Dominion Squad loadout in 8ed?

[dracpanzer]

Assuming that I will be fielding an outrider detachment or two in pretty much every game. One of those will have six Dominion squads in Repressors. The other will have Celestine and single Inferno Seraphim squads for some AT.

 

Currently I am planning on fielding them generally with a comb-melta on the Superior and four storm bolters on the rest of the squad. Then hoping to use split fire, the Seraphim and perhaps some HK missiles to make up the difference on AT.

 

Meltaguns are just terribly expensive, and though I would sneak some in if the points are available. I can't see running with the 7ed mold of all melta Doms. Thoughts?

[Montford]

If I knew beforehand that I would be facing a lot of heavy vehicles or big critters I would take four meltas, but like many I have been going the stormbolter route. I like your idea of a combi melta on the Superior. And an Immolation Flamer on the Immolator.

[Atrus]

If I knew beforehand that I would be facing a lot of heavy vehicles or big critters I would take four meltas, but like many I have been going the stormbolter route. I like your idea of a combi melta on the Superior. And an Immolation Flamer on the Immolator.

Mmmm holy trinity.

[ERJAK]

All melta domis are absolutely still a viable option. They are a distraction carnifex that punishes you for going after them first. Twice now I've had my opponent focus fire down their immolator with a crimson hunter+friends, and do you know what happens after that? The 4 remaining melta girls AoF Double shoot what ever killed their tansport and drop it instantly, before merrily AoF walking around the board nuking anything that tries to stay still or drawing way more firepower than my opponent can usually afford to spare. That said...2 units max ever, and that's only if you take at least 1 repressor.

[Sister Alessia]

I like 2 squads of 4xStorm Bolters and combi meltas on the superiors, in a 2HFlamer Repressor. Split Firing is really useful. I find with a TLMM Immolater, with 5 melta Doms along side, they can wreck anything :) 

[Gen.Steiner]

Well, for what it's worth, mine are four Meltas and a Combi-Melta in a MM Immolator.

If I make any more Dominions I'd probably go with five Storm Bolters in an Immolation Immolator.

[CrusherJoe]

Okay did I miss a meeting or a vote or something? When did putting storm bolters on dominions become a thing? I'm running two full melta-dom squads and one flamer-dom squad, all in Repressors and I've been more than satisfied with their performance every single game. Knight/gorkanaut/armored thing? Melta-doms. Crowd control? Flamer-doms (it almost feels like cheating rolling 7d6 hits...almost).

 

I put 24 wounds on Khârn last weekend with flamer-doms (who had lost their ride). Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see sbolter-doms competing with level of damage output.

 

What am I missing?

[Noeh]

You're missing rapid fire 2 on 4-5 different girls for only 11 points a woman. Storm bolters being rapid fire 2 and 2 points a piece makes them extremely cost effective. Put those girls in a transport and it gets a free jump away from the deployment zone at the start of the game. So yeah..for 55 points you have 20 bolter shots at 12". No other army can really take something like that.

[Daimhin]

Okay did I miss a meeting or a vote or something? When did putting storm bolters on dominions become a thing? I'm running two full melta-dom squads and one flamer-dom squad, all in Repressors and I've been more than satisfied with their performance every single game. Knight/gorkanaut/armored thing? Melta-doms. Crowd control? Flamer-doms (it almost feels like cheating rolling 7d6 hits...almost).

 

I put 24 wounds on Khârn last weekend with flamer-doms (who had lost their ride). Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see sbolter-doms competing with level of damage output.

 

What am I missing?

 

Consistency. 

 

I'm personally not running SB-Doms, but that's because I'm running Battalions with SB-BSS and sticking with 1/2 squads of melts-Doms.

[Beams]

I don't put them in a transport, as I like to keep them cheap, and I feel a Repressor is better suited with either Flamer/hflaner/melta/Repentia, and it makes my 5 regular /5 stormbolters cheap and looking like a low-priority target, who then unleash 60 shots a turn, almost always rerolling ones (keep a Cannoness between sqauds and an Imagifier for additional AoF 's, command pointing fails) for 90-120 shots a turn, rerolling 1's, I don't know how many hits that is, or wounds, but it generally mulches anything short of vehicles, and even damages vehicles.

 

That said, it isn't a replacement for the flamer or melta squads, but a valid support All-around unit.

[Sanul]

You're missing rapid fire 2 on 4-5 different girls for only 11 points a woman. Storm bolters being rapid fire 2 and 2 points a piece makes them extremely cost effective. Put those girls in a transport and it gets a free jump away from the deployment zone at the start of the game. So yeah..for 55 points you have 20 bolter shots at 12". No other army can really take something like that.

I have heard this one a lot lately, but Dominion sisters are 10 base points, plus 2 for a storm bolter, so its 12, not 11.

[taikishi]

 

Okay did I miss a meeting or a vote or something? When did putting storm bolters on dominions become a thing? I'm running two full melta-dom squads and one flamer-dom squad, all in Repressors and I've been more than satisfied with their performance every single game. Knight/gorkanaut/armored thing? Melta-doms. Crowd control? Flamer-doms (it almost feels like cheating rolling 7d6 hits...almost).

 

I put 24 wounds on Khârn last weekend with flamer-doms (who had lost their ride). Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see sbolter-doms competing with level of damage output.

 

What am I missing?

 

Consistency. 

 

I'm personally not running SB-Doms, but that's because I'm running Battalions with SB-BSS and sticking with 1/2 squads of melts-Doms.

 

 

Exactly. Yes, 5d6 flamer shots (including a combi-flamer) is, on average, 17.5 auto-hits but those d6 could all come up 1s just as likely as they're to come up all 6s. On the other hand, as long as the models are alive you're always going to have 20 storm bolter shots inside 12". Also, the flamers can't overwatch anything that charges from more than 8" away while you're always going to get 20 overwatch shots against a charging unit (IIRC, you can't declare a charge if you're more than 12" away? Epub is taking forever to load atm so can't look this up to be certain.)

[Gen.Steiner]

Although flamer-dominions are definitely a good laugh, especially on those rare occasions when you roll 30 hits.

[sedibear]

I'm currently running 3 flamer/combiflamer doms and 3 melta/combimelta doms. I like autohits over massed shots, but that's just me.

 

Also don't let that 8" range fool you. Getting into rapid fire range (12") is roughly the equivalent of advancing with flamer dominions (d6" + 8")

Edited July 10, 2017 by sedibear

[CrusherJoe]

After the advance move in the Repressor, I've never had a problem being within 8" of what I wanted to bar-be-que.

[dracpanzer]

I appreciate the feedback. I am having trouble justifying bringing the melta's I did in 7ed. At 8.5 stormbolters for each meltagun its hard not to just think of the stormbolter dominion as the battle sister we always should of had. 34 stormbolter shots is what 23ish hits? So generally 4 wounds even if you are unloading your stormbolters on a tank. Compared to that one meltagun that misses 1/3 of the time and will average 3/4 wounds when it does hit. Not sure, I'm just seeing a lot of advantages to the 4 stormbolters and a combi-melta. The 60 point difference almost pays for the Repressor.

[Beams]

Meltas don't look good in averages, which is says more about the limit on averages.

5 meltas has a fairly decent curve (especially in melta range) of instantly killing a vehicle, which then let's you toast whatevers inside with a flamer or stormbolters. Or if it's a tank, it removes ton of firepower from the board.

 

 

Did a bunch of math, and ran like forty different simulations of stormbolters vs. flamers on doms, and basically came away with this:

 

Both are good.

 

Flamers are more expensive, but deal more damage vs. marines, flyers, and other hard to hit targets, but lack versatility and range.

 

Storm bolters are cheap, and have a much longer range, and deal pretty decently against all targets.

 

5 Flamers will do more damage shooting out of a Repressor than 5 stormbolters, but thats a given considering the 5 flamers are considerably more expensive, and have the additional  limitation of 1/3 the range.

 

Both will chip around 2 wounds off a rhino in a single shooting phase (you do, however, have a reasonable chance at 3 per shooting phase, but 4 would be relatively lucky.)

 

That said, the only graphs that really illustrated something new were this:

A max sized dominion squad (5 stormbolters, 5 bolters 110pts) vs an equally costed flamer squad (4 flamers, combi-flamer, and 1 bolter, which is 107pts), both supported by an imagifier (because you'd want your 2+ on Seraphim escorting Celestine, or a Retributor squad), are fairly equal.

 

Blue is Flamer and Red is Stormbolter (I know, I know)

 

vs guard (out of 1000)

 

vs marines (out of 1000)

Edited July 10, 2017 by Beams

[Gen.Steiner]

Not to mention the fact that a unit of meltas is more threatening psychologically than a unit of all stormbolters. So this enables you to start to dictate how your opponent will play.

Next level gaming and all that.

[Daimhin]

Not to mention the fact that a unit of meltas is more threatening psychologically than a unit of all stormbolters. So this enables you to start to dictate how your opponent will play.

 

Next level gaming and all that.

 

I'm all about this sort of tactic.

 

A unit of melta-Doms if going to draw a disproportionate amount of fire, which means the rest of your army can get into optimal range and cover without incurring too many casualties. Of course, this is more useful at medium point ranges, say, 1500 to 2000. (smaller games you can't afford to spend this many points on a distraction, larger games your opponent can deal with the squad that much easier)

[Gen.Steiner]

Luckily, the 'go to' points value is slap bang in the medium point range at 2,000 points as recommended by GW themselves. :D

[dracpanzer]

 

Not to mention the fact that a unit of meltas is more threatening psychologically than a unit of all stormbolters. So this enables you to start to dictate how your opponent will play.

Next level gaming and all that.

 

 

I'm all about this sort of tactic.

 

A unit of melta-Doms if going to draw a disproportionate amount of fire, which means the rest of your army can get into optimal range and cover without incurring too many casualties. Of course, this is more useful at medium point ranges, say, 1500 to 2000. (smaller games you can't afford to spend this many points on a distraction, larger games your opponent can deal with the squad that much easier)

I have never been a fan of unit build sacrifice distraction tactics. They are going to draw a lot of fire and they will ultimately be destroyed first. How is that a good thing when its one of your highest value targets? I like to saturate the target area with equal but lower value targets. Especially if by doing so I can field more targets than another player might who uses the kill this first approach.

 

Melta Doms were a great value when a melta cost ten points and a stormbolter was basically just one more boltgun shot over a bolter for half the price. I can and have fielded my six melta Doms in Repressor build in 8ed. Each squads 4 meltas costs 68 points. Literally the cost of giving that squad four stormbolters AND the cost of buying another squad of five Doms ALL with their stormbolters.

 

I don't see any math telling me that one 5 Dom squad with a combi-melta and four meltaguns in a repressor is equal to one 5 Dom squad with a combi-melta and four stormbolters, plus a repressor and the second squad of 5 Doms with five stormbolters riding in the exact same repressor. Drop the all stormbolter squad after they are able to get within 12" either after vanguard or later if your opponent didn't deploy fully forward in their deployment zone knowing you would be going first, then they follow the repressor and its squad forward.

 

Meltas in melta range may do more damage against a vehicle, but they are little help against the hordes I am already starting to see. And very pricey targets for the amount of smite mortal wounds our Witch loving Heretic opponents will soon be more than happy to throw at us.

 

The only problem I see is when they hit your bank account. I still want a combi-melta in each squad, split fire is just too much fun especially from imside a repressor. And will probably not double my squads up in repressors. Mostly because I want to field a slew of 5 strong Seraphim squads each with one Inferno girl along with Celestine to bounce around my Dominions.

[Beams]

If your worried about hordes, yes, meltas aren't great.

 

But tanks are really really tabky this edition. Sure, everything can hurt them, but not much hurt them well. Melta doms do, though.

 

So if your just looking to kill infantry, you don't need them.

 

In my opinion, in an all comes 2000 pts list you should have a squad or two of anti tank, a squad or two of counter charge, and a decent amount of anti infantry.

 

But also, meltagirls are 10 usd a piece, so there is that.

[Gen.Steiner]

Generally speaking, BSS and Celestians kill infantry really, really well. So Dominions are good at anti-tank, along with MM Immolators, Exorcists (in a pinch), and Retributors with MM.

I think the best loadout for Dominions is Meltas, then flamers, then storm bolters. Personally.

[taikishi]

You're comparing apples to baseballs here. A comparison of Melta-Minions to SB-Minions isn't going to yield the results you want because their roles are completely different.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RqKa7y19wERDEvXiboPQBCk9iHFPnrCkzdjwFkPZEeM/edit?usp=sharing

Check the 4th tab. Yes, the storm bolters are better against hordes -- as expected -- but against a 10+ wound target, at best the 19 storm bolters + melta are going to cripple your target while the melta-guns are likely to kill it, allowing your other squads to focus against other targets.

 

5 models to kill vs 10 to cripple. It's about using the right tool for the job, and meltas aren't the tool for hordes nor are storm bolters the tool for monsters and tanks.

[taikishi]

Generally speaking, BSS and Celestians kill infantry really, really well. So Dominions are good at anti-tank, along with MM Immolators, Exorcists (in a pinch), and Retributors with MM.

 

I think the best loadout for Dominions is Meltas, then flamers, then storm bolters. Personally.

 

Exorcists aren't good anti-tank this edition. It takes 3.5 exorcists to take down a Predator, 5.6 to take down another Exorcist or Land Raider. Yet one Exorcist will kill 3 TEQ or Marine Bike EQ a turn.

 

Also, consider:

5 storm bolter Dominions and 5 melta Dominions in the same Repressor. Vanguard based on who goes first, T1 dump the SB-Minions to chew through the softest/largest model count targets they can while the Melta-minions go hunting the biggest things they can find while only leaving the Repressor if it becomes crippled or blows up.

Edited July 11, 2017 by taikishi