Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Two vehicles with hull heavy flamers @ 240pts.

Can work well with meltamech/vet chimeras. Im not exactly sure which would be the best tandem; Either the chimera leading & popping smoke first turn with the Dogs trailing & then leap-frogging over 2nd turn with a flat-out move and popping smoke themselves or deploying behind the chimera but leap-frogging 18" first turn popping one of thier smoke launchers (allowing the chimera to keep both of thier smokes availible whilst reataining a cover).

I think I prefer the second option, it means the entire formation will shot less initially but also that entire formation will benfit from extended cover-saves & smoke launchers.

In terms of the weapon system themselves, two str8 ap 1 blasts should be a threat to all infantry and general annhilate most types of Infantry. If ever there be a case of many shrouded hordey unit those heavy flamers can be used instead to inflict greater casulties.. or simply act as a backup useful weapon system. Those blasts, when directed against armor, should also be very reliable in taking out armor, especially @ 12" as even a scatter off-hull hit gives decentish chances to penetrate & damage well. It is definetly the go-between vehicle, able to fill in any armement gaps over many differently composed armies.

What cant this combo do? What will it need to be complimented by? Im thinking a more dedicated anti-horde. Heavy AV14 armor is always useful in providing a bulwark. Another reason why Im suggesting a squadren of two (besides the obvious squadren rule advantages) is to retain the ability to field two valkyries..quite possibly because I have now bought two!

I played against Shep's mechanized flamer heavy horde this week (had a friend make the list and bring it) and discovered something valuable:

Devil dogs are fast, and can get up close and personal...but remember that pretty much ANY glancing or penetrating takes away your ability to use those heavy flamers. Up close and personal vehicles are a mixed blessing. If I have a squad of 30 boyz on foot, and you stick two devil dogs in range, lets say that they both get a chunk of me and kill 15 boyz, leaving me 14 boyz and a nob.

My 14 boyz and a nob assault your two devildogs. The regular boyz have 52 attacks to make. Needing 6s to hit, mathhammer says I'd get 8-9 hits. I'd need 6s to glance, so 1-2 glances. Glances give -2 to the vehicle damage chart, so we end up with this:

1: Can't shoot. I win! You can't flame me, devil dogs don't transport troops, which makes your fast attack not hurt me.
2: Can't move or shoot: I win! No flaming me, and if you can't move, your squadron is going to get auto-hit next turn.
3: Weapon destroyed: Honestly, I'd rather have a 1 or 2, but destroying a flamer is good.
4: Immobilized: Since you're a squadron, getting an immobilized result counts as destroyed, and I win again!
5: Can't happen on a glance.
6: Can't happen on a glance.

The nob enters the fray with 4 attacks, needing a six to hit. Might get one, might not get one. 1 glances, 2+ penetrates, and again....pretty much any roll is a win because it will kill your tank(s), take away their ability to be useful, or ensure their destruction next turn.

As for your STR8 AP1 blasts...the melta cannons....they freakin' rock against vehicles. Especially vehicle clusters. Against infantry though, its not hard to position yourself in cover, and using meltacannons against (orks) 6 point models with 4+ cover saves is not a good use of points. Concentrate them on vehicles, or use them on MEQs that you've knocked out of transports.

Honestly, I don't think you're going to see much in the way of hordes though? The metagame has shifted.

Keep in mind that I'm a horde player. Shep's list and the idea of 6 devildogs in 3 squadrons scared the gak out of me until I actually got a chance to play against them; they hurt a *LOT* but are easily negated; making them unable to shoot works just as well as destroying them.

Dashofpepper wrote:I played against Shep's mechanized flamer heavy horde this week (had a friend make the list and bring it) and discovered something valuable:

Devil dogs are fast, and can get up close and personal...but remember that pretty much ANY glancing or penetrating takes away your ability to use those heavy flamers. Up close and personal vehicles are a mixed blessing. If I have a squad of 30 boyz on foot, and you stick two devil dogs in range, lets say that they both get a chunk of me and kill 15 boyz, leaving me 14 boyz and a nob.

My 14 boyz and a nob assault your two devildogs. The regular boyz have 52 attacks to make. Needing 6s to hit, mathhammer says I'd get 8-9 hits. I'd need 6s to glance, so 1-2 glances. Glances give -2 to the vehicle damage chart, so we end up with this:

1: Can't shoot. I win! You can't flame me, devil dogs don't transport troops, which makes your fast attack not hurt me.
2: Can't move or shoot: I win! No flaming me, and if you can't move, your squadron is going to get auto-hit next turn.
3: Weapon destroyed: Honestly, I'd rather have a 1 or 2, but destroying a flamer is good.
4: Immobilized: Since you're a squadron, getting an immobilized result counts as destroyed, and I win again!
5: Can't happen on a glance.
6: Can't happen on a glance.

The nob enters the fray with 4 attacks, needing a six to hit. Might get one, might not get one. 1 glances, 2+ penetrates, and again....pretty much any roll is a win because it will kill your tank(s), take away their ability to be useful, or ensure their destruction next turn.

As for your STR8 AP1 blasts...the melta cannons....they freakin' rock against vehicles. Especially vehicle clusters. Against infantry though, its not hard to position yourself in cover, and using meltacannons against (orks) 6 point models with 4+ cover saves is not a good use of points. Concentrate them on vehicles, or use them on MEQs that you've knocked out of transports.

Honestly, I don't think you're going to see much in the way of hordes though? The metagame has shifted.

Keep in mind that I'm a horde player. Shep's list and the idea of 6 devildogs in 3 squadrons scared the gak out of me until I actually got a chance to play against them; they hurt a *LOT* but are easily negated; making them unable to shoot works just as well as destroying them.

Dash - You do seem to always pick a stacked scenario.

First off; Those Devil Dogs are Fast vehicles, good. I can keep them away from ork anti-tank (read: massed str4 & power klaws) whilst I plink away at all those trucks you like to field (Oh, so its horde ork now?) Either way.. they are only go-between vehicles & there should be dedicated anti-horde like Eradicators & MRP valkyries fielded - which Can eat up lots of boys from range. I am not proposing them to be an everything vehicle.

With those 1.5 glances you score with your 14 boyz you get.. why are you acknowledging that vehicle squadrens cause Immob to equal Destroyed but your failing to acknowledge that stunned equals shaken? My tanks are going to get shot at. I accept this and to be fair, 1.5 glances is really quite acceptable and not suicidal. Also.. if you just get one single weapon destroyed result and choose the flamer.. I'll still happily end that squad next turn as ill easily do A)Take that squad under 10 with a h.flamer & a Meltacannon & B)Cause 25% casulties. All in all, a good day. How much were those boyz? Ala not unreasonable.

As for anti-troop/expensive infantry ; Yessir, will do. The devil dogs are limited to squadrens of 2 and only a single squad for; Highly mobile mech troops & squadren cover fiddlyness.

Seen frog-jumping cover & clever smoke usage with chimera & fast Devil Dogs (or Banewolfs/Hell Hounds)?

I'm not sure why you say that I'm picking stacked scenarios? Pitting a squadron of devil dog tanks against a boyz squad is hardly stacked.

As for the devildog, isn't it a short range heavy flamer delivery vehicle? I played against Shep's list, and I remember them having flamers. If they had other weapons, I don't remember them, just the flamers. He got turn 1, it was dawn of war. Turn 1, he brought everything onto the table...ridiculous amounts of chimeras, 6 devildogs in 3 squadrons, 4...tanks with meltacannons, whatever they are called, and the medusa thing (I think) with indirect fire STR10 Ap4, and gets 4 rounds of shooting.

My turn, I ran forward up the left flank.

Turn 2: He had a devildog squadron in three places; left flank, center, right flank. He shifted everything to the left except for a squadron of meltacannon tanks that moved 6" and stayed near his indirect fire thingamajig. What followed was a ridiculous amount of firing. Absolutely ridiculous. I took a good chunk of damage, and was actually considering offering a surrender then and there and asking to restart. I only actually lost three killpoints here, but the sheer damage that got done partially hurt a lot of stuff, and I honestly thought the game was over and that Orks couldn't beat mechanized IG.

Turn 2 me: Snikrot and kommandos came out, back table edge by the indirect fire guy and two other plasmacannon tanks. I multi-assaulted all three; Snikrot went against the indirect fire, and the rest of the kommandos took on the two tanks. Snikrot got auto-hits against the rear armor of the indirect fire tank, penetrated twice, and destroyed it. My swarm of kommandos needing 4+ to hit and 6+ to glance score a few glances on the tanks, and make them both unable to shoot. I kill one chimera and the vet squad inside, kill one devildog from a squad of two, and make the other unable to shoot for a turn.

Turn 3: His two tanks that got kommando-ed attempt to run away to turn and flame the hell out of me. He rolls double 1 for his tanks, which simultaneously immobilizes both of them; they're a squadron, and immobilized destroys squadron vehicles until there is only one vehicle left. However, they were both immobilized at the same time, so he counted them both as wrecked. That's where the battle kind of turned.
He rolled pretty poorly, and I got cover saves from all the hellacious fire coming from all the chimeras. Two of his devildogs turned around to go deal with my kommandos, along with his HQ and PBS. They die a horrible death, and I take a few losses elsewhere, but not much.

Turn 3 me: I Waaaugh! and barrel into two more of his tanks, shoot and kill the other devil dog in the 1 man squadron, get 1 more chimera and the troops inside, and end up killing two more plasmacannon tanks, a devildog, chimera, and vet squad.

Turn 4: Its actually looking bleak for him now; he's still got all his troops, but we were playing that funky annihilation game where KPs are heavily modified. When all was said and done, I got 15 KP to his 7. I had several ork down to bare bones....one squad of 30 boyz had only a nob left. Another had a nob and two boyz left. My tank bustas were down to 5. He *did* lay all his firepower into trying to finish off those squads, and a combination of rolls on both sides just kept them alive.

The game ended there; we didn't have time for another turn. If we would have, his remaining two devildogs would have come forward and finished off my depleted troop choices, to be in turn hopefully killed by my foot-slogging tank bustas, who sent 2 out of 3 bomb squigs into my OWN FREAKING KILLA KANS.

I'm not sure why I wrote all that....I'm trying to make a point about Devil dogs I think. =p They're great flamer platforms, but you have to get close to deliver flamers, which make you susceptible to being smacked around in return.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ah....and smoke...

Smoke doesn't really mean much to me; I've been playing assault armies lately. You don't get cover saves from assault-type orks who are charging, and the only real dakka I had was killa-kans (who ran every turn because there were no exposed troops for grotzookas to fire at - the did nothing the WHOLE game except act as a receptacle for incoming bomb squigs) and foot-slogging tank-bustas, who couldn't get in range to try killing medusa thingies, and had to take pot shots at devildogs which were mostly ineffective.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one more note....Sorry if I'm being mysterious about my exact army lists. I've said this before, but I'm paranoid of being copied.

On the one hand, I'd like to post battle reports on Monday about 'Ard Boyz, but on the other hand, I'm afraid of all my sekretz being known before 'Ard Boyz is over...

I agree with Dashofpepper. Heavy Flamers aren't bad weapons but it is quite obvious that they suffer from range issues, and while a fast vehicle is a good delivery system, *all* vehicles are a liability when facing powerklaws IME.

Having said that, the Devil Dog itself seems decent enough, even though I haven't had a chance to properly test it out yet.

Main Weapon: Melta-cannon = Str8 ap 1 str24" Heavy 1, Melta, Blast. It comes with a Hull Heavy Bolter & can have a Hull heavy flamer replaced for free.

Please work out what your talking about before you post such long & besides the point posts in my thread, please.

The flamers are a purely secondary armement.

Here's the list I have in mind...

CCS 4x melta chimera heavy flamer

PBS (8 psykers) chimera heavy flamer
PBS (8 psykers) chimera heavy flamer

vets 3x melta chimera heavy flamer
vets 3x melta chimera heavy flamer
vets 3x melta chimera heavy flamer
vets 3x melta chimera heavy flamer

2x devildogs heavy flamer
2x devildogs heavy flamer
2x devildogs heavy flamer

2x medusa bastion breacher heavy flamer
2x medusa bastion breacher heavy flamer
manticore heavy flamer
-----------------------------------------
Not sure if my opponent used meltas on the devildogs or not...there was a lot of drinking going on, and I don't quite remember. I *do* remember flamers. Lots and lots of flamers.

Banewolf is a much better platform for this purpose. Its a defensive weapon, so the Banewolf(s) could dart forward 12", and fire TWO templates each. If you could get the templates to cover 5 models, that's 10 auto-hits, ignoring cover saves. and having them in a squadron of two doubles that.

I'm planning on making sure they move 12" every turn. I'm not too worried about most units assaulting them, because they're going to need sixes to hit and in the case of Str 4 infantry sixes to glance as well. Crew stunned counts as crew shaken in squadrons, so the squadron can still dart 18" away out of danger, tank shock or even ram on the next turn.

What purpose? Dash is the one yammering on about the heavy flamer love..

Im curious as to the worth & use of this weapon in particular. Banewolf is good, okay. Suffers the same problem as the colossus; anti-cover MEQ.. not worth it. Ill stick with an Eradicator and call it a day at cover.