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I've had a lot of luck lately with a dreadnought.
He jumps out of the Storm Raven turn 2ish, along with the Centurion Devs.
The Centurions lite up the closest threat and the dread positions to be between the enemies and the shooters.

Landing out on a flank and working toward center, they have been tough for my opponents to deal with.

The only downside is that it limits you to a single Thunderfire.

-Matt

I've gotten pretty decent milage out of a regular dread with MM, CCW w/ HF and extra armor in a drop pod. Not too expensive (and the option of a locator beacon on the drop pod is always nice), but can handle whatever you want to drop him near.

Got something hiding behind an ADL? Looks like a nice place for a heavy flamer template.

Whirlwind or other indirect fire lurking in the backlines? MM should fix it, assault it next turn if it survives.

With the decrease in cost for Venerable, the BS5 makes hitting with the MM more likely, and might keep it alive long enough to assault something in the back.

It's basically a really versatile unit that Drop Pods on Turn 1 and can handle a wide variety of problems.

So is the hurricane bolter totally stupid on Ironclad? I'd imagine that it would be rather good against infantry with it and heavy flamer, while being more resilient than standard dread.

pulse211 wrote:
the day of the iron clad busting out of a drop pod and smashing face are all but destroyed, since the rule for the FW dp has been changed. I run several pods and a few dreads and will say that the best ones, imo, or the contemptors. Mortis patterns are sweet with two lascannons and skyfire. regular contemptors are just as good with the mix of range weapons and cc choices they have. I also like the venerable. but as far as the iron clad and normal dreads are concerned, Ive given all of mine away. put contemptors in FW dread dp and let it loose.

all this if your play group doesn't cry about FW models. if that's the case, sorry.

contemptors have 5+ invuls and interceptor on mortis patterns. BS 5 on the normal contemptors
mortis are HS and regular contemptors are elite.

Like the above, I've had good luck with a Contemptor Mortis with 2x Kheres Assault Cannons and CML.

Yeah, he's expensive, but he's also durable and puts out a crap ton of firepower.

Another way to do it is to use the assault capable FW pod (Lucius Pattern), and throw in a cheap 2xCCW Contemptor in it to shoot/assault on turn one.

This works as a bit of shock and awe. If the unit he assaults survives, he's locked up in CC and possibly blocking LOS to any other podded targets, protecting them from fire

If he wipes them, he'll be a fire sink for anything coming the way of your Sterns as He'll still be a bigger threat, especially if you've got sterns have already popped their combi's

I tend to drop either of these guys in a pod in round one, with 2 full Stern squads as they work in synergy with them

The mortis can open up back or light armor and decimate a light or heavy infantry squad.

The CC monster is hell on wheels and relatively cheap and survivable.

They both draw allot of fire off your other units and tend to do allot of damage before they go down, and can go nuclear when they die to throw out even more damage.

There is just something about that bad boy dropping in on someones' doorstep that really makes them freak and focus fire on it, and really tends to put them on the back foot.

This would be especially nasty with an IH Contemptor matched to Crimson Fist Sterns.

 Inquisitor_Dunn wrote:
Dreadnoughts are not bad. It really is in how you use them. I regularly run an ironclad and a regular dread in drop pods with my other drop units. They give me a good anti tank shot the first turn and if not destroyed that turn, cause several problems for certain armies the second turn.

At 115-145 points they are really pretty cheap when compared to assault units. Dreads are my staple unit for getting rid of over watch when assaulting. Assault first with the dread. If they fire, good. if not lock them in combat and assault with the second unit.

I think Iron hand dreads will be scarey since I never loose a dread in one turn. It usually takes people 2-3 turns to kill them.

Don't believe the internet

If you are referring to assaulting with the non dread unit the next turn then please excuse me, otherwise the unit would get to fire over watch on your fragile unit.

Sigh pretty sure alot of people need to get the new FW Imperial Armor book. Can double check when I get home but you cannot assault from the FW drop pod anymore, and pretty sure the regular contemptor is not BS 5 anymore.

tiber55 wrote:
Sigh pretty sure alot of people need to get the new FW Imperial Armor book. Can double check when I get home but you cannot assault from the FW drop pod anymore, and pretty sure the regular contemptor is not BS 5 anymore.

You can't assault the turn it lands but you can sit in it for a turn benefiting from shrouding and creating a big block of terrain that provides shrouding if anything shoots through it, you can then proceed to assault the next turn (if they've been silly enough to leave things in assault range). Oh and you're correct on the contemptor BS.

 Crimson wrote:
So is the hurricane bolter totally stupid on Ironclad? I'd imagine that it would be rather good against infantry with it and heavy flamer, while being more resilient than standard dread.

It's on my list of things to try. The problem is that marine armies generally don't have a problem getting bolter fire on the table, so why waste an elite pick and a dread chassis on getting more?

It seems like it should play like an AV 13 tac squad. Unlike a tac squad, it helps with armor saturation, so in the right list could be helpful. But it can't hold objectives, and that's an issue.

 Homeskillet wrote:

 HerbaciousT wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
How about Contemptors? Are they worth their points?

From what I understand, yes.

They are beefed up in armour and I believe they have an invuln save? Plus, they have some awesome weapon options, and look kickass!

They have Skyfire as well, yeah? One of the FW ones does, anyway. Can't go wrong with AV13, Skyfire, AND looks bad ass!

Twin Kheres Assault Cannons + Cyclone Missile Launcher for the win. It only has skyfire and interceptor if it doesn't move, though.

tiber55 wrote:
Sigh pretty sure alot of people need to get the new FW Imperial Armor book. Can double check when I get home but you cannot assault from the FW drop pod anymore, and pretty sure the regular contemptor is not BS 5 anymore.

Which is the new one? 12? V3 2nd Ed?

I have a thesis that they are of some use to a DA standard of devastation gunline. With the fist and the venerable upgrade they can ward off MC's or tough infantry that come near your fortress of bolters to some extent, though you'd need to gang up on them in order to kill them. Mainly works to combat the sort units that get in your face too quickly to counter with sustained fire.

I haven't had the time to test it but I believe it could work.

I'm currently too lazy to go get my DA codex, but... I don't think Dark Angels have access to the ironclad... A shame, that could have been interesting.

I think the Rifleman Dread is getting sold a bit short on here. Mine is an auto-include for me. Four decent twin linked S7 shots on a model that is easy to hide in cover and can easily make good use of the 48" range. A big plus for my list in particular is the contribution to armor saturation. My Dread rarely dies and frequently puts good wounds on targets when I need it to.

Standard Dreads are definitely a specialist type unit now and need a specific purpose in your list, but with my list and play style they will continue to bring the Emperor's Fury to xenos and heretics alike.

I use two riflemen and one kheres contemptor in my list (without cml). They do their job every game. moving up the flanks they just cannot be ignored. And that means the rest of my list is freed up to do damage. Eight TL S7 shots and 12 S6 with rending a turn makes a mess of a lot of units.

Henshini wrote:
I really wish they'd done away with walkers altogether in this edition. They just don't seem to work.

I quite agree. I love dreads but find they underperform and often times not even manage that (non-perform?). I wish that they had just made them into MC's instead.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
what are the least stupid alternatives

'Counts as' centurions with TL LC and ML

GENIUS!

tiber55 wrote:
Sigh pretty sure alot of people need to get the new FW Imperial Armor book. Can double check when I get home but you cannot assault from the FW drop pod anymore, and pretty sure the regular contemptor is not BS 5 anymore.

I wasn't aware they'd FAQ'd that or that vol 11 or 12 of IA had. What book are the new rules in?

I agree w/ UltraTacSgt about Rifleman. I still get good value from them, and they're 5 points cheaper than they were before.

 Crimson wrote:
So plenty of people seem to like Ironclads. What weapon combinations do you usually use?

Heavy Flamer/Meltagun
x2 Magnetized HK Missiles, if I have spare points
Drop Pod

So I fielded a hurricane ironclad yesterday (full list here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/553126.page) My opponent was a tryanid player, mostly in pods with some HQs (flyrant, swarmlord) and genestealers starting on the table. I castled up in a corner, and spaced my bikes and the ironclad to minimize possible places for the stealers to infiltrate. The dread was off on one flank, anchoring it.

For the most part, I missed the assault cannon. The hurricane bolter was nice, and did rack up a nice kill tally. But I was basically shooting at optimal targets, and still got a "meh" feeling form it. Outside of 12" it's lackluster. For a unit of it's price, I want some more oomph. It has a very small presence on the battlefield. A pair of HKs would widen it's threat radius, but also bump the price up.

AV13 is nice, but we knew this. He spent most of the game taking apart a unit of stealers. First with shooting, then in CC. They needed to roll well to hurt him. But luck was also a factor for me as well. With only 2 attacks, the dice gods can be fickle. Sure, 5/6 times you hit you kill, but when you are only hitting 1/2 the time, that works out to maybe one kill a turn. Not the best odds for something billed as a combat machine. Admittedly, a normal dread would fare no better. When mulching troops the seismic hammer works just the same as a DCCW.

His eventual fate was to loose his last hull point to a brood lord on the top of turn 4. That bug was the last man of the swarm, who then dashed over to pull a land speeder out the the sky, and then got vaporized by the rest of my army.

I think he was worth fielding. I started him in woods, to prevent infiltrators, and then moved him out. Move through cover helped here. The extra AV mad him tougher, so I was OK starting him in an exposed flank without much support. The lack of firepower was disappointing. He wants to use the hammer on tanks, and all I gave him was little bugs, so his CC was average. I'm not sure of the points, but he accounted for 8-10 bugs himself, which seems OK. I'm going to call this experiment a moderate success. There were advantages and disadvantages, it would be diferent vs. other armies. I'm not sure if it was worth the extra points spent for the same level of performance. But it was fun, he looked cool doing it, and victory was mine.

Ironclad Dreadnoughts, Contemptor Dreadnoughts, and Psyfleman Dreadnoughts are pretty much the only Dreads that I would use right now. As others have been saying, AV12 usually just doesn't cut it, and a dreadnought's firepower has been getting less and less impressive over the years. Psyflemen are still in the running simply because they're still relatively cheap and put out S8 instead of S7, which matters quite a lot. AV13 makes Ironclads and Contemptors have enough survivability against the S6 and S7 that's so common right now, whereas AV12 is too fragile for their points cost.

I watched a game where the standard HF/Melta Hammer/DCCW Ironclad tarpitted a unit of Khorne Hounds the entire game. Due to poor dice he basically only got 1 kill or so the entire game, but that's still a tremendous value and efficiency to eliminate a dangerous, more expensive squad for the entire game at the cost of just 145 points and an elite slots.

Elites are no longer the highly contested slot they were in 5th due to so many old options like terminators being outclassed by the new power armies.

I like the seismic and cc, and 2 flamers.

I was playing an apocalypse game fairly recently and I had an Aquila Strongpoint at the back of the board. A space marine player dropped in an Ironclad in a pod and it charged it next turn, destroying it, so yeah, quite good.

I often field 4 Regular Dreads, 2 Asscan+SB, and 2 MM+HF.

Of course I play Sons of Medusa.

Ironclad in drop pod, bring 2 of them, get double heavy flamers. Next bring a squad of sternguard with 4-6 combi meltas, combat squad and take out as many transports as you can. Use the first iron clad to burn out infantry.

Next turn bring in the second one and just start clearing up that area of his deployment zone.

I love my ironclads.

There's a lot of discussion about the utility of dreads in general on this thread, which you may be interested in checking out.

Bottom line is that I have to agree that they aren't the greatest unit in the new codex. I think they are better than nothing if you are short on points in your lists as well as models to fill them, but until I manage to make that Iron Hands list actually produce something worthwhile, I'm going to have to give them a pass in normal play.