Are Venerable Dreadnoughts worth it or viable?

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.

**Hytanthas**

What makes a space marine Venerable Dreadnought a better choice than a normal one? I understand the re-roll and how useful that is but is it worth the points? Do you field them or recommend anyone to field them, or would you recommend a standard dreadnought? (Or would you recommend any dreadnought at all and go with another elite choice!)

Any advice would be nice

Thanks!

**Lukus83**

Here's a thread that I wrote looking at the basics of venerable dreads.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/364861.page

Should help a bit on whether you think venerable dreads are worth it to you. Hope it helps.

**InquisitorVaron**

Put it this.way the have the same if not better defensive capabilities as 2 normal dreads. I only around 50P more.

**RubberJonny**

Lukus83 wrote:
2. Why won't you die (Venerable)
This is where things get interesting. Combining this with fortitude you get an extremely resilient model. Glances just bounce right off as 88.8% of the time you end up with a result you can effectively ignore. Pens are a bit more complicated but I will use some statistics to help prove my point that the 60 points is well worth the investment.

A BS 4 Missile launcher (long fangs, dev squads, etc)
Chance to hit: 66.6%
Chance to pen: 22.2%
Chance of wrecking or exploding: 7.4%
With a re-roll: 2.46%

A BS 3 lascannon with re-roll to hit (IG squad with successful orders)
Chance to hit: 75%
Chance to pen: 37.5%
Chance of wrecking or exploding:12.5%
With a re-roll: 4.16%

As you can see the odds are highly in the ven dreads favour of surviving (and please remember this is without cover saves). Essentially the venerable dreads have 3x the survivability of a regular dreadnought.

AP1 weapons are a different matter entirely. In fact they are without a doubt the most dangerous thing out there when it comes to damaging your survivability. As it stands pens aren't that worrying, its getting bonuses on the damage chart. This is something I will come to a bit later when I go into basic list builds and deployment options to deny those melta shots. For now let's just take a look at the chances of wrecking a dreadnought with a BS4 meltagun within extra D6 range:

Chance to hit: 66.6%
Chance to pen: 55.5%
Chance of wrecking or exploding:27.7%
With a re-roll: 13.9%

Seems like a good choice to me. Of course i take the Master of the Forge, I can afford to lose a Dread or two

Peace Out!
Jonny!

**Hytanthas**

Thank you Lukas83. This is sound Advice!

Quick Question: Do I have to have the Ven Dread Model to have it or can I make my dreadnought look cooler/older and count that?

**DarkHound**

The latter. Although the Venerable Dread is a great kit, and I'd recommend picking it up if you're getting another Dread.

**RubberJonny**

I'd love to field Venerable models even as normal Dreads but it comes with piss all weapon options

**Avariel**

Venerable dreadnoughts are quite good but compete with other choices like terminators (space marines) or purifiers (grey knights) for elite slots.

**schadenfreude**

I don't think it's worth it to shoot at a venerable dread, unless you're shooting AP1.

Melta hits in double penetration range have a 35/36 chance of penetrating the dread.

AP1 hits have a 25% chance of slagging a venerable even after the reroll.

AP1 hits have a 50% chance of slagging the dread on the penetration reroll, which would make forcing the reroll of an immobolized or weapon destroyed roll foolish on the part of the dread's owner.

5/6 times the reroll of an AP1 penetration will destroy a weapon, immobilize, or slag a venerable dread.

Right tool for the right job. The only time I would ever advocate non AP1 attacks against a venerable would be a large quantity CC attacks that are either S10 or have double penetration dice as weapon destroyed and immobilized results will doom a venerable in CC to eventual destruction.

**SoloFalcon1138**

For Dark Angels, the choice is simple! Even if they don't get the AV bonus, the re-roll damage alone is worth it, and it's only 20 points for us! Combine that with some extra armour, and they are hard to knock out!

**Monster Rain**

I have one in all of my 1850 space marine lists and rarely regret it (and that's when the dice gods decide that someone should re-roll a 5 and get a 6 on the Penetration table

).

I like them with a Multi-melta and a heavy flamer in a drop pod, backed up by a squad of combi-melta toting sternguard.

**Jihallah**

DarkHound wrote:The latter. Although the Venerable Dread is a great kit, and I'd recommend picking it up if you're getting another Dread.

yeesssssss yes it is a great kit. I bought two because they look so damn cool, but I field them as regular dreads. Pimpin' regular dreads

**Andilus Greatsword**

I love Ven Dreads, it's one of my most reliable units. I don't know how many opponents I've frustrated when their penetrating hits are downgraded from a destroyed! to shaken.

**minigun762**

Hytanthas wrote:What makes a space marine Venerable Dreadnought a better choice than a normal one? I understand the re-roll and how useful that is but is it worth the points?

Assuming you are fielding them in a Vanilla army, I find the Ven Dread to be worth it if you already have your long range anti-tank shooting covered by other slots, as the RifleDread will directly compete with it and I personally feel that a Ven RifleDread really isn't worth the points.

I find that Loyalist Dreads split nicely into 3 types, shooty, assaulty and mixed and the Ven Dread is my choice for mixed to take full advantage of the BS5/WS5 upgrade. With this in mind I want to keep my DCCW arm so no ML or TL AC. For the shooting arm, I would take something short-medium range because I will likely want to assault something with my Dreadnought at some point, leaving me with the Assault Cannon, Multi-Melta or Plasma Cannon. Of those, I really feel that the Assault Cannon is probably the best all around choice and BS5 gives me an 83% chance of landing my shots which is only slightly worse then TL'd BS4 from the RifleDread at 89%. For deployment I could see splurging on a pod to get in close safely but that means I'm spending more points on an already expensive model so I would leave this for larger games where I can spare those points. In smaller games, simply walking up the board using your other vehicles for cover saves can be durable enough and an effective range of 30" will let you reach out and target most things.

Now I'm aware that I'm giving you this advice in a vacuum so you will have to take my advice and put it into the context of your army and your opponents.

**svendrex**

I would say that the venerable dread is only worthwhile in the Grey Knght and to some extent the Black Templar books.

GK: Venerable+Fortitude is a VERY powerful combination. It is so much more powerful than just venerable. This gives you the ability to re-roll damage results and make them go away completely. On a SM Ven Dread, If you re-roll to a shaken/stunned, you are not shooting or doing much useful next turn.

BT: You can get Tank Hunter Lascannons and it is less expensive. Not the greatest, but not bad either.

SM/SW/DA: If you look at any tactics thread, one piece of advice you see all the time is this: Shake/Stun something and then move on to the next target. Regular Ven dreads do not do anything to keep them from being Shaken or Stunned and then not doing anything useful next turn, where they are Shaken or stunned again....... Eventually you will run out of luck and fail a re-roll and be destroyed.

Combine that with the fact that they are a Lot more points than a Regular Dread and I find that it is simply not worth it.

They are harder to kill, but just as easy to neutralize

**beigeknight**

Does the Ven. Dred sprue come with a missile launcher arm?

**RubberJonny**

beigeknight wrote:Does the Ven. Dred sprue come with a missile launcher arm?

Nope. Plasma, Assault and Lascannon and CC arm. Sucks balls. It's not so pretty it can get away with making me by the normal Dread aswell just to use all Weapon options.

**Bludbaff**

It's not like the regular kit has more options, just different ones. They both have assault cannon, lascannon, and DCCW with storm bolter or flamer. The only difference is that the venerable comes with a plasma cannon and the regular comes with a ML. You have to get the AoBR dread to get a multi-melta, and if you want the ACs or TL flamer, you better like kitbashing.

I wonder if you can ebay a ML arm cheap? When I started my GK army a month ago, I picked up one venerable and one regular dread kit. I modded the ML and a weapon arm to run dual TL AC on one, then assembled the other with an assault cannon, DCCW, and storm bolter. I spread out the fancy bits from the venerable kit so they both can pass for venerable depending on how I decide to run them.

**Hytanthas**

Thanks for all the replies so far. Ya'll are great!

I feel like my next purchase my be two ven dreads and a master of the forge (so I can have them as HS if I wanted in larger games when I need the terminators or sternguard).

**Monster Rain**

Might as well paint 'em up as Iron Hands, while you're at it! Never enough of them running around as far as I'm concerned.

**Yuber**

In my experience, the BS5 Multimelta makes my opponents cringe. They either try to kill it for much frustration, or run away from it which allows you to control the battlefield.

I only ever use the venerable if and only if I have mobile cover saves such as Rune priest Storm caller or Shield of Sanguinus libby.