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Does anyone have any good tactical advise for the use of hellhounds, devil dog, and/or banewolves (most specifically devil dogs)?

at 120 points the Devil dog makes an interesting tank. It's almost like a Vindicator in marine armies, it often scares the tar out of an opponent, but then it's actual results are less than stellar. Add in the fact that its gun is less threatening than a Demolisher Cannon, and this psychological advantage doesn't have any effect on certain armies. What do Nid's really care about a small Melta blast? But against armies with a Land Raider it becomes a huge target and therefore distracts the enemy.

I added one to my Mech IG list when I took some AT firepower out of the list and it has been less than impressive. What I have found is that it attracts a lot of attention which takes heat off the rest of my tanks, which is obviously a good thing.

So, for a tactic, I put the Hull Heavy Flamer on it, keep it cheap, and drive it into the teeth of the enemy. Use it's speed, side AV 12 and smoke to keep it alive and keep the opponent thinking about it. Don't count on it to really accomplish much in many games, but every once and a while it will shine.

The same goes for the other two variants. The Banewolf has the same effect on Power Armor troops that the Devil dog has on Mech, and the Hellhound on Hordes. Since they are a match up tank you won't always have success with them, so if you are an all-comers list builder, the Hellhounds and its variants are the last thing I add in and I add which ever one helps cover up a weakness in my list. Lacking AP3 punch, Banewolf. Lacking AT punch, Devil Dog and if you don't have a lot of anti-horde, bring the Hellhound.

Don't forget adding a multi-melta to a hell-hound makes it an effective tank hunter as well.

wizard12 wrote:Don't forget adding a multi-melta to a hell-hound makes it an effective tank hunter as well.

I would say "makes it able to tank hunt", a BS3 MM isn't the most reliable thing.

Gavo wrote:

wizard12 wrote:Don't forget adding a multi-melta to a hell-hound makes it an effective tank hunter as well.

I would say "makes it able to tank hunt", a BS3 MM isn't the most reliable thing.

I couldn't agree more.

People talk about multimeltas on hellhounds and I get confused. Since when has a single BS3 shoot been considered good?

Instead, if you keep the HH with a free heavy flamer, if it suffers a weapon destroyed result it's still a competent flame tank, whereas with one of each, your opponent gets to choose which role the tank will play, and it will never be the one you want. Also, remember that with a devil dog with hull multi-melta, given that it's a fast vehicle, you can still move and shoot both of them.

HH+HHF, DD+HMM. Drive them up, unload their goodness, hope for the best.

And leave the banewolf on the shelf. Dust collection is by far its most noble of attributes.

While each is based on the same modified Chimera chassis, they could not be more different in terms of operation.

The Hellhound is best as a direct infantry support tank, coming in either right behind, or directly in front of an infantry/Chimera advance, using its Inferno cannon to clear out enemy hordes or thinned out infantry. It has the best range among all the Hellhound variants, and is probably the most useful in general. The Inferno cannon has the range and ability to do serious harm to almost any infantry unit, and with S6, you have the ability to at least threaten vehicles like Chimeras and Rhinos in most situations.

The Banewolf serves a far differen purpose. It can either be used as a fast raider/outflanker (with Creed), or as a counter charge unit. The fact that the chem cannon is a S1 weapon, and is thus defensive means you can drive 12" and fire everything, as opposed to ther others where you can move only 6" while still firing everything. As outflankers, this means they can reach enemies even deep inside the deployment zone, or they can be sent far ahead of the main force to raid the enemy lines. With AP3, 2+ Poisoned the Banewolf is death incarnate to anything not in 2+ armor. Expect Marine players to be horrified by it, and place it high on their targetting list.

This psychological advantage can be used as a weapon in and of itself, by keeping the Banewolf in reserve, instead of sending it out with the main advance, you help to control the table. Marine players will not want to go anywhere within the Banewolves 20" threat zone (12" move + 8" template), and will likely dedicate a lot of their firepower to killing it. With proper use of smoke and cover, you could likely keep lots of shots flying at Banewolves at bay, while your more valuable Chimeras, Valkyries or whatever are off doing their own thing. YMMV on whether using this vehicle as a meat shield/bullet magnet is worth it.

Finally the Devil Dog, which is cheaper than the other 2, but trades effectiveness for it. I personally believe the melta cannon is the last effective weapon, because you have to get even close than normal just to hope that your template stays inside melta range. However, this vehicle still has its place on the battlefield, as a kind of Banewolf for vehicles. Large vehicles like Land Raiders and monoliths will not wnt to get anywhere NEAR this thing unless its dead, so the kind of fleet in being tactics that the Banewolves use can also be used with the Devil Dog.

Edit

Gavo wrote:I would say "makes it able to tank hunt", a BS3 MM isn't the most reliable thing.

Yeah, but the fact that it is there is always one more thing for the enemy to think about, one more reason why they should be shooting at it instead of something else. However, I agree that Hellhounds should have Heavy flamers, while MM on Devil Dogs or Banewolves might be worthwhile.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Gavo wrote:I would say "makes it able to tank hunt", a BS3 MM isn't the most reliable thing.

Yeah, but the fact that it is there is always one more thing for the enemy to think about, one more reason why they should be shooting at it instead of something else. However, I agree that Hellhounds should have Heavy flamers, while MM on Devil Dogs or Banewolves might be worthwhile.

Oh, I know, I run MM Hellhounds myself, I just wanted to say that it's not very effective, but it's nice insurance to have against all-mech.

I think one thing that people tend to overlook about these vehicles is that they're fast. That, and the fact that they have somewhat heavier side armor than chimera chassis vehicles makes them better than other guard tanks at tank-shocking.

People talk all the time about tank-shocking horde armies into clumps and flaming them for mass kills. But if you've ever actually tried to do this, you figure out pretty quickly that a regular 12" max movement vehicle will have to begin its turn well within melta range to actually tank shock a unit into a clump. It's harder to do than you'd think.

But a fast vehicle or two (especially with dozer blades to go through terrain) can clump up a whole huge unit from 13-16 inches away, allowing a follow-on unit like a pcs with 3-4 flamers moving 12" to disembark and score those 27 hits or whatever.

There's nothing else in the IG list that can do this.

I usually run mine as a regular Hellhound, where it is great for taking out those annoying scouts w/ camo cloaks. Occasionally I'll take a Banewolf, and while it will rarely kill more then it's cost, it tends to draw enough fire that everything else in the army survives longer and can make up for it. And if the opponent is stupid enough to ignore it, they can start picking up MEQ by the handfulls.

If you keep the Banewolf in reserves it can be an effective counter to most things that makes it to your deployment zone, and because its fast it usually can make it to its target.

Not amazing, but it works.

Well, yeah, but it's seriously unreliable. Reserve rolls may well mean it arrives too early, or too late, and proper spacing by your opponent can seriously cut down casualties.

The banewolf is like artillery, it's so easy to fall under the spell of the absolute maximum possible damage that it can do under perfect circumstances, that it's easy to lose sight of how little it does under normal circumstances.

At least artillery is good vs. vehicles and can ID stuff (and has huge range, compared to the roughly 3" range of a banewolf...)

Why compare it to a piece of artillery? We should compare it to the other hellhounds right? Spacing properly hurts all template weapons equally, it can be artillery or the hellhounds. This tank has the ability to wipe out entire units at a time(or atleast most of them and then meltaguns and lasguns can handle the leftovrs), your opponent is less likely to move 12 unload everything to shoot 2 meltagun shots into one of your tanks if you have a banewolf waiting for the nice clump up marines.

The Chem Cannon is very reliable (no chance of scattering), its just on a weird deliver system, you just have to learn how to use it. The tank can move 12 and the template is 8 inches long, so it has decent range. All I am saying is that if you are having trouble with people getting to your lines to quickly a bane wolf in reserve is a decent option.

CKO wrote:Why compare it to a piece of artillery?

I was only comparing it to artillery with regard to the pernicious psychological effect it has on list-builders.

CKO wrote:The Chem Cannon is very reliable (no chance of scattering), its just on a weird deliver system, you just have to learn how to use it. The tank can move 12 and the template is 8 inches long, so it has decent range. All I am saying is that if you are having trouble with people getting to your lines to quickly a bane wolf in reserve is a decent option.

The maximum threat range is 20", but you hit exactly 1 model at that range. In order to get a REAL hit with it's amazing, non-scattering template weapon, you have to get to practically point-blank range.

You don't think that if it's a threat your opponent wont' destroy it before it gets close enough to tank shock your troops? The chem cannon is, in fact, terribly unreliable, not because of the weapon itself, but because of its carrier.

Ailaros wrote:
You don't think that if it's a threat your opponent wont' destroy it before it gets close enough to tank shock your troops? The chem cannon is, in fact, terribly unreliable, not because of the weapon itself, but because of its carrier.

Your opponent will not consider it a theat because its "terribly unreliable", which will allow it to maximize its potential. When you are playing against IG it is hard to get units in their deployment zone because of all of the shooting, but usually you will have the opportunity to overextend with 1-3 units such as a rhino or wave serpent to attempt to take out a tank. It is in those type situations when the banewolf shines and you can take out the majority of the unit.

Hellhound, with hull MM, and a HK misslile. Never let me down.

Maybe every one is just not using it right...?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Run it up the flank, hug cover as much as possiable, and keep it moving.

I had trouble with a friends deep-striking blood angels army due to the fact he can deep strike a lot of meltaguns right on top of my tanks pretty reliably which is really bad for guard player's survival. While I'm very partial to the hellhound, they don't help a whole lot for this situation and his army was currently the only one i was having trouble with. I decided to switch out my two hellhounds for two banewolves and kept them in reserve. For the first game, the banewolves scared him into deep striking in front of my vehicles and a little further back to stay out of the banewolves' range, but that forced him to shoot front armor and have a greater chance of scattering out of melta range which is really bad against russes. It reduced his alpha strike damage considerably and I was able to shoot him off the board before he could inflict significant losses on me. For the next game he threw caution to the wind and deep strike as he normally would. He was able to do significant damage as normal, but the banewolves helped immensely it taking him off the board. Between both of them they managed to kill 5 combat squads (Two of them scattered close to each other turn 2 and the banewolf that came on that turn managed to melt 9 of the 10 guys.) They are much less useful than the hellhounds against non-MEQ armies, but with the prevalance of those and the sheer fear they strike into marine players, they are a good buy. The first game I played, they killed next to nothing but by simply forcing the other player to change tactics to reduce my banewolf impact, it helped the rest of my army. Their threat and their reliability of damage when in range forces your opponent to alter his gameplan to counter these vehicles, sometimes that can be more powerful than the direct damage they do.

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:I had trouble with a friends deep-striking blood angels army due to the fact he can deep strike a lot of meltaguns right on top of my tanks pretty reliably which is really bad for guard player's survival. While I'm very partial to the hellhound, they don't help a whole lot for this situation and his army was currently the only one i was having trouble with. I decided to switch out my two hellhounds for two banewolves and kept them in reserve. For the first game, the banewolves scared him into deep striking in front of my vehicles and a little further back to stay out of the banewolves' range, but that forced him to shoot front armor and have a greater chance of scattering out of melta range which is really bad against russes. It reduced his alpha strike damage considerably and I was able to shoot him off the board before he could inflict significant losses on me. For the next game he threw caution to the wind and deep strike as he normally would. He was able to do significant damage as normal, but the banewolves helped immensely it taking him off the board. Between both of them they managed to kill 5 combat squads (Two of them scattered close to each other turn 2 and the banewolf that came on that turn managed to melt 9 of the 10 guys.) They are much less useful than the hellhounds against non-MEQ armies, but with the prevalance of those and the sheer fear they strike into marine players, they are a good buy. The first game I played, they killed next to nothing but by simply forcing the other player to change tactics to reduce my banewolf impact, it helped the rest of my army. Their threat and their reliability of damage when in range forces your opponent to alter his gameplan to counter these vehicles, sometimes that can be more powerful than the direct damage they do.

Perfect. An 120-ish point vehicle changing an opponents battle plan. Good job, Psycho.

This is what a support tank is SUPPOSE to do! Make it easier for your LRBTs to do their job with minamized fear of alpha stirkes crippling them. (ecspecialily BA death from above army lists.)

I have had a lot of success with the Banewolf, more so then the Hellhound. It isn't as effective as the Hellhound against hoard armies, but it is more effective against MEQ armies then the Hellhound. And I fight mainly MEQ armies, since they are the most popular in my community.

The ability to double your fire after 12" move is very impressive. Entire squads can fall to it, if used correctly. Last time I played my IG was against BA, and they took out two assault squads more then making up for their points. They are also impressive at getting rid of capture point campers. Hittiing with the chem cannon, and then the heavy flamer after a full move more then makes up for the fact that you have to get closer. And if they charge your Banewolf? Hitting on 6's. Not always easy for the survivors.

Should you base your entire list off of them? No. But they do round your army out well especially against certain armies.

headrattle wrote:I have had a lot of success with the Banewolf, more so then the Hellhound. It isn't as effective as the Hellhound against hoard armies, but it is more effective against MEQ armies then the Hellhound. And I fight mainly MEQ armies, since they are the most popular in my community.

The ability to double your fire after 12" move is very impressive. Entire squads can fall to it, if used correctly. Last time I played my IG was against BA, and they took out two assault squads more then making up for their points. They are also impressive at getting rid of capture point campers. Hittiing with the chem cannon, and then the heavy flamer after a full move more then makes up for the fact that you have to get closer. And if they charge your Banewolf? Hitting on 6's. Not always easy for the survivors.

Should you base your entire list off of them? No. But they do round your army out well especially against certain armies.

"Should you base your entire list off of them?" Again, as per OP, NO. Not at all. But they can mean a siginificant attavantage to to the IG,. which is what their original purpose was suppose to be.

I'll be posting a seperate Hellhound thread shortly for purcisly this topic. Everyone with input wound be welcome to offer opions. I know I'd like to hear them.

-Lord Commander Cortez, House 667

I thought this already was a threat on Hellhounds . . .

CKO wrote:Why compare it to a piece of artillery? We should compare it to the other hellhounds right? Spacing properly hurts all template weapons equally, it can be artillery or the hellhounds.

Actually, it's pretty easy to get a decent number of hits, even on spaced infantry with the Hellhound. The ability to manipulate the template works wonders. I think the fewest I've ever hit with it has been 3, though it's most often more than four models.

One problem with the Banewolf is it's range. It's been mentioned before, so I'll elaborate instead of repeating the previous ponits. Getting up in your opponent's face can be dangerous for the vehicle. Some people don't have a problem with that, since the tank is 130 points. It's also worth noting that in order to move it's 12" and hit a squad with both flamers, it usually has to leave formation. I feel like this is it's greatest weakness as a fast vehicle without range. Either it's on its own, ahead of the rest of your forces (and therefore not really supporting anything), or it's hanging back and not using its speed.

There's potential for using it behind your lines as a counter-strike unit, but that's assuming it's MEQ's you're fighting. MEQs are the only time that a Banewolf is better than a Hellhound. If the armor save is 4+ or worse, the range and felxibility of the Hellhound is much, much better. So, to determine if the Banewolf is for you, you need to really be lacking in anti-MEQ, but have plenty of anti-horde in general. You almost have to go out of your way to not include anti-MEQ. That's no plasmas, none of the good Russes, no Basilisk, Colosus, or Medusa, no power blobs, no high volume of Lasguns. So maybe in all melta-vet spam mech lists it's got a place. But then you're also bereft of anti-horde unless you're fine with all the Heavy Flamers. Basically my point is that in most balanced lists, anti-MEQ is handled elsewhere.

There's room for a Banewolf, but only in very specific lists. And even then, there might be better choices. What I'd really want is to give the Hellhound AP 3 with an upgrade of 15 - 20 points or so. Ah, to dream.

Agreed elcheezus, but it can be used and when used correctly it has a place in certain armies, and that was the goal of my comments. I think the basic hellhound is the best aswell but the other two has their uses.

I just wanna add a point to the use of the DD that people tend to forget, which is the use of their template against TEQ or t4 units you want to ID. I tend to use two Devil Dogs with HMM as a kind of problem solvers in my mech army (1500+) and they do certainly not outperform other specialized units (read tank hunting) but have a slight touch of versatility plus their mobility making them a good thing to add if you have points left.

In my mind, the Devildog competes against the LRDemolisher and the Medusa. They're all three different versions of the same thing. Demolisher has AV14, Medusa has range, and Devildog has mobility. What the Devildog lacks, however, is a large blast. Against vehicles, it doesn't matter so much, but if you want to bring flexibility into the discussion, a single small blast has a mediocre at best chance of hitting infantry.

ElCheezus wrote:In my mind, the Devildog competes against the LRDemolisher and the Medusa. They're all three different versions of the same thing. Demolisher has AV14, Medusa has range, and Devildog has mobility. What the Devildog lacks, however, is a large blast. Against vehicles, it doesn't matter so much, but if you want to bring flexibility into the discussion, a single small blast has a mediocre at best chance of hitting infantry.

... and all three of them compete with the vendetta, which has both range, mobility, the ability to outflank, and the ability to carry scoring units.

ElCheezus wrote:Actually, it's pretty easy to get a decent number of hits, even on spaced infantry with the Hellhound.

Right. A 12" range that you can then twist any way you want is way better than a 0" range that you can only shoot at things directly in front of the vehicle.

Were I to pick a weapon to use against space marines, I'd always go for the hellhound. It doesn't get to ignore armor saves, but it does get to actually hit a fair number of targets, and it's much more likely to actually get to shoot.

The only time when your opponent is going to allow you to get in range and hit a bunch of models with a banewolf is if they're stupid. Otherwise, it's just an expensive distraction.

Ailaros you make it seem as if its impossible to make the banewolf work, I guess I and the others just have mad skills!

or you're facing off opponents that don't know how "fool me twice..." ends.

From people's anecdotes, the banewolf only seems to work in situations where people deepstrike right next to it and don't shoot it, or charge in with transports without sparing any fire for opponent's weapons which use templates.

The stats for the weapon make it appear to do very little damage against competent opponents. I'd have to see some battle reports with players playing it really smart AND getting horribly hosed by a banewolf to see otherwise.

Ailaros wrote:The stats for the weapon make it appear to do very little damage against competent opponents.

A competent opponent can minimize the damage output of all weapons, right?

I am sure there is no weapon you fear!

I am curious about making a non-vendetta list, for a completely ridiculous reason (sometimes its easier to transport an army that doesn't contain vendettas)

First off, I have to say that as an in-slot same points cost comparison, the vendetta is just a monster. They do completely different things, thankfully, but in an IG army, if you've got 130-140 points to spend, and an open fast slot, its pretty crazy to not reach for the vendetta with or without heavy bolters.

When the book came out so many months ago, I diligently tested every single unit. I put each of the flame tanks through their paces, and before I got to the vendetta, I really liked the hellhound and the banewolf best. I agree wholeheartedly with the Alairos on his impressions of the devildog. Thats was the vehicle i wanted to work the best, and it ended up being the least consistent of the three, in the games I played.

The problem with the other two is mostly that the heavy flamer is a free upgrade on a transport that I am prone to taking 4-5 of in every list. There is opportunity cost in losing a heavy bolter, and that is definitely valid. I won't be one to downplay the usefulness of a heavy bolter. But if exchanging my chimeras heavy bolters for heavy flamers lets me take the vendetta over the hell/devil/bane... then I'll make that trade gladly.

So, going forward, as i make my vendetta-less list, i am definitely going to be running heavy bolters on my chimeras, and heavy weapons teams on my infantry squads/veterans in those chimeras. in doing so I'll have more stationary vehicles, and will be much more vulnerable to assaults. Thats why my pick of choice would remain either the hellhound or the banewolf. the banewolf with hull heavy flamer has that move 12" and double souffle threat that is so nasty, along with the AP3. But the hellhound can go to work earlier, and also can go to work from behind a screen. The contents of my elites and my heavy support will inform my decision on which of the two I end up taking.

Also, I will throw out there, that as good as the vendetta is, if you DON'T take it you'll likely need a few fast vehicles for late game contesting. The flame tanks would fill that role quite nicely.

Off topic a bit but why do hellhounds have to pay for smoke launchers?

I swapped one of my Vendettas for a Hellhound purely due to financial/transporting costs. It's great fun! Is it super, duper, uber competitive? No. But it fills a gap in my army that I found lacking.

Having 12"+ 12" + 8" template that is S6 and AP4 that you can position pretty much however you want is really rather cool.

L. Wrex