How to expand my army to deal with tanks/monsters..

[Kimbo]

Hi all! As the title says...I need some help expanding my force...as the primaris lack some good anti tank/monsters...I want to know..what units in the space marine range best deals with this problem?

 

As I know devs are good...but what do you think about for example the killshot 3x pred squad? Or centurion devs? And storm talons?

 

Im confused who to give this job to in my army...please help!

 

Cheers kimbo

[Praetor Lex]

If your concerned about running a pure Primaris list, you'll need to wait for the Repulsor to drop.

 

If you will include the Primaris' older brothers, then you have a wealth of options. Devastators are fun, as are all of the tanks and flyers. You could punch the target to death with a squad of Terminators....

 

The list goes on. It'll come down to what you want in your collection.

[Sugarlessllama]

I have been using my Devastator Centurions quite and bit and I love them in this new edition.

[Kimbo]

Yeah i understand that There are alot of options...my question is what best at doing the job? Most worth the points?

[Brother Captain Sirus]

A venerable dreadnought with twin lascannon and missile launcher has been good for me and with the bs 2+ its a good anti-aircraft platform as well.

[garreth]

You should take a couple Predators (possibly 3). It will any (primaris or not) army and acts very good on the table. Pair of autocannon/lascannon sponsons preadators solves almost all  anti-tank/monster issues for my games.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Lascannon are your friends against single models, twin lascannons if you can get them. Venerable Dreadnoughts with that tasty 2+ to hit with twin lascannon (and a missile launcher on the off hand) are a great way to lose friends.

 

Basically anything with high strength, good AP, and the ability to do multiple wounds.

 

If you're desperate you can run an Ironclad or three into the target and punch it to death.

[Frater Cornelius]

On the Primaris side you have Repulsor with Las (maybe even 2), Hellblasters (very important), the Plasma Dread and some luck involved. At range, anyway. In melee, get your Aggressors and Dread in. If all else fails, weight of fire against T7 and below can work just fine.

 

Outside of Primaris is where the real juice is, but they aren't Primaris :P

[Extropian]

Quad Las Predators are the most effective AT platforms in my opinion. Much tougher than a Devastator squad, tougher and cheaper (albeit with less firepower) than a Centurion squad.

With Killshot now a thing, if you had the points to fit 3 they can delete even a superheavy with reasonable ease (3 does 25 wounds to a Baneblade on average, without any character aura buffs).

 

Obviously 3 is a major investment and not really needed all the time though. 1 or 2 still brings significant tank killing power.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

I do have three unassembled Predators...

[Kallas]

Obviously 3 is a major investment and not really needed all the time though. 1 or 2 still brings significant tank killing power.

What about one Annihilator and two split Predator Autocannon/Lascannons. Then you can still use Killshot while getting a few extra shots out against heavy infantry (T6 or less and multi wound, like Centurions) and more shots when you need them against hordes. And PACs are still really great against Hive Tyrants and the like.

[Sugarlessllama]

Also, the new Space Marine stratagem the allows Heavy Bolters to do Mortal Wounds looks pretty awesome. Hellfire Shells I think?

[Frater Cornelius]

Tried a quad las pred alongside my Primaris. Didn't do jack when outside re-rolls. Did do a bit more when inside the bubbles, but nothing noteworthy. Telhe variance is too high. You need reliabiity. Weight of fire and AP are more valuable that pure strength and damage it seems. Outside of Primaris you have Melta and melee and so forth. With Primaris I am starting to get the feeling that it is better to torrent them down and only have a few high powered weapons to aim at things that can hurt your tanks as opposed to heavy targets.

 

After thinking about it, I may go back to gatling Dread and maybe even get a second one AND maybe switching the main gun to gatling with the Repulsor. LC are good on paper, but not my style as their variance is too high.

 

On the flipside, I will be at a disadvantage against IK and Tyranid T8 monster mash. Loads of testing to be done.

[garreth]

Try predator autocannon turret. Stable 3 damage and amount of shots IMHO better tham twin lascannon.

[Frater Cornelius]

To give you another perspective, allow me to repost something I wrote in a sinilar topic. It gives a bit of perspective on your weapon on choice when dealing with tanks. The tl;dr vesion is that since S5 comes en mass and wounds even T9 like Thunderhawks on a 3+, consider it is a more consistent (more shots, thus closer to average) and cheap alternative to the, in my opinion, rather erratic LC.

 

That anti-LC sentiment has merit. The LC, while good on paper, has one major disadvantage. Variance. Variance is the squared deviation from the average, aka the mean. First off, when calculating the performance of a weapon in terms of averages, it is very inacurate. You can say that 2 LC will hit out of 3 on a 3+, but that is wrong. The probability of that happening is only 4/9 (0.444444444). To truly find the optimum, you need to use the binomial distribution. This is where you can see the full effect of variance.

The issue is that if you shoot an infinite about of LC, an average of 2/3 will hit. However, in a game where a LC will shoot an average of 2 times, you will have massive differences, which is made all the worse by the fact that you put your hope into one weapon.

 

Here is an example. A Twin-LC will do an average of 2.6 damage against a Rhino. A Heavy Onslaught Gatling will do 4/3 damage (1.33333333333) at 72% of the cost (1,6 at equivalent cost) and a Twin-HB will do 2/3 damage at 1/3 of the cost (2 at equivalent cost). Both will do less damage. But here is the deal. That scenario will happen far more often for the Gatling and the HB that for the LC. To make things simpler, lets take 3 LC shots and compare it with the Gatling. Getting 2 hits of LC happens 4/9 of the time, 2 or less 0.703 at the time. The Gatling getting 8 hits will only happen 0.24 of the time, 8 or less 0.607 of the time. However, and this is the deal breaker. Missing one more shot with the LC and thus losing 1/3 of your firepower (only 1 of 3 hits) will happen 0.26 of the time, whereass losing 1/3 of your firepower with the Gatling will only happen 0.018 of the time. See the difference? The LC has a significantly higher chance to deviate from its average, making its use very risky, especially with this low amount of shots. While the Gatling or HB will deviate more often from their average, the deviation will be small and getting such extreme spikes is all but impossible.

 

When you consider a 332pts Repulsor with base gear and 4 LC shots, you are looking at 7,028 damage against a Rhino. A fully dakka Repulsor with all possible gear but going for weight of fire as opposed for the LC will do 5.25 damage against a Rhino. While it does less damage, it will hit this average or a number close to it most of the time, with extreme variations being very rare, whereas the LC version will do more damage but deviate significatly more often.

Then there is those cases like Wave Serpents and Quantum Shields as well as smaller targets like infantry that punish multiple damage weapons with low amount of shots as opposed to low damage with high amount of shots.

 

The verdict is that missing with one additional shot of LC might lose you the game whereas missing with even a couple shots of a Gatling will only have a minor effect. Also note that the LC does not only have a significant risk in missing one additional shot, there is also a good chance to low poorly on the D6 damage roll. Same goes for the Plasma on the Redemptor, which also has the D6 shots factor.

 

Now, before you write up a response bashing this post, I want to mention that this is how I prefer to play. I prefer reliability at the cost of lower damage. Better to do 5 guaranteed damage rather than 7 with a chance of doing 3. The LC has an equal chance (appox.) to do more damage, whereas the Gatling will have an equally low chance for a high-roll. So if you are a person who gambles for the high-roll and takes the risk of rolling poorly, then yes, the LC a very good weapon. For those who prefer stability and want to avoid spikes, stay away from them. It is a matter of play style. I just wrote this to show another perspective and how I, a player who prefers to plan ahead and dislikes surprised, prefers consistency in my results and why.

 

Also note that re-rolls (Lieutenant, Captain, etc.) even it out a bit, but not enough to bring the consistency to point where it could the comparable with massed shooting.

 

If your army can muster plenty of Melta or LC (Xenos come to mind), then this issue becomes less severe, but armies like Marines, especially Primaris, will have fewer of those and pay dearly for them, at which point one might accept a tougher match-up against Knights or similar to have more consistent results in most other match-ups.

 

On a final note, I can confirm this with practical experience. I played a decent amount of games now and every single one of which ended with me being disappointed with the Repulsor because a critical LC shot whiffed in one way or another. I will try out the massed shooting variant and see how this goes.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

I'm making a quad-lascannon Predator that Cronus can ride around in (although I'm leaving his cupola unglued so I can put him in a Land Raider or some other tank if I feel the urge).

 

It doesn't say anything about his shooting degrading with wounds, so should I assume he's always rolling his 2+ BS until the vehicle dies?

[Brother Captain Ed]

It doesn't say anything about his shooting degrading with wounds, so should I assume he's always rolling his 2+ BS until the vehicle dies?

That is correct, per the recent FAQ.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Thank you kindly.

 

Now I just need to keep a Captain nearby to re-roll 1s, because I know my dice and they're all weighted to roll 1s.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

The Predator Autocannon does seem like a more reliable damage dealer, but I've liked the double-lascannon since 2nd. 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, -3AP, D6 damage with two shots versus 2D3 shots (2-6) 3+ to hit, 3+/4+/5+ to wound, -1AP, with a fixed 3 damage.

 

I suppose that in a Space Marine army you have anti-infantry aplenty, while anti-armour/monstrous creatures is a little harder to come by, although that said, I still have a ton of grav bikers.

[Extropian]

If it helps, the average damage for a twin las and a Preda Cannon against a T7 3+ save are:

 

Twin las: 2.6

Predcannon: 2

 

For almost the same cost. However, the Pred cannon actually has a higher damage cap and is better against lighter units, especially ones with weak armour. 

 

I'm staring to lean towards Predator Cannon + Las sponson myself just for a bit more versatility. Less damage output against truly hard targets, but better against more things.

 

Immersturm makes a fair point about lascannons though. Whilst i disagree with his conclusions, i DO agree with the core reasoning: It depends on how you are comfortable playing. Do you want consistent, lower levels of damage? or are you willing to risk the "spike" damage of single shot weapons like LC's?

 

I prefer the second, but i also stack the deck where possible with character auras etc. Weapons like Lascannon benefit enormously from re-rolls.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Extropian

[Frater Cornelius]

I think a healthy mix is right. Some LCs, especially with re-rolls will do well. My personal issue is that Primaris do not have those. Las Talon is very short ranged and the Redemptor Plasma is too random. I will keep the Twin Las though and hope that Primaris will get more units with heavier weapons.

[Captain Idaho]

Just to add some of my experience to the discussion...

 

If you're taking a mix of Classic Marines and Primaris, consider Venerable Dreadnoughts and Devastator squads. Missile Launchers are great for utility and D6 wounds plus can utilise Flakk missiles for just 1 CP and get D3 Mortal Wounds.

 

That combined with at least 1 Hellfire Round from a Heavy Bolter adds further to it with another D3 mortal wounds.

 

Primaris themselves get Overcharged Plasma rapid firing as a great way of killing vehicles and monsters.

 

Lastly, don't be afraid to let rip with 20 bolter rounds from Intercessors and Assault bolters. You can plink off a fair few wounds that way.