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Dreadnoughts are great, except that they tend to be a poor-man's Terminator squad, and their points reflect this. While making Dreadnoughts bigger and mean, the Ironclad solution, is one idea, I figured it would be better to take the Kan solution, taking Dreadnoughts in squadrons like Landspeeders and other lighter vehicles would improve their presence on gaming tables.

Most definitely, getting three dreads on the table for one FOC slot would be pretty damn cool, you could have proper non-apoc dreadbash armies then

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be beyond the scope of the fluff either, to say that dreads can either come along as infantry support like they do now, or as little knots of massive firepower/killyness to cause serious woe to the opposition, and also to look out for each other, they say that the dreads are particularly valuable to each chapter, well surely then a squad of three of the buggers watching each other's backs would be a surer way of keeping them in one piece. Imagine a three dread squad towards either end of your battle line mobile anchor points for your troops, ok, er, I think I'm going to have to go have a little lie down now...

I've thought about writing a home brew all dreadnought codex just for causual play with friends. I was planning to run 1 dread in each FOC but run squads of 3 as troop choices. Ironclads as HQs, venerables as elites and heavys, regular dreads as troops and fast attacks with troops in squads of up to 3. It would give me an exscuse (as if I need one) to get more dreads!

Centurion.

I'd switch Ironclads to Heavy and Venerable to HQ/Elite on the principle that it fits battlefield role and fluff better. I'd also say that Fast Attack Dreads must take a Drop Pod and have two Dread CCs.

How about we just say you can take any model in any FOC slot and be done with it?

Good idea Nurglitch. This would make Dreadnoughts more practical, even if the max were 2 per FOC.

In Apocalypse? Yeah, I can see a Formation of 3+ Dreads led by a Venerable Dread.

But regular 40k? Nah. Not unless you're prepared to allow Wraithlord Squads and Carnifex Broods...

They're nothing like one another DD. They have Toughness Values and take 3-4 shots to kill. Dreads have an AV and can be annihilated in a single shot.

There's no comparison unless you give all walkers a toughness value, rather than making them vehicles, ie:

Sentinel:
WS3 BS3 S5 T4(5) W2 I3 A2 Ld7 Sv4+
Scout/Infiltrate

War Walker:
WS3 BS3 S5 T4(5) W2 I3 A2 Ld8 Sv4+/5+(I)
Scout

Killer Kan:
WS3 BS3 S5 T5 W2 I2 A2 Ld7 Sv3+
Furious Charge

Deff Dread:
WS4 BS2 S6 T8 W3 I2 A3 Ld7 Sv3+
Furious Charge & Fearless

Chaos/Marine Dreadnought:
WS4 BS4 S6 T8 W3 I4 A3 Ld10 Sv3+
Insane & Fearless/Fearless

Venerable Dreadnought:
WS5 BS5 S6 T8 W3 I4 A4 Ld10 Sv3+
Fearless & Hard To Kill

Talos:
WS5 BS5 S6 T7 W3 I5 A3 Ld10 Sv3+/5+(I)
Ignore Difficult Terrain

Wraithlord:
WS4 BS4 S6 T8 W3 I4 A3 Ld10 Sv3+/5+(I)
Fleet

Carnifex:
WS4 BS3 S9 T7 W4 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv2+
(base statline, can be improved with biomorphs)


And Extra Armour (where applicable), for +15 points, would give them a 5+(I) save.

BYE

Groups of two would not be unreasonable, and makes them compete for a FoC. They are penalized by an immobolized result. They are still worth taking in Troop but compete with Kans for Heavy.

They do not do a whole lot for the points, besides stack armour. They need their twin-linked Rokkits and Big Shootas back while we are at it.

The one thing all "squad" based vehicles have in common unless I'm missing something...

AV 10 or 11 all around

Sooo, knock down the armor a point or two and we can talk about packs of three and fielding up to 18 per army then

You dont need to in the chaos situation lol they would just shoot each other 1 out 3 times lol

I used the Trait system of the SM codex to field 6 dreadnoughts in one of my games. The result was a masacred enemy followed by my own masacred force.

Would happily do it again if I could but as JohnHwangDD said, its doesn't work all that well in normal 40K.

However, would be nice to maybe get 2teams of 2dreads and a terminator squad for 3xFOC. Worth a try at least even if it is a useless list (it can join my collection of crappy army lists, hehe)

I noticed 1 big problem with 3 dreads per troop slot. How do you handle drop pods? Do you force any squad to use 1 pod per dread, build a new pod that holds 3 dreads or dread squads must start on the table.

Centurion.

@ Centurion. Good point

My first impression would be that each dreadnought would have to buy a drop pod for themselves but would be "deepstriked" at the same time and same location, so you place the one pod, then the second pod would have to be placed next to it. Similar to the multiple barrage rule I think, IIRC

Please bear in mind I have not yet bought 5th ED, so I don't know if any of those rules have changed. Please pity me for still being a 4th Ed head, lol

I do like the idea of all walkers having a T score instead of AV HBMC.


Centurion: I think that if you were to make multiple dreads in an FOS, you should make it just that. Not a squadron, but rather 1-3 or so that are independant units. Then they each buy their own pod.

Personally, now that only troops score, I am inclined to say that more vehicles should be 1-3 per FOS. It doesn't seem to me that their price dropped much to reflect the loss of effectiveness holding locations. Also, since troops only score, other than maybe HQs, I don't know that we really NEED an FOC for the other slots. It seems anymore that most armies' FOCs are now just Troops and Support.

We've been playing it that way for 5 or so years now. We have a walker/monstrous creature damage table for attacks S8 and above (so that they can be killed in one shot somehow), but as a stopgap (and to fit with 5th) my profiles above work well.

BYE

I don't like the idea of Dreads losing their vehicle status. That means that they can be turned into squigs by Zogwort, or some other ludicrous and unrealistic thing could happen to them.

Zogwort can only squig IC's, yes?

Anyway, dread squadrons have long been a staple of 40K background.

An easy way to handle this is 1 dread = 1 slot. One squadron of 2-3(or 4) dreads = 2 slots.

so if what you were proposing came to pass it would mean that i could have a master of the forge and 12 or 18 dreads in drop pods? that sounds a little much dont you think. i think that if you were to impliment this you would have to add in a few more provisos. they would have to be vehicle squadsrons so that immobilised results destroy them. if you wanted to take a squadron they would need a price hike and you would need to limit the number of squadrons you take to one or two per army.

If you were to go down this road then yes, it would have to have limits in place. A good example IMHO would be that you can field only two dreadnought squadrons in an army and those squadrons may only have a max of three dreads in them.

Thats way you can only ever get a max of 6Dreads as this would need to overwrite the taking dreads as elites to prevent a dreadnought horde army. hmmmm.....(rubs chin thoughtfully, A 2000pt army made up entirely of dreads, that could be worth seeing)

Cheese Elemental wrote:I don't like the idea of Dreads losing their vehicle status.

That means that they can be turned into squigs by Zogwort, or some other ludicrous and unrealistic thing could happen to them.

Agreed. Dreads *should* be vehicles - it's what makes them different from MCs. Otherwise, there's no point in having Walkers at all.

Agreed that it would be weird to have a pile of metal turn into a Spawn.

Naaaah, it's got a dude inside it to be warped by chaos energy. I think a cyberspawn could be awesome.
I also like the statlines HMBC suggested, but I'd go further, toughness and wounds for all vehicles, like fantasy.

The point of Dreads being vehicles, and vehicles existing in the first place is so that 40k isn't fantasy. If we wanted to play fanatasy, we'd do so.

The large number / variety of vehicles is the primary thing that sets 40k apart from any other 28mm game system. Getting rid of that would be a big step toward destroying what makes 40k special.

H.B.M.C. wrote:They're nothing like one another DD. They have Toughness Values and take 3-4 shots to kill. Dreads have an AV and can be annihilated in a single shot.

There's no comparison unless you give all walkers a toughness value, rather than making them vehicles, ie:

Sentinel:
WS3 BS3 S5 T4(5) W2 I3 A2 Ld7 Sv4+
Scout/Infiltrate

War Walker:
WS3 BS3 S5 T4(5) W2 I3 A2 Ld8 Sv4+/5+(I)
Scout

Killer Kan:
WS3 BS3 S5 T5 W2 I2 A2 Ld7 Sv3+
Furious Charge

Deff Dread:
WS4 BS2 S6 T8 W3 I2 A3 Ld7 Sv3+
Furious Charge & Fearless

Chaos/Marine Dreadnought:
WS4 BS4 S6 T8 W3 I4 A3 Ld10 Sv3+
Insane & Fearless/Fearless

Venerable Dreadnought:
WS5 BS5 S6 T8 W3 I4 A4 Ld10 Sv3+
Fearless & Hard To Kill

Talos:
WS5 BS5 S6 T7 W3 I5 A3 Ld10 Sv3+/5+(I)
Ignore Difficult Terrain

Wraithlord:
WS4 BS4 S6 T8 W3 I4 A3 Ld10 Sv3+/5+(I)
Fleet

Carnifex:
WS4 BS3 S9 T7 W4 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv2+
(base statline, can be improved with biomorphs)


And Extra Armour (where applicable), for +15 points, would give them a 5+(I) save.

BYE

Too intelligent to ever fly.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:I don't like the idea of Dreads losing their vehicle status.

That means that they can be turned into squigs by Zogwort, or some other ludicrous and unrealistic thing could happen to them.

Agreed. Dreads *should* be vehicles - it's what makes them different from MCs. Otherwise, there's no point in having Walkers at all.

Agreed that it would be weird to have a pile of metal turn into a Spawn.

You all obviously either were not around or have forgotten when Wraithlords were dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts have needed to be AV13 for about a decade.

Glad GW is finally paying attention and changing some core mechanics.

Even if it is just change for changes sake, at least it's in the right direction.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The point of Dreads being vehicles, and vehicles existing in the first place is so that 40k isn't fantasy. If we wanted to play fanatasy, we'd do so.

The large number / variety of vehicles is the primary thing that sets 40k apart from any other 28mm game system. Getting rid of that would be a big step toward destroying what makes 40k special.

But the vehicles would still be there, just represented differently. And more consistently!

Stelek wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Agreed. Dreads *should* be vehicles - it's what makes them different from MCs. Otherwise, there's no point in having Walkers at all.

You all obviously either were not around or have forgotten when Wraithlords were dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts have needed to be AV13 for about a decade.

Obviously, my half-dozen Eldar Dreadnoughts armed wtih D-Cannons show that you're *wrong*...

No, Dreadnoughts are just fine at AV12, particularly under 5E rules which make Vehicles much sturdier and allow Walkers to Run. There's no point in embiggening everything, or we don't have differences. If people want sturdy Dreads, they can take Venerable or Ironclad Dreads.

would love to see i, but then a chain would start.

1: chaos would want em.
2: fex's would want the same.
3: deff dreads would want it, and kan unit sizes upgraded too.

it goes on.

i find fighting 6 a pain in the ass, fighting 18, thats just a piss take

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Stelek wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Agreed. Dreads *should* be vehicles - it's what makes them different from MCs. Otherwise, there's no point in having Walkers at all.

You all obviously either were not around or have forgotten when Wraithlords were dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts have needed to be AV13 for about a decade.

Obviously, my half-dozen Eldar Dreadnoughts armed wtih D-Cannons show that you're *wrong*...

No, Dreadnoughts are just fine at AV12, particularly under 5E rules which make Vehicles much sturdier and allow Walkers to Run. There's no point in embiggening everything, or we don't have differences. If people want sturdy Dreads, they can take Venerable or Ironclad Dreads.

That's why dreads and defilers are so hot, and everyone is running soulgrinders x3 and ironclads x6.

Right? :S

I'm going to be running a Dread and 3 Defilers in my CSM army, and I'm not selling any of the 3 Dreads for my SM army.

Newsflash: Dreads aren't supposed to be commonly fielded. AV12 helps with that. GW is a *lot* smarter than you think.