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Ok, I've been having an issue with the representation of Dreadnoughts in the background vs. actual rules.

Background: According to stories like Damnation Crusade, only the greatest heroes are interred in Dreadnought armor to live on throughout the centuries. We have the example of Davian Thule from DoW 2 as well. Dreadnoughts are ancient and respected and such.

In-game usage:
First off: dread spam lists. These seem ridiculous to me. The chapter master is going to say "ok" when the MoTF says "I'm taking a whole bunch of our most ancient and honored warriors out for a walk." They seem like one of the few units that should NOT be spammed in a list, lore wise.
Second: Suicide dreads. HF/MM with drop pod. They drop in, take out something threatening, and die. Seriously? You're going to send a thousand-year-old hero on a suicide mission in a drop pod? It seems to me that dreads should only drop pod in if the rest of the army is doing so.

I feel like the developers couldn't decide on Dreads as Heavy Support or Elites, so they said feth it, a little of both.

Setups like that could represent a sort of final stand, where the fate of the chapter itself is at stake, and they need to give everything they can to kill off whatever is about to destroy them.

Dreadnoughts are very hard to destroy and they don't arrive alone.

IvanTih wrote:Dreadnoughts are very hard to destroy and they don't arrive alone.

Not true Dreadnaughts are very easy to destroy they are only armour 12 unless they are Ironclad in which case they are quite hard. The OP is right people tend to use dreadnaughts to drop in pop something nasty and then die. it definately does not fit in with the fluff.

You could imagine that a Destroyed result doesn't equal it being destroyed at all, but maybe just incapacitated, waiting for his brothers to retrieve him.

Inanimate wrote:You could imagine that a Destroyed result doesn't equal it being destroyed at all, but maybe just incapacitated, waiting for his brothers to retrieve him.

Yes.
Destroyed dose not mean marine inside Dreadnought is dead.

what parts of the marine actually end up in a dreadnaught?

Torso and head and the rest of the body if it remains is amputated.

Destroyed could simply mean it was knocked over and is now wiggling about like an upside-down turtle (though I guess that it would technically still allow it to fire at tall/flying targets).

Ed_Bodger wrote:

IvanTih wrote:Dreadnoughts are very hard to destroy and they don't arrive alone.

Not true Dreadnaughts are very easy to destroy they are only armour 12 unless they are Ironclad in which case they are quite hard. The OP is right people tend to use dreadnaughts to drop in pop something nasty and then die. it definately does not fit in with the fluff.

In the fluff, dreadnaughts ARE very hard to destroy. If we're talking what fits in with the fluff you're going down completely the wrong road reading armour values from the 40k rulebook.

if dreads were to be fluffy they would have these stats.

Structure points: 2

WS....BS.....F......S.....R....A....I
.5......5......13.....13...12...3....4

reactor meltdown: if a dreadnought is destroyed it may attempt to detonate its reactors. the controlling player rolls a D6, on a result of 5+ the reactor has detonated. all models within 2d6 inches suffer a Str6 AP4 hit.

The game is designed from a perspective of game balance, where units provide advantages and disadvantages so that they are 'balanced' against any opponent.

Due to the very nature of the game it is not representative of the background so it is perfectly possible to have a Dark Angel Player and an Ork player fight on the same team in a game versus another Dark Angel player et cetera even though such a situation would never occur in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The game and the background are two entirely different things.

I agree entirely with the point your making gogsnik but I would advise you not to say this anywhere outside of the background forum on dakkadakka....

Gogsnik wrote:The game is designed from a perspective of game balance, where units provide advantages and disadvantages so that they are 'balanced' against any opponent.

...unless you feel like arguing with a horde of the so called tournament goers. ouch.

whatwhat wrote:I agree entirely with the point your making gogsnik but I would advise you not to say this anywhere outside of the background forum on dakkadakka....

Gogsnik wrote:The game is designed from a perspective of game balance, where units provide advantages and disadvantages so that they are 'balanced' against any opponent.

Still a valid point.

No Risk no Fun , so please don't fear the overconfident "Experts" and stick with it.

Dread spam has its place in Dawn of war (1) against orks.

whatwhat wrote:I agree entirely with the point your making gogsnik but I would advise you not to say this anywhere outside of the background forum on dakkadakka....

Having not had any experience with tournament players I'll take your word for it still, I shall stick to my argument, the game is not a simulation of the background although the 'holy grail' of game balance has been pursued a bit too far I would say.

Gogsnik wrote:

The game and the background are two entirely different things.

Agreed.

Though background wise if I were to play Dread, or other, spam I would counter that its unfluffy by saying that I am fighting part of a larger battle where the ancients warriors are fighting for survival etc. Sticks to accepted background as well.

Hm, I seem to remember every single Dreadnought-encased character in every 40k novel I've ever read eventually dying a violent death(granted, they usually take a large number of enemies with them). They seem to have particularly bad luck against daemons that like to "crack them open like an oyster" in a lot of cases.

The one exception was that one semi-comical Dreadnought from the Iron Snakes novel.

Just saying.

Hmm aged Space Marine must taste like fine wine to daemons and yes they do seem to get craked open and eaten alot

i feel like dreds are placed within the force chart, and played as more like IG sentinels, of course stronger and more efficient ones.

the problem with this is that it goes against the fluff of these dreds being unstoppable holy killing machines. the rules don't make them awful, i find them to be very versatile and capable of taking up a great many roles, but this still to me doesn't fit into the concept of them being ancient heroes of old. It only makes them seem like space marines in big walkers that are made to be mobile firebases, or close combat walkers, and not really these inspiring lords.

the idea of the ironclad dred also seems very against the fluff, since it seems to be made for a particular role, and that just doens't seem to go with the idea of an ancient hero, and just seems like a way to make a good weapon fit a certain situation.

i may want to start a dred spam blood angels since i like how they look, and wanted to paint a bunch of them, but i don't think such an army makes sense unless you are making a suitable fluff behind them, which can be done. The army could be a strikeforce only used for certain missions, where either a standard marine can't be trusted due to the amount of corruption, or the wisdom of the dred's experience must be utilized for the mission or campaign at hand making them needed on the field of battle despite being so rare and holy. one could say, if comedy was being used, that a bunch of dreds decided to go after all the remaining enemies from their era that had harmed them, or had been their rivals, and a bunch of space marines follow along since they can't stop the dreds without treating them dishonorably, but don't wish to leave the dreds out on their own due to how important they are to the chapter.




just some thought

The dreds have gone out on the lash sort of thing?
I always thoght that a chapter had at the most ten dreds useable for them, some SM more, some less. As it at lest one per company.

This is a perfect example of never look to the fluff to answer your questions in the game. It never lines up, and leaves you feeling more confused. Like Ive said many times before, SM fluff paints them as invincible killing machines. 1 SM can kill thousands of Orks. But in the games Ive played, Ive run over squads of SM with my boyz just on their way to the target

I agree that the Suicide Dreadnoughts are somewhat of a lame tactic. But Dreadnoughts can be very devastating too. Let me describe a bit of battle I had last week:

Death company jumps in and destroys CSM rhino + occupants. Death company Dreadnought marches in through the front, covered by UM dreadnought. Black Templars manage to destroy Havoc marines, and 2 obliterators. DC Dreadnought destroys remaining Obliterator, a full squad of marines, and 2 Chaos Terminators who came in as reinforcements (remaining 3 Terminators were killed earlier by my Devastators with Heavy bolters). Dreadnought is destroyed, but only one squad of the CSMs remains.

DC Dreadnought is Man of the Match, Death Company has equal kill points to CSM, Black Templars come in 3rd, and Ultra Marines 4th, with their Dreadnought their best unit this match.
See, Dreadnoughts can own. But I guess they would be more badass when made a little tougher.

in all actuality, they have gotten tougher in this edition(well, vehicles have)

i suppose they could get 14 armor all around, but then they would cost as much as a LR and you could only have one at a time.

The send em in and do as much damage as possible seems to fit the chaos dreads beater. they are crazy and dis horned after all.