Chaos dreads/contemptors in 7th

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

So I've been having luck with a chaos dread with poerfist and plasma cannon, and I'm thinking about getting either another dread with multi melta or reaper autocannon with either fist or scourge or a contemptor.
So how have people been finding the chaos dreads in various loadouts in 7th?

[incinerator950]

Meh, unless you take one of the dataslate formations.

[Zeratil]

I've never had much success with Helbrutes, although I only have one so have not tried the formations. The problems with the Helbrutes that I find are:

 

1.) That random bloody table always seems to give you the worst result (confirmation bias I know, but its a dumb table).

2.) AV12 on something that is supposedly built to get into combat just seems like a liability, most times I've seen them used they've died to marines in assault in a couple of rounds of attrition.

3.) AV12 at range isn't great either, and dreads aren't quick, especially when they're in cover.

 

  Contemptors on the other hand seem much better, although I haven't fielded one, AV13 means krak grenades can't hurt you and the invul save makes being in cover less important, they also have good weapon options like the butcher cannons and the ability to take dedications, which I like from a backstory viewpoint. They are also fleet, don't have a stupid random table, have an extra point of attack and weapon skill etc. etc. Obviously the contemptor is more expensive but it feels much more survivable and therefore worthwhile to me.

[Chandrian]

Agreeing with Incinerator. Alone my Dreads haven't done much, as a Mayhem Pack they chewed through a decent chunk of HP against a Stompa.

[Redtoof]

As someone who usually plays Orks, my regular opponent uses a lot of dreads (contemptor and regular) and it is tough to deal with. Marines packing meltaguns kill dreads with relative ease, but not everyone has that luxury. I'd definitely consider them in an armour spam list, or in a list tailored to fight Orks, Nids or other armies lacking anti-tank firepower.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

My list atm at 1500pts has a dread, 2 rhinos, 2 preds and a vindicator, so was thinking of taking it up to 2k with adding a land raider and/or contemptor/another dreadnought for saturation.

[Brother Ambroz]

I haven't played in forever nor do I know the 7th ed rules but I would think armor saturation would be immensely helpful if you wind up taking dreads. Forgefiends and predators for ranged and maulers + spawn if you take a Melee dread.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

When the codex first dropped, I had considered a walker-heavy force of three Maulderfiends and three Chaos Dreads (grrr...will not use dumb name!) with double CCW and just charge into the enemy.  It just. . . isn't the Alpha Legion way of war, and it suffers from still being all-AV12, which just dies too fast.

[incinerator950]

I just snapped together my two other DV dreads and I just have to decide if I want PFs and heavy flamers or pry off the pf that came assembled and get three durphammers.

 

If you could take an upgrade that dropped the madness table and if we could use Homing Beacons, I'd be in love. Or make our own riflemen, or dual multimeltas, or sonic dreads...

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Or have a daemon engine one, or cult ones, or an armoured one.

[Zeratil]

What I really want is a psychic Contemptor for my Thousand Sons

[ThatOneMarshal]

I played a game against 3 hel brutes. They all had the ability to deep strike and rolled on the crazed table every turn. They weren't terribly difficult to deal with. However the one with the whip that decreases your WS is a pain. I decide to charge with captain with furious charge power fist and a 8 man squad of marines. The lone dread made it impossible to hit because of the WS thing, killed my warlord and tar pitted the squad so that two mauler fiends could join in. Also I hate daemon one of them ate a vindicator shot due to that damn thing.

[Slaanbull]

Seeing as my two most frequent opponents are orks and tyranids, I really like my chaos dreads. Againts the tyranids I believe that a single dread can be a great deterrent, keeping poison sack hormagaunts at bay, otherwise they'd chew through my spawn faster than I can react.
Played a game this sunday where I used a sonic helbrute with two sonic blasters and a power scourge, he was hunting a zoanthrope and got immobilised by it, but then I rolled fire frenzy on the damned crazy table, the zoanthrope got ripped apart in that barrage.
Of the three formations I've only tried the Helcult formation so far, but I want to try both the mayhem pack and the HELFIST MUDERBRUTEBAND, I have bad experiences with deepstriking in general, so the five murderdudes seem a bit more enticing, and a 5++ dreadnought "boss" that can challenge seems really fun.
Other than that I hope to begin assembling my decimator soon, I also have an unpainted forgefiend and an early WIP maulerfiend spliced from the maulerfiend kit and a lizardmen carnosaur kit, I hope to have a force with an awesome amount of armor at one point, the new demon engines kinda grew on me.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

How have people found multie meltas and the reaper autocannons on their dreadnought?

[Chaeron]

How have people found multie meltas and the reaper autocannons on their dreadnought?

 

Guilty of never really using them - the former is pretty much standard for the old Helbrute, but sometimes it's nicer to mix things up.

 

Definitely, the Dataslates made Dreads much more appealing. Would I still taken them? Eh...

[Slaanbull]

I've only used the multi-melta once, in a game against another dreadnought, I'm always rolling a 1 for one-shot weapons though, so my trust in it haven't been that large.
The reaper autocannon is one of my favorite options in the codex, great at glancing stuff and can reliably clean up some light infantry if you have nothing else to shoot at while advancing. It shares first place with the plasma-cannon for me.
 

[spafe]

I've reg run 3 brutes (individually as I dont use anything bar the basic dex), one with lasscannon, one with multimelta and one with plasma cannon. Them combined with 2 rhinos and 2 preds (main auto, side las), a vindi and a raider give me a very nice armoured front that can deal with a lot of stuff, while not spamming any one option (this is when I get to big enough games for 2 primary, in smaller lists I lose the multimetla dred and take termies to give me the raider as a transport).

 

I find running the plasma guy near my raider mitigates the danger of crazyness, and he provides a nice escort to keep threats to the raider at bay. the other two tend to take the oppersite flank and jsut march along causing destruction and distraction until they are poped.

[Xenith]

It just. . . isn't the Alpha Legion way of war,

Which is why your enemy will be surprised when you do it!

[RolandTHTG]

 

It just. . . isn't the Alpha Legion way of war,

Which is why your enemy will be surprised when you do it!

 

"Remember boys, these guys are cowardly. They can't stand up to the might of the Imperial guard in a fight, so they try and avoid it. Maintain your patrols, watch your back, and keep an eye out for sabotage. "

(growing rumbling)

"Uh, Sarge? Why does it sound like a stamped is coming?"

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

So I've been having luck with a chaos dread with poerfist and plasma cannon, and I'm thinking about getting either another dread with multi melta or reaper autocannon with either fist or scourge or a contemptor.

So how have people been finding the chaos dreads in various loadouts in 7th?

 

I've been useing my Helbrute over the past few months now & always been impress how they've done gaming wise & really enjoy having them as part of my army list.

 

I have one arm with Twin Linked Lascannon & then two arm with Autocannons, one being the classic Metal model.  Then recent a Contempter arm with Autocannon - only use this as a Helbrute right now for a event I got in three weeks time.  But I plan on useing the Contempter rules in future games.

 

I've always found they've done there job & done a lot of damage toward my oppent army.  I would like to try add another few Chaos Dreadnought in the future, one side of this is because I've always like Dreadnought models/conversion, offer a lot on conversion, other side is for diffrent weapons from Multi Melta & Plasma Cannon so I can change my army list about.

I general use my Chaos Dreadnought to tag along with my Obliterators units both shoting & close combat wise just so there not all block in combat for more turns that they need to be.

 

How have people found multie meltas and the reaper autocannons on their dreadnought?

 

I like useing the reaper autocannon.  Recently I've been useing my Contemptoer (count as helbrute) along with Havocs arm with Autocannons to help deal with flyer in my oppent army or strip hull points of tanks & transport so my Obliterators & Chaos Marines can aim that the units there carry.  Now 7th ed seen Land Speeder & other skimmer scoring, just try stop them from trying to get any last min object holding.

[Goreshed]

Why do people act as though the crazy table is the worst thing in the world next to listening to children cry? The table we have now at least means it wont kill your own men and really it only gets a chance to go crazy once until its blown up. I haven't played 7th so they may have changed some wording around but they are nothing compared to what they used to be.

 

Then again, I am the person who cackled like a madman back in the day when my dread fire frenzied and killed half of my guys around it and some of the enemy. Such is the price to pay for chaos.

[Sheesh Mode]

As someone who runs the Helcult Dataslate I have found that Helbrutes make a nice addition to a cultist mob as the cultists provide a 3+ cover save and the Helbrute deters enemy units from attempting to assault the cultists. It becomes a pain in the neck as you are forced to either ignore an increasingly dangerous mob of nobodies or shoot at other targets. 

 

Certainly the Helcult is a powerful formation, but it is still possible to run a similar set up, either with massed cultists inside of an apostles leadership bubble with a Murderpack close behind or simply deepstriking suicide dreads. In all honesty, deepstriking 3 helbrutes with Multi-meltas can cause an endless headache for Imperial Guard, Tau, and Spacemarine armies. 

 

It largely depends on how you run them. Though, as the internet will tell you, chaos dreadnoughts are not suited for larger point scales as the map is too large and the collection of firepower too copious to justify the majority of uses for a helbrute. In smaller games of 1000pts or killzone, the Helbrute is phenomenal. It is much more difficult to kill and even then it is still not worth the effort. This plays in your favor by maintaining the pressure and advancing the angry metal box. My helbrute rarely makes it into combat and misses shots more often than not, yet in-spite of this I find "Billy the Bad Box" incredibly useful as a distraction and unexpected tank destroyer. 

 

Just don't expect too much out of him.