Unit of the week Unit of the week: Havocs

[Cpt.Danjou]

+++Unit of the week+++

 

Havocs

This thread is only for tactics for Havocs, not for pictures, there are other places for that.

How to best use Havocs?

• Wargear?
• Legion?
• Marks?
• Which stratagems are worth throwing out?
• Any solid unit combos?

Edited September 17, 2022 by Cpt.Danjou
Copy paste is always not good.

[Cpt.Danjou]

I have always like units like Havocs, and Devastators. On paper Havocs should be great, T5, can always shoot with their heavy weapons, but... I don't get them to work. I play Iron warriors so they should be even better when cover is not a problem. I have tried to dedicated them as anti-vehicle, problem with that is that you only have four shots, so you usually miss one or two shots. Even if you use Lascannons, most heavy things has the toughness and saves to make one shot go away, so you wound with one cannon, which is kinda meh. I have used them for clearing chaff, sure they are great at it, but I think they are a bit expensive to use as that, as we do not have problems clearing that anyhow with other units.

I never mark them, as I feel that is a waste of points, the only one I have thought about is Mark of Nurgle, but as they are T5 it becomes kinda useless, too few S5 and S10 weapons in the game to make it worth its points. Mark of Tzeentch might be good, but a good opponent will use chaff fire to make you fail the armour save and then the big gun comes.  :)

With a lord or an exalted Champion close by they will hit a bit better, but I always wonder if it is worth it to have a +9o points character standing still and buffing them. 

I want them to work as they feel like a typical IW unit, but now I use terminators and psykers to take care of high toughness targets.

Cpt.Danjou

[Kythnos]

2 hours ago, Cpt.Danjou said:

I never mark them, as I feel that is a waste of points, the only one I have thought about is Mark of Nurgle, but as they are T5 it becomes kinda useless, too few S5 and S10 weapons in the game to make it worth its points. Mark of Tzeentch might be good, but a good opponent will use chaff fire to make you fail the armour save and then the big gun comes.  :)

I just got recommended to make anti tank Havocs Mark of Slaanesh. They can use the Slaanesh strat to turn a miss into a 6, making it two hits in wanton destruction in turn one. That will often lead to 4-5 lascannon hits, which can do some work.

[Rayray]

I have two units in a box waiting to be assembled, but can’t figure the load out and keep seeing post saying they’re mediocre at best. These pages are super useful to someone playing catch-up like me.

[Relic]

I run mine with 4x Havoc Autocannons, bolter and chainsword on the champion. No mark of chaos. Makes for a durable backfield unit(s) that chips away during the game. Iron Warriors so it is ideal as it is going to get for Havocs - as the legion trait lets them ignore cover and increases their resilience. 

Not setting the world alight, but they do a job and you probably want some shooting in your list. 

Iron Warriors have some nice warlord traits to stack on them, but in Nephalim you're likely not investing further into them with these due to CP costs. 

 

[Maschinenpriester]

I used them once in a crusade game so far. I play emperors children, which ignore modifiers to hit, which makes the extra ability of the havocs somewhat obsolete.

They where equipped with 4 Las cannons. They did not contribute to the game in a striking manner unfortunately even with the strat.

The problem is that CSM are somewhat lacking anti tank i think?

I will try them with chain cannons next time. Maybe they could be fun to use with creations of bile as well.

 

[MasterDeath]

AC or chaincannon havocs might bei useful counters to votann obsec (hearthkin and Bikes) as these do not really like massed light fire.

[Toldavf]

There's a few problems with trying to build a shooting heavy chaos list.

Firstly your troops dont carry a big gun cheaply enough they are assault infantry and where forced into that box when workshop gave them 3 attacks

Second problem is that your fast attack slots provide no shooting, you have no land speeders, vipers, blight haulers, scourges ect ect. You have nothing of that ilk in the fast slot. The best you can do is a couple plasma guns and pistols which isn't a shooting unit.  

Elites are the same story their firepower got gutted by the new book. No cheap shot range high damage units like dominions (chosen used to fill that role). 

All of these things compile together to make a good unit like havocs less attractive because they are all alone.

All that said they are core and so they let you have more cultists which is nice.  

[dice4thedicegod]

That idea of marking them slaanesh and using the strat for a hit roll changing to a ‘six’ sounds pretty good for lascannon havocs.  
 

is there anyway to keep a unit as counting in ‘wanton destruction’ other than by using the khorne prayer “wrathful entreaty”?

[MasterDeath]

Iron Warriors Warlord trait

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Been running heavy bolter havocs with mark of nurgle.  They aren't great but they are worth 140 points and always remove a lot of marine models from the table.  No one ever shoots at them either.  

[Verbal Underbelly]

I'm considering a HB squad but only because they look cool. Doubt they'll have much synergy in my EC list. Can the make use of the daemon shell strat actually??? Haven't got the book around ATM. 

 

Also, considering a 2nd squad with 4 missile launchers. I've probably picked the worst two options but as editions change they swing around. My main focus is modelling and painting at the moment. 

[Khornestar]

6 hours ago, Verbal Underbelly said:

I'm considering a HB squad but only because they look cool. Doubt they'll have much synergy in my EC list. Can the make use of the daemon shell strat actually??? Haven't got the book around ATM. 

 

Also, considering a 2nd squad with 4 missile launchers. I've probably picked the worst two options but as editions change they swing around. My main focus is modelling and painting at the moment. 

They can make use of daemon shell, though now it’s +6” range and additional -1 AP instead of mortal wounds. 

[Verbal Underbelly]

The extra range and AP sounds quite handy to be fair

[Khornestar]

I think so too, and it’s nice to always get the bonus provided by the strat, as opposed to spending the CP, missing the shot, then causing no mortal wounds.

[Squike]

yeah 12x 42"  S5 AP-2 D2 shots can be a nice output against quite a lot of targets, unfortunately armour of contempt will blunt that a little but anything 2W non marine is gonna take a little punishment.

[Verbal Underbelly]

Against marines I think it's an average of two kills which isn't great but there's plenty of strats, auras and powers to enhance those odds. They're a good target for Mantle of Traitors on a Chaos Lord (which is what I do). 

[Slave to Darkness]

Any point in running Havocs in Creations of Bile force or would I be better off using something different? I wont be using Hellturkys or Dinobots though as I hate the minis. 

[dice4thedicegod]

I’m also curious, as I am on a run as creations of bile.

at the moment though, I see fielding havocs as either:

las cannon armed, mark of slaanesh iron warriors, with a warlord trait to keep them in wanton destruction 

or

black legion, with full hit/wound rerolls from abaddon (maybe with chain cannons).

any other way seems like it would be underwhelming.

 

[Prot]

Well I guess I’ll be in the minority on this one but my Iron warrior havocs work better now than that previously did in my Black Legion. With my Red Corsairs intake the lascannons build and use the move,shoot,move WT to good effect. 
 

With the IW I love the chaincannons. They just almost always come into play. Especially in the exploding 6’s on heavy Wanton WT. Add in the auto wound on 6s to hit IW strat and anything is possible. Being able to deny cover helps the lethargic AP value, but admittedly AoC really hurts. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Prot
Just fixing a questionable typo.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

My lascannon Havocs give generally good service.  A little support goes a long way for them, be it auras or strats, and I cannot reinforce how handy Murderous Perfection can be to punch through a big 6 on a damage roll.  The one issue that plagues them -- and this applies to my autocannon Havoc squad too, so much so in fact that I've pulled them from my lists for Obliterators -- is Armor of Contempt.  My local meta is infested with Space Marines of all stripes, so really gouging out some damage with massed lascannon fire can be difficult.  I would switch to meltas for anti-vehicle work, but with the Chosen and Terminator combiweapon changes we just don't have any way of really putting massed meltas on the table anymore.

[Relic]

In agnostic Legions like Black Legion, Red Corsairs, Iron Warriors I wonder whether there is an argument for MSU Noise Marines with a Blastmaster instead of Havocs/ to supplement them?

Probably no Icon or fist as other legions unlike EC don't get to ignore modifiers, so perhaps better to keep the Noise Marines as pure fire support. Clocks in at 120pts and gets you a decent long ranged, high damage weapon (rare in CSM!). 

Like I said, I run the 125pts Iron Warrior Havoc squads with Autocannons, so roughly same cost. I think math wise vs say a Rhino (common T7 chasis with armor of contempt), the Noise Marines are more efficient. 

However, they take up an elite slot, get no Legion Trait and suffer a -1 to hit if you move and shoot. 

Iron Warriors can get around that last bit with a Warlord Trait, but it does have an opportunity cost associated. Just some food for thought! 

 

[Verbal Underbelly]

If you've got elite slots spare then maybe it's a good shout but only one blast master per squad isn't going to get much done I imagine. 

For havocs to work they certainly need some support from characters, strats or whichever legion trait they have. I use them as Emperor's Chiddlers which is actually still decent despite not seeing the benefit of stabilisation claws (technically) they can shoot through dense, smokescreens etc. and if they manage a 6 to wound then you've got that extra pip of AP - if you're trying to fish for this you really want to go with chain cannon or heavy bolters (maybe four frag missiles?).

There's no clean answer for Havocs really, either they're a good fit for the rest of your army via rules synergies or they will under perform for their points value.

 

[Maggotlord]

I'd use them with 4 heavy bolters If they could bear a TZEENTCH ICON.

But the actual rules tell me to grab something else.