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Title pretty much sums this up. I've thought of putting a devil dog in my first guard list.. - please check that out if you have the time (critique is needed). While I like the idea of throwing melta templates at my opponent's vehicles and heavy infantry, I am uncertain if I would find any success with it seeing as guard are BS3. Anyone have any experience with them?
Thanks in advance!

Aye, I've used it quite a bit. The big thing is that sometimes the tank has only one real shot per game, and while its fine if you take out something like a landraider, the tank has never really performed up to what I want it to when it came to infantry.

The hell hound really shines with hoard armies with it's extended range, and there was a forum topic recently that focused on the Bane wolf. The poison template option.

I haven't used the bane wolf option yet myself, but the key is to field it also with a flamer and between the two templates you can move and fire the heavy flamer since both the chem cannon (STR 1) and any pintle mounted gun can also fire. This makes it interesting as a mobile firebase to keep all infantry away, and is especially potent with MEQ's with a AP 3.

Overall, the Devil dog works okay, but with the option to take a vet squad with a chim and melta working out to just slightly more for a more consistent and versatile option, you may want to consider other options.

I think it can work out well, you just have to be aware of its strengths and weaknesses (like everything else).

The Melta cupcake is fairly accurate when you consider you're probably targeting larger tanks like the Land Raider and unlike a Multi-Melta, if you miss the main target it still might drift into something useful. The added benefit of the +2d6 is that even if you don't get the center hole over the target, your armor penetration roll at half strength would still average 11 and could get high enough to penetrate AV14.
While IG isn't exactly hurting for S8 for insta-killing T4 units, the AP1 does do some nice things for punching through 2+ saves or helping you actually get that kill on the enemy tank.

Remember that you're a fast tank, so moving 12" and blasting will help you get within 1/2 range fairly quick. I would take the Heavy Flamer as a backup weapon because its cheaper then the hull Multi-Melta and it keeps me from wanting to move 6" to fire both weapons. I feel like this is a tank that is best played aggressively.

I've been playing with a devil dog my past couple of games, and don't think I'll include them going forward. The tanks are fragile, and they can only move SO far and shoot their still BS3 shot. Even against larger targets, you've still got to penetrate armor (not guaranteed by a long shot, especially against AV14), and you still need to roll decently on the damage table. And that's assuming you're not shooting against an obscured target.

Like sentinels, the devil dog seems to be a really expensive way of bringing what winds up being a single-shot weapon...

ive tried it a few times, and, it never realy made its points back and was a rather disapointment. the banewolf and hell hound are the better choices. i would rather run the banewolf, twelve inch move, fire two templetes and watch infantry melt and burn.

I also am not a fan. Relatively short range, poor BS, small blast, not particularly well armored, not particularly cheap, not as good at doing what it is supposed to as melta vets. There are just much better places to put melta weaponry than a devil dog.

I'm failing to see where they perform so poorly and MeltaVets/Chimera perform so well. Besides the advantage of being scoring (which is significant, I won't lie) the Meltavets are more expensive, slower, less armored and have less range while being more deadly at point blank range.

Doesn't exactly seem like an obvious win for the Vets to me but then again I'm still learning.

minigun762 wrote:I'm failing to see where they perform so poorly and MeltaVets/Chimera perform so well. Besides the advantage of being scoring (which is significant, I won't lie) the Meltavets are more expensive, slower, less armored and have less range while being more deadly at point blank range.

Doesn't exactly seem like an obvious win for the Vets to me but then again I'm still learning.

Scoring is big enough to win the argument. But...

The vets themselves are only 100pts. The chimera of awesomeness barely makes them more, but is soo good and adds so much flexibility it should be considered it's own thing. And the vets are only slower if you want to fire from inside a chimera, there are plenty of times when you don’t because you’re either moving fast or unloading. Vets can also be ordered, hop into valks/vendettas, and come with 6 lasgun buddies.

If you fire all six turns with the devil dog (which is generous) and are in double pen range all six turns (extremely generous) then the devil dog’s one gun hits 2 times in a game. Most scatters will take you off tanks, but we’ll say good scatters bring that up to sticking a tank 3 times in a game. Against light vehicles you’ll pen 2/3 of the time, kill half of that time, so one light vehicle dead is about all you can count on it for. Heavy vehicles pens about half the time, kills half of that, so less than one heavy vehicle a game dead.

Vets firing just three turns at double pen do significantly more damage. 3 shots, 2 hits, pens a solid or light vehicle every turn which turns into just over two dead light vehicles and over one dead heavy vehicle.

Without orders the vets do more damage in fewer turns while being scoring and are cheaper.

I like it. Just don't use it solely as anti-tank. I always run an Executioner when i can but sometimes other options fill up my Heavy Support slots and in those times i'm more than happy to field a couple of Devil Dogs. They're great against TEQs, deepstriking units AND they do anti-tank better than the Executioner.
It can be a very effective unit if you have a use for it in your army.

Peace Out!
Jonny!

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:the vets do more damage in fewer turns while being scoring and are cheaper.

Right, this is the reason melta is king. It doesn't matter if you don't get to shoot half the time because of their poor range, because you do more than twice the damage when you do get to shoot.

Unfortunately for the devil dog, this rule doesn't really apply. It just doesn't put out enough shots.

Really, people should think of a devil dog like a low-armored vanquisher. Given that the ONLY thing the vanquisher has going for it is the AV14... well...

Take hellhound, give it multi-melta hull weapon. You now have a much more versatile vehicle that is just as good as a stock devil dog at nuking tanks. Granted you can double up the melta on a devildog, but I would rather pay the 10 points to get the inferno cannon. The inferno cannon has the ability to take out light tanks as well. The auto-hit and ignoring cover goes a long way to compensate for its relatively low strength.

JourneyPsycheOut wrote:Take hellhound, give it multi-melta hull weapon. You now have a much more versatile vehicle that is just as good as a stock devil dog at nuking tanks. Granted you can double up the melta on a devildog, but I would rather pay the 10 points to get the inferno cannon. The inferno cannon has the ability to take out light tanks as well. The auto-hit and ignoring cover goes a long way to compensate for its relatively low strength.

Dislike. Putting a multi-melta on a BS3 vehicle without TL and relying on it to kill tanks is downright silly. The Devil Dog evades this problem with its option to scatter fairly accurately when shooting at big tanks.

The Devil Dog is a decent choice, but the fact remains:

If you want to kill tanks at that point level, there's nothing better (in any army) than a Vendetta. That's the far more competitive option.

You don't rely on the single multi-melta to kill a tank. It doesn't turn the hellhound into a tank-hunter, but it gives the hellhound the ability to shoot at tanks if doesnt have any other optimal targets, and its just about as good at taking out tanks as a devil dog. I would much rather have a vendetta for anti-tank instead of any of the hellhound variants.

The Hellhound with multi-melta is a pretty decent tank. Sure, it competes with the cheaper vendetta/valk, but for those of us who dislike the model, the hellhound is a good choice. Putting a heavy flamer on the hellhound makes no sense; the advantage of the hellhound is the extra 12" range which is negated by the hull heavy flamer. A heavy bolter is just meh, which leaves the multimelta. The advantage of the split weapons is that now after a weapon destroyed result, it still has a role. Its far from the most competitive option, but it adapts to a number of roles...and its still a S6 autohit weapon for those AV10 open topped vehicles.

I'd say Devil Dogs are imminent failure but they're pretty good to use in friendly games. They can definitely be classed as a comedy vehicle if both you and your opponent know how hit-and-miss they can be.
At the end of the day though it's still essentially a Multi-melta and so your opponent will most likely have to deal with it at some point.

What if you're playing a 2500 point game, and put two or three of them into a squadron? In a large enough game, you're squadroning vehicles sooner or later. The loss of survivability *could* be offset by redundancy, and the multiple shots increases the chances of taking out a target. I personally don't have much experience above the 1850 range, so I could be entirely wrong, but do any large-game veterans have input?

Investing more points into something that doesn't make it's points back is a losing strategy.

Right, you can create the illusion of effectiveness by spamming pretty much anything to sufficient quantity, but that doesn't make it any more efficient.

When I took one, it never performed. If you give it double melta, it can only shoot both if it moves 6. I'm a fan of double melta speeders, but double melta speeders are half the price, BS 4, and can be twin-linked when stacked with vulcan.

The devil dog is a really expensive mostly worthless tank. In any event that you move 12" and fire a single melta weapon, any of the hellhound variants could do the same with a multimelta in the hull. It's ONLY advantage is when it moves 6, which defeats the purpose of taking one. Yes, yes, I know, if you're within melta you get 2d6, even if template is half strength. It's still really meh even in this case, because at strength 4 you still need to roll decent on 2 dice. Melta vets are superior because they are shooting 3 bs4 melta shots, are scoring, and actually have pretty comparable range. If you move 12, turn the tank, disembark 3", melta range within 6, that's still 21" to be in melta range. A devil dog moves 12 and shoots 1 gun at 12. It's garbage.

If you put a heavy flamer in the hull it become a craptastic version of the hellhound with less range on the flamer, with imo a mostly minor bonus to the melta shot.

Well, my thinking is that at higher points, things are going to be packed more tightly. That's why "leafblower" works so much better at 2500. A tighter board doesn't make blasts less random, but increases the odds they hit something.

Also at higher points, I think, you'll be squadroning anyway. This can potentially cut down on the negative effects of being more vulnerable (it takes 3x as many sots to stop the unit). Also, the best targets for melta, AV 14, aren't as likely to be squadroning. So while you get an incrase in reliability, you opponent doesn't get a similar increase in durability by having more vehicles in the squadron.

Think about regular guardsmen vs marines. At low points values, a group of 10 guard vs 10 marines isn't going to end well. At higher points values, we can start blobbing. More does get better, at that point. 20 or 30 guardsmen get to start taking advantage of volume of fire. They're individually not any better, but the group can start nullifying some of their disadvantages.

I don't know if that's the case for the Devil Dog, but instead of plainly saying "one's no good, so three = (no good) * 3," maybe consider if the same kind of weakness-negating might be going on.

Hear, hear ElCheezus! To build on ElCheezus' point: If you are playing a higher point game just taking one could be effective enough as it's 120pts that will either be left alone and allowed to cause some damage or it's melta weapon will be seen as a threat and it'll take some fire reducing the amount of fire your prefered tanks will recieve for a minimum of one turn.

Also it seems almost everyone is looking at at it as an anti-tank weapon. Look at it as "What fits under this blast template?" weapon. Sure it's less likely to hit a 5 man deep striking Termiantor squad than a Land Raider but if it does it'll make it's points back and it can stay at a safe distance. The bigger the squad you fire at the more likely you are to hit and S8 AP1 will down almost anything or atleast get wounds on it.

Would i take one to a tournament? Nope. Would i field one in a frinedly game? I have and it's worked out well.

In my eyes it's a better anti-MEQ Hellhound varient than the Banewolf seeing as the Banewolf has to park infront of it's target and you just can't kill that PF Sergeant... Plus it instant kills and can pop open they're transports even without the 2D6

Still if it wasn't for the all the MEQs and especially BA i play against i would probably field 9 Hellhounds every game i could

Peace Out!
Jonny!

Heh, beore you cheer me too much realize that I'm still not saying they're good. Just saying it might be worth looking into. Usually I wouldn't play them at all, but they might have a place in larger games.