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Do you use them? Have you fought them? What has been your experience?

I've been using mine for years - they've always been fairly fragile and still are. Nowadays I find the only way to trust them is with the steely glare of a Lord Commissar. The Standard helps them focus as well, and of course the Company Commander's Orders. With 3 (monstrously based) models and ld7 they need to be in that leadership bubble to function with any sort of reliability imo. The infantry squads have the bodies and the ld8 to prop themselves up, and can make better use of PCS orders than the HWS, making them better suited to operate away from the CCS.

If you've used them, which ones/how many/what did you bring them for? If you've fought them, how did they factor into your gameplan, did they do significant damage to your forces, and how easy/hard was it to take them out?

I use them.

Wait.

I use them, drop them and then come back to them.

Depending on how static I want my force to be depends on when where and how I take them. I don't usually tailor lists to what my opponent brings but to what my mood is.

LD7 makes them very fragile, but as you say having them glared at by a commisar and under the protection of the CCS helps.
My preferred option is to run them with either Mortars,Missile Launchers or autocannons. I love the ability to drop blast templates on my opponent and even against MEQ's its is fun to watch them have to grab fistfulls of dice to make their saves. Autocannons are great against heavily armoured troops and light transports. again, forcing lots of dice rolling is good.

If I can I max out the amount of teams I take. This means I can move and still add weight of fire for support. My usual load out for 5 teams is 3 Mortar teams and 2 Autocannon teams.

I did a similar thread a whyle back hope its helpfull to you:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/291626.page

It was, tx.

Tried them, dropped them. Without the abaltive wounds, their firepower drops too quickly and as HB points out in the other thread, nearly every option has a better version available for about the same points.
His synopsis:
Why would you field them over other units?
Autocannons – the Hydra seems better and for the loss of 2 shots you gain TL, extra range and the targetting sistem.
Lascannons – still the Vendetta seems better for just 25 points you get TL, and a lot of extra mobility plus a fast ride for ur PCS/Vets to grab objectives in.
Mortars – yea i'd rather have a Griffon for just 15 points you get 2 extra streinght and AP.
Missile launchers – two scout sentinels for the same price may have 1 less launcher but are a lot more mobile and for just 5pt a piece get smoke launchers.
Scoring – see Lascannons.

Point he forgot.
Hydras, two less autcannon shots but add back in three Heavy Bolter shots, so plus one shot in anti-infantry mode.
Griffon, gets to reroll scatter as well

One thing that you're missing when subbing HWS for armour is the fact that tanks eat into your FOC. You can take 5 HWS per Troops choice. That's a LOT of big guns; whilst if you want a Griffon for example, you're eating into your valuable HS slots. You'd best be taking 2/3 of them (costing even more points) otherwise you're wasting a slot that would be much better filled by a LR variant.

don_mondo: I think that taking Scout Sentinels over ML HWS is rather poor advice. You lose a shot, and become AV10 open-topped for your trouble. At least HWS can take advantage of cover and moblity doesn't *really* enter into it when you're looking at a gun with a 48" range.

L. Wrex

1st. Mondo just copied my suggestions so there's no need to nag on him.
2nd. I admit the sentinel example is rather weak, but missile launchers are too medicore, in IG hands and in general, to begin with anyway

It's all right, go ahead and nag, I don't mind. I'm married......

Actually, IMO, the mobility does enter into it, and is a huge factor primarily due to the 48" range. If you're going first, deploy those sentinels on a far flank, scout move 6" forward, Now on your first turn, move 6" forward again. You're now halfway across the table and likely have a side armor shot on your opponent's vehicles since he probably deployed with his army facing forward towards the rest of your big guns. The HW team is likely limited to front armor, reducing their effectiveness in spite of their increased number of shots. For 20 more points, you can double that first strike by adding HK missiles. Sure, for some things (rhinos/razorbacks/dreads), it won't matter. But predators, AV 13 vs 11 is a big difference, chimeras, 12 vs 10.
Not going first, they outflank, same stuff applies.
As for surviveability, I don't expect Scout sentinels to live very long. But then again, I don't expect HW squads to live very long either. At least, not if the opposing player knows what they're doing.

Example, I faced an IG player that put ALL of his heavy weapons into 6 HW squads and a Leman Russ Demolisher. I went first. At the end of my first turn, he had a single Heavy Bolter team and a single autocannon team left. Two squads were completely wiped out due to ST6+ wounds Instant Death The two closest to his HQ Command, ie within range of the standard), and two that took a single casualty ran off the table (out of standard range, as were both the HW teams that survived.). Turn 2 I blew the main gun off the Demolisher and after that, my armor mopped him up while my Infantry sat back and sniped. This worked because I know how to take out HW teams. Autocannons and multilasers, with the heavy bolters/heavy stubbers picking off the leftovers.

So altho I know it's not true, I try to play as if my opponent's are as smart as I am, and if I can figure out how to negate HW squads taht easily, so can they.

I'd say cheap is the only way to go. 75 points for 3 HBs or ACs isn't bad. HWS are never going to live very long though, so the more expensive weapons are out and Mortars are pretty meh. People spread out against templates, but you are IG. I'm sure you have better templates somewhere in your list. They are a little cheaper than Sentinels for similar survivability, but the mobility on those Sentinels is also much better.

Taking them could allow you to focus FA and HS slots on other roles. But that's only if you have too much to fit into FA/HS. Going from 2 models to 2 wounds made them much weaker. It's sad when putting an AC in a line squad is likely to get more fire off than buying a HWS with those points, but partially true.

I used to be a big fan of just spamming multiple HWS but more and more I agree with The Grog. 105 points for 3 Lascannons is alot of points to invest in something that can easily run away after the first few wounds (if its not wiped out entirely). Of course competitively its hard not to just take Vendettas for Lascannon spamming but it would appear that if you wanted to take them as HW, you are better off burying them in an Infantry squad.

I still feel that the big exception here is Mortars. You can deploy out of LOS and with a 48" range, you can hit the majority of the table from turn one. Its true that Griffon's are better BUT (and its a big but) Heavy slots are almost always taken up by other choices, so a few cheap Mortar squads will add some decent anti-infantry killing power to your army, plus the nature of it being a barrage weapon gives it some bonuses against units who like to hide behind cover/vehicles or are easily pinned.

I put them into large groups of infantry, and out a lord commisar into the unit

If I'm playing a normal game, then I've stopped bothering with them so much, but that's just because I've caught Mech Vet IG fever. If it's Funny Force Org Chart time (Adepticon team tourny) then you can bet I'm using them to slip as many lascannons, missile launchers, and autocannons in as humanly possible.

You've got to remember that HWS are TROOPS choices. They're not designed to be mobile like FA, and they're not designed to put down serious hurt like HS. That they're immobile and put out crappy firepower should be no surprise.

The only real advantage is that they're scoring, and, given that they need to be in cover and immobile, the natural way of using them actually dovetails nicely with scoring. No other unit in the codex was so clearly designed to be plopped on an objective and sit there the entire game.

The problem, as mentioned, is that they're expensive scoring units. It would be cheaper to give the objective babysitting role to conscripts, which at least have some durability due to their numbers.

The only HWSs I ever take are mortars because they are as cheap as a PIS (instead of twice as expensive, like lascannons), and don't suffer nearly as badly from durability, as their proper role is to be hiding out of LOS. This allows them to camp on an objective with relative impunity all while throwing lots and lots of little pie plates at stuff (a very good harassment technique).

otherwise their cost+firepower:survivability ratio is very poor, so you should really only take them if you know what you're doing. Blanketing the field with infantry heavy weapons fire is straight out of 3rd ed, and doesn't really work so well anymore.

There actualy completely underrated. To toughen them up and keep them moble you can put them in a chimera or add a comi. To upgrade their firepower use orders on them, which you can't do to vehicles obviously. Plus, there comparitively cheap and part of a platoon.

but they already have a bad price to effectiveness ratio. Bumping up the price only barely helps. I mean, if, as the OP notes, you need to take a standard bearer and a Lord Commissar in order to make them viable, that means that you're spending 170 points for just three lascannons. Just because they are now less likely to run away doesn't mean that it's worthwhile to spend that many points for that little firepower.

felixthecat345 wrote:There actualy completely underrated. To toughen them up and keep them moble you can put them in a chimera or add a comi. To upgrade their firepower use orders on them, which you can't do to vehicles obviously. Plus, there comparitively cheap and part of a platoon.

HWS can't take a dedicated transport or a commissar, so you're stuck with having to embark them turn 1, giving up a round of shooting, and having to use a lord commissar who costs 70 fething points can only bolster one team and takes up a slot that can be used to bring 2 of the orders you say make them so good...
Yea great plan

Only use them for cheap pinning. 3 Mortar shots at 60 pts will have a decent chance of holding down enemy units. Rarely take more than two teams though.

Thanks for all the input guys, very helpful.

I think it gets a little off topic with all the comments about what you could have taken instead - lets assume the commander has got past the list building and for whatever reason is taking HWS. (For instance I have 50 heavy weapons in my arsenal - some are going to make it to the table for most battles). I want to know how they are used, and what kind of threat opponents see them to be.

As for the Lord Commissar, I wouldn't be taking him to bolster just one HWS, of course that makes them too expensive. I sit him in among many, usually with the CCS.

murdog wrote:I want to know how they are used, and what kind of threat opponents see them to be.

In that case, I would say they are best deployed in cover with as good of a fire lane as you can get them because the last thing you want them to be doing is moving to redeploy somewhere else and a 4+ cover save gives them some limited durability.

I think most people would agree that the Autocannon is the best weapon most of the time as it can be expected to perform reasonably well against a variety of targets without being as expensive as the Lascannon. That is one key element in my mind, since you are a static unit, you can only fire at those targets that your opponent chooses to deploy within your LOS, so your weapons hould be flexible enough to handle most targets.

I would expect them to miss and to die. For this, I would rather invest in most HWS instead of trying to bring some buffing Officer to the table.

The problem is that they're fragile, immobile, and don't deny cover saves. Therefore they have a poor effectiveness to cost ratio. This may be because they're ineffective (like autocannons), or they're too costly (like lascannons) or they're both ineffective AND too costly (like missile launchers).

If you really must take them, the best options are the mortar (which isn't all that effective but at least is cheap), or the lascannon (which is too expensive but at least it stand a chance to kill stuff).

If it were me, I would leave the mortars (again), and deploy them as far back as possible, preferably with something to block line of sight. At that point, their function would be to pin down scary-looking enemy units, and to put some blast templates on large cumbersome infantry units (30-boy mobz, for example, enemy combined guard units, or gaunt/gant broods).

Using the autocannon or heavy bolter (my preference is for the cannon), as mini says, in cover with a good radius of fire. The caveat is that if you can get them within 3" of an objective, try to do so, since they can score it without tying up an infantry squad you want to move, or at least contest it.

With the lascannon, it's all gonna depend on where your opponent puts his vehicles. I find that the lascannon is best used against walkers, since they tend to have lower AV's, but it depends on the opponent.

Thanks again guys. Like I said earlier, I got alot of them, and tend towards the Ronald Dumsfeld way of listbuilding - you don't fight with the army you wish you had, you fight with the army you have!

To sum so far:

Strengths (in no particular order)
- Scoring
- Can be given orders to increase firepower
- Easy on the FOC
- Can take advantage of cover
- Good range

Weaknesses
- 3 models
- relatively expensive (points-wise, compared to other choices (read:vehicles) in the codex that provide similar firepower)
- ld7
- T3

General consensus is that Mortars and Lascannons are the strongest choices of all the heavy weapon types.


Edits: Added T3 to weaknesses.
Added general consensus.

When I use them, I use a gak ton of them for target saturation. If you have about 5, I find that is the right number.

With that many, you can pump out gak tons of fire power. If you have a CCS nearby (which you should) you can keep them around longer and the orders make them very powerful. Also, a commissar lord is a nice bet with this set up.

I like them, although I feel they really aren't optimized at all simply due to insta death from str 6, which some armies pack in spades.

You forgot T3 ID threshold. That's a big problem. HB shots don't ID them, but just about everything else does.

Reecius wrote:When I use them, I use a gak ton of them for target saturation. If you have about 5, I find that is the right number.

With that many, you can pump out gak tons of fire power. If you have a CCS nearby (which you should) you can keep them around longer and the orders make them very powerful. Also, a commissar lord is a nice bet with this set up.

If you're talking about saturation with regards to durability, that's one thing (although they're still not particularly durable, as mentioned, especially for their points), but it doesn't work that way with firepower. Heavy weapons have a bad firepower to cost ratio. Including more of them doesn't alleviate this problem, it just buries further into it. Yes, 5 HWSs can put down a fair amount of firepower (especially compared to a group of conscripts) sure, but the cost is outrageous. For those same points you could get much more firepower elsewhere. This problem is only exacerbated by suggestions like including a lord commissar just to babysit them.

murdog wrote: you don't fight with the army you wish you had, you fight with the army you do have!

True, and knowing what else you have in your army, you don't have a lot else to draft from. In this case, what we're talking about is mitigating a weakness rather than creating a strength from thin air. In this case, the least weak are mortars (because you can't shoot them if they're out of LOS, and they're cheap), and to a much lesser extent lascannons (as they actually kill stuff). Taking pretty much anything else is only going to play into your weakness instead of helping ameliorate it.

The Grog wrote:You forgot T3 ID threshold. That's a big problem. HB shots don't ID them, but just about everything else does.

But it really isn't a problem. Those S6+ shots aren't that plentiful, they still have to get past cover, a successful wound against a heavy weapon squad just stops one of three autocannons instead of the whole tank like a glancing hit would, and shots aimed at a 75-point heavy weapon team isn't blowing up your 160-point manticore or busting the transport of your 200-point command squad.

How stupid do you think it would be to build an army based around 8-12 HWS. Assuming Autocannons, thats 600-900 points which is alot but its also 54-72 bodies and 48-72 S7 shots per turn, thats a substantial amount of dakka.

This is an interesting thread. I used to have an extensive array of HWS's when the HQ could take them as part of the Command Platoon in the old Codex. Nothing like Turn 1 and all the enemy has is 2 squads of infantry and one leader out on the field doging Lascannon Blasts and copious amounts of Automatic weapons fire.

Since the new codex, I have dropped it down to 2 squads, Two AC+HB and 2LC+ML. They may be costly, but they usually pay for themsleves in the end. I let my Infantry do the grunt work and have my HWS's sneak around behind them if there is nothing in range. Special Weapons Squads are where it's at now, but that is for another thread.

With the squadrons rule now, if you had an artillery battery that had say 2 Basilisks and a Griffon, they would all have to fire on the same target, thus removing the Griffon's usefulness, against enemy armor or heavily armored infantry it is wasted and is a waste of an organization slot if taken individually that would be better suited for a Russ variant. Since the Basilisk can fire indirectly, use that as your "mortars". Longer range and death to everything except demi-gods and extra speacial SM's (blasted Terminators!).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

minigun762 wrote:How stupid do you think it would be to build an army based around 8-12 HWS. Assuming Autocannons, thats 600-900 points which is alot but its also 54-72 bodies and 48-72 S7 shots per turn, thats a substantial amount of dakka.

You say stupid, I say DAKKA! That would be amazing. The amount of fire would prevent all but the hardest units in the game from surving just based on the odds!

For 72 AC's: Even if half the shots hit, and half the shots wound, that's still 18 wounds. Agaisnt a Great Unclean One the odds would not be favorable at all.

minigun762 wrote:How stupid do you think it would be to build an army based around 8-12 HWS. Assuming Autocannons, thats 600-900 points which is alot but its also 54-72 bodies and 48-72 S7 shots per turn, thats a substantial amount of dakka.

How stupid? Very.

For 900 points you get the ability to kill 10 marines a turn for the couple of turns you get before they start getting assaulted. Against hordes you kill 30 a turn, assuming no cover (and a measly 15 if they do), which sounds good until you remember that said horde is going to have at least 100-150 guys in it (which means that the horde will simply not be thinned enough before they hit your lines). Against transports, you can only stop a couple of rhinos a turn, or a chimera or two, which means that they're going to hit your lines basically in tact.

And this assumes that you get to shoot all of your guns at the same time at the same target, and that you don't have things like deepstrikers or outflankers show up and gobble one or more autocannon team per turn. Meanwhile, your army is totally useless against heavy vehicles, and has no mobility to take objectives and has easy to claim kill points.

In absolutely perfect conditions, they may do some decent damage, but it would fail hard in even normal circumstances and fail comically badly in unideal circumstances (seriously, consider this against 900 points of necron). Plus, this holds no water compared to 7 basilisks for cheaper, or many, many other options.

Personally, I would only take them as Mortars, and then purely because you can stick them essentially out of sight and rely on their indirect fire to pin a unit a turn (foe-dependant, of course). Aside from that, all my heavy weapons will be in regular infantry squads - I am a huge fan of GL/AC squads.

That said, I've never tried any other configuration. I guess a triple-AC unit could be OK as a mopping-up squad - that is, finishing off a squad which a tank has decimated but not completely wiped out. But that still seems meh to me.