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.

Hello everybody, recently I made a thread about the effectiveness of scouts for a small space marine army. Now I'm asking if Devastators are a good choice.

I have played against some devestators before and the scariest ones are the ones equipped with plasma cannons. two squads armed with 1 plasma cannon was able to kill 2 5 man squads of CSMs in turn 1.

Not really...
If you take them the best way would be to go all out and take 10 men so you get some meatshields.
Other than that there are probably better ways to get heavy weapons...

Vindicators are a far better heavy support choice for the points, and you can get heavy weapons in tac squads for about half the cost usually.

Depends largely on how many points you have to work with. Give all four of them some missle launchers (since your TAC marines can take Las for WAY cheaper) and throw them in a ruin.
If you have all 10, you can combat squad them into two fire groups so you can split fire. Not quite as good as long fangs. But then again, what is?
Plasma can be fun, but it's not reliable enough when you're in a pinch. Shots drift way too often, but that could just be my luck.

I would only take them to fill in a niche that's not already filled in my army and I can't fill it with anything else. For instance, if I didn't have a lot of MEQ-killing stuff (say, very few or no power weapons), one way to make sure you could take care of that would be to take a squad of devs and give them 4 plasma cannon. Or, if I had filled up two heavy support choices with infantry-killing things (like a Whirlwind and a Thunderfire cannon), I could take a squad of devs as my third choice and give them 4 lascannon. More lascannon than you can get on a tank. Although, a pred annihilator's not far behind (only 3, but one twin-linked). Also, I'd mostly only take them for fun, because I like the idea of a squad of marines with heavy weapons. I really like plasma, so even though it might not be that reliable, I might take devs with 4 plasma cannon, since its about the only way to get a lot of plasma cannon (they aren't on much else). And with 4 plasma shots at least some won't scatter. Also, plasma blasts are nice multitaskers, as they can deal with hordes if need be or blast some MEQs very nicely.