Bolt and/or plasma pistols on ranged Vanguard Vets?

[Dosjetka]

Hi all,

 

I face my mate's Orks on a fairly regular basis and am trying to come up with ways to reduce the effectiveness of his various shenanigans. This includes the use of the Da Jump psychic power to plonk down 30 Ork Boyz right in front of my lines in turn 1. With their re-roll failed charge rule which allows them to re-roll either one or both dice, the chances of that squad of Boyz getting to charge in is rather high. While there are a couple of stratagems that can help me reduce the effectiveness of this unit (Auspex Scan when they redeploy and then Stem the Green Tide), I'd like to have some kind of backup in case I'm not willing/able to burn a minimum of 4 CP.

 

The basic idea is to have a squad of Veterans (or two) defending my firebase units and I'd like to include a Vanguard Veteran in that squad to give the squad the option to fall back and shoot after the initial charge. Since I'd like the Vanguard Veteran to be effective at range, I'd like to give him two pistols. However I'm unsure what to go with. Inferno pistols and hand flamers are not an option due to their very short range (and not being able to use them in the 9" charge scenario described above) which means I'm left with bolt pistols and plasma pistols. With the Chapter Approved points reductions the bolt pistols will be free whereas the plasma pistols will be 5 points apiece. The advantage of bolt pistols is their access to SIA. The advantage of plasma pistols is reliable killing power and flexibility in case he decides to throw Meganobz or something else my way, in addition to being more flexible vs other armies.

 

I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts/suggestions/ideas on the matter.

[Prot]

Honestly I use Hellblasters, or plasma Inceptors within Fortis squads for that. You need range, and Orks have so many cheap vehicles I find I’m always overcharging.

 

So this means an Aura is mandatory too. Often, for myself, that comes from Wisdom of the Ancients.

[Dosjetka]

There's a TLLC+ML VenDread in close proximity for re-rolls but, for the moment at least, I'm not looking to use Primaris in my Deathwatch.

[spacewatch]

I play mainly against the Orcs so I feel your pain. The new Orc dex is very strong overall. Anyway, let's see what can be done. Turn 1 you cannot shut down Da Jump so 30 Boyz "fying" in your face is a fact. Then they charge which, as you said, succeedes in very good probability. So you use Stem The Green Tide before shooting overwatch. If you can kill 3 Boyz then charge fails automatically. To kill 3 Boyz with good confidence you need 27/28 hellfire shots (with re-roll of 1). That's 7 storm bolter Veterans and 1 double bolt pistol Vanguard (total of 30 SIA shots). This stops them.

 

In your turn you shoot them with full BS and kill another 14 Boyz. This leaves 13 Boyz which you can charge and hit with 23 401 attacks and kill another 5 after which Orcs kill 2 of your Veterans. So one of your Marines should be in Terminator armour.

 

In case of Meganobz your shoot 30 kraken shots which barely scratch their armour (cause just 1 wound). In this case it doesn't matter what weapons single Vanguard has, it cannot stop them. You can buy some time by giving your Veterans 4-5 storm shields. After that your best bet are plasma, grav, krak missiles or even lascannon to stop Meganobz (or smash Captain doing heroic intervention or dreadnought combat weapon). So, I'd give Vanguard plasma pistols and 4-5 storm shields to Veterans. This gives you extra shots against Boyz and some survivability against Meganobz. And if your unit survives, you then can fall back and shoot SIA/vengeance and overcharged plasma and probably kill at least one Meganobz.

 

Of course these are just rough estimates but something like this happens on average (in my games). Hope this helps.

[Prot]

I personally don’t like to think me my Deathwatch to close combat because I feel it robs me of their true strength. That being said I love some cc specialization like Black Shields and as you say Storm Shields. I do take singular VV models with a hammer as well.

 

For me, my overall Strat in this situation is to survive first contact, then withdraw and shoot without penalty. It’s tricky but can be done. At that point even a simple Libbie with smite can help with tough targets too.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I would take the bolt pistol for SIA .

[Inquisitor Red]

For what your looking for I'd just use Plasma Inceptors, or Hellblasters for your plasma fix. With only 1 shot at 12" your plasma pistols will massively under perform vs a Plasma Inceptor. If you really want to stick with Vanguard vets with pistols I guess I lean the bolt pistol option to keep em cheap. SIA is pretty solid, and honestly in some instances it will give you the same value as a plasma pistol with way less points. 

[IronDreddKnight]

This thread got me thinking. Would a 5 man squad of vanguard vets all with dual bolt pistols be useful? Could combat squad from a heavy weapons kill team.

 

Only 85 points after chapter approved, 10 shots with SIA, 12” movement. Cheap and fast objective grabber perhaps?

[Vel'Cona]

This one comes up quite a bit.  Ultimately, I'm not sure points drops will be enough to make the "akimbo" build worthwhile considering the loss of melee potential.

[Finkmilkana]

I feel that, while a single VV with dual bolt pistols to add fall back and shoot to a vet squad is great, other than that VV with dual pistol only make sense if they go plasma.

 

A squad of VV vets with dual bolt pistols (as their own unit or combat squated from vets) doesn’t really make any sense, even though they are fast compared to vets. This is because their role is usually better filled by bikers. 4 SIA shots for 25 (or an average of 5.3 shots for 26.3 if you use min squads mit SB on Sergeant) vs 2 shots for 17, better range, faster and quite a bit more durable (especially with SS on the sergeant). The main advantages of VV ( flying and being able to enter buildings) are not really taken advantage off with pistol builds.

 

Dual plasma is a bit better, since there is no other DW unit that can bring that much AT firepower on such a fast chassis and they are not that much more expensive than plasma vets for the same output. But with their short range and thanks to the availability of deep striking vets, they are still not really needed for a balanced DW army.

[mjrwaud]

The math breaks down questionably... so I'll have to give the pistol vanguard another try soon.

Luckily I have a squad of both bolt pistols and plasma already!

 

5 VV with dual bolt pistols = 85 pts (12" move, T4, 5 total wounds, 10 SIA shots) 

5 VV with dual plasma pistols = 135 pts  (12" move, T4, 5 total wounds, 10 S7 AP-3 D1 shots* low power) 

3 Inceptors with assault bolters = 135 pts (10" move, T5, 6 total wounds, 18 S5 AP-1 D1 shots)

3 Inceptors with plasma exterminators = 177 pts (10" move, T5, 6 total wounds, 6D3 (6-18) S7 AP-3 D1 shots* low power)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Inceptor with assault bolters is the best value for points.