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Lately I have heard a lot of talk that dreadnoughts are not worth their points and in some cases, totally obsolete!
While I disagree with this opinion (I believe that dreads are an essential for any army that can take them, especially if you play pure GK as I do.) I would like to know why some people think that dreadnoughts are not worth their points.

It's pronounced Dread-nots. Wait thought this was a pronunciation thread.

MCs without wounds, you can't bring down a Carnifex with just one Melta.

However you can when you follow it up with 3 DCCW attacks on the charge after the melta. But yes that is besides the point. Dreads are ment for support rolls of all kinds and fighting in heavy terrain where tanks generally can't go. However we generally don't play on boards with enough terrain to make that useful and most new players don't understand what "support" means. So that generally leaves them on the short stick, but I do use them and there are lists out there that make great use of dreads.

An ironclad, with its extra armor & av 13 is pretty difficult to take down by standard means. A MC will get rolls on that damage table much easier but the brillaint thing about walkers in assaults is that they can ignore alot of the table, more so with extra-armor.

They have thier place. Having 6 is glorious amounts of overkill. Having 3 may even be too much (as it steals those useful elite slots.. for SM neways).

I think they are a worthy investement.

I think it really depends on what kind of list you're running. One Asscannon Dreadnought amongst a bunch of infantry or infantry with a land raider or two is just asking to die as all the medium-strength weaponry points and pulls the trigger.

Five Ironclads with Assault Terminators in a Land Raider becomes much harder to deal with. First off, medium strength weaponry is not much use, and unless your opponent is totally Nidzilla/Demonprinced out, the Terminators can deal with the small number of targets (barring jetseer eldar) that can actually mess an Ironclad up.

As for Gunline AV12 shooty dreads, I don't know. I haven't played any lists that utilized that mix. In my opinion, it's sub-optimal and inefficiently uses FOC slots but hey, mileage varies.

i think theyre worth it as support and anti tank units. I started using them when i collected space marines, a friend of mine and i split 2 of the assault on blackreach set, he wanted orks, i needed more marines and termies, I tried them out simple cause i got them for no extra cost in the set. For 120 points(w/ extra armor), dreads make good anti tank weapons, as strimen pointed out, a MM shot followed by 3 10S attacks, which will be auto hits on a stationary vehicle. I have especially found them good in low points games, 500-800, they have been extremely good anti vehicle, theyre cheap, fairly tough to kill at that point army, and powerful. Theyre also useful for keeping an enemy locked into melee while your army moves up. Just be careful of enemies who can actually kill it, Powerfists and ork PowerKlaws mainly come up, you arent going to be sending after MC's with the thought of keeping it tied up. But send it running at a squad of tau fire warriors or eldar gaurdians or howling banshees to keep them busy while you move your marines into bolter positions or cover. In 1k points, I tend to run 2, but higher than that i usually drop to 1 in favor of sterngaurds or terminators, who suddenly become much more easy to afford. In the near future i will be running a 2k point army however in a 2v2v2 game, i plan on taking both. one of my hq will be a master of the forge and i will take both dreads as HS along with a predator. so then i have a sterngaurd squad, and 2 terminator squads as elites, 5 terminators each, one will be lead by Calgar(I think thats how his name is spelled) in terminator armor in a land raider ded transport, the other deep striking

Overall, the main thing that makes dreadnaughts good as support/anti vehicle units is their low points cost, a devastator squad will run you more and cannot move and fire, granted you get more fire power out of the devastators, its mainly up to how you play

Well i think dreads effectiveness depends on which army your running...
I find that in smaller games they are very effectve (under 1000 points) because they are cheap and can be equiped to deal with a variety of issues.

I personally don't use them for tank hunting (let my tanks do that) but for anti-infantry work - which they do effectively (plasma cannon or assult cannon) however due to the new terrain rules they are less effectve then they were.

In larger points games (where there is more anti-tank guns) they loose their effectiveness due to their cheap points cost (since you have more points, terminators or tanks will do better), so run 2 of them if you want to use them (they work better in groups as most things do).

I have seen shooting dreads (no CC Wep) work decently as tank hunters. however like i said higher points battles a tank is better suited for that role.

However the best dread i've seen was a Furioso Dread deadicated to the Death Company...

I used to really like drop podding in with heavy flamers on my dreads. I haven't used an iron clad yet, but I imagine having one drop pod in is pretty nifty.

Ironclads are great IMO.

But these kinds of questions actually all have the same answer. If there are other units on the table that also present a threat, most units work just fine. But alone....deadmeat.

Land Raiders are tough, but not if it is the only vehicle in your army. 30 Ork Boyz are hard to remove, but not if they are the only Troop choice your opponent has.

Also you really need to clarify what you mean by "worth their points". There are actually people out there that believe that a unit has to kill/destroy an equal or greater amount of enemy points in order to be "worth their points". No, I'm not kidding. They do really exist.

They're useful - what other unit can show up in a drop pod, and then handle horde (heavy flamer), vehicles (multi-melta) and close combat (CCW, fights like a walker so long as it's not immobilized).

However, with anything that is versatile, you have a tendency to pay more for said versatility.

You also have the observe the opportunity cost of using three dreadnoughts as your elite choices. If you have the three dreadnoughts, you are not getting Sternguard, terminators or any of the other numerous elites that the SMurfs get - this may the reason why people say that they're not "worth their points." (I'll also point to Steelmage in regards to some people's definition of "worth their points." There is overpriced in some cases, but value changes from game to game).

I think they basic, AV12 dreads can work, but they are tricky. I am currently running two, one with las/missile and one with asscan/ccw. They do fairly well, and more importantly, draw a little fire away from my 2 vindicators. Still, I think they are a tad underwhelming.
The main problem I see with the assault cannon/multi melta and CCW dreads is their short range. They can't generally walk on the table and do anything for a turn or so, and even starting on the board can fairly easily be avoided until the longer ranged threats are dealt with.

I do plan to load the ccw weapon one into a drop pod and see how that works out. I think dropping him down first turn will make him a much greater threat, and I can use the pod's locator beacon for my big terminator squad.

It really depends on what you are doing with your army. As most others have stated, there are places where they are good and places where they are not. In particular, they do poorly in armies that don't have much armor in them. If your only vehicle is one dreadnaught, then you are going to find it's the focus of all the enemy anti tank, and it's going to die quickly every game. On the other hand, if you use one as fire support to cover advancing rhinos, you'll probably find that a move and fire heavy weapon platform is rather useful.

There are plenty of other configurations that are good as well but there isn't much point in going over them all. Just be aware that you may or may not want to field one...it depends.