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So, apropos of nothing, I just noticed that individual Heavy Weapon Teams can be armed differently in a Heavy Weapon Squad. This means each squad can be a complex unit. What would be the best configuration to make use of this fact? I figure a Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, and a Missile Launcher would make the best anti-infantry and anti-vehicle platform.

But why would you do this? Given that heavy weapons are effective against different targets, it means that the heavy weapon squad is always shooting at something that some of its weapons are ineffective against. This means you're always wasting points every turn of every game.

Furthermore, you dilute the effectiveness of that squad. A single BS3 missile launcher shot is unlikely to do much of anything. That's why they let you take them in groups of three.

Finally, the above means that HWSs loose out on some of the multiplying benefits of orders (that heavy bolter doesn't gain the benefit of BiD when shooting against a land raider that another lascannon would, for example).

Just because one CAN do it doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.

Aialros:

The point of this thread is to brainstorm how to combine various Heavy Weapons so that you aren't wasting them. For example, shooting a Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, and Missile Launcher (Frag) at infantry isn't exactly wasting any of them. Firing them at a Land Raider, sure, but firing three Missile Launchers at a Land Raider is wasting them too.

So it's nice that you're presuming it can't be done, but the notion is to figure out how to do it best.

I don't get it why you would want to do this. I think taking multiples of the same weapon choice is already the best option.

What am I missing?

I think he's thinking of "abusing" wound allocation, the squad will lose it's first model after 4 wounds, atleast in theory...

Anyway, I think the HB/Auto/Missile seems like the most efficient if you want to go this route. But wouldn't it be easier to go halfway, say 2 missiles and 1 lascannon for tankbusting. Or 2 autos and one missile for tankbusting or sort of bad anti-infantry work?

Nurglitch wrote:So, apropos of nothing, I just noticed that individual Heavy Weapon Teams can be armed differently in a Heavy Weapon Squad. This means each squad can be a complex unit. What would be the best configuration to make use of this fact? I figure a Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, and a Missile Launcher would make the best anti-infantry and anti-vehicle platform.

the advantages you would get from wound allocation are more than off set by the disadvantages you get from not having repeat copies of the same gun. figure out what you want to kill, get the best weapon to kill that, spam that. a good heavy weapons squad has 4 of the same thing. unless its longfangs. AF

Oscarius:

I wouldn't say it's abusing the complex wound allocation so much as just using it as recommended in the rules book. Being able to take three wounds before losing a Heavy Weapon seems useful since the Imperial Guard player pays a premium for the Heavy Weapon Teams and they're pretty fragile.

It's a valid tactic for a defensive unit that is holding an objective. The more chances you have to keep a single model from the unit alive, the better.

I'd just make sure you had some sort of Morale booster nearby. The more times you take wounds and stay on the board, the more morale tests you're taking. Guard aren't known for their sterling base Morale

If you've got an officer who can give the Get Back in the Fight! order, you can even be a pain and go to ground for a 3+ cover save (provided you're IN cover, lol) and be as annoying to kill without a template weapon as a Space Marine, AND have the wound allocation games.

Nurglitch wrote:So it's nice that you're presuming it can't be done, but the notion is to figure out how to do it best.

I'm not saying that it can't, I'm saying that it shouldn't. I guess if you want to know the best way to do something poorly, I won't stop anybody else from brainstorming, but you shouldn't get upset if everybody else also notes that this is a bad idea.

Well I guess it could be useful if you wanted to stack instant death wounds on the same model from a unit that shot S6+ and some lower strength shots at the same time. Like a dakka pred does. Take the S7 wounds on the one model, and the S5 on the others.

As for the effectiveness of a HB, AC, and ML team. Well if you were fighting rhinos and infantry it wouldn't be too bad, all but the HB is effective against both targets (HB only glances rhinos, which is better than nothing)

Guard have plenty of other platforms for anti heavy armor, so using heavy weapons teams for this kind of duty doesn't really take anything away from the army. Just shift some things around, and your force is still well rounded.

Keep it away from S6+ and I think this concept could work in the current era of light transport spam. With all the rhinos, land speeders, and soon to be more dark eldar, this kind of unit might be useful. It is certainly worth trying out on the table top rather than theory crafting.

I'm not a fan of H.weapon teams but ...

Mortar has to be choice one. Its the cheapest.
Its now clear the unit must be, mainly, an anti infantry unit.

Missile launcher is the next obvious choice. It provides a nice anti infantry blast and can double up against light vehicles.

Third choice is the hardest. LasCannon is out, it between the Heavy bolter and the autocannon. H.Bolter gives 3 Str5 shots and the Autocannon 2 str7. Since the missile launcher all ready gives some versatility I think we have to go with the auto cannon

So what have we got 75 point unit with a mortar, missile launcher and an autocannon. You’d have to play test them but as an all round unit they shouldn’t do too badly against infantry and light vehicles

A mixed unit is indeed sub-par offensively compared to a unit where every gun is doing the same job well. I don't think there needs to be any argument there.

A heavy bolter in a unit of lascannons is useless.

The interesting point that Nurglitch had is survivability rather than damage.

Take a 3 lascannon unit and change it into 2 lascannons and 1 missile launcher. You can now take 2 wounds on a turn and because of complex load-out, still have 3 guns left for next turn. Of course, next turn if the same 2 wounds are inflicted, you'd lose 2 teams. So it's only a small defensive boost.

It's still something to keep in mind.

Although, I personally probably will not do it, because I consider rules-loopholing of this type to be cheese. I would not give a Nob biker a handkerchief just so that I can say he's "armed differently" than the other bikers and abuse a loophole in the rules. (Obviously meant to deal with stuff like guys holding lascannons and massively different from regular troopers, Not 1-5 point meaningless add-ons)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tri wrote:I'm not a fan of H.weapon teams but ...

Mortar has to be choice one. Its the cheapest.
Its now clear the unit must be, mainly, an anti infantry unit.

Missile launcher is the next obvious choice. It provides a nice anti infantry blast and can double up against light vehicles.

Third choice is the hardest. LasCannon is out, it between the Heavy bolter and the autocannon. H.Bolter gives 3 Str5 shots and the Autocannon 2 str7. Since the missile launcher all ready gives some versatility I think we have to go with the auto cannon

So what have we got 75 point unit with a mortar, missile launcher and an autocannon. You’d have to play test them but as an all round unit they shouldn’t do too badly against infantry and light vehicles

The mortar does absolutely no damage against an enemy rhino, so I don't think I would consider that build. Go HB + ML + AC and you have 1 capable of glancing AV11 and 2 capable of penetrating it. The mortar often does less damage to infantry than a heavy bolter (if spread, you hit like 1 enemy with mortar at S4 AP6, as opposed to guard averaging 1.5 S5 AP4 hits with an HB against enemy infantry.) Furthermore, a HB would benefit more from orders such as Bring It Down than the mortar. A twin-linked mortar will still most likely hit like 1 model. A twin-linked HB will most likely hit 2.25 times. This is significant because MLs and ACs are somewhat anti-armor and thus a choice for Bring It Down orders against enemy tanks.

Ah but you miss the point the mortar doesn't have to hit the target at all; I can use the TL-Mortar (but really why aren't you using that order on a more specialised unit) to hit another unit. Also the humble mortar is a barrage weapon, so can pin.

5+ save T3 will mean that you will likely die fast in cover anyway if some one concentrates on killing you so you might as well maximize the effectiveness of your weapons and make up for your 50/50 chance of missing and stack the same weapons in a squad instead of having a small chance of living for one more turn.

Tri wrote:Ah but you miss the point the mortar doesn't have to hit the target at all; I can use the TL-Mortar (but really why aren't you using that order on a more specialised unit) to hit another unit. Also the humble mortar is a barrage weapon, so can pin.

How so? The mortar DOES have to fire at the exact same unit as the other guns. So if they fire at a rhino, the mortar has to be placed over the rhino. The average scatter is 6-8" (12" scatter is less than 3% of the time.) and the direction is random, so in the majority of cases, the mortar becomes utterly worthless when fired at a vehicle.

You'll most likely -> miss the target. In the rare case you scatter onto one marine, 1 in 2 chance to wound him, 1 in 3 chance to actually KO him, then a small chance to pin (only if you won the lottery on all the other rolls.)

If you're fielding a mortar-AC-ML squad, you're probably taking it instead of a 3x lascannon squad. All heavy weapon squads need to be order-worthy or it's a bad idea to take them. If you bring a 3 las squad and a mixed-low-damage squad, the enemy can focus-fire your lascannon squad, thus you gain no survivability from the complex wound allocation.

I'm a fan mixing a pair of similarly purposed weapons in the same unit. Doubling which every has the lowest number of shots.
examples: [1x Autocannon] + [2x Missile Launchers or 2x Lascannons]

In regards to a fully mixed unit, the configuration involving [1x Autocannon] + [1x Missile Launcher] + [1x Lascannon] seems to be the one that who have the best points-to-utility ratio.

The problem is that the role of any given heavy weapon is pretty narrow, so they don't actually overlap enough to justify mixing them.

For example, the missile launcher is good for insta-glibbing T4 dudes and for hitting tightly clustered infantry far away, while the lascannon is the only credible infantry heavy weapon to use against most armor. If you shoot at infantry, the lascannon is going to do less damage for more cost, and if you're shooting at tanks, your opponent can laugh as the missile launcher peels the paint.

The only two combinations I can see having any real synergy are mortars and heavy bolters and mortars and missile launchers. Of course, both non-mortar weapons destroy the primary benefit to mortars (firing out of LOS), and cramp its other one (multiple barrage rules). Plus, both of the other weapons are more expensive to do nearly the same job.

Guard heavy weapons are so cheap that you can afford to take lots if you want to, and the accuracy of guardsmen and the quality of infantry heavy weapons is so poor that you basically need to take lots of the same type in order to do anything. This basically means that you take 3 of the same whenever you take any at all.

One of the biggest problems with this is that small arms are generally not the biggest threat to heavy weapon teams. S6+ is, and wound allocation won't help against that at all. T3 and instantkillable is the reason I'm not using any HWS anymore.

If you want them to live, a chimera is a much better option IMO.

Illumini wrote:One of the biggest problems with this is that small arms are generally not the biggest threat to heavy weapon teams. S6+ is, and wound allocation won't help against that at all. T3 and instantkillable is the reason I'm not using any HWS anymore.

If you want them to live, a chimera is a much better option IMO.

Actually you can occasionally use wound allocation with instant death wounds. Stack the ID wound on one type of model, put the other wounds on the other models. The rules require you to put ID wounds on unharmed models of a given type, since all are unique...

It works against dakka preds and chimeras, but obviously won't work against war walkers with scatter lasers.

Also, I was unaware that HW teams can take chimeras. Or were you suggesting that they give up their first turn of shooting to steal the regular platoons ride?

Also, I was unaware that HW teams can take chimeras. Or were you suggesting that they give up their first turn of shooting to steal the regular platoons ride?

Steal ride, not an awesome use of chimeras, but it will probably keep the HWS safe. They will probably stay alive for several turns longer, so while you loose your 1st turn firing in 2/3 missions, you will get more rounds later in the battle

It works against dakka preds and chimeras, but obviously won't work against war walkers with scatter lasers.

Yeah, it helps against some units, but not the most threatening ones, and it is just not worth it because you dilute the firepower of the unit so much.

The best way to run HWS' is probably to just bring loads of them, they will die in droves, but they will probably kill something too.
- of course you could just not run them too, DoW is not kind to them, and stuff in heavy & fast slots outperform them in damage dealing, they are probably only viable in a foot-list. (and hardly even then)

Yeah, HWSs can hitch a ride, but from a list-building standpoint, why bother? Yes, you loose scoring on a fragile unit, but...

For the 115 points of a 3x mortar chimera, you can nearly buy a basilisk, which is just as survivable, but can do much more damage.

For the 160 points of a 3x lascannon chimera, you can buy a vendetta, which will do the same job over twice as well, or a manticore.

For the 130 points of a 3x autocannon chimera, you can buy nearly two hydras.

All of these are vehicles which do the same job for cheaper and/or better. I mean, if you happen to have a spare chimera and spare HWS, then why not, but I'd question why you have spare units in the first place.

In my local game scene, giving up the first turn of shooting with a HWT is a really bad idea. In todays game when most things are fast, fleet, infiltrating or jump-packing then I want as many shots as possible from the word go. Turn 2 cc is bad enough already without losing the opportunity to whittle them down.

With this in mind I have to fall on the side of Aileros. Each team needs to concentrate on its own job, thats why we can field so many of them. Each weapon becomes inherently weaker the more you mix it up.

Nurglitch wrote:
Oscarius:

I wouldn't say it's abusing the complex wound allocation so much as just using it as recommended in the rules book. Being able to take three wounds before losing a Heavy Weapon seems useful since the Imperial Guard player pays a premium for the Heavy Weapon Teams and they're pretty fragile.

Sorry, I'm confused about this, mind explaining? I thought the rules were allocate wounds to the closest model (this is after saves), then once/ if it dies move on to the next model. How would you spread them out?

Thanks

zhutch wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Oscarius:

I wouldn't say it's abusing the complex wound allocation so much as just using it as recommended in the rules book. Being able to take three wounds before losing a Heavy Weapon seems useful since the Imperial Guard player pays a premium for the Heavy Weapon Teams and they're pretty fragile.

Sorry, I'm confused about this, mind explaining? I thought the rules were allocate wounds to the closest model (this is after saves), then once/ if it dies move on to the next model. How would you spread them out?

Thanks

Look at the date on the thread you revived and you'll see the answer. This thread was from 5th edition where the wound allocation rules were different.

Zombie thread...beat it back down!

Thread is being locked due to thread necromancy.