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When I started playing space marines in 5th, I was 100% certain of one unit that I wanted to field every game - 10 devastators with 4 plasma cannons. I came to my senses before I put the real squad together, but not before I actually bought the parts...

So. Looking at the PC in 6th, I feel like this might actually be pretty viable now. With the average scatter roll being 7, between bs4, the blast template's 1.5" radius and most vehicles' hull size you're looking at good odds to hit. I'm also thinking ap2 should come out ahead of s8 against armor 10-11. And this is all before considering what a PC does to meq.

It's not that PCs are bad weapons, it's how much you pay for them. I'll toss them into a tac squad where they are cheeper from time to time, but almost never in a dev squad. And never a 4xPC squad.

Perhaps space wolves can do this? It would be a nice deviation from the missile spam long fangs you see everywhere.

Plasma cannons are a much better idea now than they were, even though Gets Hot! still exists. However, I agree that a unit of 4 is overkill on the same weapon. Mix it up with some lascannons if you're after an AP2 unit.

Is it really overkill? Against most squads, you can usually count on a couple hitting and a couple scattering too much to count on. Against big squads, you stand a good chance of all of them hitting. Overkill means that you're putting more wounds out than the squad can successfully save against. I doubt 4 plasma cannons will do this against most squads, and even if they do every once in a while, is it that bad a thing? The 4 PC Dev squad is an extremely powerful anti-infantry unit. 6th did nothing to reduce that power, but it did substantially enhance their anti-vehicle power, giving them some versatility.

Not to mention cover is supposedly harder to get now. Using the 4->5+ cover assumption, PCs got 33% more killy against meq. Though I suppose the new FNP has a say in that.

As for overkill, a 10man squad can split. So that should help with that.

Almarine wrote:Not to mention cover is supposedly harder to get now. Using the 4->5+ cover assumption, PCs got 33% more killy against meq. Though I suppose the new FNP has a say in that.

As for overkill, a 10man squad can split. So that should help with that.

Agree with this. Also, don't forget with all the additional survivability of TEQ this edition (power weapons being AP3), it'll be good to have a strong anti-infantry unit in an army and a 4x PC squad certainly fills that niche.

When I say it's overkill - it's specifically overkill for an AP2 hunting role. Unless you're facing something like Draigowing or Deathwing, you're not going to have much opportunity to fire at these targets - you might get time to take down one unit, but if there are any left they can maneouvre out of your way or even be in combat thereafter.
If you add some lascannons, that unit can then become an effective tank-hunter. Those lascannons are also still useful against your original AP2 targets.

I don't think you should keep looking at it as "AP2 killer" and look at it as "Infantry killer that is also an AP2 killer" If they don't have 2+ save stuff, who cares? You still murder infantry wholesale. They'll either be expensive and spread out or inexpensive and clustered. Either way, it will be worth it. The targets they'll be bad at are spread out, cheap stuff (you have bolters in your army, you'll be okay) and AV13+ stuff.

Teq come on large bases. It is much harder to get a lot of them under a template.

Almarine wrote:Not to mention cover is supposedly harder to get now. Using the 4->5+ cover assumption, PCs got 33% more killy against meq. Though I suppose the new FNP has a say in that.

As for overkill, a 10man squad can split. So that should help with that.

While cover might be less effective, with the ability to buy fortifications, you are probably going to see more of it. And the bunkers are AV 14, which plasma will just splash off of.

Another thing to consider is that MLs can snap fire, while PCs can't.

A full 10 man squad with PCs is 270 points. That's more then a land raider. You could get both a vindicator and and auto/las predator and still have points left over for whistles and bells. An all ML squad is going to be 40 points less, which puts is sub-raider, but only 5 points cheeper then the pair of tanks.

5 man squads are much cheeper, but don't take fire well. So your options are a large, overpriced squad that's unlikely to get its points back, or a small, cheep squad that's probably going to be blown off the table with one round of fire.

A lot of these problems are intrinsic to devastators, and not the PCs fault. When you compare them to the tanks, they just pale. You want to shoot vehicles? Auto/Las pred gives you 4 shots, 2 S7, 2S9 for 120 points. Want to blow infantry off the board? Vindicators deliver the pie plate of doom for about the same cost. A point cost that will get you a 5 man dev squad with one heavy weapon. Yes, the Devs can do both, but only one at a time (unless they split, which makes them easier to neutralize) and to get that level of firepower, they need to be running 4 weapons, which makes them expensive.

Nevelon wrote:While cover might be less effective, with the ability to buy fortifications, you are probably going to see more of it. And the bunkers are AV 14, which plasma will just splash off of.

Another thing to consider is that MLs can snap fire, while PCs can't.

I agree with you that just flat out discounting 4+ cover is stupid, but the fortifications don't really scare me at all. If someone puts his termies there to escape my plasma, they're effectively suppressed anyway. The real issue with cover here is that vehicles have a much easier time getting it. But that's true against all weapons.

Nevelon wrote:A full 10 man squad with PCs is 270 points. That's more then a land raider. You could get both a vindicator and and auto/las predator and still have points left over for whistles and bells. An all ML squad is going to be 40 points less, which puts is sub-raider, but only 5 points cheeper then the pair of tanks.

5 man squads are much cheeper, but don't take fire well. So your options are a large, overpriced squad that's unlikely to get its points back, or a small, cheep squad that's probably going to be blown off the table with one round of fire.

A lot of these problems are intrinsic to devastators, and not the PCs fault. When you compare them to the tanks, they just pale. You want to shoot vehicles? Auto/Las pred gives you 4 shots, 2 S7, 2S9 for 120 points. Want to blow infantry off the board? Vindicators deliver the pie plate of doom for about the same cost. A point cost that will get you a 5 man dev squad with one heavy weapon. Yes, the Devs can do both, but only one at a time (unless they split, which makes them easier to neutralize) and to get that level of firepower, they need to be running 4 weapons, which makes them expensive.

A full squad of plasma devs cost more than a land raider yes. They also have completely different uses and differ from all your vehicle examples by not being vehicles. I'm not saying devs are better than vindicators (can't wait to play some myself) but they do have their advantages. Most obviously, two vindicators can only wound each model twice, while the devs can inflict up to four wounds, giving them the edge against smaller squads like deathwing termies.

Anyway, you definitely have a point in that devs have their shortcomings as a platform for any weapon, but they do bring a lot of guns! Not many things can take plasma cannons in quantity, but the LR executioner is as relevant to this thread as devastators.

Super Ready wrote:When I say it's overkill - it's specifically overkill for an AP2 hunting role. Unless you're facing something like Draigowing or Deathwing, you're not going to have much opportunity to fire at these targets - you might get time to take down one unit, but if there are any left they can maneouvre out of your way or even be in combat thereafter.
If you add some lascannons, that unit can then become an effective tank-hunter. Those lascannons are also still useful against your original AP2 targets.

Termies are really just icing here though, I would be taking these mainly to deal with meq. Traditionally, where there are termies there's usually no shortage of power armour around. However with allies it may become more common seeing things like a squad of paladins or two scoring deathwing squads in a list otherwise consisting of light infantry, so you do have a point.

As for lascannons, they deserve their own thread, but with +1 on damage table from ap2, I feel like they'll now sometimes be worth taking over ML.

Plasma Cannons are viable now. As Nevelon mentioned, they're much better to take in Tac Squads as they're the cheapest source of them in the entire book, and the Bolters complement the weapon as well since it kills all infantry equally. It can also act as anti-transport when there's no tasty infantry to kill. You should know your own rolling when it comes to determining the frequency of Gets Hot!. In all of my games so far that I've put in Plasma Cannons (Approaching 8 now), I still haven't lost the model due to Gets Hot!.

AresX8 wrote:Plasma Cannons are viable now. As Nevelon mentioned, they're much better to take in Tac Squads as they're the cheapest source of them in the entire book, and the Bolters complement the weapon as well since it kills all infantry equally. It can also act as anti-transport when there's no tasty infantry to kill. You should know your own rolling when it comes to determining the frequency of Gets Hot!. In all of my games so far that I've put in Plasma Cannons (Approaching 8 now), I still haven't lost the model due to Gets Hot!.

I really don't like them in tac squads though as then you've got no MM bunkers. As for gets hot, apparently it's harder to die from now? I'm not seeing why but I've heard it in multiple places. Anyone know what that's about?

Almarine wrote:
A full squad of plasma devs cost more than a land raider yes. They also have completely different uses and differ from all your vehicle examples by not being vehicles. I'm not saying devs are better than vindicators (can't wait to play some myself) but they do have their advantages. Most obviously, two vindicators can only wound each model twice, while the devs can inflict up to four wounds, giving them the edge against smaller squads like deathwing termies.

4 wounds?

I field obliterators all the time, and they regularly score 20+ wounds on a unit. Lash helps, but units still cluster in cover or from getting their vehicle blown up, or deepstriking. If a unit is clustered you can get 6 or so hits per template. x4 is 24 hits, wound on 2's, no armor save. Considering most units are only 10 strong my plasma cannons regularly erase units. Now that they get the full strength by touching any part of a vehicle hull they are even more effective. Plasma devs aren't as survivable as obliterators, but are a good bit cheaper.

Kevlar wrote:

Almarine wrote:
A full squad of plasma devs cost more than a land raider yes. They also have completely different uses and differ from all your vehicle examples by not being vehicles. I'm not saying devs are better than vindicators (can't wait to play some myself) but they do have their advantages. Most obviously, two vindicators can only wound each model twice, while the devs can inflict up to four wounds, giving them the edge against smaller squads like deathwing termies.

4 wounds?

I field obliterators all the time, and they regularly score 20+ wounds on a unit. Lash helps, but units still cluster in cover or from getting their vehicle blown up, or deepstriking. If a unit is clustered you can get 6 or so hits per template. x4 is 24 hits, wound on 2's, no armor save. Considering most units are only 10 strong my plasma cannons regularly erase units. Now that they get the full strength by touching any part of a vehicle hull they are even more effective. Plasma devs aren't as survivable as obliterators, but are a good bit cheaper.

Yes, exactly. If each blast hits two models, four devs firing will hit 8 times, while two vindicators will only hit 4. So I'm not the only one considering this at least.