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Hullfury is dead on in every respect. I would only alter what he says by saying that, if you're tempted for some reason to take a Cyclone squad, take two TLLC/ML dreads instead.

Actually, in general I think dreads have a good place in a Deathwing list. They can be fragile, true, but people always shoot at them, they are always perceived as a threat and they always take pressure off of the terminator squads. Also a dread can do something terminator squads cannot: sweeping advance. Is this a critical element? No, but part of building a good Deathwing list is, in my opinion, flexibility.

That said, the one thing he didn't touch on was on HQ choice. I firmly believe that the Librarian is compulsory in a Deathwing list. The Grandmaster with Sword of Secrets is a distant second, and the Chaplain is never to be fielded alone in anything other than a 750 point or smaller game, and then only as a Reclusiarch.

Ezz

There is exactly one gun that is worth taking over an assault cannon - the twinlinked lascannon (and that only in certain circumstances).

In an army like this you can hardly afford to deny yourself rending guns. Anything that isn't both AP2 and tank killing is a waste of space. Assault cannons luckily have both of those in spades.

However, as adequate as deathwing assault cannon swarms are, the Lysander wing is infinitely better. So if you want to play terminators, do yourself a favor and buy a can of yellow spraypaint and some brown ink and get started.

I wouldn't paint them yellow just yet. Lets not forget that the Dark Angels codex is on the way.

Of course, with GW, that's not always a good thing...

Ezz

Posted By Longshot on 09/20/2006 12:47 AM

However, as adequate as deathwing assault cannon swarms are, the Lysander wing is infinitely better. So if you want to play terminators, do yourself a favor and buy a can of yellow spraypaint and some brown ink and get started.

Agreed. I have been playing Lysander wing alot lately, and it has a decisive sickness to it that the current DW  cannot touch.

The reason being is that you get more than three army selections to your army, while still being able to be predominatly made up of tactical dreadnought armor. As Ezzeran said, flexibilty is key. Being able to field elements such as landspeeders and lighter tanks like demolisher cannons is a good thing. Though, the drawbacks are the triats system in use. The imperial fist traits and drawbacks are not conducive to good game play, but it rarely becomes an issue.

Using scout snipers with teleport homers is getting quite annoying for my opponents.

Its too bad they didnt save this for a DA special character, as this would have been nearly perfect.

Posted By ezzeran on 09/20/2006 5:37 AM
I wouldn't paint them yellow just yet. Lets not forget that the Dark Angels codex is on the way.

Of course, with GW, that's not always a good thing...

Ezz

I hear that. I heard one rumor saying it wont be good for us DW players, but then again, how could GW turn away a perfectly good expensive 2000 point army to be a viable codex inclusion. I just cant be suprised by GW's actions anymore.

I bought my DW for the "easy factor". Easy to transport, deploy, assembley, etc. BUT, I paid a premium for it, even at a 40% discount. 10 boxes of termies is not cheap by any means.

ok just to run the numbers by you

i have been playing DW for several years and i have tried numerous variation-podding dreads, raiders etc...

i know 2 other DW players who min/max the way you highlight-one runs 2 chaplains in 2 5 man assault squads with FC and 4 regulars with 2 assault cannons each for 6 squads of 5, the other runs 5 5 man squads with 2 assault cannons and a librarian with retinue with 2 assault cannons-all with tank hunter(12 assault cannons for those who are counting).  while both armis are effective...and very cookie cutter. the main issue i have is that i do not play that way.

by the issues

10 man squads-

my original list of 3 10 man squads and a couple dreads worked well, i came in in the top 30 at the seattle GT(8 assault cannons in that list)

from my experience 5 man squads are worthless they die or go below half  to easily. 10 man squads also let me concentrait more fire and survive assaults eaiser as  well. i will always use 10 man squads if i can.

the assault squad-

first it is not the only big squad i have-the command squad is also a 10 man unit. the only reason the others are not is because they need to fit into pods. they are the sacrificial  lambs used to get my teleport homer close to the enemy for when my assault squad comes in......when it works, it works very well.

secondly, after being on the recieving end of most CC units from other armies i find normal terminators lacking in survivability due to thier I1 powerfist. sure it's great when it hits and ithas high strength but that does me little good when the unit is all dead beacuse i have to wait to swing.

a 10 man asssault squad also tends to scare the crap outa the enemy especially things like guard with camoline(who i play against quite often) who get an uber cover save making assault cannons no different than a bolter.. an assault squad can seriously hurt them where shooting at them only gives them a better save.

the command squad retinue

as you noted my command squad has furious charge. it does so for a specific reason-the librarian. he cannot take a different vet skill than the squad and it wolud be worthless with tank hunter as it fails to take advantage of his higher intiative. the assault cannons doo well enough on thier own but now the librarian goes at I6 and S5 on the charge with 5 attacks and a force weapon. thus making furious charge something useful for him and by extention his retinue to have.

 

the list as i have it has been very effective. i win games even with very few models on the table because my units are so big, high points cost and resliant.

 

if i were to run all my deathwing models minus the land raiders i would have nothing but 10 man squads-40 terminators-2 in 10 man squads with assault cannons, my 10 man retnue with assault cannons, librarian and my 10 man assault squad, plus my 2 dreads in pods (one venerable with tank hunter). at 2,600 points.

As a note, against guard in Camo, the AC is still really good. It has a high rate of fire and wounds on 2's.

That is the glory of it, it is good against almost any target you can come up with.

Posted By Lewzor The Grate on 08/11/2006 10:13 AM
Assault cannons without tank hunters match or beat cyclones with TH in every category.  Including averaging three times more penetrating hits against AV14.  I'm willing to tolerate higher variance in return for such an advantage in means, and the greater effectiveness against infantry.  The only genuine advantage of cyclones is the range, but assault cannons have an effective range of 30" which isn't bad.

I would never discount the power of extra range.  It means that you get significantly more shots off per game than with shorter ranged weapons.  More importantly, however, is the fact that the farther away from the enemy you are, the less they can shoot at you.  Sure the effective range of the assault cannon is 30 since you can move up, but don't forget that the actual range is 24.  That means that if you can shoot at the enemy, they can shoot back.  With so few models in your army, you can only afford so much return fire.  I would recomend keeping some cyclones in the army for early tank busting.  Once you get the big lascannon (and similar weapon) platforms down, then move in with the assault cannons and mop up.  I wouldn't go in before that.

I too still like a coule cyclone launchers on my terminators. Since they still keep their storm bolters and powerfists they can shoot a frag missile and two shots from a storm bolter. Good against gaurdsmen, guants, and anything with a swarm base.

why would you want to shoot a S4 blast template against a swarm and score multiple S4 wounds, instead of simply instakilling it with assault cannons?

Why don't you math out what 2 storm bolter shots and a cyclone blast template with 2 hits and 3 partials does vs. what an assault cannon does, to:
1) Scarab swarms and ripper swarms
2) IG

And tell me who wins.

Hmm. 2 hits and 3 partials off of a small blast? That's awfullly generous.
Should go for maybe 2-3 wounds of IG, 4-6 scarabs with the surprising amount under the template..
The AC goes for about the same, except 2-3 stands (6-9 wounds) of scarabs instead of plinking wounds off.

Range is a non-issue when every squad can deep strike.

I'm sorry, but there's just no good justification for paying for a weapon that costs more and is less effective. I won't even get into the wasted firepower of the storm bolters.

The bottom line is that if you feel you must have 48" range weapons in a Deathwing list, dreads are your unit of choice. You can field two TLLC/ML dreads for about the cost of a cyclone squad, and that accomplishes your goal of getting long range, tank busting weapons in the list, if you so choose. In fact, you get twice as many, and you specialize a bit. It's a win win. Cyclone's are just plain inferior.

Ezz

Well I was trying to be extra generous

Realistically it's more like 1 and 2 partials or 1 and 3 partials vs. IG.

You're not a dakka toughguy if you're not maxing out on assault cannons.

I would love to redo my deathwing with the new termies, but hell, 50 a box, I'd need 5 boxes, and then I'd need to come up with 5 extra assault cannons...no thanks. Tiny termies work for me.

I'd just remake an assault cannon (maybe glue three hellguns together and BAM you have an assault cannon)

Anyways, Statistically assault cannons are the best gun in the game because they fire 4 times, hit 60% of the time and when they roll a six they either outright wound an enemy or they double up on penetration on rolls, SO if you give your terminators tank hunts, thats a S7 gun with 2d6,.

That is essentially a melta gun with more shots and better range. seems like the Assault cannon is the way to go.

Deathwing armies are certainly a finesse army, you need at least one land raider if you bring assault marines, maybe more if you need to. Dreadnaughts, it is smart to make one venerable, extra armor, tank hunters and Lascannon missle launcher combo.

I might pod in my terminators to make sure they come in safe (get rid of the homers if you have the pods). Also, i'd bring a chaplain in terminator armor with your assault marines, being able to re-roll missed hits when in assault is BEYOND awesome.

Posted By ezzeran on 09/20/2006 7:10 PM
Range is a non-issue when every squad can deep strike.

I'm sorry, but there's just no good justification for paying for a weapon that costs more and is less effective. I won't even get into the wasted firepower of the storm bolters.

The bottom line is that if you feel you must have 48" range weapons in a Deathwing list, dreads are your unit of choice. You can field two TLLC/ML dreads for about the cost of a cyclone squad, and that accomplishes your goal of getting long range, tank busting weapons in the list, if you so choose. In fact, you get twice as many, and you specialize a bit. It's a win win. Cyclone's are just plain inferior.

Ezz

Ezzeran speakes the truth.

For the price of one minimum sized squad of termies with tankhunting and cylcones costs 290.
You get:

• 2 strength 9 shots

For two dreads with TLL/ML (one of which in venerable and has tankhunter) costs 300.
You get:

• 1 twin linked strength 10 shot

• 1 twin linked strength 9 shot

• 1 strength 9 shot

• 1 strength 8 shot

Dreadnought = mo bettuh dakka.

You get far better fire superiority than when using cyclones. The only advantage that the termies have is cardinal rule #1. More wounds, and thus a bit better surviviability.

But when considering that these both are for tank busting, then you realize that after the dreads are done firing, you wont have targets left to fire at, so survivability is a moot point.

These dreads are for throw away purposes and fit the bill nicely. Dont think of them as holy reliquaries for lost bretheren, think of them as robots.

This also removes the need to add tank hunting to the termie squads.

How can you say that cyclones are better when faced with these overwhelming facts? 8)

Posted By ezzeran on 09/20/2006 7:10 PM
Range is a non-issue when every squad can deep strike.

This is already not true with skimmer-heavy Eldar armies.  I have no problem standing off 31" from AC terminators with my falcons and plinking them with starcannons and pulse lasers where they can't shoot back.  Expect the situation to become more common after the new codex Eldar.

The one problem that Assault Cannons can't address: how do I shoot that tank that's 25" away?

Indeed, even the triple lascannon predators will make the walking assualt cannon terminators pay...there are times when deepstriking close is not an option (due to say the mission being played)

also the fast skimemrs will cause problems. It is not fun to give an autowin to those eldar....

That said how do you fit all that into a 1500pts list?

What I was looking at was:

Epistory librarian with Fear/fury
Termy command squad with 2 assualt cannons

5 man termy squad with 2 assualt cannons (homer)
5 man termy squad with 2 assualt cannons (homer)
5 man termy squad with 2 assualt cannons

Assualt cannon dread
Assualt cannon dread
Assualt cannon dread

Nice and simple but really leaves you out with your pants down without those tllc/rokket dreads.

Posted By Flavius Infernus on 09/21/2006 7:09 AM

Posted By ezzeran on 09/20/2006 7:10 PM
Range is a non-issue when every squad can deep strike.

This is already not true with skimmer-heavy Eldar armies.  I have no problem standing off 31" from AC terminators with my falcons and plinking them with starcannons and pulse lasers where they can't shoot back.  Expect the situation to become more common after the new codex Eldar.

The one problem that Assault Cannons can't address: how do I shoot that tank that's 25" away?

Entirely incorrect.  Well, if your opponents have half a brain anyways. 
If there ever was any army that was tailor made for taking down skimmer fleets, it was godzilla nids.  But Termies are a close second.
Particularly with pods.   Even nearly invulnerable Falcons will be hurting after taking 2 ACs and 4 Stormbolters to the rear armor.   Actually, you can nearly double up on each one, so for two of your falcons they are taking 2 more ACs, and possibly squeezing in the other 4 Stormbolters on your rear armor as well.
The Falcons will at minimum be not firing, and could quite possibly have been immobilized or have weapons blown off.  If they are immobilized they will die next turn, and if you get all the weapons, you can safely eliminate the rest of the army with ease, considering how much the ACs and even Stormbolters excel against Eldar.

This isn't even including the invariable dreads with Heavy Flamers baking squads, or the TLLC&ML tank hunters which can add fire.

As for missions where deep striking is not in play, perhaps you might just want to read the rules before posting.
Also, I am not 100% sure, but if you run the numbers, and have the termies walking from deployment line until they get in range, they should beat out the triple Las Pred.

Happy, do you play drop pod marines? How are you getting rear armor shots on those falcons?

All the eldar player has to do is park his falcon with the rear facing a board edge and he's going to deny you rear armor shots (as well as minimize the safe locations for you to land). You'll no doubt get 1 turn of shooting against it (maybe 2 turns if you land really close to it) but it won't be against rear armor.

If you fail to destroy or immobilize it then the eldar player can then proceed to stay out of AC range as Flavius mentions above.

That doesn't make much sense. If the skimmer's got its butt against the board edge, and you drop or teleport in front of it, and a skimmer moves 24", and a termie can move and shoot 30", how is it going to fly out of range of the assault cannons? He can't move away, because he's at the board edge, so he has to move towards the termies or sideways. So how is he going to get further than 30" with 24" movement and he can't move away? I guess if it moves behind terrain, but then what do the assault cannons' range have to do with anything?

I agree that fast skimmers would be a bad matchup for footslogging termies, but that particualr scenario doesn't my brain.

2 ACs against AV12=0.88 glancing hits, this number doubles if you have tank hunter but with the halofield and spirit stones there is still a decent chance that that tank is firing on you or at the very least turbo boosting 24" away the very next turn... (unless the opponent is cocky and just decides to move the 12" and fire on you)

Rear armour shots are nice but considering they are fast skimmers the opponent can afford to hug the table edges to prevent you from hitting the rear and the side armour is still 12.

Tank hunting assualt cannons are about the best weapons around for killing the skimmers but you are still paying 50pts per termy and the falcon is still rather hard to kill....

Scatter is also a danger in some cases.



Well if I was commanding said tank I would take the 3 lascannon shots the first 2 turns while I am safe then just fall back the 6" and fire the tl lascannon the following turns.... (so when are you getting in range exactly?)



Yea....I still cant find where it says that deepstriking will always be beneficial for the mission......
common sense tells me it wont always be the case but hei....I guess if it actaully says so in the book somewhere.....

I'm not sure where this discussion is heading exactly, but I'll try to bring it back into some cohesive form here, since I thought we were talking about Cyclone's versus Assault Cannons. I'll reiterate what I said. If you want 48" range firepower, there are better options than a cyclone squad. Even if you consider the dreads somehow more fragile, that's fine. if the dread takes a turn of firepower that would normally be allocated against a terminator squad, I'm ok with that. That leaves more 2+ save wounds to hold an objective, which dreads don't do nearly as well.

Now, if we're talking about skimmers and such, it's a separate discussion. Skimmer armies are tough for Deathwing to deal with as a general rule. But that's ok, since the starcannon is getting the nerf bat.

It's really great that we're talking about all these generalized, unrealistic scenarios over range and a battlefield with unknown terrain. A Falcon, or even multiple falcon's, are just a factor in the equation that needs to be dealt with. For that matter, these assumed, clear 31" firelanes are also amusing, since any Deathwing player worth his salt will be hugging terrain as much as possible, deep strike or no. That goes for the three las pred too. Are you kidding? Heavy support goes on the table first. If it's got such a good firing position that it can shoot all the live long game, of course I deep strike.

But I don't want to fuel more useless speculation. Lets control what we can control, and that's the weapons we select. Statistically I like what the assault cannon brings to the table. If range is a concern for you, you've got other options.

Ezz

Posted By vsurma on 09/21/2006 2:29 PM
2 ACs against AV12=0.88 glancing hits, this number doubles if you have tank hunter but with the halofield and spirit stones there is still a decent chance that that tank is firing on you or at the very least turbo boosting 24" away the very next turn... (unless the opponent is cocky and just decides to move the 12" and fire on you)

Rear armour shots are nice but considering they are fast skimmers the opponent can afford to hug the table edges to prevent you from hitting the rear and the side armour is still 12.

Tank hunting assualt cannons are about the best weapons around for killing the skimmers but you are still paying 50pts per termy and the falcon is still rather hard to kill....

Scatter is also a danger in some cases.

Also, I am not 100% sure, but if you run the numbers, and have the termies walking from deployment line until they get in range, they should beat out the triple Las Pred.

Well if I was commanding said tank I would take the 3 lascannon shots the first 2 turns while I am safe then just fall back the 6" and fire the tl lascannon the following turns.... (so when are you getting in range exactly?)

As for missions where deep striking is not in play, perhaps you might just want to read the rules before posting.

Yea....I still cant find where it says that deepstriking will always be beneficial for the mission......
common sense tells me it wont always be the case but hei....I guess if it actaully says so in the book somewhere.....

The reason you can't find it is because the mistake was mine in reading your post.  Thought you were saying the mission didn't allow it, not that it was ill advisable (though I can't think of many missions that you would want to drop on the objective, as opposed to dropping when you could do the most damage, then walking to the objective)

For the Falcon, I hadn't done the math.  Damn.  Nearly the best falconkillers in the game still don't do that well against it.  That Falcon is damnably insane. Less than 1 glancing roll per squad! 
Though admittably, I think the cyclone would do much, much worse.

As for the Pred, it should be 36" away at the start of the game (if deployed at the very back of the board.)
Move up 12" over two turns would put it in range.  Of course, the idea of a triple las pred gunning across an open table for a duel with termies is pretty far fetched in general.  I mean, really, who takes triple las preds?

Tankhunting assault cannons on terminators are useless against falcons. Freaking useless once the new codex comes out and you can't stun them.

You'll shake it, it'll fly 24" out of range and then you're screwed. Yay.

Hellfury's already said a lot of what I would have, so I'll just 'ditto' his comments.

Posted By Longshot on 09/21/2006 6:25 PM
Tankhunting assault cannons on terminators are useless against falcons. Freaking useless once the new codex comes out and you can't stun them.

You'll shake it, it'll fly 24" out of range and then you're screwed. Yay.

Or the Prisms with the same survivabillity, and ability to put a serous hurting on any unit that deepstrikes from up to 60" out... but I digress.

I haven't read through the whole thread, so forgive me if this has been covered already.  I noticed that someone had asked for how the stats for the AC's were tabulated.  Didn't notice anyone else stepping through it, so here's the answer in case it hasn't been covered.

Obviously, the desire is to get a rending hit vs any armor as this gives you an effective 'strength 12' hit (or, 13 if you're a tankhunter).  So, in order to find what the average number of rending hits is, we look to the following formula:

One assault cannon: 4 shots x 2/3 chance to hit = 8/3 hits

8/3 hits x 1/6 chance to rend vs armor = 8/18, or 4/9 chance to rend

Seeing as how you've got 2 assault cannons per squad, this gives us a total chance of 8/9 to get a rending result when firing at an armored target. (roughly an 89% chance per volley).

Not certain odds, but a good sight better than most in the game.

Easy. Two turns of movement, one of which would probably need to be 24-36" and that is ignoring terrain or pods blocking LOS (one thing about drop pods, they can work against you when facing a fast army).

The reason we are talking about somewhat unrealistic scenarios is that deathwing is a decent army against most...its the ones that might cause trouble that we want to discuss....see if others have good tactics against the nemesis armies... nothing wrong with that.

Personally I love what the assualt cannon does (esp with tank hunter) but I feel that it is worth having a few longer range guns in the army aswell...

That said this thread has convinced me to go with dreads for this task rather than termies...although against certain armies the dreads are terrible vulnurable while the dreads are not...

Tau's railguns kill a single terminator almost as easily as they kill a dread!

The enemy now has GOOD targets for their S7-8 ap3-4 weapons while before they where shooting rather innefectively against 2+ save termies.

Rocket-autocannon Havoc squads will tear dreads a new one while termies will walk right through...

Tyranid Venom Cannons and Barbed stranglers will easily take out dreads while terminators hardly care....

Also the fact that any glance will stop the dread from firing while the terminators would continue firing is worth considering.... While dreads do bring more antitank power to the table, will they actually be firing with more power after turn 1?

Posted By vsurma on 09/21/2006 11:47 PM
... this thread has convinced me to go with dreads for this task rather than termies...although against certain armies the dreads are terrible vulnurable while the dreads are not...

Tau's railguns kill a single terminator almost as easily as they kill a dread!

The enemy now has GOOD targets for their S7-8 ap3-4 weapons while before they where shooting rather innefectively against 2+ save termies.

Rocket-autocannon Havoc squads will tear dreads a new one while termies will walk right through...

Tyranid Venom Cannons and Barbed stranglers will easily take out dreads while terminators hardly care....

Also the fact that any glance will stop the dread from firing while the terminators would continue firing is worth considering.... While dreads do bring more antitank power to the table, will they actually be firing with more power after turn 1?

I see your point on this. Your point is fire superiority versus survivabilty when concerning the firepower.

Well this is all true, but you really do have to take it a step further and think about how long these things will be needed here.

As I stated earlier, Termies do have the advantage of better survivabilty, but is it neccesary? I have my doubts.

Most often the job is done for the dreads and they have out lived their usefullness. Unless youre going against an armored company, the need to keep them around past three turns isnt high.

Where dreadnoughts fail in survivability, termies with cyclones fail in firepower. In this case, it is balanced out. You take the choices according to your needs/style of play.

I would much rather win with a couple units on the table as opposed to losing with alot of units on the table myself.