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I assume you have all the options available? If so assemble them as follows: 3 Lascannons, 3 Missile Launchers and 3 Autocannons. In the case that you use the contents of one battleforce as a platoon (because the battleforce is essentially one plattoon + a Sentinel) you can deploy them all. Incidentally try to conserve the kneeling legs so that you can use them to make more HWTs. Only the gunner needs to kneel and in the case of the ML not even him...

Oi People are missing the fact that Im finished with the sentinels discussion



HEAVY WEAPON TEAMS!!!



There, thats bound to grab attention. Ok how should I run the heavy weapon teams? Im assuming auto cannons? I know they have a low leadership, whats the ebst way to fix that problem? Really, whats the best way to use these things short of you saying "Dont"

If you want sentinels, id go scout with autocannons as someone else said. If you like plasma, the leman russ executioner is a great choice. 5 plasma templates (with the side sponsons) per turn. Kind of expensive tho :/ but its all on a AV14 chassis.

I also like Manticores and std LRBTs for fire support. Nothing like dropping a pie plate per LRBT and D3 per manticore.

Get some chimeras. Since youre going mech you want to make your squads in the chimeras vets and give em alot of plasma and melta guns which work great with their BS4.

If youre going mech, heavy wep teams probably arnt your best choice given that you cant move and shoot them, plus you need to babysit them with a commisar since they will run away pretty fast with only 3 teams per squad. If you really want them, probably auto cannons is your best bet, or maybe las.

EDIT: Also if you happen to have some regular non mech squads you can put a team in per squad. Then you dont really have to babysit with a commisar and can choose more targets.

Autocannon weapons squads again are situational. More often than not, since your probably not moving, your going to be facing enemy armour from the front and strength 7 is not really all that great. Besides that, there are way better options to fit BS3 autocannons in your list, namely the hydra (twin linked) and the sentinel (relentless so to speak). In my humble experience heavy weapons squads are best used with the missile launcher or the lascannon. The best way to fix their low ld is with the lord commissar and his aura of discipline. Still, that is alot of points tied up. The CCS also needs to be close to make use of orders. They can't move without sacrificing fire, they are instagibbed by strength 6 and they are cut down in cc without effort. I know you said don't say "Dont" but there you go.

If your talking heavy weapons team within a line squad things change. Ac's are a possibility. 10 pts is not bad for marginal cost and you don't need to use up a HQ slot for a commissar and you can blob to make mini heavy weapons squads that don't run away and bite if challenged in cc. Vets are again different. If sitting on an objective give them anything and they will do what they need to do. Recently I've been toying with including a heavy weapon in my mech vet list just because people say not to do it. I haven't played enough games with it to draw conclusions but so far its going quite well. You obviously need to play a different game and keep them cheap as possible. I'm sure others can chime in and post their experiences.

Dont use the heavy weapon squad format if you are going vets in chimera. Integrate the heavy weapons inside the vet squads. Give them all lascannons or missile launchers. First round stay still and alpha strike with your vehicle mounted weapons, vet heavy weapons from inside, and use scout sentinels with missile launcher/autocannon and hunterkiller, which are like 50-55pts, to come in outflanking and get some serious damage on enemy vehicles.

If you are going urban camo with BTR-80 style wheeled chimera i think missile heavy weapon teams would suit the best as 'fluffy'. Like a crack special forces urban assault team.. Get resin m16 from places like maxmini and give to all your men and use as 'autoguns' which counts-as lasguns. Maybe get some Pig Iron Productions Kolony Militia heads (with the visors) for some seriously cool looking dudes.

Well, i'm no guard player, but even i can tell that you should always get heavy weapons teams integrated into your infantry platoons, seeing as on their own they cost 20+ points each.

Yes but you lose target flexibilty and target saturation and redundancy if you just have 50 man power weapon blob full of melta and lascannons and power weapons. It'd cost a gakload and sure it would reduce KP, keep LD easy, and 'hide' the lascannons. But what if a walker was next to you and there is a landraider closing in and you need to kill both bit all your stuff can only concentrate on one target.. Obviously 50 man and 5 hvy weapons is a bit overkill but was just a scenario

It's like a lot of other things. You need saturation for HWSs to work.

If you have 1, 2 or 3 heavy weapon squads in your army, they'll tend to run away after losing one model (which isn't hard with all the str6 shooting out there).

If you have 5+ heavy weapon squads--especially if they're all packing missiles, they can do a lot of damage to enemy transports, monstrous creatures and hordes. You'll lose 2 or 3 of them, but not until after the damage is done.

So from the sounds of it, missile launchers really seem the way to go with the heavy weapon teams. This is kindda funny, because I liked rokkits in my Ork army, and it seems Im being steered into missiles in my IG army I totally understand though, seeing as they are a pretty versatile weapon. Although, the though of lascannons sitting around being able to pop tanks does sound appealing. Maybe thats something Ill have to mess around with, see which one I like more. Just sitting here thinking about it, Im leaning to lascannons because I havnt fired a lascannon in many...MANY years, so it just sounds appealing to me in that respect.


Thanks for all the tips so far, keep em coming if you can, all these tips are really giving me some insight on where I should go