BA Heavy slot discussion 7th edition.

[Remtek]

With the new changes in 7th making mech more durable and mobility more rewarding for objectives, Pred's and Vindicators are looking strong.

 

Predator

Good: AV13/14 is very durable right now, they can move up to 24" for objective claiming. Provides good cover for other units

Bad: Weapon loadout somewhat weaker than Rifledreads and Dev's. 

 

Vindicator

Good: Being able to move 12 and shoot (BA fast) makes these quite stronger than other codex. Even if the scatter early, they will take pressure of Furioso Dreads etc podding in. Their dmg potential is huge. Can take out units with invis?

Bad: Somewhat random, generally need 2-3 to make an impact. Can't target air units. Collateral dmg.

 

Devastators

Good: Alot of good weapon options, can be more tanky then mech, depending on what you are facing. Missle Launchers seem very strong in 7th.

Bad: Very static unit, depends on good los/cover. Can't chase objectives without giving up shooting.

 

Rifledread

Good: AV12 and get's cover inside terrain (unlike tanks). Can move and shoot. Twin-Linked (better vs flyers). Very good at stopping AV 10/11. Can tarpit troop choice.

Bad: Only AP 4, less mobile than Pred/vindi.

 

 

Stormraven:

Good: Alot more tanky now in 7th 4+ jink, ceramic plating, AV 12. Can fire 1 weapon even if jinking (not sure if POTMS overrides the new jink rule?)

Good for getting units into assault (Meph, DC Dread). Strong Anti Air unit.

Bad:

Expensive

 

 

 

I liked Dev's in 6th edition, but looking to try something new in 7th. Vindicator's seems like fun, but i have never tried them. Not sure how big an issue it would in lists that includes fragiosos. Pred's seem to have alot of utility, screening other units and claiming objectives back/midfield.

 

If anyone disagrees or want to add anything to the unit types above, please do.

[appiah4]

The Hellfire pattern Dreadnought (TLLC/ML) I feel is a great choice that you've neglected.

[Shaezus]

Vindicators work well with drop dreadnoughts. Blast one of the enemy's flanks (I preferred to aim at vehicle concentrations / 2+ armour) with the vindis, drop your dreads round the other flank out of danger close range.

 

If your oppo gets first turn you can just hide the vindis behind cover and still hit him next turn thanks to siege shields and fast.

[TheSauce]

With the changes to the vehicle damage table tables, I think Devs got a slight nerf (no longer being able to one-shot vehicles), and stormravens got better relatively for having AP1 on the multi-melta and missiles. I find it hard to bring the SR when I know it can grab an objective late-game by hovering, as well.

 

I also play in a meta with lots of barrage weapons, which make a mockery of predators by hitting their AV 11 sides (and I can never roll 2 hits for the lascannon sponsons).

[Cronhour]

Not out the standard book but I find the relic Sicarian from IA2 Second edition sneaking into all my lists. 13/12/12 fast with a heavy bolter and a accelerator auto cannon for 135 points, 155 with armoured ceramite. Twin linked heavy 6 auto cannon shots ignoring jinkwhich rend are pretty nice, not bad against flyers either. Heavy bolter sponsons for 20 Las for 40.

[Xenith]

With the changes to the vehicle damage table tables, I think Devs got a slight nerf (no longer being able to one-shot vehicles), 

 

Erm. Dev's with lascannons can still one shot vehicles. 

 

And ML's can still cause enough HP damage to wreck one in one round. 

 

They are still valid.

[Remtek]

 

With the changes to the vehicle damage table tables, I think Devs got a slight nerf (no longer being able to one-shot vehicles), 

 

Erm. Dev's with lascannons can still one shot vehicles. 

 

And ML's can still cause enough HP damage to wreck one in one round. 

 

They are still valid.

 

 

I still like the Dev's offensive power, the issue is them being very static. Since most units can score now, having the option of moving 12"+12" seems appealing. A predator will do less dmg than a dev squad, but will have less Los issues, and the ability to grab objectives.  I'm not sure if i want to replace them yet, but considering buying  1-2 preds and vindis to playtest. 

[AngryCanadian]

i personally feel that the StormRaven is a MUST have to have any chance in competitive play

 

I think that you need to have some kind of anti-air ability and having at least one Raven helps out a lot

If the opponent doesn't have a flyer than i target transports and/or Heavy armour troops (like terminators)

 

Last thing i would like to mention is that the 2nd part of the StormRaven's name is GUNSHIP and for the most part it should be treated as such

I wouldn't normally put any unit with a high point investment inside it at 1500pts or less (but have sometimes for FUN lists, not competitive)

[psychodough]

Not out the standard book but I find the relic Sicarian from IA2 Second edition sneaking into all my lists. 13/12/12 fast with a heavy bolter and a accelerator auto cannon for 135 points, 155 with armoured ceramite. Twin linked heavy 6 auto cannon shots ignoring jinkwhich rend are pretty nice, not bad against flyers either. Heavy bolter sponsons for 20 Las for 40.

I've been eyeing this tank for a long while now, the thing the stops me from buying one other than the price it. How much use have you gotten out of it and do you feel its worth its points/cash?

 

I have been having great success with missile dev's vs demon factory, my frag missile do work in every game so far but the min squad doesn't always cut it but i don't mind adding a few guys now that they can score.

 

i personally feel that the StormRaven is a MUST have to have any chance in competitive play

 

I think that you need to have some kind of anti-air ability and having at least one Raven helps out a lot

If the opponent doesn't have a flyer than i target transports and/or Heavy armour troops (like terminators)

 

Last thing i would like to mention is that the 2nd part of the StormRaven's name is GUNSHIP and for the most part it should be treated as such

I wouldn't normally put any unit with a high point investment inside it at 1500pts or less (but have sometimes for FUN lists, not competitive)

 

 Couldn't agree more with this!

[Remtek]

i personally feel that the StormRaven is a MUST have to have any chance in competitive play

 

I think that you need to have some kind of anti-air ability and having at least one Raven helps out a lot

If the opponent doesn't have a flyer than i target transports and/or Heavy armour troops (like terminators)

 

Last thing i would like to mention is that the 2nd part of the StormRaven's name is GUNSHIP and for the most part it should be treated as such

I wouldn't normally put any unit with a high point investment inside it at 1500pts or less (but have sometimes for FUN lists, not competitive)

 

For competitive play, i feel you either need to ignore flyers or have multiple solutions to stop them. A single stormraven is gonna have issues dealing with a flyer list and due to the 200 point cost it should have more roles than dmg (transporting key units). Though i'd much rather just get a Land Raider, forcing my opponent to deal with AV14. Vs Cron air or Vendetta spam a single Stormraven wont do much. I can perhaps see it viable transporting a DC dread taking over contested objectives i turn 3 or 4.

[Shaezus]

The Sicaran is so awesome, I would gladly tweak my army and swap mephiston for a reclusiarch and extended role for the DC just so I could take two of them. With HB sponsons it is only ten points more than a TLAC HB baal, which is an unbelievable bargain for all the extra armour and firepower you get for those points. The next FW allowed tourny I will be going to is in January and already I'm making room for these beasts, bearing in mind the new dex.

 

As for the raven, I disagree completely that it is a must-have to be competitive. Quite the opposite in my humble experience. Whether or not you use it for gunship or transport there is so much interceptor and twin-linked S7+ firepower out there, the raven has a very short life expectancy. You really need to run with two of them to allow them to do their thing and for 400-460 points you can get a host of ground-based firepower which can do the same thing more safely, and from turn one.

[knife&fork]

Gonna copy paste a bit from the general tactica thread on the SR:

 

Another thing that I think often gets overlooked is that you can redeploy units late game with the raven!

 

People fly in, shoot, maybe dump some cargo when they arrive, but rarely do I see anyone embark anything. Quickly moving a dread or squad across the board can be verypowerful and have actually won me a few games.

 

It's like people are so set on 'gunship' and 'assault vehicle' in their minds that they forget the option even exists. 

 

This is how it usually goes down for me:

 

Turn 2, fly in, kill something

Turn 3, hover, disembark cargo, kill something

 

Now, even if the raven is killed at this point I have used up all my missiles, usually killed (or severely weakened) two high value units as well as delivered a cargo right where they need to be. Totally worth it.

 

If I survive the next enemy shooting phase it still leaves me with 2-4 turns of doing whatever with one of the most flexible vehicles in the game!

 

EDIT: Once you have popped those missiles (and never, ever save them for later!) the raven doesn't have amazing fire power. Find other things for it to do besides getting into fire fights. 

[Shaezus]

The stormraven is a truly awesome concept, so much so that I was tempted back to it before suffering the same fate and going back to raiders. Stormravens are not seen at all on our club nights now, the other BA player and a fleshtearers guy both suffered the same way.

 

Our local has several tau with multiple interceptor broadsides and riptides, eldar with prescience and doom on wave serpents, warp spiders and that warlock or farseer with two shots sitting on an icarus lascannon, guard (sorry, militarum..) with multiple vendettas and heaps of melta and plasma, two grey knight armies with psycannon spam and everyone else has at least an aegis with quad auto.

 

Even in outside tournys people loaded up their ravens to about 700-800 points of stuff and they were getting shot down as often as not..ouch. Awesome when they work, but pure suicide when they don't.

[knife&fork]

 

 

Even in outside tournys people loaded up their ravens to about 700-800 points of stuff and they were getting shot down as often as not..ouch. Awesome when they work, but pure suicide when they don't.

 

That's retardery. 

 

Unless your opponent's anti air is nonexistent the only thing that goes in a raven is either Mephiston (because he doesn't care about the crash) or an inexpensive scoring unit you can dump in the first movement phase with skies of fury.

 

If your opponent has a lot of intercept fire, what have you been doing turn 1? Why is that icarus still manned by the enemy and not your troops? And if the firepower is that overwhelming how the heck do the land raiders survive? There's usually no shortage whatsoever of melta, lance and D-fire from those kinds of lists.

[Shaezus]

Agreed, it is very retardy to load up a raven and I see the sense in using it only for mephy. I think that solves half the problem, but then not everyone wants to take mephy.

 

The problem with the tau list is that it is practically impossible to take out all their intercept in turn 1 - that would be a record tabling if you did - and after firing intercept they still have plenty of firepower in their own turn. But they have nothing to threaten landraiders. Eldar WS have S7 so again no threat to AV14. Warp spiders S7 so still need rending and nobody uses D weapons here so for now the raider is definitely safer as a transport.

 

As for using it as a gunship, I guess it comes down to personal taste. I prefer to have firepower on the board from turn 1 and troops in reserve ro follow up and hold.

[knife&fork]

Agreed, it is very retardy to load up a raven and I see the sense in using it only for mephy. I think that solves half the problem, but then not everyone wants to take mephy.

 

The problem with the tau list is that it is practically impossible to take out all their intercept in turn 1 - that would be a record tabling if you did - and after firing intercept they still have plenty of firepower in their own turn. But they have nothing to threaten landraiders. Eldar WS have S7 so again no threat to AV14. Warp spiders S7 so still need rending and nobody uses D weapons here so for now the raider is definitely safer as a transport.

 

As for using it as a gunship, I guess it comes down to personal taste. I prefer to have firepower on the board from turn 1 and troops in reserve ro follow up and hold.

 

No question about Tau being brutal, but turn 2 they should have plenty to worry about. At least now when you can't roll the dirtiest Tau death star combos anymore with the loss of battle brothers. 

 

For Eldar you'd still see a lot of lances and distort, right? (That's what I meant by d-weapons in this case). 

[Shaezus]

Strangely enough there's nobody using distort either. We've got WS spam with fire prisms and there's 'that' guy with the wraithknight and DE khymerae allies, only the wraithknight has lance. Lots of melta in the IG list though but people tend to go for my dreads rather than the raider. Expect that will change with new scoring rules perhaps.

 

Do you think the raven is the best HS choice purely in a heavy fire support role? What sort of list do you play with it?

[knife&fork]

Strangely enough there's nobody using distort either. We've got WS spam with fire prisms and there's 'that' guy with the wraithknight and DE khymerae allies, only the wraithknight has lance. Lots of melta in the IG list though but people tend to go for my dreads rather than the raider. Expect that will change with new scoring rules perhaps.

Do you think the raven is the best HS choice purely in a heavy fire support role? What sort of list do you play with it?

That's rather odd meta, just consider yourself lucky I guess

I don't think it's the best use of points in itself, only two guns after the missiles are gone. But I need it to cover anti air, anti MC, anti flying MC, anti tank and taxi for Mephiston (our only worthwhile HQ IMHO). As you say it's not enough when you run into cron air or tons of s6-s7 shooting but I'm hesitant to run more than one because of that whole issue of having guns on the board from turn 1.

I've been experimenting with a couple of different builds in 7th. Last ed I ran it in combination with auto las predators, frag dreads and troops in pods or razorbacks. Usually with some DC or sternguard thrown into the mix.

Volume of fire is real problem for BA so I try to get agile units (like the predators) that can focus on taking the enemy apart bit by bit. Remove a key model or unit so that the heavy hitters like dreads, DC and mephiston can move in for the kill. We can't afford static gun fights or attrition warfare.

Missile devs can be nice but they are very turn one dependent. Easy for many lists to wipe smallish marine squads before they get to do anything. Not having that chance to explode hurts a bit but I'm not convinced Lascannon devs are worth it.

[Shaezus]

That eldar / DE beastpack list is a carbon copy of the list that won the caledonian open this year, fielded by one of the top English players in the ETC O_o ... horrible it is...he rolls for fortune to give them 4++ re rollable. 25 of them, fearless with hit and run so they can pretty much tie up the whole board by using coherency shenanigans..such a filthy, filthy list but yeah I got lucky, he didn't get fortune and started everything but wraithknight and beastpack in reserve..was fun to see my little dreads bullying it :D

 

Yeah we miss that firepower but we've got some awesome scalpel units. Did try 4 LC devs for a while but they were just bullet magnets and tended to die quick. The new baal kit could be helpful in this area, fingers crossed.

[knife&fork]

Well if someone uses a WS-spam + beast star list in every day games then you are excused to tailor the ******** out of your own list!

With a little creative thinking I'm sure you can up with some really nasty combos!

Assault rams with embarked techmarines? Landraiders to park objectives and pivot him off the 3" range? Just shooting from the hip here.

Or how about allying that necron guy who can remove hit n run?

[Shaezus]

Heck, it would be nice to tailor my list..just once...

 

But I'm a stickler for building a list to last and compete with anything. Caestus assault rams...yes please! Think they've gone up in points, 300 or so? But if we're talking FW, it'll be two sicarans and a scorpius. Then we'll see who has the filth :D

[Jakbal]

Am I the only one who likes Dev squad with plasma cannons?  I face a fair number of terminators, and the AP2 aspect always seem to work out great for me.  I've never really suffered from Gets Hot very much.  The only real problem with them is mobility, as they often do not get moved from their initial deployment location.

[Shaezus]

Regardless of which weapons they have, devs are too vulnerable IMHO. Especially in mech or pod lists where they may be the only unit on the board for a turn or where they are the only viable target for light-medium weapons.

 

Personally I prefer LCs, for anti-armour.

[Cronhour]

Heck, it would be nice to tailor my list..just once...

But I'm a stickler for building a list to last and compete with anything. Caestus assault rams...yes please! Think they've gone up in points, 300 or so? But if we're talking FW, it'll be two sicarans and a scorpius. Then we'll see who has the filth :D

 

Scorpius is nice as long as you give them multiple things to worry about, rolled up with 2 land raiders, scorpius, Sicarian, and 3 pods (furioso) corbs lib and sternguard, and DC with reclusiarch ( have to have a reclusiarch if you use 2 relics (scorpius, Sicarian, fire raptor and one of the speeders (javelin?) to face 10 leman russ, 2 manticores, and 60 odd guardsman in chimeras pods and land raiders pressed them so they never got to deal with the scorpius which quietly took hull points and even immobilised a couple. Best moment had to be tank shocking his 30 man blob with his own manticore thanks to a handy grappling off the furioso, but next to that the scorpius did nothing spectacular but did a lot of hp stripping, best 125 points you can spend in the heavy slot, as long as you can protect it that is, and preferable not have to move it.

[knife&fork]

So artillery can move and fire now, right? Maybe allied drop pods with thunder fires are an option.