

You're talking about having 4 Dreadclaws, so are you playing a double FOC?

[the jeske]

yes the dreadclaw's unit comes in on turn three but it comes in where

you want it having been fairly invulnerable the entire way,

wait . you play with FW , this means every imperial army and every army which can ally with imperial should be runing 4 gun platoforms minimum and those have interceptor , so with a quad gun add to give them cover ,  you should be taking 2-3 shots no matter what place you land . And if you somehow did manage to drop totaly out of LoS and in a place where the huge Dreadclaw model fits in , you would be far away from the enemy . so melee or mid range units would be kind of a useless.

And that is if you actualy did get the dread claw on turn 2 , there is always a 1/3 chance that you wont .

 

 

 

I run servants of decay allies which allows me to take dreadclaws as

dedicated transports for units such as my ogryn (or plague marines if i

want to put them in the servants FOC.

but you would have to run their horrible troops and HQs too to open up the ally slot.

[henrywalker]

I run servants of decay allies which allows me to take dreadclaws as dedicated transports for units such as my ogryn (or plague marines if i want to put them in the servants FOC.)

 

i can max it out at 14 if i try very hard. 2 DT for elite slot ogryn in allies, 4 for a troop squad in allies, 2 fast attack in allies 6 fast attack in primary detachment 

[henrywalker]

 

 

yes the dreadclaw's unit comes in on turn three but it comes in where

you want it having been fairly invulnerable the entire way,

wait . you play with FW , this means every imperial army and every army which can ally with imperial should be runing 4 gun platoforms minimum and those have interceptor , so with a quad gun add to give them cover ,  you should be taking 2-3 shots no matter what place you land . And if you somehow did manage to drop totaly out of LoS and in a place where the huge Dreadclaw model fits in , you would be far away from the enemy . so melee or mid range units would be kind of a useless.

And that is if you actualy did get the dread claw on turn 2 , there is always a 1/3 chance that you wont .

 

 

 

I run servants of decay allies which allows me to take dreadclaws as

dedicated transports for units such as my ogryn (or plague marines if i

want to put them in the servants FOC.

but you would have to run their horrible troops and HQs too to open up the ally slot.

 

 

everyone plays forgeworld, that is the norm that certain groups/people choose to deviate from. as it happens people at my LGS don't play with gun platforms although even if they did my dreadclaw is still more resilient than a rhino is a similar situation and it gets a save which the rhino often doesn't. i did ask if anyone has any experience with a dread claw based list, not if anyone has an over active imagination when it comes to the meta-game. I find nothing wrong with my servants of decay troops and since i can take 9 ap3 2+ poisoned blast templates with my Hq i don't mind those much either. to make this abundantly clear, I am not looking for a review on the dreadclaw. as someone who frequently plays with one i know a lot about it's strengths and weaknesses. What I am interested in is advice from someone who has played a dreadclaw orientated list.

[the jeske]

Dude you just got a review . A flyer transport taking up FA slots in a chaos army . no weapons , high cost delivery only unit . It has a 3 turns down time on using a unit . In that time your opponent is playing with X points more[depanding on what you put in to the claw] , playing for 3 and possibly for 4 turns with X less points is bad . To make it worse your asking what happens if you play with 2-3 claws , well then you play with 400-500 pts less points then your opponent . this means two things . At 1500 and less points , it makes your army suffer from random effects . a little above avarge rolling from your opponent or bad rolling from you and it may not matter if the claws come in turn 3 or 4 . At 1750 or more points it puts your army in  a dangerous postiotion because the fire power of an army with 400-500pts more , can easily make a dent in your army , big enough that you never recover[let us remember that this is 400-500pts more over 2 turns minimum] and when you play more then 2000pts you have to build an army that wont risk being tabled or close to tabled because of how much fire power 2k+points army have .

 

all of this happens ,  without possible sentry guns , claws getting blown up by other flyers , aegis gunlines , new tau with skyfire etc so not even touching any form of local or world meta game.

[Tenebris]

I agree here with Jeske. Investing so much on a unit that arrives so late in the game is a risk, especially with Intercept and all the new AA goodies that the Tau can bring, and yes Tau AA will become the norm for many armies out there. Bear in mind that with marker light tricks even the basic shooting units have BS modifiers when they shoot on a flier. 

 

What I see here is the same risk that many SM players run with their Stormravens carrying powerful units. A lucky run with my Vendetta and my friend has lost 400 points worth of units and it is painful to fight a battle with so many points less, especially if you are mid game. That lesson taught me to be reasonable with my army building, in particular if we consider the amount of points that quickly grows for a fire and forget unit. If it makes it to the ground than ok, if not...well you have half lost the battle.

 

As a long time IG player I am aware of what means to shoot costly units to bits with the minimum investment in points from your part and every time I get lucky with either my Vendetta or my Aegis, things begin to spiral downwards in the case of few of my friends who love to spam Stromravens with elite squads inside. Now the Tau can do the same thing, but way more efficiently.

 

I would suggest you to move on more expendable ways to get to the grips with your adversary, rhinos, deep strike or land raiders if you really need to ferry something powerful across the board. 

[henrywalker]

again:   I am NOT looking for a review on the dreadclaw. as someone who frequently plays with one i know a lot about it's strengths and weaknesses. What I am interested in is advice from someone who has played a dreadclaw orientated list.

 

my reasons for doing so do not matter. it might be fluff. it might be because i like the model or it might be because i think they will win every tournament. all i am looking for is someone who has ever played one of these armies. 

[Brother Ambroz]

It does look like fun (probably not competitive though) and something I'd probably like to try out with zerkers at some point.

[daveNYC]

I think the advice that most people are giving regarding the running of a Dreadclaw list is "don't".  :-)

 

Since I'm pretty sure that's not what you want to hear, all I can suggest is taking something that can modify your reserve rolls.  Can the Servants of Decay take the Land Raider variant that lets you do that?  I think it's the Proteus.

[Warsmith Aznable]

again:   I am NOT looking for a review on the dreadclaw. as someone who frequently plays with one i know a lot about it's strengths and weaknesses. What I am interested in is advice from someone who has played a dreadclaw orientated list.

 

As someone who frequently plays with one and knows its strengths and weaknesses, it's looking like you're in a position to estimate how multiple Dreadclaws would go better than anybody else here. I rarely ever bring out my own Dreadclaw, and I honestly don't think I'll be building a second one. But if you do give this a go I'd like to hear about how it worked.

[The Prophet]

The Dreadclaw is pure win!

 

Not by any tactical means, as shown above, but because the Rule of Cool trumps everything else!

 

 

To maximize the coolness factor, you should have your solid troops choices in them and at least 1 crazy close combat Dreadnought (make sure you can scream like a robot!). You can deep strike obliterators, nasty terminators and your daemon allies beside them. And for the irritating rules on page 122 - have a unit of 10 cultists to completely CONTROL the board before everything arrives! Don't care if you die! The Gods be with you!

[the jeske]

have a unit of 10 cultists to completely CONTROL the board before everything arrives!

Up till this I didnt knew if you were trolling or just giving bad advice . Sadly using caps doesnt make stuff funny .

 

 

What I am interested in is advice from someone who has played a dreadclaw orientated list.

Now I know am more offten then not hard to understand , but didnt I just write this two times . You wont be able to fit more 1claw in to a 1500pts army , if you somehow do you end up with an army with either not enough anti av13 or with no anti horde .no helldrakes will make you struggle against meq horde armies , while no melt bikes and no havocks means you are weak on the anti tank . taking melta on the troops or claw units doesnt help , because one is slow and the other is random [and you wont have points to buy rhinos and if you do then your pm squads are 5 man strong and with so many points in random entry points your risking not only firstblood , but tabling] . hvy dread claws list also struggle with flyers [as yours do nothing to help with anti aircraft at the same time freezing lots of your points in random arriving mdoels].

To make it even shorter . Dread claw hvy army are

A random and prone to being tabled or brought to no longer working lvl before the dreadclaws arrive

B having bad match ups with stuff that is commonly seen nowadays [flyers, av13+spam , marine horde armies] .

C very terrain depanded , if there are no tall LoS walls[no widnows] or tall hills , they are unable to hide and unlike other flyers then can just fly around each turn they are on the table , because of the cargo they carry[and chaos not having rules like BAs or necron].

[The Prophet]

 

have a unit of 10 cultists to completely CONTROL the board before everything arrives!

Up till this I didnt knew if you were trolling or just giving bad advice . Sadly using caps doesnt make stuff funny .

 

 

No, I'm not doing either. Dreadclaws are cool, but I guess it's not your perspective. Reading some 40k literature on Dreadclaws makes them awesome to field and playing with them in casual gaming where you can dare to lose is fun. It's cinematic, not tournament-winning optimal.

 

Sorry about the caps, next time I'll try to be friendly funny.

[Slayer le Boucher]

Claws leaves a chunk of your army out of play?, so does those units embarked in Rhinos...

 

Units in Claws can't assault untill Turn 3?, so does any other embarked unit that are embarkd in something else then a Raider or any assault vehicle.

 

You can shoot with Rhinos?, yeah maybe, if that is your thing..., i rather make the 12+6" move.

 

Dreadclaws are nice, not awesome or uper effectif, but the 6 or 7 times i used them, i was not dissapointed, and it was a real thorn in the side of my foe.

 

But then again it depend on your Local Metagame, in our metagame there isn't much flyers or AA units, only 3 BA players with SR, me with my Stormeagle, and another 2 with Orks jets and i think a Necron flyer.

[the jeske]

so does any other embarked unit that are embarkd in something else then a Raider or any assault vehicle.

what does that tell you about viability of assault in general in 6th ed ?

Dreadclaws are nice, not awesome or uper effectif, but the 6 or 7 times i

used them, i was not dissapointed, and it was a real thorn in the side

of my foe.

explain why and how where they a thorn . at how many points did that happened . 6-7 games is nice testing material.

. Reading some 40k literature on Dreadclaws makes them awesome to field

ok now I seriously dont know if your trolling or not , what do books other then codex/rule book have to do with the game , And if someone realy realy realy wants to use pods , he can play SW with pods [almost identical armies] or use them in their chaos army[more or less the same thing considering FW].

[henrywalker]

 

so does any other embarked unit that are embarkd in something else then a Raider or any assault vehicle.

what does that tell you about viability of assault in general in 6th ed ? 

 

 Dreadclaws are nice, not awesome or uper effectif, but the 6 or 7 times i

used them, i was not dissapointed, and it was a real thorn in the side

of my foe.

explain why and how where they a thorn . at how many points did that happened . 6-7 games is nice testing material.  

. Reading some 40k literature on Dreadclaws makes them awesome to field

:ermm: ok now I seriously dont know if your trolling or not , what do books other then codex/rule book have to do with the game , And if someone realy realy realy wants to use pods , he can play SW with pods [almost identical armies] or use them in their chaos army[more or less the same thing considering FW].

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh come on jeske you do get what we are talking about right? It's this hobby called 40k, you should really read about it and give it a try, it's great fun. There's this whole universe of literature and people can actually collect models of the characters and build them and convert them and paint them however they want. You can even get special models from other companies including big titans and other cool stuff. When you've collected the army you want you can then go and play with people by making you're armies fight each other (as long as you ignore the prats who try and tell you that you can't use something that the company says you can). The hobby is great fun because of the variety of things you can do and how you can change every game, sure there are some people who don't really get it and just try to do the same. Thing over and over and sure they are less fun to play but you learn to avoid them pretty quickly and then you get to have a whole load of fun with cool people while the ones you avoid bitch at each other about how they are doing it wrong

I really hope you give 40k a try.