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Does anyone actually use heavy bolters in their tactical squads or devastator squads? I would like to but missile launchers and plasma cannons always seem to be better choices.

I guess it depends on their job description. HB 3 S5 shots vs 1 s8/s4 blast. I could see a use for a 5 man squad that could pump out 15 S5 shots 36" (or is it a 4 men in a 5 man squad - sergeant gets to shoot - i forget). Could be good for crowd control. I don't have my dex in front of me but I bet the cost of an HB is less than a ML.

Some mathhammer would probably help clarify. I think MLs look like the obvious choice which could be all the more reason to not go with them as that's what everyone thinks you're bringing to the table when they hear devastator squad.

Four heavy weapons in a devastator squad. Missile launchers and heavy bolters are the same price in both a tactical squad and a devastator squad. Free and 15 points respectively.

I think heavy bolter guys look cool but just can't justify using them. Oh well.

I use them in my Tac squads currently. They can be useful at times when shotting things at range. Then again, YMMV.

They were a solid choice in 4th ed. But a lot of things have changed.

Missile launchers got cheaper.
Tanks, even light tanks, that the HBs struggle with got cheaper and more prevalent.
Run moves halved the number of turns the HBs got to fire.
And cover saves obliterated the HBs priority targets, medium infantry.

All this and the cost of the HBs stayed relatively the same.

There just isn't much use for them now except as very cheap upgrades to dakka style tanks. Even then they're often best left at home.

Well, on leman russes and land raiders, its good to have tank killing stuff and infantry killing stuff. Thats when heavy bolters come in, to kill infantry with 3 shot guns, instead of killing them with lascannons.
see, i honestly like heavy bolters alot, beacuse of the 36 inch range, their strengh and AP. plus, they just look cool on infantry.

On infantry no, they're expensive and aren't killy enough to warrant their cost or the sacrifice of the squads mobility.

Dakka preds however....

I agree. Heavy Bolters belong on tanks, and not troopers.

Heavy bolters on typhoon speeders and dakka preads makes foot infantry cry but on a tac squad its just 3 extra shots and maybe one save that most infantry will laugh off. The devestators however can put out alot of heavy bolter shots but two dakka preads can do the same thing cheaper along with 4 str 7 shots and has an easier time moving into position if necessary since it can still fire a weapon on the move.

They just have no justification on infantry.

on vehicles they are good though.

simple Dakka Pred, Typhoon speeder, regular Lemun Russ tank....

with all the armor in 5th edition, i'd say yes and no.

against infantry, hordes, and really light armor (10), you can get away with them. against anything else, i'd go with heavier firepower.

marines are bs4. why use the accuracy by volume method, when you can fire one high strength weapon and really hurt something?

I had a friend who had an un-updated, 3rd or 4th edition list he played against me. Kept a couple Tac squads in the back with some Heavy Bolters, and was basically a huge pain, blasting away 6 Ork Boyz a turn. I was playing Defensively, however, and have few Boyz in my army. So yeah, nice against medium infantry, but you won't see many of those around.

Once in awhile my brother will take a dev squad with all heavy bolters. I can tell ya, that unit vomits bullets thats for sure. Great against hordes

Here's a little Mathhammer:

Suppose you take a 5 man Devastator squad with 4 Heavy Bolters. It seems obvious that the best targets will be 4+ armor save infantry, but people seem to think they'll be good against Orks too.

So, what can we expect from a round of shooting vs. T3 infantry, 4+ save or less? 12 shots = 8.5 hits* = 5.67 wounds. With cover, that's 2.83 dead enemies. Not terrible, if you're shooting at Fire Dragons, or Trueborn with Blasters.

Against Boyz, you get 4.25 wounds. Even without cover, that's only 25.5 points worth of models. It would take 5 turns of shooting to wipe out a mob of 20 if the mob never has cover (not even 5++ from a KFF). Are you likely to get 5 turns of shooting? Hell no, although one apparent virtue of taking Heavy Bolter Devs is that they would have a low priority level. Of course, this just means your opponent shoots something more important; not exactly a victory.

Now, you could have had 4 Missile Launchers instead. If you only fire Krak, you can expect about 2.22 wounds against any of the above targets. So the Heavy Bolter is quite a bit better against the most favorable matchups. But, there's the possibility of usefully firing Frag, plus the ability to threaten a much wider range of targets, some of whom are quite juicy. Every army that commonly has 4+ armor has great Krak missile targets.

So, there's a reason why nobody takes Heavy Bolter Devastators. On vehicles, yeah, you see Heavy Bolters, but even there that's more of a function of a lack of other options in the price range. I've been running Auto/HB Predators for a while now, and I've never been very impressed. I still think they're better than no sponsons, but I'll take Lascannons whenever I can afford it.

* You get 8.5 hits from the Signum raising the BS of one of the HBs to 5.

What about a mob of 'ard Boyz? I know they're rare, but that was the squad that I had that was so hassled by the HB. That's a T4 4+ mob there.

Anvildude wrote:What about a mob of 'ard Boyz? I know they're rare, but that was the squad that I had that was so hassled by the HB. That's a T4 4+ mob there.

'Ard Boyz are 10 points, right, so that works out to 42.5 points per turn of shooting. Better, but what if they have cover?

The bottom line that kills the Heavy Bolter nowadays is how easy it is to get some sort of cover. Cover hurts the results of all types of shooting, but it hurts anti-infantry shooting more, for two reasons. First, damage to most squads is not a linear function of the percentage of models killed. For example, mobs of Ork Boyz are often called a "Power Klaw delivery system". That is, a significant percentage of the unit's combat ability is concentrated in the PK Nob, so killing 20% of the mob might only diminish its ability by 5-10%. With vehicles, you don't have this problem as much, as any hit that makes it through cover is going to make the vehicle less effective, if only temporarily. In addition, the likelihood of a lucky result is much higher with a vehicle than a squad, due to wound allocation rules.

So long as cover is so easy to get, and mech is king, the Heavy Bolter isn't going to be a good weapon.

Anvildude wrote:What about a mob of 'ard Boyz? I know they're rare, but that was the squad that I had that was so hassled by the HB. That's a T4 4+ mob there.

The exact same statistics apply.

but for your edification I will crunch the numbers for them.

Assuming said ard boyz are not fully spaced, but are still roughly 1" apart:

Each of the 4 Devs firing Frag missiles have a 1/3 chance for a base "hit", of the 2/3 that miss there is still a 1/6(16.666%) chance to roll a 4 or less on 2d6(not really the best of odds), but if you are firing at the middle of a 20 ork mob that is in a nebulous pattern(vs set lines, or a "doughnut" pattern) and all within 1-2" apart a full scatter of up to about 3" should still hit 3 models per blast(some lower results may hit more, some may hit less; this is our base average) there is a 58.33% to roll a 7 or less on 2d6(the target number with a miss to scatter no more than 3"with BS 4), add to that the 33.333% chance to get a hit(remember that 1/3 chance to roll the hit symbol?; well you actually have to multiply the 58.333% by 66.666%; which is 58% of 2/3) and you have a total of 97.2217% chance to hit 3 Orks per shot(I like them odds); this means you will very rarely miss your 12 orks(4 shots, 3 orks/shot); tighter formations allow for more full misses, but gain more hits/blast on target.

So 12 hits with equal S vs T= 6 wounds, which in turn =3 dead 'Ard boys.

4 heavy bolters require less explanation to the math:

12 Shots equate to 9 hits(2/3 shots hit with BS4), 2/3 wound with S5 vs T4 so that is 6 wounds; which then equates to 6 dead Ard boyz(or regular).

When we look at not ard boyz; Both sets of weapons kill the same numbers of Orks, both in and out of cover(actually they both wind up killing the same number of ard boyz in cover; excepting KFF cover wherein the HB kills 16.666% more ard boyz).

The only time the Heavy bolters get that much better is when you apply the Sgt's Signum rule to increase the number of hits(more likely to hit with 1 more HB shot).

hadn't meant the statistics on points/turn, but rather kills/turn; Frag missiles are 30 points/turn, Heavy bolters are 60points/turn, vs Ard boyz without cover; and an equal 30-30 points/turn with the ard boyz in common cover(30-40 under a KFF).

The heavy bolter smokes everythng

I run one with my sniper scouts...

Heavy Bolters are more of a situational weapon, IMHO. They aren't versatile enough to target everything, and their Str and AP values are only slightly above average. Their biggest strength is in their shot quantity.

That being said, I don't usually run them, unless I know what my opposition is. And unless both my opponent and I are list catering, I usually won't bring them, simply out of impracticality. The only units in my list that carry a Heavy Bolter are my Razorbacks, and when I use it, my LR Godhammer. They're great at Horde crowd control when used in larger quantities. In most of my lists, I typically run at least 3 Razorbacks, so you're looking at 8 hits out of those 9 shots every turn. Wounding on 3+ against most infantry, it's bound to cause a few wounds in crucial units. Against Eldar, they are A-MAZING (even better if you have a Heavy Flamer). Against Orks and IG, they're good for whittling down units to sizes where either A) it becomes more feasible to assault them or B) force enough Leadership rolls until they eventually fail.

All in all, it's a decent weapon, but like others have said, they're most useful while on vehicles. Dakka Predators come to mind, but I rarely field them these days in higher point games. In games at or less than 1K, I'd say they're great though.

Hope that helps!

So if you're facing someone who uses a lot of 'eavy Armour (an Ork someone, that is) then the Heavy Bolter would generally be about the same points-effectiveness, but about twice the game-effectiveness, then? I know that my Nobz and my Boyz all have 'eavy Armour (I only have one mob of boyz- strange Ork player, I am), so essentially the HB is a much more damaging heavy weapon against me, especially in Objective based games, where you can more easily kill my Scoring units.

But yeah, certainly not as effective points-wise as a ML when dealing with lighter armoured or more mechanized lists.

All depends on Cover.

the only thing that Kills 'Ard boyz dead all the time is a Heavy Flamer(Should score about 4 dead boyz, when it hits 6) or better AP4-or-less, cover denying weapon(Hey look an eradicator has half a chance to at least grow a dull luster!).

Honestly though, against a "Boy light" Ork force, I would just bring Boltguns, Assault Cannons, Heavy Flamers, Flamers, and Missile launchers.

Something like 5 tac Termies w/cyclone, 1 Ass-cannon+Storm bolter Dread, 1 MM+HF dread, 2 HF+MM Speeders, 1 LRC w/MM+SB, and 3-4 10 man tac squads with Flamer or Plasma, Lascannon or Missile launcher, and Power weapon/BP Sgts; A Flamer/Missile/Sgt 10 man squad would ride in the LRC along with Chaplain Cassius(I do love him so)

smeugal fan wrote:The heavy bolter smokes everythng

Ever tried it against a Land Raider?

purplefood wrote:

smeugal fan wrote:The heavy bolter smokes everythng

Ever tried it against a Land Raider?

Or a Valk/Vendetta, or a Leman Russ demolisher/Executioner/Punisher(sure it could glance their rear), or a storm raven, or a CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT!, or... do I really need to go on?

SM don't need heavy bolters. Regular bolter fire works well against anything heavy bolters work well against. Missile launchers and plasma cannons do jobs that regular bolters can not do.

They are awesome on razorbacks with psybolt ammo. 3 twin linked s6 shots does well against most things.

Dok wrote:They are awesome on razorbacks with psybolt ammo. 3 twin linked s6 shots does well against most things.

At that point it becomes more like a Chimera on steroids than a razorback. Side effects include roid rage and shriveled fire points.

Haha, well played sir

My IG army doesn't have any heavy bolters. The idea is that heavy weapons in general are not effective at killing troops. The job falls to ordnance, flamers, and massed small arms.