Heavy Weapon Teams

[SpoonDoctor]

Whats up B&C! 

I was just wondering what you guys thought of Heavy Weapons Teams and if you run them effectively in any of your lists? I myself have not had the best of luck with them, low leadership makes orders unreliable and vulnerable to falling back and pinning. I usually run Autocannons in mine when I do use them but have used Lascannons and Missile Launchers as well. 
 

[scatmandoo]

I usually run Autocannon but dabble with Missiles when I feel like wasting points......

 

Anyhow, I too find their leadership unreliable and have contemplated a Commissar to aid them, though I feel that is asking for more trouble.

 

I think the trick is not to expect too much and appreciating that orders are not a dead cert helps.

 

Also, due to their incompetence at shooting, it has enabled them to not be such an easy first blood due to dropping down the priority list.

[WarriorFish]

They're not fantastic thanks to the current game, which is why I keep them cheap. Mortars and autocannons but I'm partial to some heavy bolters to scythe down infantry and weight of fire. If GW pulled their finger out and gave them Eternal Warrior that would make a big difference to their usage.

 

They should be in cover and protected by saturation - that is to say they do better in lists with more infantry :)

[bigted]

The only way I like to run heavy weapons is in veteran squads, heavy weapon teams seem too fragile and I like to have a meatshield of guardsmen to die first and save my expensive weapons. In terms of loadout, l like lascannons or autocannons. Missile launchers seem like a waste of time and heavy bolters/mortars just don't pack enough punch.

[Jolemai]

The main Guard player in our group takes autocannons much to my army's dismay :(

[elmo]

I am just in the middle of building 3 x mortars, 2 x lascannons and a heavy bolter but only because I have the bits and it looks good ;)

[Jolemai]

I am just in the middle of building 3 x mortars, 2 x lascannons and a heavy bolter but only because I have the bits and it looks good

Magnetisable HWT? Interesting...

[elmo]

No... Just extra bits left over plus I bought some more tripods from Anvil Industry to make them up ;)

 

That way I can get the maximum teams out of one hw team box

[Jolemai]

I'm really sad now :(

[SW1]

Yeah ... There's something about having 15 heavy weapons and only being able to use 3 of them that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. Going off the Catachan hwt ...

 

The missile launcher can be used by any grunt so adding it to a plastic normal bloke is easy. The mortar can then have the tripod they are meant to share.

 

The other issue is the lascannon/heavy bolter/autocannon sharing the other tripod. I guess you could set this up as interchangeable? Depends it the distance between the gunner and the tripod it the same with all three weapons will check later on when I get a chance.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I've tried them in various flavours. I don't understand why GW put a 5pt tax on them compared to putting them in Infantry Squads. Oh well.

 

I use Heavy Bolters/Autocannons in my Chem Dogs Kill Team, because at that small a scale they perform surprisingly well, and there's less heavy fire for them to contend with. In the game itself, Lascannon teams are a nice secondary AT threat. I've used them to great effect on a flank, hitting Side Armour of a Knight while a Macharius Vanquisher draws its attention, and managed to bring it down in one volley due to some filthy luck on the rolls.

 

I originally ran the teams solo, but lately have been putting them in Infantry squads as backfield units. Allows me to attach Commissars/Priests to make sure they hold the line. I'm planning on using HWTs with Missile Launchers in a 10K game against my friend's Nids next Saturday. They're about the only army MLs perform particularly well against, in my experience.

[WarriorFish]

The three guns have a different length as to where the gunner will be. So either the gunner can move, or you don't have anyone holding it :)

[Bionicman]

While HWS are fluffy as hell they are squishy and sadly too expensive.

 

Some suggestions:

 

* Add a primaris psyker to the HWS. He boosts moral to Ld9 and can twinlink via prescience. Another plus is that he will never shoot the grunts in the back and just kills them by accident via perils. Cons: Wasting the potential of a great melee character (for IG levels of melee...) and making the squad even juicier. Inquisitor would also be possible but has some disadvantages.

 

* Put a HWS in a Taurox and camp in the backfield. Pros: Adds stability and synergizes well with the taurox's AC. Cons: No orders allowed. Doh.

 

Edit: Clarification

[Chefzilla]

I have all my hwt magnetized but normally I take lascannons for my bubble wrap and either autocannons or heavy bolters for my mobile vets. Beefed up with orders and with a PCS or CCS nearby my hwt are nigh unstoppable and I would almost never think about not having them on the field.

[Altasmurf]

I've tried the heavy weapon squads with the psyker and they pretty much just become easy prey because it's a lot points that can be instant killed by so many weapons. I've found that a couple of autocannons in 20 man blobs with a priest, and a couple solo lascannons in command squads do pretty good. Really I let special weapons do the heavy lifting for me.

[Raulmichile]

I normally use an AC HWT surrounded by a sea of bodies, near the CCS or a Primaris and normally they perform from decent to very well. The thing is that as soon as they begin to receive attention they die fast. Almost any HW can instakill them.

 

As long as your plan does not rely on them a couple of cheap HWS can add to the overall fire power nicely: glancing light transports and Dreadnoughts to death, lobbing shells to lonely enemy characters out of sight and overall being annoying is their task. Having said that, don't rely on them to be scoring or securing objectives in your deployment zone or things like that. Do not be tempted to use them in this way because you are asking your opponent to pay attention to them and as soon as it happens bye bye unit and objective...

[SpoonDoctor]

So many different and great opinions, cheers for the input dudes! (and girls if there are any, sorry). I agree a Primas is probably a bit too much of an investment to put into what I think should be a cheap unit. As well as the before mentioned fact that they become a very juicey target! I have had varying success rolling with 2 lots of 3 autocannon teams but i think it as grown on me, pretty cheap and lots of dakka. setting them up in cover in the backfield and creating a no go zone for light vehicles. The problem i ran into with that was my last game with my friend who ran two wave serpents and used their wave serpent shields to destroy them =( but none the less i still like them. Putting them in a taurox is an interesting idea I quite like it but yeah as you said no orders. Im kinda thinking they would be pretty OP if they had reliable orders on them ya know? I mean its a cheap lot of heavy weapons they can do surprisingly well.

An idea. Maybe running The Tactical Auto-Reliquary of Tyberius in a CCS which will give much increased chance of inspired tactics to use on your HWT's! 
Maybe even running creed with that and then hopefully rolling a 6 (of which he can have two) on warlord trait for an extra order, thats 4 orders a turn surely you will get some doubles in there.

I will test that out and post results.

SpoonDoctor out.

[FreeNemesis]

All of these HWT are from one HWT Box mixed with normal catachan soldiers and other bits.

 

Normaly i field them in HWT Squads and the ACs in Troops from the Infantry Platoon.

[varchilde]

I love the idea of HWTs, they are as iconic to guard as Leman Russes are!

 

I run AC teams in my backfield infantry squads. I have built 3 missile launcher teams built, and have some lovely PDC gaming gun carriages which can be used as pretty much whatever flavour of weapon team you like!

 

But I've never quite been brave enough to run Heavy Weapon Squads; they just seem too pricey and too squishy; but thinking laterally, what about using Heavy Weapon Squad in a fortification to aid survivability? A sky shield adds an invuln save, and the humble WoM Bunker protect a squad in an AV14 box they can all fire out of from the seriously wide fire points!

 

Oh, and a pic of those gun carriages:

 

 

Reason for edit: Clarity: Heavy Weapon Team vs. Heavy Weapon Squad.

[WarriorFish]

Perhaps our next codex will see HWTs given a boost in some way? Feels like it's their turn to shine. In order to help "facilitate" this we should all stop buying HWTs as GW will panic buff them to increase sales :lol:

[march10k]

~sigh~  Precision of language, people.  I think a significant number of the heavy weapons team references in this thread actually refer to heavy weapons squads, and it makes for a skull-splitting logic exercise trying to sort through it all and figure out what everyone intends to say...  A heavy weapons team is one model, may be taken by just about every different type of squad-limit one.  A heavy weapons squad is a squad consisting of three heavy weapons teams...and no meat shields.

 

The only use I can find for heavy weapons squads is that a stormlord has a capacity of 40 infantry, along with 30 firepoints.  That's six heavy weapons squads, if you do the math.....~evil grin~

 

Other than that, as has been mentioned...three T3/5+ models with no meatshields, the destruction of which represents not only measurable reduction of your firepower, but also easy first blood...they're not a smart choice.  

 

Heavy weapons teams, on the other hand, are great.  My favorite unit is a veteran squad with forward sentries, an autocannon, and a chimera.  Most of the time, the sentries will occupy the upper floor of a ruin for 3+ cover and sweeping fields of fire while the chimmy says "thank you for 'objective secured' status" and maneuvers to, ahem, secure an objective.  Alternatively, if the template threat is high (hellhounds, hell turkeys, etc), the vets stay on board and fire the autocannon from the hatch.

[Bionicman]

While HWS are fluffy as hell they are squishy and sadly too expensive.

 

Some suggestions:

 

* Add a primaris psyker to the HWS. He boosts moral to Ld9 and can twinlink via prescience. Another plus is that he will never shoot the grunts in the back and just kills them by accident via perils. Cons: Wasting the potential of a great melee character (for IG levels of melee...) and making the squad even juicier. Inquisitor would also be possible but has some disadvantages.

 

* Put a HWS in a Taurox and camp in the backfield. Pros: Adds stability and synergizes well with the taurox's AC. Cons: No orders allowed. Doh.

 

Edit: Clarification

 

Another idea:  =][= Allies

But a HWS in a =][= Chimera. 5 fire points and cheaper transport. Front 12 and 48'' on ACs or Lascas is nothin to sneeze at.

[march10k]

 

 

Another idea:  =][= Allies

But a HWS in a =][= Chimera. 5 fire points and cheaper transport. Front 12 and 48'' on ACs or Lascas is nothin to sneeze at.

 

 

First, that's extremely shady...second, it's hardly worthwhile to go to all that effort when two HWTs from a HWS can fire from the hatch of an IG chimmy anyway!  HWSs are really only going  to do amazing things if you can spam them. Spamming them alongside IG chimeras is theoretically possible.  Platoon with two infantry squads, PCS, four HWSs, three chimeras, veteran squad with chimera gives you eight HWTs firing from chimera hatches, four "wasted," and up to four more embedded in infantry, command, and veteran squads, plus the heavy bolters (better than heavy flamers in this build) and multilasers on the chimeras gives you 20 heavy weapons, none of which are particularly vulnerable, the PCS one being the squishiest.  Allying in inquistion to squeeze out a few more heavy weapons just isn't worth it...plus, with only two weapons able to fire from the hatch, you have nothing to lose by mixing in something unconventional...two autocannons and a mortar, perhaps?  Never know when you might want/need indirect fire, and the mortar is cheaper, right?  Might as well save the five points...

[Chefzilla]

~sigh~  Precision of language, people.  I think a significant number of the heavy weapons team references in this thread actually refer to heavy weapons squads, and it makes for a skull-splitting logic exercise trying to sort through it all and figure out what everyone intends to say...  A heavy weapons team is one model, may be taken by just about every different type of squad-limit one.  A heavy weapons squad is a squad consisting of three heavy weapons teams...and no meat shields.

 

The only use I can find for heavy weapons squads is that a stormlord has a capacity of 40 infantry, along with 30 firepoints.  That's six heavy weapons squads, if you do the math.....~evil grin~

 

Other than that, as has been mentioned...three T3/5+ models with no meatshields, the destruction of which represents not only measurable reduction of your firepower, but also easy first blood...they're not a smart choice.  

 

Heavy weapons teams, on the other hand, are great.  My favorite unit is a veteran squad with forward sentries, an autocannon, and a chimera.  Most of the time, the sentries will occupy the upper floor of a ruin for 3+ cover and sweeping fields of fire while the chimmy says "thank you for 'objective secured' status" and maneuvers to, ahem, secure an objective.  Alternatively, if the template threat is high (hellhounds, hell turkeys, etc), the vets stay on board and fire the autocannon from the hatch.

March, I'm a bit confused. Maybe that's just the CDAT in me but aren't you describing the special weapon upgrade for the squad ie flamer, grenade launcher? Even though a squad can take a HWT and a Platoon can take a HWS.

[elmo]

To try to avoid confusion...

 

Heavy weapon team

 

Infantry heavy weapons are typically crewed by a team of two men; one fires the weapon while the other supplies the ammunition, and between them they can relocate their weapon if needs be.

 

An infantry squad may take a Heavy weapon team as an upgrade - 1 x Sgt, 7 x Guardsmen and 1 x HWT

 

or..

 

Heavy weapon squad

Heavy Weapon Teams are either part of normal Imperial Guard squads or they can be grouped together to create support squads that provide cover for the advancing troops.

 

3 x Heavy weapon teams can be grouped together as a stand alone support squad as an addition to an infantry platoon.

 

 

The special weapons squad is something completely different ;)