necron99 wrote:Bruteboss wrote:I got bored of the psyrifle dread and tried my best to make psycannon/incinerator dreads and other variants work.
Out of maybe 7 games with non-psyrifle dreads, I had 1 game where they preformed well. A psycannon/incinerator/ccw dread dropped out of a storm raven, and shot/flamed and assaulted a 40 man IG platoon before wiping them out 2 turns later on his own.
Other than those 2 games, they were mediocre at best and a liability at worst. Except against the 1 IG horde list I played, I would rather have had psyrifle dreads to blow up tanks and finish off weakened squads from a distance, which is something the rest of my army really can't do. Our dreads simply aren't that good at close range or cc, and don't compare at all to BA furioso/death company, or SM ironclads at that range.
The big downside of other variants is that they do basically the same thing as the rest of the army, the only difference is being a walker.
I, too, have grown tired of playing and seeing others play only the psyrifle dread. One issue I have is that my army lacked any melta to deal with high
AV stuff. To help offset that problem I'm trying out vanilla dreads. Just a
ccw, melta and flamer. My two dreads ride in storm ravens (that sport twin linked meltas) - see a pattern
My first and only game so far using this configuration saw the SR's getting shot down on turn two doing nothing other than acting as transports. I ran them flat out and wanted to fire my
TL melta but my opponent told me machine spirit didn't allow for that due to the flat out speed. I have since found an entry in the
BA FAQ that says any SR can use machine spirit to fire one weapon at flat out. I also didn't think to use the libby's shrouding to get a 3+ cover save. So bad on me.
Anyway when the transports blew up the dreads fell out unscathed. One took on a couple of 7-10 man
IG units - ate them up. The other dread took down two russ's before getting blow to bits. Had I played the SR's properly I would have done a lot better over all. Instead I had to rely on two
cc dreads and one psyrifle dread in the back field to do almost all of the damage.
IG won in the end by holding the objective that was located far in his backfield. Didn't help that we were playing spearhead and the SR's had to traverse a full 24" to get within reasonable striking distance. That and the
IG player got first turn and alpha striked me with a basilisk, a standard russ and two plasma cannon russ's. Made for a really bad first turn.
Have a librarian with shrouding and a
GM to give them scout, get turbo-boost before the game begins. 4+ invuln and then in enemy shooting phase, the libby in raven casts shrouding and your ravens got a 3+ save and are right in your enemies face.
Otherwise, I've had success running Melta/Flamer dread dropping out of the raven as it can fire the flamer template at either a vehicle at such an angle it will also hit an enemy squad and then fire off the melta at the vehicle and try to wreck it while the
GKs dropping down support it with psycannon fire.
The psyriflemen is the best for long range, no doubt. Up close, you are better off with psycannon, as you will need 5s or 6s to glance or pen most serious vehicles with a psyautocannon
str 8. At shorter range, the 4 shots a psycannon offers is better because vs something like a land raider; you have a greater chance to glance or penetrate than you would with just a normal psyriflemen dread.
Depends on playstyle.
