I need Dakkas opinion Havocs or Obilterators

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**blood reaper**

Wise Dakka members I need your wisdom. I recently played a game with a Ork Mech army and its come to my attention , I have barely any heavy weapons! Im thinking about geting space marine devastators and converting them into Chaos Havocs but I then thought of Converting them into Obliterators. Im confused should I use Havocs or Obliterators? Note: I have 2 Anti-Infantry and light Vehicle Havoc Squadrens.

**Brother SRM**

Obliterators are far and above better. They can serve any situation, deep strike anywhere you need them, and they're durable despite the small unit size. There's a reason most Chaos WAAC tournament armies use three squads of them. Havocs pay too many points for heavy weapons as is.

**Bloodfrenzy187**

throw in a Obliterator or two they are pretty nice. I don't play CSM but I have played against them many times and obliterators do fairly well as far as I can tell.

**Vaktathi**

Well, both units I think are a wee bit expensive for what they do in the current metagame. Oblits are cool, but 75pts for something that's likely to go bye-bye if something bypasses its armor save and is only getting one weapon shot a turn isn't exactly cheap. Lots of versatility, they can always choose the appropriate weapon for the job, but don't exactly deliver great volume of fire for what you pay. They work, but generally as a DS'ing unit that comes in off a well placed icon to hit something with meltaguns or rapid firing PG's rather than purely as a static heavy weapons platform.

Havocs on the other hand I feel are best used not as heavy weapons squads but basically as a poor mans Chosen unit with lots of melta/flamer/PG's instead.

**Brettila**

Whilst I detest WAAC gaming, I do have 9 oblits; mostly with an eye towards Apocalypse. However, I'm not sure if I ever run an army without at least one unit. 2 to 3 units of 2 or 3 can be really effective mobile firepower. The only way I play Havocs is to stick some in a rhino with 4 meltas, a combi-melta, and powerfist, along with a tzeentch icon. Boy does that surprise folks when it hops out. Seven this way is 235 with IoT so comparale to 3 oblits.

**MechaEmperor7000**

Havocs are good if you use them like Vaktathi said, or choose exclusively heavy weapons you know will be effective against your opponent. A ML squad of Havocs would be the most versatile squad you can get (although nowhere near as versatile as a squad of oblits) and cost 155 points, just 5 points more than 2 obliterators, but puts out twice the amount of shots. A cheap Melta Squad costs only 105 points, 140 if you give them a rhino, which again puts more shots out than an oblit squad, but is far less versatle.

Oblits, however, do have two more things Havocs dont, on top of adaptability: Plasma cannons and Multi-Meltas. Havocs are cheaper overall for the damage they can do, but only if you have a set purpose for them. Oblits are all-comers but extremely expensive point-wise (they WILL attract lascannon fire, so they effectively have only 1 wound).

**juraigamer**

A squad of havocs with missile launchers and two units of obliterators is your best bet.

**Tyranic Marta**

IMHO i have played blits scine i first discovered this game and i have come to realize that regardless of what army you are playing against you cannot go wrong with having a blit or three in your list, horde armies shudder at three pc's going of every turn and tau players tend to waste vaulable railgun shots desperatly trying to kill the blit you just deepstruck next to their railhead or broadside squad, nids loath the plasma and lascannon fire and if all else fails you have a really nice 2 wound 2+ save powerfist wandering about.

**Night Lords**

4 Autocannon havocs combined with a predator or two are far better than oblits. Oblits are far too expensive for being so fragile and only shooting a single shot a turn. One of the reasons SW are so ridiculous are the # of shots theyre able to put out to counter the "bring 15 transports" metagame. The closest thing CSM have are the cheapish autocannons. Would you rather have 12 autocannons and 4 lascannons shots a turn on units that are far more durable, or have 5.5 fragile oblits shooting a single lascannon or multimelta a turn?

**Tyranic Marta**

what it comes down to is taking a mixture, i personally am a big fan of 4 autohavocs but recently i have been finding that my opponents take less troops choices (ie less transports) and more nutty armoured tanks that the autocannons cant cope with, and on top of that i play against tau alot, and aginst armour 12 and a vehicle that always gets 4+cover if your outside 12 when you shoot as a basic transport isnt fun to deal with an autocannon, however a deep striking blit with a twin linked melta is going to negate the nasty cover save, is almost always going to hit and has a massive chance of wrecking or otherwise incapacitating the tank, the predator is in a similar boat, it shoots outside 12 so a 4+cover for the tank the lascannons are going to be clancing on threes so half the time it will pen, unfortunatly your only on average gonna hit with one lascannon out of three and then that has a 50/50 chance of penning, then they have a 50/50 chance to ignore it, not fun

**MechaEmperor7000**

It all depends on what you're going to face. If you know you'll face a certain type of enemy, Havocs are infinitely better because they bring more shots for much, much cheaper. Oblits, on the other hand, can feasably take on any target at any point in the game. You pay for it though through their points. For games where you have no idea what you'll face, Oblits are a better choice since you'll be covered no matter what.

**Tyranic Marta**

exactly, and to me regardless how expensive they are my blits always pay for themselfs, the 75 point cost is nothing to the 250+point tanks they invariably wreck

**techsoldaten**

The way I choose between these two is based on the opponent I am going to face.

Obliterators are better when facing non-horde armies. Sure, they have twin linked flamers, but if you have to use them you are close to wasting them in hand to hand. I bring them against Tau, Necrons, SM and Eldar, where it is likely I will be facing smaller numbers of expensive units. The versatility matches whatever the opponent brings.

Havocs are better against horde armies like Orks and Tyranids. Horde armies tend to have awful armor and you can get weapons that can serve as anti-infantry and anti-vehicle against them with higher shot output. I once had a Havoc squad dominate a game from atop a victory point this way, they wiped out a giant Boys squad over 3 turns before turning their guns against a Truck and a Looted Wagon. The rest of my army was able to ignore these units and grab up other victory points.

I could go either way against the Guard. Some of their armor is hard to counter and it's a matter of how many shots I want per turn. If I go with Havocs, it's likely going to be with MLs.

**Tyranic Marta**

scince when do they have twin linked flamers? they have a lascannon, a plasma cannon a twin liked plasma gun a multi melta and a twin linked melta, and anyway the pc is better vs horde

**Brother SRM**

Tyranic Marta wrote:scince when do they have twin linked flamers? they have a lascannon, a plasma cannon a twin liked plasma gun a multi melta and a twin linked melta, and anyway the pc is better vs horde

Twin linked flamer is one of the weapons Oblits can use. It's right in their codex entry.

I personally would rather spend my heavy support slots on Vindicators. They're great anti-everything units.

**Mordoskul**

Obliterators have the wonderful ability to curbstomp just about anything.

**ph34r**

Obliterators are good. Havocs are a bit too expensive and static to be useful.

**Tyranic Marta**

sos never noticed that they had the flamer b4, hmmmm, interesting, interesting

**Jubear**

I cant believe people are trying to argue the case for havocs...Oblits all the way havocs are fail.

**Noisy_Marine**

Oblits Oblits Oblits.

They can move and shoot and they have a good armor save plus an invl. Their only downside is that they are SO good they paint a huge target on themselves. My Oblits tend to die to S8+ attacks a lot when I fail the invul.

**Slarg232**

The best way to use Havocs is as another Assault Unit: 10 guys, Champ w/Power Weapon, Melta's OR flamers (your choice, depends on the role) Meltabombs (if anti Tank), and a Rhino.

Imagine your opponents surprise when you tell him they are your "Devastator Equivalents" and then they get hit by ^ that!

Obliterators are better for Range Anti Tank, though.

**MechaEmperor7000**

That would be a ballskicker, him setting up to snipe Heavy Weapon dudes then being faced with a triple rhino rush.

**Slarg232**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:That would be a ballskicker, him setting up to snipe Heavy Weapon dudes then being faced with a triple rhino rush.

What can I say? Chaos.....

**Night Lords**

Jubear wrote:I cant believe people are trying to argue the case for havocs...Oblits all the way havocs are fail.

I cant believe people ignore facts and go with whatever everyone else says. Hmm more shots, more survivability and at a cheaper price only to lose versatility? Havocs > Oblits.

**Tyranic Marta**

more shots? more misses, less pens/wounds, inevitibly less effectiveness, is each havoc likely to pay for itself in a game? no maybe 2 of 5 will, when you take blits you know that each and every single one is going to pay dividends back for every single shot fired

**MechaEmperor7000**

Arguable. Oblits can definately have the potential to make back it's points with every shot, but there's nothing making a lascannon coming from an Oblit better than a lascannon coming from a havoc. Bottom line is, it comes down to your situation. Allcomers, Oblits are better even if they're more expensive. If you know your opponent, Havocs all the way.

**Tyranic Marta**

sure a lasscannon coming from a havoc is identical to one coming from a blit, but thats not what im talking about, im talking about the fact that the entire suad has to shoot at the same target to kill anything, if you have 4 lascannons firing at a hammerhead gunship and you wreck it/ blow it up, then it has taken 4 shots to do the same thing that a deepstriking blit has done with one, and there is a greater chance of the blit succeding (rear armour + twin linked melta > front armour 4 lascannons and a 4+ cover on the enemy)

**MechaEmperor7000**

Somewhat debatable. The Oblit can scatter too far to make effective use of the melta, miss, face the wrong armor, mishap, and on top of all that will probably not survive past the next opponent's shooting phase. The havocs, on the other hand, can probably blow the tank, use their own cover, and then shoot at another target, giving you substantially more survivability. If you're facing Space Marines, lascannons would be more than enough to blow the likes of Predators, Rhinos and Vindicators, while if you manage to blow a Land Raider with an oblit, you're probably gonna get a facefull of assault terminators, who (now since their transport is gone) will have little else to target. However, as many have stated, they are incredibly versatile and will bounce back from a bad deepstrike (provided they dont die from a mishap), whereas havocs are largely rooted to where they're deployed.

**Slarg232**

Also, depending on the amount of Havocs you buy, you have more wounds (though less armour) than Obliterators.

**Night Lords**

Tyranic Marta wrote:sure a lasscannon coming from a havoc is identical to one coming from a blit, but thats not what im talking about, im talking about the fact that the entire suad has to shoot at the same target to kill anything, if you have 4 lascannons firing at a hammerhead gunship and you wreck it/ blow it up, then it has taken 4 shots to do the same thing that a deepstriking blit has done with one, and there is a greater chance of the blit succeding (rear armour + twin linked melta > front armour 4 lascannons and a 4+ cover on the enemy)

lol so you have a perfect DSing oblit who even with a multimelta has about a 30% chance to destroy the target (assuming no cover in which case you cut it in half), and then becomes an easy kill point the turn after...whereas the havocs will shoot all game?

Oblits are more versatile but are not worth 75 points, especially with all the weapons that instagib them and they dont shoot as many shots. Autocannons in themselves are versatile as well. Id rather have autocannon havocs against any army than to take oblits.