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I've been putting together more of my CSM army lately. And I know Havocs are the suck sauce. But I love the fact they get 4 heavy weapons. I have the bits for 3 heavy bolters right now and if I bought a set of havocs I'd have all 4 bolters needed for a squad of 5 with a PF champ.

I keep thinking I'd run the Havoc squads against horde armies. I always have troubles with them. In 5th I could shoot through all the terrain too which would be awesome with some havocs.

I know Havocs pale in comparison to Oblits but I don't think Oblits can handle hordes like Havocs with heavy bolters can. I know plasma cannons can shoots hordes but I don't trust them.

Should I do it though? Havocs are basically normal CSM troops with more options for weapons but they won't be able to hold things in 5th, kind of ridiculous. But I think they will mow down hordes.

Don't see anything wrong with Havocs. There's a difference between sucking and there simply being better units. Havocs aren't the best unit, but they aren't bad in themselves. If you think you have enough AT elsewhere, go for it.

Havocs aren't bad. I use them in certain army lists, particularly when you want to go heavy on infantry and deny the other guy the use of his anti-tank weapons. Oblits are great, but in lieu of tanks they attract a lot of lascannon, bright lance etc. fire. Havocs took a hit when they could no longer have tank hunters, but they are great when holding a key building. I usually give mine missile launchers or autocannons, but a squad of 8 with heavy bolters can lay down a lot of anti-infantry fire and be hard to knock out.

I think the real key is thinking about how they will interact with the rest of the force. Is your army shooty, assaulty or a mix of the two? Havocs work well as a fire base, but some Chaos armies do better when the whole army can move and shoot and advance. What is the rest of your army like?

What I have completed right now is 28 CSM. 2 of them have flamers, 2 of them have icons, and 2 of them are champs one with power weap the other with PF. I'm finishing up DP number two right now and have 2 sorcerers (one Tzeentch and one Slaanesh). I also have an Oblit. That's all I have. I want to go into the Tsons and Noise marines route backed up by some small Termie squads. Use both the DPs and units of Oblits too.

But I want a lot of oblits and the havocs. So Either 2 or 3 units of oblits (either maxed or at 2 a piece respectively). But if I have so many oblits will the havocs be stepping on their toes? Same goes for Noise marines. Could they do a better job of swarm control with sonic weapons and blast masters than the havocs could?

What Havocs are great for is exactly what you want them for: Heavy bolters, which chaos doesn't really get a lot of. No Landspeeders, Razorbacks, etc, etc.

Do it! But do not forget Obliterators get Plasma Cannons, which are getting a bump in 5th.

my thought would be to go with ACs instead. it's an extra twenty points and four less shots, but you get S7 shots instead and 12" extra range. Getting away from your ACs will be much more difficult, and they can lay the smack versus skimmers and other light tanks where the bolters can't.

On the Chaos HS slot...envisioning something different than an oblit based chaos (the de facto default currently, for good reason), I think AC havoc squads could be a solid basis for a 'dakka' list...combine those with noise marine squad for massive dice throwing action. Your main problem would be vehicles..you could lean on your elite choices for that, i think using either small Las chosen or DSing melta termies to deliver the goods.

something like this at 1850:

3 AC havocs (8 man)
3 chosen (5 man w/ las)
4 noise marines (5 SBs, 8 man)
1 lord w/ LC and MoS

That is a lot of dice. Not saying it's the best list ever, but just throwing it out there for consideration and exploration of what one could do with havocs. again, quick proof of concept, list completely untweaked and optimized.

gamefiend wrote:my thought would be to go with ACs instead. it's an extra twenty points and four less shots, but you get S7 shots instead and 12" extra range. Getting away from your ACs will be much more difficult, and they can lay the smack versus skimmers and other light tanks where the bolters can't.

On the Chaos HS slot...envisioning something different than an oblit based chaos (the de facto default currently, for good reason), I think AC havoc squads could be a solid basis for a 'dakka' list...combine those with noise marine squad for massive dice throwing action. Your main problem would be vehicles..you could lean on your elite choices for that, i think using either small Las chosen or DSing melta termies to deliver the goods.

something like this at 1850:

3 AC havocs (8 man)
3 chosen (5 man w/ las)
4 noise marines (5 SBs, 8 man)
1 lord w/ LC and MoS

That is a lot of dice. Not saying it's the best list ever, but just throwing it out there for consideration and exploration of what one could do with havocs. again, quick proof of concept, list completely untweaked and optimized.

This is moving in the opposite direction of what I was considering. I'm going to be running oblits regardless of anything. I like them being the ones busting up vehicles for me. They are really versatile, with plasma cannons too they could probably handle my swarm troubles. I'm not really looking for the Havocs to be vehicle hunting because I need some crowd control. Tyranids and IG are abound where I play along with a few up and coming Ork players. I just need to know if havocs with heavy bolters will work. Because I have the heavy bolter bits and getting the havoc set to give me 4 HBs with a champ. Is that effective or should I grab up a 180 pts squad of Noise Marines with all their sound equipment?

The havocs have the same problem that the generic chaos marines have. They aren't really "bad" there are just generally more attractive options available (Obliterators). I'd say as has already been said, if you've got anti-tank covered elsewhere then havocs with four heavy bolters might not be bad since you might not have a lot of anti-horde elswhere and the heavy bolters are relatively reasonably priced.

I was just throwing ideas out for where using havocs could be good, not trying to prescribe a new list for you. Just broadening the conversation a little.

To answer your question specifically:
if you definitely want to use oblits (good choice) then just use noise marines for anti-horde. you can max on oblits and noise marines are the best anti-horde in the codex. I usually run 5-6 SBs in an eight man squad, so I have some ablative marines before I start losing blasters. The noise marines are also fearless, so they'll be good to the last sonic blaster. *Don't* get sucked into getting the blaster master though. Not a good use of points for what you need.

Are you going to use DPs with MoS/lash? The DPs will let you maximize the PCs on the oblits, causing infantry units to go poof!

Six devastators with four heavy bolters are a staple in my Space Marine army. They shred everything not wearing power armor.

G

For the cost of two Obliterators, you can have five Havocs with four Heavy Bolters and led by an Aspiring Champion. For slightly less than the cost of three Obliterators you can have five Havocs with four Lascannons.

Yes they work with 12 BS4 HB shots in theory you could waste a 10 unit with one round of shooting

skullspliter888 wrote:Yes they work with 12 BS4 HB shots in theory you could waste a 10 unit with one round of shooting

This is exactly my thinking. On paper it looks like they would shred certain kinds of 10 man units, especially since I can pull those units into their firing lines with Lash.

I really don't think you'll find too many people dimissing 4 HB havocs. On the SM side, 4 HB devs are, if not a staple, a building block unit.

Tangent alert!

People always rate units as good or bad, A-F, etc. The problem with any rating system is that most people tend to start at the top, rather then with they meaty middle. I"m thinking about doing an article on units that get better in apocolypse, and I've run into the problem of wondering how good certain units are in regular 40k. One definition I eventually came up with was this:

"A Good unit is one that, when used properly and keeping in mind it's point cost, can reliably acccomplish it's main mission profile."

By that standard, HB havocks are a Good unit. They simply will, over the 2-3 turns they generally have to fire (perhaps more in 5th?), shred light infantry.

Typeline wrote:

skullspliter888 wrote:Yes they work with 12 BS4 HB shots in theory you could waste a 10 unit with one round of shooting

This is exactly my thinking. On paper it looks like they would shred certain kinds of 10 man units, especially since I can pull those units into their firing lines with Lash.

Or you could push them back like say stealers oR orks before they get to your lines.

4 HBs are a good unit IMHO. I started 40k fielding sisters so I got to love the HB in my ret squads. They can lay down awesome anti infantry and light armor support out to 36". Whats not to like? I would say 2 oblits and the havocs would make an awesome HS selection capable of handling just about any mission. Like was said before they make a great firebase from which to extend your army from. Even against power armor there not bad. They still wound on 3s and the more saves you force the more they will fail.

I think that one of the only saving graces of the new chaos codex is that I can put heavy bolter havoc squads in my Death Guard army