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I am soon going to be coming in with a second BaC set and I decided to make some support teams out of it. My question is what is the best weapon for them? Autocannons seem like a good, cheap all rounder. But Lascannons would fullfill my need for long range AT punch yet they are so darned expensive. Volkite Culverins would be cool as they are good at infantry murder and I finally get some Volkite in my army. What would you suggest?

I bought a squad with Lascannons. My plan was to invest in some fortifications for them to try and protect the investment.

Missile launchers are quite fun

I'm not a fan of missle launchers or lascannons as rapiers does that class of gun better. Personally I wouldn't go with a heavy support squad, the heavy support slots are better spent elsewhere.

If you really want to go with a heavy support squad Autocannons are quite good but Volkites are my favorite as you cause so many wounds with a large squad.

If you are playing sallies or death guard, then Heavy Flamer support squads are worth a look

I've had some good sport with Lascannons and cover. I'm quite biased due to the fact that I play Emperor's Children and love Sun Killers, but I find they eat most lighter armour like nothing and will take a Landraider or Spartan with some good rolling.

They are, however, very point-inefficient. So either go with a tank, or autocannons for the best points economy.

For the 4th legion are the Heavy bolters for Iron havocs a decent choice at all?

Iron Havoks should be using lascannon or Missile launchers with all their bonuses.

What you equip them with depends on the rest of your list. Sure rapiers do a good job, but they are a crutch and are far too common. I roll my eyes every time I see them. Plus they take up valuable elite slots from infantry squads.

If you field a mostly infantry army having tanks in your heavy slots as your only vehicles makes them a detriment as your opponent's AT have nothing else to shoot at. I did this to my opponent a couple weeks ago fielding a pure infantry army with some contemptors that stayed out of sight of the 2 lascannon dev squads across the board. All he could do was shoot the occasional marine who failed a cover save. Now if you have a lot of vehicles then yes, heavy weapon support teams are a redundancy better filled with more tanks from that slot, sicarians, venators, preds etc.

As for what to give them, three weapons come to mind, culverins, missile launchers and lascannon. Even better if you have a siege breaker with them for tank hunter. If you have AT elsewhere then culverins are fun to have. If you expect light AV opposition, then missile launchers are great for utility. If you have no AT and expect AV opfor then go with lascannon. I don't see a need for any of the other weapons as they can mostly be found in other places in the list.

Col. Dash wrote:
What you equip them with depends on the rest of your list. Sure rapiers do a good job, but they are a crutch and are far too common. I roll my eyes every time I see them. Plus they take up valuable elite slots from infantry squads.

Using that logic then you shouldn't take Primarchs, Spartans, typhons, las vindicators, sicarians, contemptors with assault cannons or conversion beamers, etc. I see far more of those than I do of rapiers.

Any decent AT in 30k is going to be capable of putting out a fair few shots and is going to force a lower quality cover save for a Marine. Very few weapons in 30k are going to deny a Marine an armour save and a cover save this side of a LoW.

speaking as a death guard player: Autocannons and missile launchers are both pretty good. 20 S: 7 shots or the versitility of a missile launcher, for both the same price. The main difference (and slight draw to the ML) is the fact that they can act as anti-air with flakk missiles. lascannons are nice, but stupidly expensive. I LOVE heavy flamer squads (mostly 'cause I like rerolling to wound)

For heavy support squads, I like missile launchers. Cheap enough to field a full 10-man squad, so lots of shots to decimate lighter vehicles. And lots of frag to kill infantry with (with 30K's larger squad sizes, units tend to not be at max coherency in order to keep all 15-20 guys in cover much of the time). Volkite can be fun, too, but I like to use it on the tactical support squads.

Missile launchers for marines, autocannons for mech

on second thought: There is no "best" it's all dependent on what you face, and what you want your army to look and play like. there really is no "bad" option, as all of them have uses, and min-maxing isn't really popular in the 30k scene..... yet :(

I'm a big fan of heavy support squads. Missile launchers are always what my first squad of them take. The flexability of being able to threaten almost anything they can see plus the abundance of missile launcher that were in my bits box got me started on this.

I've also tried a 5 man lascannon squad. They worked pretty well, but I also had a siege breaker attached.

For me it's heavy bolters or culverins, I just love the look of 10 heavy bolters laying down the pain, and 10 culverin are even nastier, points better spent elsewhere, but not as cool

Since I use the reaping a lot heavy support squads being moved into the troops slot gives me more room for heavy support goodness.

How about plasma cannons and augury scanner combo?

It depends on what legion you are playing and what your army lacks. I plan on using mine with multi-meltas, but only because I lack anti-tank, and as they are scoring for me (Death Guard's Rite of War The Reaping) I plan on making my opponent come to me as I camp on an objective, where the high strength low ap will come into full effect. They are also very cheap compared to lascannons.

 The_Grey_Knight wrote:
I They are also very cheap compared to lascannons.

That they are. In other hand, some people like to spam Armoured Ceramite, which case MMs are bit useless as anti-tank.

 Morhgoz wrote:

 The_Grey_Knight wrote:
I They are also very cheap compared to lascannons.

That they are. In other hand, some people like to spam Armoured Ceramite, which case MMs are bit useless as anti-tank.

They'll still glance av14 on a 6. The weight of fire from a large squad has a chance to to something I suppose.

My suggestion is to Magnetize them.

What I plan on doing is:

buying two sets of FW heavy weapons pack (arms, weapons and mini backpacks)

look for two more sets of arms cuz the pack only has 4 in ea.

magnetize the shoulders and glue the weapon to the left hand.

you could do this easily with the missile launcher guys from B@C and then if you buy the over the shoulder weapons just glue them to the empty arms.

at the end you'll have a squad of 10 that can switch between 3 over the shoulder weapon systems, buy heavy flamers or vulkite culverins which use the standard arms and you can have two more sets of weapons. 5 sets of weapons for 10 guys. way cheaper and you can kit your army how you want to. or to suit your needs.

hope that makes sense