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I use a heavy bolter on my scout squad. Really, thinking more about it, if you have any chance to take a heavy weapon and you're not, you probably might as well take a heavy bolter on it. Even on the move, I don't think they'd ever come out worse than a regular bolter would.

Thoughts on rapier quad heavy bolters? Unless I’m missing something, it’s 86 points for 12 shots at 48” at BS3+.

 Marmatag wrote:
Heavy Bolters lack the volume of dice to be impactful. If you could take them on extremely low cost models and in great quantity, they'd be amazing.

The best source of heavy bolter equivalent right now are Inceptors. They pump out 6 dice each, for a total of 18 for the minimum squad.

I think it's a good weapon. if you could take them on 9ppm models they'd be fantastic. 10 heavy bolters for 190 points is not bad. It'd be 30 strength 5 ap-1 dice, hitting on 3s with access to rerolls, at 36".

So yeah. Good weapon, generally bad platforms.

high numbers like tyranid warriors or guards teams?

Or SOB Rets, its a 9pt model in a 5man unit that can take 4 of them. Its 85pts for 4 HB's with a 45pt HQ to re-roll 1's aura.

You can have a Spearhead detachment for 300pts
Canoness
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's

12 HB's, 36 HB shots, re-roll 1's


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or, 630pts

Canoness 45
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
Rets x5: x4 HB's
ADL

24 HB's: 72 shots, re-roll 1's 2+ armor

I run my devastator squad with 2 lascannons and 2 heavy bolters. I include an ancient near by so when they try to remove my lascannons I can pull a heavy bolter as a wound, roll to give him one final shot, and with the relic on a 3+ fire another set of hell fire rounds on my opponents turn.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Thoughts on rapier quad heavy bolters? Unless I’m missing something, it’s 86 points for 12 shots at 48” at BS3+.

Unfortunately the 48" range is almost certainly a typo. Some rapier quad bolters have 36" range in various places.

You got to wonder why tarantulas got a 10 point increase.
Heavy bolters are the catch all gun you can fire at basically anything without feeling too bad about it.

It is just sad that it got a buff as anti MEQ tool which it is imho not intended to be used against while GEQ survivability got increased significantly.

8th is just a bad time to be a marine.

Devs I would run two squads of. Each with 1 plasma cannon, 2 lascannons and 1 heavy bolter while the other squad replaces the HB for a ML to maximize the stratagem usage.

Heavy bolters are also useful to keep vehicles cheap. LRBT without sponsons make zero sense due to HBs being almost a nobrainer.

I think its probably the twin assault cannon tarantula that incurred the pts rise. Problem with not having individualised points costs now is ypu either up all twin assault cannons (which may be balanced on other more expensive platforms) or up all tarantulas makeing the less efficient weapons systems bad choices.

U02dah4 wrote:
I think its probably the twin assault cannon tarantula that incurred the pts rise. Problem with not having individualised points costs now is ypu either up all twin assault cannons (which may be balanced on other more expensive platforms) or up all tarantulas makeing the less efficient weapons systems bad choices.

Shouldn't price hike then been on assault cannons? Why list price of weapons on back if you can't just fix the weapons cost?

 ph34r wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Thoughts on rapier quad heavy bolters? Unless I’m missing something, it’s 86 points for 12 shots at 48” at BS3+.

Unfortunately the 48" range is almost certainly a typo. Some rapier quad bolters have 36" range in various places.

Certainly possible, wouldn’t be the first typo. Though at this point, consistent in my index and thus far unchanged, as far as I’m aware.

tneva82 wrote:
Shouldn't price hike then been on assault cannons? Why list price of weapons on back if you can't just fix the weapons cost?

Didn't this very thing already happen in Chapter Approved?

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tneva82 wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
I think its probably the twin assault cannon tarantula that incurred the pts rise. Problem with not having individualised points costs now is ypu either up all twin assault cannons (which may be balanced on other more expensive platforms) or up all tarantulas makeing the less efficient weapons systems bad choices.

Shouldn't price hike then been on assault cannons? Why list price of weapons on back if you can't just fix the weapons cost?

If you did that you would effect a number of other models that take assault cannons that dont need a pts increase and you might find that lowering there base pts value to compensate would make other choices on those models to effective. Its why the way they write datasheets in 7th where the costs could be individually tailored to the model was better.

 daedalus wrote:
I use a heavy bolter on my scout squad. Really, thinking more about it, if you have any chance to take a heavy weapon and you're not, you probably might as well take a heavy bolter on it. Even on the move, I don't think they'd ever come out worse than a regular bolter would.

You also get the nice Hellfire Round Stratagem for some opportunistic Mortal Wounds with the Heavy Bolter. A nice bonus.

OT - flakk strat is Great versus Smash Brothers.

I am a big fan of Inceptors with Assault Bolters, they're wonderful for spreading wounds like crazy or evaporating a unit on entry, probably the only unit I'd use with max models and no upgraded weapons.
Heavy Bolters need mobility to be truly effective, problem is movement also degrades the ability to shoot with the things on just about every platform.

I love the heavy bolter because it's cheap and puts out a decent volume of fire with some AP to it.

It shaves off wounds of things barely alive, softens up targets for me to charge, and helps me get another -1 to leaderships. It also does nicely against hordes. I usually bring 2 long fangunits with them for the free re-rolling 1s and just the fire support is always nice.

Dont get me wrong though, theyre not anti-tank and will not substitude for a missile launcher, or lascannon.

Overall, worth it for the points.

I feel Heavy bolters would be better if you could take more of them and on platforms that don't have better options.

For example, Razorbacks and Predators will rarely have HBs because you want to maximize their potential, meaning you'll likely go for Twin Assault cannons and Lascannons in most cases.
Devs are similar. You want them to have Lascannons & Missiles. Maybe 1-2 with HB for extra wounds, but if the intent is for them to die first, then you aren't getting the most out of the HBs.

Inceptors are the only platform that has enough of them to be useful and those technically aren't HBs
If you could take 2 HBs per 5 Tactical Marines, that could be interesting. But only 1 per 5 is kinda pointless. May as well spend 3 more pts on another Marine.

I like the HB profile a lot. I just don't think the platforms you can take them on are really suited for HBs.

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 Galef wrote:
I feel Heavy bolters would be better if you could take more of them and on platforms that don't have better options.

For example, Razorbacks and Predators will rarely have HBs because you want to maximize their potential, meaning you'll likely go for Twin Assault cannons and Lascannons in most cases.
Devs are similar. You want them to have Lascannons & Missiles. Maybe 1-2 with HB for extra wounds, but if the intent is for them to die first, then you aren't getting the most out of the HBs.

Inceptors are the only platform that has enough of them to be useful and those technically aren't HBs
If you could take 2 HBs per 5 Tactical Marines, that could be interesting. But only 1 per 5 is kinda pointless. May as well spend 3 more pts on another Marine.

I like the HB profile a lot. I just don't think the platforms you can take them on are really suited for HBs.

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I basically agree with this.

But I think the main problem with HB is the fact that imperium factions can already spam two other anti infantry weapons that are more efficent pointwise, which are twin assault cannons and stormbolters. Without those, HB could have been a very good tool.

I play SW and I assembled a unit of long fangs with HBs because I loved how they look but how do I play them competitively? I can have bikers with stormbolters or even wolf guard with stormbolters to deal with infantries. And razorbacks with twin assault cannons. I appreciate the HBs only when I use the stormwolf, which has 4 heavy bolters in its cheapest loadout and keeping the flyer cheap is currently the only way to field it. It's definitely a good weapon (and I really wish big shootas were AP-1 as well) but when you can make use of more efficient options for the same role I don't see any real advantage in brining some of them in an optimized list.

It's much harder to get twin assault cannons than heavy bolters, though.

Also you can get a good amount of Heavy Bolters via Taratula Sentry Turrets. Even with the price increase in Chapter Approved they're still on 37 points.

platforms that can take a lot of HB are great. Like the fire raptor with 8 HB. Those are the kinds of numbers of HB you need to do meaningful damage.

The Heavy Bolter isn't a bad weapon, at all. It doesn't work well on an infantry platform though.

Since you pointed out "every edition" I can jump in on this one!!!!








I ran a Devastator squad for almost the entirety of 3rd,, the entirety of 4th, and the few games of 5th I played that had 4 heavy bolters. At 135 pts. on average, it always made its points back. Even against MEQ armies. Large volume of fire, decent Strength, good AP against light units. Was always a great unit to use. And if it didn't kill its points worth, its first salvo drew much attention towards it, which broke up their assault, and they STILL made their points back by assisting.

I may be repeating other posts but HBs are good for their cost but if you have the points spare anyone would spend a little more.