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Devastator Loadout


Gaweda

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Brothers, I'm three tactical squads away from having a full Blood Angels company. I bought two devastator squads this last week but am having a terrible time of it trying to decide what loadouts to build them with.

 

I require your thoughts and assistance! I usually play against dark Angels, tau, tyrannids and necron.

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I ran 4 missile launchers in every edition since 3rd, and they have generally done well, until 6th. Vehicles are too tough now.

 

I've also just bought the parts, and will be building 4x lascannons for the last squad in my company. Needing a 6 to glance Leman russes from the front just doesnt cut it, and you need the higher strength to better deal with quantum shielding (which will probably be more prevalent than before by february...)

Yes, it has been a debate in my head between lacannons and missile launchers. I don't like the idea of mixing weaponry in squads because then if I'm firing at a unit tailored for one of the weapons, it can waste the others. Not all the time, but sometimes. Perhaps then, I should just take 4 lascannons in one, and 4 missile launchers in another, for fliers. Although, with two stormravens for anti air, I wonder if the missile launchers would even be the optimal choice over plasma cannons.

4 plasma cannons is the next squad I will make, but they will be part of the 9th company. The killy potential is too high, although this will go down as marines transfer to 32mm bases.

 

When fielding 4 las or 4 plasma, Id also bump them up to 10 men, as they will be very high on the target priority of any opponent.

 

I dont think flakk missiles are worth the massive cost. for the price of 4 flakk upgrades you can get a divination librarian...

 

For the cost of the squad, an assault cannon baal will probably do just as well.

Lascannons or Plasma Cannons are the only two options I'd ever consider. Missile Launchers just don't cut it anymore. Not just because they can't one-shot vehicles anymore, but also because a lot of the bigbads of 7th are MCs with a 2+ armour save that a Missile Launcher will only tickle.

Another idea if you face Tau/Elder etc is mixing 2plasma cannon and two heavy bolters. Same range and really hurt most units.

 

And I've never been happy giving ground troops AA, its always better to get dedicated AA or just ignore the flyers IMO.

I've never even fielded devastators before. It'll be very interesting. Building a full company is forcing me to play infantry heavy which is a complete shift in my playing style. I'm thoroughly enjoying learning it! Slowly weaning myself away from multiple dreadnoughts, predators and the like. I must admit, having rhinos / razorbacks blowing up early is pretty difficult to swallow. Two games, two wins so far though.

My standard load out has been 4 Missile Launchers.  I mitigate the front armor problem by running multiple squads.  When I was running Bloodhammer, it was 3 Dev squads with 4 Missile Launchers, with all spare points allocated to ablative wounds for those squads.  A couple of things have happened to change that.  One is that Baal's moved to HS slot, and another is ability to bring multiple Detachments.

My problem with Devastators is that I favour a CC-oriented army so I prefer to take my heavy support with me. Melta guns to bust tanks, flamers to clear swathes of infantry and grav to deal with MCs or TEQs. Unless I was playing on a pretty small board, Devastators would risk being left behind and becoming isolated.

 

Changes to the meta have not helped. Vehicles are much harder to one-shot, cover is more widespread and MCs have ever increasing numbers of wounds and AA weapons are expensive and mediocre. All these mean that the humble Devastators struggle to kill stuff effectively, no matter how versatile they are. The current meta seems to favour specialised units although Maelstrom has changed that a bit to some extent.

I'm with Karhedronuk.

Devastators serve no function in my BA list, as a static shooting unit does nothing to add to the typical BA playstyle. If I did want a shooting weapon platform, I'd be more inclined to take vehicles instead.

 

If you absolutely, positively, want to take Devastators (e.g. if you are on a budget and you don't want to waste your Devastator marines), then consider taking Imperial Fist allies. Their Devastators are pretty solid for what they do.

4 plasma cannons for me. I have been running 4 missle launchers but they leave much to be desired. Missle launchers shine against tyranids where the MC's only have a 3+ and the smaller bugs can be taken out by blast templates. I like the 4 plasma cannons because they are cheap money wise thru dark vengeance and also it's the only thing they are good at compared to predators.

I'm with Karhedronuk.

Devastators serve no function in my BA list, as a static shooting unit does nothing to add to the typical BA playstyle. If I did want a shooting weapon platform, I'd be more inclined to take vehicles instead.

 

If you absolutely, positively, want to take Devastators (e.g. if you are on a budget and you don't want to waste your Devastator marines), then consider taking Imperial Fist allies. Their Devastators are pretty solid for what they do.

I'm not bringing them to be competitive really. I just want to field 100 marines with support units as a full BA Company. The third to be more precise. Right now I have 20 assault marines, 20 devastators and 30 tacticals. Getting there :)

 

I'm rather more a fluff player than competitive. I can make very good lists sure, but I enjoy the narrative of games even more than winning. Most of the time...

The rule of four is a good rule to stick to, as in:

 

4 Heavy Bolters (this one competes with dual HB Land Speeders - i.e. it's subject to taste and you don't really need both)

4 Missile Launchers

4 Plasma Cannons

 

4 Multi Meltas is unusual due to their range and 4 Lascannons was unusual due to it's price. Would certainly work though as Shaezus has mentioned.

 

That said, going three ML and one LC for the Signum is another good option. Flak is better with Devastators (4 ML config) than Tacticals/Scouts.

 

However, if you upgrade to a ten man squad you can abuse the combat squad rule and happily go for a dual purpose unit - i.e 2 PC and 2 whatever or in my case, I have 3 x ML in one squad and 1 MM with the Sergeant in another (mainly because I'm limited by my collection, but still). Add a Razorback and that's three targets you can engage at range for only one FOC slot.

4 lascannons for me also. Used to stick 'em in a bastion when I ran a list with small IG allied contingent. Otherwise the devs are pure bullet magnets and will either have to go to ground or die pretty quickly.

Yea I hate running devs, but love the models. Sometimes remaining points causes me to take them. I just hate seeing them flop like footballers when they take fire.

 

"ref did you see that!?"

All through 5th, missile Devs were the staple Heavy Support choice for my Wolves and my BA. The changes to vehicles and the surge of monstrous creatures made missile launchers much less attractive. With how cheap the jump from ML to Lascannon is, and MLs costing the same as plasma cannons, I can't justify the missile launchers any more.

 

Admittedly, I'm using my Heavy Slots on Stormravens and my points are sunk into deathstars of Sanguinary Guard, so it's a moot point, but if I were to build more Devastators, they'd have lascannons.

4 lascannons for me also. Used to stick 'em in a bastion when I ran a list with small IG allied contingent. Otherwise the devs are pure bullet magnets and will either have to go to ground or die pretty quickly.

Yea I hate running devs, but love the models. Sometimes remaining points causes me to take them. I just hate seeing them flop like footballers when they take fire.

"ref did you see that!?"

Man, your avatars laugh.png cool.png You make those yourself?

I have always used four missile launchers with great success versus light/medium armor and light/medium infantry and they remove massed light infantry. However, lately against heavy armor the missile launcher is starting to faulter so the removal of one missile launcher for the inclusion of one lascannon is a good trade and the squad could still handle mass infantry. Both the missile laucnher and lascannon have a 48 inch range so placement can be about anywhere.

 

Four lascannons should destroy medium armor/infantry and be a serious threat to heavy armor/infantry. Four plasma cannon I have no models nor the experience of going against. I think it would be best suited against infantry and not so much for armor as the blast can scatter, again it is the roll of dice there. Four heavy bolters again for infantry, but placement is vital imo. I think twin dual heavy bolter speeders have the advantage of a five marine squad strength. Lascannons have the range over plasma cannons and heavy bolters though so placement is vital if the squad is minimum sized.

 

One detail I did was include the full squad to absorb damage. Most times the squad barely suffers the loss of a weapon or gets ignored altogether being left to cause damage all over th battlefield.

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