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So, I have decided to add a mayhem pack formation to my Crimson Slaughter, as deep striking Helbrutes with IWND really sells it to me. Since I already have plenty of tools for the purpose of dealing with vehicles, I want these guys to be anti-infantry and to tarpit enemy units. My question is? What load out should I have for this? I was thinking of the Power Scourge and Reaper Autocannon combo, but I wanted to see what you all thought abut it before I assemble the models.

Honestly, dont give them anything but Heavy Flamers built into their current Power Fists and keep their MMs.

I have 9 Hellbrutes now, all DV, painted 2 for each god and 1 for when I need to use it as a leader for it's formation. They never make their points back unless you go for larger targets en mass. if you want to use them as targeted Infantry killing machines that's totally fine, but you should keep them base with their MMs just in case you end up Deep Striking them for other reasons. at just 115 points a piece they can be a real pain the ass for anything that they get close enough to Melta, but after that they will most likely be locked into combat with something like, Boyz, or Cultists, or Conscripts. This is why the Heavy Flamers come in handy, since you'll just roast a bunch of them, making life easier for you to get out of combat, or avoid it all together.

Honestly don't think it's a good idea to use Helbrutes for anti-infantry purposes, especially not the mayhem pack. The murderpack is better for this since they can pump out 20 krakk or frag missiles each turn.

The Mayhem Pack will always suffer crazed results every turn. As a result, you need to assume you will have no control over them.

Keep a power fist and a multimelta and you can handle most targets - a heavy flamer isn't a bad buy.

The power scourge isn't bad but lacks the punch to hurt something big. It's a good buy for a helbrute champion in a murderpack because he can challenge characters, and he has friends who can punch out tanks.

I've tried out both mayhem and murder packs. Deepstriking brutes let me down. Uncontrollable. Got stopped before reaching combat.

But murderpack somehow was pretty good. 5 brutes are a prime target for psy buffs like shrowded, invis or 4++ from divination. They've walked over smashfether and monster heavy nids.

Three deepstriking helbrutes are good at low point games, since it isnt too much av present.

Double fist with flamers, i would imagine could take out an infantry squad quite easily, especially if you roll the double firing crazed result.

Its just the low amount of attacks in cc that are a concern.
But you could sweep them i guess, or if they escape, you could move after and fire double flamers again.

I know people say helbrutes arent good, but in smaller point games, i think they are good with both the helcult formation and mayhem formation. I have never tried murderpack.

Everyone says Helbrutes stinks. They are correct in most ways, they are crappy compared to other Dreads, (like SM with 4 attacks for exampel) and is very sad in comparison to Maulerfiends for example.

But let us not forget that Helbrutes are immensly cool, both fluff-wise and miniature-wise. I use a Helbrute or 2 in most of my games, just for the hell of it, and because COOL. Usually they underperform, but they do shine somewtime,s or gets lucky like bastards.

If you like them, play them! THey are viable in any non-cheese environment. But then I am spolied like hell, playing in a 3 year old ongoing capmaign with 8 buddies. We play with a motto which is: Will this list be fun to meet for my opponent? If no: make new list.

I'd go for MM and HF.

they die quickly to powerfists terminators and their likes.
The heavy flamers arent that good vs space marines either, because of their armor.

But anything 4+ save heavy flamers rock.
And anything high toughness or many wounds with weaker than 6str attacks are toast in melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It is a good tactic to tie up squads with deepstriking helbrutes and then come in with your more expensive cc units to clean up.

Being in cc hides helbrutes from shooting anti vehichle, and protects infantry from being shot by the squad that is tied up.

Maybe then, you can send your melee unit past the helbrute to kill the av squad first, and then aid the helbrute after.

If you have the spare points, go with double fists and dual heavy flamers. This is a threat that cannot be ignored when it drops (well, maybe ignored for a turn in the event that you have a bad scatter), and Fire Frenzy with two flamers is just plain nasty.

Additionally, that extra str10 attack in combat gives you a puncher's chance against tough squads and big nasties.

HF is still good against MEQ, it equals many auto hits s5, which means forcing the MEQ to save, and 1/3 will die.

The rolling on the crazed chart is the back-breaking straw for me here. I've tried using mayhem pack several times, and though they're fun and stupid, they rarely perform that well and can't really be relied on for much of anything. One bad roll can gak up the entire formation for a whole turn, and they arent durable, fast, or punchy enough to really recover from a mistimed opportunity like that.

The absolute worst (that a lot of people seem to misread) is that the fire-frenzy result on the crazed table actually IMMOBILIZES the helbrutes, which mean if they happen to be in combat at the time, suddenly they're getting hit on their rear armour for that turn.
Hopefully with the next CSM codex, their attacks will be brought in line to 4 base, and their crazed rules will get some changes. They're almost a medicore unit that would be fun to use if they weren't so random.