Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

TheBloodGod wrote:

Mmm...Pi wrote:

Oh, and nice job assuming your vet's chimera would ever get them there.

Nice job assuming any of the assault tanks will ever survive long enough to kill anything.

A vendetta can kill stuff from 48" away. Anything that can kill a 130-point vendetta can easily kill a 130-point hellhound. Nice job assuming magic invincibility with your fail suggestions and assuming the enemy suddenly actually has guns for the battle-proven ones.

As I recall, there are only a few weapons that can kill a hellhound at 24" that can't kill a valk at 48. On the note of ranged shooting, a devil dog, as a fast vehicle, which kiddo's can move 12" and fire it's main gun, can potentially hit any target in the opposing deployment zone. And yes, that does expose it to quite a bit of fire power, giving bikes, and speeders a chance to kill it. To bad every army takes thes....I mean space marines COULD take these.
I guess a 4+ cover save does mean invincibility, at least to listen to many people on this forum. I merely stated that an assault tank could take better advantage of existing terrain. After all, hiding a 4 1/2" by 6" box is easier than the 18" wing span of the valk family. Sure as a fast skimmer it can generate it's own cover save, but than you can't shoot those las cannons that everyone tells me are under powered. For that matter, even at 12" speed the hellhound family looses less fire-power than the vendetta.



By the way, for everyone. I'm not saying assault tanks are superior, or even necessarily equal. They DO however have many uses, and should still be considered even if you don't choose them in the end. By the same token, Valkyries and vendettas have weaknesses, many which can be exploited easily. Ultimately choose what fits your army best. Assault tanks to screen chimeras, or leman russ. Or to run interference for massed infantry for example. Valkyries/vendettas have well documented uses, but I can easily see them taken in a list that could get better use from something else.

Weapon destroyed doesn't make a hellhound or any assault tank variant useless. The tank comes with a 2nd gun in the hull...with your choice of heavy flamer or multimelta. Moving 6" and firing two melta weapons at 24" does not suck.

The only thing I don't like about it is the BS 3. Oh...vulcan, where are you?

Banewolf is ap3 no cover..who said that the banewolf gives cover?

Edit: Oh, the hellhound is a hard counter to scout bikes. Let the IG players take their vendettas and their russes.

If a Chimera and a Hellhound take a weapon destroyed, you have a tank with the same weapons and no transport capability that cost more than twice as much. All you get out of the deal is that it's fast. So you're right. It's not useless. It's just a heck of a lot more useless than a Vendetta that only lost one Lascannon.

But out side of weapon hits, an assault tank is just as durable as a Valkyrie or vendetta, and will die to the exact same weapons. Even the weapon hits though can be misleading, a devil dog with meltacannon, multimelta, hvy. stubber requires three weapon destroyed results to stop from firing. And both vehicle families have weapons in a fixed arc, such as the hull weapon for the assault tank, or all the las cannons for the vendetta. However, the assault tank has it's main gun on a turret, and a weapon on a pintle. With it just as likely to take an immobilized hit first, as it could take a weapon destroyed hit, the assault tank has a better option for attack than a crashed vendetta. Especially when you consider that there will be less stuff in the way at 24-36 inches than at 36-48. I do agree that the Assault tanks loose their firepower at a faster rate than a vendetta does. People will almost always kill it's main gun first, than hull, followed by the stubber (if it has one).

In tables with more terrain, the assault tanks will have better opportunities to get cover saves.....

you should try playing with more terrain (also more varied types of terrain), makes the game more fun...I seriously recommend it...

Again on Vendettas vs Assault tanks, don't forget they get sponson Heavy Bolters, which I always run. Vendettas also have more movement, obviously, and can transport troops. Mainly I use this to put a PCS in just to make it scoring. Also, I'd argue that taking a Heavy Stubber is a waste of points. Even if you do, the assault tanks lose their main purpose with a single weapon destroyed shot. Everything else can still fire, but they're basically extra shots compared to the main turret.

As for "stuff in the way", the Vendetta's obvious weakness of being so high up also gives it a lot better line of sight than things on the ground making cover saves against it more difficult. (I'd still probably prefer it on the ground so I could occasionally hide it, but you have to acknowledge both the benefit and the detriment.)

For reference I almost always run two Vendettas and a Hellhound at 1500. I agree that it has a place, but I wouldn't say it's better unless we're talking about cover saves and killing assault troops with 4+ or worse. (mainly I shoot it at Genestealers)

On the practical side, assault tanks are really much easier to carry around...I'm going to fly tomorrow to another city and bring my IG, and no way am I bringing my skimmers...so the devil dog gets the nod....

I was looking at the Bane Wolf Weapons Load
-CHEM Cannon: Template, S-1, AP-3, Assault-1, wound on a 2+
-Heavy Bolter: Range-36”, S-5 AP-4, Heavy-3

May Replace Heavy Bolter with
-Heavy Flamer: Template, S-5, AP-4, Assault-1
-Multi-Melta: Range-24”, S-8, AP-1, Heavy-1, Melta

May Add one of the following
-Storm Bolter: Range-24”, S-4, AP-5, Assault-2
-Heavy Stubber: Range-36”, S-4, AP-6 Heavy-3 [My weapon of Choice for this Option]

These are my thoughts:
-Give it the Pintle mounted Weapon and you have three weapons you can fire after moving 12”.
-Give it the Multi-Melta and watch your opponent try to decide what he takes out, the CHEM Cannon or the Multi-Melta.
-Leave it with the Heavy Bolter and take the Heavy Stubber. Leave it in your Backfield as a Counter Assault Unit with a36” Fire Support Range.
-Give three of them Heavy Flamers and have Creed “Outflank” Them. 6 Template Weapons will ruin any Non-Vehicle Fire Support Unit’s Day

I've heard its a bad idea to take the Heavy Flamer and Chem Cannon because Marines will play wound allocation games with the two AP values.

In the assault tank vs. vendetta debate, I'd be inclined to give more credence to people who have actually used the assault tanks and can speak from experience (like freddieyu1), and not just those who looked at the numbers in the book and rejected assault tanks out of hand.

I've never used vendettas/valks, but their utility is obvious to me. This thread is about utility of units that isn't so obvious on paper, but that might emerge in actual gameplay.

True, but all you need to do is kill 3+ of a Marine Devistator Squad to make it run off the Table [If they Fail thier LD9 Moral]
But it you can get to the 5 Man or Combat Squaded Devs kiss them goodby

With 3 of them though you should be able to cover most of the Squad with Chem Cannon Shots.

ElCheezus wrote:If a Chimera and a Hellhound take a weapon destroyed, you have a tank with the same weapons and no transport capability that cost more than twice as much. All you get out of the deal is that it's fast. So you're right. It's not useless. It's just a heck of a lot more useless than a Vendetta that only lost one Lascannon.

No, because a chimera is not a fast multimelta with armor value 12 in the side. With or without weapon destroyed.

scuddman wrote:

ElCheezus wrote:If a Chimera and a Hellhound take a weapon destroyed, you have a tank with the same weapons and no transport capability that cost more than twice as much. All you get out of the deal is that it's fast. So you're right. It's not useless. It's just a heck of a lot more useless than a Vendetta that only lost one Lascannon.

No, because a chimera is not a fast multimelta with armor value 12 in the side. With or without weapon destroyed.

QFT. AR12 on the side seems like a small thing, but it's huge in actual gameplay. There's a long list of str4-6 weapons (assault cannons, scatter lasers, heavy bolters, even boltguns) that will trash a chimera shooting at the side, but they either can't hurt or mostly bounce off of assault tanks. When you're moving around the tabletop, those side arcs are huge.

Flavius Infernus wrote:QFT. AR12 on the side seems like a small thing, but it's huge in actual gameplay. There's a long list of str4-6 weapons (assault cannons, scatter lasers, heavy bolters, even boltguns) that will trash a chimera shooting at the side, but they either can't hurt or mostly bounce off of assault tanks. When you're moving around the tabletop, those side arcs are huge.

Amen.

scuddman wrote:Weapon destroyed doesn't make a hellhound or any assault tank variant useless. The tank comes with a 2nd gun in the hull...with your choice of heavy flamer or multimelta. Moving 6" and firing two melta weapons at 24" does not suck.

An AV12 heavy flamer (has to be assaultable with AV10, and within range of melta guns) for 120-130 points is basically garbage. All it takes to neuter the unit is to destroy the good gun.

The range of a devil dog is not 24", as with any melta weapon, for it to accomplish anything, it has to get within 12" of its target. If you think BS3 S8 with no bonuses is enough to deal with tanks, then missile launcher squads are a lot cheaper.

Moving into kill-me range with only AV12 and firing two S8 hits then having 1 hit and do nothing against real armor does suck for a 135 point investment.
On turn 1 for 5 less points a vendetta hits 2.25 S9 instead of 1 S8 hit.

The utility of any unit is half determined by its stats and half determined by its points cost. Yes, a hellhound has somewhat better stats than a chimera. It also costs +75 points.

That means for every hellhound you bring (1 upgraded flamer, 1 H.Flamer) I can bring a chimera (2 H.Flamer) AND 3 Autocannon teams (6 S7 shots at 48")
Or just anything else for less than 75 points, such as Marbo (appear right behind enemy tank and use S8 ordinance on it), armored sentinel with best gun, or just extra chimeras.

If I had a unit of boyz, would I be more afraid of 2 hellhounds or 5 chimeras? Without a doubt, the chimeras. I could neutralize at least 1 hellhound easily with shooting. Any amount of shooting that wouldn't destroy the 2 hellhounds isn't gonna be enough to stop 5 chims from hitting me with tons of heavy flamers. (Plus, for free my infantry gets to move up protected from enemy guns.)

It's also ap 1. If you run the numbers for ap1, it's better than a lascannon against all tanks except armor value 14.

Why? Because of the +1 to the table. On a glance a 6 still destroys. On a punch 4-6 is destroyed.

And I'm not talking about being in melta range.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

scuddman wrote:

ElCheezus wrote:If a Chimera and a Hellhound take a weapon destroyed, you have a tank with the same weapons and no transport capability that cost more than twice as much. All you get out of the deal is that it's fast. So you're right. It's not useless. It's just a heck of a lot more useless than a Vendetta that only lost one Lascannon.

No, because a chimera is not a fast multimelta with armor value 12 in the side. With or without weapon destroyed.

QFT. AR12 on the side seems like a small thing, but it's huge in actual gameplay. There's a long list of str4-6 weapons (assault cannons, scatter lasers, heavy bolters, even boltguns) that will trash a chimera shooting at the side, but they either can't hurt or mostly bounce off of assault tanks. When you're moving around the tabletop, those side arcs are huge.

Pardon for not making my assumptions clear. Since a BS3 Multimelta on a Hellhound is an inconsistent waste of 15 points. I wish it were good. I want multimeltas desperately, but I've tried it, I've always been underwhelmed by it's 50/50 performance. Therefore the assumption is that, like any sane player, you'd take a hull Heavy Flamer, just like a Chimera.

As for 12 side armor, yes it's great. I wish Chimeras had at least 11 side armor, just to stick it to bolters. It certainly isn't worth 75 points, though. Plus, the rear armor is much more important when you're going to be close enough to use the flamer on infantry, and therefore close enough to be assaulted.

Of course, this is all crazy conjecture and an insane streak of posts, since the original statement was concerned with a comparison between Vendettas and Hellhounds. I included Chimera comparisson only to illustrate that the assault tanks lose much more thank Vendettas from a "Weapon Destroyed", since they have no effective redundancy for their turret. Again, I don't think their useless, since I run one. I just think claiming they're better than Vendettas is ridiculous. They're great against hordes, if you can stay out of assault long enough to get more than one shot. With the turret gone, this is impossible.

TheBloodGod wrote:

scuddman wrote:Weapon destroyed doesn't make a hellhound or any assault tank variant useless. The tank comes with a 2nd gun in the hull...with your choice of heavy flamer or multimelta. Moving 6" and firing two melta weapons at 24" does not suck.

An AV12 heavy flamer (has to be assaultable with AV10, and within range of melta guns) for 120-130 points is basically garbage. All it takes to neuter the unit is to destroy the good gun.

The range of a devil dog is not 24", as with any melta weapon, for it to accomplish anything, it has to get within 12" of its target. If you think BS3 S8 with no bonuses is enough to deal with tanks, then missile launcher squads are a lot cheaper.

Moving into kill-me range with only AV12 and firing two S8 hits then having 1 hit and do nothing against real armor does suck for a 135 point investment.
On turn 1 for 5 less points a vendetta hits 2.25 S9 instead of 1 S8 hit.

The utility of any unit is half determined by its stats and half determined by its points cost. Yes, a hellhound has somewhat better stats than a chimera. It also costs +75 points.

That means for every hellhound you bring (1 upgraded flamer, 1 H.Flamer) I can bring a chimera (2 H.Flamer) AND 3 Autocannon teams (6 S7 shots at 48")
Or just anything else for less than 75 points, such as Marbo (appear right behind enemy tank and use S8 ordinance on it), armored sentinel with best gun, or just extra chimeras.

If I had a unit of boyz, would I be more afraid of 2 hellhounds or 5 chimeras? Without a doubt, the chimeras. I could neutralize at least 1 hellhound easily with shooting. Any amount of shooting that wouldn't destroy the 2 hellhounds isn't gonna be enough to stop 5 chims from hitting me with tons of heavy flamers. (Plus, for free my infantry gets to move up protected from enemy guns.)

Have you ever used assault tanks? or is this pure theory?

I've a nice set of battle reports some time back on an entire campaign where I used the Devil Dog..I won that Gladiator League BTW, and have the large 40k carrying case to prove it....and the devil dog did quite well......you do NOT have to be within 12" for it to be useful, but it is of course optimal to be within 12" IF the target is a vehicle....my experience is that it receives a huge amount of attention from enemies (I feel more to the "new model" syndrome than anything else, and the idea of the melta cannon getting close plays on opponents minds) and with it's small size you can actually use this to your advantage as it is not too difficult to get a cover save of the dog, especially if it is part of the av12 wall of tanks....

Point comparisons and efficiency arguments can go on forever, but I believe it is how you use your weapons and units that count...the argument here is that the "hound" tanks are not utter garbage so much so that an IG player should pick the skimmers over them, in the same way that rough riders and sentinels also have a role which can be used to fulfill a purpose....

I love the valk/vendetta models and their rules and use, don't get me wrong, BUT using them every time is so.....cookie cutter.....I prefer to be flexible and unpredictable, so I try to bring different kinds of lists to different events...also keeps me from getting bored with the IG dex...although I have the 4 other 40k armies and WHFB to field once I TRULY get bored with IG (which is thankfully a rare occassion, but it still happens, as we long time players have all experienced)...

freddieyu1 wrote:Have you ever used assault tanks? or is this pure theory?

I've a nice set of battle reports some time back on an entire campaign where I used the Devil Dog..I won that Gladiator League BTW, and have the large 40k carrying case to prove it....and the devil dog did quite well......you do NOT have to be within 12" for it to be useful, but it is of course optimal to be within 12" IF the target is a vehicle....my experience is that it receives a huge amount of attention from enemies (I feel more to the "new model" syndrome than anything else, and the idea of the melta cannon getting close plays on opponents minds) and with it's small size you can actually use this to your advantage as it is not too difficult to get a cover save of the dog, especially if it is part of the av12 wall of tanks....

Point comparisons and efficiency arguments can go on forever, but I believe it is how you use your weapons and units that count...the argument here is that the "hound" tanks are not utter garbage so much so that an IG player should pick the skimmers over them, in the same way that rough riders and sentinels also have a role which can be used to fulfill a purpose....

I love the valk/vendetta models and their rules and use, don't get me wrong, BUT using them every time is so.....cookie cutter.....I prefer to be flexible and unpredictable, so I try to bring different kinds of lists to different events...also keeps me from getting bored with the IG dex...although I have the 4 other 40k armies and WHFB to field once I TRULY get bored with IG (which is thankfully a rare occassion, but it still happens, as we long time players have all experienced)...

This is what I've been trying to say this whole time. Not necessarily better, but in certain builds, more appropriate. And certainly not useless.

And to address the BS:3 issue, who says you have to take one? Squadron 2 and your chances for a hit go up to 75 %. And YES, I know about the down side for squadrons. But considering the attitude towards the vehicles, and how most of the people I've been debating with this isn't a downside. After all if it's useless if it's immobile, and useless if it looses it's turret, no matter what else it's armed with... . Than destroyed on an immobilized result shouldn't be that big a deal.

i play orks and have run a foul of ogryns, hell hounds and rough riders on multiple occasions. 4 ogryns with a lord commisar in a chimera makes a mess of a horde of boys, rough ruders hiding behind leman russes are amazing (once a unit of 5 counter charged my nobs and killed 4 making them run off the table) and i dont think their one use lancers arnt that bad as they accel at being at the right place at the right time. Hell Hounds are pure evil IMHO.

tedstea wrote:i play orks and have run a foul of ogryns, hell hounds and rough riders on multiple occasions. 4 ogryns with a lord commisar in a chimera makes a mess of a horde of boys, rough ruders hiding behind leman russes are amazing (once a unit of 5 counter charged my nobs and killed 4 making them run off the table) and i dont think their one use lancers arnt that bad as they accel at being at the right place at the right time. Hell Hounds are pure evil IMHO.

they are only 1 use IF they get obliterated the turn after they assault...note that this is NOT always the case....after this they can go tank hunting, as krak G come as standard equipment.....I've even used them to mess up pink horrors after I used the lancers, with good effect!!!

Just a reminder,

Comparing a assault tank to the vandetta in a vacuum can be me misleading. In a vaccum, yes I would take the vandetta b/c it is probably all around moreuseful. Never the less, when I want a infantry killing fast tank to protect my front lines, I take the hellhound. Park it behind a leman russ or two and blast anything that's on foot which comes close, or deepstrikes. The front tank give it stronger defense and with the inferno cannon it doesn't really need to leave from behind it. If after the main tanks have eliminated the vehicle killers, the hellhound can go out and contest objective and flame more stuff. Its not perfect, but don't underestimate it either.

Comparing it to some chimera's is probably more relevant. The chimera can do a very similiar roll, but I usually prefer the hellhound for its more versitle weapon and speed. In addition, you deployment area can get cramped very quickly with the numbers of vehicles guard can take, and the hell hound again, does not need to worry as much about this. I fully admit the chimera filly with melta vets can do things the hellhound can't, and makes it a good choice. In the end though, I take both, one specified for different functions.

Hellhounds target incoming infantry and other nearby threats, like drop troops
Melta vets target tanks and vehicles.
Leman Russ's target infantry or shot transports.
Infantry target tanks or provide meat shield protection.