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.

I'm liking the idea of running some death company with some special weapons and bolters instead of BP and CCW. They already have a decent number of attacks and I'd trade one a model for the ability to give my opponents a volley of bolts before charging in.

what does Dakka think?

My TH and PF troopers all have bolters... I find myself shooting less and less with them with the concern about potentially shooting myself out of assault range... Not always a concern I knos, but I've been burned a few times by that, and the extra attack in HtH is every turn rather than the few times I get to shoot :-) But just my opinion, whatever works really...

That's what I plan to do, that way you can get some use out of them being Relentless

what? You can't assault if you take bolters (rapid fire) That ruins their utility for another S4 hit? No thanks. Pistol and CCW is better. way better.

Although they still have 4 BS, so whatever floats your boat

DERP. I'm sorry. I forgot about relentless! Yeah, bolters sound like a good idea.

The other idea is to mix and play wound allocation shenanigans.

Isn't chaplain rerolls to hit and wound in cc the entire point of taking dc?

S5 reroll hit and reroll wound>s4 no rerolls.

I've been considering this too, take them in lieu of Tac Marines, where you're only paying 4 points for Furious Charge, Relentless and FnP (which is worth the 4 points alone). Use them to put heavy bolt fire down at long range while advancing.

schadenfreude wrote:Isn't chaplain rerolls to hit and wound in cc the entire point of taking dc?

S5 reroll hit and reroll wound>s4 no rerolls.

You can, its expensive though, to tool them up for killyness. My chaplain is elsewhere in my army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Valkyrie wrote:I've been considering this too, take them in lieu of Tac Marines, where you're only paying 4 points for Furious Charge, Relentless and FnP (which is worth the 4 points alone). Use them to put heavy bolt fire down at long range while advancing.

Even better, a tac squad with a couple of WS5 thammers in it.

Only the guys with THs and PFs get bolters the way I run them. Then again I run 9 guys total and only 1-2 of those weapons so most of the squad gets pistols and CCWs. I try to keep em cheaper and use em with the chappy as a shock unit.
The reason they all don't get bolters is Mine ride in a vehicle so they wont shoot often.I also don't want to shoot myself out of charge range. I will say when I know I am in that 8 to 12 inch range I do really like those few bolters for the extra shots.
Cheers,
~Volkan

I think the vibe I'm getting here is that for once in GW both options are equally viable.

Wow...

I run 5 with bolters and 3 with power weapons, throw in a chap and a redeemer and you have 400 points of killing power that consistently kill 600+ point deathstars.

I like the bolters as I can chose to shoot after my main target is dead I am out in the open and subject to rage. (however I usually have the redeemer or a Baal to block LOS so I can manage rage issues)

DC consistently win games for me even if their ride gets nuked and they get charged. they absorb so much effort from my opponent that my other resources win the day. (toss meph in there and really mess win my opponents target prioritization.)

the thing is, putting a bolter on them works= you trade 1 cc attack for a ranged shot and both have their situations where they would be preferable. Any guy with a PF or TH, put them with a boltgun and you get the best of both worlds. I think a lot of it comes down to your delivery method of getting them into the fight. Them coming out of a storm raven or land raider with a chaplain/reclusiarch- youll probably do better with the pistols. out of rhinos, youll probably do a bit better with a boltgun

Slick wrote:the thing is, putting a bolter on them works= you trade 1 cc attack for a ranged shot and both have their situations where they would be preferable. Any guy with a PF or TH, put them with a boltgun and you get the best of both worlds. I think a lot of it comes down to your delivery method of getting them into the fight. Them coming out of a storm raven or land raider with a chaplain/reclusiarch- youll probably do better with the pistols. out of rhinos, youll probably do a bit better with a boltgun

yeah but dont forget that they look kickass in their poses with bolters too!

Blitza da warboy wrote:

Slick wrote:the thing is, putting a bolter on them works= you trade 1 cc attack for a ranged shot and both have their situations where they would be preferable. Any guy with a PF or TH, put them with a boltgun and you get the best of both worlds. I think a lot of it comes down to your delivery method of getting them into the fight. Them coming out of a storm raven or land raider with a chaplain/reclusiarch- youll probably do better with the pistols. out of rhinos, youll probably do a bit better with a boltgun

yeah but dont forget that they look kickass in their poses with bolters too!

Bolters and a couple of thunder hammers, and it looks damn good in an army of BP/CCW marines

Since the bolter is s4, and on the assault you are s5, the extra bolter attack seems worse than the extra assault attack. The exception is against high init cc forces, where the shooting attack is safer, such as banshees or incubi.

The point raised about shooting clearing your combat zone is a very good one--especially when terrain is involved. For example, you may need 2 inches to assault a banshee squad in cover, but with any shooting you could quickly find the charge distance requiring 5 or 6 inches to succede. Thus, even bolt pistols are a bad idea, forget about bolters with their -1 attack.

Due to those 2 factors, I would only equip bolters on DC in a metagame filled with high init scary cc units. So if everyone in your group plays DE with incubi all over, or eldar with 'quins and banshees, then go for it. Versus almost everything else, keep the bolters on TH or PF only.

I WANT less non-power weapon attacks for my DC. Many times I find that my pw hits are diluted by all the regular wounds and allocation. I also am considering running only 5 DC + chappi with 3 pw but i like the look on my opponents face when I say " let's see 24 saves 13 of which are power weapons"

@Acsmedic
That is one of the reasons I don't run any normal power weapons in my DC. It makes for a boat load of Armor saves, Only the Chappy has a normal power weapon but he is just there to buff the DCs rolls. Since the TH/PF goes at I1 I don't have to worry about those being overly allocated to models taking lots of saves.

Cheers,
~Volkan

Volkan wrote:@Acsmedic
That is one of the reasons I don't run any normal power weapons in my DC. It makes for a boat load of Armor saves, Only the Chappy has a normal power weapon but he is just there to buff the DCs rolls. Since the TH/PF goes at I1 I don't have to worry about those being overly allocated to models taking lots of saves.

Cheers,
~Volkan

Yea I have considered trading 2 pw for a pair of pf or th. Just need to wait until I buy another box of DC. Then I would have a good mix of no armor save at 3 init steps on the charge.

A bit more information- two of my regular opponents are eldar/DE. Dark Eldar don't like bolter fire one bit. Even if I charge wyches they're still striking first so I mighrt as well whittle them down.

I use my DC to hunt dreadnoughts. If they're not doing that they might as well be able to led a hand with bolter fire.

I'm also running my DC 9 strong though, so its really the regular attacks doing the heavy lifting. 32 S5 I5 attacks that reroll hits and wounds do bring a lot of pain, power weapons or not. The 3 power fist swings are just there to cause ID on t4 multiwound chars and fend off walkers. its weighs in at 205 points with a fist before chappy love but it seems to steamroll most units, in my experience that is.

Cheers
~Volkan

I really like the thought of replacing tac marines with bolter DC, and throwing them in a rhino.

Against meq

Bolters 2/3 hit, 1/2 wound=1/3 wound

CC 8/9 hit, 8/9 wound=64/81 wound, round down to 7/9

1cc attack is more likely to wound than 2 boltgun shots, and dc still have pistols. Most importantly bolter wounds contribute nothing to combat resolution.

Bolter DC only really gain 1 advantage and that is moving and firing 1 shot at 24 inch range. Rapid firing and charging is nifty too but generally the extra attack will do more. The 1 thing it might help with is causing wound allocation to special models in a squad prior to the charge.
As I've said Bolters are most worth it on your PF/TH guys. My problem with replacing a tac squad with a DC bolter squad is that they aren't scoring, can't get a heavy and/or special weapon and are more points intensive. That said in the right list they might have a specific role.

Cheers,
~Volkan