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I am thinking about purchasing a Leviathan dread for 40k. I have not seen any bat reports with them, or spoken to anybody who has one so I was hoping you all could help me decide what weapons to use.

My understanding is that in 40k you can use the Grav-Flux, I was thinking Storm Cannon and Seige Claw.

Anybody have any experience with these or have any advice?

Buy a FA pod and then you have three options:
1. Melta Cannon and standard claw
2. Autocannon and standard claw
3. Standard claw and chainfist

That's about it.

Its a very very cool model, but but but, it is not a super heavy or have enough protection against the amount of dakka it will face when it lands via drop pod.

Super cool on table and model wise, will wreck your opponent's army if you opponent forget/fail to wreck it when it lands; assuming you load it on a pod. It is guaranteed it will draw fire the moment it lands.

Afterall, it is still a dreadnought, not a knight, stompa, wraithknight, D-thirster...etc.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Buy a FA pod and then you have three options:
1. Melta Cannon and standard claw
2. Autocannon and standard claw
3. Standard claw and chainfist

That's about it.

I generally find the Melta cannon with Claw and the Claw with Chainfist loadout to be the most effective. I see the Autocannon as a bit out of place for the Leviathan because it's a longer range, more balanced weapon when really I see the Leviathan as more 'in your face with the highest strength weapons the Astartes can muster'. Drop it next to an Imperial Knight, Superheavy tank, big fortification (Plasma Obliterator, we're looking at you) and laugh as it tears it a new one (Unless your get a few pathetic rolls).

The cannon has its place. Since the dread is BS 5 and you have to charge what you shoot, why not whittle down the unit with more ap3 shots? I mean the melta lance is one more reason for vehicles and walkers to fear the hell out of a leviathan, but since the leviathan is capable of killing darn near anything in the game in CC why not optimize that with some extra ranged ap3 dakka or an extra CC attack?

Let drop melta and grav handle vehicles.

So we did a thread on this not long ago, and I was one of the individuals who bought one as a result.

In essence, I would say a Lucius Pattern DropPod is mandatory. The Leviathan Dread can be a capable Knight Killer, but absolutely must get off the charge to do so, while also suffering the increased squishy-ness all Dreads have in the 7th Ed rules.

Going pure melee, dropping in in a way which somewhat fences in a Knight or high value target, then disembarking and charging the following turn, is its best use.

I've had it work a few times, though I begrudgingly admit... the Relic Leviathan, geared for melee, with the Pod, essentially costs what a Knight does, and creates a less useful over-all unit.

Its fun... but not competitively ideal.

Thanks for the information guys, and thank you for the honesty Truth. I'm a big fan of dreadnoughts in general, even though they aren't the most effective delivery systems. I happen to have a deredeo which when it manages to survive, does a decent job of putting damage down range. But it also draws a lot of fire and tens to get destroyed fairly quickly.

I'm also not a big fan of Knights, typically.

It seems like the Leviathan would suffer from the same setbacks as the Deredeo, but should function as a CC unit.

Looks like I will probably go Meltacannon and claw.

Thanks for all the help, and if anybody else has any experience with them I'd appreciate hearing it.