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A unit of 5 with 4 heavy weapons....you pay 40 extra points to upgrade all Autocannons into Lascannons.

Is the upgrade worth it?

Your range remains the same, you're trading in 8 S7 AP4 shots for 4 S9 AP2 shots.

Obviously your anti-GEQ damage output is cut in half (though if youre using them to shoot GEQ youre doing it wrong), your capability to hurt MCs improves, as most of them have 3+ saves that are now completely denied; you can also threaten terminator squads and Land Raiders.

You're worse at hurting AV 10 and 11, you're equally good at hurting AV 12, and youre better at hurting AV 13 and 14, with the added bonus that you get the +1 on the vehicle pen chart.

So is this worth the extra 40 points?

Or is at this point a Las Pred an even better points investment as it is 15 points cheaper, has almost the same firepower (2 Lascannons and a TL-Lascannon instead of 4) but is a lot more resilient than 5 dudes in power armor?

No .

I can tell you exactly which one is worth it more. I did quite a bit of math to find the number of pens and glances each does on average and compare them to the points of the unit.

It turns out Lascannons get you more pens and glances for their points. If you can inflict a penetrating hit on a vehicle, generally speaking you've neutered it for a turn, which is great!

However, when facing Eldar, autocannons give you slightly more glances against Wave Serpents, so are more valuable. Now if you're using Havocs for anti-infantry, autocannons are usually the way to go. But you're running chaos, you've got heldrakes and chaos lords on bikes/mounts to do that for you.

The anti-tank problem is tough, and I think the best solutions might include:
DS Termicide
DS Obliterators
Lascannon Havocs
Chaos Lords with Powerfists and a quick mount
Allied Vindicare Assassin

I don't think I've ever seen an Autocannon killing anything that's worth the time of rolling dice.

What about the Special Weapons, Plasma-Guns or Melta-Guns?

In terms of stats, I'm not sure. But the problem with those options is that the Havocs need to move close to use them. Plasmas and meltas are much more deadly than las and autocannons if they can get close, and so the Havocs become very high priority. They will be targeted and easily destroyed with little firepower. You're putting too many eggs in one basket. Very fragile and easy to kill eggs.

I'd recommend Plague Marines or deep striking Obliterators to get that sort sort of plasma/melta action in your army. They are much tougher and you really don't need 4 of those guns to do their job well. A less effective but decent alternative is regular chaos space marines with two special weapons. More bodies but a tad overpriced for their morale issues and general effectiveness.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
In terms of stats, I'm not sure. But the problem with those options is that the Havocs need to move close to use them. Plasmas and meltas are much more deadly than las and autocannons if they can get close, and so the Havocs become very high priority. They will be targeted and easily destroyed with little firepower. You're putting too many eggs in one basket. Very fragile and easy to kill eggs.

I'd recommend Plague Marines or deep striking Obliterators to get that sort sort of plasma/melta action in your army. They are much tougher and you really don't need 4 of those guns to do their job well. A less effective but decent alternative is regular chaos space marines with two special weapons. More bodies but a tad overpriced for their morale issues and general effectiveness.

My main reason for asking is I recently inherited an CSM Army with about 10 Plasma-Gun, 8 Melts-Gun and 6-8 Flamer old school once piece Lead/pewter Chaos Marine, to go along with a bunch of Heavy Bolter, Auto-Cannon and Las-Cannon ones.

depends on your meta. obviously if 90% of your games are with grey knights and deathwing dark angels. it's gonna be worth it.

but if your local meta consists of a guy whose force consists of a buncha scout marines and a single razor back then no it's not

We are mostly different flavors of Marines [all of them], Guard, Nids and Orks.

LC Havoks are too expensive imo. AC ones are acceptable.

Best of both worlds - predator with one autocannon and two lascannons is decent against almost all targets and clocks in at the same cost as havocs with 4 AC


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Or hel blade from forgeworld with helstorm autocannons. Same price for 6 twin linked rending autocannon shots

Conversion Beamers from IA13 have replaced Havocs in my lists. St10 ap1 large blast from 24-48 inches for 75pts with 4 t7 wounds. Better in every way really.

I would consider plasma spam Havocs in a dreadclaw or infiltrating in a rhino though

As far as long range goes, rapiers are better in pretty much all regards. Cheaper , tougher, and better guns.

Personally I hate Lascannons. They never perform well for me. av 10-12 is a lot more abundant and against av 14 the few las cannon hits you generate still only pen on a 6. Your much better off hunting av 13-14 with melta or MCs of your own. Or a maulerfiend. That thing rips through tanks pretty good in my experience, assuming it survives long enough to get there.

So I would go with autocannons over lascannons, but if I really had to take lascannons, it would be on a predator. It's cheaper and for next to nothing it can take a havoc launcher which helps with weapon destroyed and allows it to work against infantry in a pinch. This is of course only assuming rapiers are out. The laser destroyers and hades autocannons are both pretty sweet.

4 Autocannons or 4 rocket launchers and mark of nurgle
or
4 Melta guns and maybe top it up to full squad

In my mind, rapiers, vindicator tank-destroyers and relic-predators have pretty much replaced the need for havoks or stock predators as heavy support. 3 hades-cannon rapiers is 195pts, only a handful more expensive than autocannon havoks and has str8, and 4 more shots and pinning. Laser destroyers are even cheaper and outclass lascannons by several magnitudes (ap1 twinlinked ordinance) in both rapiers or vindicators. Relic predators bring lots of plasmacannons or melta or firey death to the table for not much more than a stock predator.
And thats saying nothing about dirty dirty conversion beamer rapiers...

I take LasPredators over Havocs for anti-vehicle use every time. It's cheaper and not susceptible to small arms fire or failed morale checks.

Autocannons wouldn't be awful against high T low invuln units but I haven't done math to see what's comparable.

Hi there! We're Kronk's Havock Squad. We use Autocannons.

Our job is to open up rhinos and force FMC's to make grounding checks and/or saving throws once they start walking.

After we open up a rhino, we sometimes kill marines.

If you use us for any other job, then you're in violation of our Chaos Union Rules!

 McGibs wrote:
3 hades-cannon rapiers is 195pts, only a handful more expensive than autocannon havoks

autocannon havocs are 115...

2 hades autocannon rapiers are still 8 shots at 130, but at S8 and T7 . You trade some range for +1S ( instakilling a lot of units), pinning and +3T. They're much better than autocannons imo. And for the tougher tanks, three laser destroyers are 115 too. Again trading in some range for AP1 ordnance and twinlinked. Although in this case the vinidicator laser destroyer might be a better option, as that costs about the same but fires the full 48".

Have you considered taking a sicaran though? Less shots, but due to twinlinked it doesn't really matter and you get rending plus ignores jink on top. ( it also looks awesome). So if there's no tank in sigh it will happily mow down any kind of infantry just as well.

If given the option, I'd take Oblits over havocs any day, for both practicality and the fear potential that they strike into the puny loyalists.

As to the actual original question, I'd say lascannons. Math and points costs aside, I'll argue that the greater range on a lascannon gives you way more options to deploy the Havocs into cover, with a great field of fire. Autocannons are great for supressing high toughness infantry and whittling them down, but generally I like the punch of a lascannon, since it's going to instant death anything that's not toughness 5.

The anti armor component is also exceptionally motivating. Still, I feel like the versatility and toughness of obliterators beats out anything a Havoc is going to bring to the table.

But what if you don't have all of those options and have just a bunch of Chaos Mariens with Special and Heavy Weapons?