Havocs - how do you kit them?

[AfroCampbell]

Similar to the CSM Heavy weapons thread:

how would you kit out a box of Havocs ?

thoughts on Las vs Missiles

Heavy Bolters vs Autocannons ?

[MegaVolt87]

It really depends on what your list + Legion/renegades is short on and how many havocs you want to take. 

[Doom Herald]

Personally, I wouldn't take Autocannons on Havocs now. Autocannons feel like the bottom tier heavy weapon now. Autocannons get 1 less shot, with +2S and +12". 48" isn't as much of an advantage over 36" as 36" is over 24" (around what mid-range weapons are). +2S makes it better against vehicles and T5 models, but at a max damage output loss of 2 (when compared to heavy bolters). If you want a truly long range weapon, lascannons or missile launchers are better.

 

Between missile launchers and lascannons, it's hard to say. If you already have plenty of infantry killers, lascannons might be better since it is a better vehicle/monster killer than the missile launchers. If you want to blast hordes from a range, missile launchers are better. For the most part, I think Havocs benefit from the longer range weapons more because you are forced to take heavy weapons on all of them (except champ) and you have a fixed unit size of 5, meaning each model is very expensive and you can't take ablative wounds. Basicly, staying out of range is their best protection (though it's much harder with new board size.

 

I do think there is potentially some use for full RCC squads in a transport. They are tougher than CSM and can move and fire without penalty, so I think they can make much better use of the RCC than CSM.

[Ezekyle_Abaddon]

2 squads. 2 lascannons and 2 chaincannons. Mixed squads are better at dealing with variety of enemies, and are less likely to be fire focused.

BL works best for me because of abbs. Their ignore -1 coupled with abbs rerolls is *chef's kiss*.  

[Closet Skeleton]

I used to favour autocannons but they only work if you're taking multiple havoc squads. Now that its only 40 points to take 8 lascannons vs 8 autocannons I wouldn't be surprised if lascannons were a lot more worth it.

 

Never tried lascannons as they were too expensive to spam when I built my models.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Closet Skeleton

[Emicus]

Lascannons or heavy bolters.

[jgascoine011]

Depends on the rest of your list but I would say lascannons

In previous editions they were pretty terrible due their unreliability. However now you can pretty easily make them hit and wound on 2’s re-rolling and double tapping. Will kill pretty much any heavy vehicle in the game.

 

There are 2 problems with heavy bolters. One is the AP. I really do struggle to punch through a lot of armour with them. The 2nd is a lot of vehicles now reduce damage by one. wave serpents and dreads come to mind. The D6 damage, while very swingy, can help mitigate this. otherwise good luck vs salamander dreadnoughts

[Kain Mor]

I prefer solid loadout squads compared to mixed squads because I feel that I get more value out of buffs that way. If I know I need to clear large units of infantry I’ll put veterans and cacophony on my RCCs, if I know I need to kill or cripple a couple vehicles I’ll pop those on my Lascannon/missile squads.

 

Personally I still plan on running mostly RCC squads compared to heavy bolters but I’ll definitely try out the new heavy Bolter squads in a game or two. I always keep my havocs in rhinos and honestly I haven’t run into issues with them getting blasted away T1, especially in 9th when I can park that rhino behind obscuring. I almost always run 2 squads in a 2k list and generally both are full RCC with a combi Bolter on the sarge.

 

As far as the lascannon/missile launcher debate to me it comes down to how many total squads I’m running. If I’m still only bringing my normal 2 I’ll bring missile launchers for the flexibility, but if I’m running 3 squads I’ll go with lascannons for the more directed anti tank. Though at that point I’d likely bring a contemptor with 2 twin lascannons for the base 2+ BS as it is the same number of shots. Even more so now assuming that they’ll go to 9 wounds to no longer degrade and get duty eternal.

[Xenith]

I had great fun in 3rd with a 4x heavy bolter havoc squad, and I feel that they might be making a comeback - cheap and punches through Primaris. 12 shots, 8 hits, 5 wounds, maybe 2-3 dead? Maybe a low output, but might make their points back over a game and not be targeted due to low threat. Barring that, Lascannons seem the obvious choice, though makes the squad a target. I'd bring a rhino to shield them T1 and act as a los blocker.