Devastator Loadouts

[Berzul]

Hi everyone!

 

Ive read on the forum that the "best" Devastator squad in a Lion's Blade is the one with 2 Grav Cannons on a Rhino, used as a mobile firing platform.

 

But I have been toying with the idea of a 4 HB squad of 10 Marines, in a drop pod.

 

Since they have Obj Secured in the formation, and a full ballistic skill overwatch, a 10 man squad with 12 HB shots sounds like a VERY difficult unit to assault. A drop pod can make sure they get to a strategic possition turn 1, and then hold it throughout the whole game.

 

Has anyone tried somethinf like this? Has it worked for you?

[SnakeChisler]

The Speeders do a better job with HB's with 12" movement no penalty and only 110 for the same amount of firepower

 

The Dev's now suffer from Grav being sooooo much better with salvo & not firing with 2 getting 10 shots ( or 3) & 1 hitting on 2's

[Berzul]

Do speeders get obj secured in the lion's blade? I thought that was only the members of the Demi Companies.

 

If so, I still see value in using a 4 HB dev squad on drop pod.

 

If not, then yes, I guess Landspeeders with dual HB are the bettwr choice.

 

I prefer to run a Ravenwing Attack Squadron as Auxiliary, though. With a LS armed with an Assault Cannon and a HB

[Cypher 102]

Objective Secured is only for the members of the Demi-Company.

[Boo Amp]

Apologies, I'm fairly new to the game & have a lot of lame questions; Do the 2 x Grav Cannons in the rhino fire their full 5 shots or just 3 shots when they're moving around?

[Chaplain Lucifer]

No, any sort of movement precludes shooting restrictions unless there' a special rule like relentless.

[SnakeChisler]

Grav Cannons are salvo 3/5

 

3 shots at 12" if you move 5 if you stay still no penalty to ballistic for movement tho you just sacrifice the 2 shots and go to 1/2 range

 

I got the dev box the day the codex came out and just love em, if I was doing comps I'd get another squad, the signum thing is just sweet 2 in a Rhino is plenty, normally good enough to take out a Riptide in 1 round of shooting wreck a drop pod etc..

[Rodiger]

40k is Horses for Courses, aka the unit you take will work great against certain armies but not against other armies.The Rhino Grav Devastators will be great against some armies and will be useless against others.  The armies you regularly face will make or break the unit you are proposing. I have also thought of a similar idea before, wanting to capitalise on the Overwatching at full Ballistic Skill so the unit was hard to assault, but the unit is very fragile and template AP3 weapons will remove the unit from play. I noticed in another post you played against Khorne Deamonkin, if you come up against a Hell Drake it will kill this unit as soon as it arrives. The unit you are proposing is 215 points before any upgrades and I think that is a lot for a unit that will provide 6 - 12 S4 shots and 12 S5 shots, and it will struggle to completely wipe out a unit that is not Cultists or something similar in one go, the Heavy Bolters will have to Snap Fire for at least one turn, and it runs the risk of being destroyed in one turn. Another problem this unit will face is it can only Overwatch once per turn, so if your opponent has 2 units that can assault, they will send the weaker one in to take the Overwatch then the other will charge in afterwards. Once it is assaulted by a half decent Close Combat unit, it is effectively dead and if it survives it cannot fire, and providing fire is its job.

 

When I am taking a Demi Company I also take 4 Heavy Bolters but this is for different reasons. Firstly I don’t rate Devastators and I wouldn’t use them unless I had to. I think they are too expensive for the amount of fire power they put out. A reasonably equipped squad with some ablative wounds will be 200 points plus. Which is too much when you consider it only takes 1 Hell Drake, 1 turn to wipe out the entire unit. I think because of their fragility they are not a reliable way to counter Heavy Armour and there are better options for taking Heavy Weapons. It is possible to put them in a Rhino with 2 Heavy Weapons, but that’s not much better than a Razorback and Razorbacks are a lot cheaper, and Rhinos and Razorbacks are not very difficult to destroy either. Secondly I try to keep the Demi Company as cheap as possible, I think the Demi Company is most useful for having at least 5 Objective Secured units on the table, and more importantly the benefits it confers to the other Formations, and I would rather spend the points there.

 

So I tend to take 4 Heavy Bolters for 110 points, and occasionally a couple of ablative wounds if I have the points to spare, and stick them in some cover or near an objective in my deployment zone. It’s cheap, it puts out reasonable amount of damage with decent range, and it’s no great loss if I lose them. They usually last a little bit longer too as they are not as juicy a target as 4 Las Cannons or Missile Launchers. 

All that being said, the best way to find out is to try out the unit and see how it goes. 

[Berzul]

Rodiger, that was a very thorough analysis. Thanks!! :D

 

A 5 man squad with the 4 HBs does look like it has it's own advantages. When I play devastators with full LCs or MLs, they DO become priority targets on the field, and thus get taken out fairly quickly. The HBs don't really "feel" like that large a threat, when compared to other units on the table, and they could still create a good "danger zone" around an objective or two.

 

110 points is also fairly inexpensive.

 

I think I might just try this in my future games. 

[march10k]

Hey, I like my ten man four lascannon devastator squad.   I like to park them in ruins far far far from the rest of my army...They cost a little less than a land raider, but they tend to attract the enemy's premier power armor killer(s) AFTER taking out at least their own points value in stuff.  I especially like seeing stupidly expensive AV12 stuff on the other side, like dreadnoughts at 150+ points a pop.  I never expect my lascannon devs to live past turn three, and I always expect them to destroy a critical enemy capability before they die (points immaterial!  If they blow up a chimeltavet transport, saving my land raider, they did their job!), and they rarely disappoint.

 

There's a reason that lascannon devs go to the top of the enemy's target priority matrix, and it's got nothing to do with points cost.  5 scouts and 10 terminators, it's still one kill point.  The fundamental difference, to me and to your opponent, between five devs with four heavy bolters and ten devs with four lascannons is that the lascannon devs are dangerous and the heavy bolter devs are "mostly harmless."  I don't go about keeping my stuff alive by making everything so mediocre that the enemy is bored into indecision, I try to make him choose which existential threat he's going to do something about and which one he's going to let ruin his day.  If he decides that he's going to ignore my bikes and thundernators because it's simply easier to kill T4 3+/4++  marines than it is to kill T5 3+/4++ or T4 2+/3++ marines, that's fine by me.  I'll trade a 220 point dev squad for half his army.  The lascannons might be devastating, but there are only four of them and they can only target one thing at a time. 

 

I'd let me do that and worry about dealing with the bikes dropping thundernators in my lap...but most people do what you are afraid they will, and take the bait...thing is, the bait usually does both of its jobs:  kill something critical, and then take one for the team by drawing off enemy MEQ-killers.

[shabbadoo]

Apologies, I'm fairly new to the game & have a lot of lame questions; Do the 2 x Grav Cannons in the rhino fire their full 5 shots or just 3 shots when they're moving around?

If you are new to the game, the first thing you should do is read the core rulebook, word for word, cover to cover. Then do the same with your codex.  Doing this will increase your familiarlity with regard to both books, and tha jargon used in the game, and will likley answer many of your initital questions.  If you hve the smaller starter set rulebook, read it with a highlighter pen in hand, and highlight key rules bits.

 

As far as devastators go, for an all-comers list you really can't beat the very versatile 4 x missile launchers.  I actually like Devastators, and always run one of them in any Greenwing-themed list.  Another load-out I often field is 2 x missile launcher and 2 x lascannon.  In nearly all cases I combat squad the unit so as to spread fire more efficiently (it also keeps something like a Helldrake from obliterating them in one attack run, and there are few enemy untis that will otherwise be of so much concern), and they are always deployed in terrain/cover.  The biggest decider for weapon load-out is what there is in the rest of your army. You have lots of anit-infantry in the rest of your army? Go for anti-heavy infantry/anti-armor weapons in your Devastator Squad. If the rest of your army is loaded with anti-heavy infantry/anti-armor weapons, then go with anti-infantry weapons in your Devastator Squad.

[Rodiger]

As I said before, units work well in some situations and they don’t in others. What Armies you play against and what missions you play make a huge difference, its horses for courses.

 

It’s great that the 10 man 4 Lascannons work for you, :) personally I have never had that much luck with it though, I have tried that unit a few times before and it was also hidden far away, and against the armies I was playing it just died really quickly before it could make its point back. I don’t think it saved the rest of my army by being a distraction to other units, it died because 10, 3+ saves – Inv are just not very good, and it was an easier target than the harder parts of my army to kill. What does your opponent want to shoot, the unit he is guaranteed to kill, or the unit that will take a wound from the same attack. When I make my armies I think 220 points for 10, 3+ - Inv is too much, especially when there is so much AP3 and lower, Ignore Cover, that I find it not a reliable way to deliver anti-armour. The unit is also very vulnerable to close combat, there are very cheap units that can assault it turn 2, like Flesh Hounds. If I want Lascannons to take out something critical I put them on something else. With 4 Lascannon shots, realistically only 1 - 2 of them do any damage a turn anyway, maybe that’s just my rolling though. But every unit is good against some armies and not against others.

 

Lascannons and Heavy Bolters are situational, Lascannons are good against armour, useless against Hordes, and vice versa with Heavy Bolters. Heavy Bolters are not always mediocre, for instance when I play my Tyranids I’d be much more worried about 4 HB than 4 Lascannons especially if I was going to charge them. And vice versa when I play Dark Angels I’d be more worried about the Lascannons.

 

Not everything in the army needs to be super deadly, it depends on what missions you are playing, for instance if you play Maelstrom, units need to claim objectives, so fast Objective Secured units are great. They don’t need to be super deadly to do their job well.

 

My point is every unit can be effective or useless depending on the opponent you are facing and what mission you are playing. If you know what army you are going to be facing and mission you are playing tailor the unit to that army. Berzul if you are going to be facing Khorne Deamonkin, I think you will get more joy out of Heavy Bolters than Lascannons.

[Master Avoghai]

And actually that's why I chose Grav cannons > all when I have to choose the wargear of my devastator (and if I need cheaper option I go for ML)

 

Sure the price is higher but the result is higher as well. HB can shoot 3 shoots on the move but hit on 6s. Grav cannons have 3 shoots on the move but hit on normal BS. Moreover, in case of counter charge it will be 3 shots of HB vs 5 shots of grav cannons.

 

The problem of the Heavy bolter is that it should be S5AP4 Salvo 3/5 Range 36". It would represent their use better. Heavy 3 makes it useless on a devastator. Paticularly on a devastator with drop pod.

 

I understand you point of view Rodiger but to me, taking devastator with HB is more a 110pts tax to field a demi company than a useful squad. On the other hand 200pts of grav cannons are a useful threat that my opponent have to deal with.

I've played against KDK 2 weeks ago, and one of the grav devastator removed : 6 berserks, one maulerfiend, one dread and one bloodthirster. :blink:

 

Of course my opponent could have sent me cultists or hounds to counter them but since they were in a drop pod I could chose exactly where to put them and what objective they'll have to defend. Moreover, those were the only units that I couldn't harm. On the other side I could hurt :

bersekers

chaos space marines

possessed

terminators

dread

souldgrinder

bloodthirster

bikes

 

And since I was playing full company I fielded 6 free RZB with TLHB : those were covering the devastator against cultists/hounds/spawns. They were more useful than on the devastator because:

1- they can move and shoot + twinliked

2- they were free

 

So yes I agree with you about the fact that some options may give different results against different armies but, I also think that options must be seen in the globality of the army. If you play an army with lots of free HB rzb, then devastator HB are useless and it gives room and solutions to use grav cannons.

[Rodiger]

The last couple of times I’ve played against Deamonkin I had very mixed results with the Devastators. The first time I took a squad of 10, with 4 Missile Launchers and Flakk and hid them in some cover, my opponent, Scouted his multiple units of Flesh Hounds, then first go moved them up to within charge range. I failed to kill them all. Second go, they charged the Devastators, the Devastators died. Not a good return on a 240 point squad. The next time I took 4 Heavy Bolters, in a 5 man squad and sat them on an Objective, they sat there and killed well over 300 points. It’s situational I know.  

 

I do use the Demi Company as a tax, I don’t really like to play Greenwing and I have not really had an interest in playing the double Demi Company. I like to play Deathwing and Ravenwing, but I like to have Objective Secured units and I like to have the benefits it confers to other units, but the question was had anyone tried 4 Heavy Bolter Devastators, I had, so I thought I’d give my opinion on how I used them.

 

I may try your Grav Devastators at some point, I am thinking of trying more Greenwing, but when I think about playing more Tacticals I usually use Space Marines as an ally, so I can use my Iron Clad Dreadnought, Storm Talon and Storm Raven.  

[Berzul]

I think I might try, next couple of games, to run a dev quad with just a flakk missile launcher. 

 

I see the 3-tacticals as sort of a tax for the demi company.  When in a cad, I usually ran two squads. One of 9 on a rhino as retinue to a company master, and one of 5 on a drop pod as an alpha strike unit with meltas. Now, and since I've grown more and more wary of fliers in my gaming group, I have tinkered with just keeping all squads at 5-men and giving flakk missiles to each. Spread them apart, and make those fliers work harder to take all my skyfire out of the way.

 

I could very well just give the devastators a flakk missile launcher, and play them as a fourth tactical squad. Same statline, same number of marines, same rules for overwatch and objective secured... That would free one of my other tactical squads to go 9-men, to take plasma, combi plasma and rhino, and return to their former task of escorting my company master around.

 

I mean, if dev squads can and would be seen sometimes as just a tax for that lion's blade, then maybe they would even behave better, and for less points, as a regular tactical squad. I usually pack heavy weapons by means of the dreadnoughts anyway.

 

I'm sure this isn't the BEST idea ever, and certainly not the most competitive, but who knows. Maybe it would be fun to play.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Save points of the flakk, and use them somewhere else. Squads that are shooting at flyers aren't shooting at ground targets, andthose are the one that really hurt you.

[Pigshead]

I've  had some success with a ten men squad, 2 Grav cannons and 2 missile launchers with flakk. Combat squadded, the ML's on an objective and the Grav in a rhino being trolls.

[o8oo Anarch]

I tried my 1st Lionsblade (1,000pts) the other day, prior to this I've only run DW/RW lists.  I fitted my devs with 1LC, 3 ML and 1 Flakk Missile(155pts).  I liked the versatility.  The sgt just boosted the LC while the others poured krak missiles (killed a dred, then started to work on marines).  However had my opponent droped his hell turkey (turned out not to be in his list) I then had a bs5 flakk missile to greet it plus a 50/50 chance of landing a krak or LC hit as well.

 

Sure they aren't as good vs Heavy as a pure LC build, or as good vs horde as a pure HB build.  But they are a threat to everything and can support my other units where ever needed (48" range all round) vs whatever (Frag/Krak/Flakk/Las).  I like the idea of a pure Grav dev squad but with the expesnse (more £ wise) I found it more useful to put my gravs in my tac squads.  This having the added bonus of making them scarier and pulling aggro from my devs. 

 

I do forsee the issue vs a melee horde of the turn 2 charge as you can't overwatch frag missiles.  However, we are DAs and so probably got some DW or RW waiting in the wings to drop in/ride to the rescue should someone start bearing down on our devs.