Chaos Space Marines Heavy Bolter or Autocannon?

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**captsabre**

Im in the process of re painting my god awful csm marines to a newer better paintjob and came across a marine made with a heavy bolter. Looking through the codex I see the Autocannon is the same point cost (well for CSM troops anyway). Would I better off converting my heavy bolters to autocannons or would I be better off with the heavy bolters still?

My gut feeling says the Autocannon for the higher strength shots having a higher chance to punch through a bigger variety of foes.

But yeah, what do people think?

**captsabre**

First off the bat I don't use havocs, at the moment anyway, due to being a new collector and the new havoc models are fine cast. What I'm talking about is attaching an autocannon/heavy bolter to a normal CSM squad.

However that is still very useful analysis!

**captsabre**

Exergy wrote:
autocannons, unless you KNOW your opponenet is bringing a lot of T3 guys that you are going to want to fire your guns at.

Yeah I tend to fight a lot of T4 guys rather then T3.

Autocannons do feel about 5X cooler as well which does help.

**captsabre**

kronk wrote:
labmouse42 wrote:

Spoiler:

First, when you say 'One less shot', it's important to realize that's the HB has 50% more shots than the AC. That can be quite a few shots when spread over multiple heavy weapon wielders.

A more practical application is to look at how many wounds each weapon will deliver against specific targets. For this exercise, lets assume you have 5 havocs with 4 heavy weapons.

Seekers
HB : (2/3 to hit) * (5/6 to wound) * (2/3 failed save) * (12 shots) = 4.44 wounds
AC : (2/3 to hit) * (5/6 to wound) * (2/3 failed save) * (8 shots) = 2.96 wounds

Marines
HB : (2/3 to hit) * (2/3 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (12 shots) = 1.77 wounds
AC : (2/3 to hit) * (5/6 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (8 shots) = 1.48 wounds

Daemon Princes
HB : (2/3 to hit) * (1/2 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (12 shots) = 1.33 wounds
AC : (2/3 to hit) * (5/6 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (8 shots) = 1.48 wounds

Hive Tyrants
HB : (2/3 to hit) * (1/3 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (12 shots) = .89 wounds
AC : (2/3 to hit) * (2/3 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (8 shots) = 1.18 wounds

Wraithknights
HB : (2/3 to hit) * (1/3 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (12 shots) = .44 wounds
AC : (2/3 to hit) * (2/3 to wound) * (1/3 failed save) * (8 shots) = .59 wounds

Shown as a Percent
This shows the effective difference between the HB and the AC against equal targets. As you can see, the HB wins out over targets of T3 and T4, but falls short when used against targets of T5 or greater. The AC is also better vs vehicles. So which is better ? Well -- what do you see a lot more of at your games?

Great breakdown, Labmouse. I would only add that Autocannons are sexier, but only by a little.

You have tough standards good sir, that is way sexier

**captsabre**

TheRedWingArmada wrote:
I would only take Heavy Bolters for one reason and one reason only and that is if I want Havocs shooting down squishy's. Otherwise, there is no reason to take those weapons, ever.

Simply put, they're heavy weapons which means your CSM that's on the move isn't going to be shooting with that any more than snapshots. Maybe as an objective holder, but there are way better weapons out there to do that job. For starters, a flamer. lol

I totally see your point, but because im early on in my Chaos Career I dont have access to multiple plasmas and flamers at the moment. I kinda also like the idea of a heavy machine gun of some sort in my squads (looks and fluff wise), especially the ones that are going to be holding a point and still want to add to the fight at longer ranges.

When I have enough heavy weapons marines ill throw them together into some havocs for some fun BWAHAHAHA etc