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In another thread I recently recommended Deff Dreads as a solution to certain infantry deathstars, which got me thinking about them. I know a lot of players recommend against using Deff Dreads, and I've heard the usual arguments against them, but I commonly run 1 or 2; in fact, I'd say my army contains a Deff Dread most of the time, only being removed if I'm trying out some alternative list design for fun, like mass trukks or pure footsloggers with no vehicles. I find them extremely useful, either as heavy assault units to crack vehicles and deathstars or as fire magnets to draw attention away from my Battlewagons.

In the interest of moving any discussion of the pros and cons of Deff Dreads out of the thread my original post was in, I'll reproduce the relevant portions here.

When I see people claiming that Deff Dreads will inevitably get destroyed by T2 or something like that, I always wonder if they've ever actually used them; not to give offense, but I run them often, and that just isn't what happens in my experience. I've run Dreadmobz with 5 of them, I've run 6 Kans and 2 Dreads, and currently I'm playing around with 2 Dreads in a Battlewagon Bash list. Since you can take one as Troops for every Big Mek you have, the first one doesn't even compete for a HS slot.

A 4-CCW Deff Dread with grot riggers and armour plates is 120 points. It is thus dead cheap, first off; if you DO lose it, it's less important in terms of point cost than losing a squad of Trukk Boyz.

Secondly, it just doesn't care about the half the results on the Damage Table. Shaken only stops shooting and it has no guns; Armour Plates convert Stunned to Shaken; and Weapon Destroyed just removes one of its 5 attacks, which is irritating but not really important. Furthermore, even Immobilized only has a 50% chance to keep it still for longer than one turn. What this all means is that Glancing it does basically nothing; you have to Pen it to do any damage.

Third, AV 12 with a KFF is not easy to destroy. Hydras, for instance, are largely ineffective against a Deff Dread; 4 TL S7 shots will usually give 3 hits, of which one will pen or glance. If it's a glance, it has a 1/6 chance of doing something productive (ie Immobilizing) and then a 1/2 chance of being ignored anyway; a pen has a 1/2 chance of Immobilizing or Destroying, and then a 1/2 chance of being ignored. To have good odds of taking a Deff Dread out even temporarily thus requires getting 12 glances or 4 pens, which S7 weapons are unlikely to do in the two turns they have before it charges.

If my opponent doesn't concentrate enough fire on the Dreads to get that many damage results, they aren't going to stop them and I get to charge in with DCCWs. The Deff Dreads then proceed to do much, much more damage than their points cost seems to indicate. On the other hand, if my opponent DOES commit the necessary fire, he almost certainly did so by diverting lascannon, melta or (in the case of Tau) railgun fire away from my Battlewagons; in which case the Dreads have served their purpose by allowing Ghazghkull, my Nobz and my Shoota Boyz to reach attack range unchecked. Once again; these Dreads cost 120 points each. They are entirely disposable.

Finally, in my experience most people don't have much experience dealing with Deff Dreads; they don't work anything like Imperial Dreadnoughts do. Either they ignore them under the assumption that they can kill them any time they please and shoot at the BWs instead, or they fire EVERYTHING at them first turn; so either I get the Dreads into combat, or I get the BWs into combat, and either way I'm fine with that.

In brief; Deff Dreads either draw lots of fire and give your other units a much better chance of survival, or they don't draw ENOUGH fire and so survive to hit the enemy lines, kill tanks, tie up large or especially killy units and generally cause havoc in an quintessentially Orky (and highly effective!) manner.

Any other Warbosses around here had success with Deff Dreads? Or, alternatively, is the community convinced that they're an entirely uncompetitive option?

I run 2 in my Kanwall, but that is just because 11 walkers and 6 rokkit buggies all advancing under a KFF is my kind of mean

If my opponent is shooting my dreads, then I am happy, because he is making a serious mistake, as the real strength of the list are double-walls of rokkit equipped Kans and buggies screening my boys. If he ignores my dreads, then I am happy, because then my dreads live long enough to stuck in. Win-win.

I have been thinking of including a Deff Dread in my not so comptetitive 1,5K KoS list, mostly for fun, but still as a somewhat solid choice due to extra restrictions not allowing the KFF Mek
I plan to run two trukks, two battlewagons, two rokkit buggies in a squadron and two separate deffcoptas.

I pretty much have the choice between giving it +1 DCCW and a Skorcha and armour plates, or I can go bonkers and give it 4 DCCW's in total.
Should I always go with more DCCW's, or should I just give it grot riggers instead of armour plates?
I really want to use your build so it costs 120 points and is geared for destruction, but that means that I have to remove upgrades from my battlewagons.

I'd say that if it's a choice between more upgrades and more DCCWs, take the upgrades. Armour plates are very nearly mandatory; grot riggers aren't as important, but can still be nice to have. A 3-DCCW + 1 skorcha Dread still works well as a CC unit, and a skorcha is a nice option to have once in a while, so I'd go for the riggers + plates and drop the extra DCCW.

BeRzErKeR wrote:In another thread I recently recommended Deff Dreads as a solution to certain infantry deathstars, which got me thinking about them. I know a lot of players recommend against using Deff Dreads, and I've heard the usual arguments against them, but I commonly run 1 or 2; in fact, I'd say my army contains a Deff Dread most of the time, only being removed if I'm trying out some alternative list design for fun, like mass trukks or pure footsloggers with no vehicles. I find them extremely useful, either as heavy assault units to crack vehicles and deathstars or as fire magnets to draw attention away from my Battlewagons.

In the interest of moving any discussion of the pros and cons of Deff Dreads out of the thread my original post was in, I'll reproduce the relevant portions here.

When I see people claiming that Deff Dreads will inevitably get destroyed by T2 or something like that, I always wonder if they've ever actually used them; not to give offense, but I run them often, and that just isn't what happens in my experience. I've run Dreadmobz with 5 of them, I've run 6 Kans and 2 Dreads, and currently I'm playing around with 2 Dreads in a Battlewagon Bash list. Since you can take one as Troops for every Big Mek you have, the first one doesn't even compete for a HS slot.

A 4-CCW Deff Dread with grot riggers and armour plates is 120 points. It is thus dead cheap, first off; if you DO lose it, it's less important in terms of point cost than losing a squad of Trukk Boyz.

Secondly, it just doesn't care about the half the results on the Damage Table. Shaken only stops shooting and it has no guns; Armour Plates convert Stunned to Shaken; and Weapon Destroyed just removes one of its 5 attacks, which is irritating but not really important. Furthermore, even Immobilized only has a 50% chance to keep it still for longer than one turn. What this all means is that Glancing it does basically nothing; you have to Pen it to do any damage.

Third, AV 12 with a KFF is not easy to destroy. Hydras, for instance, are largely ineffective against a Deff Dread; 4 TL S7 shots will usually give 3 hits, of which one will pen or glance. If it's a glance, it has a 1/6 chance of doing something productive (ie Immobilizing) and then a 1/2 chance of being ignored anyway; a pen has a 1/2 chance of Immobilizing or Destroying, and then a 1/2 chance of being ignored. To have good odds of taking a Deff Dread out even temporarily thus requires getting 12 glances or 4 pens, which S7 weapons are unlikely to do in the two turns they have before it charges.

If my opponent doesn't concentrate enough fire on the Dreads to get that many damage results, they aren't going to stop them and I get to charge in with DCCWs. The Deff Dreads then proceed to do much, much more damage than their points cost seems to indicate. On the other hand, if my opponent DOES commit the necessary fire, he almost certainly did so by diverting lascannon, melta or (in the case of Tau) railgun fire away from my Battlewagons; in which case the Dreads have served their purpose by allowing Ghazghkull, my Nobz and my Shoota Boyz to reach attack range unchecked. Once again; these Dreads cost 120 points each. They are entirely disposable.

Finally, in my experience most people don't have much experience dealing with Deff Dreads; they don't work anything like Imperial Dreadnoughts do. Either they ignore them under the assumption that they can kill them any time they please and shoot at the BWs instead, or they fire EVERYTHING at them first turn; so either I get the Dreads into combat, or I get the BWs into combat, and either way I'm fine with that.

In brief; Deff Dreads either draw lots of fire and give your other units a much better chance of survival, or they don't draw ENOUGH fire and so survive to hit the enemy lines, kill tanks, tie up large or especially killy units and generally cause havoc in an quintessentially Orky (and highly effective!) manner.

Any other Warbosses around here had success with Deff Dreads? Or, alternatively, is the community convinced that they're an entirely uncompetitive option?

I love Dreads. I use them in every Kan Wall list I use. Especially since they are Troops choices. 5 Heavy Weapon units in 1 army is EPIC win. Sometimes I'll bring 2x Skorchas on them to provide some nice anti Infantry as well.

I've got 2 Dredds that I'll almost always take- mostly because I only have 1 Boyz squad (but also because I wuvz it so)

I love the htings. I'm still working on building up 3 more for a proppa Dredd Bash.

One of them I always run with 2 KMBs (mostly because I adore the zzappy little guns) and it either always hits with both and does a ton of damage, or misses with both- never one-one.

My other Dredd is all DCCWs. I love the look on folks' faces when they're like "Weapon Destroyed. Okay, what does it have?"
"DCCWs"
"O-okay... I take that then."
"Dang, I only have three left now."
O_o


Heck, there was this one time I was charging across the entire table at a Rifleman and it kept shooting my arms off, one by one, until by the time I finally got into combat, I only had the one left!

I still prefer the a single skorcha or big shoota over the fourth DCCW. It doesn't just make the dread cheaper, but also adds some utility, like reducing the numbers on light infantry before charging them. And a skorcha or a couple of turns of shooting with the big shoota are very likely to kill just as much as that one extra attack, while not losing that much if running.

Rokkits or even KMB are total nonsense though, too many points for too few of an effect. 24" range will even hamper its usefulness if the dread is immobilized.

I run a battlewagon heavy list so always take a KFF Mek, thus seems rude not to take a dread as a troops choice! I used to max out DCCW's but recently have been thinking 2 x scorcha is better; I'm confident 2 x templates will kill more infantry than the extra DCCWs, forcing tonnes of saves on heavy infantry and mashing hordes. Plus he's only 100 points, cheap as chips. What with hiding behind the battlewagons and KFF cover he always reaches krumpin range and causes lots of death!

Using more skorchas can be good, but, when I run them I'm usually hesitant to shoot them. I'm mostly charging from close to the edge of my charge range; if I inflict more than a couple casualties with the skorchas than my opponent removes the models nearest to me and I often lose the chance to charge, and if I don;t inflict many casualties, then what good are the skorchas? I find the extra attacks in CC more useful, but YMMV.

That might also be because I use them mostly as a cleanup/counter-charge unit; my main force hits and deals out pain, then they advance again while the Deff Dreads (who will fall behind the BWs after a couple turns of movement) charge into whatever combats are still ongoing, or take out units that have gotten around to the flanks or rear of the body of my army. In that circumstance, tying a unit up in CC and killing them with DCCW attacks is more valuable than flaming them.

rubicant99 wrote:I run a battlewagon heavy list so always take a KFF Mek, thus seems rude not to take a dread as a troops choice! I used to max out DCCW's but recently have been thinking 2 x scorcha is better; I'm confident 2 x templates will kill more infantry than the extra DCCWs, forcing tonnes of saves on heavy infantry and mashing hordes. Plus he's only 100 points, cheap as chips. What with hiding behind the battlewagons and KFF cover he always reaches krumpin range and causes lots of death!

Why not simpy take trukk boyz instead? You can just as easily hide them behind your battlewagons, but they can keep up with your army and even support it wherever they are needed, rather than waddle behind it and do absolutely nothing for three or more turns.

I took my 1 Dred (with 2 Rokkits) out for points for Ghaz. Ghaz accomplished way more for me at 2000 points. However your reasons for 4DCCW's are interesting so I'll try it the next time I play 2500. Thanks for posting.

Hmmm true... but I love dreads and heavy flamers! : )

Deff dreads are far worth points compared to an imperial dreadnought. They are my way of dealing with very hard units like termies and They are great distractions.

It partly depends on whether you actually intend getting the dredd into combat - if so, then you'll be running them at top speed, so no shooting and all CCWs makes sense, or maybe one burna to give you options in case you get swamped by a horde.

But if instead you just want it to be a big threat and bullet magnet, then one or two big shootas actually makes some sense - you've increased its "can't be ignored" threat level, as it's now killing infantry and the odd light vehicle as it moves forward.

My mech lists normally include 2 Dreads with 3 DCCW and skorchas. very dependable and chew through all sorts of space mans.