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.

Alright, so I was curious as to how effective spamming heavy weapon teams would be? And which weapons would be the best to spam? My point limit is 1750. What weapons would be best to spam assuming it was viable? Lascannons and auto cannon?

Not effective at all. HWS suck, they cost way too much and they're way too fragile (especially against STR 6+). Put your heavy weapons on your tanks and blob squads instead.

I killed Mad Dok Grotsnik in close combat with a HWT once.

Havelock wrote:
Alright, so I was curious as to how effective spamming heavy weapon teams would be? And which weapons would be the best to spam? My point limit is 1750. What weapons would be best to spam assuming it was viable? Lascannons and auto cannon?

I wouldn't use anything except autocannons. Lascannons better be in a CCS or vet squad with camo or chimera protection. Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't worth it, and mortars are inferior to wyverns. Autocannon spam could be good, but I'd almost rather get them on armored sentinels.

Verviedi wrote:
I killed Mad Dok Grotsnik in close combat with a HWT once.

Yes. Once

Generally, they are not that effective. I'll use them once in a great while in for fun games or against less experienced players.
They are too fragile and easily cherry picked/killed.

They should have some sort of emplacment rule giving them cover or have higher toughness, then they may be worth it.

Makumba wrote:
They should have some sort of emplacment rule giving them cover or have higher toughness, then they may be worth it.

Let them take veterans' carapace or camo doctrines. Problem sorta solved.

call it imperial guard please. Don't fall into GW's gak.

 Harriticus wrote:
call it imperial guard please. Don't fall into GW's gak.

See, I never got the fuss with the new name. It even says on the back of the codex "more commonly known as the Imperial Guard." No one really got their panties in a knot over the SM high gothic name: Adeptus Astartes, so why wouldn't guard get the same high gothic treatment eventually?

In my experience, HWTs are only as effective as the orders you throw at them.
Mortars- Pinning! Ordinance no longer does it by default, so pile on those pinning wounds. Great if you have a close combat orientated enemy coming for you. Stop them dead in their tracks and blow them away. If you just want to kill things, best bet is the Wyvern.
Autocannon- Monster/Tank Hunters is beautiful here
Heavy Bolters- Precision Shot, this weapon has the most number of shots, therefore is the most likely to get a 6. A S5 wound against a character in a squad is hopefully going to hurt, the more you can get, the better.
Missile Launcher- Ignores Cover here, with flakk missiles you can tear apart fliers, Ignore the cover save given from jink. Monster/Tank Hunters is nice too.
Lascannon- Same as Autocannon, just more heavy duty.

I use them often, usually a team of Mortars, a team of Missile Launchers and a team of Lascannons. I find with the above orders and cover, they are survivable enough.

diepotato47 wrote:
In my experience, HWTs are only as effective as the orders you throw at them.
Mortars- Pinning! Ordinance no longer does it by default, so pile on those pinning wounds. Great if you have a close combat orientated enemy coming for you. Stop them dead in their tracks and blow them away. If you just want to kill things, best bet is the Wyvern.
Autocannon- Monster/Tank Hunters is beautiful here
Heavy Bolters- Precision Shot, this weapon has the most number of shots, therefore is the most likely to get a 6. A S5 wound against a character in a squad is hopefully going to hurt, the more you can get, the better.
Missile Launcher- Ignores Cover here, with flakk missiles you can tear apart fliers, Ignore the cover save given from jink. Monster/Tank Hunters is nice too.
Lascannon- Same as Autocannon, just more heavy duty.

I use them often, usually a team of Mortars, a team of Missile Launchers and a team of Lascannons. I find with the above orders and cover, they are survivable enough.

Because of jinking transports and the increased survivability of tanks, I am finding more and more I am forced to take HWT to actually cause some hits because orders are the only way to reliably hurt stuff, but they are just so fragile and expensive. It is really frustrating. Mortars are really a waste. The Wyvern exists and is so much better it makes them useless. The mortar should have been a free upgrade. Heavy bolters are as well bad as well, they are just nowhere near as good as the AC. Flakk Missiles are garbage and the ML itself is weaker now. It is really AC or LC as your best choices.

Makumba wrote:
They should have some sort of emplacment rule giving them cover or have higher toughness, then they may be worth it.

This was what I was hoping for. When you look at the Eldar weapon platform, you see an extra unit that gives better toughness and armor save, and gets relentless. Our HWT rules are all a liability for the price of having a special weapon. It should have gotten a price decrease at least. As it stands it is kind of BS.

 TheSilo wrote:

I wouldn't use anything except autocannons. Lascannons better be in a CCS or vet squad with camo or chimera protection. Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't worth it, and mortars are inferior to wyverns. Autocannon spam could be good, but I'd almost rather get them on armored sentinels.

Do you think Lascannons are worth it in Blob Squads?

I'm Thinking mostly in terms of being able to affect multiples of them with a single Order or Psychic Power.

 TheSilo wrote:

Let them take veterans' carapace or camo doctrines. Problem sorta solved.

Well, you'd have to make them reasonably costed first (10pts per model, not 15).

IMO, HWT and specialist team should have been given a special rule to make them exists or even relevant except for thematic games.

Suggestion: "Allright men, you know the drill!" a unit with this special rule count their leadership as being 1 point higher when resolving orders. Furthermore, the order "Bring it down!" can be re-rolled.

That would give specialist teams a reason to exist, because the veterans 1 ups them in every single aspect. The vets are also better at recieving orders and have acces to Vox's.

IMO HWT needs something that synergizes with Senior Officers, so that HWT are better with an infantry list and so-so with armor lists, as it should be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

I wouldn't use anything except autocannons. Lascannons better be in a CCS or vet squad with camo or chimera protection. Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't worth it, and mortars are inferior to wyverns. Autocannon spam could be good, but I'd almost rather get them on armored sentinels.

Do you think Lascannons are worth it in Blob Squads?

I'm Thinking mostly in terms of being able to affect multiples of them with a single Order or Psychic Power.

I've had best results with super supported Blobs and maxed Lascannons. The only downside is that the other guys are kindda' wasting their bullets, but tbh, I have a hard time shedding any tears over wasted BS3 S3 AP- guns.

 vipoid wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

I wouldn't use anything except autocannons. Lascannons better be in a CCS or vet squad with camo or chimera protection. Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't worth it, and mortars are inferior to wyverns. Autocannon spam could be good, but I'd almost rather get them on armored sentinels.

Do you think Lascannons are worth it in Blob Squads?

I'm Thinking mostly in terms of being able to affect multiples of them with a single Order or Psychic Power.

 TheSilo wrote:

Let them take veterans' carapace or camo doctrines. Problem sorta solved.

Well, you'd have to make them reasonably costed first (10pts per model, not 15).

I hate blob squads, I know that's a horrible betrayal of the imperial creed. But taking a 50 man blob with lascannons is a 250 point HWT with 100 points of lascannons, add in VOX and a commissar or priest and its 380 points. You could field 9 lascannons in 3 HWS for that and have 65 points left over. I don't like either arrangement. That whole blob is useless as soon as a unit of five marines charges them. By the time you've gotten power weapons and all that, you've spent 1/3rd of you points just to make sure your 5 BS3 lascannons survive. I'd rather field two vanquishers and save the points.

Conscript blobs are great and cheap, they're my preferred tar pit unit. I don't understand why people pour points into shooty blob units that can be neutralized by a single assault unit and can only target one thing with 1/8th of their weapons.

 TheSilo wrote:

I hate blob squads, I know that's a horrible betrayal of the imperial creed. But taking a 50 man blob with lascannons is a 250 point HWT with 100 points of lascannons, add in VOX and a commissar or priest and its 380 points. You could field 9 lascannons in 3 HWS for that and have 65 points left over. I don't like either arrangement.

Oh, I quite agree. You're either getting too few special weapons per body, or overpaying and not getting enough spare bodies.

 TheSilo wrote:
By the time you've gotten power weapons and all that, you've spent 1/3rd of you points just to make sure your 5 BS3 lascannons survive. I'd rather field two vanquishers and save the points.

Well, no one in my IG who isn't a Commissar Lord is allowed a power weapon, so I'm at least saved that cost.

I do get your point, though I'm trying to keep my IG tank-light.

 TheSilo wrote:

Conscript blobs are great and cheap, they're my preferred tar pit unit. I don't understand why people pour points into shooty blob units that can be neutralized by a single assault unit and can only target one thing with 1/8th of their weapons.

Well, speaking personally, I simply don't own enough men to field conscripts at the moment. Though, again, I certainly see your point.

As a question, do you think Veterans/CCSs with Heavy Weapons are a better choice? If so, what do you do with regard to Orders? Especially with Senior Officer orders, it seems like you wouldn't have enough to go around.

Give HWT combined squad like the old DKoK codex had. Problem solved. Take 2 lascannon teams, throw them with a platoon with vox, and you have a pretty effective use of points. I HATE how they removed that rule from DKoK. They still have the fluff justification in there, but removed the rule.

CCS and vets are the only places that I field heavy weapons. CCS is usually in a chimera and you can get a master of ordnance to help out too with long range fire. Vets will usually have camo with snipers and an autocannon (that unit is a great monster killer) or carapace with plasma guns and a lascannon. I don't do the plasma and lascannon as often just because of durability issues. Close assault vets in a chimera with melta guns and a heavy flamer are great all-purpose units for anti tank, anti infantry, or anti monster.

Quick solution for orders, field two CCS. With heavy weapons and/or chimeras they're functionally identical to vet squads (but with orders). Two CCS behind your main line of vets or guardsmen should be enough orders.

Most of the time I'm ordering my sniper units to use monster hunter or plasma gunners to use tank hunter. Most of the time autocannons are the only heavies that I field, with lascannons only on vehicles. My rule of thumb: heavy weapons either better be BS4 or they better be on a vehicle, it's too many points to waste on BS3 guardsmen. Same for plasma.

 zephoid wrote:
Give HWT combined squad like the old DKoK codex had. Problem solved. Take 2 lascannon teams, throw them with a platoon with vox, and you have a pretty effective use of points. I HATE how they removed that rule from DKoK. They still have the fluff justification in there, but removed the rule.

That would be so awesome.

HWTs are great.

HWTs on Infantry squads tie the rest of the squad down and make them immobile.

With HWS, you can put your infantry in Chimeras and send them along their way with a PG or Melta to go after objectives, while the HWT sit on your objective (they're also scoring now, remember?). Sure, they dont have objective secured, but in all seriousness - if an enemy squad came to your deployment zone with the intent of taking your objective, do you really think an Infantry squad with objective secured would be able to survive long enough to still claim that objective? I dont think so.

HWSs are great targets for the force multiplier effects of primaris psykers. Combine this with them being the ideal recipient of CCS orders and you'll realize just how deadly 2x 3 HWTs can be in your home base.

In this configuration, you'd ideally want to give them Missile launchers with flakk - good against everything. Good against tanks (a Lascannon is only marginally better and has to roll a 6 on the damage chart to explode a tank), good against light infantry, and good against flyers.

 TheSilo wrote:
CCS and vets are the only places that I field heavy weapons. CCS is usually in a chimera and you can get a master of ordnance to help out too with long range fire. Vets will usually have camo with snipers and an autocannon (that unit is a great monster killer) or carapace with plasma guns and a lascannon. I don't do the plasma and lascannon as often just because of durability issues. Close assault vets in a chimera with melta guns and a heavy flamer are great all-purpose units for anti tank, anti infantry, or anti monster.

That's useful, thanks.

 TheSilo wrote:

Quick solution for orders, field two CCS. With heavy weapons and/or chimeras they're functionally identical to vet squads (but with orders). Two CCS behind your main line of vets or guardsmen should be enough orders.

Sadly, one of my HQ slots is generally going to be filled by a Commissar Lord. I think I might have picked the wrong edition to try a themed IG army.

 TheSilo wrote:

Most of the time I'm ordering my sniper units to use monster hunter or plasma gunners to use tank hunter. Most of the time autocannons are the only heavies that I field, with lascannons only on vehicles. My rule of thumb: heavy weapons either better be BS4 or they better be on a vehicle, it's too many points to waste on BS3 guardsmen. Same for plasma.

I'll bear that rule in mind.

 Sir Arun wrote:

With HWS, you can put your infantry in Chimeras and send them along their way with a PG or Melta to go after objectives, while the HWT sit on your objective (they're also scoring now, remember?).

Is scoring the issue? I thought the issue was that they're incredibly easy to kill.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Sure, they dont have objective secured

Ok, now I'm totally confused - why don't HWS have Objective Secured? They're part of a troops choice, aren't they?

My HWTs sit and collect dust..they are boat anchors that just slow down the rest of the grunts..if i need big guns i bring vets,sentinels or the heavy metal department(lemans,basalisks ETC)

 TheSilo wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

I wouldn't use anything except autocannons. Lascannons better be in a CCS or vet squad with camo or chimera protection. Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't worth it, and mortars are inferior to wyverns. Autocannon spam could be good, but I'd almost rather get them on armored sentinels.

Do you think Lascannons are worth it in Blob Squads?

I'm Thinking mostly in terms of being able to affect multiples of them with a single Order or Psychic Power.

 TheSilo wrote:

Let them take veterans' carapace or camo doctrines. Problem sorta solved.

Well, you'd have to make them reasonably costed first (10pts per model, not 15).

I hate blob squads, I know that's a horrible betrayal of the imperial creed. But taking a 50 man blob with lascannons is a 250 point HWT with 100 points of lascannons, add in VOX and a commissar or priest and its 380 points. You could field 9 lascannons in 3 HWS for that and have 65 points left over. I don't like either arrangement. That whole blob is useless as soon as a unit of five marines charges them. By the time you've gotten power weapons and all that, you've spent 1/3rd of you points just to make sure your 5 BS3 lascannons survive. I'd rather field two vanquishers and save the points.

Conscript blobs are great and cheap, they're my preferred tar pit unit. I don't understand why people pour points into shooty blob units that can be neutralized by a single assault unit and can only target one thing with 1/8th of their weapons.

Not saying that I totally disagree, but the thing about blobs is you get staying power for you HWT's, one order and blessing is buffing 5 lascanons, acces to vox all of which is essentially impossible for multiple vets with HTW's. The HWT benefits greatly from the orders and blessings, but then comes the issue of staying power and unreliable orders.

I just think that a Leman Russ or armored sentinel is a more durable platform for those weapons, for fewer points.

 TheSilo wrote:
I just think that a Leman Russ or armored sentinel is a more durable platform for those weapons, for fewer points.

We'll, on the basis that I field 4x vets with forward sentries doctrine and a lascanon team and rest of the army is tanks, wyverns and sentinels, I'd be inclined to agree.

 Sir Arun wrote:
do you really think an Infantry squad with objective secured would be able to survive long enough to still claim that objective? I dont think so.

Of course it would, because that infantry squad has 50 models and no ID problems, while the HWS has 6 wounds and suffers ID from STR 6+. Plus, if you actually care about damage output, the infantry blob can take HWTs and have tons of meatshield wounds to sacrifice before losing the real guns, while the HWT loses firepower every two wounds (every wound if it's STR 6+).

In this configuration, you'd ideally want to give them Missile launchers with flakk - good against everything. Good against tanks (a Lascannon is only marginally better and has to roll a 6 on the damage chart to explode a tank), good against light infantry, and good against flyers.

Please don't troll people who might actually buy and assemble models based on your "advice". Missile launchers in general are fairly overpriced and mediocre at everything without being good at anything. And flakk missiles are one of the worst upgrades in the game. They cost a ton of points but they're absolutely terrible at damaging their one possible target. Never take them unless you're deliberately crippling your own list to go easy on a newbie.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
do you really think an Infantry squad with objective secured would be able to survive long enough to still claim that objective? I dont think so.

Of course it would, because that infantry squad has 50 models and no ID problems, while the HWS has 6 wounds and suffers ID from STR 6+. Plus, if you actually care about damage output, the infantry blob can take HWTs and have tons of meatshield wounds to sacrifice before losing the real guns, while the HWT loses firepower every two wounds (every wound if it's STR 6+).

In this configuration, you'd ideally want to give them Missile launchers with flakk - good against everything. Good against tanks (a Lascannon is only marginally better and has to roll a 6 on the damage chart to explode a tank), good against light infantry, and good against flyers.

Please don't troll people who might actually buy and assemble models based on your "advice". Missile launchers in general are fairly overpriced and mediocre at everything without being good at anything. And flakk missiles are one of the worst upgrades in the game. They cost a ton of points but they're absolutely terrible at damaging their one possible target. Never take them unless you're deliberately crippling your own list to go easy on a newbie.

That's rather harsh, even though I agree.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
do you really think an Infantry squad with objective secured would be able to survive long enough to still claim that objective? I dont think so.

Of course it would, because that infantry squad has 50 models and no ID problems, while the HWS has 6 wounds and suffers ID from STR 6+. Plus, if you actually care about damage output, the infantry blob can take HWTs and have tons of meatshield wounds to sacrifice before losing the real guns, while the HWT loses firepower every two wounds (every wound if it's STR 6+).

In this configuration, you'd ideally want to give them Missile launchers with flakk - good against everything. Good against tanks (a Lascannon is only marginally better and has to roll a 6 on the damage chart to explode a tank), good against light infantry, and good against flyers.

Please don't troll people who might actually buy and assemble models based on your "advice". Missile launchers in general are fairly overpriced and mediocre at everything without being good at anything. And flakk missiles are one of the worst upgrades in the game. They cost a ton of points but they're absolutely terrible at damaging their one possible target. Never take them unless you're deliberately crippling your own list to go easy on a newbie.

Way to build a strawman and then incinerate it.

IG armies have strong firebases, and you keep your HWS far back. If your opponent is within shooting range, you're doing something wrong as he shouldnt be in that range in the first place. Yes, they suck at taking damage, but we're playing IG here, not Space Marines - everything dies quickly in an IG army except our Russes. They key is to use range to keep our glass cannons from getting hit while they continue to deliver hits to the enemy. (it also helps to deploy 2nd so you can adjust your firebase according to how the opponent deploys)

Back to the original argument: I don't see how HWTs are overcosted. You pay the price for 2 guardsmen, and a 5 point tax for being able to amass them instead of being an upgrade to a squad full of lasguns. So for upto 15 extra points, you get to field up to 3 them together so they become prime targets for orders and backfield primaris psykers. HWS arent meant to operate on their own but rely on primaris psykers. Bring it Down (tank/monster hunter), Fire on my Target (ignores cover) and Smite At Will (split fire) are orders that become deadly when used on HWS instead of other squads. Attach the primaris psyker to them and the LD jumps to 9, allowing them to pass order checks without problems.

Youre right about the flakk being worthless. IG rather benefit from massed Autocannons, as in combination with Fire on my Target this can deny skimmers and fliers their jink altogether. Buy an ADL with Quadgun, have your HWS deploy around it, have the Quadgun be fired by one of the HWTs, use the attached primaris to prescience the entire squad, use the CCS to give them the Fire on my Target order, have the squad pass it on the primaris' LD9, and the ensuing fusillade can take 2.5 HPs off a Stormraven and one-hit kill most other lower AV flyers.

 Sir Arun wrote:

Back to the original argument: I don't see how HWTs are overcosted. You pay the price for 2 guardsmen, and a 5 point tax for being able to amass them instead of being an upgrade to a squad full of lasguns.

We're already paying a tax - HWSs have Ld7, no excess bodies, no ability to take Vox casters, no ability to take transports. Does a 50% tax really seem reasonable on top of all that?

Also, you're assuming that only being able to get 1 HWT per 10 guardsmen is reasonable in the first place.

 Sir Arun wrote:
So for upto 25 extra points, you get to field up to 5 them together so they become prime targets for orders and backfield primaris psykers. HWS arent meant to operate on their own but rely on primaris psykers. Bring it Down (tank/monster hunter), Fire on my Target (ignores cover) and Smite At Will (split fire) are orders that become deadly when used on HWS instead of other squads. And the force multiplier increases with every HWT base added to the HWS, so taking 5 makes them most worthy of their points cost.

Ok, now you have me totally confused.

1) Where are you getting 25pts from?

2) Come to that, where are you getting '5' from? HWSs consist of 3 HWTs - no more, no less. Or, are you talking about taking 5 individual HWSs? If so...

3) How does it make them prime targets for orders and/or psychic powers? If you have 5 HWSs, then you need 5 orders worth of units. So, you're looking at 3 CCSs for those 'Bring it Down' or 'Fire on my Target' orders. Not to mention the number of psykers you'd need to buff them all. Plus, as above, they only have Ld7 - so you'll be lucky if you even pass those Orders.

4) How does taking more of an overpriced unit make it worth its cost? That just seems like a baffling contradiction to me.

 Sir Arun wrote:

And IG benefit from the flakk upgrade because in combination with Fire on my Target this can deny skimmers and fliers their jink altogether.

Which is great until you do the math and realise that fewer points of Autocannons average the same number of hits against a flier.

youre right I messed up on two things - falsely reading the 5 individual HWT per Inf platoon, and 3 HWT in a HWS limits, and thinking ML + Flakk is more worth its points than Autocannons.

Corrections made