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Well, I let my experience with asscannons cloud my judgement. They don't do much to vehicles unless you have 2 of them. I prefer lascannons myself.

As the target of said heavy weapons, I have always found ACs to be much nastier myself. Experience differs.

It's all going to be moot with the rending nerf, though, isn't it? Or have the rumours changed (again)? It is such a bother keeping up.

An Assault Cannon on a Dread or a Term squad with tank hunters will still pen a Land Raider on a rending roll of 3+ with tank hunters other wise it will glance on a 3+ and pen on a 5+. It gets a little weaker but still is nasty.

Asscannons are getting reduced to 1 in most Codexes, and rending changes in 5th will make them less powerful.

Plan ahead, don't get screwed tomorrow.

One other issue, I believe it is correct that the Carnifex is subject to the hive mind rules and instincitve behavior. It is not a synapse creature. Watch and see if your opponent inadvertantly gets his MC"s out of range of the hive tyrant.

synapse only effects figures that want to move. you can still just sit still and fire. which, fex are great at.
as for a few points of note that have cropped up in this thread. i agree that las cannon are better at some things than AC but assault cannon are far more versitile. there in lies the true worth. killing lots of infantry, hitting several vehicles in a squadron, or having a good chance of taking down one big vehicle.
if the nids player tries to hide all his stealers behind a wall of TMC you can still either zoom around the back with a flamer or... just fire through the TMC wall. you wont get quite as many hits with a ... through the TMC wall shot, but sometimes you cant make the trip around the side so through the front shots are worth wasting a 75 pt speeder on. just my two cents worth.

Here's my basic problem with AC.

When facing a mech list (eldar and tau), you need to roll that 6 to get your glance. On a TL las, it's 3+.

I like my odds on rolling 3+ vs my odds of rolling 6 on 3 dice (average, rounding in AC favor).

A glance is a glance is a glance in 4th.

I build other things to kill infantry with.

You fellas that take AC take a flex unit and are happy it's decent enough against everything.

I just bring the better weapons and assign them roles, and let my army do combined arms. Hasn't failed me yet.

Termies and land speeders are so incredibly weak to everything that I don't think much of AC because on termies and land speeders you lose some of your shooting because your other weapons can't hurt AV12.

I am all about flex, so long as I don't lose efficiency.

AC aren't efficient enough for me, and I've faced the 9 LS army and the 5 termie squad with double AC army; and frankly I was not impressed with how bad those armies are. Needing to hit the far end of probability just to rend once with a assault cannon? Gee, lascannon 'rends' almost as well but doesn't require long odds. It also knocks out tanks the AC cannot, and autoglances tanks the AC does not.

Maybe I should play 2500 points so I can face the 9 LS army and the 5 double AC termie squads? Oh right, did that in the ard boyz and beat it with my basic marine list.
Reason? I outshot and outassaulted it with just basic marines. Was I impressed by how it sucked? Yes. Everyone rolled it, and the player running it wasn't a asscannon noob. He couldn't get more than average rends, and for what he paid for I got a hell of a lot more in my marine army than he did.