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Wehrkind: Well, the Cyclones would wound a flying Hive Tyrant or Devourer-armed Carnifex on a 2+ with no saving throw (unless it took a Warp Field), and it would take a minimum of four shots, at around 20 out of 36 shots wounding on average per shot (the average survival rate of a Guardsman getting shot by Space Marine Heavy Bolters).

Against a Heavy Support Carnifex or walking Hive Tyrant it could be as few as 20 out of 216 shots wounding on average per shot.

One would assume that the Cyclone shots would be reserved for the Elite Carnifex units and the flying Hive Tyrant, while the Heavy Support Carnifex units and the walking Hive Tyrant would be the Lascannon targets.

#1. All winged hive tyrants and a lot of heavy support canifexes have a 2+ save.

#2. I don't think a fearless cyclone missile launcher+Stormbolter (Deathwing)=8 assault cannon shots+LD10+20 points (Space Marines).

#1. No, not all Winged Hive Tyrants have a Warp Field, and yes, I did in fact assume that the Heavy Support Carnifex units would have 2+ saves.

#2. Is your opinion true, or are you simply mistaken? I mean, do you have any reasons why the rest of us should share this thought of yours?

He's expressing the comparison in simple terms.

Deathwing gives up multiple heavies for Fearlessness, and costs more.

It's fairly close to an axiom among competitive players that assault cannons are very, very good, so simultaneously halving your number of assault cannons while paying more for the privilege is a bit counter-intuitive.

I think you've done a good job pointing out some applications in which Deathwing or Cyclones could be of enhanced comparative utility, but Blackmoor is pointing out (based on his tourney experience and fairly impressive records therein) that these applications have mostly been niche cases. In the more common situations, multiple assault cannons = way good, and Fearlessness /= so much better than Ld10 that it's worth losing the extra AC.

Yes, I'm aware of the difference. I'm simply curious as to his justification for thinking that is so. If it's good justification I'd like to share it, y'know?

From what I've read of Blackmoor's posts in this thread I haven't seen anything to justify the suggestion that the utility of Deathwing squads and Cyclone Missile Launchers is limited niche cases while the Assault Cannon has greater utility in more situations.

By contrast I believe Phoenix has given us several reasons to believe that Cyclone Missile Launchers would be more effective against the Tyranid list in question (deployment, retreats, target selection, etc). Given Phoenix's arguments (as opposed to Blackmoor's 'because I said sos') it seems that range, strategic position, and versatility compounded by range suggest that mixing Cyclones and Assault Cannons in the same squad is quite an advantage while two heavy weapons per Terminator squad is still available.

But about the Deathwing squad: the Fearless goes a long way to being proactive about Tyranids and the ability to mix Assault Terminators and Tactical Terminators in the same squad means you can have a squad capable of shooting a Monstrous Creature up and the splatting it down (say, two Thunder Hammers, two Power Fists, one Power Weapon, two Storm Bolters, and a Cyclone). But that's kind of off-topic.

At this juncture I'd be interested to hear the specific configuration of that Tyranid army that the person starting the thread played, and what was done with it, so we could discuss actual tactics rather than just strategy, which is the army list forum's business.

Nurglitch wrote: mixing Cyclones and Assault Cannons in the same squad is quite an advantage while two heavy weapons per Terminator squad is still available.

Mixing weaponry (Unless that weaponry gives synergy) is never a good idea. Especially weapons so different in characteristics as a cyclone and an assault cannon.

why use assault cannons at all to fight big things like carnifexes? sure they have rending, but that's too much fire to dump into a target to get maybe a wound or two (only dumb nid players don't give the 2+ armor). the termies are better off killing the masses of nids, while the tac squads pick the biggies apart one at a time with lascannons.

Bastirous666 wrote:why use assault cannons at all to fight big things like carnifexes? [...] the termies are better off killing the masses of nids, while the tac squads pick the biggies apart one at a time with lascannons.

One little nitpick here; assault cannons are actually better at killing MCs than are lascannons (due primarily to multi-shot rending). Actually, the math works out such that, statistically, assault cannons inarguably outperform lascannons against all targets except for AV14 vehicles and T4 multi-wound models w/ 3+ or better saves (due to instant death and consistent AP from the lascannon).

(Of course, the lascannon has superior range and is available in relatively inexpensive troop units... I'm not making one of those "assault cannons are the be-all end-all" arguments, I'm just pointing out that they are, in fact, an excellent choice for killing MCs).

That assault cannons (and the other weapons of the units that carry them) are also among the top choices for killing the small bugs is also true, but since they're good at pretty much everything it seems to me that the choice of what to shoot them at should be situational, not dictated by a blanket rule of "shoot the big/little ones first."

Nurglitch:

They don't need to spend half the game pinned, just half the time that the Tyranids are in range.

Whatever. Point is, good luck getting that to happen, even with a choir list. You're the one who says it's easy, you crunch the math and show me, bearing in mind the time it will take to bring Screams to bear.

Trying to pin the Terminators is certainly worth the bother because if you don't pin them you've still caused a casualty

And if you had gone triple Blast instead of Screams you would have killed more. "Trying to pin Terminators" is not just about shooting them with a BS (that is just shooting your available weapons at them), but about weighting your list towards pinning, in the way you've mentioned--Screams, biovores, etc. That is what isn't worthwhile. Of course it's worth shooting your BS at them if they're the priority target.

I can imagine simply having the chance of being pinned makes the Codex: Space Marine Terminators less useful (i.e.: reliable) than Codex: Dark Angels Terminators.

Imagination is nice and all, but in practice, I have yet to see pinning ever make a big difference in a game.

Nurglitch wrote:Yes, I'm aware of the difference. I'm simply curious as to his justification for thinking that is so. If it's good justification I'd like to share it, y'know?

From what I've read of Blackmoor's posts in this thread I haven't seen anything to justify the suggestion that the utility of Deathwing squads and Cyclone Missile Launchers is limited niche cases while the Assault Cannon has greater utility in more situations.

Blackmoor’s first post, page on page 2, did this.

A MC/Stealers list fights in two main ways. Either it advances to shoot, keeping the stealers back hidden behind the MCs for counterassault/objective holding (and opportunity targets coming within charge range) or it floods your guns by having the stealers close ASAP while simultaneously advancing with the Dakkafexes to shoot, with the sniperfexes sticking to good cover/fire lines behind.

Either way, any walking Tyrant with Guard usually hangs out between the two Fex zones, shooting and acting as a counterassault element in case you charge the Dakkafexes, and any winged Tyrant advances behind LOS-blocking terrain, assaulting a flank or in concert with stealers if he’s assaulty, or breaking cover to shoot once the Dakkafexes/stealers start to get in range in the hopes that you won’t focus fire on just him.

In either case, the Dakkafexes, due to their 18” range, will be moving towards you early. Due to the standard deployment zone sizes, you can almost inevitably expect Dakkafexes to be in range for your Assault Cannons on turn 1, or turn 2 at the latest. You usually start 24” apart, and the Dakkafexes will move up 6” if possible, or close to that while sticking to cover if they’ve got a good spot. The greater range of the Cyclones is of little utility, since your best targets for ACs (Dakkafexes and Stealers) will usually be within 24” of your zone/army for the entire game.

Cyclones are not useless against Dakkafexes, since they only have a 3+ save, but still average fewer wounds than assault cannons. And no one even needs to look at the math to see how well ACs outperform MLs when you do get a shot at the stealers. If/when you clear out the DFs, Stealers, and (if possible) the flying Tyrant, who are threatening/close, you can advance to start rending down the walking tyrant and HS fexes in the Tyranid backfield.

In terms of general utility against most targets, again, the math shows that an AC outperforms every gun against every target except a couple in specific situations. Lascannons against AV14, for example, or a plasmacannon against Deep Strikers (who are forced to be circled up in base contact). And when you compare a pair of ACs to a single AC or Cyclone (regular SM vs Deathwing) the disparity becomes stark.

Bastirous666 wrote:why use assault cannons at all to fight big things like carnifexes? sure they have rending, but that's too much fire to dump into a target to get maybe a wound or two (only dumb nid players don't give the 2+ armor). the termies are better off killing the masses of nids, while the tac squads pick the biggies apart one at a time with lascannons.

Remember that the Elite fexes don't have 2+ saves. Run the math sometime. Even against a 2+ save, Rending makes the AC superior to any other gun out there. And the ACs are great if there are any little bugs (some players do use some gaunts) or medium bugs (stealers or the rarely-seen warriors).

Nurglitch: The reason I say the AC is so much better vs. the flying tyrant is that it has the possibility of killing it in one turn, from one terminator's shots, while on average doing about 1 wound. The missile also does about one wound on average say, but it has zero chance of killing the thing off all at once. If weapon A has a greater variance with an equal average result to weapon B which has a much smaller variance, weapon A is generally superior.

Dire Wombat wrote: One little nitpick here; assault cannons are actually better at killing MCs than are lascannons (due primarily to multi-shot rending). Actually, the math works out such that, statistically, assault cannons inarguably outperform lascannons against all targets except for AV14 vehicles and T4 multi-wound models w/ 3+ or better saves (due to instant death and consistent AP from the lascannon).

(Of course, the lascannon has superior range and is available in relatively inexpensive troop units... I'm not making one of those "assault cannons are the be-all end-all" arguments, I'm just pointing out that they are, in fact, an excellent choice for killing MCs).

Math breakdown. Target = T6, 3+ save
Las cannon = .55 wounds / shooting phase
Assault canon = 1 wounds / shooting phase (.66 rending, .33 normal)

Target = T6, 2+ save
Las cannon = .55 wounds / shooting phase
Assault cannon = .83 wounds / shooting phase (.66 rending, .16 normal)

So while the las cannon has greater range and ap power, the assault cannon (on average) will do more wounds per shooting phase than the las cannon and it's due directly to rending. Even if you removed the "normal" wounds the assault cannon did, the rending shots alone do more damage (stupid rending).

Nurglitch wrote:Yes, I'm aware of the difference. I'm simply curious as to his justification for thinking that is so. If it's good justification I'd like to share it, y'know?

From what I've read of Blackmoor's posts in this thread I haven't seen anything to justify the suggestion that the utility of Deathwing squads and Cyclone Missile Launchers is limited niche cases while the Assault Cannon has greater utility in more situations.

I was going to tell you last night that I hold these truths to be self evident.

I am surprised that you do not know that the AC is vastly superior to any other weapon that you can arm a terminator with.

As Phoenix pointed out, you will do far more damage to a TMC with an Assault Cannon than you will with a Lascannon. And a Lascannon is a much better weapon than a Cyclone Missile Launcher.

Then let’s look at the AC vs. Genestealers. On average an Assault Cannon will kill 2.22 Genestealers a turn. The Cyclone Missile Launcher will kill .55 Genestealers with a Krak missile. If you shoot frag missile (let’s be generous) and say that you will hit 2 and have 2 partials, then you will do 1 wound if the Genestealers have a 5+ save, and .5 if they have a 4+ save.

So you can see that in a head-to head comparison the Assault Cannon is vastly superior to the Cyclone Missile Launcher.

Now if you want to trade LD10 for Fearlessness, then the argument for the Assault Cannon is overwhelming.

So let’s review
Deathwing with 1 CML= .55 wounds to a TMC (against a 3+save, against a 2+ save it will be much worse)
Deathwing with 1 CML= .55 wounds to a Genestealer with a Krak Missile (against a 3+save, against a 2+ save it will be much worse)
Deathwing with 1 CML= 1 wound (5+ save) or .5 wounds (4+ save) to a Genestealer with a Frag Missile (Assuming 2 fulls, and 2 partials).

Deathwing with 1 AC= 1 wound to a TMC
Deathwing with 1 AC= 2.22 wounds to Genestealers

Space Marine with 2 CML =1.1 wounds to a TMC (against a 3+save, against a 2+ save it will be much worse)
Space Marine with 2 CML= 1.1 wounds to a Genestealer with a Krak Missile
Space Marine with 2 CML= 2 wounds (5+ save) or 1 wounds (4+ save) to a Genestealer with a Frag Missile (Assuming 2 fulls, and 2 partials).

Space Marine with 2 AC= 2 wounds to a TMC
Space Marine with 2 AC= 4.44 wounds to Genestealers

To add to Blackmoor's post, the Cyclone is relegated to the niche cases where the extended range can be used for enough turns to overcome the deficit in killiness. Or can, vs tyranid MCs, prevent enough deaths of terminators to tyranid shooting to overcome the same deficit.

I would honestly give the edge to the Cyclone vs. tyranid MC's just for the range if it weren't for 2+ saves being so ubiquitous on HQ and Heavy MCs. A 2+ save turns a good margin in favor of the AC into a huge margin in favor of the AC.

Moz wrote:To add to Blackmoor's post, the Cyclone is relegated to the niche cases where the extended range can be used for enough turns to overcome the deficit in killiness. Or can, vs tyranid MCs, prevent enough deaths of terminators to tyranid shooting to overcome the same deficit.

That would be the issue in a nut shell.

I'm starting to think that a mix and match approach might be the way to go. Take 2 cyclone squads and 1-2 (depending on points and what not) assault cannon squads (you can take terminator HQ retenues right?). Back up for the first couple of turns to draw out the steelers and/or other fast units. Gun them down with the assault cannon squads. While this is going on, you can have the cyclones shelling the fexes. Then on turn 3 or so, reverse direction and march up on the dakka fexes with everything. Try to stay out of line of sight of the sniper fexes as much as possible and blaze up the flyrant with assault cannon fire if he shows himself (and is sporting a 2+ save).

pheonix is going in the right direction of thought, because of the simple fact that mostly terminator armies cannot depend wholly on the assault cannon to do that damage for them. Sure it is nice, and does lots of damage, but it is not the ultimate weapon, and definitely can't win the game for you. most shots will bounce off, and out of 8 shots a great roll would be getting 2-3 rends. But even that rarely if ever happens. There are plenty of better ways to kill fexes than termies with assault cannons.

i say look for alternatives to the termies for the purpose of killing MC's

Phoenix:

I'm starting to think that a mix and match approach might be the way to go. Take 2 cyclone squads and 1-2 (depending on points and what not) assault cannon squads (you can take terminator HQ retenues right?). Back up for the first couple of turns to draw out the steelers and/or other fast units.

So your strategy is "pray that your opponent screws up"? Because that is precisely what s/he would be doing by sending his stealers out to be mown down by your ACs. S/he would be far better off just following the standard procedure of plodding forward behind a wall of MCs. After all, you have already neutered your firepower by swapping half the ACs you could have had for CMLs. What if your opponent does this? How does it leave you any better off than if you had taken ACs instead?

It is possible that we are barking up the wrong tree so to speak. How about another radical terminator idea? As we all know, fexes suck in hand to hand. The issue is though that most things with str 4 attacks don't do much to them. Terminators, however, are all (or almost all) str 8 in hand to hand. So how about trying to get those terminators into close combat?

How we manage this is the question though. Let’s look at some options.

1) Walking. This isn't the ideal method of delivery but I bring it up to point that out. If you just walk towards the fexes, they will most likely just walk away from you and keep you from ever getting into assault.

2) Land raiders. While these things are normally huge point sinks, one or two might be useful for this role. If this is the case, you could buy them as heavy support choices so that they could transport any squad you like (your heavy slots are not being used for anything anyway). You then fill them with assault terminators and drive them straight for the dakka fexes. Try to avoid the sniper fexes since they actually pose some sort of threat to the land raiders. Once you get close, disembark the terminators and go to town. Crusaders would probably be the best option for the load out since the hurricane bolters would be able to cut down the biggest threat to both the tank and its passengers, namely the steelers. I'm not sure which codexes allow the use of the crusader, so someone might want to check on that before trying to implement this idea. This idea also requires that you have some forward units of assault cannon toating terminators around to thin out / eliminate the steelers before you go in. In addition, if you arm all your assault terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields, they are rather resistant to damage should some steelers or the flyrant manage to make it into hand to hand with them.

3) Deep strike. This method has some pros and cons. The pros are that it can get you wherever you need to be and that you can’t get shot on the way there. The cons are that you can’t assault once you get there and your target can walk away from you once you land. Let’s also not forget that you come in on a random turn as well. So how do we make this work? Well if you have some assault cannon terminators go in first and clear out the steelers, you can have some terminators deep strike down behind the fex gun line. From there you can do a pincer move of having the units both in front and behind the fexes start moving in and assaulting. Since you can’t assault the turn you land, assault terminators might not be the best idea for this role. Assault cannon terminators should work well though. This tactic is one of the few places were a dark angles list might out perform a basic marine codex. Most of the other tactics discussed in this thread have relied on shooting to do most of the damage. Since this one relies both on assault and more importantly on deep strike, using the “Deathwing Assault” might be a good idea.

Thoughts, comments, opinions?

If going with the DS idea, use normal Termies instead of Assault Termies. You're hunting fexes--what special CC weapons do you need? Storm shields to fractionally improve their survivability against the beast's 1 hit per turn? Better to have the ACs. That way, when your opponent decides not to oblige you by letting you shoot his stealers to your heart's desire, you still have dual ACs (and the SBs) to thin them out from behind the wall the turn you DS.

@Nurglitch
My opponent used the TMC wall approach. It had 3 thropes, 2 dakafexes (T7, no carapace), 3 elite devourer fexes, walkrant, flyrant, and about 32 stealers (bareboned).

@Phoenix
I intitially thought deep strike would work beautifully, but I will never do it again for the reasons I stated in the beginning and verified by experienced players here. The only highlight was that my libby and bodygaurd were able to take down the flyrant in one round of shooting when they deep struck. This is the only advantage I can see in deep striking. possibly getting behind the TMC wall, but if I was the nid player and saw my opponent hold the termies in reserve, I would just charge with the stealers instead of using the wall tactic. I still have not played the third game (hopefully it's a charm). I will not deep strike and feel confident that the assault cannons 24" range and high volume of fire will allow me to target the stealers first if they charge or the TMC's if they use the wall. This is the main reason why I will stick with the AC, it's flexibility to be effective versus the horde and the TMC.

Hey, you do realise that the AC's range is not 24", right? Typo?

dornsfist wrote:
My opponent used the TMC wall approach. It had 3 thropes, 2 dakafexes (T7, no carapace), 3 elite devourer fexes, walkrant, flyrant, and about 32 stealers (bareboned).

Small correction here: dakkafex = elite devourer fex. gunfex = heavy venom\barbed stranger fex.

Godzilla Nids & Mech Eldar are the main reasons that every competitive Marine army should include 3 Whilrwinds, and then the usual "good stuff".

Kills the bugs that worry you, with no opportunity to hide, and you can use your Assault Cannons & Las/Plas to take out the big bugs (here's a hint: shoot the Flyrant and then Dakka Fex's first).

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Godzilla Nids & Mech Eldar are the main reasons that every competitive Marine army should include 3 Whilrwinds, and then the usual "good stuff".

Don't forget Orks and Tau that 3 Whirlwinds do well against, and they even do pretty well against MEQs.

as long as your using one castellian launcher. S5 Ap4 just aint enough to be useful to me. and the castellians hit on the way in too.

dornsfist wrote:
@Phoenix
I intitially thought deep strike would work beautifully, but I will never do it again for the reasons I stated in the beginning and verified by experienced players here. The only highlight was that my libby and bodygaurd were able to take down the flyrant in one round of shooting when they deep struck. This is the only advantage I can see in deep striking. possibly getting behind the TMC wall, but if I was the nid player and saw my opponent hold the termies in reserve, I would just charge with the stealers instead of using the wall tactic. I still have not played the third game (hopefully it's a charm). I will not deep strike and feel confident that the assault cannons 24" range and high volume of fire will allow me to target the stealers first if they charge or the TMC's if they use the wall. This is the main reason why I will stick with the AC, it's flexibility to be effective versus the horde and the TMC.

Just presenting ideas here. The main reason I bring up the deep strike option was Nurglitch's sugestion of using dark angles. With the dark angles codex you can get the death wing assault going. This will allow you to deep strike your terminators in a timely fashion with reliability...something that you can't do (and that seriously hinders deep strike as an option) with normal marines. Now, no one is saying you have to go out and repaint your marines or anything, but you might want to give their rules a try and see if it will work. Regardless of if it does work or it doesn't, I would be interested in hearing how it went.

I've looked at the DA codex, and I don't really like it one bit. It's got that whole, your squads can only take this bit going on that GW seems to be putting in all of the new codices. I think he's much better off with the regular nilla marine codex in terms of versatility and customization. However there are rumors of another update (doubt it) so it's a gamble to use it. I dunno no matter which way he goes the problem still stands, good way to take out nids...which can be a tough thing.

There are competitive marine lists?

Where??

You never want to deep strike against Genestealers. Haven't you ever played Space Hulk?

Even assault terminators will be quickly killed.