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New to the game and really love the model. Was wondering how you all get the most use out of them and what weapon loadouts you favor.

It's not so much weapon loadouts as what Dataslate Formation you use. For instance, Helcult gives two squads of Cultists Fearless, which makes them VERY useful for tarpitting and bubble wrapping other important models. The Mayhem Pack gives three Helbrutes Deep Strike, so they plop down and cause mayhem in the enemy line, being annoying and forcing shots into them to kill them. 300pts placed right can disrupt 1000pts easily.

But, Autocannons are popular for amount of anti-infantry shots. Throw on a Combi Bolter to be cheap or a Power Scourge to be Assaulty. Keep it stock for anti tank. Multimelta and Power Fist is good enough and again, you don't want to dump points into it when it's meant to die.

Take a look at IA13 if you can find a way to and look at the Ferrum Infernus Dreadnaught. It's a real Dread, not a crazy Helbrute. Much better in my opinion and can use the same model (or converting the Dark Vengeance one).

What he ^ said.They're pretty bad on their own, but any of the formations are acceptable if not great. Getting shrouded or invis on the murderpack can be highly amusing from what I've seen.

Can also work well in an AV12 rush list with maulerfiends.

AC/missiles for ranged, MM/Fist for assault/DS and the helcult can have success with the scourge/fist and just run up the board and either draw fire or cause serious problems for anything it makes base contact with. Don't discount the heavy flamer either if you've got some points to spare.

I've gotten some mileage out of the Mayhem Pack. At 300 points, its a great backfield disruption formation and a lot of fun to play. Whatever army you play against there will be something the basic loadout (MM/PF) will be able to handle. I try to resist the urge to kit them out with different weapon loadouts, because I use them as a kamikaze unit.

1 helbrute
30 cultists
30 cultists

The best formations 60 fearless blob squads that give your helbrute a forever- invuln save.

My girlfriend has used the Deep Striking formation for them, equipped with 2 Heavy Flamers and Powerfists I believe. They did rather well.

How are Hellbrutes?

Fine thanks, hel 'brute you?

Bad jokes aside, I love the Helcult formation, very fun from a fluff perspective, and forces more attacks against the cannon fodder instead of your multi-meltaing helbrute!

 Brennonjw wrote:
1 helbrute
30 cultists
30 cultists

The best formations 60 fearless blob squads that give your helbrute a forever- invuln save.

*35 Cultists.

And the Helcult is awesome. Depending on your army's synergy I can assume a vanilla Mayhem Pack (3 Deep Striking Helbrutes) can be pretty lethal! Not so sure about the Murderfist though!

Outside of dataslates/formations, they're definetely not great. It's worth mentioning that in the 3.5 Codex a chaos dread with just two power fists (with added combi-bolters for free) was cheaper points-wise than its current iteration. You know, when Raptors costed almost thirty points per model and Bikers actually more than 30, you could have a melee chaos dread for less than 100.

That said, a dreadnough with two power fists running full-speed straight towards your tanks is usually not something people is happy to see, so they tend to attract quite a bit of enemy fire. Enemy fire that won't be directed at other units.

As long as you keep the points cost at a minimum (that is, either 2 power fists or power fist + melta, not over 100 points) and are cool with the idea that your murderous walking machine is not going to survive the game, you'll have a wild card that may do something once in a while. It's not the most competitive option out there but the current CSM codex isn't exactly full of much better options anyway.