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Ok,
I'm fielding an infantry-heavy shooting guard as listed below. Please recommend me a Hellhound variant and secondary weapon. Just don't suggest magnetizing since I'm kitbashing from a leftover Russ hull and don't have the Hellhound kit.

Current forces:
Basic HQ with Ord officer
PHQ with 4 flamers and officer with fist
PHQ with 4 GL
7 infantry squads w/Autocannon and Plasma or GL
10 rattlings
Vet squad w/shotguns and Demo
3 Bassilisks
1 Russ
2 Demolisher

Waiting for assembly
1 Valk
2 Chimera
1 Russ or Demo
1 Hellhound as per this post.

Hellhound with Hull Heavy Flamer.

between that and the Valk with Multiple Rocket Pods you'll pick up some nice anti-horde firepower...

If the points where available, I would put Smoke Launchers and a Multi-Melta on the Hellhound.

Those are just "extras" though. It's fine as is.

Not much else to say, really. The Devil Dog is too unreliable, and the Bane Wolf is a suicide weapon

None of them, really. You already have lots of templates and high-strength weapons, not to mention flamers.

What you should probably do is kit-bash the vehicle into a chimera, so that you can add another unit of mech-vets, which your current model pool is sorely lacking.

Lol. Yeah, I actually just use my 1 Hellhound as a Chimera as well.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I'm not going to be buying any more units for this army, and though none of the hellhound versions really fit the gunline style IG that I have created, the flamethrowing tank is something that I want to do.

At this point it looks like I'll be going with the basic Hellhound with heavy flamer.

Anyone want to argue for any of the other hellhound variants?

Not really. The Devil Dog is a cool idea, but poorly executed. Same with the Bane Wolf.

as Dave Chappelle says, "An open and shut case, Johnson!"

Hellhounds are great units pity they are taking a fast attack slot from a better unit in the form of vendettas

Jubear wrote:Hellhounds are great units pity they are taking a fast attack slot from a better unit in the form of vendettas

Same goes for Sentinels, pity because I always like the chicken walkers.
I would say devil dog though, its not great, but I dont think you need anymore flamers. (It will have a heavy flamer on hull anyway)

Hellhound with hull multi-melta - the most versatile and useable variant in my book. Agree that hellhounds are sort of secondary to good troops choices though.

I've got some extra multi-melta barels so I could try that. Tell me more about the hullmouted multi-melta vs hull mounted heavy flamer


It probably doesn't matter, but I forgot to mention in my initial list that I also have a unit of 3 sentinels with autocannons and 3 lascannon teams for a HW squad or for switching out with the AC's in infantry squads.

Devil dogs seem like a bad idea to me. a lightly armored, short ranged anti-armor weapon is a pretty dumb idea in most cases.

Mrsmith, I disagree. Anything can be lightly armoured and short ranged and still be worth it. A comparable example would be SM landspeeders, which are lighter than the devil dog, but also faster, cheaper and their melta has a higher BS. I do think that devil dogs are not the best way of getting meltapower into an IG list.

Eilif, the logic behind a hellhound with MM is as follows:
you take a hellhound as good flexible anti-infantry (above and beyond a regular HF, its 'thrown' template is far easier to use than a normal template weapon, S6 is handy) instead of taking the devildog, which is easily replaced by conventional meltaguns on stormtroopers and veterans.

You take the hellhound instead of the banewolf, because banewolfs are really really short ranged, so it is hard to use them against decent opponents, and against any non-marine army an inferno cannon is as good or better than a chem cannon (inflicts ID, can hurt vehicles, especially open-topped AV10).

Once you've taken the hellhound, you should really take a multimelta on it. After all, if you wanted to fire the HF along with the inferno cannon, you would have to be extremely close to your target and only move 6". By giving it hull MM, you are replacing an unusable weapon. And suddenly your anti-infantry tank is a credible threat to vehicles. Detractors will say a BS3 MM is not all that. True. But in many situations you will only be able to see vehicles, or the only infantry may be tiny squads of marines and such.

So, I consider the hellhound better than the banewolf, and different to the devildog - but you can get what the devildog brings in the troops and elites slots. So I take the HH, and once I have I would always try the MM upgrade - it expands the tank's role immensely, and you're not really giving anything up. Worth pointing out that in this configuration, you should always try to move 12" and stay at the exact maximum range - I can only imagine ever firing both weapons together at open-topped vehicles or something.

I'm a detractor of the MM Hellhound.

When you do this, you've got a vehicle that is always going to be wasting some firepower. Also, when you get a vehicle destroyed result, your OPPONENT gets to determine the role that tank will fill.

With a HHF hellhound, you have a fast flame tank that, if it suffers a weapon destroyed results, is still a fast flame tank. With the HMM Hellhound, you're spending a lot of points just for the chance of wasting the hellhound's main cannon for a single BS3 meltagun, and your opponent gets to tailor your vehicles when he does damage.

Ailaros, I see where you're coming from. But as I said, I don't see it as a 'vehicle that will always waste some firepower' I see it as a powerful infantry-killer, with a 15 point upgrade to make it useable against tanks. As for weapon destroyed results, well, I never worry much about individual results (same reason I don't take spirit stones, or worry that holofields increase the chance of destroying a fire prism's weapon) - the most common results will always be destroyed or shaken, after all.

mrsmith wrote:Devil dogs seem like a bad idea to me. a lightly armored, short ranged anti-armor weapon is a pretty dumb idea in most cases.

If you have enough vehicles it can survive, especially if there are other high threat units around.
Not saying its a great unit, but its not that terrible.

The only thing I dont like about the hull MM is the cost, just like the hull LC for russ, 15 points is a lot for a BS3 single shot weapon.

I agree with everyone about the Bane wolf, if fails to wipe out the entire squad its dead.

I've been using a pair of Devil Dogs recently though and they've done really well. A Devil Dog with MM costs the same as a basic Hellhound and your getting 2 24" range melta's, plus they seem to scare the pants off people. Even if they don't perform brilliantly they attract a lot of fire away from other units.

When I first started using them I got put off by some really bad scatters with the small blast but as said i've tried them again recently and haven't been disapointed.

Saying that my current list is heavily anti MEQ focused as it what the Majority of people at my store seem to play, plus people started to notice that there was a lack of anti armor in the local game so have started to increase there vehicle count, so extra melta is alway good.

I've also used the Hellhound with MM (in my all comer style lists) and have to agree with I-bounty-hunt, I generally kept them as emergency reserves and their versatility worked well in that role. The wasting one weapon thing is true but I tended to move them 12" (to avoid instant hits and just to get them where they were needed) a lot so would never get to use both anyway. If I lost a weapon, meh, my opponent descides its role for me. In the same list though there was another one so using them as a pair (non squadroned) one would pop the other burn.

Strongly encourage magnetising though, both mine are, it allows you to give them all a try.

I would think that the Hellhound is the best general choice for a Hellhound chassis, however what the Hellhound selection really does is allows you to fill in gaps in your list. If you lack significant anti-horde than a Hellhound will serve you well. However, if you need anti-MEQ/need a distraction unit, the Banewolf will serve you better. If you need more anti-tank the Devil Dog is going to be fore you.

So yes, as a generalist choice in terms of abilities? Hellhound...but don't take a Hellhound just because it's the best in general. Take the choice which best fills any gaps with your existing list.

That's probably the best way to look at Hellhounds. The fact of the matter is that their are better places to get anti tank (Devil Dog), and their are waaaay better places to get anti MEQ (Bane Wolf).

I can only see the Hellhound being used, because it has something no other Guard unit has: A 12" Flamer template.

The others, as I said, are either redundant, or their role is performed better elsewhere.

Thanks for all the input folks. I think I'll go with the Standard hellhound and switchable pinned hull weapons, but you all have given me alot to consider.