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Hi i recently bought one squad of Heavy weapons, and wondering what to equip them with.

I run an IG power blob list very aggressive, but have found that i struggle to kill heavy armor. In a recent game against tau I couldn't touch his hammer head all game. So i am thinking giving them lascannons. I also like the idea of mortars, but have heard horrible things about them. Any ideas or help is appreciated or if you need more information about my army or play style ask. Thanks.

Make them all lascannons and give one to your CCS and two to PCSs. I've found that this means they actually do stuff, as compared to when I've upgraded them differently. Bonus luls if the CCS also gets an MoO.

That or make them either missile launchers or lascannons and put them in a HWS. Kind of depends on exactly what you're looking for.

I second the Lascannon suggestion.

Im looking for Anti-tank i really have struggled at taking heavy tanks down. My 1000 pts list is 20 man power blob with 2 lascannons, Company command lascannon, heavy weapon squad lascannon (these guys are going to hang back on my obj. or hold a flank) Then i have 30 man power blob with priest w/eviscerator, and PCS with plasma to push a flank. Do lascannons fit in there?

Yeah. The best anti-tank in the game is things that get to roll the extra D6 like meltaguns and prieste, but the caveat is often getting there.

Not to much of a problem usually, but there have been a few rare cases where long-range anti-tank has been nearly necessary (if in the least to avoid frustration). So much so that I usually bring some along in some form or another nowadays.

Not to get too OT, but i use Vendettas and Manticores for the majority of my AT.
my mmelta vets CCS pick up the slack. my problem is i'm still not into the Blob movement.
namely due to lash!

OT:
given what've you said, spamming more Lascannons can only help. it gets pricey, but
spamming with more and orders could help.

i enjoy hvy weapon teams in my blob army. i run either two or three. one auto cannon (three autocannons). and a team of missle launchers and lascannons.

best thing I have found, if i am using a command squad, plant a lord commissar nearby so that orders can have a good chance of going off, fire on my target and bring it down. that leadership 10 is a big help over 7.

i find mortar squads useful, cheap and dont need los, just hide em and shoot a bunch, and melta vets in a chimera are great vehicle killers, cant go wrong with lascannons but a little pricey in bulk. i love just trying new things my lists change every game so give it all a shot

The only problem with mortars is that they compete with lasguns. If you're running a foot horde, you probably already have enough anti-light-infantry. If you're not, you're probably not bringing infantry platoons at all.

@Ailaros
Hmm yeah i have noticed when you can get up close and personal with melta guns/bombs, and evicerator. they seriously do work, the key is getting there, i have found that i hardly use my melta guns because enemy vehicles just back away fire and back way and fire... So I really think some anti-tank is needed and i feel like lascannons fit that. I have used auto cannons very disappointed... lets just say they wont find them selves in my lists anymore.

@Dude

Yeah i agree i am going to give mortars a couple trys just because i love the idea of them.. but we will see how long they stay around...

@AlarmingRick

thanks for your comment, i currently run pure foot guard but have been thinking about branching out into hybrid, or at least mostly blob but include a vendetta or 2 just because i think its a great model and probably fun to play with.

dude0351 wrote:i find mortar squads useful, cheap and dont need los, just hide em and shoot a bunch, and melta vets in a chimera are great vehicle killers, cant go wrong with lascannons but a little pricey in bulk. i love just trying new things my lists change every game so give it all a shot

If i was going to have mortars at all, i'd spend the extra 15 points and just get a Griffon. it would potentially work well with a Blob heavy army.
i personally face too many AP 2/3 armies to bother with the Mortar.

Don't hate on mortars! I often run one unit and find it comes in very handy for harassing the enemy heavy weapon positions. I mostly play against SW and Orks, the mortars are good vs long fangs and awesome against lootaz. The Lootaz just hate them, and even the long fangs fail the pinning checks sometimes, which is always bad news for the sw player. They are also versatile for capping; they don't need LOS so you can use them to cap rear-field objectives that have crummy fire lines, freeing up your regular infantry to advance a bit further or take a better position. This gives them an advatage over the griffon, which obviously cant cap and is easier to blow up, because its bigger and will be a juicy target for things like defkoptaz etc.

Having said that, if you only have one box I would make Lascannons, or ACs if you don't face much heavy (13+) armour.

If you have 6 regular guardsmen spare you can make 3 las/ac/ml/hb and 3 mortars out of your box; just use one regular (standing) guardsman as the 'spotter' for each gun, and the proper kneeling dude as the gunner. Looks pretty good and saves you a lot of money. You will need to pick up 3 extra large circle bases though.

I've also squeezed extra ML teams out by using regular guardsmen and making the missile launcher shoulder-fired. If you shorten the barrel of the launcher it looks almost exactly like a panzershrek, which is obviously awesome.

If your looking for anti tank go for lascanons.

@Jimole

I will certainly keep mortars in mind. And thank you for tip on how to build multiple things with one box! Ill try it out!

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:the key is getting there, i have found that i hardly use my melta guns because enemy vehicles just back away fire and back way and fire... So I really think some anti-tank is needed and i feel like lascannons fit that.

That or have better field saturation. If you only have one melta blob, they can run away from it. If you have 3, where are they going to run that's not still near a
melta blob? This is doubly true if you decide to include al'rahem.

I've used Al'rahem to considerable effect helping to box in enemy armour. While it's true that regular guardsmen are just not as good with melta as vets are, you can take an awful lot of melta in a platoon. I tend to run Al'rahem with a powerblob (3 squads usually), and 4 melta in his command squad. If you really want more melta, I've also occasionally run an SWS with his platoon. Triple flamer is viable, as is triple melta. Or if you're particularly brave, 2 x Flamer or Melta, and 1 demo charge. Just remember to include an astropath with your company command squad, it makes a huge difference in getting Al'rahem onto the table sooner rather than later, and more likely to get him on the table edge you want him.

@ailaros

Your probably right, but i have only been playing 1000 point ish games because my collection limits me. and at 1000 i dont have enough for 3, but with more points im thinking three blobs and one an alrahem lots of meltas

@Furycat

yeah i plan on alrahem at higher points lvls. I like your idea of 3 man flamer special weapon squad i might use that

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Im looking for Anti-tank i really have struggled at taking heavy tanks down. My 1000 pts list is 20 man power blob with 2 lascannons, Company command lascannon, heavy weapon squad lascannon (these guys are going to hang back on my obj. or hold a flank) Then i have 30 man power blob with priest w/eviscerator, and PCS with plasma to push a flank. Do lascannons fit in there?

Do you mean you're giving your power blobs the LCs? Why?

Anything that isn't "Assault" doesn't really belong in a blob, since a blob should be moving.

Heavy Weapons squads are sort of over-priced and under-armored for what you get. Better to hide them in a full squad, and hide the squad as much as you can.

A PCS with a LC is 50 points. Thirty-man powerblobs are 180, add a priest for 60 and a Power-weapon commissar for 45. Double that, add an LC CCS and you're at 740 points.

At that point, you could add anything, really. 2 Bassies for anti-horde, I guess?

I love me heavy weapons, and 2 batteries of lascannons are part of the core of my army. I have 2 at 1000 points almost every time. I keep them near the Regimental Standard- waving, order-barking CCS, which usually sports a bs4 lascannon itself. That way i've got 4-6 twinlinkable lascannons, and I give that formation priority when deploying, looking for the best mix of firing lanes and cover. The standard with cover, plus GBitF, ensures your investment a 3 model, t3, ld7 squad doesnt' take one turn of fire to eliminate without serious effort. The way I see it, HWS are prime candidates to take advantage of BiD (besides multiple specials), and lascannons are just necessary if you want long range anti-tank (anti-AV13-14). I start bring AC/ML squads at > 1000, for more layers against light armour (mech armies).

Mortars are real nice to have, for the reasons stated above, but lately I've been putting them in my bubblewrap/speedbumb infantry squads, which I want to keep cheap.

I think the mortars and the lascannons are the best heavy weapons because they both do something the others don't: cause pin checks for the mortars, and penetrate AV14 for the lascannons.

With your list there, I'd try to keep the LC's out of the blobs, as stated above. It sounds like you've got 6, so either go with the advice from ros to put the other three in the 3x command squads, or make another HWS. I'd go with another HWS as you're using at least 2nd PCS to support 2nd blob, and I'd want to use 1PCS to support the first blob too.

Once I have 3+ HWS i start thinking about a lord commissar to support a couple of them, giving them 10 for morale (if they get the standard reroll too they pretty much ain't runnin), as well as a nice bonus of ld10 for orders as well, making that whole angle more reliable. Stash him in the CCS, or many other options.

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:Your probably right, but i have only been playing 1000 point ish games because my collection limits me. and at 1000 i dont have enough for 3, but with more points im thinking three blobs and one an alrahem lots of meltas

To be fair, you can run 3 blobs at less than 1000 points. You can also run 3 with al'rahem at 1000.

@murdog

You have a lot of good ideas, I like the idea of the company command having a lascannon a reg standard and then for fun master of ordinance . The thing with lascannons in that blob is because they are going to be sitting on home base so might as well give them so options to do something right?

@ ailaros
Haha I love it! I might give that a whirl

I'm not against lascannons in a blob, it's got it's own advantages (meatshield). But if you're going to be using the power weapons aggressively, I think they're better back at home.

I ran a 50-strong powerblob with lascannons, meltaguns and sergeant meltabombs once. It was actually surprisingly effective. The game was against SW, and they couldn't out-shoot it or out-melee it, and certainly didn't want to drop the 2 podnaughts on top of it.

It parked on an objective in my d-zone, fired for 4 turns, and then did the dash for cash, spreading out to cover a second objective. Won me the game, but for a 540 point unit it certainly wanted to!

I toss one or two melta in my blobs "just in case'

I second giving your command squads lascannons, I'll go with sniper rifles sometimes as well.

I also have tried jimole's "F you come to me" blob strategy more than once, most armies cant outshoot guard at range, and at 12" they aren't going to dig enough guardsmen out of cover for the countercharge not to decimate them, just need to be very wary of tarpit dreads and such.

Ive been slowly phasing vehicles out of my army, they just dont seem worth it, im sure i'll hit infantry saturation at some point, but the fact that they are much more resilient against almost every army due to most armies stacking anti tank, and usually have more firepower as well, is very nice.

grey knight stormbolters worry me though!

haha thats a cool idea as using the lascannons to just pop stuff and scare them away with the meltas. I like that very interesting. I am rather aggressive with one blob and then i normally use one to sit at home to watch a flank or base, so i feel like lascannons in a squad might not be a horrible idea.

I generally go for a gunline with meltavet support and a lascannon in the CCS to take advantage of BS4 and "Bring it down!". For real troublemakers, I drop melta Stormies out of a Valk, but that feature was adding largely owing to how much fun it is.