Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Is a five man Devastator sqad(possibly more for ablative wounds) a good choice for heavy support. I run codex marines.

it depends on what you give them, and what level of competitiveness you play at.

Giving them expensive weapons like lascannons isn't a good idea, nor is short range options like MM. But MLs aren't a bad call, for 150 you get 4 and a sarg.

I wouldn't run them in a competitive list though, foot slogging is how you die, and their are more efficient options available.

Compare to what you can take? Yes. Vindicators are king, Predators have their uses and even the oft-overlooked TFC is a great piece. On the more expensive side you have Land Raiders, but need I say more? Whirlwinds are commonly egarded as pretty terrible, though.

well for me it would depend on the rest of the list and how they would sync up with everything else...overall though i prefer vindis as my #1 choice with lr and preds fighting for second. they just have a better survival rate over devs...but i dont depend on them alone. and they are generally cheaper for doing pretty much the same job if not better than any dev set-up

of course this also depends on your playstyle as you may have more sucess with them than anyone else that has posted here...just gotta test them out to see how they do

Vindicators are the King of heavy support, but i prefer the Whirlwind. It can deal with anyone hiding behind cover, and has superior range, and makes anyone you are trying to keep in the same place too scared to come out of their hole

Nantuoko

I wouldnt go for devastators... the vindicator is IMO the most effecient heavy support option for marines but I feel like on the whole heavy support isnt where they shine. My pick for delivering heavy weapons is....the land speeder.

between their multi meltas and heavy flamers they can engage any target. If you throw vulkan in there they really hit hard. Trust me people will learn to respect your land speeders after a few games of getting clobbered by them. But you have to run a pretty large number to get the job done...

Alot of marine players cant get past the av 10.... but its really not that different from a land raider.... here's my argument: to kill a land raider with say a lascannons you have to roll 4 times: to hit, to penetrate armor, to get past cover, on the damage table. of those rolls the only one thats different in the case of the land speeder is penetrating the armor. So the land speeder is really pretty resilient. A single lascannon only has mb a 1 in 10 chance of downing it if its in cover. the other thing I feel alot of marine players overlook is that av 10 doesnt matter if their heavy weapons are dead. Prioritize the things that are threatening to the land speeders and they will live. Its a high risk high reward strategy but hey.... no guts no glory
AF

I see what you mean. The more aggresive you are with them, the better they can be. So the devs should just be left for the longfangs? Oh well. *sigh* Gotta get some vindicators...boo

I'm going to run a five-man Devastator squad in a Razorback. Four lascannons in the squad, plus a twin-linked lascannon on the razorback should improve my chances of cracking Land Raiders, in other words, anything on the table.

Yeah, I always take three vindicators and a land raider redeemer for my heavy support. The last obviously not being a "heavy support" option.

Devestators are good enough dependant on the list. Vindicators trump them as long as you play offensively though.

It really does depend on what your list looks like. The one thing that Devs have is that they can deliver the most heavy weapons. The most popular setup is the 4X RL's as it is the most versatile choice. Personally, I want to try 4X MM and a rhino in case terrain is really against me. That is a 24 inch no vehicle zone, and 12 inch suicide zone for armor.

If you do run Devs, don't go all LC's. They cost too much. If you want LC's on infantry put them in your tac squads and combat squad. Much cheaper that way.

Devs can be more survivable than tanks if tossed up in a ruin. You can run a full dev squad and combat squad to engage multiple targets.

I don't know if you could call a whirlwind 'terrible'...
I mean it's extremely cheap and will really hurt a hoard army. I use to neglect my whirlwind a lot but in my last few games it's earned those kill marking I painted on the side!

I think the real disadvantage of the whirlwind is that it is only really good against light infantry. I won't call it terrible. If your local meta game is mostly nidz, foot orkz, or horde guard, then whirlwinds would be great.

Well, a 5 men Dev unit has (almost) no ablative wounds.
By the way, I'd outfit them with missile launchers.

If the Dev's are low at the enemy's target prior schedule, they might survive for a while.
However, outflankers or infiltrators might threaten them.

I'd drop the idea to field a Dev unit.

IMO the best Space Marine antitank choices are in the fast and troop slots: speeders, bikes with multimeltas, or tac squads with meltas. Any antitank unit you try to buy in a heavy support slot is either way more expensive (predators with lascannons) or way less effective and durable (vindicators) or both (devastators).

Use your heavy support slots for the abundant and cheap anti-horde firepower--AC/HB preds and whirlwinds. Buy your antitank fire in the troop and fast slots. Doing that gets you both more guns and more effective firepower.

Flavius Infernus wrote:IMO the best Space Marine antitank choices are in the fast and troop slots: speeders, bikes with multimeltas, or tac squads with meltas. Any antitank unit you try to buy in a heavy support slot is either way more expensive (predators with lascannons) or way less effective and durable (vindicators) or both (devastators).

Use your heavy support slots for the abundant and cheap anti-horde firepower--AC/HB preds and whirlwinds. Buy your antitank fire in the troop and fast slots. Doing that gets you both more guns and more effective firepower.

Well good thing we're just discussing all 'round heavy support units eh?

Vindicators can smash through armor if there are no better targets. Devestators need to take extra for extra wounds, which makes them begin to be OTT.

Well, I would contend that a vindicator isn't good at anti-infantry *or* antitank, but I think I've had that conversation recently.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Well, I would contend that a vindicator isn't good at anti-infantry *or* antitank, but I think I've had that conversation recently.

*Ahem* would you care to have that conversation again? Since I take three of them for my heavy support to amazing effect, so long as I don't let them get my side armor.

Alot of people in this thread have also called vindicators "the king of heavy support" for space marines.

Yeah, I was surprised that so many people like vindicators so much. Okay the conversation goes like this:

Me: they have the worst possible combination of side armor and short range. They are effectively suicide units, because in closing to range for your one shot, you expose your side armor and get killed next turn.

Everybody else: "But you protect the side armor with other models!" "But you take two or three vindicators!" "But they're a fire magnet!" "But nothing else can hurt a monolith!" "But you can kill a bunch of deepstriking terminators if they don't run!"

Me: These are all techniques that don't work well against experienced players. Experienced players know better than to shoot at the vindicator fire magnets--you just sit back out of their range and wait until they expose their side armor, then take em out with short-range shots or assault them. Experienced players know vindicators aren't very accurate, so you can eat a shot (or three) and expect it do to nothing about 50% of the time. Experienced players know that infantry standing in the open within 30" of a vindicator need to be dispersed in cover, so that it will kill--at best--one or two models (but more likely none) thus leaving itself open to the side-killshot or assault the following turn. Experienced players know to run their terminators upon landing if there's a vindicator in the area. When you shoot at a monolith, you're shooting at a fire magnet yourself. You should be shooting warriors, and experienced players know when not to waste shots on obvious decoys.

Everybody else: "But this one time my vindicator took out Vulkan/Lysander/six harpies/ten terminators/Cthulu!"

Me: Yep, and my three dakka predators take out that guy--not just one time--but every single time. Or I kill them with heavy weapons that are in my fast/troop slots, that I bought with the hundreds of points I saved by not buying vindicators.

If vindicators were such good all-arounders, I would think you'd see more chaos players taking them. Chaos more than anybody could use a really good all-around mobile heavy weapon besides obliterators. But I see defilers more often than vindis.

Agreed. Predator Destructors might seem less impressive, but for how cheap they are they put out a lot of firepower, and more consistently at that.

So, when we are talking landspeeders, are we talking like MM and HF speeders?

Hvy Marine support well Vindicators do rock large blast raduis hard hitting and just scary in yuor opponent is mainly infantry but against another Marine or Tao force they target the big vehicles first for points. My advice is take a few hunter killer missiles if your enemy is vehicle hvy to equal the odds. Las cannon and missile launchers are the main armor penatrators but you also forget multi-meltas and sniper rifles can also take out vehicles. Those sneaky Necrons failed to notice my devistator squad had 2 multi-meltas with them and landed there Pyramid a tad to close and boom was destroyed upon landing. Power weapons are great up close dont forget them as my assualt troops use them against vehicles. Deep Strike or Infiltration can cause even a hvy tank army like Imperial guard or Tao to think twice about using armor. If yor a marine based army the secret of winning is always move foward attack...attack attack.

So basically you were lucky enough to roll a 6 on the armor pen vs. a monolith with the multi-melta...as you don't get the 2D6 but only at the AP1.

Power weapons do nothing against vehicles.

Deepstrike yes, infiltrate no.

The secret to the Marine army is in fact the Fast Attack choices and Hamminators.....

LordWynne wrote:Hvy Marine support well Vindicators do rock large blast raduis hard hitting and just scary in yuor opponent is mainly infantry but against another Marine or Tao force they target the big vehicles first for points. My advice is take a few hunter killer missiles if your enemy is vehicle hvy to equal the odds. Las cannon and missile launchers are the main armor penatrators but you also forget multi-meltas and sniper rifles can also take out vehicles. Those sneaky Necrons failed to notice my devistator squad had 2 multi-meltas with them and landed there Pyramid a tad to close and boom was destroyed upon landing. Power weapons are great up close dont forget them as my assualt troops use them against vehicles. Deep Strike or Infiltration can cause even a hvy tank army like Imperial guard or Tao to think twice about using armor. If yor a marine based army the secret of winning is always move foward attack...attack attack.

With a MM you will average a destroyed result vs a Monolith roughly 1 time out of 50. You were simpply lucky. That does not make MM devastators a good choice.

As for the whole debate, The ACLC Pred is my prefered heavy choice. Roughly one poped/imobilized/stunned AV 11 transport per turn is pretty nice for an Av13 from 48" range 120pts unit.

^ Yes, cost effective and decent role for anti-transport, hvy armor threat, and MC killability.

I view the Vindi is more of a bully.
Not a huge threat but annoying and does best to 'push people around' my meaning being it denies clumping up (which is something one shouldn't do in general) and it does offer some area control, but its issues are many.

I like vindicators, it's great to get such an easy kill point from a Marine army.

Dunno why people rely on them so much.

Nantukoshade wrote:So, when we are talking landspeeders, are we talking like MM and HF speeders?

MM speeders are good for lurking and pouncing or deepstriking to kill AR13+ vehicles. MM attack bikes are similar. Both have the advantage over devs that they can move and shoot--in fact can move 12", which extends the effective range of the gun to 36/24".

Typhoon speeders pack more missile launchers than devs for much less--and they can move and shoot. They're the best all-arounders, can threaten anything in the game that isn't AR14 or 2+ save, and are very survivable because they can stand off at 48", move and still fire.

2 Razorbacks with lascannons (twinlinked or paired with plasma) costs the same as 5 devs with 2 lascannons. For the cost of 2 more lascannons on those devs, you can nearly buy another lascannon razorback.

Heavy support and dreads are the only places where space marines can get autocannons--and autocannons are good. Dreads cost a bit more and compete with terminators for slots, so in general a heavy support that packs an autocannon is getting you value you can't get elsewhere in the list.

Though Flavius Infernius, while you can use your skill to wait until I expose my side armor, though I never have to use my side armor. I use terrain and rhinos to funnel my front armor into you, I run my speeders at anything on the far flanks that can reach out to my vindicators.

In the end I guess the only thing seperating them from a predator is their niche, and the skill level required to use them to maximim effect.

I'll shoot, sure, it is harder to use a vindicator to maximum effect, though I think it will easily pay itself off.

If terminators deep-strike and run, experienced players are the same as novice players if you roll a one to run...

Vindicators have something like a 4/9 chance to get a direct hit. They have the 1/3 chance to get a direct hit, then the ability to roll a four or less.

Your three dakka predators are going to kill ten terminators?

Ignoring the first shot or two won't get you anywhere, since just because something has a 1/3 chance of doing something, doesn't mean it will happen on the third try.

'Funnel' the front armor?
No sir. If you are on the side arc, you are on the side arc. The only thing the rhinos placed on the side does is give you a 4+ or a 3+ cover save...which is nice, but it's still gonna be side armor.

3 Preds can take out 3 monstrous creatures...the 3 Vindi's can 'maybe' take out 1.
Just because they can or can not is not really a good supporting point wrt the type of example that was given.

Sanctjud wrote:'Funnel' the front armor?
No sir. If you are on the side arc, you are on the side arc. The only thing the rhinos placed on the side does is give you a 4+ or a 3+ cover save...which is nice, but it's still gonna be side armor.

3 Preds can take out 3 monstrous creatures...the 3 Vindi's can 'maybe' take out 1.

Monstrous creatures are a stretch, since templates can only ever cover a model once. So, they have different roles? Yes.

3 Dakka Preds can kill 10 terminators though...