Return of the devastator squad?

[knife&fork]

Remember back in late 4th, early 5th when Nob bikers plagued the battle field and the missile launcher devastators became a staple unit?

Then they kinda went away and made room for more melta and straight up anti infantry firepower.

 

Well these days we see more and more durable armor and high T units like monsters. Chipping away with your few melta guns on all those wounds or having your few pens downgraded to glances by a serpent shield is a very real issue. Our advantage in speed has also been minimized or lost.

 

Having volume of fire is important again, and it's an area where we struggle.

 

That's why recently I've been looking at the dev squad again. Unlike most units in our codex we still get an ok deal on them. Space wolves and Imp fists might do it better but we play codex BA, don't we? I'm sure for some of you they never left your lists but for the rest of us they could use a revival. 12 ML or 9 ML and 3 LC at BS5 could sure solve a lot of my problems right now. 

 

The devastators are not too costly by themselves, but they are important enough to have the list built around them. They need to have complimentary units that either take the heat off of them or increase their survivability and/or effectiveness with buffs. These units cannot start in reserves as we cannot afford to lose a turn.  

 

I do think our librarians are too expensive to use as divination buffers, better use allies for that, but a single priest with zero gear can buff 2 squads and a few ablative wounds from extra squad members can go a long way. 

 

How about razor backs for screening and target saturation? I'm not too fond of paying the fast tax for a stationary heavy weapon, but if they are enough of a threat they will soak some of that long range fire that wounds marines on 2+. I'm thinking TL heavy flamer backs doing suicide rushes against enemy lines. Have to deal with that, specially if you are a xeno. 

[JamesI]

I don't like devs since they don't fit into the style I want (highly mobile whether from fast tanks or jumpers). 

 

But I've played games with devs supporting my jumpers/attack bikes and it can be effective.

 

Use the divination buff turn 1 before the Libby's move on the devs, after that the devs have to be buff free but that's ok.

[Bartali]

I completely agree that we need high strength ranged shooting back in lists again. The problem with Devs is that they're static so can't get into side/rear armour and can have LOS issues.

Mobility is especially important with Imperial Knights - being able to shoot into two different side arcs to get AV12 and deny the shield on one side.

The answer should lie with fast Preds and Razors, but they of course have there own issues with Razors being incredibly fragile vs Wave Serpents.Tri-las Preds are nice, but not worth 180pts for three shots. Las/Multi-Melta Stormravens are another option, but then are more expensive again, miss turn 1, and can have firing arc problems

Or in short, we need a new codex

[knife&fork]

Yeah, preds and razors don't pump out enough shot for the points.  And single units can be shut down completely with a single shot as opposed to the marines where you need to kill them one by one. Right now I consider vehicles to be more vulnerable than infantry as the most real marine killers are relatively short ranged compared to lances and other nasty stuff that can one shot your vehicles.

 

Even if tri las preds were cheaper I'd consider dev squads instead as 3 shots per heavy support slot is a little on the low side. We can't make up that volume with any other slots without going into ridiculously expensive units like sternguard or super fragile like speeder squads. 

 

I don't think being static is huge issue as long as the rest of your list is agile. Vehicles can suffer from the same kind of LoS and range issues. With 3 dev units and 48" range you'll cover the entire board. Normal models with high T doesn't have a facing, so it's of no concern there.

[Blindhamster]

I usually take devastators in 2k lists (with friends we still only use a single FOC for reference)

 

they usually do fairly well, and they essentially won me a game vs Tau in January by themselves...

 

(first turn they wiped out a unit of broadsides thanks to high strength from 3 ML and 1 LC) The guy wasn't using a Riptide (he doesn't have one yet) and the biggest threads on the table were battlesuits, broadsides and a hammerhead, the devastators dealt with the broadsides by themselves and I was able to use a Baal and MM attack bike plus a LC razorback to dispose of the battlesuits, the hammerhead died my turn 2 from assault marines with melta guns... That game I used a librarian with divination too (blood angel one - who cares about other codeci) and he made all the difference for me on multiple turns.

[Chaplain Admetus]

I've always found devs to be useful; 5 dudes, 4 ML. Great all-around game, with Krak for light-medium armour (anything up to AV12, can set them on AV13-14 in an emergency) and Frag for infantry of any kind. MLs are also useful against most MCs which tend to only get 3+ saves with a few notable exceptions. Make a great firebase anchor, alongside a tactical squad/combat squad.

 

If you fancy something a little more out there, try: 10 devastators, 2 ML, 1 HB, 1 MM. Combat squad them, and you get an anti-armour squad and an anti-infantry squad. Surprisingly effective.

[d@n]

blood angel devs are some of the best. placed behind a defence line with a priest there very hard to shift

[knife&fork]

Potentially fearless too!

 

But I think wolves and imp fists have them slightly beat.

[d@n]

I would say the blood angels are on par with the other too. long fangs having the most out put but also being the most fragile, blood angels probably have the least out put but are the most survivable and fists being in the middle. plus you can put the priest on the quad gun for those precision  shots.

[Chaplain Admetus]

I don't normally find the need for an ADL. Normally people are too busy shooting the stuff that's rushing at their face with murderous intent to worry about the 5 dudes with missiles sitting at the back not doing very much.

[knife&fork]

If it's just on squad then sure, not worth it. With 2 or 3 it becomes the anvil of your force and can benefit from the extra protection. A lot of things ignore cover now and lots of shooting bypass the 3+ save. Fortunately shooting that both disallows cover, armor and FnP at the same time is rare. So with a priest and defense line you are looking at a pretty durable gunline for a reasonable amount of points. 

[Chaplain Admetus]

I suppose it depends on points limit too. I mean, 3 5-man devastator squads plus an ADL with quad gun plus priest will set you back over 500 points (doing quad-ML in every squad works out to 510, and it only gets more expensive). That's a fairly hefty chunk to invest, and other armies can do that level of shooty much better than we can (case in point, Longfangs can pull that off for fewer points base, and have wolfy split fire). For Blood Angels, I think one squad as fire support is fine, maybe two at a push. But by the time you get to three, you're really not playing to the BA strengths; best case scenario you're throwing a curveball list that most people won't anticipate. I might try a shooty-angels list out this evening and report back with my findings.

[d@n]

Normally you only get slit fire your first turn if you go first, with long fangs as the first wound should go on the pack leader. Plus you only have 6 models so if you loose 2 your taking a leadership test. Long fangs are not what they were. With reduced cover saves and all the ignore cover stuff eldar tau have and all the pinning csm and nids can take there not as good as people remember from 5th. Anyway not taking a unit because someone else can do it better is redundant. Raven guard can do assault marines better are you not going to bother using them? You should be taking the defence line to deal with fliers anyway and you only need 1 priest to give 3 units fnp

[Chaplain Admetus]

I'm not saying 'don't take a unit because someone else can do it better', I'm saying 'don't spend loads of points on units that don't play to your strengths'. I'd also contest whether or not Raven Guard assault marines are 'better' - perma-jump packs for charge/HoW attacks vs Scoring, DoA, and the ability to load up on melta, but this isn't the place for that discussion. I only factored the cost for one priest into my calculations anyway, and I tend not to need/want an ADL because a) my army's too mobile to make use of it and b) I find that my Raven is generally good enough anti-air.

[knife&fork]

I'm not saying 'don't take a unit because someone else can do it better', I'm saying 'don't spend loads of points on units that don't play to your strengths'.  

 

What are our strengths then? In the end what we take (unless we have a themed list) are units that help us win. If I find that my usual list suffer greatly from lack of of high S fire, shouldn't I try to fix that?

 

Our HQs don't supply us with that.

 

Elites are the same, best you can do is kitted out sternguards but they run over double the points compared to the devastators for what often is a one shot unit.

 

In the troops section we pay 200+ pts for two specials or one heavy and one special with either limited range or mobility.

 

Fast attack has speeder squads, but they are super fragile or very expensive if you take typhoons. Baal preds are ok, but they too cost more than the devs and the heavy bolter sponsons are useless against AV12 and only wound a lot of MCs on fives or sixes.

 

In heavy support we have dreads, but that's a similar amount of points for half the shots. Stormravens are nice but very expensive and can never help until turn 2 at the earliest. Vindicators are single shot. Predators are more mobile but pay more for less volume of fire. 

 

Allies can be an option but besides that I can't see how you are compromising anything by going with the devastators. 

 

EDIT: Yaaay, post 2000! :D

[Chaplain Admetus]

I personally prefer to play hybrid lists... I try and get a balance between static support elements like devastators and ranging assault elements in the form of assault marines. I find them useful, there's no doubt about it, but I have been playing themed lists recently. Maybe I just have envy because I can't field 3 devastator squads

I see where you're coming from, I really do. I just tend to fill up my points so fast that I can't really get more than one devastator squad in, but I do use one in most of my lists. However useful I think extra fire support would be, and I often wish I had more during the game, I keep not putting it in during list building. Lack of high S fire is an area BA often fall down in, but I try to mitigate that with lots of melta.

Maybe I should try multiple devastator squads... it would stop me from getting facerolled by Tyranids quite so badly...

[knife&fork]

Yeah, it's not a personal attack against you. I just notice that there often seem to be a difference between what a list actually needs to win and the perceived strength of a codex. Like "BA is supposed to be good at this (in the fluff or whatever) therefor that's what I'll bring."  

[d@n]

Yeah, it's not a personal attack against you. I just notice that there often seem to be a difference between what a list actually needs to win and the perceived strength of a codex. Like "BA is supposed to be good at this (in the fluff or whatever) therefor that's what I'll bring."

exactly.

 

For instance BA vindicators are amazing! IMO the the best unit in the whole codex but people just don't play them

[knife&fork]

Are you speaking from experience? Genuinely curios 

A fast vindi is great and all but it usually doesn't sit well with the rest of the force. Can't say that I've run them for more than a handful of times but what keeps me away from them is that the rest of my army works best in close proximity to the enemy which makes friendly fire a concern. Specially as we need to concentrate on one point at the time to mitigate our lack of numbers.

 

Also cover saves everywhere which brings us full circle to that volume of fire problem.

[d@n]

blood angels are an aggressive army and that's how I like to play them. vindicators don't generally last more then 2-3 turns but that's ok, you don't need them to last longer. one of the big advantages of  blood angels is there ability to deep strike. vindicators allow you to either force your opponent to deploy on one side of the board if you deploy first, or clear of one side of the board if you deploy second. if you play razor backs then you can use them as a rolling wall of cover. popping open transports with the razorback and nuking the contents with the vindicators. I don't worry about hitting my own troops a fast vindicator can get   3ft  across the board turn 2 and if you deep strike behind the vindicator your getting a cover save and your troops are not going to get hit by friendly fire. you essentially have a 36" range on a vindicator its not hard to pick a target that's not going to risk scattering on to your own troops. and like I said most of the time your vindi's are dead before the bulk of your troops come in.  

[Leonaides]

I've run vindi's frequently... occasionally 3 at a time. They've never let me down so far. Its a bit like doa drops with meltagun marines, you've got to risk it but when it works your opponent struggles to find an answer. Though if its a really valuable friendly unit like sang guard or terms i'd probably try to find another target...

[Orogen]

Yeah, it's not a personal attack against you. I just notice that there often seem to be a difference between what a list actually needs to win and the perceived strength of a codex. Like "BA is supposed to be good at this (in the fluff or whatever) therefor that's what I'll bring."  

This!  I've seen it often where BA are a fast, hard-hitting assault army.  Umm.... which ones??  You pay thru the nose for the speed usually, otherwise just a marine.  Don't want to derail with generalities, but good points K&F.  We need to ferret out every points-efficient unit in the book vs. some of the othe armies out there.

Cheers!

[Blindhamster]

tbh, I suggest playing what you like, from my experience, I do better with units I enjoy than ones I feel I need to bring because of 'meta' might seem like a strange thing to say, especially as I quite often do consider mathhammer when talking about things, but those that know me know that I don't tend to make 'optimised' lists and tend toward what I find fun or fancy building.

 

obviously there are times when the two things will align, but thats the same for every army and every player.

 

I've consistently used Dante or Tycho as HQ choices since 3rd edition, through all their incarnations, I occasional throw in a different HQ in addition, usually a librarian, because I play fighter/mages in RPGs and that is what these guys basically are (less so in their latest incarnation, but I do agree with GW making Captains the 'best' combat HQ, and the others into buffers, the Captain just needs some extra options and would be a viable HQ for people running companies other than 3rd (or for those running 3rd after Tycho died)

[d@n]

That's all well and good, playing for fun but consistently loosing isn't fun.

[RenderDead]

Ive been on the fence for using Devs, I truly like the idea of having marines in the back field supporting your advance.  Its just the cost is whats making it difficult for me.  I can't seem to find the right balance, but I will continue to play math hammer till I find a good mix.  

 

Good post to get people thinking of other units in our book, that have been forgotten or not thought as useful in this state of the game.